Death In Venice (5 page)

by the porter-who had entered the room, braided cap in hand-then smoked a cigarette and opened one or two of the letters. And so it transpired that he was present for the entrance of the slugabed awaited in the corner. He came through the glass door and walked straight across the quiet room to his sisters' table. His gait was extraordinarily graceful both in the way he held his upper torso and in the way he moved his knees and white-shod feet; it was a very light gait, at once delicate and proud, and embellished by the childlike modesty with which, twice on his way across the room, he turned his head and raised, then lowered his eyes. Smiling and murmuring a word in his soft, fuzzy language, he took his seat, and now, especially as he had turned his full profile to the observer, the latter was once more amazed, indeed, startled by the truly godlike beauty of this mortal being. Today the boy was wearing a lightweight, washable outfit with a blue-and-white-striped middy blouse that had a red silk bow at the chest and a plain white stand-up collar. The collar, though none too elegant a match for the rest of the outfit, showed off the boy's fair, blossoming head in its consummate charm, the head of an Eros with the creamy glaze of Parian marble, eyebrows serious and finely traced, temples and ear covered darkly and softly at right angles by encroaching ringlets. Good, good, thought Aschenbach with that cool, professional approval in which artists encountering a masterpiece sometimes shroud their delight, their excitement. Truth to tell, he went on thinking, were sea and shore not awaiting me, I should stay here as long as you! But he did leave, greeted by the staff as he passed through the lobby, then descending the large terrace and proceeding straight along the boardwalk to the beach partitioned off for the hotel guests. He was shown to his rented cabana by the barefoot old man in linen trousers, sailor's tunic, and straw hat serving there as bathing attendant, had his table and chair set up on a sandy wooden platform, and made himself comfortable in the chaise longue he had drawn onto the wax-yellow sand closer to the water. The view of the beach, the spectacle of civilization indulging in carefree sensuality on the brink of the watery element, entertained and pleased him as rarely before. The flat gray sea was already alive with wading children, swimmers, and colorful figures lying on sandbars, their arms crossed under their heads. Others were rowing small keelless boats painted red and blue, laughing as they capsized. The long row of cabanas, which had platforms like miniature verandahs for people to sit on, was a scene of animated activity and idly protracted repose, visits d chatter, meticulous matitudinal elegance alongside a nakedness unabashedly enjoying the freedoms of the place. Further out on the moist, firm sand there were individuals strolling in white bathing robes or loose, brightly colored frocks. On the right, an intricate sand castle built by children was bedecked with small flags in the colors of all nations; vendors hawked mussels, pastries, and fruit, kneeling before their wares. On the left, in front of one of the cabanas set at right angles to the others and to the sea and thus closing off that side of the beach, a Russian family had set up camp--men with beards and big teeth; listless, submissive women; a Baltic spinster seated at an easel and emitting cries of despair as she painted the sea; two ugly, good-natured children; and an old nanny in a kerchief, with the gentle, servile manner of a slave. They were cheerful and having great fun, tirelessly shouting the names of the romping, unruly children, using the few Italian words at their disposal to joke with the amusing old man from whom they bought sweets, kissing one another on the cheeks, and caring never a whit whether their very human esprit de corps was being observed. "I shall stay, then," Aschenbach thought. "What better place could there be?" And folding his hands in his lap, he let his eyes run over the sea's great expanse and set his gaze adrift till it blurred and broke in the monotonous mist of barren space. He loved the sea and for deep-seated reasons: the hardworking artist's need for repose, the desire to take shelter from the demanding diversity of phenomena in the bosom of boundless simplicity, a propensity-proscribed and diametrically opposed to his mission in life and for that very reason seductive-a propensity for the unarticulated, the immoderate, the eternal, for nothingness. To repose in perfection is the desire of all those who strive for excellence, and is not nothingness a form of perfection? But as he dreamt his way deep into the void, the horizontal shoreline was suddenly intersected by a human form and, summoning his gaze back from the infinite and bringing it into focus, he saw none other than the beautiful boy coming from the left, walking past him in the sand. He was barefoot in preparation for wading, his slender legs exposed to above the knee, and while his gait was slow it was as light and proud as if he were quite accustomed to going about shoeless. He looked over at the cabanas in the perpendicular