He did not come hastily, not with an apology, but with that unagitated naturalness that people have who are used to others waiting for them. He wore, as always, a kind of uniform of indeterminacy: not a doctor’s coat, not a suit, but something third – sporty, but not sporty enough to boast; well-groomed, but not dapper enough to lie.
He saw the children, saw the woman, saw the paper.
“Ah,” he said, and in this “Ah” lay everything: irony, approval, the slight pleasure of the diagnostician when a symptom presents itself nicely.
“Doctor,” said Hans Castorp, and it sounded, as always, as if this word were a door he flung open in order to hide behind it.
“Good morning,” said Dr. AuDHS. Then, to Mrs. Morgenstern: “So you are the lilies.”
Mrs. Morgenstern smiled, and it was not offended, but amused. The children giggled, because children react to flowers as if they were animals.
“Lilies?”, asked the older girl.
“Yes,” said Dr. AuDHS. “Lilies. That is a compliment. It means: beautiful, sensitive, and you have to be careful not to trample them when you stomp through life in your boots.”
He sat down as if he belonged. And perhaps he did belong, for in this house he was the authority that connected everything: body and idea, measurement and morality.
“And,” he said, and his gaze fell again on the list, “these are your five commandments.”
“Resolutions,” corrected Morgenstern.
“That’s the same,” said Dr. AuDHS dryly. “Only without God. Our time has abolished God and kept the checklist.”
Morgenstern twisted his mouth as if he wanted to protest, but he did not protest. He saw his wife guiding a spoon with the younger child, calm, patient; and in this sight presumably lay the reason why he did not protest.
“You said,” said Dr. AuDHS, “the leeches outside.”
“Yes,” said Morgenstern.
“Good,” said Dr. AuDHS. “Then today is a training day. Not for the muscle, but for the boundary.”
Hans Castorp heard the word “training” and felt a small reflex triggered in him: the reflex of performance, of planning, of repetition. It was strange how quickly the house had reshaped him.
“We’re going now,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, very practically, as if morality did not need to be discussed but lived. “The children want to go out.”
Dr. AuDHS nodded. “Very good. Movement. You know: the human being is not a running animal, but a walking-trotting animal. And above all: sitting is the new smoking.” He said it in a tone that both quoted Zieser and parodied Zieser, without one knowing exactly which side was stronger.
The children stood up, Mrs. Morgenstern put jackets on them that looked as if they could ward off both rain and the end of the world, and Hans Castorp stood up as well.
He took his tray, put it away, and while he did so, he thought about himself. He thought about the fact that he did not even know whether he had slept well, because he had allowed himself a white. And now he went out with people whose sleep is not measured, but awakened, by small voices, by needs, by the word “Papa”.
It was, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, as if someone had shown him a different kind of curve.
