Thus the midday meal came to an end. Thanks to the skilled service⁠—the dwarf at Hans Castorp’s table was one of the quickest on her feet⁠—it had lasted only a round hour. Breathing heavily, and not quite sure how he got upstairs, Hans Castorp lay once more in his capital chair upon his loggia; after this meal there was rest-cure until teatime⁠—the most important and rigidly adhered-to rest period of the day. Between the opaque glass walls that divided him on the one side from Joachim, on the other from the Russian couple, he lay and idly dreamed, his heart pounding, breathing through his mouth. On using his handkerchief he discovered it to be red with blood, but had not enough energy to think about the fact, though he was rather given to worrying over himself and by nature inclined to hypochondria. Once more he had lighted a Maria Mancini, and this time he smoked it to the end, no matter how it tasted. Giddy and oppressed, he considered as in a dream how very odd he had felt since he came up here. Two or three times his breast was shaken by inward laughter at the horrid expression which that ignorant creature, Frau Stöhr, had used.