Chapter 5

In the fourth week of his stay on the Lido, Gustav von Aschenbach made some disconcerting observations regarding the external world. Firstly it seemed to him as if in spite of the approach of the best season the number of guests in his hotel was declining instead of increasing, and in particular as if the German language was dying out around him, so that during the meals and at the beach only foreign sounds could be heard after some time. One day at the barber's, whom he now visited regularly, he picked up a word that made him suspicious. The man had mentioned a German family which had left shortly after its arrival and added flatteringly: "But surely you will stay, sir; you are not afraid of the malady." Aschenbach looked at him. "The malady?" he repeated. The talker fell silent, tried to look busy, ignored the question, and when it was asked again more urgently he declared he did not know anything and tried to distract with embarrassed eloquence.

That had been at noon. In the afternoon Aschenbach crossed over to Venice during a calm and under a scorching Sun; since the obsession propelled him to follow the Polish siblings, whom he had seen take the path to the steamship landing accompanied by their governess. He did not find his idol at St Mark's. But when he took his tea at his little round iron table on the shaded portion of the square he suddenly noticed a strange aroma in the air, which it seemed he had registered subconsciously for a few days already — a sickly sweet smell reminiscent of distress and wounds and suspicious cleanliness. He probed it and pensively recognized it, finished his snack and exited the square on the side opposite of the church. In the cramped streets the odor intensified. At the corners printed notices had been affixed, warning the populace of the water in the canals and of the consumption of oysters and mussels, due to certain gastric conditions which had to be expected in this kind of weather. The euphemistic nature of the decree was apparent. Crowds of locals had gathered in silence on the bridges and squares; the foreigner stood brooding among them.

He attempted to get further information from a shopkeeper, who was leaning in the door of his store between coral necklaces and jewelry of artificial amethyst. The man assessed him with heavy eyes and rapidly enlivened: "Purely a precaution, dear sir," he said, gesticulating. "An order of the police that has to be observed. The weather is oppressive, the scirocco is not conducive to health. In short, you understand — likely an excessive precautionary measure. . . " Aschenbach thanked him and proceeded. On the steamer back to the Lido he also detected the scent of the disinfectant.

Back in the hotel, he immediately looked through the papers in the lobby. He found nothing in the foreign ones. The local papers reported rumors and fluctuating numbers, printed official announcements and questioned their veracity. This explained the withdrawal of the German and Austrian component. Members of the other nations were apparently ignorant of this, divined nothing, were unconcerned. "One should keep silent!" Aschenbach thought excitedly and threw the journals back onto their table. "One should keep silent about this!" But at the same time his heart filled with satisfaction about what the outside world was about to go through. Because passion, like crime, does not like everyday order and well-being and every slight undoing of the bourgeois system, every confusion and infestation of the world is welcome to it, because it can unconditionally expect to find its advantage in it. So Aschenbach felt a somber content about the cover-up of the terrible happenings in the grimy streets of the city that merged with his own innermost secret, happenings in the covertness of which he also had an interest. Because the lover was troubled by nothing except that Tadzio might depart and realized with terror that he would not know how to go on in life in that event.

As of late it was not enough for him to leave proximity and sight of the beautiful boy to chance or the daily schedule; he followed him around, he traced his steps. On Sunday for example the Poles never appeared at the beach; he guessed that they were attending Mass in St Mark's, he hastened there and entering from the fervent square into the golden dawn of the sanctuary, he found the needed one, praying during service. Then he stood in the back, on the jagged mosaic floor, among kneeling, murmuring people crossing themselves and the compact splendor of the Oriental-looking temple rested heavily on his senses. In the front, the ornate priest was singing and wielding his utensils, incense was in the air, encompassing the weak flames of the candles on the altar and into that dull and honeyed sacrificial scent another one seemed to mix: that of the sickened city. But through the mist and brilliance Aschenbach saw Tadzio turn his head, look for him, and find him.

When the crowds were exiting the church onto the gleaming square teeming with doves, the infatuated one hid himself in an ambush. He saw the Poles come from the church, saw the children say goodbye to their mother ceremoniously and how she turned to the piazzetta on her way back to the hotel; he determined that the handsome lad, his nunlike sisters and the governess were taking the way right of the clock tower and into the Merceria, and, putting some distance between them and himself, he followed them furtively on their walk through Venice.

He had to stop when they stopped, had to hide in cookshops and yards when they turned around; he lost sight of them, looked for them heatedly across bridges and in dirty blind alleys and had to suffer expressions of mortal pain when they suddenly came towards him in a narrow passage where evasion was impossible. Yet one could not say that he was suffering. His mind and his soul were intoxicated, and his steps were dictated by the demon who delights in destroying man's reason and dignity.

