And Joachim? Did he find things easier, for that? Or did he suffer an agony of inward emptiness in view of the vacant places at table? Had his unwonted irritability, his threats of taking un-sanctified leave, anything to do with Marusja’s departure? Or, on the other hand, that he had after all not left, but lent an ear to the Hofrat’s gospel of the melting snows⁠—was that fact any way connected with the circumstance that the full-bosomed Marusja was not gone for good but only on a journey, and would be back again in five of the smallest time-units known to House Berghof? Ah, yes, they were both true, this and the other, as Hans Castorp was well aware, without ever having exchanged a syllable with Joachim on the subject⁠—which he was as careful to refrain from doing as his cousin was, on his side, to avoid mention of another person also lately gone off for a little trip.