Now
daily the naked god with cheeks aflame drove his four fire-breathing steeds
through heaven's spaces; and with him streamed the strong east wind that
fluttered his yellow locks. A sheen, like white satin, lay over all the idly rolling
sea's expanse. The sand was burning
hot. Awnings of rust-coloured canvas
were spanned before the bathing-huts, under the ether's quivering silver-blue;
one spent the morning hours within the small, sharp square of shadow they
purveyed. But evening too was rarely
lovely: balsamic with the breath of flowers and shrubs from the nearby park,
while overhead the constellations circled in their spheres, and the murmuring
of the night-girded sea swelled softly up and whispered to the soul. Such nights as these contained the joyful
promise of a sunlit morrow, brimful of sweetly ordered idleness, studded thick
with countless precious possibilities.
The guest detained here by so happy a
mischance was far from finding the return of his luggage a ground for setting
out anew. For two days he had suffered
slight inconvenience and had to dine in the large salon in his travelling
clothes. Then the lost trunk was set
down in his room, and he hastened to unpack, filling presses and drawers with
his possessions. He meant to stay on -
and on; he rejoiced in the prospect of wearing a silk suit for the hot morning
hours on the beach and appearing in acceptable evening dress at dinner.
He was quick to fall in with the pleasing
monotony of this manner of life, readily enchanted by its mild soft brilliance
and ease. And what a spot it is, indeed!
- uniting the charms of a luxurious bathing-resort by a southern sea with the
immediate nearness of a unique and marvellous city. Aschenbach was not
pleasure-loving. Always, wherever and
whenever it was the order of the day to be merry, to refrain from labour and
make glad the heart, he would soon be conscious of the imperative summons - and
especially was this so in his youth - back to the high fatigues, the sacred and
fasting service that consumed his days.
This spot and this alone had power to beguile him, to relax his
resolution, to make him glad. At times -
of a forenoon perhaps, as he lay in the shadow of his awning, gazing out
dreamily over the blue of the southern sea, or in the mildness of the night,
beneath the wide starry sky, ensconced among the cushions of the gondola that
bore him Lido-wards after an evening on the Piazza, while the gay lights faded
and the melting music of the serenades died away on his ear - he would think of
his mountain home, the theatre of his summer labours. There clouds hung low and trailed through the
garden, violent storms extinguished the lights of the house at night, and the
ravens he fed swung in the tops of the fir trees. And he would feel transported to Elysium, to
the ends of the earth, to a spot most carefree for the sons of men, where no
snow is, and no winter, no storms or downpours of rain; where Oceanus sends a mild and cooling breath, and days flow on
in blissful idleness, without effort or struggle, entirely dedicated to the sun
and the feasts of the sun.
Aschenbach saw
the boy Tadzio almost constantly. The narrow confines of their world of hotel
and beach, the daily round followed by all alike, brought him in close, almost
uninterrupted touch with the beautiful lad.
He encountered him everywhere - in the salons of the hotel, on the
cooling rides to the city and back, among the splendours of the Piazza, and
besides all this in many another going and coming as chance vouchsafed. But it was the regular morning hours on the
beach which gave him his happiest opportunity to study and admire the lovely
apparition. Yes, this immediate
happiness, this daily recurring boon at the hand of circumstance, this it was
that filled him with content, with joy in life, enriched his stay, and lingered
out the row of sunny days that fell into place so pleasantly one behind the
other.
He rose early - as early as though he had
a panting press of work - and was among the first on the beach, when the sun
was still benign and the sea dazzling white in its morning slumber. He gave the watchman a friendly good-morning
and chattered with a barefoot, white-haired old man who prepared his place,
spread the awning, trundled out the chair and table on
to the little platform. Then he settled
down; he had three or four hours before the sun reached its height and the
fearful climax of its power; three or four hours while the sea went deeper and
deeper blue; three or four hours in which to watch Tadzio.