At some point, Tadzio and his took a gondola, and Aschenbach, hidden from their sight by a well, did the same when they had left. He talked in an abrupt and muffled voice when he ordered the gondolier, promising a hefty tip, to follow discreetly that gondola that was just turning the corner; and he was overjoyed when the man, with the roguish servility of the opportunist, replied to him in the same tone that he would be served, and served well.

So he floated, seated on soft black cushions, behind that other ebony barge, to which he was attracted by his passion. Sometimes he lost track of it: then he experienced grief and despair. But his gondolier, apparently experienced in such things, was always able to catch up with it by taking shortcuts. The air was calm and smelly, the Sun glowed through the haze, the sky was shale-colored. The waves clashed against wood and stone. The gondolier's call, partly warning, partly greeting, was replied to from somewhere in that silent labyrinth. White and purple umbels with an almond fragrance were hanging from high-lying gardens over derelict walls. Moorish window ornaments were dimly visible. The marble steps of a church descended into the water; a mendicant cowering on them presented his hat and showed the white of his eyes like a blind man, an antique dealer in front of his parlor invited the visitor with fawning gestures, hoping to swindle him. That was Venice, alluring and dubiously entrancing — this city, part fairy tale, part tourist trap, in the putrid atmosphere of which art used to blossom luxuriously and which had inspired musicians with lulling melodies. The adventurer felt as if his eyes were drinking that kind of luxury, as if his ears were courted by those kinds of melodies; he also recalled that the city was ailing and kept it secret because of its lucre, and he gazed even more unrestrainedly at the gondola in front.

So the confused one wished for nothing else except to pursue that object of his desire at all times, to dream of it in its absence, and, after the manner of lovers, speak tender words even to its shadow. Loneliness, foreignness, and the excitement of a late and deep rapture enticed him to allow himself to do even the most bizarre things without blushing or feeling shame, such as when he had, returning to the hotel in the evening, lingered before the beautiful boy's door on the second floor, pressing his brow against it and unable to part from it, risking to be caught in such an incriminating position.

But still there were moments of pause and contemplation. What kind of road! he thought. What kind of road have I chosen! Like every man who, because of his merits, takes an aristocratic interest in his ancestry, he was used to be in remembrance of his forefathers when he considered the achievements and successes of his life, to assure himself of their consent, their satisfaction, their necessary respect. He also remembered them at that moment, involved in such an unfit experience, taken in by such exotic emotional debauchery; he thought about their upright severity, the decent masculinity of their characters and smiled melancholically. What would they say about it? But really, what would they have said about his whole life, which had deviated so much from theirs, that life under the spell of art, about which he himself had once been so derisive as a youth, duplicating his forbearers' bourgeois attitudes, and that was yet in a way so similar to theirs! He also had served and exercised discipline; he had also been a soldier like some of them — because art was war, an exhausting struggle, in which one could only take part for a limited time these days. A life of overcoming oneself and yet a harsh, steady, and austere life, which he had turned into a symbol of a contemporary heroism — he was allowed to call it masculine and brave and it would seem to him that the kind of Eros, which had become his master, was particularly suited for such a life in some way. Was it not highly regarded among the most brave of peoples, was it not said that it blossomed in their cities through bravery? Countless war heroes of the past had been burdened with it, because nothing was considered debasing if it was ordered by the god, and deeds that would have been called acts of recreancy: falling to one's knees, oaths, imploring appeals and slavish devotion, these were not shameful for the lover but instead he was lauded for them.

That was the thinking of the infatuated one, in that way he tried to protect himself and keep his dignity. But at the same time he attentively observed the unclean going-ons in Venice, that adventure of the outside world which darkly converged with the one of his heart and nourished his passion with diffuse and lawless expectations. Bent on learning the latest about the current situation regarding the malady, he went through the local papers at the coffee houses of the city, because they had disappeared from the table in the hotel lobby. Claims and retractions were following each other. The number of cases and of deaths was supposed to be twenty, or forty, or a hundred, and right after that the whole notion of an epidemic was refuted, or at least limited to a few single cases of introduction from outside. Warning qualms, protests against the dangerous game of the officials were interspersed. Certainty was impossible to attain.

