Death in Venice and Other Tales Read online

  “You have a right to say such things, Lizaveta Ivanovna, considering the work of your national writers, the astonishing literature of Mother Russia, which to a great degree actually does represent the sacred literature of which you speak. But your objections aren’t new to me; on the contrary they are part of what is on my mind today . . . Look at me. I hardly look overly exuberant, do I? A little old and craggy and tired, right? Well—and here we return to the question of ‘knowledge’—it’s easy to imagine someone innately credulous, gentle and benevolent, perhaps a little sentimental, who would simply be worn down and destroyed by psychological insight. Not to let yourself be overwhelmed by the sadness of the world; to observe, to register, to take account of even that which is most painful and keep your spirits, your confidence in your own moral superiority over all the horrible things this life invents—very well and good. But occasionally, despite all the joys of the well-turned phrase, it gets to be too much. To understand is to forgive? I’m not so sure. There is something I call knowledge-sickness, Lizaveta: the condition in which no sooner does a person see to the bottom of something than he feels sickened to death by it and is not at all inclined toward reconciliation. This was the case with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, that typical writer of literature. He knew what it meant to be called to knowledge without actually being born to it. To see things clearly despite an emotional veil of tears, to have to recognize, observe and then discard with a smile, even during those moments when hands are being held, lips are finding one other, and the human gaze, blinded by emotion, is failing—it’s shameful, Lizaveta, it’s contemptible and outrageous. But what’s the use of outrage?

  “Another equally charming side of the matter, of course, is blasé indifference, ironic exhaustion with truth itself. The fact speaks for itself that nowhere in the world is human society more silent and hopeless than in a circle of intellectuals who have been through the works. To them all knowledge is old hat and boring. If you should share some truism in whose acquisition and possession you have perhaps taken a certain youthful enthusiasm, your vulgar enlightenment will raise nothing more than a brief snort . . . Oh yes, literature causes fatigue, Lizaveta. In ordinary human society it can happen, I assure you, that your skepticism and intellectual reticence can be mistaken for stupidity, whereas you are actually just too high and mighty, and too dispirited, for opinions . . . So much for ‘knowledge.’ As for ‘words’: aren’t they less a matter of unburdening yourself than of cooling yourself off and putting your feelings on ice? In all seriousness, there’s something chilling and outrageously presumptuous about the brusque and superficial way that literary language deals with feelings. If your heart is too full, if you feel too moved by a certain sweet or sublime experience, nothing could be simpler! You just go to the writer of literature, and in no time everything will be taken care of. He’ll analyze your situation, formulate it, call it by name, articulate it, make it explicit; he’ll deal with the whole thing for you once and for all, turn it into something of utter indifference and not even accept your thanks in return. You’ll go home relieved, cooled off and clearheaded, wondering what it was that could ever have disturbed you and caused such sweet confusion. Do you seriously want to defend this cold, conceited old witch doctor? Whatever is made explicit, in his articles of faith, is dealt with. If the whole world is made explicit, it’s been dealt with, resolved, disposed of . . . Very well! But I’m no nihilist . . .”

  “You’re no . . .” said Lizaveta . . . She had been lifting a small spoonful of tea to her mouth but had stopped, frozen in this position.

  “Not at all . . . not at all . . . come to your senses, Lizaveta! I’m not, I tell you, not where living emotion is concerned. You see, the writer of literature is incapable of understanding that life might just go on living, without shame, even after it has been made explicit and ‘dealt with.’ Just look! It persists in its sins, despite being resolved by literature, undeterred. But then all action is sin in the eyes of the literary imagination . . .

