Dr. AuDHS did not appear like someone who is fetched, but like someone who had already been there anyway and had only briefly been invisible. He stepped out from the background of the hall, from one of those zones in which staff disappear only to reappear later, and he did so with that calm speed that betrays neither haste nor sluggishness \u2013 a speed that says: I am busy, but I will take my time for you, because that belongs to my image.<\/p>\n
He wore, as always, his little badge with the letters that sounded more like a function than a person, and he smiled at Hans Castorp as if he already knew him so well that formalities were superfluous. In this smile, as Hans Castorp knew it, there was a slight mockery, not malicious but knowing: the mockery of one who sees through the mechanics of things and yet plays along.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Castorp,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt a small reflex twitch inside him. The name was still a risk. And yet he did, as one does in such establishments, as if everything were in order.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctor,\u201d he said, and clung to the form of address as to a handrail.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS nodded, as if he savored the old-fashionedness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been told,\u201d began Hans Castorp, \u201cI should\u2026\u201d He searched for the word, because he did not like it. \u201c\u2026engage in hypertrophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS looked at him, and his gaze was the gaze of a person who is amused and serious at the same time.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngage in,\u201d he repeated. \u201cAs if it were a factory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds,\u201d said Hans Castorp, \u201clike enlargement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is enlargement,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cBut not in the sense of vanity. In the sense of hygiene.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp raised his eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cHygiene?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS, and now his voice took on that tone that Hans Castorp had already heard in the library: the tone of the essayist who turns an observation into a moral. \u201cHygiene for the muscle share \u2013 to delay age-related atrophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it as if it were the most natural sentence in the world. And perhaps, thought Hans Castorp, it was that in this world.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuscle share,\u201d repeated Hans Castorp slowly. He thought of Dr. Porsche\u2019s bioimpedance measurement, of percentages, of the body as a diagram. He thought: Today, the human being is a composition, and every composition must be maintained like an account.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see,\u201d continued Dr. AuDHS, \u201cDr. Porsche has given you numbers. And numbers are good because they are reassuring. But numbers are also unsatisfactory because they give birth to tasks. And you, Mr. Castorp, are not the type who loves tasks unless they are\u2026\u201d He made a small pause. \u201c\u2026mystical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp remained silent. The word mystical struck him because it was at once mocking and accurate. At the Berghof he had learned that the body is a mystery. And up here the mystery was broken down into tables.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat am I supposed to do?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
With a slight movement of his hand, Dr. AuDHS pointed in a direction that Hans Castorp at first did not understand, because the hall, like every hall, has no direction, only circuits. Then he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have GYMcubes in the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cCubes,\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n
\u201cCubes,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cFree-standing cabins. You go in, and you are alone with the rack, the barbell, the plates \u2013 and with yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds,\u201d said Hans Castorp, \u201clike a modern confession.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is confession today,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly that one no longer confesses in order to receive forgiveness, but in order to deliver data.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought of his cuff, of his evening values, of the noting down; he thought: Yes, one delivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I could\u2026 train there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cAnd if you were the type who teaches himself something, I would simply have given you an access code and you would have disappeared \u2013 as you so like to disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt himself grow warm. He wanted to object. He could not.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d continued Dr. AuDHS, and now there was something in his voice that sounded almost like pride, \u201cI have already spoken with my partner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPartner?\u201d asked Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
\u201cProf. Frank Zieser,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cHe also happens to be at the Sonnenalp. And he is pleased to take over your training personally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp had never heard the name before. But he immediately sensed that it was a name that carried weight in this milieu \u2013 not because of the syllables, but because of the way Dr. AuDHS pronounced it: as if it were a certificate.<\/p>\n
\u201cProfessor?\u201d asked Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this world one becomes a professor quickly,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS dryly. \u201cOne only has to find something that others do not want to do, and then explain it in such a way that suddenly everyone has to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought of optimization.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is he?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS slightly shrugged his shoulders, as if the biography were at once unimportant and decisive.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn art figure,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is the nice thing: he is so real that he already seems invented again. He was\u2026\u201d Out of irony or caution, Dr. AuDHS searched for an inconspicuous word. \u201c\u2026successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the art of the body,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cAnd in the art of selling this art. He brought machines to Europe when people here still thought strength came from peeling potatoes. He marketed hypertrophy as back training. His slogan was: A strong back knows no pain!\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled involuntarily. The sentence was so bourgeois, so correct, so comfortable in its hardness that it seemed at once comical and seductive.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now,\u201d continued Dr. AuDHS, \u201che has founded GYMcube with me. Personal training. Human and AI. Minimalism with protocol. And he is \u2013 that is the decisive thing \u2013 not a motivator.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is he then?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA file,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cA man who translates your bewilderment into repetitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt how the word repetitions seemed strangely familiar to him. Repetition was time. Repetition was cure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d he asked, and he heard how quickly one can submit when one is only given a date.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS cast a glance at an invisible watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow,\u201d he said. \u201cRight here, right now \u2013 as he would say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp raised his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS smiled, and in this smile, as so often, lay the joy of someone who owns quotations and places them in situations as if they were instruments.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says many things,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd many are\u2026 unsatisfyingly true. Come.\u201d<\/p>\n