Chapter 3 by Thomas Mann Lyrics
Some business of the worldly and literary kind held the hopeful traveler-to-be back in Munich for another two weeks after that walk. Finally he gave orders to prepare his country house for him within four weeks and then one day between the middle and the end of May he took the night train to Trieste, where he only stopped for twenty-four hours and the next day embarked for Pola. What he was looking for was the unfamiliar and unrelated, which was indeed reached rather easily and so he stayed on a celebrated Adriatic island, situated not far from the Istrian coast, with a gaily ragged people that conversed in an alien-sounding language and with picturesquely broken cliffs where the sea was open. Unfortunately, heavy rain and an oppressive atmosphere, a parochial and completely Austrian company in the hotel and the lack of calm and easy communion with the sea which only a soft-sloping and sandy beach can afford, caused him distress, prevented in him the feeling that he had reached his destination; an innermost calling of his, he did not know to where, caused him alarm, he studied the passenger ship routes, he looked around searchingly, and all of a sudden, at the same time surprising and expected, his destination became clear to him. When one wanted to see something without equal, the romantically different, where would one go? There could be no question about it. What was he supposed to do here? He had erred. He should have had traveled to that other location in the first place. He did not hesitate to immediately cancel his abortive stay on the island. One-and-a-half weeks after his arrival on the island, at hazy dawn a fast launch took him and his luggage back to the military harbor and there he only went ashore to directly step onto the damp deck of a ship bound for Venice.
It was a vehicle under an Italian flag, stricken with years, outmoded, serene, and somber. In a cave-like, artificially-lit berth, into which Aschenbach had been instantly ushered with grinning courtesy by a humpbacked and dirty sailor after setting foot onto the ship, there sat a behind a table with his hat slanted on his head and with a cigarette butt between his lips a goatish man who had the physiognomy of an old-fashioned circus director, who with artificially easy demeanor registered the nationalities of the travelers and handed them their tickets. "To Venice!" he repeated Aschenbach's request, straightening his arm and pushing the quill into the pulpy remains of an inclined inkstand. "First class to Venice! Here you are, sir!" And he wrote with huge loops, dispensed some blue sand from a can onto the writing, let the sand run into a clay bowl, folded the paper with yellow and bony fingers and continued his writing. "A happily chosen destination!" he chattered meanwhile. "Ah, Venice! A magnificent city! A city full of irresistible attraction to the well-educated, both due to its history and its present charms!" The smooth dispatch of his movements and the empty talk that accompanied them had something stupefying and distracting, almost as if he feared the passenger might waver in his determination to go to Venice. He speedily cashed the money and let the change fall onto the dirty tablecloth with the dexterity of a croupier. "Have a nice day, sir!" he said with a thespian bow. "It is my honor to convey you. . . Next please!" he cried with a raised arm, pretending his business was lively even though there was nobody else around who needed a ticket. Aschenbach returned onto the deck.
Leaning with one arm on the handrail, he contemplated both the idle people who were mooching at the pier to witness the ship's departure and his fellow passengers. Those of the second class were crouching on the foredeck, using boxes and bundles as seats. A group of young people formed the company of the first deck, apparently tradesman's apprentices from Pola who had merrily united for a trip to Italy. They made a lot of fuss about themselves and their enterprise, chattered, laughed, contentedly enjoyed their own gesticulating and mocked those colleagues, who, portfolios tucked under their arms, were walking along the street to pursue their business and who made threatening gestures to the departing. One in a bright yellow, excessively fashionable summer suit, red tie, and a boldly bent up panama hat, exceeded all the others with his shrill voice and gayness. No sooner had Aschenbach set eyes on him than he realized with a kind of terror that this ephebe was false. He was ancient, there could be no doubt about it. Wrinkles surrounded his mouth and eyes. The meek crimson of his cheeks was makeup, that brown hair below the colorfully-banded straw hat was a wig, his neck was dilapidated and sinewy, his moustache was dyed, his yellowish and complete set of teeth which he laughingly presented was a cheap counterfeit, and his hands with signet rings on both index fingers were that of a very old man. With a shudder Aschenbach looked at him and his communion with his friends. Did they not know or notice they he was elderly, that he was wrongfully appropriating their garish dress, fraudulently played one of theirs? As if nothing had happened, seemingly out of habit, they tolerated him among themselves, treated him as an equal, answered his teasing nudges without disgust. How could that be? Aschenbach covered his forehead with his hand and closed his eyes that were burning from a lack of sleep.
He felt as if reality was becoming unreal, as if a dreamlike enchantment had begun, a shift of the world into the inexplicable, which perhaps could be opposed by closing his eyes and then taking another look. But in that moment he became aware of a sensation of floating and strangely startled he realized that the heavy and dark mass of the ship had detached itself from the quay. Inch by inch, with the engine running alternately forwards and backwards, the strip of dirtily iridescent water between the ship's hull and the shore widened, and after some stodgy maneuvers, the steamer's bow was pointing towards the open sea. Aschenbach went over the the starboard side, where the humpbacked sailor had prepared a deck chair for him and a steward in a spotted dress coat awaited his orders.
The sky was gray, the wind moist; the harbor and the islands had receded, and soon land was no longer visible. A snow of coal dust, soaked with humidity, settled on the freshly-scrubbed deck that refused to dry. After about an hour the tent roof was deployed, as it had begun to rain.
Wrapped in his coat, a book in his lap, the traveler rested and time seemed to fly. The rain had ceased; the linen roof was removed. The horizon was complete. Beneath the broad cupola of the sky the enormous disc of the barren sea extended all around; but in that empty, measureless space our sense of time also suffers, and we daze in the disorienting shapelessness. Strange and shade-like creatures, the senescent dandy, the goat-bearded man from below decks, traipsed with vague gestures and confused dream- words through the mind of the reclining artist, and eventually he fell asleep.
At noon he was required to venture below into the corridor-like dining hall, which was bordered on by the sleeping bunks, eating the ordered meal at a long table, on the other side of which the apprentices, including the senex, had been drinking heavily with the jolly captain since ten o'clock. The meal was meager and he quickly finished it. He wanted to go outside, to look at the sky: if maybe it would brighten in the direction of Venice.
He did not anticipate anything else, for the city had always received him with splendor. But the sky and the sea remained cloudy and leaden, at times a fog-like drizzle fell, and slowly he accepted that he would, reaching it by water, discover a vastly different Venice from that which he had approached over land. He stood next to the foremast, gazing into the distance, expecting to see land. He thought of that melancholy-enthusiastic poet who had met the cupolas and bell towers of his dreams in this place, he quietly recalled some of the products of that awe-stricken, happy, and sad mood and moved by that ready-made emotion he wondered whether he, although more somber and tired than then, would meet that state of rapture and confusion a second time.
Then to his right the soft-sloping shore appeared, fishing boats made the sea lively, the Lido came into view, the steamer passed it on the right, gliding slowly through the channel of the same name and close to the lagoon it came to a rest entirely in full view of the poor and gaudy houses, since the barge of the sanitary service had to be met.
An hour passed before it materialized. One had reached one's destination and yet one had not; there was no hurry and yet one soon got impatient. The youths of Pola, perhaps also drawn to the military trumpet signals that echoed over the waters, had come on deck, and, enthusiastic from the Asti they had drunken, they cheered the Bersaglieri who were being drilled there. But it was repugnant to witness the state into which his faux communion with youth had brought the overdressed old man. His old and faded brain had not been able to resist the liquor to the same degree as the real youths, he was hopelessly drunk. Looking stupidly around, a cigarette between his trembling fingers, he swayed, barely able to keep his balance, pulled to and fro by his intoxication. Because he would have fallen down at the very first step, he did not dare to move, yet still displayed a sorry cockiness, holding on to everyone who approached him, speaking with a slur, winking, giggling, raising his ringed and wrinkled index finger to tease ridiculously, and licking the corners of his mouth in the most distastefully ambiguous manner. Aschenbach watched him with an expression of anger, and again he got a feeling of unreality, as if the world showed a small but definite tendency to slip into the peculiar and grotesque; a sensation which the resumption of the pounding work of the engine kept him from exploring fully, as the ship returned to its course through the San Marco canal. So he again set eyes on the most astounding landing, that blinding composition of fantastic architecture, which the Republic has to offer the awestruck looks of the approaching seafarer: the light grandeur of the Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, the columns topped with the lion and the saint close to the shore, the flauntingly projecting flank of St Mark's, the view of St Mark's Clock, and thus contemplating he thought that arriving in Venice from the train station was like entering a palace through the servants' entrance and that one should always, like himself, travel across the ocean to the most improbable of cities.
The engine stopped, gondolas approached, the accommodation ladder was low-ered, the customs officials came aboard and carried out their duty; the debarkation could begin. Aschenbach made it clear that he desired a gondola to bring him and his luggage to the landing of the smaller steamers that cruise between the city and the Lido; because he wanted a room close to the sea. His wish is approved and hollered towards the water, where the gondoliers are quarreling in dialect. He is unable to descend, as his trunk is taken with great effort down the ladder-like stairs.
So he cannot get away for several minutes from the intrusiveness of the ghastly old man, who is compelled by his drunkenness to bid the foreigner good-bye. "We are wishing a most enjoyable stay One hopes to be remembered well! Au revoir, excusez and bonjour, Your Excellency!" His mouth is watering, he winks, licks the corners of his mouth and the dyed moustache on his lips is ruffled up. "Our compliments," he continues with two fingertips at his mouth, "our compliments to your sweetheart, the most lovely and beautiful sweetheart. . . " And suddenly the upper row of his false teeth drops onto his tongue. Aschenbach was able to escape. "To your sweetheart, the most pretty sweetheart," he heard in hollow and somewhat obstructed speech behind his back while he descended the ladder.
Who would not have had to fight a slight unease, a secret resentment and trepidation when one, for the first or after a long time, had to get into a Venetian gondola? That strange vehicle, which seems unchanged from more fanciful times and which is so strangely black like normally only coffins are, reminds one of silent and criminal adventures in the lapping night, furthermore it is reminiscent of death itself, the bier, the drab funeral and the final, wordless ride. And has one noticed that the coffin-black-varnished, black-upholstered chair in such a barge is the softest, most luxurious, most deeply relaxing seat in the whole world? Aschenbach noticed it when he took his place at the feet of the gondolier, with his luggage orderly arranged at the front of the gondola. The rowers were still quarreling, in a raw and incomprehensible way, with menacing gestures. But the peculiar quietude of the city on the sea seemed to absorb and disembody their voices and to disperse them above the water. It was fairly hot in the harbor. Touched by the warm scirocco, seated on tender cushions, the traveler closed his eyes to enjoy that kind of unusual and sweet lassitude. The trip will be short, he thought; oh would it last forever! The noiseless rocking let him put a distance between himself and that boisterous jostle.
