Death in Venice and Other Stories

by Thomas Mann

  These are the perfect signs for such streets and the perfect streets for such signs—dreamlike and fantastically dilapidated. The streets run in every direction through the forest they’ve invaded, but the forest doesn’t stand idly by for decades, allowing them to remain untouched until the settlers finally arrive. Instead it prepares to close, since anything hardy enough to grow here isn’t afraid of a little gravel. Accustomed to such soil, purple-headed thistles, blue sage, white willow bushes and young ash seedlings have sprouted up undaunted over every surface, even the sidewalks. There’s no doubt about it. The park streets with the poetic names are being overrun by weeds and reclaimed by the brush so that, lamentably or not, in another ten years an Opitz- or Flemingstraße will have become impassable and will have for all practical purposes ceased to exist. For the time being, though, there’s no reason to complain, since, in the eyes of a painter, or at least a romantic, no streets in the world could be more beautiful than these in their current state. There’s nothing so delightful—so long as you have a sturdy pair of shoes against the gravel—as to amble through the solitude of this unfinished place or to let your eye wander from the wild brush at its bottom to the small-leafed, damp-loving trees that frame its horizons. These are trees as painted by a certain master from Alsace three hundred years ago . . . What am I saying? As painted? They are the very trees. He was here, he knew this area, no doubt he made studies of it, and if the romantic developer who named my park streets hadn’t restricted himself exclusively to literature, one of the rusty signs might well have been deciphered with the name Claude Lorraine.

  With that my description of the middle forest realm is complete. The eastern slope realm, too, possesses considerable appeal, not only for me, but Baushan as well, for reasons that will follow shortly. You might call it the brook zone, since that body of water lends the area a pastoral charm and, with its picturesque beds of forget-me-nots, makes a nice contrast to the opposite zone of the river, whose rush is also faintly audible here whenever there’s a west wind. At the end of the first of the manmade streets, which run from the poplar lane to the slope like breakwaters between grassy hollows and parcels of forest, there’s a steep path, used by the children in winter for sledding, down into the lower-lying areas. The brook begins where it levels off, and both man and dog enjoy walking along the surrounding slope with its varied terrain, either on the right or left bank, depending on our mood. To the left there is an expanse of pasture dotted with trees. A subsistence farm as in the country is located there, the backs of its agricultural buildings looking out at us. Sheep graze and tear at the clay ground, tended by a none-too-clever young girl in a red skirt who screams harsh commands at the top of her lungs, hands braced against her knees, enraged at her charges’ disobedience yet scared to death of the large, majestically thick-seeming ram with his great wool coat. He does as he pleases, taking orders from no one. The child saves her most blood-curdling shrieks, however, for those occasions when Baushan’s appearance panics the flock. This happens regularly, despite Baushan’s innocent intentions, sheep being a matter of profound indifference to him. Indeed, he takes no more notice of them than of the air. Sometimes he even tries to forestall new outbreaks of foolishness by exaggerating his disdain and contemptuously skirting their territory, for although to my nose their smell is strong enough (though not unpleasant), theirs is not the scent of game. As a result Baushan has no interest whatsoever in chasing them. Nonetheless, all he has to do is make a sudden movement or simply appear on the scene, and in a flash the entire flock—whose individual members were theretofore spread out grazing and bleating peacefully in voices of various pitch—dashes off en masse in one direction, back to back, leaving the dimwitted girl to cry out after them, alone, bent over at the knees, until her voice cracks and her eyes bulge. At this, Baushan will only look up at me as though to say: “You tell me whether I’m at fault or in any way responsible.”

