Written in 1911 and published in 1912, the short story “Death in Venice” was created by Thomas Mann under the influence of two real events: the death of the famous Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler and communication in Venice with eleven-year-old Vladzio Moes, who became the prototype of Tadzio. The writer borrowed the external features of the musician to form the appearance of the main character of the work - the writer Gustav Aschenbach, and his trip to Venice - for the plot of the short story, famous story the love of the elderly Goethe for the young Ulrike von Levetzow - for the internal intensity of passions, which became one of the main themes of Death in Venice.
The last love of the fifty-year-old writer - platonic and perverted (directed towards the Polish teenager Tadzio, whom he met at the Lido resort) - is inextricably linked in the novella with themes of art and death. It is not by chance that death is included in the title of the work. It is she who becomes decisive for the entire course of action of the novel and the life of its main character, Gustav von Aschenbach.
Recognized by readers, critics and the state, the author of the novel “Maya” and the story “Insignificant” with early childhood lives with thoughts of death: the hero, sick by nature, studies at home and dreams of living to old age. As an adult, Aschenbach builds his life sensibly and measuredly: he hardens himself, works in the morning hours, when he feels most fresh and rested, and tries not to commit rash acts. "Polished", like his literary style, the character’s existence is disrupted by a meeting with a strange-looking traveler with an appearance uncharacteristic for the inhabitants of Munich - sometimes strange, sometimes terrifying.
Travel motive, caused by an internal craving for wandering, is associated in the story with the natural transition of a person from life to death. Gustav Aschenbach heads towards his death not because the author wanted it so, but because his time has come.
On the way to death, the hero constantly encounters strange-looking people and situations, which are symbolic omens of the writer’s departure from the earthly world. The vision of tropical swamps that Aschenbach visited back in Munich becomes the prototype of Venice, exuding pathogenic miasma, which, contrary to custom, greets the hero not with a clean, clear sky, but with a gray veil of rain. One of the young people traveling with Aschenbach on the ship and who ended up "fake youth", is the character’s alter ego, predicting his future: after a while, the writer, like the old man, will try to appear younger through wrinkle-disguising cream, hair dye and colored details in clothes. An appearance uncharacteristic for an old man evokes in the hero "a vague feeling that the world" shows “an unstoppable intention to transform into an absurdity, into a caricature”.
Following the destruction of the classical picture of existence, Aschenbach faces another symbolically of death, embodied in an unpleasant-looking gondolier, arbitrarily taking the writer to the Lido. The gondolier in the novel is Charon, helping his "client" cross the River Styx into the underground kingdom of the dead. The main character intuitively feels this connection, thinking that he is dealing with a criminal who has set his goal to kill and rob a rich traveler, but the gentle rocking of the waves (inexorable rock) lulls his worries, and he arrives at the place of his death.
Venice, captured by Asian cholera, hot and painful, rivets Aschenbach with a perverted passion - for a young Polish aristocrat, pale and weak, but so beautiful with his golden curls that the writer sees in him an incarnate deity. At first main character he is still trying to escape from the city, the atmosphere of which is bad for his health, but the luggage sent to the wrong place and the desire to constantly see Tadzio stop him and throw him into the last, frantic dance of life.
At first, Aschenbach just admires Tadzio. The young Pole inspires the writer to create a small but exquisite literary miniature. Tadzio becomes for Aschenbach a symbol of art, life, and beauty. But the more the hero thinks about his idol, the more he begins to desire him, the more he becomes attached to him and can no longer help but follow him everywhere. On the threshold of agony, when Venice plunges into the chaos of death, Aschenbach finally loses his moral principles: he is not embarrassed by the fact that others can notice his passion, and dreams that the city, extinct from the infection, will become an ideal place for his love affairs with a boy.
The novella ends with the death of the main character and... life, into which the Polish teenager Tadzio enters, as if at sea. The sensual beauty of the latter is also death: Aschenbach’s creative consciousness is not able to bear the fact that the word to which he devoted his whole life can only sing of the inexplicable charm of man, but neither recreate it nor possess it. at will. The sharp contrast between Tadzio and Aschenbach symbolizes in the story the eternal confrontation between youth and old age, external and internal beauty, life and death.