row, but no sooner did he spy the Russian family going about its business in cheerful harmony than a storm cloud of angry disdain came over his face: the forehead wrinkled into a dark frown; the mouth rose up, pulling the lips to one side in a bitter grimace that rent the cheek; the brows grew so deeply furrowed that the eyes seemed to have sunk under the pressure, glowering out from beneath them, speaking the language of hate. He looked down, looked back again ominously, then thrust one shoulder forward in a show of repulsion and rebuff, and left his enemies behind. A kind of delicacy or apprehension, something akin to deference or modesty, caused Aschenbach to turn away, as if he had seen nothing. Any serious individual who chances to observe a moment of passion is loath to make personal use of what he has witnessed. Yet he was cheered and shaken at the same time, in other words, elated. This childish fanaticism aimed at so benign a target gave the boy's mute divinity a human perspective: it made an exquisite work of nature-a statue, a mere feast for the eyes-something worthy of deeper consideration and placed the figure of an adolescent, already remarkable for his beauty, against a background enabling one to take him seriously beyond his years. His eyes still averted, Aschenbach listened to the boy's voice, the high, rather weak voice with which, still some way Qif, he greeted his playmates, who were busy building a sand castle. They responded, calling out his name or pet name several times, and Aschenbach listened to it with a certain curiosity, but could make out nothing more than two melodic syllables: "Adgio" or, more often, "Adgiu," with a final u they lengthened as they called. He liked the sound of it: he found its euphony appropriate to the object in question and, having repeated it to himself, turned back, contented, to his letters and papers. With his portable writing case on his knees, he began attending to this or that item of correspondence with his fountain pen. But after no more than a quarter of an hour he decided it was a pity to divert his mind from the situation at hand, the most enjoyable he knew, to let it slip past for the sake of an indifferent pursuit. He tossed his writing utensils aside and gazed back at the sea, but before long, distracted by the voices of the youngsters building the sand castle, he placidly turned his head to the right along the back of the chair the better to follow once more the doings of the exquisite Adgio. He located him at once: the red bow on his chest was unmistakable. Engaged with the others in laying an old plank as a bridge across the sand castle's water-filled moat, he gave directions by shouts and head signals. He had ten or so companions, boys and girls-some his own age, some younger-chattering higgledy-piggledy in tongues: Polish, French, and even some Balkan languages. But his name was the most often heard. He was clearly sought after, courted, admired. One boy in particular, a Pole like him-a stocky fellow who was addressed as something like Jasiu and who had black, slicked-down hair and was wearing a belted linen suit-appeared to be his closest vassal and friend. When the current stage of work on the castle came to an end, they walked along the beach with their arms around each other, and the fellow addressed as Jasiu kissed the beautiful youth. Aschenbach was tempted to shake a finger at them. "I advise you, Critobulus," he thought with a smile, "to travel for a year. For you will need at least that long to recover." Then he breakfasted on some large, fully ripe strawberries he had purchased from a peddler. It had grown very hot, though the sun was unable to pierce the layer of haze in the sky. Lethargy fettered the mind even as the senses enjoyed the vast, benumbing pleasure of the ocean's calm. The serious Aschenbach found it a suitable, perfectly satisfying use of his time to guess at or postulate on the name that sounded like Adgio, and with the aid of some Polish reminiscences he determined that it must be Tadzio, the pet name for Tadeusz, which becomes Tadziu in direct address.* Tadzio was bathing. Aschenbach, who had lost sight of him, spotted his head, then his arm rising paddlelike from the water far out at sea, the sea being most likely shallow for quite a distance. But already he seemed a cause for concern; already women's voices were calling out to him from the cabanas, once more shouting the * Likewise, Jasju is the direct-address form of the name of Tadzio's friend jag, which is the pet name for Jan (Translator's note) name that dominated the beach almost like a catchword, its soft consonants and long-drawn-out final u making it at once sweet and wild: "Tadziu! Tadziu!" Back he came, running through the waves, his legs beating the resistant water into foam, his head flung back, and to see so vibrant a figure, with the grace and austerity of early manhood, locks dripping, fair as a gentle god, emerging from the depths of sea and sky, escaping the watery element-it was enough to inspire mythical associations, like the lay of a bard about times primeval, about the origin of form and the birth of the gods. His eyes closed, Aschenbach harkened to