  Once, however, something different happened, something far more disconcerting and far stranger than panic. One of the sheep—an ordinary specimen of medium size and average appearance for a sheep, with thin upturned lips, reminiscent of a smile, which gave it a look of malicious stupidity—apparently fell head over heels in love with Baushan and refused to budge from his side. It simply followed him: it broke from the flock, left the pasture and, with its silent idiotic smile, stuck to Baushan no matter which way he turned. Whenever he left the path, it followed; whenever he started to run, it took off too; whenever he stopped short, it did the same, directly behind him, always with that same inscrutable smile. Dismay and embarrassed confusion spread across Baushan’s face: his position was not at all enviable, for there was no rhyme or reason, no better or worse, to it. It was just absurd, and neither he nor I had ever experienced the like of it. The sheep strayed further and further from the fold, seemingly without concern. It kept following the exasperated Baushan, visibly determined not to leave his vicinity no matter how far he went or where. Not making a sound, Baushan clung to my leg, less afraid—there was no reason to be—than ashamed of the indignity of his position. Finally, as though he had had enough, he stopped, looked back and growled menacingly. The sheep then let out a bleat that sounded like malicious human laughter, and this so terrified poor Baushan that he ran away with his tail between his legs, the sheep bounding comically behind.

  In the meantime we had come quite a way from the flock, and the dimwitted little girl was screaming bloody murder, bending not only her hands but sometimes her face to her knees, looking in the distance like some sort of hunchbacked lunatic. At that point a milkmaid came running up in an apron, having either heard the screaming or been otherwise alerted to the situation. With one hand carrying a pitchfork and the other restraining an unfettered breast that flopped back and forth with every stride, she ran breathlessly up to us and set about trying to herd the sheep, which had slowed down to keep pace with Baushan, back where it belonged. Her efforts met with no success. Although the sheep did have to spring sideways to avoid her pitchfork, with a single pivot it was again on Baushan’s trail, and no power in the world seemed sufficient to make it desist. Thus, seeing that only one thing would help, I reversed direction. We all went back together, I with Baushan at my side, then the sheep, followed by the milkmaid with the pitchfork, while the hunchbacked little girl in the red skirt stamped her feet and screamed at us across the way. But it wasn’t enough to return to the flock—we had to see the job through to completion. We had to go back to the farm itself, to the sheep pen, whose broad door the milkmaid rolled back before us with a great display of strength. We filed in, and once we all were safely inside, the three of us had to slip nimbly back out and slam the pen door in the gullible sheep’s face so that it couldn’t escape. Only then could Baushan and I take leave of the grateful milkmaid and resume our walk—although Baushan continued to sulk and act humiliated the whole way home.

  So much for the sheep. To the left of the agricultural buildings is an extensive Schrebergarten colony, reminiscent of a cemetery, with pergolas, chapel-shaped sheds and tiny private garden lots. As a whole, it’s quite secluded. Only gardeners who own lots can gain entrance through the lattice gate that serves as an entrance, but every so often I get a glimpse of some fellow with his sleeves rolled up digging around in a nine-pace-square vegetable patch, looking for all the world as though he were digging his own grave. Further along there are more open fields, which extend to the edge of the middle forest region and are shot through with molehills, although they play home not only to moles but field mice—a fact I note with an eye toward Baushan and his various hunting predilections.

  On the other side—that is, to the right—brook and slope stretch out as far as the eye can see, the terrain of the latter, as mentioned, changing constantly. Initially, it tends toward gloominess, rarely getting any sun through its cover of spruce trees. A bit further on, it becomes a sandlot that reflects the sun’s warm rays, then a pit of gravel, and finally an avalanche of brick
s, as though somewhere higher up a house had been demolished and the worthless remains simply tossed down the hillside to form a temporary impediment to the brook’s natural flow. The brook, however, won’t be impeded for long; its waters collect and spill over the top, tinted red by brick dust, dyeing the grass on the surrounding banks red as well. They then flow on clearer and brighter for this interruption, sunlight glimmering here and there over their surface.

