Then Dr. Wendelin Porsche stepped onto the stage.
He was different from Zieser; that was immediately noticeable. Zieser was line, Porsche was surface. Zieser was terse command, Porsche was warm promise. He smiled like someone smiles who is at once comforting and selling. He wore no white, but he wore that kind of elegance which, in a medical context, looks like seriousness. And in his gaze there was, as always, that small crack: a fanaticism that briefly flashes when he says “optimize”.
“Dear guests,” he began – and one noticed that he, unlike some of his kind, did not need the old formula “gentlemen”; perhaps he was smarter, perhaps it was just the times. “You have heard a lot this evening. And you may have thought: nice, but how?”
Hans Castorp heard the “how” and felt it was meant for him.
Porsche then explained his agenda, the way one explains agendas in the modern world: as a service.
He said that anyone who wanted could have individual nutrition plans put together by him; these would then be passed on to the kitchen. The food that was served up here would no longer be cooked only according to taste, but according to “setting”. He said one could even map deload and refeed days, one could control carbohydrates, set protein, “close” fat mathematically. He said this, and one could feel how the kitchen became a department, as in a company.
He further said that one could also individualize hypertrophy training plans; that these could be implemented in the GYMcube, with a personal trainer or with camera‑screen‑AI support. The word “AI” fell into the room like a new god. People nodded reverently.
And finally he raised, quite casually, the hand on which – one could see it – there was also a ring.
“For monitoring activity,” he said, “I naturally recommend the ring that some of you are already wearing. It is… reliable. And it is discreet.”
Discreet, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader: that is a word that has acquired a new irony in modernity. For discreet today is no longer that which does not see; discreet is that which sees without being noticed.
Hans Castorp felt the ring on his finger as if it had gained weight. He thought of his alias, of his desire not to be visible. And at the same time he thought – and that was the real tragicomedy – of his need to be seen: not by people, but by numbers that tell him he is becoming “better”.
Porsche ended his little appearance with that warm, fatherly gesture that is at once an invitation and an instruction:
“Just talk to me,” he said. “We’ll set it up for you.”
Set up: you set up furniture, rooms, programs. You also set up people, if you say it elegantly.
