Death in Venice and Other Tales

by Thomas Mann

  He stands and stares, ears pricked to the tone of my voice, searching for accents of unmitigated approval, with which I try to speckle my speech. Then, suddenly, jerking his neck forward and quickly opening and closing his jaws, he snaps up at my face as though trying to bite off my nose. This is a pantomime apparently intended to answer my friendly words, and it often makes me recoil, laughing, as Baushan knows it will. It’s a kind of make-believe kiss, half-tender, half-teasing, a signature maneuver of his ever since he was a puppy and one that I never observed in any of his predecessors. In any case he immediately apologizes with tail-wags, brief bows and an expression of embarrassed glee at the small liberty he’s taken. After this we proceed through the front gate out into the open.

  A roaring like that of the sea surrounds us, for my house sits practically on the river, where the strong current kicks up froth as it rushes over the flat terraces of its bed. The only things separating my house from the water are the poplar-lined lane, a fenced-in stretch of grass planted with young maples and an elevated path bordered by aspens—bizarre willow-emulating giants—whose white, seed-bearing down snows in the entire neighborhood every year in early June. Upriver, toward the city, military engineers are busy building a floating bridge. The thumping of their heavy boots on the planks and the bosses’ shouted commands carry downstream. From the opposite bank come sounds of industry, for over there, a bit downstream from where I live, there is a locomotive factory with the expanded industrial grounds customary these days and tall windows shining out into the darkness the whole night through. Brand-new, freshly painted machines get test-driven back and forth, once in a while a steam whistle howls, and muffled thuds of indeterminate origin occasionally shake the air. Rows of chimneys exhale columns of smoke, which is usually driven off by a felicitous wind over the woodlands and has a hard time making its way across the river. Such it is that in the suburban, semirural isolation of this area the sounds of solipsistic nature combine with those of human activity, with the bright-eyed freshness of the morning hour above them all.

  It may well be seven-thirty, standard time, when I set out—thus in real time it is six-thirty. Walking with my arms behind my back through the mild sunshine, I proceed down the lane, which is hatched by long shadows from the poplars. Although the river isn’t visible from here, I can hear its broad, regular current. The wind whispers gently in the trees, the chirping, piping, twittering and sorrowful warbling of songbirds permeate the air, and in the damp blue skies an airplane—a stiff mechanical bird with an ever so slightly oscillating drone—appears from the east, following its autonomous route far above land and river. Meanwhile Baushan delights my eye with a series of nimble, fully outstretched jumps over the short fence bordering the grassy area to our left. Over and back he goes. He does this because he knows I find it pleasing, for I have often encouraged him by clapping my hands and tapping on the fence, showering him with praise whenever he does as I wish. Even now, he still trots over after almost every jump to hear me say what a clever and elegant hurdler he is, after which he snaps at my face and beslobbers my protectively raised arm. At the same time, however, these exercises also serve as a kind of morning routine of gymnastic hygiene that he puts himself through in order to smooth his sleep-tousled fur and rid it of the offending pieces of straw that make him resemble old Count Moor.

  It’s good to take a morning stroll, your mind rejuvenated, your spirit cleansed after a night of bathing in sleep, of imbibing Lethe’s waters. Brimming with confidence, you can look forward to the coming day even as you revel in the luxury of putting off its official start, master of an uncommon, unoccupied and unmolested period between dreams and daytime, which is your reward for having been sensible in your ways. The illusion of a steady, simple, undistracted existence of inwardly directed contemplation, the illusion that your time belongs to you alone, brings great happiness, for man tends to assume that his state of mind at any given moment (be it that of good cheer or anxiety, peace or passion) is his true, natural and permanent one. He immediately transforms every happy feeling of ex tempore into his golden rule and inviolable practice, whereas in reality he is condemned to live by improvisation and, in terms of life ethos, from hand to mouth. Breathing in the morning air, you can truly believe in your own sovereign virtuousness, even though by now you should—and in fact do—know that the world has its nets ready and waits to catch you. Tomorrow, in all probability, it will be nine o’clock by the time you find your way out of bed, having first found your way in there—flushed and foggy-headed, excited and amused—at two the previous morning . . . Be that as it may. For now you’re still a man of sobriety, an early riser, the legitimate master of that young huntsman springing once more over his short fence, overjoyed that today you seem to want to spend time with him, not with the world at your back.