He would see him coming up, on the left,
along the margin of the sea; or from behind, between the cabins; or, with a
start of joyful surprise, would discover that he himself was late, and Tadzio already down, in the blue and white bathing-suit
that was now his only wear on the beach; there and engrossed in his usual
activities in the sand, beneath the sun.
It was a sweetly idle, trifling, fitful life, of play and rest, of
strolling, wading, digging, fishing, swimming, lying on the sand. Often the women sitting on the platform would
call out to him in their high voices: 'Tadzio! Tadzio!' and he would come running and waving his arms,
eager to tell them what he had found, what caught - shells, seahorses,
jellyfish, and sidewards-running crabs. Aschenbach
understood not a word he said; it might be the sheerest commonplace, in his ear
it became mingled harmonies. Thus the
lad's foreign birth raised his speech to music; a wanton sun showered splendour
on him, and the noble distances of the sea formed the background which set off
his figure.
Soon the observer knew every line and pose
of this form that limned itself so freely against sea and sky; its every
loveliness, though conned by heart, yet thrilled him each day afresh; his
admiration knew no bounds, the delight of his eye was unending. Once the lad was summoned
to speak to a guest who was waiting for his mother at their cabin. He ran up, ran dripping wet out of the sea,
tossing his curls, and put out his hand, standing with his weight on one leg,
resting the other foot on his toes; as he stood there in a posture of suspense
the turn of his body was enchanting, while his features wore a look half
shamefaced, half conscious of the duty breeding laid upon him to please. Or he would lie at full length, with his
bathrobe around him, one slender young arm resting on the sand, his chin in the
hollow of his hand; the lad they called Jaschiu
squatting beside him, paying him court.
There could be nothing lovelier on earth than the smile and look with
which the playmate thus singled out rewarded his humble friend and vassal. Again, he might be at the water's edge,
alone, removed from his family, quite close to Aschenbach;
standing erect, his hands clasped at the back of his neck, rocking slowly on
the balls of his feet, daydreaming away into blue space, while little waves ran
up and bathed his toes. The ringlets of
honey-coloured hair clung to his temples and neck, the fine down along the
upper vertebrae was yellow in the sunlight; the thin envelope of flesh covering
the torso betrayed the delicate outlines of the ribs and the symmetry of the
breast-structure. His armpits were still
as smooth as a statue's, smooth the glistening hollows behind the knees, where
the blue network of veins suggested that the body was formed of some stuff more
transparent than mere flesh. What discipline, what precision of thought were expressed by the
tense youthful perfection of this form!
And yet the pure, strong will which had laboured in darkness and
succeeded in bringing this godlike work of art to the light of day - was it not
known and familiar to him, the artist?
Was not the same force at work in himself when
he strove in cold fury to liberate from the marble mass of language the slender
forms of his art which he saw with the eye of his mind and would body forth to
men as the mirror and image of spiritual beauty?
Mirror and image! His eyes took in the proud bearing of that
figure there at the blue water's edge; with an outburst of rapture he told
himself that what he saw was beauty's very essence; form as a divine thought, the
single and pure perfection which resides in the mind, of which an image and
likeness, rare and holy, was here raised up for adoration. This was very frenzy - and without a scruple,
nay, eagerly, the ageing artist bade it come.
His mind was in travail, his whole mental background in a state of
flux. Memory flung up in him the
primitive thoughts which are youth's inheritance, but which with him had
remained latent, never leaping up into a blaze.
Has it not been written that the sun beguiles our attention from things
of the intellect to fix it on things of the sense? The sun, they say,
dazzles; so bewitching reason and memory that the soul for very pleasure
forgets its actual state, to cling with doting on the loveliest of all the
objects she shines on. Yes, and then it
is only through the medium of some corporeal being that it can raise itself
again to contemplation of higher things.
Amor, in sooth, is like the mathematician who
in order to give children a knowledge of pure form must do so in the language
of pictures; so, too, the god, in order to make visible the spirit, avails
himself of the forms and colours of human youth, gilding it with all imaginable
beauty that it may serve memory as a tool, the very sight of which then sets us
afire with pain and longing.
