rv hosteller 4- mustache

         2. Mustache

 

                    1.

 

As said before, he was happy reflecting on the day and nights when he 

wrestled with the book, Cafe Society, a collection of literary essays

on artists and café life. Most of all,he never forgot the postscript

in the Korean version of it which himself wrote, for the postscript

he wrote himself was thought to be the very beginning of his writing life.

And there was one more to stimulate him to catch the other of two visions

lingering before his eyes by writing it on the paper: It was a piece of advice

of Reina Maria Rilke, below, kept in his mind's pocket ever since he loved it

in his high school days.

"In order to write a line of poem,

You have to meet many cities, many people, and many books. 

Above all, you have to recollect the nights spent on the road of your journey

which passed away in vanity with  myriads of stars twinkling on the night sky."

 

Probably his life in the sanatorium in his youth was regarded as a kind

of precious journey .So he began to catch on the paper the other vision 

 muttering to himself:

"Oh, the innumerable nights that I spent  4 years

with no hope of recovery,

walking on the corridor of the sanatorium in my 20s!"

 

 

The winter of the sanatorium where he stayed was relatively long.It hides itself 

at the  thick-forested hill side More than anything else, most TB patients 

suffering from the irregular fluctuation of their body temperature were sensitive

to the weather in fear of getting cold,which possibly caused the horrible cough.

In spite of it, in the evening when it was snowy or thickly cloudy, the corridor

of the old structure built of wood began to liven up,with the electric light on,

assuming  a picturesque look against the dark woods outside 

There he happened to grow a mustache. At first it came to grow by itself. 

He did not shave while he was lying unmoved in bed in fear of blood-spitting again.

Soon after that, when he saw himself in a mirror to shave, he wanted to have

the hairs under the nose unshaved, thinking that it would be good, if he had

a mustache resembling that of Nietsche.That's all he did for it.

Then he was lucky to know that while he was trimming up his mustache 

he could forget the unbearable sufferings of breathing itself. One day reading

a Nietche, he felt attracted by a picture of the philosopher with a mustache 

in a book titled 'Das Sprake Zaratustra.' written by him. Then in a moment 

he wished to grow a mustache like his. So under a simple curiosity

he left the hairs on his upper lip when he shaved himself . 

With this as a momentum, he began to grow a  mustache,

He embellished it every morning before the mirror enjoying to see it grow ,

which resulted in temporarily stopping the fearful cough forget the suffering

of the fearful cough .

 

At that time he had nothing to desire but to breath in with ease.

When he awoke up, the first thing to do or his daily life was to check 

by himself how the sound of his breathing was, in other words, 

whether or not the sound of it got better than yesterday. 

And You can imagine the next things which he did with care one by one.

That is to say, He began to cough several times slightly with consciousness,

still in bed ,for the purpose of pulling up to the throat the phlegm amassed

last night in the upper part of both chests and spits it all out into the phlegm bottle.

After confirming that there was no blood stain mixed in it, he went out

to the washroom  having a fit of coughing, 

If  there was found a trace oft blood in phlegm,which could be a sign

of lung hemorrhage, he lay again in bed ,with a thermometer put

beneath the tongue, in fear of expected coughing up blood.

In this sense, it was not just for purpose of washing up that

every morning he went to the washroom .More than that, it was 

to inform others of his being well, with no problem through the last night.  

On the one hand, more importantly the mustache let him look charismatic

and athoritative to the eyes of 2 persons in red grape-color-ed mantle

in the ward where he was: one, Mr. Guago deaf-half mute,and the other,

Tango dancer,tall and slender.The two came to the sanatorium

almost the same time

A week or so  after the two patients passed over their serious condition,

they began to step out of the sick room, one by one, first to the corridor and

farther to the resting room in the ward, as most newcomers there did that way.

Then when the two newcomers encountered him ,they paid their respects,

to him,with their eyes fixed on his upper lip. Mr. Guago in aprticular was polite ,

in the obedient manner,to him with a mustache.

But  in a month or so Mr. Guago suddenly turned his attitude to him 

from that of respect into the opposite , even making fun of him before 

men and women in red-grape-colored mantle. Such a change of his attitude 

might be related with a reason: One day Mr. Guago happened to be

in the bathroom together with him and while the two sat, naked,

side by side on the bathroom floor, he suggested  to him

that he should wash off the dirt on his back. Rubbing his back softly, 

Mr.Guaga got disappointed at his skinny body.Then this was also the moment

his mustache lost its authoritative power to make Mr. Guago be polite.

Next he began to measure of  Hagya's wrist, ankle and neck by his hand

one after another smoothly. After that, Mr. Guago was sure that he was nothing

and since the moment on, treated him as if he were his Sancho in the novel

of Donqiote. For example, Mr. Guaga liked to walk through the long corridor

to the resting hall,where tens of the people, women amd men, 

in red grape-colored mantle was passing time gossiping. with one hand

grasping him by the coat collar around his back neck. So,Mr. Guago liked

to pride himself by comparing his splendid physique with that of him

.