Hans Castorp looked at him.
“Here?” he asked.
Kautsonik indicated with a small hand movement the hall, the chandelier, the counter, the words on the wall.
“Here,” he said. “Standing up. At reception. That would suit me. I have always said: If I am going to go, then in such a way that I don’t collapse like a guest.”
Hans Castorp felt a warmth stir in him – a mixture of comedy and abyss, as Mann loves. He thought: This man, who has served all his life, wishes for death as service. And I, who have avoided service, go on living – and drink champagne.
He looked at the writing on the wall.
Joy to him who comes. Joy to him who goes.
Kautsonik followed his gaze.
“Nice, isn’t it?” he said. “I have read this sentence a thousand times. Sometimes I think: It is a bit too friendly. Sometimes I think: It is exactly right. It keeps people moving.”
Hans Castorp thought: Movement is what I have avoided.
“Joy to him who goes,” he repeated.
Kautsonik nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “But most don’t want to go. Most want to stay. And those who have to go…” He paused briefly and looked at the lilies. “They don’t go voluntarily.”
Hans Castorp was silent.
Kautsonik took a piece of stollen, put it on a small plate and pushed the plate over to Hans with a gesture that was at once an offer and a command.
“Eat,” he said. “It is New Year. You have to take something sweet, otherwise the year will be bitter.”
Hans Castorp took the plate.
He bit.
The stollen was heavy and sweet, and the powdered sugar stuck to his lips like a small mask. He thought of the wooden stick in his pocket; he thought of the doctor who had said his name; he thought of the woman who had called him old-fashioned; and he thought of Kautsonik, who wanted to die standing up.
The house hummed. The candles burned. Outside was the blue of winter, inside the gold of the wood. And above, over everything, the books – silent witnesses, decorative and yet full of threatening sentences.
Hans Castorp swallowed.
“So you are retired,” he said, more to say something than out of interest.
Kautsonik raised his eyebrows.
“Retired,” he said, and the word sounded foreign in his mouth. “I was told I am a pensioner. But then they rented me again. I am a renter, someone said jokingly. A rented pensioner.”
Hans Castorp smiled.
“That fits,” he said.
“Yes,” said Kautsonik. “Everything fits today, if you just name it correctly.”
He took a glass, refilled it, put it back down.
“Another one?” he asked.
Hans Castorp shook his head. His body – the honest one – didn’t want any more. And his mind – the lying one – also didn’t want too much.
“No,” he said. “Not too loud today.”
Kautsonik looked at him as if he had heard something that had not been said.
“You were yesterday…” he began, and, polite as he was, left the sentence unfinished.
“Yes,” said Hans Castorp.
“Fireworks,” said Kautsonik, and in the word there was a slight disgust that was not moral but based on experience. “It’s beautiful. But it has something indecent. It is as if you were forcing the sky to behave.”
Hans Castorp nodded.
He took the wooden stick out of his pocket and laid it, without knowing why, on the table next to the plate. It looked there like a foreign body between glass and sugar.
Kautsonik looked at it.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A pen,” said Hans Castorp.
Kautsonik laughed briefly.
“You can’t write with that,” he said.
Hans Castorp looked at him.
“Yes, you can,” he said. “If you are prepared for it to smudge.”
Kautsonik was silent for a moment. Then he nodded, very slowly, as if he were acknowledging something that he doesn’t have to understand in order to respect it.
“Yes,” he said finally. “That’s how it is with names.”
Hans Castorp felt his heart give a small, imperfect beat.
“Which names?” he asked.
Kautsonik raised his hand as if to ward off.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I am Guest Relations. Not Gestapo.”
He said it so dryly, so old-hotel-like, that it was funny – and in the background still sent a slight chill, because, if one is honest, in our time one never really knows where the line runs between relation and control.
Hans Castorp lowered his gaze.
“Joy to him who comes,” he said softly, more to himself than to Kautsonik.
“Yes,” said Kautsonik. “And joy to him who goes.”
Hans Castorp raised the glass as if to toast – but he clinked against nothing.
He drank one last sip, put the glass down and thought:
There are people who go because they have to. There are people who stay because they can. And there are people who stay because they have no other way of knowing who they would be if they went.
He put the wooden stick back in his pocket.
Then he went, not fast, not slow, in that direction which in hotels is called “lobby” and which in truth is nothing other than the stage on which you confirm yourself daily: I am here. I am someone. I arrive. I leave.
And Hans Castorp, who always stayed, went – for the time being – only as far as the next staircase.
