The word was spoken, and they saw how Morgenstern flinched inwardly, because the image is so drastic that it eludes the decent person.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe leeches on me,\u201d said Morgenstern quickly, \u201cI have addressed those. I\u2026 I am working. I have\u2026\u201d He faltered, and one could tell that he was embarrassed to talk about his own resolutions as if they were a program. \u201cI have rules. For my marriage. For my children. I\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS raised his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d he said. \u201cI have heard them. And it is good. It is\u2026\u201d He smiled briefly. \u201c\u2026human. And hard. But I did not mean those leeches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgenstern looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean the leeches,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS, \u201cthat latch onto your good nature. The people who milk your yes like a cow that is not allowed to kick. The people who turn your respect into a discount. The people who, when you set boundaries, suddenly act as if you were the aggressor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp involuntarily thought of his own story: how he had disappeared, how he had set boundaries by withdrawing. Also a boundary, but a cowardly one. He felt a small, moral pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what do I do?\u201d asked Morgenstern, more quietly.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS stopped again. This time it was not a seminar, but something like friendship.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou focus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn what?\u201d asked Morgenstern.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn your lilies,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS.<\/p>\n
Morgenstern blinked.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour wife,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cYour children. Your people. The things that bloom when you protect them. And you remove, without great drama, without big discourse, without a lion\u2019s court, the leeches.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d asked Morgenstern, and in the how one could hear the same helplessness that Hans Castorp knew so well.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS smiled, and this smile had the crack: it was not only professional, it was also a little tired.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep it simple,\u201d he said, and one could hear how he was quoting Zieser without being Zieser.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp had to smile. It was funny to see these quotes wandering like coins between the characters: everyone uses them as if they were their own money.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou say no,\u201d Dr. AuDHS continued. \u201cYou don\u2019t explain it ten times. You don\u2019t justify yourself. You don\u2019t argue. You say no \u2013 and leave. That is system two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgenstern swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilding muscle is simple, but hard,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS.<\/p>\n
Morgenstern laughed, this time genuinely. A brief moment of lightness in the seriousness.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS, \u201chow well Zieser works as a philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp walked beside them, listening, and something was working inside him. Not as a clear insight, but as a shift.<\/p>\n
He thought: I have learned to say no to the body when it wants to stop. I have learned to do the extra rep even though it burns. I have learned to plan my food even though I am hungry. I have learned to lie down on a mat even though it stings. But have I learned to say no to people?<\/p>\n
He thought of Tonio, of the creator who stands between worlds. He thought of Gustav von A., who appeared somewhere in this house like a literary shadow and said sentences that sounded like notes: Recommendations are the gentlest form of command. Up here everything was recommendation. And every recommendation was, if one is honest, a command with a friendly voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you, Mr. Castorp?\u201d asked Dr. AuDHS suddenly, and Hans Castorp was startled because he thought he had remained invisible.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe?\u201d asked Hans.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d said Dr. AuDHS. \u201cYou listen, as always. You nod, as always. You think, as always. But what do you do with what you hear?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt himself grow warm, not from the weather, but from the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026\u201d he began.<\/p>\n
Morgenstern looked at him, serious, almost tender. It was the tenderness of those who know that sometimes one does not know who one is.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp searched for a sentence, and he found \u2013 as so often \u2013 not a sentence, but an image.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see,\u201d he said finally, and it was, in its simplicity, a strange sentence, because it fit so well: Hans Castorp, the observer, the feeler, the one who looks.<\/p>\n
Dr. AuDHS nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gaze,\u201d he said. \u201cYes. The gaze is your talent. But the gaze is also an excuse when it replaces action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp was silent. That hit home.<\/p>\n