Such were the devotee's thoughts, such the
power of his emotions. And the sea, so
bright with glancing sunbeams, wove in his mind a spell and summoned up a
lovely picture: there was the ancient plane-tree outside the walls of Athens, a
hallowed, shady spot, fragrant with willow-blossom and adorned with images and
votive offerings in honour of the nymphs and Achelous. Clear ran the smooth-pebbled stream at the
foot of the spreading tree. Crickets
were fiddling. But on the gentle grassy
slope, where one could lie yet hold the head erect, and shelter from the
scorching heat, two men reclined, an elder with a younger, ugliness paired with
beauty and wisdom with grace. Here
Socrates held forth to youthful Phaedrus upon the
nature of virtue and desire, wooing him with insinuating wit and charming turns
of phrase. He told him of the shuddering
and unwonted heat that comes upon him whose heart is open, when his eye beholds
an image of eternal beauty; spoke of the impious and corrupt, who cannot
conceive beauty though they see its image, and are incapable of awe; and of the
fear and reverence felt by the noble soul when he beholds a godlike face or a
form which is a good image of beauty: how as he gazes he worships the beautiful
one and scarcely dares to look upon him, but would offer sacrifice as to an
idol or a god, did he not fear to be thought stark mad. 'For beauty, my Phaedrus,
beauty alone is lovely and visible at once.
For, mark you, it is the sole aspect of the spiritual which we can
perceive through our senses, or bear so to perceive. Else what should become of us, if the divine,
if reason and virtue and truth, were to speak to us through the senses? Should we not perish and be consumed by love,
as Semele aforetime was by
Zeus? So beauty, then, is the
beauty-lover's way to the spirit - but only the way, only the means, my little Phaedrus.' - And then, sly arch-lover that he was, he said
the subtlest thing of all: that the lover was nearer the divine than the
beloved; for the god was in the one but not in the other - perhaps the tenderest, most mocking thought that ever was thought, and
source of all the guile and secret bliss the lover knows.
Thought that can emerge wholly into
feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought - these are the artist's
highest joy. And our solitary felt in
himself at this moment power to command and wield a thought that thrilled with
emotion, an emotion as precise and concentrated as thought: namely, that nature
herself shivers with ecstasy when the mind bows down in homage before
beauty. He felt a sudden desire to
write. Eros, indeed, we are told, loves
idleness, and for idle hours alone was he created. But in this crisis the violence of our
sufferer's seizure was directed almost wholly towards production, its occasion
almost a matter of indifference. News
had reached him on his travels that a certain problem had been raised, the
intellectual world challenged for its opinion on a great and burning question
of art and taste. By nature and
experience the theme was his own: and he could not resist the temptation to set
it off in the glistening foil of his words.
He would write, and moreover he would write in Tadzio's
presence. This lad should be in a sense
his model, his style should follow the lines of this
figure that seemed to him divine; he would snatch up this beauty into the
realms of the mind, as once the eagle bore the Trojan shepherd aloft. Never had the pride of the world been so
sweet to him, never had he known so well that Eros is in the word, as in those
perilous and precious hours when he sat at his rude table, within the shade of
his awning, his idol full in his view and the music of his voice in his ears,
and fashioned his little essay after the model Tadzio's
beauty set: that page and a half of choicest prose, so chaste, so lofty, so
poignant with feeling, which would shortly be the wonder and admiration of the
multitude. Verily it is well for the
world that it sees only the beauty of the completed work and not its origins
nor the conditions whence it sprang; since knowledge of the artist's
inspiration might often but confuse and alarm and so prevent the full effect of
its excellence. Strange hours, indeed,
these were, and strangely unnerving the labour that filled them! Strangely fruitful intercourse this, between
one body and another mind! When Aschenbach put aside his work and left the beach he felt
exhausted, he felt broken - conscience reproached him, as it were after a
debauch.
