Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann Read Free Book Online Page B

riddle . . . although it’s hardly an original thought, you can’t help but stand back and wonder. You take a marvelous creature, a sylph, a mere wisp, a fairy-tale figure from a dream. And what does she do? She goes out and gives herself to some young marketplace Hercules or butcher’s apprentice. She walks with him arm in arm, maybe even leans her head on his shoulder and looks around with a sly smile, as if to say: go ahead and rack your brains over this latest development! — And we do indeed rack our brains.”
    This remark preoccupied Mr. Klöterjahn’s wife on more than one occasion.
    On another day, to Mrs. Spatz’s astonishment, the following exchange took place between them.
    â€œPardon me if it’s somewhat forward, but may I ask you a question? What’s your name, your real one?”
    â€œBut my name is Klöterjahn, Mr. Spinell!”
    â€œHmm—I know that. Or better yet: I refuse to accept it. I mean of course your own name, your maiden name. In all fairness you’ll have to admit, madam, that anyone who thinks you should be called ‘Mrs. Klöterjahn’ deserves a good flogging.”
    She laughed so heartily that the little blue vein above her eyebrow stood out with alarming prominence, giving her sweet, delicate face a certain deeply unsettling expression of strain and exertion.
    â€œNo, I don’t. Really, Mr. Spinell! A flogging? Do you find Klöterjahn so terrible?”
    â€œYes indeed, madam. I’ve hated this name with all my heart from the moment I heard it. It’s ridiculous, terribly ugly. It’s a vile practice to insist on convention so strictly as to call you by your husband’s name.”
    â€œWell now, and ‘Eckhof’? Is Eckhof any better? My father’s name is Eckhof.”
    â€œThere, you see! Eckhof is something else entirely! There was even once a great actor named Eckhof.Eckhof passes muster. — But you spoke only of your father. Is your good mother . . .”
    â€œYes. My mother died when I was young.”
    â€œAha. Do tell me a little more about yourself, if I may be so bold. Should you find it tiresome, you’re under no obligation: you can just rest, and I’ll go on with those stories about Paris from the other day. But you could speak very softly. In fact, if you whisper, it would only make everything even more beautiful . . . You were born in Bremen?” And he asked her this question almost silently, with an expression of profound reverence, as if Bremen were an incomparable city full of untellable adventure and secret delights, which cloaked anyone born there in a mysterious aura of majesty.
    â€œYes, imagine,” she said involuntarily. “I’m from Bremen.”
    â€œI was there once,” he remarked contemplatively.
    â€œMy God, you’ve even been
there
? No, really, Mr. Spinell, I believe you’ve seen everything from Tunis to Spitzbergen!”
    â€œYes, I was there once,” he repeated. “For a couple of brief hours one evening. I recall an old, narrow street with the moon shining down oblique and strange upon the gabled rooftops. Then I was in a cellar that smelled of wine and mildew. I have a vivid memory of that . . .”
    â€œReally? Where might that have been? You see, it was in just such a gray-gabled house, an old merchant’s house with an echoing wooden hallway and a whitewashed gallery, that I was born.”
    â€œSo your good father is a businessman?” he asked with some hesitation.
    â€œYes. But he’s an artist too; actually he’s first and foremost an musician.”
    â€œAha! Aha! Of what sort?”
    â€œHe plays the violin . . . but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
The way
he plays it, Mr. Spinell, that’s the thing! There are certain notes I cannot so much as hear without feeling the extraordinary sting of tears in my eyes. Nothing else