“No,” said Joachim, “I’m not allowed to go far. At this time I always go down a little, through the village and up to the square, if I have time. You see shops and people and buy what you need. You lie in front of tablesanother hour and then you lie down again until four o’clock, don’t worry.”

They walked down the approach road in the sunshine and crossed the watercourse and the narrow track, the mountain figures on the right-hand side of the valley in front of their eyes: the “Kleines Schiahorn”, the “Grünen Türme” and the “Dorfberg”, which Joachim called by name. Over there, at some height, was the walled cemetery of Davos-Dorf – Joachim pointed to this too with his stick. And they won the main street, which rose one storey above the valley floor and ran along the terraced Lehne.

Incidentally, one could hardly speak of a village; in any case, nothing was left of it but the name. The health resort had eaten it up by constantly expanding towards the valley entrance, and the part of the entire settlement called “Dorf” merged imperceptibly and without distinction into that called “Davos Platz”. Hotels and boarding houses, all with plenty of covered verandas, balconies and loungers, as well as small private houses with rooms to let, lay on both sides; here and there new buildings came; sometimes there was no building, and the road afforded a view of the open meadows of the valley…

Hans Castorp, in his longing for the familiar, beloved stimulus of life, had lit another cigar, and probably thanks to the previous beer, to his unspeakable satisfaction, he was able to smell something of the longed-for aroma here and there: only rarely and weakly, of course – it took a certain nervous effort to get a glimpse of pleasure, andthe disgusting taste in leather prevailed by far. Unable to find himself in his swoon, he struggled for a while for the pleasure, which either denied him or showed only mockingly foreboding from afar, and finally, tired and disgusted, threw the cigar away. In spite of his daze, he felt the courtesy obligation of making conversation, and for that purpose sought to recall the excellent things he had just had to say about “Time.” But it turned out that he had completely forgotten the whole “complex” and, over time, no longer harbored the slightest thought in his head. Instead, he began to talk about physical matters, and in a strange way.

“When are you measuring yourself again?” he asked. “After dinner? Yes this is good. Then the organism is in full activity, it has to show itself. The fact that Behrens asked me to measure myself too, that was probably just a joke, listen – Settembrini laughed at the top of his lungs, it made absolutely no sense. I don’t even have a thermometer.”

“Well,” said Joachim, “that would be the least. You only need to buy one. There are thermometers everywhere here, almost in every shop.”

“But what for! No, I put up with the rest cure, I want to take part in it, but the measurement would be too much for an intern, I’d rather leave that to you up here. If only I knew,” continued Hans Castorp, putting both hands to his heart like a lover, “why my heart is beating like this all the time – it’s so disturbing, I’ve been thinking about it for a while.You see, one gets palpitations when one is about to have a very special joy or when one is afraid, in short, with emotions, isn’t it? But when your heart is beating all by itself, for no reason and senseless and, so to speak, on your own initiative, I find that downright uncanny, understand me correctly, it’s as if the body went its own way and had no connection with the soul to a certain extent like a dead body, which isn’t really dead either – that doesn’t exist at all – but even leads a very lively life, namely on its own: its hair and nails are still growing, and otherwise it should be physically and chemically, as I have been told, there is a very lively activity there…”

“What kind of expressions are those,” said Joachim, pointing calmly. “A lively company!” And maybe he was taking revenge a little for the reprimand he received this morning because of the “Schellenbaum”.

“But that’s the way it is! It ‘s a very lively company! Why are you offended by that?” asked Hans Castorp. “By the way, I just mentioned that in passing. I didn’t want to say anything more than: it is uncanny and tormenting when the body lives on its own and without connection with the soul and makes itself important, as with such unmotivated palpitations. You’re looking for a sense of it, an emotion that goes with it, a sense of joy or fear that would justify it, so to speak – at least that’s how I feel, I can only speak for myself.”

“Yes, yes,” said Joachim with a sigh, “it’s probably something like having a fever – but there’s also a special one‘brisk activity’ in the body, to use your term, and it may well be that one involuntarily looks around for an emotion, as you say, which gives the activity a halfway reasonable meaning… But we’re talking such unpleasant stuff ‘ he said in a trembling voice, and broke off; whereupon Hans Castorp just shrugged his shoulders, exactly as he had seen Joachim do it the first time last night.

