Hans, still unsettled
by his lonely walk, arrives in the nick of time for Krokowki’s conference. There
is a free chair in the back of the room where he urgently sits down. The person
right in front of him is “La Clawdia”! It turns out to be, quite an exciting
chapter.
- Bildung
Hans thinks that the
loose manners of Mme Chauchat are due to a certain “laissez-aller” à la Herr
Albin, in the face of death.
- Eros
Hans is sitting right
behind Clawdia who holds herself as if she is standing on all fours: her back
rounded (mentioned three times in the text ), shoulders drooping forward but
thrusting her head out…the arm barely clad, the hand so suffocating close to
his face.
Krokowski is a caricature
of early psychiatry and like Freud is sex obsessed. K is talking dirty. Krokowski
described like a real Rasputin…including the Monastic sandals
Erotic images abound: Images
of watery milk… sperm ? Very stiff things…Open gasping mouths, Perversion here,
perversion there,
Conclusion of
Krokowski conference: Illness is transformed Love !!! Unsanctioned love
reappears as illness!!! Imagine that.
HC understands it all:
Women dress “ just to arouse our ardent desires”. It is accepted because it is
the way to get pregnant. He continues: Is there any point in wearing sexy
clothes when you are ill? When you are not suited for motherhood? … ought to be
considered improper, to be forbidden”. (Hans, what are you saying ?!)
And here comes the
conclusion one might expect… “Because a man to be interested in a sick woman
was certainly no more reasonable than…well, than for Hans Castorp to have pursued
his silent interest in Pribislav Hippe back then”.
Hans has still lots of
things to learn.
- Notes
Krokowski takes the
pose of Jesus on the cross
… all ye that labour
and are heavy laden… ( pregnancy ?)
Strange last sentence.
Both cousins are avoiding to speak about the love theme. Because it is inappropriate?
Does Joachim refrain to make advances towards Marusja because she is ill? Because,
like Hans said because she is not suited to Motherhood, because it is no use
for she will be death soon?
