“Yes, what a climb that was! I was scared to death, I can tell you. Sixteen hundred metres⁠—that is over five thousand feet, as I reckon it. I’ve never been so high up in my life.” And Hans Castorp took in a deep, experimental breath of the strange air. It was fresh, and that was all. It had no perfume, no content, no humidity; it breathed in easily, and held for him no associations.

“Wonderful air,” he remarked, politely.

“Yes, the atmosphere is famous. But the place doesn’t look its best tonight. Sometimes it makes a much better impression⁠—especially when there is snow. But you can get sick of looking at it. All of us up here are frightfully fed up, you can imagine,” said Joachim, and twisted his mouth into an expression of disgust that was as unlike him as the shoulder-shrug. It looked irritable, disproportionate.

“You have such a queer way of talking,” said Hans Castorp.