\u201cWhy are you showing me this?\u201d, he asked.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik looked at the screen for a moment, then back at Hans.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the gentleman might stay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt the air in the room change.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay?\u201d, he repeated.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong-term guests,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know: one comes for three nights and stays. It is the rule. Not the exception. And when one stays, then one becomes\u2026\u201d He searched for a word that did not sound brutal. \u201c\u2026part of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the house. That sounded like belonging. And like imprisonment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd,\u201d said Kautsonik, \u201cwhen one becomes part of the house, then it is better if one knows how the house works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you believe\u2026\u201d, he began.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik raised his eyebrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe anything,\u201d he said. \u201cI register.\u201d<\/p>\n
Register. A word that can be both friendly and police-like at the same time.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp felt an old, cold shadow run down his back. Not the shadow of the war itself, but the shadow of the lists. The shadow of the names. The shadow of that German passion for order, which always pretends to be harmless until it no longer is.<\/p>\n
\u201cGestapo,\u201d he thought, without thinking it; and he was immediately ashamed of the thought, because he knew that Kautsonik was not a Gestapo man, but an old concierge. But modernity, dear female reader, dear male reader, likes to work with harmless faces.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik looked at him as if he had heard the word, although it had not been spoken.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not evil,\u201d he said softly. \u201cIt is only\u2026 consistent. A house like this lives on knowledge. And knowledge,\u201d he pointed to the monitor line, \u201cis always digital today. Digital means: copyable. And copyable means: no longer in your hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded slowly. System two, he thought. Think slowly. Don\u2019t panic.<\/p>\n
He looked back at the screen.<\/p>\n
He saw his profile, and suddenly he felt something that Tonio set resonating in him: a longing, touching and unsatisfying at the same time. Because there stood, among all the fields, something like care. They had remembered that he wanted quiet. They had remembered that fireworks frightened him. They had remembered that he did not want to be disturbed at night. That was \u2013 if one is lenient \u2013 loving.<\/p>\n
And that was exactly the danger. Because love makes one dependent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the one who stays?\u201d, Hans Castorp asked quietly, more to himself than to Kautsonik.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik smiled as if he had been expecting the question for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one who stays,\u201d he said, \u201chas no line on the wall. He has work. He has routine. He has\u2026\u201d He paused briefly. \u201c\u2026attachment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attachment. The word sounded, in this room, like handcuffs made of velvet.<\/p>\n
He stepped up to the wall on which the sentence, in cursive script, also hung here in the back office in smaller form \u2013 as if it had been copied to the inside so that the employees would not forget what they have to play.<\/p>\n
Joy to him who comes. Joy to him who goes.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik took a pen from the drawer. Without hesitating, he wrote under the sentence, very small, almost invisible:<\/p>\n
And duty to him who stays.<\/p>\n
He stepped back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp stared at the new line. It was not art, it was not literature, it was only a correction. And yet Hans Castorp felt that in this correction there was more truth than in many a lecture in the music room.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you allowed to do that?\u201d, he asked.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik shrugged his shoulders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am retired,\u201d he said. \u201cA retiree. A rented retiree. I am allowed more than the young ones think. And less than I would like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp smiled, but it was a smile without joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you want\u2026 to stay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik looked at him, and in his gaze there suddenly lay, very briefly, something soft. A crack. Humanity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to stand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp did not understand at once. Then he understood. For Kautsonik had already said it, on New Year\u2019s Day, between stollen and champagne: that he wanted to die standing in the reception hall, if it were up to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d, asked Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik looked at his hands. The hands were thin, but they were neat. He looked at his legs \u2013 and Hans Castorp saw that the movement, the little tug at the trouser leg, had not only been a habit. It was a pain. Or a pressure. Or a sign.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause sitting,\u201d said Kautsonik, and here for a moment he sounded like Zieser, \u201cis the new dying. You sit, you sink, you disappear. I don\u2019t want to disappear by sinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp was silent. He thought: A house that sells longevity has a man who understands dying as a posture.<\/p>\n
Kautsonik closed the folder, turned the monitor back.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome,\u201d he said. \u201cEnough backdrop. The operation is waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n