Death in Venice and Other Tales Read online

  “Do not scorn this love, Lizaveta; it is good and fruitful. There is longing in it and somber jealousy and a tiny bit of contempt and an entire paradise of innocence.”

  The Child Prodigy

  The child prodigy enters—the ballroom goes silent.

  It goes silent, then the people start applauding because somewhere off to one side a born commander, a leader of the pack, has decided to put his hands together. Although they have yet to hear a thing, they applaud with approval, for a powerful advertising machine has been promoting the child prodigy, and the people are already under its spell, whether they know it or not.

  The child prodigy walks out from behind an elegant Chinese screen embroidered with Empire-style wreaths and fantastically large flowers. He climbs nimbly up the steps to the podium and enters into the applause as one enters into a bath, shivering a bit, chilled by a slight shudder, but nonetheless recognizing it as a friendly element. He advances to the edge of the podium, smiles as though about to be photographed and acknowledges the applause with a brief, bashful, charming curtsy, although he’s a boy, not a girl.

  He’s dressed entirely in white silk, which sends a small thrill throughout the ballroom. He wears a small white silk jacket of the most incredible cut with a sash underneath; even his shoes are made of white silk. In stark contrast to his white silk knickers, however, the skin of his short legs stands out deep brown: the boy is Greek.

  He’s called Bibi Saccellaphylaccas. He actually is. Which Christian name corresponds to “Bibi” no one knows except the impresario, and he considers it a trade secret. Bibi has dark, flat hair, which hangs down to his shoulders but which is nonetheless parted to the sides, kept back from his small, brownish, protruding forehead by a thin silk ribbon. He has the face of a child, with a half-defined nose and an innocent mouth, as guileless as anything in the world; the area under his jet-black mouselike eyes alone is somewhat dull, bordered by two character-providing wrinkles. He looks about nine but in reality is only eight and is advertised as being seven. The people themselves don’t really know whether to believe his announced age. Probably they know better and believe it anyway, as people are accustomed to do in so many situations. A little lying is part of beauty. What, they think, would become of the personal edification and elevation that follows the everyday grind, if they weren’t willing to show a bit of indulgence and let two plus two equal five. And in their everyday minds, they’re entirely correct!

  The child prodigy keeps on curtsying until the introductory clamor settles down. Then he proceeds to the piano, and the people cast one last glance at the program. First comes marche solennelle, then reverie and then le hibou et les moineaux—all by Bibi Saccellaphylaccas. The entire program is by him: they are his own compositions. He can’t actually write them out in musical notation, but they are all contained within his extraordinary little head, and their artistic value is undeniable, as is asserted, seriously and objectively, on the fliers the impresario has had made up. It would seem that the impresario has only wrung this admission from his critical nature after a long struggle.

  The child prodigy sits down on the piano stool, his little feet fishing around for the pedals, which thanks to a clever mechanism have been positioned much higher than normal so that Bibi can reach them. It is his personal piano, which he takes along wherever he goes. It stands on wooden sawhorses, and its polish is quite scratched from the constant transport, but all that only makes for a better show.

  Bibi places his white silk-clad feet on the pedals; then he makes a small, exacting face, stares straight ahead and raises his right hand. It is the brownish, naive little hand of a child, but the wrist is strong, its well-practiced bones not at all childlike.

  Bibi makes this face for the people, knowing that he has to entertain them a bit. For his part, he also takes pleasure in this act, a pleasure that he could never describe to anyone else. It is the prickling happiness, the secret shudder of delight that comes over him every time he sits in front of an open piano—he will never lose it. Once more the keyboard offers itself up to him, these seven black-and-white octaves among which he has lost himself so many times before, in adventure and thrilling tests of fate, octaves that nonetheless appear again as pure and as untouched as a well-erased chalkboard. It is music, the whole of music, that lies before him! It lies spread out before him like an inviting ocean: he can dive in and swim to his liking, let himself be borne up and swept away and submerged in storm, yet still retain control, keeping everything in his own firmly governing and ruling hands . . . He holds his right hand suspended in the air.

