Death in Venice and Other Stories (14 page)

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.

When he awoke, he found his room suffused with bright sunshine. In confusion and haste, he figured out where he was, got up and opened the curtains. The already somewhat pale blue of the late-summer sky was streaked by thin, wind-stretched wisps of cloud, but nonetheless the sun was shining over his hometown.

He took more care getting ready than usual, washing up and shaving quite meticulously, trying to look fresh and neat, as though paying a visit to a well-bred, proper household where it was imperative to make a tidy, irreproachable impression, and as he rummaged around getting dressed, he listened to the anxious beating of his heart.

How bright it was outside! He would have felt more at ease if yesterday's dusk had still lain upon the street; now he would have to walk in broad daylight under the eyes of the people. Would he run into old acquaintances, would they stop him on the street and ask questions, would he have to tell them how he had spent the past thirteen years? No, thank God, no one knew him anymore, and anyone who did remember wouldn't recognize him, for he really had changed a great deal in the meantime. He examined himself carefully in the mirror and suddenly felt safer behind his mask, behind the prematurely overworked face that looked older than its years . . . He ordered breakfast and then went out, went out under the appraising eyes of the porter and the elegant gentleman in black, through the lobby, between the two lions and into the open air.

Where was he going? He hardly knew. It was the same as yesterday. No sooner did he find himself surrounded by this curiously dignified, ancient amalgamation of gables, spires, arcades and fountains, no sooner did he feel the wind blowing in his face again, that strong wind which carried with it a delicately sharp aroma from distant
dreams, than a veil and tissue of fog seemed to befall his senses . . . The muscles in his face relaxed, and with suddenly calm eyes, he observed people and things. Maybe over there, on that corner, he would finally wake up . . .

Where was he going? It seemed to him that the direction he took had something to do with his sad, strangely rueful dreams of the night before . . . He entered the main square, passed through the curved arches of the town hall, where butchers with bloody hands weighed their wares, into the marketplace proper, where the tall, Gothic fountain with its many spires was located. There he stopped in front of a house—a plain, narrow house like many others, with an openwork bell gable—and stood lost in thought at the sight of it. He read the nameplate beside the door and let his eyes rest a short while on each of the windows. Then he slowly turned away and went on.

Where was he going? Toward home. But first he made a detour, strolling out past the city gate, because he had time. He walked along
Mühlenwall
and
Holstenwall
, holding on firmly to his hat against the wind that rustled and creaked among the trees. Then, not far from the train station, he forsook the levees to watch a train puff by in unceremonious haste and idly counted the number of cars, his eyes following the man who sat atop the very last one. Arriving at
Lindenplatz
, he stopped before one of the handsome villas, peered for a long while into the yard and up at the windows and finally hit upon the idea of swinging the iron gate back and forth on its hinges so that it squeaked. For a moment he stared at his hand, which was cold and covered with rust, then went on his way, proceeding through the squat old city gate along the ships' landing and up the steep, drafty little street to his family's house.

There it stood, surrounded on all sides by the neighboring ones, over which its great gable towered, as gray and somber as it had been for three centuries, and Tonio Kröger read the pious maxim carved in half-obliterated letters over the entrance. Then he took a deep breath and walked in.

His heart was pounding anxiously, for as he passed the doors on the ground floor, he could imagine his father, in a bookkeeper's jacket, with a pen behind his ear, emerging, stopping him and strictly demanding an explanation for his extravagant way of life—a demand that he would only have seconded. But he made it past these doors unmolested. One in front of him, which kept out the drafts, wasn't truly shut, only pushed closed. This he found objectionable, yet he also had the sensation, common in certain shallow dream states, of all impediments giving way of their own accord, allowing one to press forward unhindered, abetted by some fabulous string of luck . . . The large, square stonework in the front hallway echoed with his footsteps. Opposite the kitchen, where all was still, several unusual, crudely fashioned but neatly stained wooden cubicles still protruded as in the old days a considerable distance up the wall: the maids' quarters, accessible from the floor only by a kind of exposed ladder. The large cabinets and the carved chest that had stood on this spot were no longer here . . . The son of the house climbed the massive staircase, steadying himself with his hand on the whitewashed wood of the openwork railing, raising it with one step, then letting it gently drop with the next, as if bashfully testing to see whether his former intimacy with the solid old banister could be reestablished . . . He paused, however, on the landing in front of the entrance to the mezzanine. On the door was a white sign with black letters reading “Public Library.”