How it became even more still around him all the time! Nothing could be heard except the lapping of the oar, the hollow impact of the waves against the tip of the gondola, that stood erect, dark and like a spear above the water and a third thing, the whispering and murmuring of the gondolier, who was talking to himself between his clenched teeth in occasional outbursts. Aschenbach raised his head and with a slight bemusement he noticed that the lagoon around him widened and the his course was towards the open sea. Therefore it seemed he should not relax too much but instead supervise the carrying out of his orders.
—"To the steamship landing, please!" he said, turning over his shoulder. The murmuring ceased. He got no reply.
—"To the steamship landing!" he repeated and turned around completely to look up into the gondolier's face, who was standing behind him, a little elevated, in front of the pale sky. It was a man of unpleasing, even violent physiognomy, dressed in blue sailor's garb, girded with a yellow sash and with a shapeless straw hat that had begun to dissolve at its edges slanted on his head. The form of his face, his blond and curly moustache below the stubby nose did not make him look very Italian. Although of relatively slender build, so that he did not seem particularly suited to his trade, he showed great energy when he used his whole body to drive the oar at every beat. A few times the exertion caused him to withdraw his lips and expose his white teeth. With his gaze fixed above the guest and his reddish eyebrows wrinkled he replied in a determined, almost harsh tone:
— "You are going to the Lido."
Aschenbach replied:
—"Indeed. But I only wanted the gondola to take me to St Mark's Square.
I wish to go with the vaporetto."
—"You cannot go with the vaporetto, sir."
-"And why not?"
—"Because the vaporetto does not transport luggage."
That was correct; Aschenbach remembered. He was silent. But the brusque, boastful, uncharacteristic behavior of that man seemed intolerable. He said: He remained taciturn. The oar was lapping, the water clashed dully against the bow. And the talking and murmuring resumed: the gondolier was speaking to himself between his teeth.
What had to be done? Alone on the water with the strangely disobedient, unsettlingly determined man the traveler did not see a way to force upon him his will. And how softly he could be seated if he did not protest. Had he not wished that the trip should take longer, or forever? It was most prudent to let things take their course, and besides it was most comfortable. A spell of torpidity seemed to emanate from that low and black seat, so tenderly rocked by the oar beats of the defiant gondolier in his back. The notion of having fallen into the hands of a rogue streaked dreamlike through Aschenbach's mind — unable to summon his senses for active defense. Less appetizing was the possibility that this was just an act of extortion. A certain feeling of duty, the realization that one had to guard against such a thing, allowed him to make another effort. He asked:
—"How much do you want for the fare?"
And looking above him the gondolier responded:
-"You will pay."
It was clear what had to be replied to this. Aschenbach said mechanically:
—"I will pay you nothing, nothing at all if you take me somewhere I did not want to go."
—"You want to go to the Lido."
—"But not with you."
—"I row you well."
That much is true, thought Aschenbach and relaxed again. It is true, you are rowing me well. Even if you are trying to get my money and would kill me with a quick blow of the oar, you would have rowed me well. But nothing of the sort happened. Even some company appeared, a boat with musical mendicants, men and women, singing to the accompaniment of guitars and mandolins, coming obtrusively close to the gondola, filling the quietude above the waters with their mercenary tunes. Aschenbach threw a few coins into the hat that was presented. They fell silent and rowed away. And the murmuring of the gondolier was perceptible
once more.
And so one arrived, rocked by the backwash of a steamer headed for the city. Two municipal officers, hands clasped behind their backs, their heads facing the lagoon, were walking back and forth at the shore. Aschenbach got off the gondola at the pier, with help from the old man with his grappling hook who seems to be present on all Venetian landings; and because he did not have enough coins he entered the hotel which was situated across from the landing, to exchange some money and reward the gondolier as he pleased. He is served in the lobby, he returns, find his luggage on a cart at the quay, and the gondola and gondolier have disappeared.
—"He has taken off," said the old man with the grappling hook. "A very bad man, a man without a license, dear sir. He is the only gondolier without a license. The others have telephoned here. He saw that he was being expected. So he took off."
Aschenbach shrugged his shoulders.
—"The sir has had a free ride," said the old man and presented his hat. Aschenbach threw in some coins. He gave orders to take his luggage to the Hotel des Bains and followed the cart through the alleyway, that white-blossoming alley, which, bordered by taverns, bazaars, and bed and breakfasts, runs across the island to the beach.
He entered the sprawling hotel from the rear, from the garden terrace and went through the lobby to the office. Because he had been announced, he was greeted with servile complicity. A manager, a diminutive, soft-spoken, ingratiatingly courteous man with a black moustache and a frock coat in the French style, accompanied him in the elevator to the third floor and showed him his room, a pleasant room with cherry furniture, decorated with heavily fragrant flowers and which had tall windows affording a view of the sea. He stepped close to one of them, after the manager had taken his leave, and while behind him his luggage was carried in, he surveyed the beach which lay deserted in the afternoon and the sunless sea at high tide sending its crouched and elongated waves in a steady rhythm against the shore.
The observations and encounters of the solitary and mute one are at the same time more blurry and more distinctive than those of the more sociable person, his thoughts more substantial, stranger, and never without a trace of sadness. Images and perceptions that would be easy to dismiss with a laugh, a short exchange of words, occupy him excessively and grow deeper and more important in silence, become experience, adventure, emotion. Solitude favors the original, the daringly and otherworldly beautiful, the poem. But it also favors the wrongful, the extreme, the absurd, and the forbidden. — Thus the unusual incidences on the journey were still disconcerting to the traveler, the horrible old man with his blabbering about a sweetheart, the gondolier who had not received payment. Without obstructing reason or giving any real food for thought, they were still extremely bizarre and possibly so bewildering because of that contradiction. In between he greeted the sea with his eyes and delighted in the knowledge that Venice could be so quickly and easily reached. Finally he turned, washed his face, gave some orders to the chambermaid to improve his comfort and had the green-liveried Swiss elevator attendant take him to the ground floor.
He took his tea on the seaside terrace, then descended and walked a good distance along the shore in the direction of the Hotel Excelsior. Upon his return it appeared to be time to dress for dinner. He did that slowly and with diligence, yet found himself still too early in the dining hall, where a group of hotel guests, un-known to each other and in feigned disinterest, had congregated in the expectation of a meal. He picked up a paper, seated himself in a club chair and contemplated the company which differed in a most agreeable way from that during his earlier stay on the island.
A wide and all-encompassing horizon opened itself out. Muffled sounds from many different languages were mixing. The omnipresent dinner jacket, the uniform of the civilized world, gathered all facets of human variety into one orderly whole. One saw the dry and elongated face of the American, the large Russian family, English ladies, German children with French nannies. The Slavic component appeared to predominate. Polish was spoken right next to him.
It was a group of adolescents and bare adults, under the supervision of a governess around a small table: three young girls, perhaps between fifteen and seventeen, and a long-haired boy of about fourteen years. With astonishment Aschenbach noticed that the boy was perfectly beautiful. His countenance — pale and gracefully reserved, surrounded by honey-colored locks, with its evenly sloped nose, the lovely mouth, the expression of alluring and divine earnestness, was reminiscent of Greek statues from the most noble period, and with all its perfection of form it had such a personal appeal that the onlooker thought he had never encountered anything similar either in nature or in art. What else was striking was an apparently deliberate contrast between the educational guidelines after which the children were dressed and kept in general. The exterior of the girls, the oldest of which could be taken for an adult, was tart and chaste to the point of disfigurement. A uniform monastic garb, shale-toned, of average length, sober and consciously unbecoming, with white collars as the only bright spot, suppressed and made impossible any pleasingness of figure. The smooth hair that appeared to be glued to the head gave their faces a featurelessness and nunlike lack of expression. It seemed certain this was the work of a mother, and naturally it did not occur to her to apply that same paedagogic severity that pertained to the girls to the boy also. Mellowness and affection visibly ruled his existence. One had abstained from cutting his arresting hair; like the statue of the Boy with Thorn it curled onto the forehead, over the ears, and even more so in the nape. An English sailor suit, the voluminous sleeves of which were tapered towards the ends and which surrounded the delicate joints of his still childlike and narrow hands, contributed, with its strings, bows, and embroideries, an air of wealth and fastidiousness. He was sitting, in semiprofile from Aschenbach's point of view, one foot in front of the other, with an elbow leaning on the armrest of his basket chair, his cheek comforted by his closed hand, in an attitude of relaxed decorum and completely without the submissive stiffness that his sisters seemed to be used to. Was he sick? Because the white of his skin contrasted like ivory with the golden somberness of the adjacent curls. Or was he simply a coddled favorite child, carried by partial and capricious devotion? Aschenbach was inclined to believe that. Almost every artistic individual has a luxurious and treacherous propensity to recognize beauty- creating inequity and to render homage to aristocratic entitlement.
A waiter went around and announced the readiness of the meal in English. Slowly the society disappeared through the glass door into the dining room. Latecomers passed by, arriving from the vestibule or the elevator. Inside the serving had begun, but the young Poles remained seated around the little tables and Aschenbach, sitting snugly in his chair, not to mention having a favorable view of something beautiful, lingered along with them.
The governess, a stocky dame with a reddish face, finally gave the signal to rise. With lifted eyebrows she shoved back her chair and bowed, when a tall lady, dressed in white and gray and richly attired with pearls, entered the room. She comported herself with coolness and restraint, the arrangement of her lightly powdered hair and the style of her dress were of that simplicity which always rules good taste where devoutness is considered an element of noblesse. She could have been the wife of a high-ranking German official. Something extravagant only entered her appearance through her jewelry, which seemed extremely expensive and consisted of earrings and a triple, very long necklace of cherry-sized, mildly shimmering pearls.
The children had arisen promptly. They kissed their mother's hand, who looked above their heads with an aloof smile of her well-groomed but slightly tired and sharp-nosed face and addressed a few words in French to the governess. Then she proceeded towards the glass door. The children followed her: the girls ordered by age, then the governess, and finally the boy. For some unknown reason he turned around before crossing the threshold and since nobody else was present, his curiously dark-gray eyes met those of Aschenbach, who, with the newspaper on his lap and deep in his thoughts, had traced the group.
