___ Castorp, protagonist of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain"

HANS

This young man spends seven years in a Swiss sanatorium, contemplating life and illness while falling for a mysterious Russian patient. His name is as simple as it is German.

This clue asks for the first name of the main character in Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain. The blank signals a short name, and "Castorp" is the protagonist’s last name—so the answer is his first name, "Hans." It’s a straightforward fill-in-the-blank with no wordplay, just a direct reference to classic literature.