Joachim paid scant honour to the meal. He was tired of the cooking, he said; they all were, up here, and it was customary to grumble at the food. If one had to sit up here forever and a day⁠—! But, on the other hand, he partook of the wine with gusto, not to say abandon; and repeatedly, though with careful avoidance of emotional language, expressed his joy at having somebody here with whom one could have a little rational conversation.

“Yes, it’s first-rate you’ve come,” he said, and his gentle voice betrayed some feeling. “I must say it is really an event for me⁠—it is certainly a change, anyhow, a break in the everlasting monotony.”

“But time must go fast, living up here,” was Hans Castorp’s view.

“Fast and slow, as you take it,” answered Joachim. “It doesn’t do at all, I tell you. You can’t call it time⁠—and you can’t call it living either!” he said with a shake of the head, and fell to his glass again.