The bench stood in the rack, and the bar lay above it like a line you have to grab so that it doesn\u2019t hover above you like a judgment. Zieser showed him how to lie down, how to \u201cscrew\u201d the shoulder blades into the bench, how to set the feet, as if the floor were not floor but contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep it simple,\u201d he said again when Hans Castorp thought too much. \u201cYou lie down. You grip. You press. You control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp gripped the bar.<\/p>\n
It was cold. Not unpleasant, but definite. Metal is honest.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the bar,\u201d said Zieser. \u201cWe first learn the movement. No heroics. Heroics injure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded.<\/p>\n
Zieser stood behind the head end, his hands close but without touching \u2013 a presence that is at once safety and control.<\/p>\n
\u201cDown,\u201d he said. \u201cTo the sternum. Up. Eight repetitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEight,\u201d repeated Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe king set,\u201d said Zieser.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp inhaled, lowered the bar, felt how the weight \u2013 this small, ridiculous weight \u2013 suddenly was no longer ridiculous, because it lay in his hands and not in some abstract recommendation.<\/p>\n
He pressed. He felt the chest, the shoulders, the triceps; he felt how the body organizes itself when it has to.<\/p>\n
On the sixth repetition he felt a slight trembling, and it did not frighten him, it only surprised him: he had not expected honesty to come so quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo more,\u201d said Zieser. \u201cRight here, right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp did the seventh. Then the eighth.<\/p>\n
He put the bar back, and the metallic sound with which it locked in was like a period in a sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood,\u201d said Zieser. \u201cRecord it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp sat up, reached for the logbook. Zieser handed him a pen. It was an ordinary pen, not elegant, not stylish, no tablet stylus, but something that scratches on paper.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp held it for a moment, and in this holding there was something strangely touching: a man who lives under a false name now writes numbers in a book as if numbers were the truest names.<\/p>\n
He wrote after the weight level pre\u2011noted by Zieser and the target repetition number 8: 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cA set only counts once it\u2019s recorded,\u201d said Zieser.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded. It was Magic Mountain logic. The curve.<\/p>\n
\u201cStretch,\u201d said Zieser.<\/p>\n
He led Hans to the rack, arm on the post, chest at shoulder height.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp held.<\/p>\n
\u201cFour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pulling was unpleasant, but it was clean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOther side,\u201d said Zieser.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp did it.<\/p>\n
Then back to the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow set two,\u201d said Zieser. \u201cMore repetitions, less load. We stay with the bar, but you do ten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp lay down again, Zieser reduced the plates to the new weight level.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen,\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n
He pressed. At eight he felt the trembling grow stronger, and his mind wanted to say: That\u2019s enough. But the body, that honest one, kept going.<\/p>\n
Ten.<\/p>\n
He racked it. He wrote: 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cSet three,\u201d said Zieser. \u201cTwelve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwelve,\u201d he said, and it sounded as if he were speaking of a judgment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no miracles,\u201d said Zieser calmly. \u201cThere is only training.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp did twelve. The last two were slow. He felt time stretch, how every second became a small eternity, and he thought: That\u2019s how it is with life. You think it is easy, and then it just becomes longer.<\/p>\n
He wrote: 12.<\/p>\n
Zieser nodded, as if Hans Castorp had not just pressed but passed an exam.<\/p>\n
\u201cShoulder press,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n