They went outside.<\/p>\n
The sun struck them like a palm.<\/p>\n
The air was still damp, but now it also smelled of Gustav: of perfume, of powder, of a sweet severity.<\/p>\n
Gustav walked faster.<\/p>\n
He did not walk hastily \u2013 he walked resolutely.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp walked beside him, and he felt something stir inside him that he does not like to admit: a mixture of mockery and pity, of tenderness and aversion. That is, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, the Tonio position: one loves the bourgeois pose and despises it at the same time, because one knows that one needs it, and because one knows that it lies.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look\u2026 proper,\u201d said Hans Castorp finally.<\/p>\n
Gustav looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is not funny,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp raised his hand, almost apologetically.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not mean funny,\u201d he said. \u201cI meant\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
He searched for a word.<\/p>\n
Words are, if one is strict, often the worst mask: they reveal that one does not know what one feels.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026touching,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gustav stopped.<\/p>\n
He stopped as if he had to decide whether he wanted to be offended or grateful.<\/p>\n
Then he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cTouching is the opposite of dignified.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what the dignified say,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gustav laughed briefly.<\/p>\n
It was not a cheerful laugh.<\/p>\n
It was a laugh like a short cut.<\/p>\n
They walked on.<\/p>\n
At the end of an alley Hans Castorp saw another sign.<\/p>\n
Small.<\/p>\n
Unobtrusive.<\/p>\n
Three languages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is recommended\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp stopped.<\/p>\n
Gustav did not stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is recommended this time?\u201d asked Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
Gustav did not turn around.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat one does not eat raw seafood,\u201d he said, as if he knew it by heart.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp went to the sign.<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
Not dramatic.<\/p>\n
Not apocalyptic.<\/p>\n
Just the way hygiene warnings are phrased today: friendly, reasonable, as if it were about weather.<\/p>\n
And precisely because of that, thought Hans Castorp, they seem like fate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Gustav shrugged his shoulders.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause something is circulating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Something circulating.<\/p>\n
Venice is, if one is strict, a city of circulation: water in circulation, money in circulation, female and male tourists in circulation, smells in circulation. And now: illness in circulation. It fits.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp thought of the ring.<\/p>\n
He thought: It measures circulation. Pulse. Blood flow. Vascular stiffness.<\/p>\n
He thought: One can measure circulation.<\/p>\n
One cannot stop it.<\/p>\n
They went to the piazza.<\/p>\n
They passed people who were eating ice cream.<\/p>\n
They passed people who were photographing oysters.<\/p>\n
They passed people who, spruced up, were photographing themselves in the sun, as if sun were proof that one is alive.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp saw the faces.<\/p>\n
Many were masked, not with fabric, but with smiles.<\/p>\n
Smiles are, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, the most frequent masks in hotels and vacation spots. They say: I am fine, and no one may ask why.<\/p>\n
They sat down in a caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
Gustav chose a table so that he could see the door.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp chose the chair at the edge, because he always chooses the edge.<\/p>\n
Gustav pulled out the newspaper.<\/p>\n
He again pretended to read.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at him.<\/p>\n
Gustav\u2019s hair shone in the light.<\/p>\n
It was too dark, very slightly.<\/p>\n
Not so much that one notices it immediately; but enough that, when one looks, one senses: Something is not right here.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp looked at Gustav\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
They were calm.<\/p>\n
But the fingers drummed.<\/p>\n
Very lightly.<\/p>\n
A rhythm that was not music, but nerve.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are afraid,\u201d said Hans Castorp.<\/p>\n
Gustav raised his gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf what?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
It was a real question.<\/p>\n
That is what makes it so dangerous.<\/p>\n
Hans Castorp wanted to say: of old age.<\/p>\n
He wanted to say: of death.<\/p>\n
He wanted to say: of beauty.<\/p>\n
Instead he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThat it does not suffice for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gustav looked at him for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never suffices.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this sentence, esteemed female reader, esteemed male reader, is perhaps the plainest and at the same time the most cheerless sentence about human existence: It never suffices.<\/p>\n