And still the loner was aware of a certain entitlement to learn the truth and, even though left out, he found it curiously satisfying to ask those in the know probing questions and force them to lie, since they had agreed to keep silent about it. One day at breakfast he did so with the manager, that little, soft-spoken man in the French frock coat, who was greeting and attending to the guests and also stopped at Aschenbach's table for a few words. Why in the name of God, inquired he in the most casual tone, had they been disinfecting Venice for some time? — "It is wholly a measure of the police, to keep all kinds of disruptions of public health in check that could be caused by the exceptionally hot weather." — "The police is to be commended," retorted Aschenbach, and after some exchange of meteorological remarks the manager took his leave.

On the same day, in the evening after dinner, it occurred that a small group of street musicians from the city was heard in the front garden. Two men and two women stood next to the iron post of an arc light with their brightly lit faces in the direction of the grand terrace, from which the vacationers enjoyed the folksy spectacle with coffee and cool drinks. The hotel employees, the elevator attendants, waiters and administrative office staff were listening from the entrance of the hall. The Russian family, eager and exact in matters of pleasure, had had chairs put up in the garden for them to be closer to the performers and sat there full of appreciation in a semicircle. Behind them, with her turban-like kerchief, stood their old servant.

A mandolin, a guitar, a harmonica and a scintillating fiddle were employed by the mendicant virtuosos. After instrumental pieces there were vocal numbers, such as the one where the younger woman, with a sharp and squawking voice, joined with the tenor in sweet falsetto for a love duet. But the main talent of the company was undoubtedly the man with the guitar and a sort of baritone-buffo, almost without a voice but with acting talent and possessing remarkable comedic energy. Often he separated from the group, his large instrument in his arm, coming up the ramp, where his fooling around was rewarded with cheering laughter. The Russians in particular were delighted with that southern agility and encouraged him with applause to become more and more sure of himself.

Aschenbach sat at the balustrade and sometimes wet his lips with a mixture of pomegranate juice and soda which glimmered ruby-red in his glass. He took in the squeaky music, the vulgar and pining melodies, because passion immobilizes good taste and seriously considers what soberly would be thought of as funny and to be resented. The clownish escapades had made him take on a fixed and almost hurting expression of amusement. He sat there in a relaxed way, while his interior was tense with attentiveness, because six paces apart from him Tadzio was leaning against the stone railing.

He stood there in a white suit which he sometimes wore for dinner, in inevitable and inborn grace, the left forearm on the railing, feet crossed, the right hand on his hip and looked with an expression that was almost unsmiling, more like a distant curiosity, a courteous acceptance at the singers below. Sometimes he straightened himself and pulled, with an elegant motion, his jacket through his leather belt. But at other times, and the older man registered it with triumph, with a floundering of his reason and also with horror, he turned around, either hesitatingly and slowly or quickly and suddenly, as if to take by surprise, over his left shoulder towards the chair of his lover. He did not meet his eyes, because a frightened concern forced the other one to keep himself from looking. Also on the terrace were the women who guarded Tadzio and he he feared to have become conspicuous. Indeed, he had noticed with a kind of torpidity that Tadzio had been called away from him, at the beach, in the hotel, and at St Mark's, that there was an attempt to keep them separate — and which implied a grave accusation which tormented him and which his conscience kept him from refuting.

In the meantime the guitarist had begun a solo to his own accompaniment, a multi- verse song that was currently making its rounds through Italy, in the refrain of which his company joined him with their singing and instruments and which he emphasized in a dramatic way. Lanky and with a thin and scrawny face he stood apart from the others, a sleazy felt in his nape, with a lump of his auburn hair protruding from under the brim, in an attitude of cheeky bravado on the gravel and emitted his jokes in a forceful recitative at the terrace to the tunes of his guitar, while the exertion of production made the veins on his forehead bulge. He did not look Venetian, rather like a Neapolitan comedian, part pimp, part gagman, brutal and bold, dangerous and entertaining. His normally relatively ridiculous song was transformed by his mouth and was made, thanks to his facial expressions, his body movements, his way of winking or salaciously playing with his tongue in the corners of his mouth, a little ambiguous and somehow objectionable. His skinny neck projected from the soft collar of his sport shirt, which he wore to his city clothes, exposing an unusually large and nude-looking Adam's apple. His pallid, round-nosed, beardless face, which made it difficult to guess his age, seemed ploughed up by grimacing and vice, and somehow the grinning of his nimble mouth did not fit the two deep furrows, defiant, imperious, and almost wild, between his reddish brows. But what really caused Aschenbach to focus on him was the observation that the suspicious figure seemed to carry with it its own suspicious ambience. Every time at the refrain, he started to dance around, shaking hands, coming close to Aschenbach's table, and every time that happened, his body and his clothes emanated a cloud of disinfectant smell.

