“I’m perfectly worn out with laughing,” he said, and breathed through his mouth. “You’ve told me such a lot of crazy stuff⁠—that about the psychoanalysis was the last straw. I suppose I am a bit relaxed from the journey. And my feet are cold⁠—are yours? But my face burns so, it is really unpleasant. Do we eat now? I feel hungry. Is the food decent up here?”

They went noiselessly along the coco matting of the narrow corridor, which was lighted by electric lights in white glass shades set in the ceiling. The walls gleamed with hard white enamel paint. They had a glimpse of a nursing sister in a white cap, and eyeglasses on a cord that ran behind her ear. She had the look of a Protestant sister⁠—that is to say, one working without a real vocation and burdened with restlessness and ennui. As they went along the corridor, Hans Castorp saw, beside two of the white-enamelled, numbered doors, certain curious, swollen-looking, balloon-shaped vessels with short necks. He did not think, at the moment, to ask what they were.