Public library? Tonio Kröger thought, musing that neither literature nor the public had any place here. He knocked on the door . . . A voice said, “Come in,” and Tonio Kröger obeyed. Tense and grim, he looked into the room and saw a most unbecoming transformation.

The mezzanine extended through three rooms, whose connecting doors all stood open. The walls were covered almost up to the ceiling with identically bound volumes arranged on dark shelves in long rows. In each one of the rooms, behind a kind of shop counter, sat a miserable-looking person, writing. The furthest two merely turned
their heads toward Tonio Kröger, but the first hastily stood up, braced himself with both hands on the counter, craned his neck, pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows and took in the visitor with eagerly blinking eyes . . .

“Pardon me,” said Tonio Kröger, not taking his eyes off the many books. “I'm a stranger on a tour of the city. So this is the public library? Would it be allowed to take a quick look at your collection?”

“With pleasure!” said the librarian, blinking even more rapidly . . . “Certainly, it's open to everyone. Do you just want to have a look around . . . Do you require a catalogue?”

“No, thank you,” answered Tonio Kröger. “I'll get my bearings soon enough.” With that he began to walk slowly along the walls, pretending to study the titles on the spines of the books. Finally he took down a volume, opened it and sat down by the window.

This had been the morning room. This was where they had eaten breakfast every day, not in the large dining room upstairs with the white statues of gods emerging sharply from the blue-background wallpaper . . . The next room had served as a bedroom. His father's mother had died there, struggling to the bitter end despite her age, for she was a pleasure-loving lady of the world who clung to life. That was where his father too had breathed his last, that tall, correct, somewhat melancholy and pensive gentleman with the wildflower in his buttonhole . . . Tonio had sat at the foot of his deathbed, his eyes burning with tears, genuinely and completely overcome by an inarticulate but powerful emotion, overcome with love and anguish. His mother had also knelt down by the bed, his beautiful, fiery mother, and had broken out in passionate weeping, only to go off not long thereafter with that Mediterranean musician into the wild blue yonder . . . And the third room there in the back, the smaller one, now likewise full of books guarded by some miserable-looking person, had for many years been his own. There was where he had returned after school, after one of those walks like just now. Against that wall, the desk had stood in whose drawer he had
stored his first, heartfelt, hapless attempts at poetry . . . The walnut tree . . . A stab of melancholy ran through him. He glanced off to the side out the window. The garden lay in a state of neglect, but the old walnut tree still stood where it always had, creaking ponderously and rustling in the wind. And Tonio Kröger allowed his eyes to wander back to the book he was holding in his hands, an outstanding literary work he already knew quite well. He glanced down at the black lines and groups of sentences, followed the artful rhythm of the words for a while as they swelled with vivid passion toward epiphany and effect, then likewise successfully receded . . .

“Yes, that's nicely done,” he said, laying aside the literary work and turning around. He saw that the librarian was still standing there blinking his eyes, partly from eagerness to be of service, partly from speculative mistrust.

“I see you have an excellent collection,” said Tonio Kröger. “I already feel I have an overview. I'm much obliged. Adieu.” With that he went toward the door, but his departure was hesitant, and he clearly sensed that the librarian, made uneasy by his visit, would continue to stand there blinking for some minutes to come.

He had no desire to press any further. He had been home. He could see that strangers now lived in the large rooms upstairs behind the columned hall, for the landing was closed off by a glass door that had not been there before, with some name printed on the attached sign. He turned away, went down the stairs, passed through the echoing main hall and left his boyhood home. Alone with his thoughts in the corner of a restaurant, he ate a heavy, rich meal and then returned to his hotel.

“I'm finished here,” he said to the elegant gentleman in black. “I'm leaving this afternoon.” He ordered his bill, as well as a cab to bring him to the landing where the steamer was to sail for Copenhagen. He then returned to his room and sat down at the table, sat silent and stiff, resting his chin on his hand, gazing with unseeing eyes at the tabletop. Later he settled his bill and
packed his things. At the appointed hour his cab was announced, and Tonio Kröger, ready to depart, descended the staircase.

On the ground floor, at the foot of the stairs, the elegant gentleman in black was waiting for him.

“Forgive the interruption!” he said, his little fingers poking his cuffs back into their sleeves . . . “Pardon me, sir, but I must take up a minute of your time. Mr. Seehaase—the owner of the hotel—has asked to have a word or two with you. A formality . . . He's back there . . . Would you please be so good as to follow me . . . It's just Mr. Seehaase, the owner of the hotel.”