Thomas Mann
DEATH IN VENICE
Gustav Aschenbach, or von Aschenbach, as he was officially known from the day of his fiftieth birthday, on a warm spring evening in the year 19... - the year that for so long months looked with a menacing eye on our continent - left his Munich apartment on Prinzregentstrasse and alone went for a long walk. Excited by the day's work (hard, dangerous and just now demanding from him the utmost care, prudence, insight and precision of will), the writer, even after lunch, was unable to stop the work of the producing mechanism within himself, that “totus animi continuus” in which, according to Cicero, lies the essence of eloquence; the life-saving daytime sleep, urgently needed given the ever-increasing decline in his strength, did not come to him. So, after tea, he went for a walk, in the hope that the air and movement would invigorate him, give him a fruitful evening.
It was the beginning of May, and after damp and chilly weeks, a deceptively hot summer had reigned. In the English Garden, which was just covered with tender early foliage, it was stuffy as in August, and the part adjacent to the city was full of carriages and pedestrians. In Aumeister's restaurant, where increasingly quiet and secluded paths led, Aschenbach looked for a minute or two at the lively people in the garden, near the fence of which stood several carriages and cabs, and in the light of the setting sun he set off on his way back, but no longer through the park. and in the field, feeling tired. In addition, a thunderstorm was gathering over Fering. He decided to board a tram at the Northern Cemetery, which would take him straight to the city.
By a strange coincidence, there was not a soul at the stop or near it. Neither on the Ungarerstrasse, where the shiny rails stretched along the pavement in the direction of Schwabing, nor on the Feringskoe highway was there a single carriage to be seen. Nothing moved even behind the fences of the stone-cutting workshops, where crosses, tombstones and monuments intended for sale formed a kind of second, uninhabited cemetery, but opposite, in the reflections of the passing day, the Byzantine building of the chapel was silent. On its façade, decorated with Greek crosses and hieratic images in light colors, there were also symmetrically located inscriptions in gold letters - sayings regarding the afterlife, such as: “The Lord will enter into the abode” or: “Let eternal light shine on them.” . While waiting for the tram, Aschenbach amused himself by reading these formulas, trying to immerse his spiritual gaze in their transparent mysticism, but suddenly woke up from his dreams, noticing in the portico, above the two apocalyptic animals guarding the stairs, a man whose unusual appearance gave his thoughts a completely different direction.
Whether he came out of the bronze doors of the chapel, or inconspicuously approached and climbed up to it from the street, remains unclear. Without delving particularly deeply into this question, Aschenbach was rather inclined towards the first assumption. Of average height, skinny, beardless and with a very snub nose, this man belonged to the red-haired type with his characteristic milky-white freckled skin. His appearance was by no means Bavarian, and the wide-brimmed hat that covered his head gave him the appearance of a foreigner, a stranger from distant lands. This impression, however, was contradicted by the backpack on his shoulders - like a real Bavarian - and a yellow coarse wool jacket; from his left arm, with which he akimbo, hung some kind of gray flap, presumably a raincoat, and in his right hand he had a stick with an iron tip; he stood leaning it on the floor at an angle, crossing his legs and resting his thigh on its handle. Raising his head so that his Adam's apple was clearly and sharply visible on his thin neck, sticking out from the turn-down collar of his sports shirt, he looked into the distance with his whitish eyes with red eyelashes, between which, in strange correspondence with his upturned nose, lay two vertical energetic folds. In his pose - perhaps this was facilitated by his elevated and elevating location - there was something arrogantly contemplative, bold, even wild. And either he made a grimace, blinded by the setting sun, or his face was generally characterized by a certain strangeness, only his lips seemed too short, drawn up and down to such an extent that they exposed his gums, from which long white teeth protruded.
It is possible that Aschenbach, absentmindedly, albeit inquisitively, looking at the stranger, was not delicate enough, but suddenly he saw that he was responding to his gaze and, moreover, so belligerently, so point-blank, so obviously wanting to force him to look away, that he was unpleasantly offended, he turned away and walked along the fences, deciding not to pay any more attention to this man. And I instantly forgot about it. But either because the stranger resembled a wanderer, or due to some other mental or physical influence, Aschenbach, to his surprise, suddenly felt his soul incredibly expanded; an inexplicable longing took possession of him, a youthful thirst for a change of place, a feeling so alive, so new, or rather, so long unexperienced and forgotten, that he, with his hands behind his back and his gaze fixed on the ground, froze in place, trying to understand the essence and the meaning of what happened to him.
