_January to June, 1924_
_Translated From the German by Kenneth Burke_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
On a spring afternoon of the year 19--, when our continent lay under
such threatening weather for whole months, Gustav Aschenbach, or von
Aschenbach as his name read officially after his fiftieth birthday, had
left his apartment on the Prinzregentenstrasse in Munich and had gone
for a long walk. Overwrought by the trying and precarious work of the
forenoon--which had demanded a maximum wariness, prudence, penetration,
and rigour of the will--the writer had not been able even after the noon
meal to break the impetus of the productive mechanism within him, that
_motus animi continuus_ which constitutes, according to Cicero, the
foundation of eloquence; and he had not attained the healing sleep
which--what with the increasing exhaustion of his strength--he needed in
the middle of each day. So he had gone outdoors soon after tea, in the
hopes that air and movement would restore him and prepare him for a
profitable evening.
It was the beginning of May, and after cold, damp weeks a false
midsummer had set in. The English Gardens, although the foliage was
still fresh and sparse, were as pungent as in August, and in the parts
nearer the city had been full of conveyances and promenaders. At the
Aumeister, which he had reached by quieter and quieter paths, Aschenbach
had surveyed for a short time the Wirtsgarten with its lively crowds and
its border of cabs and carriages. From here, as the sun was sinking, he
had started home, outside the park, across the open fields; and since he
felt tired and a storm was threatening from the direction of Föhring,
he waited at the North Cemetery for the tram which would take him
directly back to the city.
It happened that he found no one in the station or its vicinity. There
was not a vehicle to be seen, either on the paved Ungererstrasse, with
its solitary glistening rails stretching out towards Schwabing, or on
the Föhringer Chaussee. Behind the fences of the stone-masons'
establishments, where the crosses, memorial tablets, and monuments
standing for sale formed a second, uninhabited burial ground, there was
no sign of life; and opposite him the Byzantine structure of the Funeral
Hall lay silent in the reflection of the departing day; its façade,
ornamented in luminous colours with Greek crosses and hieratic
paintings, above which were displayed inscriptions symmetrically
arranged in gold letters, and texts chosen to bear on the life beyond;
such as, "They enter into the dwelling of the Lord," or, "The light of
eternity shall shine upon them." And for some time as he stood waiting
he found a grave diversion in spelling out the formulas and letting his
mind's eye lose itself in their transparent mysticism, when, returning
from his reveries, he noticed in the portico, above the two apocalyptic
animals guarding the steps, a man whose somewhat unusual appearance gave
his thoughts an entirely new direction.