Next morning on leaving the hotel he stood
at the top of the stairs leading down from the terrace and saw Tadzio in front on him on his way to the beach. The lad had just reached the gate in the
railings, and he was alone. Aschenbach felt, quite simply, a wish to overtake him, to
address him and have the pleasure of his reply and answering look; to put upon
a blithe and friendly footing his relation with this being who all
unconsciously had so greatly heightened and quickened his emotions. The lovely youth moved at a loitering pace -
he might be easily overtaken; and Aschenbach hastened
his own step. He reached him on the
boardwalk that ran behind the bathing-cabins, and all but put out his hand to
lay it on shoulder or head, while his lips parted to utter a friendly
salutation in French. But - perhaps from
the swift pace of his last few steps - he found his heart throbbing
unpleasantly fast, while his breath came in such quick pants that he could only
have gasped had he tried to speak. He
hesitated, sought after self-control, was suddenly panic-stricken lest the boy
notice him hanging there behind him and look
round. Then he gave up, abandoned his
plan, and passed him with bent head and hurried step.
'Too late! Too
late!' he thought as he went by. But was
it too late? This step he had delayed to
take might so easily have put everything in a lighter key, had led to a sane
recovery from his folly. But the truth
may have been that the ageing man did not want to be cured, that his illusion
was far too dear to him. Who shall unriddle the puzzle of the artist nature? Who understands that mingling of discipline
and licence in which it stands so deeply rooted? For not to be able to want
sobriety is licentious folly. Aschenbach was no longer disposed to self-analysis. He had no taste for it; his self-esteem, the
attitude of mind proper to his years, his maturity and single-mindedness,
disinclined him to look within himself and decide whether it was constraint or
puerile sensuality that had prevented him from carrying out his project. He felt confused, he was afraid someone, if
only the watchman, might have been observing his behaviour and final surrender
- very much he feared being ridiculous.
And all the time he was laughing at himself for his serio-comic
seizure. 'Quite crestfallen,' he
thought. 'I was like the gamecock that lets
his wings droop in the battle. That must
be the Love-God himself, that makes us hang our heads at sight of beauty and
weighs our proud spirits low as the ground.'
Thus he played with the idea - he embroidered upon it, and was too
arrogant to admit fear of an emotion.
The term he had set for his holiday passed
by unheeded; he had no thought of going home.
Ample funds had been sent him.
His sole concern was that the Polish family might leave and a chance
question put to the hotel barber elicited the information that they had come
only very shortly before himself. The
sun browned his face and hands, the invigorating salty air heightened his
emotional energies. Heretofore he had
wont to give out at once, in some new effort, the powers accumulated by sleep
or food or outdoor air; but now the strength that flowed in upon him with each
day of sun and sea and idleness he let go up in one extravagant gush of
emotional intoxication.
His sleep was fitful; the priceless,
equable days were divided one from the next by brief nights filled with happy
unrest. He went, indeed, early to bed,
for at
But that day, which began so fierily and
festally, was not like other days; it was transmuted and gilded with mythical
significance. For whence could come the
breath, so mild and meaningful, like a whisper from higher spheres, that played
about temple and ear? Troops of small
feathery white clouds ranged over the sky, like grazing herds of the gods. A stronger wind arose, and Poseidon's horses
ran up, arching their manes, among them too the steers of him with the purpled
locks, who lowered their horns and bellowed as they came on; while like
prancing goats the waves on the farther strand leaped among the craggy
rocks. It was a world possessed, people
by Pan, that closed round the spellbound man, and his
doting heart conceived the most delicate fancies. When the sun was going down behind Venice, he
would sometimes sit on a bench in the park and watch Tadzio,
white-clad, with gay-coloured sash, at play there on the rolled gravel with his
ball; and at such times it was not Tadzio whom he
saw, but Hyacinthus, doomed to die because two gods
were rivals for her love. Ah, yes, he
tasted the envious pangs that Zephyr knew when his rival, bow and cithara,
oracle and all forgot, played with the beauteous youth; he watched the discus,
guided by torturing jealousy, strike the beloved head; paled as he received the
broken body in his arms, and saw the flower spring up, watered by that sweet
blood and signed for evermore with his lament.