the chant welling up within him and thought again that being here was good and he would stay. Later Tadzio lay in the sand resting from his swim, wrapped in a white sheet drawn up under his right shoulder, his head reposing on a bare arm, and Aschenbacheven when not observing him, when reading a few pages in his book-hardly ever forgot that he was there and that he had only to turn his head slightly to the right to glimpse the object of his admiration. He almost felt he was sitting there to keep watch over the boy as he rested-indulging in his own affairs, yet constantly guarding the noble figure a little way off to his right. And he was infused with a paternal affection, the attraction that one who begets beauty by means of selfsacrifice feels for one who is inherently beautiful. After midday he left the beach, returned to the hotel, and went up to his room. There he spent quite some time before the mirror, studying his gray hair and pinched, weary face. Reflecting the while on his famepeople often recognized him on the street and gazed after him respectfully for the unerring precision and grace of his diction-he evoked all the outward signs of success he owed to his talent, even his noble title. He then went down to the dining room for lunch at his table. When he entered the lift after the meal, a group of young people also coming from lunch crowded into the floating cubicle after him, Tadzio amongst them. He stood quite close to Aschenbach, so close that for the first time he perceived him not as a distant work of art and, given the minute detail, acknowledged his human qualities. Someone addressed the boy, and while replying, with an indescribably winsome smile, he backed out at the next floor, his eyes cast down. Beauty breeds diffidence, thought Aschenbach, earnestly wondering why. He had noticed, however, that Tadzio's teeth were less than attractive: a bit jagged and pale, lacking the gleam of health, and with that brittle, transparent quality sometimes found in anemics. He is very frail, he is sickly, thought Aschenbach. He'll probably not live long. And he made no attempt to account for why he felt satisfied or consoled at the thought. 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 San Marco, had tea in the square, and then, in conformity with his daily program there, set off on a stroll through the streets. But this stroll brought about a major change in his mood and intentions. A repellent sultriness permeated the narrow streets, the air so thick that the odors emanating from houses, shops, and food stalls-the vapor of oil, the clouds of perfume, and more-hovered like fumes without dispersing. Cigarette smoke hung in place dissipating slowly. Aschenbach felt more irritated than invigorated by the bustle of the crowd. The longer he walked, the more afflicted he was by that odious condition brought on by the combination of sea air and sirocco: simultaneous excitation and prostration. He broke out into a disagreeable sweat. His eyes refused to function, his chest constricted, he felt feverish, the blood throbbed in his head. He fled the bustling commercial streets and crossed the bridges into the alleyways of the poor. There he was set upon by beggars, and the fetid effluvia from the canals made breathing a torment. Leaning against the edge of a fountain in a quiet square, one of those forgotten, godforsaken spots in the heart of Venice, he wiped his forehead and realized he would have to travel on. For the second time-and this time definitivelythe city had proved itself extremely harmful to him in such weather. Braving it out obstinately seemed unreasonable, the prospect of a shift in the wind being quite uncertain immediate decision was of the essence. Returning home was out of the question at this point: neither his summer nor his winter quarters were ready. But this was not the only place with sea and sand, and elsewhere they were to be had without the nefarious admixture of the lagoon and its feverous vapors. He recalled having heard the praises of a small seaside resort not far from Trieste. Why not go there? And without delay, to make the move to yet another locale worth the effort. He rose, resolute, to his feet. At the next gondola stop he boarded a boat and was rowed through the murky labyrinth of the canals under graceful marble balconies flanked by carved lions, around corners of slimy masonry, past funereal palazzo fa�ades, their large commercial signs mirrored in the bobbing water
