“Good Lord,” thought Hans Castorp, “how she does run on!” He looked into her face, quite alarmed. But she countered his gaze with her embarrassed, half-frightened one. They were both silent awhile and sought to recover themselves. Hans Castorp ate his luncheon and supported his chin.

At length he said: “And her husband? He doesn’t trouble himself about her? Does he never visit her up here? Do you know what he does?”

“Official. Russian government official, in some distant province, Daghestan, you know, out beyond the Caucasus, he was ordered there. No, as I tell you, no one has ever seen him up here. And this time she has been here going on three months.”

“She was here before, then?”

“This is the third time. And between times she goes to other places⁠—other sanatoriums. But it is she who sometimes visits him; not often, once in the year for a little while. One may say they live separated, and she visits him now and again.”