It was a desire to wander, that’s all, but it came upon him like an attack of fever and turned into a passion clouding his mind. He longed to see, his imagination, not yet pacified after long hours of work, embodied in a single image all the wonders and all the horrors of our motley land, for it sought to imagine them all at once. He saw: he saw a landscape, under a sky thick with evaporation, tropical swamps, incredible, damp, abundant, a semblance of the wilds of the primordial world, with islands, swamps, with silt-carrying water channels; I saw hairy palm trunks rising from the dense thickets of ferns, from the ground covered with lush, plump, strangely flowering plants, near and far; I saw bizarrely ugly trees that through the air threw their roots into the soil, into stagnant, green shimmering waters, where between floating flowers, milky white, like huge bowls, on the shallows, ruffled, stood unknown birds with ugly beaks and, not moving, they looked somewhere to the side; He saw sparkling lights among the gnarled bamboo trunks - the eyes of a lurking tiger - and his heart beat with horror and incomprehensible desire. Then the vision went out, and Aschenbach, shaking his head, again walked along the fences of the stone-cutting workshops.
For a long time now, at least since the means began to allow him to travel around the world whenever he wanted, he looked at travel as a kind of hygienic measure, and knew that it had to be carried out from time to time, even against desires and inclinations. Too busy with the tasks that the European soul and his own self set before him, overly burdened with the responsibilities of creativity, fleeing distraction and therefore unable to love the noisy and colorful world, he was unconditionally content with contemplating what lies on the surface of our earth and for which he has no the need to go beyond the boundaries of his usual circle, and never felt the temptation to leave Europe. From the time when his life began to decline and he could no longer, as if from an empty whim, brush aside the inherent fear of an artist of not being able to make it in time, from the anxiety that the clock would stop before he accomplished what was assigned to him and gave his all, his outer being was barely whether he was not entirely limited to the beautiful city that became his homeland, and the simple housing that he built for himself in the mountains and where he spent the entire rainy summer.
And what now came upon him so late and so suddenly was soon curbed by reason, ordered by self-discipline acquired from a young age. He had decided to bring his creation, for which he lived, to a certain point before moving to the mountains, and the thought of wandering around the world and, consequently, of interrupting his work for many months seemed to him very dissolute and destructive; there was no point in seriously thinking about it. Nevertheless, he knew too well on what soil this unexpected temptation grew. The impulse to escape, he told himself, was this longing for distant lands, for newness, this thirst to free himself, to throw off a burden, to forget himself - he was running away from his work, from the everyday life of unchanging, hateful and passionate service. True, he loved it, he almost didn’t even love the exhausting, daily renewed struggle between his proud, stubborn will, which had gone through many trials, and this ever-growing fatigue, which no one should have known about, which should not show the slightest sign of simplification, lethargy had an impact on his creation. And yet it is unwise to pull the string too tight, to stubbornly suppress such a living and persistent desire in oneself. He began to think about his work, about the place in which he was stuck today, just as yesterday, for it equally resisted both patient treatment and sudden onslaught. He tried to break through the obstacle or move it out of the way, but each time he retreated with anger and trembling. It’s not that any special difficulties arose here; no, he was hampered by suspicious indecision, which was already turning into constant dissatisfaction with himself. True, in early years He considered this dissatisfaction to be the essence and nature of talent, in its name he retreated, curbed the feeling, knowing that it was inclined to be content with careless approximation and half-hearted completeness. So is it really possible that enslaved feelings are now avenging themselves, refusing to continue to inspire and live his art? Have they really taken with them all the joy, all the delight bestowed by form and expression? This is not to say that he wrote poorly; the advantage of his age was at least that over the years a calm confidence in his skill had strengthened. But, although the entire German nation praised this skill, he himself did not rejoice at it; it seemed to the writer that his creation lacked that fiery and light spirit generated by joy, which, more than deep content (an important virtue, of course), constitutes the happiness and joy of the reading world. He was afraid of summer, afraid of being alone in a small house, with a cook who cooked for him, and a servant who served this cooking to the table; he was afraid of the familiar sight of mountain peaks and steep cliffs, when he thought that they would again surround him, always dissatisfied and lethargic. This means that changes are needed, a bit of wandering life, wasted days, foreign air and an influx of new blood, so that the summer is not painful and fruitless. So, hit the road - come what may! Not too far, he won't reach the tigers. A night in a sleeping car and two or three weeks of rest in some world-famous corner in the gentle south...
