The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Hans Castorp retained only pale memories of his parental home. His father and mother he had barely known; they had both dropped away in the brief period between his fifth and seventh birthdays; first the mother, quite suddenly, on the eve of a confinement, of an arterial obstruction following neuritis -- an embolus, Dr. Heidekind had called it -- which caused instantaneous cardiac arrest. She had just been laughing, sitting up in bed, and it looked as though she had fallen back with laughter, but really it was because she had died. The father, Hermann Castorp, could not grasp his loss. He had been deeply attached to his wife, and not being of the strongest himself, never quite recovered from her death. His spirit was troubled; he shrank within himself; his benumbed brain made him blunder in his business, so that the firm of Castorp and Son suffered sensible financial losses; and the next spring, while inspecting warehouses on the windy landing-stage, he got inflammation of the lungs. The fever was too much for his shaken heart, and in five days, notwithstanding all Dr. Heidekind's care, he died. Attended to his rest by a respectable concourse of citizens, he followed his wife to the Castorp family vault, a charming site in St. Katherine's churchyard, with a view of the Botanical Gardens.

His father the Senator survived him a short time; then he too passed away, likewise of inflammation of the lungs. His death agony was sore, for unlike his son, Hans Lorenz Castorp had been a man of tough constitution, and firmly rooted in life. Before his death, for the space of a year and a half, the grandfather harboured the orphaned Hans Castorp in his home, a mansion standing in a narrow lot on the Esplanade, built in the early years of the last century, in the northern-classic style of architecture. It was painted a depressing weather-colour, and had pilasters on either side the entrance door, which was approached by a flight of five steps. Besides the parterre, which had windows going down to the floor and furnished with cast-iron grilles, there were two upper storeys.