In the evening Gustav was quiet.
He was not melancholic in the sentimental sense. He was quiet like someone who is working.
In the hotel room – the large, dark, heavy room that is like an altar – he sat at the table.
The notebook lay in front of him.
It was open.
That was rare.
Hans Castorp sat on an armchair at the edge, because in the meantime he had gotten used to not always fleeing immediately into his own rituals, but sometimes staying with the other, even when it is uncomfortable.
Gustav wrote.
Not much.
One sentence.
Then another.
Then he crossed something out.
Then he wrote again.
Hans Castorp looked at his own hands.
He saw the ring.
He saw how the progress circle was almost full today.
He had taken many steps.
He had drunk little water, at any rate no tap water.
He had not eaten any raw seafood.
He had done everything that is recommended.
And yet he did not feel safe.
Safety, he thought, is perhaps the greatest mask of all: you wear it because you believe that it exists, and precisely thereby it becomes dangerous.
“What are you writing?” Hans Castorp finally asked.
Gustav raised his gaze.
“Nothing,” he said.
Hans Castorp smiled.
“That looks like something,” he said.
Gustav looked back at the paper.
“I am writing,” he said slowly, “so that I don’t…”
He broke off.
Hans Castorp waited.
Waiting, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, is a virtue that one does not learn by optimizing it; one learns it by enduring it.
Gustav said:
“…so that I don’t go.”
Hans Castorp understood.
Writing as staying.
Writing as a mask.
Writing as legitimation.
Tonio had said: One must be creative in order to be considered.
Gustav was creative.
And precisely for that reason, thought Hans Castorp, he stays.
Because he believes that the place, the beauty, the danger give him something that he needs in his sentences.
Hans Castorp looked at Gustav.
The hair was dark.
The face dull.
It was, strictly speaking, successful.
But on the forehead, at the hairline, a small film of sweat gleamed.
The air was warm.
The night outside was humid.
Hans Castorp saw how Gustav, quite unconsciously, brought his finger to the hairline, as if he wanted to check whether everything was holding.
The finger came back.
It was slightly dark.
Not much.
Just a touch.
But Hans Castorp saw it.
And this touch, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, was like a small confession: The mask does not hold. It never holds.
Gustav noticed that Hans had seen it.
He pulled his hand back.
He smiled, very briefly.
“It is hot,” he said.
Hans Castorp nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “It is hot.”
Outside the water gurgled.
In the room it smelled of perfume.
And in this mixture – water and scent, time and mask – there lay something that Hans Castorp could not name, but felt: a closeness to the end.
He reached for his notebook.
Not out of program.
Out of impulse.
He opened it.
He wrote a sentence.
He wrote:
bestforming is a mask.
Then he paused.
He crossed out the sentence.
He wrote underneath:
The mask is bestforming.
Then he crossed that out too.
He finally wrote, small, as if it were not allowed to be loud:
Fear is the oldest cosmetic.
He put the pen down.
He looked at Gustav.
Gustav continued writing.
Or pretended to.
Hans Castorp saw the small dark touch on the finger.
He saw the smooth, dull forehead.
He saw the dark hair.
And he thought, very slowly, very clearly, like someone who uses System 2, even though it takes effort:
The attempt to appear young makes one old.
Not because it fails.
But because it shows what one is afraid of.
He looked at the window.
Outside lay the lagoon.
It reflected.
It guaranteed nothing.
It carried.
And it waited, patient, green, sweetish, as if it had already seen all the masks in the world and knew that in the end only water remains.
Hans Castorp closed his eyes.
He smelled the perfume.
He heard the gurgling.
He felt the ring on his finger, this small eye.
And he felt, very softly, very sweetish, very unsatisfying:
that one stays too long.