  We usually walk about five minutes down the lane until it turns into an ungroomed gravel wasteland along the riverbank. This we then leave behind as we make our way down a broad, as yet undeveloped street of finer gravel, which is replete, as is the lane, with a bicycle path. This street veers off to the right between two low-lying parcels of woodland toward the slope forming the eastern border of our riverbank locale and the end of the world, as Baushan knows it. We cross another still-to-be-developed street running open between the woods and field. It, however, is hemmed in by apartment houses further along toward the city and the streetcar station. A path of downward-sloping gravel then takes us to a nicely laid plot of land, much like a sanitarium garden in appearance. It’s deserted at this hour. So, too, is the entire surrounding area, its park benches squatting alongside curved paths that often widen into circular flowerbeds and well-groomed play areas. Groups of lovely old trees—elms, beeches, lindens and silver willows with drooping crowns and trunks barely visible above the grass—stand arranged on expansive lawns as though in a park. I thoroughly enjoy these carefully groomed grounds and couldn’t roam with any greater contentment in them if they were my own personal property. Nothing has been neglected. The gravel paths that gently descend the surrounding grass hillsides have even been fitted with cement gutters. Moreover, there are charming, expansive views through the greenery, distant points of closure being provided in both directions by the architecture of the in-looking villas at either end of the park.

  Here I indulge in a short stroll along the paths, while Baushan covers every inch of grass with crisscross gallops and leaning turns, overjoyed at so much level space. Or sometimes he pursues—barking with a mixture of disappointment and delight—a bird that, whether spellbound by fear or determined to tease him, flits away barely in front of his jaws. If I sit down on a bench, though, he immediately sprints to my side to take up position atop my foot, for one of the iron laws of his existence is that he may only run around as long as I too am in motion. As soon as I am seated, he also must come to rest. There’s no obvious reason for this rule, but Baushan sticks to it nonetheless.

  It’s a strange feeling, intimate and comical, to have Baushan sitting on my foot, warming it with the feverish heat of his body. Good cheer and collegiality stir within me, as they almost always do in his presence and company. There’s something rather peasantlike about the way he sits, shoulder blades turned outward and paws facing in unevenly. His body seems smaller and fatter in this position than it really is, and to great comic effect, the knot of white fur on his chest is thrust out even further. The dignified rigidity of his head and neck, however, compensates for his lack of postural elegance in the extreme attentiveness it expresses . . . Neither of us makes a sound, and, with the rush of the river thoroughly muffled by the time it gets here, everything is quite still. Every furtive little noise around us seems significant and alerts our senses: the brief rustle of a lizard, the song of a bird, the burrowing of a mole in the earth. Baushan pricks his ears—at least to the extent that their droopy musculature permits it. He cocks his head to train his hearing, and his wet black nostrils remain in constant motion, sniffing out t
he slightest scents.

  Then he lies down, careful never to lose contact with my foot. He lies there, perpendicular to me, in that age-old posture of animal idolatry typified by the Sphinx: head and chest held high, limbs tucked underneath his body, paws extended parallel. Having gotten a bit overheated, he opens his jaws, and in the process all cleverness of countenance dissolves into bestiality, his rapidly blinking eyes narrow to slits, and from between his powerful white canine teeth a long rosy tongue flops forth.