The short story “Death in Venice” was conceived by Thomas Mann as something frivolous. It was a sort of writer’s break during many years of work on the novel “Confessions of the Adventurer Felix Krul.” Sitting down at his desk in 1911, Mann had no idea that his work would captivate him for a whole year, and short essay will result in a full-fledged short story - one of the most famous, in some ways, the final works of the writer.
1910 Thomas Mann, already famous for his novel Buddenbrooks, the short stories Tonio Kröger and Tristan, is hard at work on a picaresque novel about the adventurer Felix Krul. The case is moving slowly, Mann is exhausted mentally and physically. To escape from hard work, he decides to go south with his wife Katya.
First, the couple visits Brijuni (in the 10s of the 20th century it was one of the most popular island resorts for the European intelligentsia), then travels to Venice and its suburb of Lido. The resort bliss encourages Mann to be creative; in his diary he notes that he is writing a small “improvisation in between,” the action of which takes place in the Lido, which inspired him in those sultry days.
Autobiographical nature of the work
The novella Death in Venice was completed and published in 1912. It remains one of the writer's most read and discussed works. Many critics persistently try to trace autobiographical parallels and, with the help of the novella, reveal the mysteries of Mann’s own intimate life.
It is certainly impossible to call “Death in Venice” a pure autobiography. Gustav von Aschenbach - collective image. There is a lot in it from the author himself, from his contemporaries and great predecessors. The story that happened to the main character in his declining years is partly fiction, partly a talented literary stylization of real events. For example, Mann was inspired by the love story of the elderly Wolfgang Goethe for the young Ulrike von Lewetzow. And the writer personally met the prototype of fourteen-year-old Tadzio in Venice. This is 11-year-old Vladzio Moes.
Let us remember the plot of this ambiguous, contradictory and at the same time masterpiece short story “Death in Venice”.
Gustav von Aschenbach is a distinguished German writer. He has already created several truly talented works, the success of which allows him to slowly rest on his laurels, not worry about material wealth, and take a worthy place in society.
Aschenbach deservedly gained fame. He supported his literary talent with painstaking work. And instead of being seduced by the temptations of bohemian life, he sat down at his desk, devoting to his literary works the strength accumulated during healthy sleep.
Aschenbach married while still a young man. His wife died long ago. From the marriage, the writer left a daughter, now a married lady. Gustav's life has entered the twilight phase, when obstacles have been overcome, many goals have been achieved, there is nothing to strive for and there is nothing to dream about. But in the writer’s soul there glimmers a tiny hope that before sunset his life will still be illuminated by a bright flash.
One May morning, Aschenbach went for a long walk. In the midst of the voyage, he was caught in the rain. While waiting out bad weather in a Byzantine chapel, Gustav saw a traveler. He did not utter a single word to the stranger, and he watched him for only a short time. However, after this meeting, the writer Aschenbach felt his soul expand. Now he knew for sure that he longed for one thing - travel.
Being a mature and rather practical person, the writer did not make adventurous plans. “I won’t reach the tigers,” Aschenbach said to himself. In choosing a place to rest, he was guided by two requirements. Firstly, the place should be different from the usual surroundings, and secondly, it should be within easy reach. Venice turned out to be the ideal option that satisfied both requirements.
During waterway on an antediluvian Italian ship, Aschenbach, out of a writer’s habit, observes his fellow travelers, giving succinct and accurate characteristics to each of the ship’s passengers. His particular attention was attracted by the noisy young company. One of the young men stood out among his comrades with a deliberately bright suit and accessories. However, after taking a closer look, Aschenbach realized that the young man was fake. In fact, it was a disgustingly youthful old man! “The matte pinkness of the cheeks turned out to be makeup, the brown hair under a straw hat with a ribbon turned out to be a wig, the yellow even teeth turned out to be a cheap dentist’s product.” His ridiculous masquerade was treacherously revealed by the visible wrinkles and old man’s hands in rings.
Soon the elderly young man became terribly drunk, and his disguise began to look like a pathetic farce. Aschenbach rose from the deck with mixed feelings. He was never afraid of old age. On the contrary, he waited for her, knowing that with maturity comes the wisdom necessary for a writer.
