I was lucky with Thomas Mann because I didn't start my relationship with him from The Buddenbrooks. My mother recommended The Magic Mountain to me, I found it in the library at the student residence and it enchanted me.
When I think about the details, I see many weak points in The Magic Mountain, but it seems to me that a person in love sometimes likes to find small flaws in the object of his affections.
The protagonist of the novel comes to visit his cousin who is staying in a tuberculosis sanatorium in Davos.
He comes for 3 weeks. In the sanatorium, he discovers the charm of freedom that illness gives – a loosening of morals, a lack of sense of responsibility.
He also discovers the memory of his youthful anxiety, which here takes the form of a green-eyed Russian woman and which causes him a low-grade fever typical of this place.
What is the effect and what is the cause?
It does not matter, the important thing is that he does not want to be cured of it. He willingly accepts the offer to extend his stay to 7 weeks in order to undergo medical observation.
Before he knows it, 7 months of this morbid condition have passed.
It is not until February 29 1908, a day that is also a quirk of the calendar, that he dares to speak intimately to the object of his feelings.
The next morning, his beloved leaves. It is not known where, it is not known whether she will ever return.
Our patients always come back here in the end – states the head doctor of the sanatorium – Councillor Behrens. And Hans Castorp remains.
The stay lasts a total of 7 years. This passion of Thomas Mann for numbers extended the book beyond the limits of patience.
I waited even longer.
In 2003, six times 7 years after the start of the spell, I went on a pilgrimage to The Magic Mountain. The pretext was another ski marathon. Instead of starting from Hamburg, like Hans Castorp, I started from Okęcie Airport in Warsaw.
It was Ash Wednesday. Waiting at the airport, I watched a TV news report – on the screen, Polish cardinal sprinkled ashes on the heads of the faithful.
Three days earlier, I had heard the gospel about how Jesus explained why the apostles did not observe fasting – when they were close to me, they did not have to fast.
In 2 hours I was in Zurich. Sunny. There was a food fair at the train station. It smelled beer and sausages
"Could it be that the Swiss are closer to God?" I thought.
Instead of going straight to Davos, I was heading towards St Moritz for Engadine Ski Marathon...
Next day after the race I took the train to Davos. The route led downhill, which struck me as very funny because it destroyed all the pathos of the phrase often repeated in the book: ...up there on the mountain.
I got off, like Hans Castorp, in Davos-Dorf…
After getting off the train I looked around – "…they turned left across the track, crossed the river…"
– that made no sense at all, because then they would have ended up on the northern slope of the mountain, where the sun doesn’t reach, and therefore there are no sanatoriums.
After checking into the youth hotel, I went straight to the Waldhotel Bellevue - Sanatorium Berghoff. A steep walk up in Buolstrasse.
"…our sanatorium, as you can see, is even higher than this town – Joachim continued. – Fifty meters higher. The brochure says one hundred, but in reality it is only fifty…"
The lady at the reception was prepared for such visits and first sold me the book Thomas Mann and Davos, and then directed me to a corridor where there were hotel memorabilia from 90 years ago; at the end a room with original furnishings:
"... a white metal bed, a sink with nickel-plated taps... an American woman died here the day before yesterday, of course everything was thoroughly disinfected.".
There was a surprise though - a chamber pot! Thomas Mann omitted this detail in his novel. He also did not mention a bathroom. Right - there was none.
At the hotel I looked through the newly acquired book and burst out laughing on the first pages. Thomas Mann deliberately changed the topography of Davos to prevent gossip and unhealthy sensationalism around existing facilities. So my surprise at the station was explained.
Davos itself – a typical ski resort, only maybe a bit bigger and with a lot of normal residential buildings and of course the congress centre, where the World Economic Forum and many other international meetings are held, but that is not part of this story.
People? Lots of young people with skis and snowboards. Unpretentious crowd. I found a note on the internet that the nightlife in Davos is not very exciting.
And what about those… “Englishmen with white teeth, heavily perfumed ladies, Americans with small heads… a rather suspicious crowd”?
If I met them anywhere, it was not in Davos, but at the Kempinski Hotel in St Moritz.
I spent the next day downhill skiing, but I did not bother to find the trail where Hans had his strange dream.
On the last day I returned to the Berghoff, sorry to the Waldhotel Bellevue. I found the Hohe Promenade and set off for a walk in the footsteps of the characters in the book.
The path was wide enough for three people, so Hans Castorp and Mr Settembrini and Mr Naphta walked side by side, and I walked a little behind. Listening to their discussion, I didn’t notice until we reached the Schatzalp Hotel…
"The highest located sanatorium is Schatzalp, there, on the other side, you can't see it from here. They must be shipping their bodies on bobsleighs, because the roads are covered".
Another piece of evidence confirming the author's deliberate distortion of the topography. Schatzalp is on the same slope as Waldohtel Bellevue. It must be there, because only this slope faces south.
Instead of a bobsleigh track, I found Bobbahnstrasse and a toboggan run that no one has used for a long time...
On the way back I visited the cemetery but didn’t find any of the names mentioned in the book…
Two hours later I was going down, this time on the “correct route” via Lanquart to Zurich.
Since then I have often recalled this visit.
Its dry description does not sound very interesting. But I was not disappointed.
And now? The enchantment has lasted over 9 times 7 years.
Another year has begun, so it is a perfect time to remember how:
"It was the middle of summer. An ordinary young man was driving from Hamburg, his hometown, to the spa town of Davos in the canton of Graubunden…"
