At night Hans Castorp could not sleep well.
Not because he heard noise – although the city, even when it is silent, has sounds: the water that rattles, the boat that docks somewhere, the voice that calls in an alley. He could not sleep because his inner self – this hard-to-educate animal – had seen too much. And seeing is work. Seeing is, if one is honest, hypertrophy for consciousness: the muscle grows from resistance, and consciousness grows from the gaze.
He lay in bed.
The pillows were too many.
The air was too heavy.
He felt the ring on his finger touch him, as if it were a small, cold reminder that even at night one is not alone. He looked at the ring. It showed time. It showed heart rate. It showed – because it can do nothing else – something that can be called “readiness”.
Hans Castorp thought: readiness for what?
He thought of Dr. Porsche.
He thought of Dr. AuDHS.
He thought of Morgenstern, of his resolutions.
He thought of Kautsonik, of his motto.
He thought of Zieser, of his sentences.
He thought of Gustav von A., who perhaps was writing in his room next door, perhaps was not writing, perhaps was only pretending.
He thought of the beautiful apparition, and he was annoyed with himself for thinking of her.
He said to himself, very slowly: System 2.
He said to himself: That is only one person.
He said to himself: That is not truth.
He said to himself: Sleep.
And then, as so often, he did something ridiculous, because ridiculousness is sometimes the last form of help: he told himself a story.
Not the story of the chameleon that Dr. AuDHS had given him, since the lagoon itself was already like a chameleon: green, red, gray, depending on the light. He did not tell himself a finished story. Stuttering, fragmentary, he told himself the story of himself.
He said to himself: I was up there.
He said to himself: The mountain is in me.
He said to himself: I am down below.
He said to himself: I am on the way.
And while he said it to himself, he heard the water outside.
It gurgled against the stones.
It erased time without asking.
Hans Castorp turned over.
He found no position.
He felt that his body was in peak form – and that peak form is of no use against the inner noise.
That was the punchline, esteemed reader, dear reader.
One optimizes in order to have peace.
And then one comes to a place where there is no peace.
Not because it is too loud, but because it is too beautiful.
Beauty is noise.
And noise, as Hans Castorp had known since the fireworks, is always more for the body than for the mind.
He closed his eyes.
He saw water.
He saw green.
He saw red.
He saw a ring.
And he felt – very softly, very sickly sweet, very unsatisfying – this feeling:
that one stays too long.