Quotes from the novella “Death in Venice”
Only beauty is worthy of love and at the same time visible; it is the only form of the spiritual that we can perceive through the senses and, thanks to the sense, endure.
... the lover is closer to the deity than the beloved, for of these two only God lives in him.
Passion suppresses feelings of grace and takes seriously those teasing, exciting impressions that in a sober state we would treat humorously or simply reject with disgust.
People do not know why they crown works of art with glory.
Art, even when it comes to the individual artist, means increased life. It makes you happy deeper, it devours you faster. On the face of the one who serves it, it leaves traces of imaginary or spiritual adventures; even with an outwardly monastic life, it gives rise to such spoiledness, over-refinement, fatigue, nervous curiosity, which life, the most stormy, full of passions and pleasures, can hardly give rise to.
Is there any other heroism in the world other than the heroism of the weak?
Loneliness gives rise to the original, bold, frighteningly beautiful - poetry.
There are no relationships stranger and more ticklish than the relationships between people knowledgeable friend each other only visually - they meet every day and hourly, watching each other, forced, by virtue of generally accepted rules or their own whim, to maintain external indifference - not a bow, not a word. Anxiety, excessive curiosity hover between them, hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need for communication, for mutual understanding, but above all something like excited respect. for a person loves and respects another until he can judge him, and longing for love is a consequence of insufficient knowledge.
Our traveler hardly stayed in the city and immediately went to the suburbs - the tourist area of Lido. Having settled down on the terrace of the hotel where he was staying, Aschenbach began to observe the vacationers again. His attention was attracted by a Polish family, or rather, a small part of it. Three children, under the supervision of a governess, sat at a table waiting for their mother. Gustav glanced boredly at the ugly teenage girls dressed in ascetic monastic dresses and was about to turn his gaze to another group of people when he saw HE - a beautiful boy with a golden wreath of soft curls that fell on his forehead, curled near his ears and set off the smooth ivory skin with a shimmering shine.
This was a real demigod who mercifully descended to earth, Narcissus, who temporarily broke away from the contemplation of his beautiful reflection, a Greek sculpture that miraculously came to life centuries later. Aschenbach was sure that “nowhere, neither in nature nor in plastic art, had he encountered anything more perfectly created.”
Since then, fourteen-year-old Tadzio (that was the boy’s name) becomes the master of the thoughts of the elderly writer. He admires the beauty of this perfect creature, spending his days on a deck chair by the sea. Outwardly, the sedate old man does not show his excitement, but a real hurricane is raging in his soul. This is no longer just liking a pretty child. This is true passion - this is the unexpected spark that illuminated the decline of the aging writer Gustav Aschenbach.
Meanwhile, the Lido is rapidly emptying. There are fewer and fewer tourists, but Tadzio’s family, fortunately, is not leaving, which means Aschenbach is not moving. Soon he begins to make inquiries about the reason for such a rapid departure of most of the vacationers. From various sources (information is carefully suppressed), the writer manages to learn that a cholera epidemic is beginning in Venice. The deadly disease was brought by the sirocco (southern Italian wind) from Asian countries. The pestilence that raged in Hindustan, China, Afghanistan and Persia reached Europe. There have already been deaths.
Excited Aschenbach wants to rush to Tadzio’s mother - to immediately warn her about the danger, that it is necessary to get the children out of infected Venice as soon as possible. Poor Tadzio! His skin is so pale and sickly, he probably won't live to old age, much less be able to resist cholera. However, imagining separation from his beloved being, the unhappy lover does not find the noble determination to inform the Tadzio family about the danger that looms over them. Let this beautiful demigod die in the prime of his beauty!
From now on, Gustav von Aschenbach becomes the boy's shadow. He knows his daily routine thoroughly and accompanies his pet everywhere. It becomes more and more difficult to hide feelings, and therefore Aschenbach constantly worries that the governess and mother accompanying the boy will suspect an elderly admirer.
At the same time, Aschenbach is oppressed by something else: contemplating the beauty of Tadzio, he is more than ever burdened by his own old age and ugliness. The writer goes to the barber shop. The local talkative master transforms Aschenbach beyond recognition. It returns his graying hair to its former dark color, changes the arch of his eyebrows, lines his eyelids, masks wrinkles, returns color to his cheeks and color to his bloodless old lips.
