Morgenstern smiled crookedly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is dangerous. Because in doing so you are no longer right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought: I am also no longer right. I only have life left. And he felt how close these two things lie together.<\/p>\n
\u201cFourth,\u201d said Morgenstern, and his voice became firmer, almost hard, as if here he had the core. \u201cSecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He spoke the word as if it were a house one would like to live in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to create emotional and physical security for my wife and our children,\u201d he said. \u201cNo escalations. No threats. No pressure. No manipulative dynamics. Especially not in conflicts. Not in intimacy. Not in money. Not\u2026\u201d He paused, as if there were something he did not want to say. Then he said it after all: \u201c\u2026not in substance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at the water. The water carried him, the water made it easy to say things that would be harder in dry air.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecurity,\u201d he said, \u201cis the great promise of these houses. And sometimes it is\u2026\u201d He searched for the word, because he knew that every word is a risk. \u201c\u2026a form of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgenstern looked at him, surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said softly. \u201cBut control is not always bad. Sometimes it is\u2026 necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d said Hans Castorp. \u201cSometimes it is what prevents you from becoming the donkey again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgenstern nodded. The word \u201cdonkey\u201d had, in the warmth of the water, suddenly something tragic.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifth,\u201d said Morgenstern, and his voice became softer, as if now came something he loves. \u201cPartnership.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled, this time without bitterness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to understand our marriage as teamwork,\u201d he said. \u201cTo recognize my wife as an equal partner. As the mother of our children. To share everyday life. Not to devalue. Not against each other. Cooperation. Appreciation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp heard the word \u201cteamwork\u201d and felt, with a quiet, Tonio-like pain, how modern and how foreign it was to him. For Hans Castorp had, despite all the people around him, despite all encounters, basically always been alone. He was, if one may call it that, a loner of the bourgeois kind: not rebellious, not romantic, but simply someone who has settled in the in\u2011between spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeam,\u201d he said slowly. \u201cThat is a beautiful word. And a strict one. It means that you are not allowed to disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgenstern looked at him. \u201cYou speak as if you knew something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled. It was a polite smile. And a little unedifying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d he said, \u201chow to disappear without going away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgenstern was silent. One heard the soft splashing of the water, the humming of the machinery, the distant laughter of a child somewhere in the hall. Above them, high up, one could see a patch of pale sky through the skylight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you telling me this?\u201d asked Hans Castorp after a while.<\/p>\n
Morgenstern looked at his phone, as if he had to make sure that the words were still there.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause yesterday I\u2026\u201d He swallowed. \u201cBecause yesterday I stood in that photo booth, with a wig on my head and a donkey face in front of my face \u2013 and because in doing so, in this ridiculous state, I suddenly realized that I have been masking myself for a long time. And that it is not funny. Not for my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought of the woman from the night, of the sentence: And yet today everything is a mask.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd why me?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Morgenstern looked at him, and in his gaze there was something that Hans Castorp did not like to see: the trust of a stranger.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you looked at me,\u201d said Morgenstern. \u201cDid not laugh. Not so\u2026\u201d He made a small gesture, as if he meant the whole audience. \u201c\u2026effect\u2011reverent. But\u2026 as if you had understood that it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp was silent.<\/p>\n
He understood. And he did not know whether he wanted to understand.<\/p>\n