After the song was finished, he started to collect the tips, beginning with the Russians, who were giving freely, and then made his way up the stairs. As cheeky as he had been during the song, as humbly he presented himself up here. Bowing, he tiptoed between the tables and a smile of sneaky servility bared his strong teeth, while the two furrows were still standing threateningly between his red brows. The alien being collecting his livelihood was examined with curiosity and some disgust, coins were thrown into his hat but people tried not to touch him. Closeness between the comedian and the decent audience always generates some awkwardness, even if the performance was very enjoyable. He felt it and tried to excuse himself with fawning. He approached Aschenbach and with him the scent which nobody else seemed to take note of.

"Listen," said the solitary one in a muffled voice, almost mechanically. "One is disinfecting Venice. Why?" — The comedian croaked: "Because of the police! It is an order, sir, in this heat and scirocco. The scirocco is oppressive. It is not conducive to health. . . " He talked as if he could not understand why one would ask about this and demonstrated with his flat palm how the scirocco was oppressive. — "So there is no malady in Venice?" Aschenbach asked softly and between his teeth. — The brawny features of the comedian took on a grimace of humorous perplexity. "A malady? What kind of malady? Is the scirocco a malady? Is our police a malady, perhaps? You must be joking! A malady! You must understand, it is purely a precautionary measure! A police order against the oppressive effects. . . " He gesticulated. — "It's all right," Aschenbach again said softly and quickly dropped a fairly large tip into his hat. Then he made a sign with his eyes for him to leave. The musician obeyed with a grin, under bows; but he had not yet reached the stairs when two hotel employees accosted him, taking him into a whispered cross examination. He shrugged, he pleaded, he swore to have been secretive; one agreed. Set free he returned to the garden and, after a hurried agreement with his company, broke into a final song.

It was a song which he foreigner thought never to have heard before; a cheeky song in unintelligible dialect and with a laughing refrain, into which the entire group entered at the top of their voices. Both the words and the musical accompaniment stopped at these points, and nothing remained except rhythmic laughter, which the soloist in particular performed with a remarkable verisimilitude. He had recovered his previous impudence, thanks to the increased distance to the audience and his faux laughter, addressed at the terrace, was derisive. Even before the refrain started he apparently had to fight the impulse. He sobbed, his voice wavered, he forced his hand against his mouth, he pulled up his shoulders, and in the right moment his laughter exploded, so real that it was infectious, so that the listeners became cheerful without a definite reason. And that seemed to increase the singer's giddiness. He flexed his knees, he slapped his thighs, he held his sides, he no longer laughed, he howled; he pointed with his finger at the merry society as if nothing could be funnier and finally everybody was laughing in the veranda and the garden, including the waiters, elevator attendants and servants in the door.

Aschenbach no longer reclined in his chair, he sat erect as if trying to fight or flee. But the laughter, the wafting hospital odor and the closeness of the beautiful boy immobilized him like an inescapable spell. In the general commotion and distraction he dared to look at Tadzio and registered that the other one also remained serious when answering his gaze, as if their behavior and expressions were linked and as if he was not influenced by the general mood since his lover was evading it. This childlike obedience was so disarming, so overpowering that the gray-haired one found it hard not to bury his face in his hands. It had also appeared to him that Tadzio's occasional straightenings and deep breaths were sighs, a tightness of the chest. "He is sickly, he will probably not reach old age," he thought with that objectivity to which intoxication and yearning are sometimes strangely inclined, and pure sympathy together with debauched satisfaction filled his heart.

The musicians meanwhile had finished and retreated. Applause accompanied them, and their leader did not fail to embellish his exit with jests. His bows and blowing of kissing were considered amusing, and so he redoubled them. When the others were already gone he pretended to run backwards into a lamp post, arriving at the gate in apparent pain. There he suddenly cast off his mask of the funny jinx, straightened himself up, stuck out his tongue at the guests on the terrace and disappeared into the darkness. The society of travelers dispersed; Tadzio was no longer standing at the balustrade. But the loner continued to sit with his drink at his table for a long time to the astonishment of the waiters. The night proceeded, time itself withered. In his parents' house, many years ago, there had been an hourglass — he suddenly saw the frail and important device again as if it stood before his eyes. Silently and finely the rust-colored sand traversed the glassy bottleneck, and since it was becoming less in the upper half, a small torrential vortex had formed there.