Aschenbach looks in the mirror in confusion - he is young again! Beautiful and young again! He walks along the embankment in a straw hat with fluttering ribbons, and a bright red tie adorns his flabby neck. Until recently, the young old man on the ship disgusted the writer, but now he himself, having completely forgotten about the old man, puts on a deceptive mask of youth. What an irony of fate!
Our next article is devoted to the biography of Thomas Mann, a German writer, essayist, master of the epic novel, and Nobel Prize laureate in literature.
We recommend reading the novel by Thomas Mann, begun in 1943 and published 4 years later with the subtitle: “Life German composer Adrian Leverkühn, told by his friend"
For several days now, Gustav von Aschenbach had not been feeling well. Today he went to the coast a little later than usual and settled in his usual place to watch Tadzio. This time the boy appeared in a company of peers. An argument ensued between the guys, which turned into a fight. The tall boy easily overpowered the fragile Tadzio. Offended, the defeated man wandered along the water spit. The sun glistened on his beautiful skin. Suddenly Tadzio turned around and glanced at the man who was watching him from the shore. The man greedily caught this glance and, as if intoxicated by it, lowered his heavy head onto his chest.
A few minutes later, vacationers crowded around the gentleman who was reclining on an armchair. He was dead. That same day, “the shocked world received the news of death with reverence.” famous writer Gustav von Aschenbach.
The novella “Death in Venice” by Thomas Mann: summary
5 (100%) 1 voteOn a warm spring evening in 1919, Gustav Aschenbach left his Munich apartment and went for a long walk. Excited by the day's work, the writer hoped that the walk would cheer him up. Returning back, he was tired and decided to take the tram at the Northern Cemetery. There wasn't a soul at the stop or near it. On the contrary, in the glow of the passing day, a Byzantine building - a chapel - was silent. In the portico of the chapel, Aschenbach noticed a man whose extraordinary appearance gave his thoughts a completely different direction. He was of average height, skinny, beardless and very snub-nosed, with red hair and milky-white, freckled skin. His wide-brimmed hat gave him the appearance of a stranger from distant lands, and in his hand he had a stick with an iron tip. The appearance of this man awakened in Aschenbach a desire to wander.
Until now he had looked upon travel as a kind of hygienic measure and had never felt the temptation to leave Europe. His life was limited to Munich and a hut in the mountains, where he spent the rainy summers. The thought of traveling, of taking a break from work for a long time, seemed dissolute and destructive to him, but then he thought that he still needed a change. Aschenbach decided to spend two or three weeks in some corner of the gentle south.
Creator of the epic about the life of Frederick of Prussia, author of the novel "Maya" and famous story“Insignificant”, creator of the treatise “Spirit and Art”, Gustav Aschenbach was born in L. - a district city of the Silesian province, in the family of a prominent judicial official. He made a name for himself while still a high school student. Due to poor health, doctors forbade the boy to attend school, and he was forced to study at home. On his father's side, Aschenbach inherited a strong will and self-discipline. He started the day by showering himself cold water, and then, for several hours, he honestly and zealously sacrificed the forces accumulated in his sleep to art. He was rewarded: on the day of his fiftieth birthday, the emperor granted him a noble title, and the Department of Public Education included selected pages of Aschenbach in school anthologies.
After several attempts to settle somewhere, Aschenbach settled in Munich. The marriage he entered into as a young man with a girl from a professorial family was dissolved by her death. He left behind a daughter, now married. There never was a son. Gustav Aschenbach was slightly shorter than average height, dark-haired with a shaved face. His combed back hair is almost there White hair framed a high forehead. The temple of his gold glasses cut into the bridge of his large, noblely contoured nose. His mouth was large, his cheeks were thin and wrinkled, and his chin was divided by a soft line. These features were carved with the chisel of art, and not of a difficult and anxious life.
Two weeks after the memorable walk, Aschenbach departed on the night train for Trieste to board the steamer for Pola the next morning. He chose an island in the Adriatic Sea for his vacation. However, the rains, humid air and provincial society irritated him. Aschenbach soon realized that he had made the wrong choice. Three weeks after his arrival, a fast motorboat was already taking him to the Military Harbor, where he boarded a ship bound for Venice.
