The truth was that the breakfast beer, as a rule only mildly obfuscating to the young man’s sense, had this time completely stupefied and befuddled him. He felt as though he had received a blow on the head. His eyelids were heavy as lead; his tongue would not shape his simple thoughts when out of politeness he tried to talk to the Englishwoman. Even to alter the direction of his gaze he was obliged to conquer a great disinclination; and, added to all this, the hateful burning in his face had reached the same height as yesterday, his cheeks felt puffy with heat, he breathed with difficulty; his heart pounded dully, like a hammer muffled in cloth. If all these sensations caused him no high degree of suffering, that was only because his head felt as though he had inhaled a few whiffs of chloroform. He saw as in a dream that Dr. Krokowski appeared at breakfast and took the place opposite to his; the doctor, however, repeatedly looked him sharply in the eye, while he conversed in Russian with the ladies on his right. The young girls—the blooming Marusja and the lean consumer of yogurt—cast down their eyes modestly as the doctor spoke. Hans Castorp did not, of course, bear himself otherwise than with dignity. In silence, since his tongue refused its office, but managing his knife and fork with particular propriety. When his cousin nodded to him and got up, he rose too, bowed blindly to the rest of the table, and with cautious steps followed Joachim out.
“When do we lie down again?” he asked, as they left the house. “It’s the best thing up here, so far as I can see. I wish I were back again in my comfortable chair. Do we take a long walk?”
A Word Too Much
“No,” answered Joachim. “I am not allowed to go far. At this period I always go down below, through the village as far as the Platz if I have time. There are shops and people, and one can buy what one needs. Don’t worry, we rest for an hour again before dinner, and then after it until four o’clock.”
They went down the drive in the sunshine, crossed the watercourse and the narrow track, having before their eyes the mountain heights of the western side of the valley: the Little Schiahorn, the Green Tower, and the Dorfberg—Joachim mentioned their names. The little walled cemetery of Davos-Dorf lay up there, at some height; Joachim pointed it out with his stick. They reached the high road that led along the terraced slope a storey higher than the valley floor.
It was rather a misnomer to speak of the village, since scarcely anything but the word remained. The resort had swallowed it up, extending further and further toward the entrance of the valley, until that part of the settlement which was called the “Dorf” passed imperceptibly into the “Platz.” Hotels and pensions, amply equipped with covered verandahs, balconies, and reclining-halls, lay on both sides of their way, also private houses with rooms to let. Here and there were new buildings, but also open spaces, which preserved a view toward the valley meadows.
Hans Castorp, craving his familiar and wonted indulgence, had once more lighted a cigar; and, thanks probably to the beer that had gone before, he succeeded now and then in getting a whiff of the longed-for aroma—to his inexpressible satisfaction. But only now and then, but only faintly; the anxious receptivity of his attitude was a strain on the nerves, and the hateful leathery taste distinctly prevailed. Unable to reconcile himself to his impotence, he struggled awhile to regain the enjoyment which either escaped him wholly, or else mocked him by its brief presence; finally, worn out and disgusted, he flung the cigar away. Despite his benumbed condition he felt it incumbent upon him to be polite, to make conversation, and to this end he sought to recall those brilliant ideas he had previously had, on the subject of time. Alas, they had fled, the whole “complex” of them, and left not a trace behind: on the subject of time not one single idea, however insignificant, found lodgment in his head. He began, therefore, to talk of ordinary matters, of the concerns of the body—what he said sounded odd enough in his mouth.
“When do you measure again?” he asked. “After eating? Yes, that’s a good time. When the organism is in full activity, it must show itself. Behrens must have been joking when he told me to take my temperature—Settembrini laughed like anything at the idea; there’s really no sense in it, I haven’t even a thermometer.”
“Well,” Joachim said, “that is the least of your difficulties. You can get one anywhere—they sell them in almost every shop.”
“Why should I? No, the lying-down is very much the thing. I’ll gladly do it; but measuring would be rather too much for a guest; I’ll leave that to the rest of you. If I only knew,” Hans Castorp went on, and laid his hands like a lover on his heart, “if I only
