Death in Venice and Other Tales Read online

  She played the Nocturne in E-flat Major, op. 9, no. 2. If it was true that she had forgotten some of what she once knew, her performing skills back then must have been truly first-class. It was only a mediocre piano, but after the first few chords she knew how to handle it with control and taste. She displayed a tensely attuned sensitivity to timbre and a joyful command of rhythm that bordered on the fantastic. Her touch was both sure and delicate. Under her hands, the melody yielded every last bit of sweetness, and her embellishments nestled around its main lines with restrained grace.

  She wore the same dress as on the day of her arrival: the dark, heavy bodice with the thick-cut velvet arabesques that made her head and hands look so unearthly and delicate. Her facial expression remained unchanged while she played, but her lips seemed to become more clearly defined, and the shadows in the corners of her eyes seemed to deepen. After she had finished, she put her hands in her lap and continued to gaze at the music. Mr. Spinell sat silent and still.

  She played another nocturne, then a second and a third. Then she stood up, but only in order to look for more music on the top of the piano.

  Mr. Spinell had the idea of investigating the volumes in black cardboard on the piano stool. Suddenly he made an incomprehensible sound, and his immense white hands fumbled excitedly with one of those discarded books.

  “Impossible! . . . It can’t be,” he said . . . “Do my eyes deceive me? No! . . . Do you know what this is? . . . What was lying here? . . .What I’m holding here?”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Without a word he showed her the title page. Quite pale, he lowered the book and stared at her with trembling lips.

  “Really? How did that get there? Let me see it,” she said simply. She propped it up on the stand, sat down and after a moment’s silence began with the first page.

  He was sitting at her side, leaning forward, his hands folded between his knees, his head down. She played the beginning at an extravagantly, torturously slow tempo with unsettlingly long pauses between the individual phrases. The Sehnsuchtsmotiv, a lonely and wayward voice in the night, softly made its fearful question heard. Silence and waiting. And look: the answer. That same timid and lonely sound, only a bit brighter and more tender. Renewed silence. Then, in that wonderful hushed sforzando, came the Liebesmotiv that is so like passion stirring and arising in sacred revolt. It ascended, climbed ecstatically upward toward sweet entanglement, then sank back, disengaging itself, as the cellos emerged with their deep song of heavy, anguished rapture to carry the melody . . .

  With not inconsiderable success, the pianist strove to suggest on this poor instrument the effects of an orchestra. The violin runs of the great crescendo sounded with shining precision. Playing with keen reverence, she lingered piously over every theme and emphasized each individual passage with humble insistence, like a priest raising the Holy Communion over his head. What was happening? Two forces, two enraptured beings reached out in suffering and bliss toward one other and embraced in the ecstatic, frenzied pursuit of the eternal and the absolute . . . The prelude blazed, then died down. She concluded at the parting of the curtains and continued to gaze silently at the music.

  Meanwhile, in Mrs. Spatz, boredom had reached that point where it distorts the human countenance, causing the eyes to bulge and giving the face a hideous, corpselike look. This sort of music upset the nerves in her stomach, filling the dyspeptic magistrate’s wife with such anxiety that she feared an attack of cramps.

  “I’m afraid I must go to my room,” she said weakly. “Farewell, I’ll be back . . .”

  With that she left. The light had grown much dimmer. Outside you could see the snow falling thick and silent on the terrace. The two candles gave off a close, flickering light.

  “The second act,” he whispered, and she turned the pages and began the second act.

  The horns died away in the distance. Or was it the rustling leaves? The gentle murmuring of the fountain? Already night’s silence had swathed hedge and house, and pleading admonitions could no longer check the sway of passion. The sacred mystery was consummated. The torch was extinguished, the Todesmotiv descended with an unearthly, suddenly muted timbre, and restless with impatience, longing waved her white veil at the beloved, who was approaching, arms outspread, through the darkness.