Leaning his hand on the railing, Aschenbach looked at the passengers who had already boarded. A group of young people stood on the upper deck. They chatted and laughed. One of them, in an overly fashionable and bright suit, stood out from the whole company with his croaking voice and excessive excitement. Looking at him more closely, Aschenbach realized with horror that the young man was fake. Under the makeup and brown wig, an old man with wrinkled hands was visible. Aschenbach looked at him, shuddering.
Venice greeted Aschenbach with a gloomy, leaden sky; It drizzled from time to time. The disgusting old man was also on deck. Aschenbach looked at him with a frown, and was overcome by a vague feeling that the world was slowly transforming into an absurdity, into a caricature.
Aschenbach settled in a large hotel. During dinner, Aschenbach noticed a Polish family at the next table: three young girls of fifteen to seventeen years old under the supervision of a governess and a boy with long hair, looks about fourteen years old. Aschenbach noted with amazement his impeccable beauty. The boy's face resembled Greek sculpture. Aschenbach was struck by the obvious difference between the boy and his sisters, which was reflected even in clothing. The outfit of the young girls was extremely simple, they behaved primly, but the boy was dressed smartly and his manners were free and relaxed. Soon the children were joined by a cold and stately woman, whose formal outfit was decorated with magnificent pearls. Apparently it was their mother.
The weather didn't get any better the next day. It was damp, heavy clouds covered the sky. Aschenbach began to think about leaving. During breakfast, he saw the boy again and was again amazed at his beauty. A little later, sitting in a sun lounger on the sandy beach, Aschenbach saw the boy again. He and other children built a sand castle. The children called out to him, but Aschenbach could not make out his name. Finally he established that the boy's name was Tadzio, a diminutive of Tadeusz. Even when Aschenbach wasn't looking at him, he always remembered that Tadzio was somewhere nearby. Fatherly favor filled his heart. After second breakfast, Aschenbach went up in the elevator with Tadzio. It was the first time he had seen him so close. Aschenbach noticed that the boy was fragile. “He’s weak and sickly,” thought Aschenbach, “probably won’t live to see old age.” He chose not to delve into the feeling of satisfaction and calm that washed over him.
A walk through Venice did not bring Aschenbach pleasure. Returning to the hotel, he told the management that he was leaving.
When Aschenbach opened the window in the morning, the sky was still cloudy, but the air seemed fresher. He repented hastily the decision taken leave, but it was too late to change it. Soon Aschenbach was already traveling on a steamboat along a familiar road across the lagoon. Aschenbach looked at beautiful Venice, and his heart was breaking. What was a slight regret in the morning now turned into spiritual anguish. As the steamer approached the station, Aschenbach's pain and confusion increased to mental confusion. At the station, a hotel bellboy approached him and informed him that his luggage had been sent in almost the opposite direction by mistake. Having difficulty hiding his joy, Aschenbach declared that he would not go anywhere without luggage and returned to the hotel. Around noon he saw Tadzio and realized that leaving was so difficult for him because of the boy.
The next day the sky cleared bright sun filled with its radiance sand beach, and Aschenbach no longer thought about leaving. He saw the boy almost constantly, met him everywhere. Soon Aschenbach knew every line, every turn of his beautiful body, and there was no end to his admiration. It was an intoxicating delight, and the aging artist greedily indulged in it. Suddenly Aschenbach wanted to write. He modeled his prose on the model of Tadzio's beauty - those exquisite page and a half pages that were soon to be admired by all. When Aschenbach finished his work, he felt empty, he was even tormented by his conscience, as if after illicit dissipation.
The next morning, Aschenbach had the idea of making a fun, relaxed acquaintance with Tadzio, but he could not speak to the boy - he was overcome by a strange timidity. This acquaintance could have led to healing sobering up, but the aging man did not strive for it; he valued his intoxicated state too much. Aschenbach no longer cared about the duration of the vacation that he had arranged for himself. Now he devoted all his strength not to art, but to a feeling that intoxicated him. He went up to his room early: as soon as Tadzio disappeared, the day seemed to him to have passed. But it was just beginning to get light when he was awakened by the memory of a heartfelt adventure. Then Aschenbach sat by the window and patiently waited for dawn.
Soon Aschenbach saw that Tadzio noticed his attention. Sometimes he looked up and their gazes met. Once Aschenbach was rewarded with a smile, he took it with him as a gift that promised trouble. Sitting on a bench in the garden, he whispered words, despicable, unthinkable here, but sacred and despite everything, worthy: “I love you!”