What he had seen was certainly not remarkable in its details. One had not gone to table before the mother, one had waited for her, greeted her and observed the usual customs on entering the dining room. But somehow all that was presented with such a deliberate accentuation of manners, commitment, and self-respect that Aschenbach felt strangely moved by it. He hesitated for a few moments and then also went into the dining room and had himself seated, unfortunately quite far from the Polish family as he observed with regret.
Exhausted and yet in mental commotion, he entertained himself with abstract, even transcendental subjects during dinner, mulled the mysterious link between the orderly and the individual for human beauty to appear, departed from there to think about the general problems of form and art and eventually found his thoughts and findings to resemble certain apparently fortuitous ideas in a dream, that on closer inspection reveal themselves to be completely stale and unworkable. After the meal he went into the park that was filled with evening smells and smoked, sometimes sitting, sometimes walking, then he went to bed even though it was still early and spent the night in sleep that was consistently deep, but enlivened by dreams of the most varied kinds.
The weather had not improved on the next day. A land breeze was stirring. Under a pale and overcast sky the sea lay in dull quietness, shrunken so to say, with a soberingly clear horizon and so far removed from the beach than it exposed several large sandbanks. When Aschenbach opened his window, he believed to sense the putrid smell of the lagoon.
Discontent befell him. Already he considered departing. Once, a few years ago, this kind of weather had, after two sunny spring weeks, struck him and had impacted his mood in such a way that he had had to flee from Venice. Did not again that febrile listlessness, that pressure in the temples, that heaviness of the eyelids make themselves known? Moving to a new lodging for another time would be tiresome; but if the wind did not change direction, he would not stay. Just in case he did not fully unpack his luggage. At nine o'clock he ate breakfast in the special room that was reserved for that use, between the lobby and the dining room.
In the buffet room that ceremonial silence reigned that is part of the ambition of every great hotel. The waiters tiptoed around while serving. A clattering of the tea service, a half-whispered word was all that could be heard. In a corner, diagonally across from the door and two tables apart from him, Aschenbach noticed the Polish girls with their governess. Very upright, the ash blond hair newly flattened and with red eyes, in stiff dresses made of blue linen with little white collars and cuffs they sat there and handed each other the jam. They had almost finished their breakfast. The boy was absent.
Aschenbach smiled to himself. "So, my little Phaeacian!" he thought. "You seem to possess the privilege of sleeping in." And suddenly merry he recited the line from a poem below his breath:
"Jewelry, a hot bath, and rest have often made a difference."
He ate without hurry, received some letters from the porter, who had come to the room with his cap taken off, and opened a few of them while smoking a cigarette. So it happened that he still witnessed the entrance of the long sleeper who was already expected at the other table.
He came in through the glass door and ambled through the silence diagonally across the room to his sisters' table. His walk was very graceful, both in his stance and in the movement of the knees, the way his feet touched the ground, very light, at the same time tender and proud and made more appealing through the childlike self-consciousness with which he looked up and down two times while crossing the room. Smiling, with a soft word in his fuzzy-sounding language he took his place, and now that he presented the onlooker with his full profile, Aschenbach was taken by surprise again, even frightened by the godlike beauty of that human child. That day the lad was wearing a light suit of blue and white fabric with a bow of red silk on his breast and a simple white collar. Above that collar, which did not even fit the rest of the suit very elegantly, the flower of his crown rested with unequaled charm — the head of Eros, with the yellowish tint of Parisian marble, with exquisite and somber brows, temples and ear covered by the dark and soft curls of his hair.
Well, well, thought Aschenbach with that cool approval of the specialist, with which artists at times cloak their transports of delight in the face of a masterwork. And further he thought: Truly, are not the sea and the beach waiting for me, I will remain here as long as you! So he went across the hall, greeted by the waiters, along the great terrace and straight over the boardwalk to the private beach reserved for hotel guests. He let the barefoot old man, who was, in his linen pants, sailor's blouse, and straw hat, working as a bath attendant there, show him his little beach hut, had a chair and table taken from inside and put in front of it on the wooden platform and made himself comfortable in the deck chair, which he had put up a bit closer to the sea in the wax-yellow sand.
The scene at the beach, that picture of carefree and sensual enjoyment next to the sea, entertained and delighted him as always. The gray and even ocean was enlivened by wading children, swimmers, garish figures, others, who were laying on sandbanks with their arms folded under their heads. Some were rowing small boats in red and blue without a keel, capsizing with roaring laughter. In front of the row of beach huts, whose platforms were like little verandas, there was playful motion and lazy rest, visits and chattering, careful early morning elegance but also nudity, which pertly took pleasure in the freedom of the place. Closer to the sea, lone figures were strolling on the moist and firm sand in white dressing gowns or in voluminous, colorful garb. An intricate sand castle to Aschenbach's right, built by children, was sporting all around tiny flags of many different countries. Vendors of mussels, pies, and fruit were on their knees spreading out their goods. On the left, in front of a hut that stood at a right angle to the other ones and was the endpoint of the beach on that side, a Russian family was camping: men with beards and large teeth, mellow and idle women, a Baltic damsel, who was sitting in front of an easel and was painting the sea with intermittent cries of despair, two benevolent and ugly children, an old maidservant with a kerchief and tenderly servile slave manners. In grateful appreciation they were living there, always calling out the names of the unruly youngsters, jesting for a long time with the old man thanks to a few words of Italian, buying sweets, kissing each other on the cheeks, and generally not caring about any onlookers.
So I will stay, Aschenbach thought. Where could it be better? And with his hands folded in his lap he allowed his eyes to wander in the vastness of the sea, his gaze slipping, becoming blurred, and breaking in the monotonous mist of nothingness. He loved the ocean for important reasons: out of the desire for tranquility harbored by the hard-working artist, who seeks to conceal himself from the multitude of possibilities by embracing the simple and immense; out of a forbidden proclivity for the unordered, the immeasurable, the eternal, the void that was made even more attractive by running counter to his work. To find peace in the presence of the faultless is the desire of the one who seeks excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection? While he was dreaming into the deepness of space, he suddenly became aware of a human figure close to the shoreline and when he collected his glance from the unlimited, it turned out to be the beautiful boy, who, coming from the left, was crossing the sand before him. He was barefoot, ready for wading, his slender legs bared till above the knees, advancing slowly, but so nimbly and proudly as if he was used to walking without footwear and he surveyed the huts. No sooner had he noticed the peaceful Russian family than his face was clouded by a tempest of scorn and disdain. His brow darkened, his mouth was lifted, between the lips and the cheeks an embittered tearing took place, and his eyebrows were so heavily wrinkled that they made the eyes appear sunken in and let them speak the evil and somber language of hatred. He averted his glance, beheld them another time, made a fiercely dismissive gesture with his shoulder and turned his back unto the enemy.
A sort of tenderness or terror, something like shame or respect caused Asch-enbach to turn away as if he had seen nothing; because the serious observer of a casual passion refuses to admit his impressions even to himself. But he was delighted and shocked at the same time: that is, elated. This childish fanaticism which was directed at the most benign slab of life — it made the divinely vacant a part of the human order; it made nature's precious work of art, that had only been fit to be an eyeful, seem worthy of a deeper sympathy; and it gave the already striking personage of the youth a historico-political backdrop that allowed him to be taken seriously in spite of his age.
Still turned away, Aschenbach listened to the boy's speech, his high-pitched and somewhat feeble voice, with which he tried to announce himself to his comrades playing at the sand castle. The replies consisted in calling him by his real name or a pet name and Aschenbach paid interested attention, without being able to hear them perfectly, to two melodic syllables like "Adgio" or more frequently "Adgiu" with a vocatively-stretched "oo" sound at the end. He delighted in the tone of it, he found its pleasantness befitting the thing it described, repeated it below his breath and contently moved on to his letters and other paperwork.
His little writing case on his lap, he began to pen assorted correspondence. But after about a quarter of an hour had passed, it occurred to him how unfortunate it was to let this situation, the most delightful he had known, pass by like that. He moved aside his writing utensils, returned to the sea, and after a short while, seated on his deck chair and distracted by the voices of the children who were working on the sand castle, he turned his head to the right to further investigate the comings and goings of the marvelous Adgio.
His glance immediately discovered him; the red bow on his breast was difficult to miss. Occupied with the others in furnishing an old plank as a drawbridge for the sand castle, he gave loud orders for that endeavor, emphasizing his commands with movements of his head. With him there were about ten comrades in all, boys and girls, some of his age and some younger, speaking in Polish, French, and languages of the Balkans. But it was his name that was heard most often. Obviously he was popular, courted, admired. One of them, a stocky lad who was called "Jaschu," with black, slicked-back hair and in a linen suit, appeared to be his closest servant and confidant. When the daily work on the sand edifice had finished, they ambled along the beach in each other's arms, and the one called "Jaschu" placed a kiss on the beautiful Adgio's cheek.
Aschenbach was tempted to make a threatening gesture with the finger to Jaschu. "I advise you, Critobulus," he thought smilingly, "to leave for a year! Because it will take as much time for you to recover." And then he went on to eat a breakfast of very large and ripe strawberries which he had obtained from a vendor. It had gotten very hot, although the Sun had been unable to penetrate the layer of haze in the sky. Lassitude immobilized the mind, while the senses were taking pleasure in the immense and deadening spectacle of the silent sea. To divine, to explore which name it might be that sounded a bit like "Adgio" was considered by the earnest man a fitting and absolutely filling task and occupation. With the help of some Polish remembrances he decided that it had to be "Tadzio," short for "Tadeusz" and "Tadziu" in the vocative. Tadzio was bathing. Aschenbach, who had lost him from his sight, found his head, his arm, with which he made rowing motions, far away out on the sea; because it was quite shallow for a great distance. But immediately there was concern about him, female voices were calling out for him from the huts, exclaiming again that word which was like a password at the beach and that, with its soft sound and its drawn out "oo" sound at the end, had something both sweet and wild about it: "Tadziu, Tadziu!" He obeyed, he ran through the flood, causing the water to foam with his legs, his head tilted backwards; and to witness how the lively figure, pretty and harsh in a not-yet-manly way, with dripping curls and handsome like a youthful god, ascended from the watery depths of sky and sea: That sight induced mythical connotations, he was like a poem about ancient times, the birth of form and the genesis of the gods. Aschenbach intently listened to that song that came from inside; and again he thought that it was good to be here and that he wanted to stay.
Later Tadzio lay, exhausted from his bathing, on the sand, wrapped in white linen which was tucked under the right shoulder, resting with his head on his bare arm; and even when Aschenbach was not looking at him but read a few pages in his book, he almost never forgot the recumbent and that he only had to turn his head slightly to the right to catch sight of the admirable. It almost seemed to him as if he was guarding the resting boy — occupied with his own things and yet with unwavering vigilance for that supreme specimen to his right, not far from him. And a fatherly awe, the complete devotion of the one who tries to create beauty to the one who is endowed with it filled and moved his heart.