strewn with refuse, and on to San Marco. He had some difficulty getting there, because the gondolier, in league as he was with the lace factories and glass works, kept trying to stop so he might view and purchase their wares, and whenever the bizarre journey through Venice began to cast its spell upon him the cutpurse mercantilism of the sunken queen did its part to bring him painfully back to his senses. Upon his return to the hotel, even before dining, he informed the office that unforeseen circumstances had compelled him to leave early the following morning. Regrets were tendered, the bill settled. He dined and spent the warm evening reading newspapers in a rocking chair on the back terrace. Before retiring, he packed all his belongings for departure. He did not sleep particularly well, the imminent displacement having unnerved him. When he opened the windows ii the morning, the sky was as overcast as it had been, but the air seemed fresher, and-regret set in. Had giving notice not been impetuous and wrongheaded, the result of an inconsequential indisposition? If he had held off a bit, if he had not been so quick to lose heart, if he had instead tried to adjust to the air or wait for the weather to improve, he would now have been free of stress and strain and looking forward to a morning on the beach like the one the day before. Too late. He must go on wanting what he had wanted yesterday He dressed and rode down to the ground floor at eight for breakfast. The breakfast room was still empty when he went in. Several guests arrived while he sat waiting for his order. His teacup at his lips, he watched the Polish girls enter with their companion. Stiff and fresh from sleep, their eyes still red, they proceeded to their table in the corner near the window. Shortly thereafter the porter went up to him, cap in hand, to admonish him to depart: the motorcar was ready to drive the gentleman and several other passengers to the Hotel Excelsior, where the motor launch would be waiting to convey them to the station via the company's private canal. Time was pressing. Aschenbach felt time was doing nothing of the sort: his train was not due to leave for more than an hour. He resented the way hotels prevailed upon their guests to vacate the premises prematurely and indicated to the porter that he wished to breakfast in peace. The man withdrew hesitantly only to reappear five minutes later. The motorcar could not possibly wait any longer, he said. Then let it go and take his trunk with it, Aschenbach retorted angrily; he would use the public vaporetto when the time came, and would he kindly leave the arrangements for his departure to him? The employee bowed. Glad to have fended off the man's tedious admonitions, Aschenbach finished his breakfast in a leisurely fashion; he even had the waiter bring him a newspaper. Time was indeed short by the time he stood at last. And it so happened that at that very instant Tadzio entered through the glass door. As he crossed the departing Aschenbach's path on his way to the family table, he modestly lowered his eyes before the man with the gray hair and lofty brow only to raise them again, soft and wide, in that charming way of his, and walk past. "Adieu, Tadzio!" Aschenbach thought. "It was all too brief" And, contrary to his custom, actually forming the words with his lips and uttering them to himself, he added, "God bless you." He then went through the departure formalitiesdistributing gratuities and listening to the short, softspoken manager in the French frock coat make his farewell----left the hotel on foot as he had come, followed by the hotel porter with his hand luggage, and set out for the vaporetto landing along the white-blossoming avenue that cut across the island. Having reached it, he took a seat-and what ensued was a woeful calvary through the depths of remorse. It was the familiar ride across the lagoon, past San Marco and up the Grand Canal. Aschenbach sat on the curved bench in the bow, an arm on the railing and a hand shading his eyes. The Public Gardens faded into the distance, and the Piazzetta once more displayed its princely elegance, but it, too, retreated, and after a great rush of palazzi the splendid marble arch of the Rialto came into view around a bend in the waterway. The traveler looked on, his breast riven. The atmosphere of the city, that faintly fetid odor of sea and swamp he had been so anxious to flee-he now breathed it in, in deep, delicately throbbing drafts. Was it possible he had not known or even considered how much it all meant to him? What that morning had been a pang of sorrow, a vague doubt as to the validity of his actions was now grief, true pain, an affliction of the soul so bitter that it brought tears to his eyes more than once and, as he told himself, was totally unforeseen. What he found so hard to bear and even utterly intolerable at times was clearly the thought that he would never see Venice again, that this was a farewell forever. For now that the city had twice made him ill, now that he had twice been forced to pick up and leave it, he would henceforth be obliged to consider it an impossible and forbidden destination, one he was not up to and could never think of revisiting. Indeed, he felt that should he leave now, shame and pride must prevent him from setting eyes again on the beloved city that had twice brought him low, and this conflict between the soul's inclination and the body's capabilities suddenly struck the aging man as so serious and significant, his physical defeat seemed so ignominious, in such urgent need of redress, that he could not comprehend the frivolous resignation with which he had decided to acknowledge and bear it with no true struggle. Meanwhile the vaporetto was approaching the station and his pain and perplexity grew to the point of distraction. Tormented as he was, he felt it impossible to depart, yet none the less so to turn back. He entered