But Hans Castorp had asked after Settembrini by name, and desired to hear what he had “said to it.” To what? “Why, that I am in bed and supposed to be ill.” Settembrini, it seemed, had expressed himself on the subject, though briefly. On the very day of Hans Castorp’s disappearance he had come to find out his whereabouts of Joachim, obviously prepared to hear that the guest had departed; and on learning the explanation had responded only in Italian: first “ Ecco! ” and then “ Poveretto !”⁠—as much as to say: “There you are, poor chap!”⁠—It needed no more Italian than the cousins could boast to understand the sense in which he uttered the words. “Why ‘ poveretto ’?” Hans Castorp inquired. “He sits up here with his literature made of politics and humanism and he is very little good for the ordinary interests of life. He needn’t look down his nose and pity me like that, I shall get down to the flat-land before he does.”