Three Score & Ten

Our desires and our performance are conditioned by certain needs of our nervous systems which are very hard to define in words. What people called Thomas Buddenbrook’s ‘vanity’ – his care for his personal appearance, his extravagant dressing – was at bottom not vanity but something else entirely. It was, originally, no more than the effort of a man of action to be certain, from head to toe, of the adequacy and correctness of his bearing. But the demands made by himself and by others upon his talents and his capacities were constantly increased. He was overwhelmed by public and private affairs. When the Senate sat to appoint its committees, one of the main departments, the administration of the taxes, fell to his lot. But tolls, railways, and other administrative business claimed his time as well; and he presided at hundreds of committees that called into play all the capacities he possessed: he had to summon every ounce of his flexibility, his foresight, his power to charm, in order not to wound the sensibilities of his elders, to defer constantly to them, and yet to keep the reins in his own hands. If his so-called vanity notably increased at the same time, if he felt a greater and greater need to refresh himself bodily, to renew himself, to change his clothing several times a day, all this meant simply that Thomas Buddenbrook, though he was barely thirty-seven years old, was losing his elasticity, was wearing himself out fast.

 Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks

Joachim never spoke of tittering Marusya, which therefore precluded Hans Castorp from mentioning Clavdia Chauchat. He restricted himself to harmless, furtive exchanges at meals with the teacher on his right, teasing the old maid about her weakness for their supple fellow patient until she would blush, and all the while trying to maintain his dignity by imitating old Grandfather Castorp’s chin-propping method. He also pressed her in order to learn new and interesting details about Madame Chauchat’s private life – her origins, her husband, her age, the exact nature of her illness. Did she have any children? he wanted to know. Oh, certainly not, no children. What would a woman like her do with children? Presumably she had been strictly forbidden to have any – and then, too, what sort of children would they have turned out to be? Hans Castorp had to concur. It was probably also too late now, he suggested with rugged objectivity. There were times, he remarked, when Madame Chauchat’s face, in profile at least, looked rather severe. Was it possible she was already past thirty? Fraulein Engelhart violently contested the very idea. Clavdia, thirty? At worst, twenty-eight. And as for her profile, his tablemate forbade him ever to say such a thing again. Clavdia’s profile was one of softest, sweetest youth – though it was, of course, a most interesting profile as well, not that of some healthy little goose. And by way of punishment and without even pausing, Fraulein Engelhart added that she knew for a fact that Frau Chauchat often entertained a gentleman caller, a fellow countryman who lived in Platz. She received him in her room every afternoon.

 Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain