For the moment, however, he had begun to live in and for the emotions roused in him by the pretty patient: the up and down of suspense, fulfilment or disappointment, characteristic of such a state. He came to regard these feelings as the real meaning and content of his stay; his mood depended wholly upon their event. All the circumstances of life up here favoured their development. For the inviolably daily programme brought the two constantly together. True, Frau Chauchat’s chamber was on a different storey from his own, and she performed her cure, so the schoolmistress said, in the general rest-hall on the roof (the same in which Captain Miklosich had lately turned off the light). But there were the five mealtimes; and besides them, innumerable occasions in the daily goings and comings when not only might they meet, but it was practically unavoidable they should. And that, Hans Castorp thought, was all to the good. So was the fact that he had little to do between one occasion and the next, except think about them. He found, indeed, something almost breathless about being thus, as it were, immured with opportunity.