  HOW WE OBTAINED BAUSHAN

  It was through a sympathetically stout, dark-eyed woman—who, with only the help of an almost grown-up, likewise dark-eyed daughter, runs an inn in the mountains near Tölz—that we made Baushan’s acquaintance and acquisition. That was two years ago, when he was only six months old. Anastasia (the woman’s name) no doubt knew that we had to have our Percy, a Scottish sheep dog and harmlessly loony aristocrat, put down in his old age after he had contracted a painful and disfiguring skin disease, and that we had done without a watchdog ever since. With this in mind, she telephoned from her mountain abode to inform us that a dog, as fine as any we could ever want, was presently in her care and commission and could be viewed at our convenience.

  The very next afternoon, the children having pleaded with a curiosity that was shared almost as much by the adults in the family, we trekked up to Anastasia’s inn. We found the proprietress amidst the warm nutritious smells of her spacious kitchen, where, red-faced and sweaty, sleeves rolled back from her round arms, dress open at the neck, she was preparing supper for her guests, her calm industrious daughter moving about to and fro lending a hand. We were greeted warmly: to our credit it was noted that we hadn’t put things off but had immediately made our way there. And in response to our inquisitive glances, Resi, the daughter, took us around to the kitchen table, put her hands on her knees and directed some flattering words of encouragement under its surface. There, tied to the table leg with a worn rope, stood a creature whose presence we hadn’t noticed in the smoldering dusk of the room, but at whose sight, however, we couldn’t help but break out in pitying laughter.

  He stood there on long spindles of legs, his tail between his thighs, his four feet close together and his back hunched, and shivered. He may well have been shivering with fear, but it seemed that a more likely cause was lack of warming bodily insulation, for the poor creature was hardly more than a skeleton—a rib cage and backbone on four stilts—over which some ragged fur had been stretched. His ears were flat—a pose that never fails to extinguish all glimmers of intelligence and spirit in a dog’s face and that indeed rendered his otherwise quite puppylike countenance inexpressive of anything but stupidity, hopelessness and an urgent appeal for understanding. To make matters worse, what might today be called his Van Dyck seemed much larger back then in proportion to the rest of him, injecting a hue of sour melancholy into the overall wretchedness of his appearance.

  All present bent down to offer this picture of misery some words of encouragement and reassurance. Over by the stove, Anastasia added to the expressions of sympathetic glee from the children with a series of personal footnotes concerning her boarder’s personal history. His name for the time being was Lux, she said in her pleasant, matter-of-fact tone, and he was the son of good parents—she had been personally acquainted with the mother and had heard only good things about the father. Lux had been born on an agricultural conservatory in Huglfing, and it was only because of unavoidable circumstances that his owners had decided to put him up for sale at such a bargain price and had brought him to her, thinking of the profuse traffic at the inn. They had come in their little cart, Lux running undaunted all twenty kilometers between its rear wheels. She had thought of us immediately as people looking for a good dog and was almost positive that we would decide in his favor. Should we be agreed, all parties would benefit. We would certainly receive great enjoyment from him, he in turn would no longer be alone in the world and would have found a nice home, and she, Anastasia, could rest easy knowing he was in good hands. We shouldn’t let ourselves be deterred by the face he was making. He was just feeling uneasy and uncertain of himself on account of his strange surroundings. In no time at all, it would be evident that he came from parents of exceptional stock.

  —Yes, but apparently somewhat ill matched.

  —Not at all, insofar as they had been truly exceptional animals. He possessed the best attributes of both—that much she, Anastasia, could guarantee. What’s more, he was unspoiled, moderate in his requirements, which was important nowadays. Until now, potato peelings had been his exclusive diet. She suggested that we take him home for a few days to start out, on a trial basis with no commitments. If we found our hearts hadn’t warmed to him, she would take him back and refund the small asking price. She made this offer without hesitation since she wasn’t worried about our taking her up on it. From what she knew about him and about us—i.e., both parties—she was convinced that we would come to love him and would never think of parting from him.

