He said it as if it were an accusation.
Hans Castorp was silent.
He thought of Tonio.
He thought of the person in the salon who had said: “We are bourgeois. We love order.”
He thought: Perhaps this here is the ultimate form of bourgeois order: to work on the face until it once again fits into the category one can bear.
The barber came back.
He did not take the cloth off Gustav; he only lifted it up in one place and checked, as if he were checking a dough.
“Bene,” he said.
He led Gustav to the sink.
He laid his head back, and Gustav, who just now had still been discipline, was now a neck, exposed, backwards, like a patient.
Water flowed.
The water was warm.
Hans Castorp felt how his body had a small irritation at the sound of the water: the sign, the recommendation, the “do not drink.” And here it flowed, naturally, unproblematically, over a man’s head.
Many things are recommended, thought Hans Castorp.
Nothing is guaranteed.
The barber rinsed.
The dark mass ran off.
It colored the water for a moment.
It was a brown, reddish tone.
For a moment it looked like a small harbinger of what one does not yet want to see.
Gustav straightened up.
He went back to the mirror.
The hair was darker.
It was no longer gray.
It was… no longer true.
The barber dried.
He blow-dried.
He combed.
He cut a little more.
Then he took a small tin.
Powder.
Yes.
Powder.
He dabbed Gustav’s forehead with it.
He dabbed his cheeks.
He dabbed as if he had to make the face matte so that it would not betray that something is working underneath: sweat, blood, fear.
Hans Castorp saw Gustav open his mouth minimally, as if he wanted to say: No.
He did not say it.
The barber took a little bottle.
Perfume.
He sprayed.
A scent, sweet and strict at the same time, settled in the air like a second mask, invisible but effective.
“Perfetto,” said the barber.
Gustav looked at himself.
He smiled.
Not broadly.
Only briefly.
But this small smile was, for Hans Castorp, the real stab. For it showed: A person is willing to deny himself if it makes things easier for him for a moment.
Hans Castorp stood up.
He stepped closer to Gustav.
He looked at him.
Gustav looked younger.
Yes.
But he did not look young.
He looked like a man who wants to look young.
And that, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, is a difference one feels immediately, even if one cannot explain it.
For the desire is visible.
It is the real mask.
