That in such houses one \u201chas doctors sent for\u201d is a custom that is at once old and new: old, because it makes the doctor a servant; new, because it makes the guest into a case. Hans Castorp went, as he had already done once before, to the reception hall, where Mr. Kautsonik was standing, and asked, with that mixture of timidity and matter\u2011of\u2011factness that modern man has developed when he asks for care:<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me\u2026 can one speak to the doctor?\u201d<\/p>\n
Kautsonik raised his eyebrows. In his pensioner existence, he was a man who no longer had to prove anything, and precisely for that reason he was the ideal mirror for all those who still want to prove something.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctor?\u201d he asked in that tone that is already half the answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cAuDHS,\u201d said Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik nodded, as if he had expected exactly this abbreviation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctor,\u201d he said, and he pronounced the form of address as though there were still certainties in the world, \u201cis in the house. I will have him sent for.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reached for his device, spoke into it, and Hans Castorp once again saw that strange modern magic at work: you speak into a little thing, and a person appears.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik put the device away, looked at Hans Castorp and said, with a dry politeness that is at the same time compassion:<\/p>\n
\u201cSleep, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp blinked.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
Kautsonik made a small hand movement, as if to say: I have decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can tell by the way they walk,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd by the fact that people suddenly speak very quietly. As if they didn\u2019t want to startle the sleep that doesn\u2019t come anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled, involuntarily.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cSleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kautsonik nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is unedifying,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople used to come here to rest. Today they come here to learn how to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not say it mockingly. He said it as he would also have said: The counter used to be over there.<\/p>\n
Then they waited, and one might have thought they were waiting for a doctor; in truth they were waiting for an interpretation.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS appeared, as always, not like someone who is sent for, but like someone who has only briefly made himself invisible. He stepped out of one of those zones into which the staff disappears, and his smile was at once friendly and knowing, as though he knew that Hans Castorp had reached a point at which the program unmasks itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Castorp,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp again felt that little twitch at the name, which he now knew: the reminder that a name, in his case, is never just a name.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctor,\u201d he said, and held on to the form of address like a handrail.<\/p>\n
AuDHS looked at him \u2013 and one noticed that he not only saw, but also saw the data, even if he did not have them before his eyes. The gaze of modernity is no longer only physiognomic, it is statistical.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have bad nights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It was no reproach. It was a finding.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026\u201d he began and faltered, because it is unedifying to confess to another that one has become uncertain in something as fundamental as sleep. \u201cThe ring\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
AuDHS smiled, and in this smile lay that irony that does not chill but understands.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh,\u201d he said. \u201cThe ring. Your new marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarriage?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA ring is a promise,\u201d said AuDHS. \u201cIn the past one promised fidelity with it. Today one promises transparency with it. And transparency, esteemed reader, dear reader \u2013 forgive me, Mr. Castorp \u2013 is the modern form of infidelity against oneself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp was silent. He did not understand everything, but he understood enough to feel caught out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt says,\u201d said Hans Castorp, and in the \u201cit\u201d one already heard the personification of the machine, \u201cI sleep badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sleep badly,\u201d confirmed AuDHS. \u201cAnd now comes the most modern part of it: you sleep even worse because you know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp exhaled. That was exactly the truth he did not want to hear, because it was so banal and therefore so right.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have tried\u2026\u201d he began.<\/p>\n
AuDHS raised his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have tried,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that is exactly where the trap lies. Sleep is the only human activity that gets worse as soon as one undertakes it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused, glanced briefly to the side, as if he were adding a short footnote in his thoughts, then said:<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Porsche told you that you had to improve the REM share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2026 he said the word. And I nodded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is your talent,\u201d said AuDHS mildly. \u201cYou nod your way through your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled, politely. And a little unedifyingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cREM,\u201d AuDHS continued, \u201cis \u2013 roughly speaking \u2013 that zone in which the body sleeps and the mind works. Or in other words: in which the mind is finally allowed to work without the body supervising it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought involuntarily of Tonio, of the creating that does not fit into the day; and he thought how strange it is that modernity even prescribes to dreams how productive they are supposed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd to improve REM,\u201d said AuDHS, \u201cyou have to reduce stress.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStress,\u201d Hans Castorp repeated softly.<\/p>\n
AuDHS nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cStress,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd now we come to something that Dr. Porsche probably did not put into your hand, because it is\u2026 too little representative: stress is not only in the head. Stress is in the body. And therefore, Mr. Castorp, you cannot calm the head with the head. You have to outsmart it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n
AuDHS raised his eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cPsychosomatic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp waited. He waited like a pupil who expects a solution that can be copied.<\/p>\n
AuDHS smiled and said, almost conspiratorially:<\/p>\n
\u201cI do it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp blinked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d said AuDHS. \u201cI am a doctor, but I am also human. And I am \u2013 that is the embarrassing part \u2013 also a case.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it without shame. That was the crack you wished for: this man who orders others is himself not ordered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I,\u201d he continued, \u201cnotice in the evening that my thoughts are driving down on the motorway, then I do something that is very unmodern: I give the body a problem that is smaller than the problems of the head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp did not quite understand.<\/p>\n
AuDHS said:<\/p>\n
\u201cAcupressure. Fakir mat. Fakir neck roll.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp stared at him as if he had just heard the word \u201cscourge.\u201d<\/p>\n
AuDHS nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said, as if he had read the look. \u201cIt is a kind of domesticated pain. Not enough to be heroic. But enough to force the mind to briefly leave the motorway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt a strange mixture of resistance and curiosity. Resistance, because pain is unedifying. Curiosity, because he sensed that sometimes salvation lies precisely in the unpleasant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is supposed to\u2026 help?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is supposed,\u201d said AuDHS, \u201cto get the body to loosen a few of these stress loops. In your case: against the \u2018normally high.\u2019 Not because the mat lowers blood pressure like a medication \u2013 we are not in a brochure here \u2013 but because it changes the whole inner posture: from taut to earthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought of the sentence: Order is perhaps only a fear that has dressed itself up. And he thought that his head is dressed up right into the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I get\u2026 such a mat?\u201d he asked, and you could hear how absurd it is to ask for a fakir mat in a luxury hotel.<\/p>\n
AuDHS smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do not get it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou get it as a gift. Later. To your room. So that you cannot claim you had no possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gift,\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gift,\u201d said AuDHS. \u201cModernity even gives you the pain so that you do not have to look for it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled. It was a genuine smile. And, as so often, it was a little unedifying, because it showed him the absurdity in which he nonetheless takes part.<\/p>\n
AuDHS continued, now once again quite matter\u2011of\u2011factly, with that pleasant calm that gives the other the feeling of being in competent hands:<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the one thing. The physical. Psychosomatic meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the other?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
AuDHS looked at him, and in his gaze there suddenly lay something that was less doctor and more storyteller.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other,\u201d he said, \u201cis a story.\u201d<\/p>\n