At noon he departed from the beach, returned to the hotel, and took the elevator to his room. Inside he spent some time in front of the mirror and studied his gray hair, his weary and sharply-cut face. In that moment he thought of his fame, and how many people looked up to him for his ability to always find the right words and graceful phrases — he called to witness all the successes his gifts had given him that he could think of and even considered his knighthood. Then he went down to the dining room and took a meal at his little table. When he entered the elevator afterwards, young people jostled into that tiny hovering cubbyhole, who were also coming from breakfast, and Tadzio joined them. He stood very close to Aschenbach, for the first time close enough that Aschenbach was afforded a more intimate look with all details. Someone addressed the lad, and while he replied with an unimaginably lovely smile, he already stepped out at the second floor, walking backwards, with downcast eyes. Beauty makes one shy, thought Aschenbach and mulled why this would be the case. He had in fact noticed that Tadzio's teeth were not quite as pleasant; slightly jagged and pale, without the sheen of health and of a strangely translucent quality as in someone with anemia. He is a bit frail, he is sickly, thought Aschenbach. He will probably not live very long. And he declined to account for the feeling of satisfaction and calmness that accompanied that notion.
He spent two hours in his room and took the vaporetto across the foul-smelling lagoon to Venice in the afternoon. He got out at St Mark's Square, took his tea there and then commenced a walk through the city, according to his local schedule. But it was this walk which caused a total reversal in his mood and his decisions.
A revolting sultriness could be felt in the alleys, the air was so heavy that the odors that emanated from the apartments, stores, and cookshops, like those of hot oil, clouds of perfume and many more, remained fixed like clouds without dispersing. Cigarette smoke hung in one place and only gradually escaped. The jostle in the narrow streets was a burden, not an enjoyment to the stroller. The longer he walked, the more that disgusting condition took hold over him which is effected by the sea breeze and the scirocco and which is excitement and fatigue at the same time. He began to sweat unpleasantly. The eyes ceased to function, his chest felt tight, he was febrile, his pulse was pounding in his head. He fled from the business district to the quarters of the poor: there mendicants pursued him and the fetid stench from the canals made breathing even more difficult. In a quiet spot, one of those forgotten fairy tale places that can be found in the heart of Venice, resting next to a well, he dabbed dry his forehead and came to realize that he had to go somewhere else.
For the second time and permanently the city had proven to be very harmful to him in that kind of weather. Stubborn holding out seemed unreasonable, the probability of the wind changing direction was unknown. A quick decision had to be made. To return home already was not an option. Neither his summer nor winter quarters were ready for his arrival. But not only in Venice there were the sea and the beach, and in other places they could be found without the evil ingredients of the lagoon and its febrile effusion. He recalled a small seaside resort not far from Trieste, which had been praised. Why not go there? And that immediately, so that this change of location would still be worthwhile. He affirmed his decision and arose. At the next gondola landing he took a vehicle to convey him, through the dull labyrinth of the canals, below delicate marble balconies surrounded by lion sculptures, around slippery corners, along sorrowful palace facades with large company signs, which were mirrored in the garbage-topped water, to St Mark's. He had trouble getting there because the gondolier, who received payment from lace and glass manufacturers, tried to get him to do sightseeing and shopping and when the bizarre trip through Venice began to cast its spell, the mercenary spirit of the sunken queen contributed to an unpleasant sobering of the senses.
Back in the hotel he let the clerks in the office know that unforeseen circumstances required him to leave the very next morning. This was found regrettable, his bill was prepared. He had dinner and spent the balmy evening reading journals on the rear terrace. Before going to sleep he completely prepared his trunk for the next day.
He did not sleep very well as he was concerned about the impending departure. When he opened the window on the next morning the sky was still overcast but the air seemed refreshed, and — now his remorse began. Was this cancellation not hasty and in error, the conduct of an ill and unimportant state? Had he waited just a little more, had he made one more try to adapt to the Venetian atmosphere or considered the possibility that the weather might improve, then he could experience now, instead of haste and waste, a morning at the beach just like the day before. Too late. Now he had to continue wanting what he had wanted before. He got dressed and went down for breakfast at eight o'clock.
The buffet room was still deserted when he entered. Solitary figures appeared while he was waiting for what he had ordered. With the tea cup at his lips, he saw the Polish girls with their governess come into the room; austere and full of morning freshness, but with red eyes they paraded to their table in the corner. In the very next moment the porter approached and reminded him it was time to go. The car was waiting to transport him and other travelers to the Hotel "Excelsior" from where the motor launch would carry everyone through a private canal to the station. Time was pressing. — Aschenbach replied that time did not press at all. More than an hour remained until his train left. He did not like the habit of hotels to kick out their guests before their time and told the porter to let him finish his breakfast in peace. The man retreated hesitantly, only to reappear five minutes later. The car could wait no longer. Then he should drive away and take his luggage with him, Aschenbach responded angrily. He himself would, in due time, use the public steamer and would take care of his departure himself. The employee bowed. Aschenbach, relieved to have diverted the unwelcome exhortations, finished his meal unhurriedly, and even had the waiter bring him the daily newspaper. Time had grown quite short when he arose. It just so happened that Tadzio crossed
the threshold that very moment.
Walking towards the table of his family, he crossed paths with Aschenbach, cast down his glance before the gray-haired man, only to look at him softly in his lovely way and passed. "Adieu, Tadzio!" thought Aschenbach. "It was all too brief." And as he, contrary to his usual habit, formed the words with his lips, he added: "God bless you!" — Next he organized his departure, gave tips, was bid farewell by the little soft-spoken manager in the French frock coat and left the hotel on foot as he had arrived to take the white-blossoming alley across the island to the steamship landing, followed by the manservant carrying his hand luggage. He reaches it, he takes a seat — and what followed was an odyssey through all shades of regret.
It was the familiar trip across the lagoon, passing St Mark's, up the Grand Canal. Aschenbach was seated on the circular bench at the bow, leaning with his arm upon the handrail, shading his eyes from the Sun. The municipal gardens retreated, the piazzetta opened out once more in princely charm and was left behind, next came the great row of palaces, and behind the bend of the waterway the magnificent arch of the Rialto Bridge appeared. The departing looked on, and his heart was torn. The atmosphere of the city, that slightly putrid smell which he had so sought to escape from — he breathed it now in deep, tenderly painful breaths. Was it possible that he did not know or had not taken into account how much he was attached to all of this? What had been a half-regretful, tiny doubt about the Tightness of his decision now became a real pain, a desperation of the soul, so bitter that it brought tears to his eyes and of which he said to himself that he could not have foreseen it. What seemed to him so hard to bear, even intolerable, was apparently the notion that he would never again set eyes on Venice, that this would be a permanent farewell. Since it had been proven a second time that the city made him sick, as he had to leave it in a hurry again, he would have to consider it an impossible and forbidden place that was too much for him and where it made no sense to go back to. He even felt that, if he departed now, shame and defiance would keep him from ever seeing the city again, the demands of which on his body he had been unable to meet twice; and this discrepancy between his desire and physical potency suddenly appeared so grave and important to the senescent, the corporeal defeat so unacceptable and the need to prevent it at all costs so imperative, that he could not understand how he could have given in so easily and without a fight.
In the meantime the steamer approached the station and pain and perplexity increased until a state of confusion was reached. Departure seems impossible to the tormented soul, but so does staying. Absolutely torn that way he enters the station. It is already rather late, he has no time to lose if he wants to catch his train. He wants it and he wants it not. But time presses, it pushes him forward; he hastens to get his ticket and searches the jostle of the hall for the local officer of the hotel company. The man is found and reports that the large trunk has already been shipped. Already shipped? Yes, exactly — to Como. To Como? And after some heated discussion of irate questions and sheepish replies it emerges that the trunk, together with some other luggage, had been sent from the Hotel "Excelsior" into the completely wrong direction.
Aschenbach found it difficult to keep the expected expression on his face. An adventurous joy and unbelievable happiness moved him almost as in a fit. The employee ran off to possibly still hold the trunk back, but as surmised he returned unsuccessfully. So Aschenbach declared that he would not leave without his trunk but instead wanted to return to the Hotel des Bains to wait for it there. Was the motor launch of the society still at the station? The man affirmed that it was still there. He ordered the ticket clerk to take back the ticket, he swore to telegraph and that no expense would be spared to get back the trunk as soon as possible, and — so the odd thing took place that the traveler, twenty minutes after his arrival at the station, found himself again on the Grand Canal on his way back to the Lido.
Wondrously improbable, embarrassing, comically dreamlike experience: To see those places again within the hour from which one had tearfully departed forever, thanks to twists of fate! Foaming at the bow, maneuvering with dexterity between the gondolas and steamers, the fast little vehicle bolted towards its destination, while its passenger, under a mask of enraged resignation, hid the fearfully wanton attitude of a runaway boy. From time to time he was still moved to laughter about his misfortune that could not have been more timely. Explanations had to be given, surprised expressions had to be braved — and then all was well again, he said to himself, an accident had been prevented, a grave error corrected and everything he had believed to have left behind could be his again for as long as he desired. . . Did the speedy ride fool him or had the wind indeed turned and was now blowing from the sea?
The waves lapped against the concrete walls of the narrow canal, which leads across the island to the Hotel "Excelsior". A horseless omnibus was expecting the returning one and transported him on a road far above the undulating sea back to the Hotel des Bains. The little moustached manager came down the stairs to greet him.
Softly ingratiating he regretted the incident, called it very embarrassing for the hotel, but fully supported Aschenbach's decision to await the trunk here. Of course his room was already occupied, but a different one, no worse, would be available. u Pas de chance, monsieur" said the Swiss elevator operator with a smile as they went up. And so the refugee took quarters again, in a room that was almost identical to first one in terms of the view and furnishings.
Weary and deadened from the chaos of that strange morning, he distributed the contents of his hand luggage in the room and sat down in an armchair next to the open window. The ocean had taken on a pale green color, the air seemed thinner and more pure, the beach with its boats and huts more colorful, even though the sky was still gray. Aschenbach looked outside, his hands folded in his lap, content to be back, shaking his head about his fickleness, his lack of knowledge about his own desires. So he sat maybe for an hour, resting and lost in mindless reverie. At noon he spotted Tadzio who, in a striped linen suit with a red bow, returned to the hotel via the wooden path. Aschenbach immediately recognized him, before he had even really looked at him, and wanted to think of something like: "Look, Tadzio, there you are again!" But in the same moment he felt the casual greeting sink and become silent in the face of the truth of his heart — felt the excitement of his blood, the joy and pain in his soul and realized that the farewell had been so taxing because of Tadzio.