  A breathless silence falls over the ballroom, the moment of anticipation before the first note . . . How will it begin? This is how it begins: Bibi’s index finger draws the first tone from the piano, a middle-register tone of entirely unexpected power, reminiscent of a trumpet blast. Others then join it, an introduction takes shape—the people relax their limbs.

  It’s a splendid ballroom, situated in a stylish hotel of the best sort, with rosy, flesh-filled paintings on its walls, proud columns, mirrors in scrollwork frames and a myriad, a virtual solar system of electric lights that protrude on all sides in umbels, in whole bunches, and bathe the ballroom in a tremulous, brighter-than-day light, thin, golden, heavenly . . . There is not a single empty seat—people are even standing in the aisles and at the back. Up front, where the seats cost twelve marks (the impresario being a firm believer in prices that impress), high society sits in rows, for among the highest circles there is a lively interest in the child prodigy. Uniforms are everywhere, as is fine taste in cosmetics and accoutrements . . . A number of children are also present, sitting well-behaved, their legs dangling from their chairs, eyes gleaming as they watch their small gifted colleague in his white silk . . .

  The mother of the child prodigy—an extremely corpulent lady with a powdered double chin and a feather on her head—sits up front on the left next to the impresario, an Oriental-looking gentleman with large gold buttons on his wide-cut sleeves. In the middle of the front row sits the princess. She is a small, wrinkled, shrunken old princess, but also a reliable patron of the arts, so long as they are delicate in sensibility. She sits in a deep velvet fauteuil, with Persian rugs spread at her feet. Her hands folded tightly at the breast over her gray-striped silk evening gown, her head angled to one side as she watches the child prodigy at work, she is the very picture of noble tranquility. Next to her sits her lady-in-waiting, herself clad in a green-striped silk evening gown—although she’s only a lady-in-waiting and isn’t even allowed to relax in her chair.

  Bibi brings the piece to a splendid rousing conclusion. The little squirt handles the piano with such force! You can hardly believe your ears. The march theme, a lively and enthusiastic melody, emerges once more in full accompaniment, broad and boasting, and with every beat Bibi throws back his chest and shoulders, as though marching triumphantly in a parade. Then he finishes powerfully, pushes himself sideways off his stool, bowing, and awaits the applause with a smiling face.

  And the applause erupts, unanimous, impressed, enthusiastic: just look what dainty hips the child has, performing his little curtsy up there. Clap, clap! Wait, let me take off my gloves. Bravo, little Saccophylax or whatever your name is—! What a brilliant little devil!

  Bibi must reappear three times from behind the Chinese screen before the applause subsides. A few stragglers, late arrivals, push their way through the back rows and, with some difficulty, take their places in the packed ballroom. Then the concert resumes.

  Bibi rattles through his reverie, which consists entirely of arpeggios, a fragment of melody occasionally rising on weak wings; then he plays le hibou et les moineaux. The number is a resounding success and ignites the audience. It is wonderfully vivid, in the best tradition of children’s music. In the bass you can picture the owl sitting, sullenly blinking his filmy eyes, while in the treble sparrows buzz around in skittish insolence trying to irritate him.
Four times after this piece Bibi is brought out by applause. A hotel servant with shiny buttons carries three large laurel wreaths up to the podium and presents them to him from the side, while Bibi acknowledges the audience’s applause. Even the princess joins in, bringing her open hands together so delicately that they make no sound at all . . .

  This well-trained little creature sure knows how to get applause! He makes the public wait for him behind the Chinese screen, lingers a bit on the platform steps, feigns childish delight at the colorful satin ribbons on the wreaths (although long sick of them), acknowledges his audience with adorable bashfulness and allows the people time to clap themselves out, wasting none of the precious sounds produced by their hands. Le hibou is my crowd-pleaser, he thinks, using a favorite expression of his impresario. Still to come is the fantaisie, which is actually far superior, especially the part where it goes to C-sharp. You’re all such fools for this hibou, my dear audience, even though the first and most infantile of my compositions. And he acknowledges the applause in his adorable way.