There can be no relation more strange,
more critical, than that between two beings who know each other only with their
eyes, who meet daily, yes, even hourly, eye each other with a fixed regard, and
yet by some whim or freak of convention feel constrained to act like
strangers. Uneasiness rules between
them, unslaked curiosity, a hysterical desire to give
rein to their suppressed impulse to recognize and address each other; even,
actually, a sort of strained but mutual regard.
For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another
human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that
he does not, the craving he feels is evidence.
Some sort of relationship and
acquaintanceship was perforce set up between Aschenbach
and the youthful Tadzio; it was with a thrill of joy
the older man perceived that the lad was not entirely unresponsive to all the
tender notice lavished on him. For
instance, what should move the lovely youth, nowadays when he descended to the
beach, always to avoid the boardwalk behind the bathing-huts and saunter along
the sand, passing Aschenbach's tent in front,
sometimes so unnecessarily close as almost to graze his table or chair? Could the power of an emotion so beyond his own so draw, so fascinate its innocent object? Daily Aschenbach
would wait for Tadzio. Then sometimes, on his approach, he would
pretend to be preoccupied and let the charmer pass unregarded
by. But sometimes he looked up, and
their glances met; when that happened both were profoundly serious. The elder's dignified and cultured mien let
nothing appear of his inward state; but
in Tadzio's eyes a question lay - he faltered in his
step, gazed on the ground, then up again with that ineffably sweet look he had;
and when he was past, something in his bearing seemed to say that only good
breeding hindered him from turning round.
But once, one evening, it fell out
differently. The Polish brother and
sisters, with their governess, had missed the evening meal, and Aschenbach had noted the fact with concern. He was restive over their absence, and after
dinner walked up and down in front of the hotel, in evening dress and a straw
hat; when suddenly he saw the nunlike sisters with
their companion appear in the light of the arc-lamps, and four paces behind
them Tadzio.
Evidently they came from the steamer-landing, having dined for some
reason in Venice. It had been chilly on
the lagoon, for Tadzio wore a dark-blue reefer-jacket
with gilt buttons, and a cap to match.
Sun and sea air could not burn his skin, it was
the same creamy marble hue as at first - though he did look a little pale,
either from the cold or in the bluish moonlight of the arc-lamps. The shapely brows were so delicately drawn,
the eyes so deeply dark - lovelier he was than words could say, and as often
the thought visited Aschenbach, and brought its own pang,
that language could but extol, not reproduce, the beauties of the sense.
The sight of that dear form was unexpected, it had appeared unhoped-for, without giving him
time to compose his features. Joy,
surprise, and admiration might have painted themselves quite openly upon his
face - and just as this second it happened that Tadzio
smiled. Smiled at Aschenbach, unabashed and friendly, a speaking, winning,
captivating smile, with slowly parting lips. With such a smile it might be that Narcissus
bent over the mirroring pool, a smile profound, infatuated, lingering, as he
put out his arms to the reflection of his own beauty; the lips just slightly
pursed, perhaps half-realizing his own folly in trying to kiss the cold lips of
his shadow - with a mingling of coquetry and curiosity and a faint unease,
enthralling and enthralled.
Aschenbach
received that smile and turned away with it as though entrusted with a fatal
gift. So shaken was he that he had to
flee from the lighted terrace and front gardens and seek out with hurried steps
the darkness of the park at the rear.
Reproaches strangely mixed of tenderness and remonstrance burst from
him: 'How dare you smile like that! No-one is allowed
to smile like that!' He flung himself on
a bench, his composure gone to the winds, and breathed in the nocturnal
fragrance of the garden. He leaned back,
with hanging arms, quivering from head to foot, and quite unmanned he whispered
the hackneyed phrase of love and longing - impossible in this circumstances,
absurd, abject, ridiculous enough, yet sacred too, and not unworthy of honour
even here: 'I love you!'