  She made many such arguments in her calm, fluid, pleasant voice, as she went about her business at the stove, every once in a while rekindling the flames before her face like a witch. She even came over and opened Lux’s jaws with both hands to show us his beautiful teeth and, for some reason, the pink-channeled roof of his mouth. To the expert query of whether he had already had distemper, she replied somewhat brusquely that she didn’t know. To the question of size, her quick-witted response was that he would get about as big as our dearly departed Percy. There was much discussion back and forth, much warmhearted recommendation on Anastasia’s part, which found support in the children’s entreaties, much half-convinced uncertainty on our own. Finally we asked for some time to think things over, which she gladly granted, then made the pensive trip back down to the valley, examining and evaluating our impressions along the way.

  Naturally the four-legged wretch under the table had gotten to the children, and all our adult pretense toward laughing at their lack of discrimination was in vain. We, too, felt a pang in our hearts and realized how difficult it would be to erase the image of poor Lux from our memories. What would become of him if we rejected him? Into whose hands would he fall? A mysterious and terrible figure took form in our imaginations: the knacker, from whose horrible clutches we had previously rescued Percy with a couple of genteel gunsmith’s bullets and a proper grave at the edge of our yard. If we had wanted to abandon Lux to his uncertain, probably gruesome destiny, we should have taken care in the first place not to make his acquaintance and to study his puppy’s face with its Van Dyck. Now that we were aware of his existence, a responsibility seemed to lie upon us, which we could only disavow with heartwrenching difficulty. — The third day after our initial meeting saw us once again making our way up that gentle Alpine foothill. We hadn’t exactly decided upon his acquisition. But we saw only too clearly that the matter as it stood could hardly have any other outcome.

  This time Anastasia and her daughter were sitting on either end of the near side of the kitchen table drinking coffee. He who was for the time being called Lux sat in front of them—sat then just as he sits now, his shoulder blades twisted like a peasant’s, his paws pointed inward—with a little corsage of wildflowers stuck behind his shabby leather collar. This gave him a decidedly more festive look, something of a village lad in his Sunday best or a hillbilly bridegroom. The younger woman, herself looking quite done up in her traditional dirndl and bodice, said that she had put it there in honor of his new home. Both mother and daughter assured us that they had never been so certain of anything as that we would return to pick up our Lux, and what’s more, that it would be this very day.

  Thus, from the moment we walked in, any further debate proved impossible and superfluous. Anastasia thanked us in her pleasant way for the nominal price we handed over, which totaled ten marks. It was clear that she had asked it of us more for our own benefit than hers or the conservatory owners’, so that Lux might
have a positive monetary value in our eyes. We understood this and gladly concluded the transaction. Lux was untied from the table leg, I was handed the end of the rope, and best wishes and friendly promises accompanied us as we made our way back across Anastasia’s kitchen doorstep.

  The approximately hour-long trek home we made with our new cohabitant was no victory parade. The bridegroom soon lost his corsage in the general bustle, we could read the reactions in the faces of the people we met, and the instances in which we were confronted with not only congenial amusement but mocking contempt multiplied as our route home passed through the marketplace, indeed through the entire marketplace. To top matters off, it turned out that Lux had apparently been suffering for some time now from a diarrhea that required us to linger for long intervals under the eyes of the townspeople. We stood in a protective circle around him in his most intimate misery, wondering whether this was not, in fact, distemper announcing its first symptoms. However, our fear was unwarranted, for it emerged in time that we were dealing with a fundamentally sound and durable constitution, one that to this day has proved immune to every plague and pestilence.

  As soon as we got home, the maids were ordered to appear so that they, too, could meet the newest member of the family and offer their modest opinion. One could see them preparing to be amazed. Once they had gotten a look at him and read the dubious expressions on our faces, however, they let out a harsh laugh, turned their backs on the sad staring creature and dismissed him with a wave of their hands. This strengthened our doubts about their capacity to understand the benevolent rationale behind the small sum Anastasia had charged us, so we told them we’d gotten the dog for free and took Lux out to the veranda for a welcoming dinner of nutritious scraps.