He had brought no calendar with him on his holiday, and did not always find himself sure of the date. Now and then he asked his cousin; who, in turn, was not always quite sure either. True, the Sundays, particularly the fortnightly one with the concert⁠—it was the second Hans Castorp had spent in this situation⁠—gave him a fixed point. So much was certain, that by little and little they had now got well on in September, close on to the middle. Since he went to bed, the cold and cloudy weather had given place to a succession of wonderful midsummer days. Every morning Joachim appeared arrayed in white flannel trousers, to greet his cousin, and Hans Castorp felt a pang of regret, in which both heart and youthful muscles joined, at the loss of all this splendid weather. He murmured that it was “a shame,” but added to console himself that even if he were up and about he would hardly know how to take advantage of it, since it seemed it did not answer for him to exert himself much. And the wide-open balcony door did afford him some share of the warm shimmer outside.