Already on the next day, in the afternoon, the defiant one made another attempt at tempting the outside world and this time very successfully. He entered the English travel agency at St Mark's Square and after he had exchanged some money, he addressed the clerk with his fatal question, with the expression of the distrustful stranger. It was an Englishman in tweed, still young, his hair parted down the middle, with narrow-set eyes, and that kind of loyalty of character which seems so alien and peculiar in the roguish South. He said: "No reason for concern, sir. A measure without grave implications. These kinds of orders are issued all the time to combat the ill effects of the heat and scirocco. . . " But looking up with his blue eyes he met the weary and somewhat sad gaze of the foreigner which was trained with slight disdain at his lips. The Englishman blushed. "That is," he continued, "the official version which people are trying to uphold. I will tell you there is something else to it. . . " And then he told the truth in his honest language. For several years Indian cholera had shown an increased tendency to spread and travel. Born in the sultry swamps of the Ganges delta, ascended with the mephitic odor of that unrestrained and unfit wasteland, that wilderness avoided by men, in the bamboo thickets of which the tiger is crouching, the epidemic had spread to Hindustan, to China, to Afghanistan and Persia and even to Moscow. But while Europe was fearing the specter might make its entrance over land, it had appeared in several Mediterranean ports, spread by Syrian traders, had arrived in Toulon, Malaga, Palermo, and Naples, also in Calabria and Apulia. The North seemed to have been spared. But in May of that year, the horrible vibrios were discovered in the emaciated and blackened bodies of a sailor and of a greengrocer. The deaths were kept secret. But after a week it had been ten, twenty or thirty victims, and in different quarters. An Austrian man had died in his hometown under unambiguous circumstances, after he had vacationed for a few days in Venice and so the first rumors of the malady appeared in German newspapers. The officials of Venice responded that the public health situation had never been better and ordered the necessary measures to fight the disease. But the foodstuffs had probably been infected. Meat, vegetables and milk contributed to more deaths and the tepid water of the canals was particularly to blame. It seemed as if the disease had become more contagious and virulent. Cases of recovery were rare; eighty of a hundred infected persons died in the most horrible fashion, because the malady came in the particularly severe form called "dry cholera". Here the body was unable to even get rid of the water that came from the blood vessels. Within a few hours the afflicted person dried up and suffocated on his viscid blood amid spasms and croaky cries of pain. Comparatively lucky were those who, after a slight feeling of nauseousness fell into a deep blackout, from which they mostly did not come to again. In early June the quarantine barracks of the hospital had been filling silently, in the two orphanages there was no longer enough room, and a horrific traffic developed between the city and San Michele, the cemetery island. But the fear of general damage, regard for the recently opened exhibition of paintings in the municipal gardens, for the enormous financial losses that threatened the tourist industry in case of a panic, had more impact in the city than love of truth and observation of international agreements; it made feasible the official policy of secrecy and denial. The highest medical official had resigned, filled with indignation, and had been replaced with a more docile person. The people were aware of that; and the corruption at the top together with the reigning uncertainty, the state of emergency caused by the suffering all around, caused a certain demoralization, an encouragement of unsavory antisocial tendencies, which took form as debauchery, wantonness and a rise of criminal behavior. Against the normal rule, many drunken men were noticeable in the evenings; vile rabble made the streets unsafe in the night; robbery and even murder happened again and again, for two times it had already proven that supposed victims of the epidemic had in reality been killed by their relatives with poison; and prostitution became more obtrusive and excessive, in a way that was normally more associated with the South of the country or the Orient.

Finally the Englishman came to the most important thing. "You would be well advised," he concluded, "to leave today rather than tomorrow. The quarantine cannot be further away than a few days at best." — "I thank you," Aschenbach said and left the office.

The place lay in sunless sultriness. Ignorant foreigners were sitting in the cafes or stood, covered with doves, in front of the church and looked on as the birds, teeming, flapping their wings and shoving away each other, were picking the corn handed to them. In febrile excitement, triumphantly in possession of the truth, with a taste of disgust on his tongue and fantastic horror in heart, the loner paced up and down on the flags of the square. He considered a cathartic and decent deed. He could approach the pearl-wearing woman after dinner and talk to her like this: "Please allow this stranger, madam, to give you advice and warning, kept from you by selfishness. Depart, depart right now, with Tadzio and your daughters! Venice is diseased!" Then he could place his hand upon the crown of that tool of a taunting god, turn around and flee from this swamp. But he immediately felt he did not really want to take that step. It would lead him back, give his soul back to himself; but when one is frantic, the last thing one desires is to be oneself again. He recalled that white edifice, ornate with glistening inscriptions, in the iridescent mystery of which the mind wandered; that strange wanderer that had reawakened his youthful desire for distant places; and the thought of returning home, of prudence, of austerity, hardship and mastery seemed so repulsive to him that his face took on a grimace of bodily nauseousness. "One should keep silent!" he whispered impetuously. And: "I will keep silent!" The knowledge of his complicity intoxicated him, like a small amount of liquor intoxicates an old and faded brain. The image of the afflicted and derelict city caused him to hope for things that were unreasonable and of unspeakable sweetness. What was that little bit of happiness of which he had just dreamed in comparison to this? What was art and virtue to him compared to the advantages of disorder? He kept silent and stayed.

