“Ah, that is you, Herr Settembrini! How friendly of you! Refectory⁠—oh, I say, that is good! Always at your jokes⁠—but do sit down. You are not disturbing me in the least. I was lying there musing⁠—no, musing is too much to say. I was simply too lazy to turn on the light. Thanks very much, I am subjectively as good as normal, and my cold is much better from lying in bed. But it was a secondary phenomenon, so everybody tells me. My temperature is still not what it should be, I have 99.5° to 99.7°, all the time.”

“You take your temperature regularly?”

“Yes, six times a day, like the rest of you. Pardon me, I am still laughing at your calling our dining-hall a refectory. That is what they are called in a cloister, isn’t it? After all, there is some resemblance⁠—not that I have been in a cloister, but I imagine they are something like this. And I have the ‘Rule’ at my fingers’ ends, and observe it faithfully.”