  “I’m almost finished, Lizaveta. Hear me out. I love life—this is a confession. Receive and preserve it—I’ve never shared it with anyone else. It’s been said, it’s even been published that I hate and fear and despise and abhor life. I liked hearing this—it was flattering—but that doesn’t make it any less false. I love life . . . You smile, Lizaveta, and I know why. But I implore you: don’t mistake what I’m saying for literature! Don’t think of Cesare Borgia or any philosophy of intoxication that lifts him upon its shield! He means nothing to me, Cesare Borgia. I put no stock in him whatsoever and will never understand how something extraordinary, even demonic, can be worshipped as an ideal. ‘Life’—the eternal antithesis of human imagination and art—reveals itself to us, the unconventional, not as a vision of bloody greatness and wild beauty, not as anything unconventional itself. The normal, the respectable and the affable are the realm of our longing, are life itself in all its seductive banality! It is no artist, not by a long shot, dear friend, who is ultimately most excited by the sophisticated, the eccentric and the demonic, who knows no longing for innocence, simplicity and vitality, for a bit of friendship, indulgence, intimacy and human happiness—the covert and all-consuming longing for the joys of ordinariness! . . .

  “A human friend! Would you believe that I would be proud and happy to possess a single human friend? Thus far all my friends have been demons, kobolds, subterranean monsters and ghosts of silent knowledge—in other words, writers of literature.

  “Occasionally I end up on some podium before a room full of people who have come to hear me speak. And do you know what? It happens in such situations that I catch myself glancing around the audience, discreetly searching the auditorium with a question in my heart: who is it who has come here, whose grateful applause is making its way to my ears, with whom has my art forged this idealistic bond? . . . I never find what I seek, Lizaveta. I find that herd and congregation with which I’m already so familiar, ever reminiscent of an assemblage of early Christians, the clumsy of body and the fine of soul, those who are always, so to speak, falling down, you understand what I mean, those for whom poetry is a form of gentle revenge on life. It’s always the sufferers, the longers and the poor folks, never any of the others, the clear blue-eyed ones who have no need for the literary imagination . . .

  “And in the end would it not be terribly inconsistent to wish it otherwise? It’s a contradiction to love life and yet to try with all of your wiles to convert it to your own side, to win it over for the refinements and melancholies, for the whole sick aristocracy of literature. The realm of Art on earth is expanding, while that of health and innocence is shrinking. What’s left of it should be most carefully conserved, and one should not try to seduce those who like stop-action photographs of horses into reading poetry!

  “For, ultimately, could there be a more pathetic sight than that of life having a go at art? We artists despise no one more than the dilettante, the man of life who thinks that in his spare time, on top of everything else, he can become an artist. I assure you I have experienced this sort of contempt personally. Let’s say I’m invited to a high-society party. There, amidst the eating, drinking and idle conversation, everyone getting along as well as can be, I find myself happy. I’m grateful for the chance to disappear for a while among harmless and upstanding people. Then suddenly (I’ve actually experienced this) an officer gets up—a lieutenant, a good-looking, solid man whom I would never consider capable of any action disgracing his uniform—and asks straight out for permission to share with those assembled some poems he has written. The host smiles uneasily and gives permission, and he carries out his plan, reading his work from a scrap of paper he has kept hidden in his coat pocket, something in homage to music and love, in short, something as deeply felt as it is unaffecting. Now I would ask anyone: a lieutenant! A gentleman of the world! Is it really necessary? Well, the inevitable follows: long faces, silence, a bit of strained applause and deep discomfort all around. Th
e first thing I sense in myself is that I am also to blame for the disruption that this rash young man has brought upon the assembled company. There’s no doubt that their contemptuous and suspicious glances are also aimed at me, for it is my trade that has just been botched. But the second thing is that this man, whose character and way of life have until just now elicited my utmost respect and admiration, is suddenly sinking down, down, down in my eyes . . . I’m seized by compassionate goodwill. I, along with a few other courageous and warm-hearted gentlemen, go over and offer him a few words. ‘My congratulations, Lieutenant!’ I say. ‘What a marvelous talent you have! Yes, that was just delightful!’ And I’m not far from patting him on the back. But are you supposed to feel patronizing in the presence of a lieutenant? . . . No one to blame but himself! There he stands, embarrassed, doing penance for the mistake of plucking even one single laurel from the tree of Art without paying for it with his life. No, there I’ll stick with my colleague, the banker with the criminal record. — Well, don’t you think I’m positively Hamlet-esque in my eloquence today, Lizaveta?”

