He was thoroughly upset. He walked the length of the room twice or thrice, the thermometer held horizontally in his hand, so as not to jiggle it and make it read differently. Then he carefully deposited it on the wash-hand-stand, and went with his overcoat and rugs into the balcony. Sitting down, he threw the covers about him, with practised hand, first from one side, then from the other, and lay still, waiting until it should be time for Joachim to fetch him for second breakfast. Now and then he smiled⁠—it was precisely as though he smiled at somebody. And now and then his breast heaved as he caught his breath and was seized with his bronchial cough.

Joachim found him still lying when he entered at eleven o’clock at sound of the gong for second breakfast.

“Well?” he asked in surprise, coming up to his cousin’s chair.

Hans Castorp sat awhile without answering, looking in front of him. Then he said: “Well, the latest is that I have some fever.”