  He plays a meditation and then an etude—it is a respectably varied program. The meditation sounds quite similar to the reverie, which is no criticism, and in the etude Bibi displays his technical proficiency, which incidentally lags somewhat behind his gift for composition. Finally the moment of the fantaisie has arrived. It’s his favorite piece. He plays it a bit differently each time, treating it with a free hand, occasionally, when he’s having a good night, surprising himself with new inspirations and turns.

  Quite small and gleaming white before the huge black piano, he sits and plays, alone, singled out on the podium above the indistinct mass of humanity with its single, dull, sluggish soul, upon which his privileged individual one is supposed to make an impression . . . His fine dark hair has fallen, together with the white silk ribbon, over his forehead, his strong-boned, well-exercised wrists are furiously at work, and you can see the muscles quivering through the baby fat on his brownish cheeks.

  Occasionally there are moments of forgetting and remoteness when his unusual mouselike eyes with their dull rings drift off to one side, away from the audience and toward the painted ballroom wall, staring through it and beyond, losing themselves in a lively horizon filled with vague activity. But then he glances from the corner of one eye back into the ballroom, and he is once again in front of the people.

  Lament and jubilation, hope and deep despair—my fantaisie! Bibi thinks lovingly. Listen, here comes the part where it goes to C-sharp! And he lets the shift in key to C-sharp resonate. Do they notice? No, of course not! And since they don’t, he acts it out, gazing handsomely up at the ceiling, so they at least have something to see.

  The people sit in long rows, watching the child prodigy. And in their everyday minds they think all kinds of things. An old gentleman with a white beard, a signet ring on his index finger and a bulbous growth on his bald head that might be called a deformity thinks to himself: Puts one to shame actually. Never got past “Three Hunters from Kurpfalz” myself, and here I sit, an old coot amazed by the things this little tyke can play. But you have to keep in mind that it comes from above. God distributes such gifts, there is nothing you can do about it, and there’s no disgrace in being an ordinary person. It’s much the same thing with the baby Jesus. One is allowed to bow down before a child and not feel any shame. How uncommonly good it feels! — He doesn’t dare to think: how sweet! — “Sweet” would be shameful for a powerful old man to think. But that’s how he feels. That’s how he feels nonetheless.

  Art . . . thinks the businessman with the parrot nose. I’ll admit it gives life a bit of luster, a little do-re-mi and white silk. Besides, he’s not doing too shabbily. There are at least fifty twelve-mark seats: that alone makes six hundred—and then all the rest. When you subtract the cost of renting the ballroom, the electricity and the programs, there must at least be a thousand marks left over. I’d bend over to pick that off the street.

  That was Chopin he was playing just now! thinks the piano teacher, a needle-nosed woman at the age when hopes begin to slumber and judgment becomes sharper. One might well say he isn’t very spontaneous. I’ll remark afterward, “He’s hardly spontaneous.” That sounds good. Besides his hand position is utterly amateurish. One must be able to balance a silver dollar on the backs of one’s hands . . . I’d correct that with a ruler.

  A waxen-looking young girl, at that tender age when adolescents are often beset with awkward thoughts, thinks to herself: But what’s this? What’s he playing there? It’s passion he’s playing. But he’s only a child! If he kissed me, it would be like my little brother kissing me—it wouldn’t be a real kiss. Is there such a thing as emancipated passion, passion in and of itself, without any worldly object, a passion that is merely the ardent play of a child? . . . Enough! If I said this aloud, they’d get out the cod-liver oil. That’s the way of the world.

  An officer leans against a column. He observes Bibi in his triumph and thinks: you’re something, and I’m something, each in his own way! He clicks his heels together, too, paying the child prodigy the same respect he pays all authorities.

  On the other hand, the critic—an aging man in a threadbare black jacket and rolled-up, mud-splattered trousers—sits in his complimentary seat and thinks: Just look at him, this Bibi, this little brat. As an individual he’s only half-grown, but as a type he’s already complete. He’s a born artist. He already possesses the artist’s superior airs and his lack of dignity, his love of swindle and his divine spark, his high-handed contempt and his private intoxication. I’m not allowed to write anything like that, though; it’s too good. Oh, believe me, I would have become an artist myself, had I not seen through the whole charade so clearly.