  I love brooks as much as I do all bodies of water, from the ocean to the tiniest reed-overgrown puddle. If my ear happens to catch the hushed splash and babble of a brook in the distance—for example, in the mountains during summertime—I will follow the liquid sounds a long way if necessary in order to find the source, to see the sequestered yet talkative son of the hills and make his acquaintance face to face. Especially beautiful are the mountain brooks that thunder down brightly between pine trees and cliff terraces and form ice green pools, before dissolving into whiteness and plummeting straight down to the next level. I also like the sight of flatland brooks, whether they be so shallow as barely to cover their bed of slick-polished silver pebbles or as deep as small rivers, swelling to full strength under the protection of the overhanging willows on their banks, their current quicker in the middle than on the sides. What stroller wouldn’t follow running water if given the choice? The attraction of water to the human animal is a kind of natural and sympathetic affinity. After all, man is a child of water: nine-tenths of our bodies consist of it, and at a certain stage in our prenatal development we too possess gills. As far as my person is concerned, I can say that the sight of water in all its forms represents by far and away the most immediate and moving way of enjoying nature. Indeed, for me it’s the only occasion of true contemplation and self-forgetting in which my own limited existence actually dissolves into the universal. The sight of it—the sight of the sea, for example, either at rest or battering the coast—transports me into a state of such profound organic dreaming, such utter remoteness from self that I lose all sense of time, and the concept of boredom ceases to have any meaning, as hours of unity in and company with it pass in what seems like minutes. I can stand for as long as you want leaning over the rail of a bridge spanning a brook, lost in the sight of the stream, the foam and the current, never letting that other stream flowing around and within me—that of rapidly elapsing time—make me anxious or impatient. In light of this aquatic affinity, it’s important that the narrow area where I live is surrounded on two sides by water.

  The brook at hand is one of the simple, truehearted kind, nothing special, cheerfully average in character. Naive and bright as glass it flows, incapable of falsehood or duplicity, far removed from any murky pretense toward depth. It is shallow and clear and makes no attempt in its innocence to hide the discarded tin cans or the remains of a tennis shoe imbedded in the green slime at its bottom. It is deep enough anyway to harbor cute, extraordinarily nimble silver-gray fish that flee in broad zigzags at our approach. In many places it swells out to form small pools, and lovely willow trees line its heel, one of which I especially enjoy looking at as I pass by. This particular willow is actually located on the slope, that is, at some distance from the water, but one of its branches reaches down longingly toward the brook, which it has succeeded in reaching, so that the flowing water gently encircles the silvery leaves at its very tip. There it stands enjoying the physical contact.

  It’s nice to walk here, gently kissed by the warm summer breeze. On hot days Baushan usually wades into the brook to cool his belly (he never allows the water to get any higher if he can help it). He will stand there, ears flat, an expression of pure virtue on his face, letting the water flow by and around him. Then he will trot back to me to shake himself off—an activity that some obscure conviction insists must take place in my vicinity, even though the vigor of his shaking splatters me with water and mud. It does no good to shoo him away with harsh words or my walking stick. There’s no dissuading him from what he considers natural, proper and necessary.

  The brook flows on toward the setting sun in the direction of a small village that dominates the landscape between the forest and the northern slope, at whose entrance is an inn. There, the brook again forms a pond, in which kneeling village women wash their laundry. There’s a bridge, and crossing it, you come to a road that cuts from the village to the city between the edge of the forest and the outer fields. If you veer off to the right, however, you can return in no time via a likewise well-trodden route through the trees to the river.

  With that we’ve come to the river zone, since the river itself now lies, green and foaming white, before us. It’s really nothing more than a mountain stream, but its perpetual rush—more or less audible throughout the region and here absolutely dominant—fills the ear and provides an acceptable substitute for the sublime crash of the ocean surf, which just isn’t available here. It is often joined by the incessant squawking of countless gulls that circle around the drainpipes in search of food throughout the fall, winter and first part of spring, until the season allows them to resume residence on the lakes higher up. The same is true of wild and semidomesticated ducks, which also spend the colder months here in the vicinity of the city. They float on the swells, yielding to the river’s drop, spinning round, rocking back and forth, taking flight only at the last second to escape the rapids by gliding back into the water further upstream . . .