  O torrential and unquenchable exultation at union in the eternal realm beyond things! Liberated from agonizing delusion, delivered from the bonds of space and time, thou and I, thine and mine melted together in sublime bliss. Though the day’s thievish illusions might still divide them, those nocturnal seers could no longer be blinded by its pompous lies, for the love philter had initiated their vision. For him who had lovingly gazed into death’s night and its secret, there remained in the madness of day but one desire, the longing for that sacred night, unending and true, that unifying . . .

  O fall upon them, night of love, grant them the oblivion they crave, wrap them wholly in your bliss and free them from the world of deception and division. Behold the last torch extinguished! Reason and supposition founder in the sacred twilight that spreads out, world redeeming, over the agonies of madness. Then, when the illusions fade, when mine eye bursts with delight, and that from which the day’s lies have excluded me, that which it has falsely and to my eternal agony pitted against longing—then I, o miracle of fulfillment! then I myself am the world. And there followed, during Brangäne’s dark song of warning, that ascending violin phrase that surpasses all reason.

  “I don’t understand it all, Mr. Spinell; a lot of it I can only sense. This part ‘then—I myself am the world,’ what does that mean?”

  He explained it to her, softly and in a few words.

  “Yes, so it is. — How is it that you, who understand it so well, can be unable to play it?”

  Strangely enough, he was at an absolute loss in the face of this harmless question. He blushed, wrung his hands and sank into his chair.

  “The two rarely coincide,” he said finally, looking pained. “No, I cannot play. — But you please continue.”

  And they continued with the drunken songs of the mystery ritual. Has love ever died? Tristan’s love? The love of thine and mine Isolde? O, the strokes of death cannot touch love eternal! What is there to perish in death except that which plagues us, that which deceptively divides beings that are one? Love joined them with a sweet and. If death tore them asunder, could it be other than that, in destroying the individual life of the one, death would be given to the other as well? And a duet, full of mystery, united them in the ineffable hope of the Liebestod, of eternal undivided immersion in night’s miracle realm. Sweet night! Eternal night of love! All-encompassing land of bliss! Once one has had an inkling glimpse of you, how could he reawaken without horror into the barren day? O fair death, banish their fears! Free these lovers forever from the desperation of waking! O, unbound storm of rhythms! O upward-struggling chromatic ecstasy of metaphysical realization! How to seize it, how to leave it, this great bliss, far from the divisive agonies of the light? Gentle longing, fearless and real; dying embers, exalted and painless; twilight beyond sublime, immeasurable! Thou Isolde, Tristan I, no longer Tristan, no longer Isolde—

  Suddenly, something startled them. The pianist broke off the music and put her hand to her eyes to peer through the darkness, and Mr. Spinell swung around quickly in his chair. The door behind them leading to the hall had opened, and a shadowy figure entered, leaning on the arm of a second. It was one of Einfried’s guests, who had likewise been unprepared to accompany the others on the sleigh ride and who was now passing the hour on one of her sad unthinking walks through the clinic, that sick woman who had lost her wits after bringing nineteen children into the world—Mrs. Höhlenrauch, the pastor’s wife—on the arm of her nurse. Without looking up she proceeded with groping, erratic steps through the rear of the room, then disappeared through the opposite door—silent and blank, straying and uncon
scious. — There was silence everywhere.

  “That was Mrs. Höhlenrauch, the pastor’s wife,” he said.

  “Yes, poor Mrs. Höhlenrauch.” Then she turned some pages and played the end of the entire composition, the Liebestod, Isolde’s final song.

  How pallid and clear her lips were! How deep the shadows had grown in the corners of her eyes! Above the brow, in the transparent skin of her forehead, that little pale blue vein emerged, strained and unsettling, with ever increasing prominence. Under her busy hands the incomparable crescendo arose, interrupted by that almost ruthless, sudden pianissimo, which is like a yanking of ground from under the feet, a drowning in sublime lust. The effusion of a massive release and resolution erupted and was repeated insatiably, a deafening thunder of satisfaction beyond dimension, retreating, then regrouping like a wave, seeming about to breathe its last before interweaving the Sehnsuchtsmotiv one last time into the orchestration. Then it exhaled, died, faded, drifted away. Profound silence.

