Late at night – it must have been around midnight, or shortly before; and when I give you, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, a time, I do not do so because times would be important, but because Hans Castorp was now living in a world in which every meaning wants to have a number – Hans Castorp looked at his ring.
23:59.
One minute before a new day.
One minute before a new year.
One minute before… what?
Hans Castorp saw these digits, and he felt how absurd it is that time keeps giving us the illusion that one could begin anew just because the hand moves a little further.
Beside him Gustav was breathing shallowly.
Hans Castorp heard it.
He looked at Gustav.
He saw – and this is unpleasant to say – how the mask Gustav had worn in the morning no longer played any role. Sweat had loosened it at the edges; a small line at the temple, a dark shadow at the collar where something had rubbed off. It was not much. It was a trace.
Only a trace.
Hans Castorp thought: Fear is the oldest cosmetics.
He thought of the barber in Davos, of the smell of perfume, of the smile. He thought of the apparition on the beach, of the look.
He thought: One stays because one wants to see something. And one dies because one has stayed.
Gustav suddenly opened his eyes.
“Are you there?” he asked.
Hans Castorp nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
Gustav looked at him.
“The water…” he began.
Hans Castorp leaned forward.
“Yes?” he asked.
Gustav smiled weakly.
“It is… red,” he said.
Hans Castorp felt a cold current run through his belly.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Gustav closed his eyes.
“Everything,” he said.
And then – it was no great moment, no dramatic gesture, no thunder – it became quieter.
Not immediately. Not suddenly.
More as if a sound were driving away into the distance.
Hans Castorp sat there.
He waited.
He did not count.
The ring did not vibrate.
Gustav breathed once more, very shallowly, and then – not as an event, but as an absence – he stopped.
Hans Castorp looked at him.
He said nothing.
For what should one say?
