Gustav von A. entered.
He wore no athleticism. He wore no wellness. He wore the bearing of a person who understands himself as a work, not as a project. He was dapper, yes – but not in the way a hotel teaches, rather in the way a life teaches, in which discipline does not come from a program but from an inner compulsion.
In his hand he held a notebook.
Of course.
He saw Hans Castorp, nodded barely noticeably and went to him, as if it had all already been decided.
“You are punctual,” he said.
It was no recognition. It was a finding.
“I am… trained,” said Hans Castorp, and he himself did not know whether it was a joke.
Gustav von A. sat down opposite him. He put the notebook on the table, but he did not open it. That was, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, a small, disquieting gesture: A notebook that remains closed is like a mouth that does not speak.
“You have… begun a new life here,” said Gustav von A.
Hans Castorp shrugged his shoulders.
“Recommendation,” he said.
Gustav von A. looked at him, and in this look there lay, very briefly, something like tiredness.
“Recommendations,” he said, “are everywhere. In the kitchen, in the gym, in bed. And you call it life.”
Hans Castorp felt the Tonio-sting: warm and sad at the same time.
“And you?” he asked. “You call it… what?”
Gustav von A. was silent for a moment. Then he said:
“Work.”
Hans Castorp nodded, as if he had known it.
“Sentences,” he said softly.
Gustav von A. barely twisted his mouth.
“Yes.”
Hans Castorp looked at Gustav’s notebook.
“Where do you lead your sentences?” he asked, and in the question he heard his own hunger.
Gustav von A. glanced briefly out the window, as if he already saw, behind the snow, behind the forest, another landscape.
“South,” he said.
“Why?” asked Hans Castorp.
Gustav von A. raised his hand as if he wanted to brush away a fly.
“Because there… it is different,” he said.
“That is an excuse,” said Hans Castorp, and he was surprised that he could speak like that.
Gustav von A. looked at him.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “Journeys are excuses. And sometimes excuses are salvations.”
Hans Castorp smiled, involuntarily. It was a sentence that was both settembrinian and aschenbachian: reasonable and fatal at the same time.
“You want me to come with you,” said Hans Castorp.
Gustav von A. did not say “yes”.
He said:
“You want to go.”
Hans Castorp was silent.
“You have written it in your notebook,” added Gustav von A., and Hans Castorp felt his heart give a small, unclean beat, because it suddenly became clear to him that in libraries one not only reads books, but also people.
“I have not…” began Hans Castorp.
Gustav von A. raised his hand again.
“I have not read,” he said. “I have seen.”
And then, as if he wanted to pull the matter out of the moral realm, he said, quite prosaically:
“Tomorrow. Early. The carriage to the train goes at eight. Guest Relations has… organized it.”
Hans Castorp had to laugh briefly, despite everything.
“Guest Relations,” he said.
“Yes,” said Gustav von A. “It is reassuring when the world takes care of things while one flees oneself.”
Hans Castorp lowered his gaze.
“I am not fleeing,” he said softly.
Gustav von A. looked at him.
“Of course not,” he said, and it was the friendliest sentence he could say in this tone.
Then he stood up.
“Pack,” he said.
Hans Castorp raised his gaze.
“What?” he asked.
Gustav von A. hesitated for a moment, as if he had to decide whether he was allowed to be ironic.
“Your religion,” he then said.
And left.