  Both of them listened, pricked their ears and listened.

  “Those are bells,” she said.

  “It’s the sleighs,” he said. “I’m going.”

  He stood up and walked across the room. At the rear door he stopped and turned around, shifting his weight restlessly for a moment from one foot to the other. And then, lo and behold, fifteen or twenty paces from her, he sank to his knees, sank silently to his knees. His long black coat spread out on the floor around him. He held his hands folded over his mouth, and his shoulders twitched.

  She sat there, her hands in her lap, leaning forward away from the piano, gazing at him. A vague smile of distress lay upon her face, and her eyes peered pensively, so intently into the gloom that they succumbed to their tendency to wander.

  In the distance the jingling of sleigh bells, the crack of whips and the confusion of human voices drew nearer.

  9

  The sleigh ride, which long remained a topic of conversation for all, had taken place on February the 26th. On the 27th, a day of thaw, when everything softened and began to drip, splash and flow, Mr. Klöterjahn’s wife felt splendid. On the 28th she coughed up a little blood . . . oh, nothing serious, but it was blood. At the same time she felt weaker than ever before and had to remain in bed.

  Dr. Leander gave her an examination, his face remaining stone cold throughout the entire procedure. Then he ordered exactly what was prescribed by science: little bits of ice, morphine and complete rest. Moreover, on the following day, citing his excessive workload, he gave up responsibility for her case and transferred it to Dr. Müller, who in his gentle way dutifully and contractually took over her care. He was a quiet, pale, insignificant, melancholy man whose unassuming and thankless ministrations were directed at the quite nearly recovered and the terminally ill.

  The opinion he expressed above all was that the Klöterjahn couple had been separated for too long. It was highly advisable that, if his booming business would allow, Mr. Klöterjahn should pay another visit to Einfried. He could be written, perhaps a short telegram could be sent . . . And it would certainly bolster the young mother’s spirits and strength, if he brought little Anton along—not to mention that it would be extraordinarily interesting for the doctors to make healthy little Anton’s acquaintance.

  And behold, Mr. Klöterjahn appeared. He had received Dr. Müller’s short telegram and had come down from the Baltic coast. He got out of his carriage and ordered some coffee and buttered rolls, looking quite annoyed.

  “Sir,” he said. “What’s going on? Why have I been summoned to my wife’s side?”

  “Because I felt it would be advisable,” Dr. Müller answered, “for you to be near your good wife at present.”

  “Advisable . . . Advisable . . . But is it necessary? I’m thinking of the expense, sir. Times are tough, and trains cost a lot. Couldn’t this day’s traveling have been avoided? I wouldn’t say a word if it were the lungs; but since, thank God, it’s only the trachea . . .”

  “Mr. Klöterjahn,” said Dr. Müller gently, “first of all the trachea is a very important organ . . .” He said “first of all” by mistake, despite the fact that no “second of all” was to follow.

  Arriving along with Mr. Klöterjahn at Einfried, despite expense, was a curvaceous thing dressed entirely in red, tartan and gold, and it was she who carried in her arms Anton Klöterjahn, Jr., healthy little Anton. Yes, he was here, and there was no denying that he was indeed the absolute picture of health. Rosy and white, dressed in clean fresh clothes, fat and fragrant, he weighed heavily on the bare red arm of his gold-braided nanny, devouring great quantities of milk and diced meat, howling and indulging his every instinct.

  From the window in his room the writer Spinell had witnessed the arrival of the baby Klöterjahn. With a strange, veiled, but nonetheless sharp look, he had stared at the infant as the latter was brought from the carriage to the clinic and had maintained his position for a long time afterward with no change of expression.

  From then on he avoided crossing paths with Anton Klöterjahn, Jr., as best he could.

  10

  Mr. Spinell sat in his room and “worked.”

  It was a room like all the others at Einfried: old-fashioned, simple and elegant. Its massive chest of drawers was mounted with metal lions’ heads; its high wall mirror consisted not of a single smooth surface, but numerous little square pieces held together by lead; and its blue-painted stone floor, into which the stiff legs of the furnishings extended in the form of transparent shadows, had been left uncarpeted. A large desk stood next to the window, in front of which the novelist had drawn a yellow curtain, probably for the sake of turning inward.