That night he had a terrible nightmare — if a mental and corporeal experience can be called that. It happened in deep sleep and complete independence and sensual presence, but without himself being part of the proceedings; the scene was his soul itself and the events intruded violently from outside, subduing his deep mental resistance, went through and left his existence, the culture of his life, in shambles.

Fear was the beginning, fear and lust and a horrified curiosity of what would be coming. It was night; and his senses were listening intently; because from away a commotion, a noise, a din approached: a rattling, a clashing, a muffled thunder, shrill cheers and a howling of an "oo" sound, all mixed and sweetly drowned in a terrible way with deep-sounding and continual flute-playing, which cast an obtrusive spell on the entrails. And he saw a phrase, dark, but denoting what was coming: "The alien God!" Smoky fervency was smoldering: there he recognized the mountains, similar to the ones surrounding his summer house. And in the spotty light, from woody hills, between trunks and mossy boulders it thundered earthward like a vortex: men, animals, a swarm, a raging horde and flooded the place with bodies, flames, tumult, and a lurching dance. Women, foundering over their long fur dresses hanging from their belts, were hitting tambourines above their heads, moaning, brandishing burning torches and naked daggers, holding hissing snakes or grabbing their bare breasts, crying. Men with horns on their heads, clad in furs and with hairy bodies, bent their necks and lifted arms and calfs, hit brazen cymbals and drums, while hairless boys were goading bucks, clasping their horns and letting themselves be carried away by their jumps with cheers. And the ecstatic crowd howled that soft cry with the stretched "oo" sound at the end, both sweet and wild: here it resounded like deer cries and there it was echoed, many-voiced, in wild triumph, inciting one another to dance and hurl the limbs and to never let the cry stop. But all that was ruled by the deep sound of the flute. Did it not also tempt him, reluctantly witnessing all this, with shameless perseverance to that feast and to the immoderate ultimate sacrifice? His abhorrence and his fear were big, his will was honorable, to defend what was his against that stranger, the enemy of the sober and dignified mind. But the din, the howling, multiplied by the rocky cliffs increased, became prevalent, swelling to a ravishing madness. Odors crowded the senses, the biting smell of the bucks, the scent of groaning bodies and the stench of putrid waters, also another familiar one: of wounds and sickness making its rounds. His heart was booming with the drumbeats, his brain was gyrating, anger gripped him, blindness, deadening sexual lust and his soul desired to join the god's dance. An enormous wooden phallus was uncovered: then they howled the password with even less restraint. With frothing lips they were clamoring, inciting each other with lusty gestures and straying hands, laughing and moaning — hitting each other with spiked rods and licking the blood from their limbs. And with them, obedient to their god Dionysus, was the dreamer. Indeed, they were him, when they killed the animals and ate the still tepid flesh raw, when they copulated on the mossy ground to honor their god. And his soul tasted fornication and the fury of downfall.

From these dreams the stricken one awakened, unnerved, shattered, and limply addicted to the demon. He no longer feared the watchful eye of the other people; their suspicion was no longer important to him. At any rate they were fleeing and departing; many beach huts stood empty, the dining room was not full, and in the city foreigners were only rarely seen. The truth seemed to have percolated and a panic unavoidable, despite the sticking-together of the interested parties. But the woman with the pearl necklace stayed, be it because the rumors did not get through to her or because she was too proud and unafraid to yield to them: Tadzio stayed; and Aschenbach sometimes thought that through departure or death everyone else could be removed so that he could remain alone with the beautiful boy on the island — when in the morning his looks rested heavily, irresponsibly, and continually on the desired one, when he followed him unworthily through he stinking streets with their air of death, this monstrosity seemed promising to him, and moral laws no longer applicable.

Like any other lover he wanted to please and feared this would be impossible. He added little embellishments to his suits to make them look more youthful, he wore jewelry and used perfume, multiple times a day he required a lot of time for his toilette, he was ornate, excited, and tense when he came to the dining room. In view of that sweet youth that infatuated him his worn-out body disgusted him, his gray hair, the sharp features of his face caused him to feel shame and despair. He felt compelled to rejuvenate himself; he frequently visited the barber of the hotel.