He sat in utter silence, entirely unobserved on his high vantage point and looked inside of himself. The expression on his face had become enlivened, his eyebrows were moving up, an attentive, curious, and witty smile tensed his mouth. Then he raised his head and made with his arms, which had been hanging limply over the armrests of the chair, a slowly circular and raising motion, palms turned forward, as if suggesting an opening and extending of the arms. It was a willingly welcoming, calmly accepting gesture.
It was a vehicle under an Italian flag, stricken with years, outmoded, serene, and somber. In a cave-like, artificially-lit berth, into which Aschenbach had been instantly ushered with grinning courtesy by a humpbacked and dirty sailor after setting foot onto the ship, there sat a behind a table with his hat slanted on his head and with a cigarette butt between his lips a goatish man who had the physiognomy of an old-fashioned circus director, who with artificially easy demeanor registered the nationalities of the travelers and handed them their tickets. "To Venice!" he repeated Aschenbach's request, straightening his arm and pushing the quill into the pulpy remains of an inclined inkstand. "First class to Venice! Here you are, sir!" And he wrote with huge loops, dispensed some blue sand from a can onto the writing, let the sand run into a clay bowl, folded the paper with yellow and bony fingers and continued his writing. "A happily chosen destination!" he chattered meanwhile. "Ah, Venice! A magnificent city! A city full of irresistible attraction to the well-educated, both due to its history and its present charms!" The smooth dispatch of his movements and the empty talk that accompanied them had something stupefying and distracting, almost as if he feared the passenger might waver in his determination to go to Venice. He speedily cashed the money and let the change fall onto the dirty tablecloth with the dexterity of a croupier. "Have a nice day, sir!" he said with a thespian bow. "It is my honor to convey you. . . Next please!" he cried with a raised arm, pretending his business was lively even though there was nobody else around who needed a ticket. Aschenbach returned onto the deck.
Leaning with one arm on the handrail, he contemplated both the idle people who were mooching at the pier to witness the ship's departure and his fellow passengers. Those of the second class were crouching on the foredeck, using boxes and bundles as seats. A group of young people formed the company of the first deck, apparently tradesman's apprentices from Pola who had merrily united for a trip to Italy. They made a lot of fuss about themselves and their enterprise, chattered, laughed, contentedly enjoyed their own gesticulating and mocked those colleagues, who, portfolios tucked under their arms, were walking along the street to pursue their business and who made threatening gestures to the departing. One in a bright yellow, excessively fashionable summer suit, red tie, and a boldly bent up panama hat, exceeded all the others with his shrill voice and gayness. No sooner had Aschenbach set eyes on him than he realized with a kind of terror that this ephebe was false. He was ancient, there could be no doubt about it. Wrinkles surrounded his mouth and eyes. The meek crimson of his cheeks was makeup, that brown hair below the colorfully-banded straw hat was a wig, his neck was dilapidated and sinewy, his moustache was dyed, his yellowish and complete set of teeth which he laughingly presented was a cheap counterfeit, and his hands with signet rings on both index fingers were that of a very old man. With a shudder Aschenbach looked at him and his communion with his friends. Did they not know or notice they he was elderly, that he was wrongfully appropriating their garish dress, fraudulently played one of theirs? As if nothing had happened, seemingly out of habit, they tolerated him among themselves, treated him as an equal, answered his teasing nudges without disgust. How could that be? Aschenbach covered his forehead with his hand and closed his eyes that were burning from a lack of sleep.
He felt as if reality was becoming unreal, as if a dreamlike enchantment had begun, a shift of the world into the inexplicable, which perhaps could be opposed by closing his eyes and then taking another look. But in that moment he became aware of a sensation of floating and strangely startled he realized that the heavy and dark mass of the ship had detached itself from the quay. Inch by inch, with the engine running alternately forwards and backwards, the strip of dirtily iridescent water between the ship's hull and the shore widened, and after some stodgy maneuvers, the steamer's bow was pointing towards the open sea. Aschenbach went over the the starboard side, where the humpbacked sailor had prepared a deck chair for him and a steward in a spotted dress coat awaited his orders.
The sky was gray, the wind moist; the harbor and the islands had receded, and soon land was no longer visible. A snow of coal dust, soaked with humidity, settled on the freshly-scrubbed deck that refused to dry. After about an hour the tent roof was deployed, as it had begun to rain.
Wrapped in his coat, a book in his lap, the traveler rested and time seemed to fly. The rain had ceased; the linen roof was removed. The horizon was complete. Beneath the broad cupola of the sky the enormous disc of the barren sea extended all around; but in that empty, measureless space our sense of time also suffers, and we daze in the disorienting shapelessness. Strange and shade-like creatures, the senescent dandy, the goat-bearded man from below decks, traipsed with vague gestures and confused dream- words through the mind of the reclining artist, and eventually he fell asleep.
At noon he was required to venture below into the corridor-like dining hall, which was bordered on by the sleeping bunks, eating the ordered meal at a long table, on the other side of which the apprentices, including the senex, had been drinking heavily with the jolly captain since ten o'clock. The meal was meager and he quickly finished it. He wanted to go outside, to look at the sky: if maybe it would brighten in the direction of Venice.
He did not anticipate anything else, for the city had always received him with splendor. But the sky and the sea remained cloudy and leaden, at times a fog-like drizzle fell, and slowly he accepted that he would, reaching it by water, discover a vastly different Venice from that which he had approached over land. He stood next to the foremast, gazing into the distance, expecting to see land. He thought of that melancholy-enthusiastic poet who had met the cupolas and bell towers of his dreams in this place, he quietly recalled some of the products of that awe-stricken, happy, and sad mood and moved by that ready-made emotion he wondered whether he, although more somber and tired than then, would meet that state of rapture and confusion a second time.
Then to his right the soft-sloping shore appeared, fishing boats made the sea lively, the Lido came into view, the steamer passed it on the right, gliding slowly through the channel of the same name and close to the lagoon it came to a rest entirely in full view of the poor and gaudy houses, since the barge of the sanitary service had to be met.
An hour passed before it materialized. One had reached one's destination and yet one had not; there was no hurry and yet one soon got impatient. The youths of Pola, perhaps also drawn to the military trumpet signals that echoed over the waters, had come on deck, and, enthusiastic from the Asti they had drunken, they cheered the Bersaglieri who were being drilled there. But it was repugnant to witness the state into which his faux communion with youth had brought the overdressed old man. His old and faded brain had not been able to resist the liquor to the same degree as the real youths, he was hopelessly drunk. Looking stupidly around, a cigarette between his trembling fingers, he swayed, barely able to keep his balance, pulled to and fro by his intoxication. Because he would have fallen down at the very first step, he did not dare to move, yet still displayed a sorry cockiness, holding on to everyone who approached him, speaking with a slur, winking, giggling, raising his ringed and wrinkled index finger to tease ridiculously, and licking the corners of his mouth in the most distastefully ambiguous manner. Aschenbach watched him with an expression of anger, and again he got a feeling of unreality, as if the world showed a small but definite tendency to slip into the peculiar and grotesque; a sensation which the resumption of the pounding work of the engine kept him from exploring fully, as the ship returned to its course through the San Marco canal. So he again set eyes on the most astounding landing, that blinding composition of fantastic architecture, which the Republic has to offer the awestruck looks of the approaching seafarer: the light grandeur of the Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, the columns topped with the lion and the saint close to the shore, the flauntingly projecting flank of St Mark's, the view of St Mark's Clock, and thus contemplating he thought that arriving in Venice from the train station was like entering a palace through the servants' entrance and that one should always, like himself, travel across the ocean to the most improbable of cities.
The engine stopped, gondolas approached, the accommodation ladder was low-ered, the customs officials came aboard and carried out their duty; the debarkation could begin. Aschenbach made it clear that he desired a gondola to bring him and his luggage to the landing of the smaller steamers that cruise between the city and the Lido; because he wanted a room close to the sea. His wish is approved and hollered towards the water, where the gondoliers are quarreling in dialect. He is unable to descend, as his trunk is taken with great effort down the ladder-like stairs.
So he cannot get away for several minutes from the intrusiveness of the ghastly old man, who is compelled by his drunkenness to bid the foreigner good-bye. "We are wishing a most enjoyable stay One hopes to be remembered well! Au revoir, excusez and bonjour, Your Excellency!" His mouth is watering, he winks, licks the corners of his mouth and the dyed moustache on his lips is ruffled up. "Our compliments," he continues with two fingertips at his mouth, "our compliments to your sweetheart, the most lovely and beautiful sweetheart. . . " And suddenly the upper row of his false teeth drops onto his tongue. Aschenbach was able to escape. "To your sweetheart, the most pretty sweetheart," he heard in hollow and somewhat obstructed speech behind his back while he descended the ladder.
Who would not have had to fight a slight unease, a secret resentment and trepidation when one, for the first or after a long time, had to get into a Venetian gondola? That strange vehicle, which seems unchanged from more fanciful times and which is so strangely black like normally only coffins are, reminds one of silent and criminal adventures in the lapping night, furthermore it is reminiscent of death itself, the bier, the drab funeral and the final, wordless ride. And has one noticed that the coffin-black-varnished, black-upholstered chair in such a barge is the softest, most luxurious, most deeply relaxing seat in the whole world? Aschenbach noticed it when he took his place at the feet of the gondolier, with his luggage orderly arranged at the front of the gondola. The rowers were still quarreling, in a raw and incomprehensible way, with menacing gestures. But the peculiar quietude of the city on the sea seemed to absorb and disembody their voices and to disperse them above the water. It was fairly hot in the harbor. Touched by the warm scirocco, seated on tender cushions, the traveler closed his eyes to enjoy that kind of unusual and sweet lassitude. The trip will be short, he thought; oh would it last forever! The noiseless rocking let him put a distance between himself and that boisterous jostle.
How it became even more still around him all the time! Nothing could be heard except the lapping of the oar, the hollow impact of the waves against the tip of the gondola, that stood erect, dark and like a spear above the water and a third thing, the whispering and murmuring of the gondolier, who was talking to himself between his clenched teeth in occasional outbursts. Aschenbach raised his head and with a slight bemusement he noticed that the lagoon around him widened and the his course was towards the open sea. Therefore it seemed he should not relax too much but instead supervise the carrying out of his orders.
