He went out, his hand on the corridor railing, the carpet under his feet so soft as if it wanted to say: Stay. And as he walked, the ring vibrated, very slightly, not like a message, but like a small, contented hum: Steps, thought Hans Castorp; and he had to smile, because it is disheartening how quickly one begins to take pleasure in walking when it is being counted.
He walked, without a destination, the way one walks in houses in which one has too much destination. He walked until he – as if by himself – reached the library.
The library lay, like a moral gallery, above the reception hall. Whoever stood up here stood not only spatially above things, but also conceptually: books are, even when they are only decor, a potential threat. They remind you that words live longer than stays.
Hans Castorp stepped up to the railing.
Below was the hall.
It was, as always, a staging of warmth: wood, light, that friendly sun-face in the reception desk that pretended you could turn nature into a logo. In the middle stood the round table with the twisted root base, on which the tall goblets stood, ready, as if every day were an occasion. Next to it the metal bowl, boat-like, gondola-like, as if it wanted, without knowing it, already to point south; and in it, neatly laid out, lay – today not stollen, but an arrangement of fruits, nuts, small “species-appropriate” nibbles that pretended to be nature, although they were in fact cuisine.
The white lilies were still standing there.
Lilies have, as we know, something of dying. They are the flower language of finiteness, groomed and expensive. And the fact that they are so gladly placed in a house that sells longevity was either a matter of taste coincidence or an unconscious confession.
On the wall, above the reception desk, stood the sentence in flowing script:
Joy to him who comes. Joy to him who goes.
Hans Castorp read it.
He read it now differently than the first time. Back then he had thought: What about the one who stays? Today he thought: What about the one who is not allowed to go? And what about the one who did not want to come?
For coming, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, is in such houses rarely voluntary. It is recommendation. It is diagnosis. It is longing. And going – going is the bill.
Below, people were moving.
A family came in, groomed, children in light jackets that already smelled of ice cream and later disorder. A couple went out, slowly, with that little pull in the face that says: We tried something here, and we do not know whether it helped. A man in a bathrobe – the bathrobe here, as in The Magic Mountain, is a uniform – crept to the water station as if he were creeping to an altar.
And behind the desk stood Kautsonik.
He stood as he always stood: upright, slightly leaning forward, as if he wanted to walk toward the house. His hands lay on the wooden surface, calm but not relaxed; calm in him was never nonchalance, but discipline. He wore – although it was warm inside – a jacket that looked a little too big, as if he had lost weight or as if life had thinned out his body. His face had become narrower since Hans had known him; the skin around his eyes was thin, and in the eyes themselves lay that mixture of tiredness and alertness that one sees in people who have worked at thresholds for too long: they are always ready, but they have no surprises left.
Hans Castorp saw how Kautsonik, quite imperceptibly, fussed once with his trouser leg – a small grasp, a small tug, as if he were adjusting something that was pressing. Then he stood still again.
He was, thought Hans Castorp, the most faithful inhabitant of this house. Not Dr. Porsche, not Dr. AuDHS, not Zieser – who can all come and go because they are legitimized from outside – but Kautsonik, who had stayed and wanted to stay.
And just at this moment Kautsonik raised his gaze.
It is, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, disheartening how quickly one feels caught when someone looks up. Hans Castorp stood there like a child secretly watching. But Kautsonik did not smile. He only nodded once, briefly, as if it were an appointment.
Then he raised his hand and made a small movement that was so unambiguous that it could not be misunderstood:
Come.
Hans Castorp stood still for a moment. Since he had deserted, he had learned that every request can contain a danger, even if it is friendly. And since he had been living in the Sonnenalp, he had learned that every friendly request can be a service, thus a bill.
He went down the stairs.