In the hairdressing cape, under the grooming hands of the talkative barber, he looked at his mirror image with torment.

"Gray," he said with a distorted mouth.

"A little," said the man. "Because of a lack of care, an indifference to appearance, understandable in persons of importance, but that cannot be applauded and in particular since these kinds of persons should not be prejudiced with regards to what is real and what is artifice. If this sort of people rejected dental hygiene in the same way they reject cosmetics, they would leave a disturbing impression. After all we are only as old as our heart and mind feel and gray hair might be a greater falsehood than a little correction. You, dear sir, have a right to claim your natural hair color. Will you allow me to give it back to you?"

"How that?" asked Aschenbach.

Whereupon the talker rinsed the guest's hair with two solutions, a clear and a dark one, and it was as black as in his younger years. He curled it, stepped back and looked at his work.

"Only the facial skin would have to be refreshed a bit."

And like someone who is unable to stop himself he did one thing after another with zeal. Aschenbach, seated comfortably and unable to defend himself, hopeful about what transpired, saw in the mirror how his eyebrows arched upwards more elegantly, how his eyes looked larger and more shiny thanks to some makeup, saw his cheeks take on a rosy color, also his lips that had been pale were reddened, the furrows near eyes and mouth disappeared — he beheld with excitement an ephebe in full bloom. The cosmetician was finally content and thanked his patron after the custom of such people. "A minor correction," he said, putting the finishing touches on Aschenbach's exterior. "Now the gentleman can fall in love without hesitation." The enchanted one left, happy, confused, and fearful. His tie was red, his straw hat adorned with colorful bands.

A tepid breeze had started; it rained only occasionally and in small amounts, but the air was humid, thick and filled with putrid scents. Wafting, flapping and swishing filled one's ears and Aschenbach, feverish under his makeup, felt as if wind spirits of an evil kind were at work, like ugly sea birds digging into the condemned one's food. Because the sultriness stifled the appetite, and it was easy to think that the food was infected.

Following the handsome lad, Aschenbach had ventured deeply into the labyrinth of the afflicted city. Losing his orientation, since the little streets, canals, bridges and squares all looked too much alike, no longer sure about his bearing, he made an effort not to lose the desired idol from his sight and, forced into shameful delicacy, pressed against walls and taking cover behind other people, he did not realize how tired and exhausted his emotions and his suspense had made him. Tadzio was walking behind the others, letting the governess and his nunlike sisters go first in the cramped space, and ambling solitarily he sometimes turned his head, looking with his strangely gray eyes to make sure that his lover was still in tow. He saw him and did not give him away. Intoxicated by that knowledge, enticed to continue by those eyes, goaded by his passion, the inamorato traced an unsuitable hope — and still eventually had the sight taken away from him. The Poles had crossed a small, steeply curved bridge, the slope of which hid them and when he had ascended himself, he did not see them anymore. He searched for them in three different directions, straight ahead and both ways along the dirty and narrow quay, but to no avail. Feeling unnerved and weary, he had to abandon the hunt.

His head was burning, his body was covered with sticky sweat, his neck trembled, an unbearable thirst tormented him, he looked for some kind of immediate relief. He bought some fruit, some overripe strawberries, and devoured them while walking. A little square, looking deserted and enchanted, opened out before him, it had been here where he had planned to flee the city several weeks ago. He sat down next to the well, leaning against the stones. It was quiet, grass was sprouting between the slabs of the pavement. Debris was all around. Amid the derelict houses of uneven height at the square one stood out, like a palace, with pointed arch windows and little balconies with lions. There was also a pharmacy in the first floor of another house. Warm wind gusts sometimes carried with them the smell of disinfectant.

There he sat, the master, the dignified artist, the author of the "Miserable", who in such an exemplary and pure fashion had spoken against wandering and these murky depths, who had revoked his sympathy for the abyss and who had cast away what was cast away, the ascended one, the vanquisher of his knowledge and no longer partial to irony, who had accepted the responsibilities that fame brings, he whose fame was official, whose name bore the knighthood and who wrote in a style schoolboys were asked to imitate — he was sitting there, eyes closed, sometimes with a very fleeting expression of mockery and embarrassment and with his flaccid lips, improved through cosmetic artifice, forming occasional words out of what his half-sleeping brain was producing with a dreamlike logic.

