As for Settembrini, he had more than once announced his intention of changing. “Heavens, how hot the sun is!” he said, as he and the cousins strolled down to the village after luncheon. “I see I shall have to put on thinner clothes.” Yet after this explicit expression of his intentions, he continued to appear in his check trousers and pilot coat with the wide lapels. They were probably all his wardrobe could boast.

But on the third day it seemed as though nature suffered a sudden reverse; everything turned topsy-turvy. Hans Castorp could scarcely trust his eyes. It happened when they were lying in their balconies, some twenty minutes after the midday meal. Swiftly the sun hid its face, ugly turf-coloured clouds drew up over the southwestern ridge, and a wind from a strange quarter, whose chill pierced to the marrow, as though it came out of some unknown icy region, swept suddenly through the valley; down went the thermometer⁠—a new order obtained.

“Snow,” said Joachim’s voice, behind the glass partition.