—"To the steamship landing, please!" he said, turning over his shoulder. The murmuring ceased. He got no reply.
—"To the steamship landing!" he repeated and turned around completely to look up into the gondolier's face, who was standing behind him, a little elevated, in front of the pale sky. It was a man of unpleasing, even violent physiognomy, dressed in blue sailor's garb, girded with a yellow sash and with a shapeless straw hat that had begun to dissolve at its edges slanted on his head. The form of his face, his blond and curly moustache below the stubby nose did not make him look very Italian. Although of relatively slender build, so that he did not seem particularly suited to his trade, he showed great energy when he used his whole body to drive the oar at every beat. A few times the exertion caused him to withdraw his lips and expose his white teeth. With his gaze fixed above the guest and his reddish eyebrows wrinkled he replied in a determined, almost harsh tone:
— "You are going to the Lido."
Aschenbach replied:
—"Indeed. But I only wanted the gondola to take me to St Mark's Square.
I wish to go with the vaporetto."
—"You cannot go with the vaporetto, sir."
-"And why not?"
—"Because the vaporetto does not transport luggage."
That was correct; Aschenbach remembered. He was silent. But the brusque, boastful, uncharacteristic behavior of that man seemed intolerable. He said: He remained taciturn. The oar was lapping, the water clashed dully against the bow. And the talking and murmuring resumed: the gondolier was speaking to himself between his teeth.
What had to be done? Alone on the water with the strangely disobedient, unsettlingly determined man the traveler did not see a way to force upon him his will. And how softly he could be seated if he did not protest. Had he not wished that the trip should take longer, or forever? It was most prudent to let things take their course, and besides it was most comfortable. A spell of torpidity seemed to emanate from that low and black seat, so tenderly rocked by the oar beats of the defiant gondolier in his back. The notion of having fallen into the hands of a rogue streaked dreamlike through Aschenbach's mind — unable to summon his senses for active defense. Less appetizing was the possibility that this was just an act of extortion. A certain feeling of duty, the realization that one had to guard against such a thing, allowed him to make another effort. He asked:
—"How much do you want for the fare?"
And looking above him the gondolier responded:
-"You will pay."
It was clear what had to be replied to this. Aschenbach said mechanically:
—"I will pay you nothing, nothing at all if you take me somewhere I did not want to go."
—"You want to go to the Lido."
—"But not with you."
—"I row you well."
That much is true, thought Aschenbach and relaxed again. It is true, you are rowing me well. Even if you are trying to get my money and would kill me with a quick blow of the oar, you would have rowed me well. But nothing of the sort happened. Even some company appeared, a boat with musical mendicants, men and women, singing to the accompaniment of guitars and mandolins, coming obtrusively close to the gondola, filling the quietude above the waters with their mercenary tunes. Aschenbach threw a few coins into the hat that was presented. They fell silent and rowed away. And the murmuring of the gondolier was perceptible
once more.
And so one arrived, rocked by the backwash of a steamer headed for the city. Two municipal officers, hands clasped behind their backs, their heads facing the lagoon, were walking back and forth at the shore. Aschenbach got off the gondola at the pier, with help from the old man with his grappling hook who seems to be present on all Venetian landings; and because he did not have enough coins he entered the hotel which was situated across from the landing, to exchange some money and reward the gondolier as he pleased. He is served in the lobby, he returns, find his luggage on a cart at the quay, and the gondola and gondolier have disappeared.
—"He has taken off," said the old man with the grappling hook. "A very bad man, a man without a license, dear sir. He is the only gondolier without a license. The others have telephoned here. He saw that he was being expected. So he took off."
Aschenbach shrugged his shoulders.
—"The sir has had a free ride," said the old man and presented his hat. Aschenbach threw in some coins. He gave orders to take his luggage to the Hotel des Bains and followed the cart through the alleyway, that white-blossoming alley, which, bordered by taverns, bazaars, and bed and breakfasts, runs across the island to the beach.
He entered the sprawling hotel from the rear, from the garden terrace and went through the lobby to the office. Because he had been announced, he was greeted with servile complicity. A manager, a diminutive, soft-spoken, ingratiatingly courteous man with a black moustache and a frock coat in the French style, accompanied him in the elevator to the third floor and showed him his room, a pleasant room with cherry furniture, decorated with heavily fragrant flowers and which had tall windows affording a view of the sea. He stepped close to one of them, after the manager had taken his leave, and while behind him his luggage was carried in, he surveyed the beach which lay deserted in the afternoon and the sunless sea at high tide sending its crouched and elongated waves in a steady rhythm against the shore.
The observations and encounters of the solitary and mute one are at the same time more blurry and more distinctive than those of the more sociable person, his thoughts more substantial, stranger, and never without a trace of sadness. Images and perceptions that would be easy to dismiss with a laugh, a short exchange of words, occupy him excessively and grow deeper and more important in silence, become experience, adventure, emotion. Solitude favors the original, the daringly and otherworldly beautiful, the poem. But it also favors the wrongful, the extreme, the absurd, and the forbidden. — Thus the unusual incidences on the journey were still disconcerting to the traveler, the horrible old man with his blabbering about a sweetheart, the gondolier who had not received payment. Without obstructing reason or giving any real food for thought, they were still extremely bizarre and possibly so bewildering because of that contradiction. In between he greeted the sea with his eyes and delighted in the knowledge that Venice could be so quickly and easily reached. Finally he turned, washed his face, gave some orders to the chambermaid to improve his comfort and had the green-liveried Swiss elevator attendant take him to the ground floor.
He took his tea on the seaside terrace, then descended and walked a good distance along the shore in the direction of the Hotel Excelsior. Upon his return it appeared to be time to dress for dinner. He did that slowly and with diligence, yet found himself still too early in the dining hall, where a group of hotel guests, un-known to each other and in feigned disinterest, had congregated in the expectation of a meal. He picked up a paper, seated himself in a club chair and contemplated the company which differed in a most agreeable way from that during his earlier stay on the island.
A wide and all-encompassing horizon opened itself out. Muffled sounds from many different languages were mixing. The omnipresent dinner jacket, the uniform of the civilized world, gathered all facets of human variety into one orderly whole. One saw the dry and elongated face of the American, the large Russian family, English ladies, German children with French nannies. The Slavic component appeared to predominate. Polish was spoken right next to him.
It was a group of adolescents and bare adults, under the supervision of a governess around a small table: three young girls, perhaps between fifteen and seventeen, and a long-haired boy of about fourteen years. With astonishment Aschenbach noticed that the boy was perfectly beautiful. His countenance — pale and gracefully reserved, surrounded by honey-colored locks, with its evenly sloped nose, the lovely mouth, the expression of alluring and divine earnestness, was reminiscent of Greek statues from the most noble period, and with all its perfection of form it had such a personal appeal that the onlooker thought he had never encountered anything similar either in nature or in art. What else was striking was an apparently deliberate contrast between the educational guidelines after which the children were dressed and kept in general. The exterior of the girls, the oldest of which could be taken for an adult, was tart and chaste to the point of disfigurement. A uniform monastic garb, shale-toned, of average length, sober and consciously unbecoming, with white collars as the only bright spot, suppressed and made impossible any pleasingness of figure. The smooth hair that appeared to be glued to the head gave their faces a featurelessness and nunlike lack of expression. It seemed certain this was the work of a mother, and naturally it did not occur to her to apply that same paedagogic severity that pertained to the girls to the boy also. Mellowness and affection visibly ruled his existence. One had abstained from cutting his arresting hair; like the statue of the Boy with Thorn it curled onto the forehead, over the ears, and even more so in the nape. An English sailor suit, the voluminous sleeves of which were tapered towards the ends and which surrounded the delicate joints of his still childlike and narrow hands, contributed, with its strings, bows, and embroideries, an air of wealth and fastidiousness. He was sitting, in semiprofile from Aschenbach's point of view, one foot in front of the other, with an elbow leaning on the armrest of his basket chair, his cheek comforted by his closed hand, in an attitude of relaxed decorum and completely without the submissive stiffness that his sisters seemed to be used to. Was he sick? Because the white of his skin contrasted like ivory with the golden somberness of the adjacent curls. Or was he simply a coddled favorite child, carried by partial and capricious devotion? Aschenbach was inclined to believe that. Almost every artistic individual has a luxurious and treacherous propensity to recognize beauty- creating inequity and to render homage to aristocratic entitlement.
A waiter went around and announced the readiness of the meal in English. Slowly the society disappeared through the glass door into the dining room. Latecomers passed by, arriving from the vestibule or the elevator. Inside the serving had begun, but the young Poles remained seated around the little tables and Aschenbach, sitting snugly in his chair, not to mention having a favorable view of something beautiful, lingered along with them.
The governess, a stocky dame with a reddish face, finally gave the signal to rise. With lifted eyebrows she shoved back her chair and bowed, when a tall lady, dressed in white and gray and richly attired with pearls, entered the room. She comported herself with coolness and restraint, the arrangement of her lightly powdered hair and the style of her dress were of that simplicity which always rules good taste where devoutness is considered an element of noblesse. She could have been the wife of a high-ranking German official. Something extravagant only entered her appearance through her jewelry, which seemed extremely expensive and consisted of earrings and a triple, very long necklace of cherry-sized, mildly shimmering pearls.
The children had arisen promptly. They kissed their mother's hand, who looked above their heads with an aloof smile of her well-groomed but slightly tired and sharp-nosed face and addressed a few words in French to the governess. Then she proceeded towards the glass door. The children followed her: the girls ordered by age, then the governess, and finally the boy. For some unknown reason he turned around before crossing the threshold and since nobody else was present, his curiously dark-gray eyes met those of Aschenbach, who, with the newspaper on his lap and deep in his thoughts, had traced the group.
What he had seen was certainly not remarkable in its details. One had not gone to table before the mother, one had waited for her, greeted her and observed the usual customs on entering the dining room. But somehow all that was presented with such a deliberate accentuation of manners, commitment, and self-respect that Aschenbach felt strangely moved by it. He hesitated for a few moments and then also went into the dining room and had himself seated, unfortunately quite far from the Polish family as he observed with regret.
Exhausted and yet in mental commotion, he entertained himself with abstract, even transcendental subjects during dinner, mulled the mysterious link between the orderly and the individual for human beauty to appear, departed from there to think about the general problems of form and art and eventually found his thoughts and findings to resemble certain apparently fortuitous ideas in a dream, that on closer inspection reveal themselves to be completely stale and unworkable. After the meal he went into the park that was filled with evening smells and smoked, sometimes sitting, sometimes walking, then he went to bed even though it was still early and spent the night in sleep that was consistently deep, but enlivened by dreams of the most varied kinds.