  “Are you finished, Tonio Kröger?”

  “No. But I won’t say another word.”

  “You’ve said enough already. — Are you waiting for an answer?”

  “Do you have one?”

  “I believe so. — I’ve listened to you closely, Tonio, from beginning to end, and I want to give you the response that fits everything you’ve said this afternoon, that solves the problem that has gotten you into such a state. Here it comes. The solution is that you, as sure as you’re sitting there, are simply a bourgeois.”

  “Am I?” he asked, somewhat crestfallen.

  “You see, it hits you hard, as it should. So let me soften my judgment somewhat, since that is possible. You’re a bourgeois who’s gotten off track—Tonio Kröger—a bourgeois who’s gone astray.”

  —No reply. Then he stood up decisively and grabbed his hat and cane.

  “I’m grateful to you, Lizaveta Ivanovna; I can now go home, comforted. I’ve been dealt with.”

  5

  At the beginning of autumn, Tonio Kröger said to Lizaveta Ivanovna:

  “Well, Lizaveta, I’m off for a while. I’ve got to air myself out, get away and seek some wide open spaces.”

  “Well, where then, old man? Are you deigning to return to Italy?”

  “Lord, don’t give me any Italy, Lizaveta! Italy is of no interest at all to me—I almost despise it! It’s been a long time since I imagined that was where I truly belonged. Art, right? Blue velvet skies, warm wine and sweet sensuality . . . The simple truth is I don’t like it. I’ll pass. The whole bellezza makes me nervous, and I can’t stand all those terribly lively people down there with their dark animal way of looking at you. These Latins have no conscience at all in their eyes . . . On the contrary, I’m taking a short trip to Denmark.”

  “To Denmark?”

  “Yes. And I have high hopes. It so happens that I never made it up there, despite spending my entire boyhood so close to the border. Nevertheless, I’ve always known and loved the country. I must have gotten this Nordic inclination from my father, since my mother was actually more one for the bellezza, inasmuch as she cared about anything at all. Think of the books written up there, those profoundly lucid books full of good humor—there’s nothing better, I just love them. Think of Scandinavian cuisine, that incomparable cuisine, which can only be taken in strong salt air. I don’t know whether I’ll still be able to take it, even though I know some of it from my childhood since people where I’m from eat similar sorts of food. Think of the names they have! They’re like adornments—many of them were also common where I’m from. Think of a name like ‘Ingeborg’—it’s like three notes plucked on harpstrings, it’s pure poetry! And then there’s the sea—they have the Baltic Sea up there! . . . In a word, I’m going upward, Lizaveta. I want to see the Baltic again and hear those names again and read those books in the places where they were written; I also want to stand on the terrace at Kronborg, where the ghost came to Hamlet and brought death and anguish upon the poor young prince . . .”

  “How are you getting there, Tonio, if I may ask? Which route are you taking?”

  “The usual one,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and visibly blushing. “Yes, I’ll be passing through my—my point of origin, Lizaveta, after thirteen years. That promises to be amusing.”

  She smiled.

  “That’s what I wanted to hear, Tonio Kröger. God be with you. Don’t forget to write, you hear? I expect an eventful letter describing your trip to—Denmark . . .”

  6

  And Tonio Kröger traveled north. He traveled in style (since he liked to say that anyone whose internal problems were so much more taxing than those of other people had a right to a little external comfort), and he didn’t rest until the spires of the cramped city where he had started out rose before him in the gray sky. There, he had a visit that was short and odd . . .

