“Yes”, he said. “And if it gets blurred, then it is…”
“Dangerous”, said Hans Castorp.
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“You have a talent for the word”, he said. “Perhaps you are after all more concept than sensation.”
Hans Castorp wanted to object; but he could not. For he had, in the night, in the dome, sensed that he would stay. And now, in the morning, he sensed that he was being seen. Between these two sensations lay something that one could call a concept: guilt.
“You should”, said the doctor, and his voice became, for a moment, quite matter-of-fact, “not drink too much caffeine today. And this evening… no loud things.”
“I will try”, said Hans Castorp.
“To try is a word that means a lot here”, said the doctor. “For to try means: one lets oneself in for the program without admitting it.”
He detached himself from the railing, as if he had said enough. Then he stopped once more and looked at Hans Castorp.
“Herr Castorp”, he said.
Hans Castorp froze.
The doctor had spoken the name as if it were a completely ordinary word, as if it stood in the air like the scent of lilies. And perhaps, thought Hans Castorp in a frantic moment, he had not read it at all from Hans’s person – perhaps he had simply read it somewhere: in a list, in a system, in a database. For that too is a modern form of seeing: one does not see the person, one sees the entry.
Hans Castorp managed to breathe.
“Herr Doktor”, he said, and in the form of address there now lay not only politeness, but a faint protest, as if he wanted to say: If you already call me by my name, then I will call you by your office.
The doctor smiled again, almost kindly.
“It is an old name”, he said. “It suits you. Do not stay alone with it for too long.”
Then he went, noiselessly, into one of the red niches, and Hans Castorp did not know whether he had disappeared or whether he was only pretending.
Hans Castorp remained standing for a moment, the little wooden stick in his hand, and he heard the clinking of the glasses below him.
He went down.