The weather had not improved on the next day. A land breeze was stirring. Under a pale and overcast sky the sea lay in dull quietness, shrunken so to say, with a soberingly clear horizon and so far removed from the beach than it exposed several large sandbanks. When Aschenbach opened his window, he believed to sense the putrid smell of the lagoon.
Discontent befell him. Already he considered departing. Once, a few years ago, this kind of weather had, after two sunny spring weeks, struck him and had impacted his mood in such a way that he had had to flee from Venice. Did not again that febrile listlessness, that pressure in the temples, that heaviness of the eyelids make themselves known? Moving to a new lodging for another time would be tiresome; but if the wind did not change direction, he would not stay. Just in case he did not fully unpack his luggage. At nine o'clock he ate breakfast in the special room that was reserved for that use, between the lobby and the dining room.
In the buffet room that ceremonial silence reigned that is part of the ambition of every great hotel. The waiters tiptoed around while serving. A clattering of the tea service, a half-whispered word was all that could be heard. In a corner, diagonally across from the door and two tables apart from him, Aschenbach noticed the Polish girls with their governess. Very upright, the ash blond hair newly flattened and with red eyes, in stiff dresses made of blue linen with little white collars and cuffs they sat there and handed each other the jam. They had almost finished their breakfast. The boy was absent.
Aschenbach smiled to himself. "So, my little Phaeacian!" he thought. "You seem to possess the privilege of sleeping in." And suddenly merry he recited the line from a poem below his breath:
"Jewelry, a hot bath, and rest have often made a difference."
He ate without hurry, received some letters from the porter, who had come to the room with his cap taken off, and opened a few of them while smoking a cigarette. So it happened that he still witnessed the entrance of the long sleeper who was already expected at the other table.
He came in through the glass door and ambled through the silence diagonally across the room to his sisters' table. His walk was very graceful, both in his stance and in the movement of the knees, the way his feet touched the ground, very light, at the same time tender and proud and made more appealing through the childlike self-consciousness with which he looked up and down two times while crossing the room. Smiling, with a soft word in his fuzzy-sounding language he took his place, and now that he presented the onlooker with his full profile, Aschenbach was taken by surprise again, even frightened by the godlike beauty of that human child. That day the lad was wearing a light suit of blue and white fabric with a bow of red silk on his breast and a simple white collar. Above that collar, which did not even fit the rest of the suit very elegantly, the flower of his crown rested with unequaled charm — the head of Eros, with the yellowish tint of Parisian marble, with exquisite and somber brows, temples and ear covered by the dark and soft curls of his hair.
Well, well, thought Aschenbach with that cool approval of the specialist, with which artists at times cloak their transports of delight in the face of a masterwork. And further he thought: Truly, are not the sea and the beach waiting for me, I will remain here as long as you! So he went across the hall, greeted by the waiters, along the great terrace and straight over the boardwalk to the private beach reserved for hotel guests. He let the barefoot old man, who was, in his linen pants, sailor's blouse, and straw hat, working as a bath attendant there, show him his little beach hut, had a chair and table taken from inside and put in front of it on the wooden platform and made himself comfortable in the deck chair, which he had put up a bit closer to the sea in the wax-yellow sand.
The scene at the beach, that picture of carefree and sensual enjoyment next to the sea, entertained and delighted him as always. The gray and even ocean was enlivened by wading children, swimmers, garish figures, others, who were laying on sandbanks with their arms folded under their heads. Some were rowing small boats in red and blue without a keel, capsizing with roaring laughter. In front of the row of beach huts, whose platforms were like little verandas, there was playful motion and lazy rest, visits and chattering, careful early morning elegance but also nudity, which pertly took pleasure in the freedom of the place. Closer to the sea, lone figures were strolling on the moist and firm sand in white dressing gowns or in voluminous, colorful garb. An intricate sand castle to Aschenbach's right, built by children, was sporting all around tiny flags of many different countries. Vendors of mussels, pies, and fruit were on their knees spreading out their goods. On the left, in front of a hut that stood at a right angle to the other ones and was the endpoint of the beach on that side, a Russian family was camping: men with beards and large teeth, mellow and idle women, a Baltic damsel, who was sitting in front of an easel and was painting the sea with intermittent cries of despair, two benevolent and ugly children, an old maidservant with a kerchief and tenderly servile slave manners. In grateful appreciation they were living there, always calling out the names of the unruly youngsters, jesting for a long time with the old man thanks to a few words of Italian, buying sweets, kissing each other on the cheeks, and generally not caring about any onlookers.
So I will stay, Aschenbach thought. Where could it be better? And with his hands folded in his lap he allowed his eyes to wander in the vastness of the sea, his gaze slipping, becoming blurred, and breaking in the monotonous mist of nothingness. He loved the ocean for important reasons: out of the desire for tranquility harbored by the hard-working artist, who seeks to conceal himself from the multitude of possibilities by embracing the simple and immense; out of a forbidden proclivity for the unordered, the immeasurable, the eternal, the void that was made even more attractive by running counter to his work. To find peace in the presence of the faultless is the desire of the one who seeks excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection? While he was dreaming into the deepness of space, he suddenly became aware of a human figure close to the shoreline and when he collected his glance from the unlimited, it turned out to be the beautiful boy, who, coming from the left, was crossing the sand before him. He was barefoot, ready for wading, his slender legs bared till above the knees, advancing slowly, but so nimbly and proudly as if he was used to walking without footwear and he surveyed the huts. No sooner had he noticed the peaceful Russian family than his face was clouded by a tempest of scorn and disdain. His brow darkened, his mouth was lifted, between the lips and the cheeks an embittered tearing took place, and his eyebrows were so heavily wrinkled that they made the eyes appear sunken in and let them speak the evil and somber language of hatred. He averted his glance, beheld them another time, made a fiercely dismissive gesture with his shoulder and turned his back unto the enemy.
A sort of tenderness or terror, something like shame or respect caused Asch-enbach to turn away as if he had seen nothing; because the serious observer of a casual passion refuses to admit his impressions even to himself. But he was delighted and shocked at the same time: that is, elated. This childish fanaticism which was directed at the most benign slab of life — it made the divinely vacant a part of the human order; it made nature's precious work of art, that had only been fit to be an eyeful, seem worthy of a deeper sympathy; and it gave the already striking personage of the youth a historico-political backdrop that allowed him to be taken seriously in spite of his age.
Still turned away, Aschenbach listened to the boy's speech, his high-pitched and somewhat feeble voice, with which he tried to announce himself to his comrades playing at the sand castle. The replies consisted in calling him by his real name or a pet name and Aschenbach paid interested attention, without being able to hear them perfectly, to two melodic syllables like "Adgio" or more frequently "Adgiu" with a vocatively-stretched "oo" sound at the end. He delighted in the tone of it, he found its pleasantness befitting the thing it described, repeated it below his breath and contently moved on to his letters and other paperwork.
His little writing case on his lap, he began to pen assorted correspondence. But after about a quarter of an hour had passed, it occurred to him how unfortunate it was to let this situation, the most delightful he had known, pass by like that. He moved aside his writing utensils, returned to the sea, and after a short while, seated on his deck chair and distracted by the voices of the children who were working on the sand castle, he turned his head to the right to further investigate the comings and goings of the marvelous Adgio.
His glance immediately discovered him; the red bow on his breast was difficult to miss. Occupied with the others in furnishing an old plank as a drawbridge for the sand castle, he gave loud orders for that endeavor, emphasizing his commands with movements of his head. With him there were about ten comrades in all, boys and girls, some of his age and some younger, speaking in Polish, French, and languages of the Balkans. But it was his name that was heard most often. Obviously he was popular, courted, admired. One of them, a stocky lad who was called "Jaschu," with black, slicked-back hair and in a linen suit, appeared to be his closest servant and confidant. When the daily work on the sand edifice had finished, they ambled along the beach in each other's arms, and the one called "Jaschu" placed a kiss on the beautiful Adgio's cheek.
Aschenbach was tempted to make a threatening gesture with the finger to Jaschu. "I advise you, Critobulus," he thought smilingly, "to leave for a year! Because it will take as much time for you to recover." And then he went on to eat a breakfast of very large and ripe strawberries which he had obtained from a vendor. It had gotten very hot, although the Sun had been unable to penetrate the layer of haze in the sky. Lassitude immobilized the mind, while the senses were taking pleasure in the immense and deadening spectacle of the silent sea. To divine, to explore which name it might be that sounded a bit like "Adgio" was considered by the earnest man a fitting and absolutely filling task and occupation. With the help of some Polish remembrances he decided that it had to be "Tadzio," short for "Tadeusz" and "Tadziu" in the vocative. Tadzio was bathing. Aschenbach, who had lost him from his sight, found his head, his arm, with which he made rowing motions, far away out on the sea; because it was quite shallow for a great distance. But immediately there was concern about him, female voices were calling out for him from the huts, exclaiming again that word which was like a password at the beach and that, with its soft sound and its drawn out "oo" sound at the end, had something both sweet and wild about it: "Tadziu, Tadziu!" He obeyed, he ran through the flood, causing the water to foam with his legs, his head tilted backwards; and to witness how the lively figure, pretty and harsh in a not-yet-manly way, with dripping curls and handsome like a youthful god, ascended from the watery depths of sky and sea: That sight induced mythical connotations, he was like a poem about ancient times, the birth of form and the genesis of the gods. Aschenbach intently listened to that song that came from inside; and again he thought that it was good to be here and that he wanted to stay.
Later Tadzio lay, exhausted from his bathing, on the sand, wrapped in white linen which was tucked under the right shoulder, resting with his head on his bare arm; and even when Aschenbach was not looking at him but read a few pages in his book, he almost never forgot the recumbent and that he only had to turn his head slightly to the right to catch sight of the admirable. It almost seemed to him as if he was guarding the resting boy — occupied with his own things and yet with unwavering vigilance for that supreme specimen to his right, not far from him. And a fatherly awe, the complete devotion of the one who tries to create beauty to the one who is endowed with it filled and moved his heart.