  A dreary afternoon was already fading into evening when his train pulled into the narrow, sooty, so strangely familiar terminus; the smoke still condensed into clouds under the filthy glass roof and drifted back and forth in long wisps, just as it had long ago when Tonio Kröger, with nothing but scorn in his heart, had originally left this place. — He checked his luggage, arranged for it to be brought into his hotel and left the station.

  Lined up outside were those black, two-horse city broughams which are so disproportionate in both width and height. He made no move to hail one; he only stared at them, as he stared at everything—the narrow gables and pointed spires that greeted him from above the adjacent roofs, the blond, naturally coarse people with their broad yet rapid accent all around—and there arose within him a nervous laughter that bore secret affinity to a sob. He proceeded on foot, walking slowly, fighting the damp wind that blew relentlessly in his face, crossed the bridge with the statues of mythological creatures on its balustrade and continued along the harbor for a stretch.

  Good God, how tiny it all looked with its nooks and crannies! Had the narrow gable-lined streets here always risen at such a quaintly steep angle toward the city center? Ships’ smokestacks and masts rocked softly in the windswept dusk over the dreary river. Should he go up that street, that one there, which led to the house that was foremost on his mind? No, tomorrow. He was too sleepy right now. His head felt heavy from traveling, and his mind was preoccupied by sluggish, nebulous thoughts.

  Occasionally during the past thirteen years, especially when he had an upset stomach, he had dreamt of being at home again in the old, echoing house on that crooked little street and of his father, too, going on at him about his decadent way of life—a judgment that he could have only seconded. And his present situation was indistinguishable from one of those enchanting and indivisible dream tissues that can be difficult to identify as either illusion or reality, where one may even settle on the latter, if forced to decide, only to awaken after all in the end . . . He walked through the largely deserted, drafty streets, bending his head against the wind, plodding like a sleepwalker toward the hotel, the best in the city, where he intended to spend the night. Up ahead of him, a bowlegged man with a swaying sailor’s gait carried a staff with a small flame at its tip and lit the gaslights.

  What was with him? What was all that which smoldered so obscurely and painfully under the ashes of his fatigue without ever igniting into a clear flame? Silence, silence, not a word! No words! He would have liked to walk on further like that, in the wind, through the dusky, dreamily familiar streets. But everything was so cramped and close. In no time he was at his destination.

  The upper part of the city had arc lamps, which at that very moment were switched on. There was the hotel, and lying in front of it were the two black lions that had put such fear into him as a child. They were still staring at each other with those strange sneezelike expressions on their faces; they seemed to have shrunk, however, in
the intervening years.—Tonio Kröger passed between them.

  Since he arrived on foot, he was greeted without much ceremony. The porter and a very elegant gentleman dressed in black who took care of the formalities and whose small fingers were constantly poking his cuffs back into his coat sleeves looked him over critically from head to toe, mustering his appearance, visibly endeavoring to determine his approximate social status, categorize him in terms of class and wealth and decide how much respect he was due. Unable to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, they settled for a moderate level of courtesy. A waiter, a demure man with flaxen wisps for sideburns, a frock coat shiny with age and rosettes on his soft-soled shoes, accompanied him two stories up to his quarters. It was a neatly furnished, grandfatherly room with windows affording a picturesque, medieval view in the twilight over courtyards, gables and the fantastic spires of the church, in whose vicinity the hotel was located. Tonio Kröger stood for some time in front of this window, then sat down with folded arms on the spacious sofa, knitting his brows and whistling to himself.

  Light was brought up, and his luggage arrived. At the same time, the demure waiter laid a registration form on the table, and Tonio Kröger, head angled sideways, wrote out something resembling his name, occupation and home address. Then he ordered a small supper and continued to stare out from the corner sofa into nothingness. When his food was delivered, he left it sitting untouched for a time, finally ate a couple of bites, and then spent an hour pacing in his room, occasionally stopping and standing with his eyes closed. After that, in a series of slow movements, he undressed and went to bed. He slept late and had a number of jumbled, odd dreams full of longing.