"Because beauty, Phaedo, is the only thing that is divine and visible at the same time, and so it is the way of the artist to the soul. But do you believe, my dear Phaedo, that the one who reaches the intellectual through the senses can ever achieve wisdom and human dignity? Or do you believe (and I am leaving this to you) that it is a lovely but dangerous road that leads nowhere? Because you have to realize that we artists cannot take the path of beauty without Eros joining us and becoming our leader; we may be heroes in our own way, but we are still like women, because passion is what elevates us, and our desire is love — that is our lust and our disgrace. Do you see that poets can be neither sage nor dignified? That we always stray, adventurer in our emotions? The appearance of mastery in our style is a lie and foolishness, our fame a falsehood, the trust the public places in us is highly ridiculous, education of the young through art something that should be forbidden. Because how can someone be a good teacher when he has an inborn drive towards the abyss? We may deny it and gain dignity, but it still attracts us. We do not like final knowledge, because knowledge, Phaedo, has no dignity or severity: it knows, understands, forgives, without attitude; it is sympathetic to the abyss, it is the abyss. Therefore we deny it and instead seek beauty, simplicity, greatness and severity, of objectivity and form. But form and objectivity, Phaedo, lead the noble one to intoxication and desire, to horrible emotional transgressions rejected by his beautiful severity, lead to the abyss. Us poets, I say, it leads there, for we are unable to elevate ourselves, instead we can only transgress. And now I am leaving you, Phaedo; stay here until you no longer see me, then leave also."

A few days after that, Gustav von Aschenbach, feeling unwell, left the Hotel des Bains later than usual. He had struggled with certain fits of dizziness, only half physical, that were accompanied by strong feelings of fear and perplexity, a sense of hopelessness, of which it was not clear whether it pertained to the outside world or his own existence. In the lobby he saw a lot trunks and asked the porter who it was who was leaving and got as a reply an aristocratic Polish name of which he had already been dimly aware. His decayed features did not change when he heard it, he made a tiny gesture with his head as if it was something not worth knowing about and inquired: "When?" The response was: "After lunch." He nodded and went out towards the ocean.

It was unwelcoming there. Undulating ripples ran across the distant sea between the beach and the first sandbank. A sense of autumn lay over the place that had once been so lively and colorful, that was now almost abandoned and the beach of which was no longer kept clean. A camera, apparently unappropriated, stood at the shore on a tripod and the black cloth that was draped over it was flapping in the cold breeze.

Tadzio was playing at the right in front of their hut with the three or four comrades he had left and Aschenbach watched him for a last time, with a blanket on his knees, seated about midway between the sea and the row of huts. The game, that was unsupervised, as the women were probably busy with the impending departure, seemed to be without rules and soon degenerated. The sturdy one called "Jaschu" had been blinded by a throw of sand towards his eyes and had forced Tadzio to wrestle, a fight that quickly ended with the beautiful but weaker one's defeat. But as if in the hour of departure his servile attitude had become brutal and wanted to avenge itself for that long slavery, the victor kneeled on Tadzio's back and forced his head into the sand, so that Tadzio could have suffocated. His attempts to throw off the boy on his back slowly subsided. The horrified

Aschenbach almost wanted to step in when the victim was finally released. Tadzio, very pale, sat up and remained there for a few minutes unmoving and with dark eyes and disorderly hair. Then he stood up and went away. He was called, at first heartily, then imploringly; but he did not respond. The black-haired one, who might have felt regret about his transgression, overtook him and tried to reconcile himself with him. A gesture of the shoulder rebuked him. Tadzio walked diagonally towards the water. He was barefoot and wore his striped bathing suit with the red bow.

At the edge of the water he remained, drawing figures into the sand with his toes, his gaze fixed at the ground. Then he crossed the shallow sea that reached up to his knees in its deepest parts and arrived at the sandbank. There he stood for a moment, looking into the distance and then wandered slowly towards the left. Separated from terra firma by a gulf of water, separated from his companions by his pride, he ambled as a distinct and unconnected figure in the sea, in the wind, before the misty boundless space. Again he stood still to gaze. And suddenly, as if remembering something, he turned his torso, one hand at his side and looked over his shoulder to the shore. The onlooker sat there as he had when their eyes had first met. His eyes had been trained on the stroller, his head leaning against the chair, but now his head rose to meet the glance and then sunk back onto his chest as if in a deep sleep. But to him it seemed as if that pale and lovely Hermes out there was smiling at him, beckoning him; as if he, taking his hand from his side, was pointing at and floating into that promising immensity. And as he was used to do, Aschenbach followed him.

Several minutes passed before help arrived for him, who had fallen over sideways in his chair. He was carried to his room. And on the very same day a respectfully shocked world received the news of his death.