At noon he departed from the beach, returned to the hotel, and took the elevator to his room. Inside he spent some time in front of the mirror and studied his gray hair, his weary and sharply-cut face. In that moment he thought of his fame, and how many people looked up to him for his ability to always find the right words and graceful phrases — he called to witness all the successes his gifts had given him that he could think of and even considered his knighthood. Then he went down to the dining room and took a meal at his little table. When he entered the elevator afterwards, young people jostled into that tiny hovering cubbyhole, who were also coming from breakfast, and Tadzio joined them. He stood very close to Aschenbach, for the first time close enough that Aschenbach was afforded a more intimate look with all details. Someone addressed the lad, and while he replied with an unimaginably lovely smile, he already stepped out at the second floor, walking backwards, with downcast eyes. Beauty makes one shy, thought Aschenbach and mulled why this would be the case. He had in fact noticed that Tadzio's teeth were not quite as pleasant; slightly jagged and pale, without the sheen of health and of a strangely translucent quality as in someone with anemia. He is a bit frail, he is sickly, thought Aschenbach. He will probably not live very long. And he declined to account for the feeling of satisfaction and calmness that accompanied that notion.
He spent two hours in his room and took the vaporetto across the foul-smelling lagoon to Venice in the afternoon. He got out at St Mark's Square, took his tea there and then commenced a walk through the city, according to his local schedule. But it was this walk which caused a total reversal in his mood and his decisions.
A revolting sultriness could be felt in the alleys, the air was so heavy that the odors that emanated from the apartments, stores, and cookshops, like those of hot oil, clouds of perfume and many more, remained fixed like clouds without dispersing. Cigarette smoke hung in one place and only gradually escaped. The jostle in the narrow streets was a burden, not an enjoyment to the stroller. The longer he walked, the more that disgusting condition took hold over him which is effected by the sea breeze and the scirocco and which is excitement and fatigue at the same time. He began to sweat unpleasantly. The eyes ceased to function, his chest felt tight, he was febrile, his pulse was pounding in his head. He fled from the business district to the quarters of the poor: there mendicants pursued him and the fetid stench from the canals made breathing even more difficult. In a quiet spot, one of those forgotten fairy tale places that can be found in the heart of Venice, resting next to a well, he dabbed dry his forehead and came to realize that he had to go somewhere else.
For the second time and permanently the city had proven to be very harmful to him in that kind of weather. Stubborn holding out seemed unreasonable, the probability of the wind changing direction was unknown. A quick decision had to be made. To return home already was not an option. Neither his summer nor winter quarters were ready for his arrival. But not only in Venice there were the sea and the beach, and in other places they could be found without the evil ingredients of the lagoon and its febrile effusion. He recalled a small seaside resort not far from Trieste, which had been praised. Why not go there? And that immediately, so that this change of location would still be worthwhile. He affirmed his decision and arose. At the next gondola landing he took a vehicle to convey him, through the dull labyrinth of the canals, below delicate marble balconies surrounded by lion sculptures, around slippery corners, along sorrowful palace facades with large company signs, which were mirrored in the garbage-topped water, to St Mark's. He had trouble getting there because the gondolier, who received payment from lace and glass manufacturers, tried to get him to do sightseeing and shopping and when the bizarre trip through Venice began to cast its spell, the mercenary spirit of the sunken queen contributed to an unpleasant sobering of the senses.
Back in the hotel he let the clerks in the office know that unforeseen circumstances required him to leave the very next morning. This was found regrettable, his bill was prepared. He had dinner and spent the balmy evening reading journals on the rear terrace. Before going to sleep he completely prepared his trunk for the next day.
He did not sleep very well as he was concerned about the impending departure. When he opened the window on the next morning the sky was still overcast but the air seemed refreshed, and — now his remorse began. Was this cancellation not hasty and in error, the conduct of an ill and unimportant state? Had he waited just a little more, had he made one more try to adapt to the Venetian atmosphere or considered the possibility that the weather might improve, then he could experience now, instead of haste and waste, a morning at the beach just like the day before. Too late. Now he had to continue wanting what he had wanted before. He got dressed and went down for breakfast at eight o'clock.
The buffet room was still deserted when he entered. Solitary figures appeared while he was waiting for what he had ordered. With the tea cup at his lips, he saw the Polish girls with their governess come into the room; austere and full of morning freshness, but with red eyes they paraded to their table in the corner. In the very next moment the porter approached and reminded him it was time to go. The car was waiting to transport him and other travelers to the Hotel "Excelsior" from where the motor launch would carry everyone through a private canal to the station. Time was pressing. — Aschenbach replied that time did not press at all. More than an hour remained until his train left. He did not like the habit of hotels to kick out their guests before their time and told the porter to let him finish his breakfast in peace. The man retreated hesitantly, only to reappear five minutes later. The car could wait no longer. Then he should drive away and take his luggage with him, Aschenbach responded angrily. He himself would, in due time, use the public steamer and would take care of his departure himself. The employee bowed. Aschenbach, relieved to have diverted the unwelcome exhortations, finished his meal unhurriedly, and even had the waiter bring him the daily newspaper. Time had grown quite short when he arose. It just so happened that Tadzio crossed
the threshold that very moment.
Walking towards the table of his family, he crossed paths with Aschenbach, cast down his glance before the gray-haired man, only to look at him softly in his lovely way and passed. "Adieu, Tadzio!" thought Aschenbach. "It was all too brief." And as he, contrary to his usual habit, formed the words with his lips, he added: "God bless you!" — Next he organized his departure, gave tips, was bid farewell by the little soft-spoken manager in the French frock coat and left the hotel on foot as he had arrived to take the white-blossoming alley across the island to the steamship landing, followed by the manservant carrying his hand luggage. He reaches it, he takes a seat — and what followed was an odyssey through all shades of regret.
It was the familiar trip across the lagoon, passing St Mark's, up the Grand Canal. Aschenbach was seated on the circular bench at the bow, leaning with his arm upon the handrail, shading his eyes from the Sun. The municipal gardens retreated, the piazzetta opened out once more in princely charm and was left behind, next came the great row of palaces, and behind the bend of the waterway the magnificent arch of the Rialto Bridge appeared. The departing looked on, and his heart was torn. The atmosphere of the city, that slightly putrid smell which he had so sought to escape from — he breathed it now in deep, tenderly painful breaths. Was it possible that he did not know or had not taken into account how much he was attached to all of this? What had been a half-regretful, tiny doubt about the Tightness of his decision now became a real pain, a desperation of the soul, so bitter that it brought tears to his eyes and of which he said to himself that he could not have foreseen it. What seemed to him so hard to bear, even intolerable, was apparently the notion that he would never again set eyes on Venice, that this would be a permanent farewell. Since it had been proven a second time that the city made him sick, as he had to leave it in a hurry again, he would have to consider it an impossible and forbidden place that was too much for him and where it made no sense to go back to. He even felt that, if he departed now, shame and defiance would keep him from ever seeing the city again, the demands of which on his body he had been unable to meet twice; and this discrepancy between his desire and physical potency suddenly appeared so grave and important to the senescent, the corporeal defeat so unacceptable and the need to prevent it at all costs so imperative, that he could not understand how he could have given in so easily and without a fight.
In the meantime the steamer approached the station and pain and perplexity increased until a state of confusion was reached. Departure seems impossible to the tormented soul, but so does staying. Absolutely torn that way he enters the station. It is already rather late, he has no time to lose if he wants to catch his train. He wants it and he wants it not. But time presses, it pushes him forward; he hastens to get his ticket and searches the jostle of the hall for the local officer of the hotel company. The man is found and reports that the large trunk has already been shipped. Already shipped? Yes, exactly — to Como. To Como? And after some heated discussion of irate questions and sheepish replies it emerges that the trunk, together with some other luggage, had been sent from the Hotel "Excelsior" into the completely wrong direction.
Aschenbach found it difficult to keep the expected expression on his face. An adventurous joy and unbelievable happiness moved him almost as in a fit. The employee ran off to possibly still hold the trunk back, but as surmised he returned unsuccessfully. So Aschenbach declared that he would not leave without his trunk but instead wanted to return to the Hotel des Bains to wait for it there. Was the motor launch of the society still at the station? The man affirmed that it was still there. He ordered the ticket clerk to take back the ticket, he swore to telegraph and that no expense would be spared to get back the trunk as soon as possible, and — so the odd thing took place that the traveler, twenty minutes after his arrival at the station, found himself again on the Grand Canal on his way back to the Lido.
Wondrously improbable, embarrassing, comically dreamlike experience: To see those places again within the hour from which one had tearfully departed forever, thanks to twists of fate! Foaming at the bow, maneuvering with dexterity between the gondolas and steamers, the fast little vehicle bolted towards its destination, while its passenger, under a mask of enraged resignation, hid the fearfully wanton attitude of a runaway boy. From time to time he was still moved to laughter about his misfortune that could not have been more timely. Explanations had to be given, surprised expressions had to be braved — and then all was well again, he said to himself, an accident had been prevented, a grave error corrected and everything he had believed to have left behind could be his again for as long as he desired. . . Did the speedy ride fool him or had the wind indeed turned and was now blowing from the sea?
The waves lapped against the concrete walls of the narrow canal, which leads across the island to the Hotel "Excelsior". A horseless omnibus was expecting the returning one and transported him on a road far above the undulating sea back to the Hotel des Bains. The little moustached manager came down the stairs to greet him.
Softly ingratiating he regretted the incident, called it very embarrassing for the hotel, but fully supported Aschenbach's decision to await the trunk here. Of course his room was already occupied, but a different one, no worse, would be available. u Pas de chance, monsieur" said the Swiss elevator operator with a smile as they went up. And so the refugee took quarters again, in a room that was almost identical to first one in terms of the view and furnishings.
Weary and deadened from the chaos of that strange morning, he distributed the contents of his hand luggage in the room and sat down in an armchair next to the open window. The ocean had taken on a pale green color, the air seemed thinner and more pure, the beach with its boats and huts more colorful, even though the sky was still gray. Aschenbach looked outside, his hands folded in his lap, content to be back, shaking his head about his fickleness, his lack of knowledge about his own desires. So he sat maybe for an hour, resting and lost in mindless reverie. At noon he spotted Tadzio who, in a striped linen suit with a red bow, returned to the hotel via the wooden path. Aschenbach immediately recognized him, before he had even really looked at him, and wanted to think of something like: "Look, Tadzio, there you are again!" But in the same moment he felt the casual greeting sink and become silent in the face of the truth of his heart — felt the excitement of his blood, the joy and pain in his soul and realized that the farewell had been so taxing because of Tadzio.
He sat in utter silence, entirely unobserved on his high vantage point and looked inside of himself. The expression on his face had become enlivened, his eyebrows were moving up, an attentive, curious, and witty smile tensed his mouth. Then he raised his head and made with his arms, which had been hanging limply over the armrests of the chair, a slowly circular and raising motion, palms turned forward, as if suggesting an opening and extending of the arms. It was a willingly welcoming, calmly accepting gesture.