Chapter 34: The Dance of Death

The Dance of Death Not long after Christmas, the gentleman rider died.—But before that event the Christmas holidays came and went, the two, or if you reckoned Holy Night the three feast-days, to which Hans Castorp had looked forward with some alarm and headshaking dubiety, as to what they would really be like, up here. In the event, they came on and passed like other days, with a morning, an afternoon, and an evening; only moderately unreasonable in respect of weather—it thawed a little—an…