  In the yellowish twilight he was bent over the surface of his secretary writing—working on one of those many letters he had posted every week, letters to which, humorously enough, he usually received no answer. A large, thick sheet of paper was stretched out in front of him, in whose upper left-hand corner, under an intricate sketch of a landscape, the name Detlev Spinell was written in the latest newfangled lettering. He was in the process of covering it with his small, carefully formed, exceedingly legible hand.

  “Sir,” stood written there. “I am addressing the following lines to you because I cannot help it, because what I have to say fills me, fills me to the brim with anguished trembling, because the words come flooding with such force that I would choke on them, if I weren’t allowed to unburden myself in this letter . . .”

  To tell the truth, the bit about “flooding” simply wasn’t the case, and God only knows what had inspired Mr. Spinell to write it. Words certainly didn’t seem to come flooding into his head. For a man whose livelihood was writing, he was pathetically slow off the mark—no one could have watched him without becoming convinced that an author is a person to whom writing comes more difficult than to everyone else.

  For fifteen minutes at a time he would sit pinching one of the strange downy hairs on his cheek between his fingertips, twirling it round as he stared off into empty space, making not a line’s progress. Then he would write out a couple of decorous words before once again faltering. On the other hand, it must be admitted that what finally emerged did seem polished and dynamic, though in terms of content it was bizarre, dubious, often even incomprehensible.

  “It has become,” the letter went on, “an inescapable need of mine to make you see what I see—this indelible vision that I’ve had before my eyes for weeks now—to make you view it through my eyes, illuminated by the same words that illuminate it for my inner eye. I’m accustomed to following this impulse, which compels me, in unforgettably and scorchingly well-placed words, to transform personal experiences into those of the world. Thus hear me out.

  “I only want to put into words what was and what is. I will simply tell a story—a very short, unspeakably scandalous story—without commentary, without making accusations or passing judgment, just expressing things in my own way.
It is Gabriele Eckhof’s story, sir, the woman whom you call your own. Take heed! It was your experience, but it is my words that will first allow you truly to appreciate its, her significance.

  “Do you remember the garden, sir, the old, overgrown garden behind the gray patrician house? Green moss thrived in the fissures of the weather-beaten walls around this dreamy wilderness. Do you remember the fountain in the center? Purple lilies drooped over that crumbling disk, and its white stream babbled mysteriously as it splashed down upon the cracked stonework. A summer’s day was almost at an end.

  “Seven innocent girls sat in a circle around that fountain; and yet only in the hair of the seventh, the leader, the one, did the setting sun seem to weave a shimmering emblem of supremacy. Her eyes were like fearful dreams, and yet there was a smile on her flawless lips . . .

  “They were singing. Their slim faces were lifted toward the fountain’s stream, toward that point in its weary yet noble cycle where it begins its descent, and their soft clear voices hovered around its nimble dance. Perhaps their tender hands were folded upon their knees as they sang . . .

  “Can you recall the scene, sir? Did you see it? You did not. Your eyes were not made for it, just as your ears weren’t made to take in the chaste sweetness of that melody. Had you seen it, you wouldn’t have dared breathe, you would have stopped your heart from beating. You would have had to flee, return to life, to your life, and guard for the rest of your earthly days what you witnessed as a sacrosanct, inviolable relic in your soul. But what did you do?

  “This scene was an ending, sir. Did you have to come along and destroy it, in order to give the story a continuation of vulgarity and unsightly suffering? It was a moving and peaceful apotheosis, bathed in the transfiguring twilight of decline, dissolution and extinction. An ancient family, already too weary and too noble for action and life, stands at the end of its days, and its last utterances are musical sounds, a couple of notes from a violin, full of that wise melancholy which signals readiness for death . . . Did you see those eyes, tear-stained from those notes? It may be that the souls of the six playmates belonged to life; that of their sisterly queen, however, belonged to beauty and to death.