the station racked by indecision. It was very late; he had not a moment to lose if he was to catch the train. He both wished to and did not. But time was pressing, goading him onward, and he hastened to purchase his ticket and then peered through the tumult for the hotel employee on duty there. The man appeared and informed him that the large trunk had been dispatched. Dispatched? Already? Yes, as ordered: to Como To Como? And after a flurry of comings and goings, irate questions and embarrassed answers, it came out that back in the luggage room of the Hotel Excelsior the trunk had been thrown together with some other people's luggage and routed in a totally misguided direction. Aschenbach had difficulty maintaining the only plausible facial expression in the circumstances. A reckless joy, an unbelievable glee took almost convulsive hold of his breast. The hotel employee rushed off to do what he could to stop the trunk, but returned, as was to be expected, unsuccessful. Aschenbach accordingly announced that he was unwilling to travel on without his luggage and had decided to go back and wait at the Hotel des Bains until the article was retrieved. Was the hotel motor launch still at the station? The man assured him it was just outside, and in a torrent of Italian he induced the ticket clerk to take back the ticket Aschenbach had purchased. Then he swore that telegrams would be sent and no effort spared, nothing left undone to ensure that the trunk be recovered as soon as possible. And thus a most unusual thing came to pass: twenty minutes after arriving at the station the traveler found himself on the Grand Canal making his way back to the Lido. What an oddly improbable, humiliating, comically dreamlike adventure: taking brokenhearted leave of places forever and then, turned round and spirited back by a quirk of fate, seeing them again within the hour! Spray at the prow, tacking with playful agility between gondolas and vaporetti, the swift little vessel raced towards its destination, its sole passenger concealing beneath a mask of resigned indignation the anxious yet high-spirited agitation of a child who has run away from home. From time to time his breast still shook with laughter at the thought of this mishap, which, he said to himself, could not have befallen even the luckiest of men at a more opportune moment There were explanations to give, astonished faces to confront, but then, he said to himself, everything would be fine again, a disaster averted, a grievous error rectified, and everything he thought he had left behind would once more open up before him, his to enjoy for as long as he so desired... And was it only the speed of the launch or was there actually, on top of it all, a breeze blowing in from the sea? The waves beat against the concrete walls of the narrow canal that runs across the island to the Hotel Excelsior. There a motor omnibus stood waiting to take the returning guest straight to the Hotel des Bains on the road above the rippling sea. The small, mustachioed manager in the frock coat came down the steps to greet him. He deplored the incident in his soft, wheedling way, calling it extremely awkward for him and the establishment, but unconditionally condoned Aschenbach's decision to await the trunk there. His room had of course been occupied, but another, equally suitable, would be ready immediately. Pas de chance, monsieur," said the Swiss lift attendant with a smile as they rode up. And thus the fugitive was lodged once more, and in a room all but identical in situation and furnishing. Exhausted and benumbed by the strange morning's turmoil, he distributed the contents of his bag about the room and settled into a reclining chair at the open window. The sea had turned a pale green: the air seemed thinner and purer, the beach with its boats and cabanas more colorful, though the sky was still gray. Aschenbach gazed out of the window, his hands folded in his lap, pleased to be back, but shaking his head in displeasure at his fickle nature, his ignorance of his own wishes. He sat thus for perhaps an hour in repose and idle reverie. At noon he spotted Tadzio in his striped linen outfit and red bow returning from the sea to the hotel through the beach gate and along the boardwalks. From his lofty vantage point Aschenbach recognized him immediately, even before getting a clear view of him, and was on the point of thinking something like: So you're still here, too, Tadzio. But at that very moment he felt the casual greeting fade and vanish before the truth of his heart, he felt the rapture of his blood, the joy and agony of his soul, and acknowledged to himself that it was Tadzio who had made it so hard for him to leave. He sat there perfectly still, perfectly invisible on his lofty perch, gazing within himself His features were keen, his eyebrows high, his lips drawn into a vigilant, inquisitively intelligent smile. Then he raised his head and with both arms, which had been hanging limply over the back of his chair, made a slow, rising, circular motion that brought the hands forward in such a way as to indicate an opening and spreading of the arms. It was a gesture of willingness, welcome, of calm acceptance.