  The riverbank is divided into the following segments. Along the edge of the forest, there is a wide gravel surface extending the oft-mentioned poplar lane approximately one kilometer further downstream to the ferry house, which will be discussed shortly and beyond which the riverbank is totally overgrown with brush. There’s no mystery as to the story behind this desolate stretch of gravel. It’s the first and foremost of the manmade boulevards, grandiosely conceived by the development corporation as a most scenically landscaped esplanade, an elegant carriage route where gentlemen on horseback were to approach the doors of spit-polished landau coaches and exchange dalliances with smiling ladies leaning back into cushions. That much is announced in dilapidated fashion by a large, crooked board of wood at the landing, the ultimate destination of such carriage processions. It makes known in thick letters that this corner lot, a prime location for a park café or better-class establishment, is up for sale . . . That it is and always will be, for instead of a park café with tables, scurrying waiters and drink-slurping patrons, a crooked wooden sign looms there—a gradually and dishearteningly sinking offer with no takers—while the promenade remains nothing but a desolate stretch of the coarsest gravel, almost as thickly overgrown with brush willow and purple sage as Opitz- or Flemingstraße.

  Parallel to the promenade, closer to the river, runs a narrow gravel ridge with overgrown grassy embankments. Telegraph poles stick up everywhere out of it, but nonetheless I sometimes enjoy walking up there, first because it offers a change of pace and also because the gravel offers a relatively clean, if arduous route in rainy weather, when the clay path below looks unpassable. This path—the actual promenade—continues for hours downstream before finally terminating in numerous little unmaintained forest trails. It is planted with young trees, maple and birch, toward the water and is lined on the other side by the mighty natives of the region—willows, aspens and white poplars of colossal dimension. The river embankment is steep, dropping off considerably toward the water, and is protected with ingenious withe fortifications, as well as concrete reinforcements below, against the floodwaters that encroach upon it once or twice a year, when the mountain snows melt or heavy rains pour down for several consecutive days. Here and there it’s outfitted with wooden steps, almost ladders, so that you can climb down quite easily to the riverbed proper, that is, to the mostly dry, approximately six-meter-wide secondary gravel riverbed, for this relatively large stream changes size like many smaller examples of its kind. Sometimes, depending on the water levels further upstream, it consists of little more than a greenish trickle—barely covering th
e stones on which gulls stand as though on the water’s surface itself—only to turn, under other conditions, almost dangerous, becoming a torrent. It then swells out to flood its entire secondary bed, raising a terrible din, sweeping away in tight spirals all sorts of foreign material—wicker baskets, shrubbery, even dead cats—and constantly threatening to break its banks and go on a rampage. Thus, even the secondary riverbed is protected against flooding by a series of diagonally positioned breakwaters of woven withe. It is covered with reeds, marram and the region’s premier form of plant life, purple sage, and is always passable, thanks to a strip of flat stone that forms a quay at the river’s extreme outermost edge and affords still another possibility—indeed my one of choice—for injecting variety into my walks. Its hard stone may not be all that pleasant a surface for the foot, but the immediate proximity of the water more than compensates, and occasionally beyond the quay one can even walk on sand. Yes, there’s sand between the gravel and the reeds, a bit muddy perhaps, not so sublimely pure as the ocean variety, but genuine sand nonetheless. You can take a walk on the beach—down here by the edge of the river, completely hidden from view—and lack nothing, neither the rushing of the waves nor the cry of gulls nor that intoxicating uniformity that swallows both time and space and that is the very opposite of boredom. Everywhere you can hear the rush of horizontal rapids, and halfway toward the ferry house this is joined by the splash of a waterfall from a diagonally terminating feeder canal on the opposite bank. That mass of falling water is convex, clear and glassy, like the body of a fish, and its foot is constantly boiling and bubbling.