  The child prodigy is now finished, and a true storm begins to brew in the ballroom. Again and again he is compelled to emerge from behind the Chinese screen. The man with the shiny buttons drags over more floral arrangements, four laurel wreaths, a lyre of violets and a bouquet of roses. He doesn’t have enough arms to hand over all the tributes to the child prodigy, so the impresario personally approaches the podium to help him. He hangs one of the laurel wreaths around Bibi’s neck, affectionately tousles his dark hair, and suddenly, as if overwhelmed, bends down and gives the child prodigy a kiss, an audible kiss, directly on the lips. At that the storm swells into a true hurricane. This kiss traverses the ballroom like an electric shock, running through the crowd like a nervous shudder. The people are swept away by a crazed need for noise. Loud cheers mix with the wild clamor of hands. Several of Bibi’s little comrades down below wave their handkerchiefs . . . But the critic thinks, of course there’s a kiss from the impresario. A time-honored trick. Lord yes, if only I didn’t see through the whole charade so clearly!

  And then the child prodigy’s concert comes to an end. It began at seven-thirty; at eight-thirty it’s over. The platform is buried in wreaths; two small vases of flowers stand atop the lamp boards of the piano. Bibi’s encore is his rhapsodie grecque, which eventually turns into the Greek national anthem, and his countrymen in attendance would be sorely tempted to sing along, if it weren’t an elegant concert! They compensate with a mighty roar when it ends, a hot-blooded racket, a patriotic demonstration. Of course, thinks the aging critic, there had to be the national anthem. The whole thing is transferred to another level, with no means of exciting the audience left untried. I’ll write that it isn’t artistic. But maybe it is precisely artistic. What’s an artist? A fool. Criticism is the highest pursuit. I’m not allowed to write that, though. The critic then departs in his mud-stained trousers.

  After taking nine or ten bows the now red-faced child prodigy no longer ducks behind the Chinese screen, but proceeds directly to Mama and the impresario in the ballroom below. The people stand amidst the disarray of pushed-back chairs, applauding and surging forward to get a closer look at Bibi. Some also want to see the princess: two crowded circles form before the podium, one around the ch
ild prodigy, one around the princess, and it’s impossible to tell which of the two is actually holding court. However, the lady-in-waiting, following orders, makes her way over to Bibi; she tugs gently at his silk jacket, smoothing it so that he is presentable, then leads him by the arm up to the princess and gravely signals for him to kiss Her Royal Majesty’s hand. “How do you do it, child?” the princess asks. “Does it just appear in your head when you sit down?” — “Oui, madame,” Bibi answers. But to himself he thinks, oh, you stupid old princess . . . ! Then he turns around, bashfully, without the proper courtesies, and goes back to his family.

  Outside by the coatrooms a crowd throngs. People are holding up their numbers, and furs, shawls and galoshes are passed over the tables into their outstretched arms. Somewhere the piano teacher is standing among acquaintances offering her opinion. “He’s not very spontaneous,” she says loudly, glancing around . . .

  In front of one of the large wall mirrors an elegant young lady allows her two brothers, both lieutenants, to help her on with her evening coat and fur-lined boots. She’s fantastically beautiful with her steel blue eyes and clear, purebred face: a genuine young noblewoman. When she’s finished, she waits for her brothers. “Don’t stand so long in front of the mirror, Adolf!” she says with quiet irritation to one of them, who can’t seem to part from the reflection of his handsome, simple-looking face. Well, that’s rich. Lieutenant Adolf will nonetheless—by her gracious indulgence—be permitted to button up his greatcoat before the mirror! Then they leave, and outside in the street, where the arc lamps shimmer gloomily in the snow and fog, Lieutenant Adolf begins to assert himself, doing a little Sambo’s dance against the cold atop the solidly frozen snow, his collar turned up, his hands in his coat pockets.