In the fourth week of his stay here, Gustav von Aschenbach felt some changes. The number of guests, despite the fact that the season was in full swing, was clearly decreasing. Rumors about an epidemic appeared in German newspapers, but the hotel staff denied everything, calling the disinfection of the city a precautionary measure by the police. Aschenbach felt an unaccountable satisfaction from this evil secret. He was worried about only one thing: that Tadzio might leave. With horror, he realized that he did not know how he would live without him, and decided to remain silent about the secret that he accidentally learned.
Meetings with Tadzio no longer satisfied Aschenbach; he was pursuing, tracking him. And yet it was impossible to say that he suffered. His brain and heart were intoxicated. He obeyed the demon who trampled under foot his mind and dignity. Besotted, Aschenbach wanted only one thing: to relentlessly pursue the one who set his blood on fire, to dream about him and whisper tender words to his shadow.
One evening a small troupe of traveling singers from the city were giving a performance in the garden in front of the hotel. Aschenbach was sitting by the balustrade. His nerves reveled in vulgar sounds and vulgarly languid melody. He sat at ease, although he was internally tense, because five steps away from him, near the stone balustrade, stood Tadzio. Sometimes he would turn over his left shoulder, as if he wanted to surprise the one who loved him. Shameful apprehension forced Aschenbach to lower his eyes. He had noticed more than once that the women who looked after Tadzio called the boy away if he was close to him. This made Aschenbach’s pride languish in hitherto unknown torments. Street actors began collecting money. When one of them approached Aschenbach, he again smelled the disinfection. He asked the actor why Venice was being disinfected, and in response he heard only the official version.
The next day Aschenbach made a new effort to find out the truth about outside world. He went into an English travel agency and asked the clerk with his fatal question. The clerk told the truth. An epidemic of Asian cholera came to Venice. The infection penetrated into food products and began to kill people in the cramped streets of Venice, and the premature heat was most favorable to it. Cases of recovery were rare, eighty and one hundred of the sick died. But the fear of ruin turned out to be stronger than honest compliance with international treaties and forced the city authorities to persist in a policy of silence. The people knew this. Crime grew on the streets of Venice, professional depravity took on unprecedentedly brazen and unbridled forms.
The Englishman advised Aschenbach to urgently leave Venice. Aschenbach's first thought was to warn the Polish family about the danger. Then he will be allowed to touch Tadzio's head with his hand; then he will turn and run away from this swamp. At the same time, Aschenbach felt that he was infinitely far from seriously wanting such an outcome. This step would make Aschenbach himself again - this is what he feared most now. That night Aschenbach had a terrible dream. He dreamed that he, submissive to the power of an alien god, was participating in a shameless bacchanalia. From this dream Aschenbach woke up broken, weakly submitting to the power of the demon.
The truth came to light, the hotel guests quickly left, but the lady with the pearls was still here. Aschenbach, overwhelmed by passion, at times fancied that flight and death would sweep away all living things around him, and he, together with the beautiful Tadzio, would remain on this island. Aschenbach began to select bright, youthful details for his costume, wearing gems and spray yourself with perfume. He changed clothes several times a day and spent a lot of time on it. In the face of voluptuous youth, he became disgusted with his own aging body. At the hotel hairdresser, Aschenbach's hair was dyed and makeup was applied to his face. With his heart beating, he saw in the mirror a young man in the prime of his life. Now he was not afraid of anyone and openly pursued Tadzio.
A few days later, Gustav von Aschenbach began to feel unwell. He tried to overcome the attacks of nausea, which were accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness. In the hall he saw a pile of suitcases - it was a Polish family leaving. The beach was inhospitable and deserted. Aschenbach, lying in a chaise longue and covering his knees with a blanket, looked at him again. Suddenly, as if obeying a sudden impulse, Tadzio turned around. The one who contemplated him sat just as he had on the day when that dusky gray gaze first met his. Aschenbach's head slowly turned around, as if repeating the boy's movement, then rose to meet his gaze and fell on his chest. His face took on a sluggish, inward expression, like that of a man fallen into a deep sleep. Aschenbach imagined that Tadzio smiled at him, nodded and was carried away into vast space. As always, he prepared to follow him.
Several minutes passed before some people rushed to the aid of Aschenbach, who had slid onto his side in his chair. That same day, the shocked world received the news of his death with reverence.