The Magic Mountain (5.5 version)

up here, time thins to a white suspension, weeks congeal, and the pulse learns caution. the berghof holds its calm contagion, the air itself seems trained in introspection. between thermometers, tea, and the terrace the soul grows porous, then precise. der mensch soll um der guete und der liebe willen dem tode keine herrschaft einraeumen ueber seine gedanken, der mensch soll um der guete und der liebe willen dem tode keine herrschaft einraeumen ueber seine gedanken. against the hourglass of the heights, against the soft, insinuating fever, no dominion for death in thought. settembrini pleads for light, for measure, for the human word, naphta turns the mind toward rapture, ruin, vertical night. and hans castorp listens, suspended between the two, as if illness were a dialect, and delay a form of sight. the mountain teaches not salvation, only duration, scrutiny, doubt. here the minutes lengthen into metaphysics, and every breath is weighed by snow. the body yields, the mind resists, and what is life grows difficult to know. der mensch soll um der guete und der liebe willen dem tode keine herrschaft einraeumen ueber seine gedanken, der mensch soll um der guete und der liebe willen dem tode keine herrschaft einraeumen ueber seine gedanken. against the hourglass of the heights, against the soft, insinuating fever, no dominion for death in thought. the mountain keeps its silence. the spell remains. the hour does not.