They walked in silence for a while. Then Joachim asked:

“Well, how do you like the people here? I mean the ones at our table?”

Hans Castorp made an indifferent face.

“God,” he said, “you don’t seem very interesting to me. I think the other tables are more interesting, but that might just seem like it. Frau Stohr should have her hair washed, it’s so greasy. And that mazurka there, or whatever it’s called, seems a bit silly to me. She always has to stuff her handkerchief into her mouth from giggling.”

Joachim laughed out loud at the name distortion.

“‘Mazurka’ is excellent!” he exclaimed. “Marusja is her name, if you allow me – that’s as much as Marie. Yeah, she’s really too boisterous,” he said. “And she would have every reason to be calmer, because she is not a little ill.”

“You shouldn’t think that,” said Hans Castorp. “She’s in such good shape. You shouldn’t take her for a chest problem.” And he tried to exchange a quick glance with his cousin, but found that Joachim’s sunburned face was showing a blotchy coloration, such as sunburned faces take on when that blood drains from it, and thathis mouth had twisted in a most peculiar pitiful way – an expression which filled young Hans Castorp with a vague fright and caused him to immediately change the subject and inquire about other people, quickly liking Marusja and Joachim’s expressions forgotten, which he completely succeeded in doing.

The Englishwoman with the rosehip tea was called Miss Robinson. The seamstress wasn’t a seamstress, but a teacher at a state high school for girls in Konigsberg, and that was the reason why she expressed herself so correctly. Her name was Fraulein Engelhart. As for the lively old lady, Joachim himself did not know her name, no matter how long he had been up here. In any case, she was the great-aunt of the yoghurt-eating young girl with whom she lived constantly in the sanatorium. But the sickest of those at the table was Dr. Cauliflower, Leo Cauliflower from Odessa—that young man with the mustache and the anxious withdrawn expression. He’s been up here for years…

It was now the city pavement they were walking on – the main street of an international meeting place, you could see that. They met spa guests strolling around, mostly young people, cavaliers in sports suits and without hats, ladies, also without hats and in white skirts. You could hear Russian and English speaking. Shops with ornate windows lined it to the right and left, and Hans Castorp, whose curiosity was struggling violently with his burning weariness, forced his eyes to look and lingered in front of a men’s fashion shop for a long time to see that the display was quite up to par.

Then came a rotunda with a covered gallery, in which a band gave a concert. Here was the Kurhaus. Games were in progress on several tennis courts. Long-legged, shaved youths in sharply ironed flannel trousers, on rubber soles and with bare forearms played opposite tanned girls dressed in white, who ran up steeply in the sun to hit the chalk-white ball high out of the air. It lay like flour dust over the well-groomed sports fields. The cousins ​​sat down on an empty bench to watch and criticize the game.

“You don’t play here?” asked Hans Castorp.

“I’m not allowed to,” answered Joachim. “We have to lie down, always lie down … Settembrini always says we live horizontally – we are horizontal, he says, that’s such a lame joke of his. – It’s healthy people who play there, or they do it illegally. By the way, they don’t play very seriously, – more because of the costume … And as far as being forbidden, there are more forbidden things that are played here, poker, you understand, and in this and that hotel also petits chevaux , – with us it says expulsion, it should be the most harmful thing. But some still run down after the evening check and point things out. The prince from whom Behrens takes his title is said to have always done so.”

Hans Castorp hardly heard that. His mouth hung open because he couldn’t breathe properly through his nose without suffering from a cold. His heart was pounding out of time with the music, which he dulled to be tormenting. And in this feeling of disorder and conflict he began to fall asleep when Joachim warned them to go home.

They walked the path almost in silence. Hans Castorp even stumbled a couple of times on the level road and smiled wistfully at it by shaking his head. The limping man took her to her floor in the elevator. They parted in front of number thirty-four with a short goodbye. Hans Castorp steered through his room onto the balcony, where, as he walked and stood, he let himself fall onto the deck chair and, without improving his position, sank into a heavy half-sleep, painfully animated by the rapid beating of his heart.