Deaths in Venice

by Kitcher, Philip;

  29. Aschenbach’s attitude may be expressed in a much-cited passage from Mann’s late essay on Chekhov, written in 1954 (the year before his death). “And yet one writes, tells stories, presents the truth and thus delights a needy world, in the dim hope, almost in the faith, that truth and beautiful form will have the effect of freeing the soul, and thus be able to prepare the world for a better, more beautiful, more spiritually elevated life” (Essays 6:279–280; see also 269–270). Like Mann himself, Aschenbach seems moved by constant self-criticism and thus sympathetic to Chekhov’s dictum, “Dissatisfaction with oneself forms a basic element of every real talent.” (Essays 6:279).

  30. GKFA 8.1:534; LP 29, L 219, K 24, H 51. The last three translate Mann’s Phäake as “Phaeacian,” but Lowe-Porter opts for “Phaeax.” The Phaeacians lived on the island of Scheria, Odysseus’s last stopping place before arriving in Ithaca: the mythological associations suggest people who live well, in grace and luxury (which would fit with Aschenbach’s thought that the boy is used to ease). Phaeax was a Greek orator, apparently not very successful—hence, unless I misunderstand her, Lowe-Porter’s choice seems obscurely motivated. Aschenbach’s epithet has another interesting resonance. Shipwrecked on the beach, Odysseus observes Nausicaa, the beautiful daughter of the King of the Phaeacians, and, with her aid, he is equipped to make the final stage of his journey. Tadzio is a beauty, observed on the lido—and Aschenbach may inchoately hope that the boy will help him achieve his official goal of representing beauty (although Tadzio’s principal role may be to assist him in undergoing the final journey—Tadzio as Hermes, bearer of souls).

  31. “… and to you, Critobulus, I would say, ‘Go abroad for a year: so long a time will it take to heal you of this wound.’” Xenophon Memorabilia of Socrates, trans. H. G. Dakyns, available online at Project Gutenberg. See GKFA 8.1:539; LP 33, L 223, K 27–28, H 59.

  32. GKFA 8.1:554; LP 44–45, L 234, K 37, H 82–83. Surprisingly, Luke, normally the most faithful of translators, renders “menschlicher Jugend” as “of young men.” This is to anticipate a stage of thought Aschenbach has not yet reached. Like other translators, I preserve gender neutrality.

  33. Schopenhauer sharply dissents: WWV 1 §40; 1:266. As we shall discover, Schopenhauer’s grounds for disagreement, rooted in his concerns about the sexual drive, are crucial to the dialectic behind Mann’s presentation of Aschenbach.

  34. In his classic monograph, Kenneth Dover makes this point very clearly: see his Greek Homosexuality (New York: MJF, 1989), 162.

  35. Phaedrus 244–257b; PW 522–533.

  36. Plutarch, Selected Essays, trans. Moses Hadas (New York: Mentor, 1957), 15. Unlike Plato, Plutarch offers a dialogue in which the relative merits of homosexual and heterosexual love are seriously debated—and, in closing, he leaves his readers with the claim that heterosexual love seems more likely to endure.

  37. Plato Symposium 207; PW 490.

  38. Plutarch, Selected Essays, 15.

  39. Plato Symposium 219d; PW 501.

  40. Mann carefully preserved the diaries from 1918 to 1921 and from 1933 to 1955, stipulating that they should not be opened before the twentieth anniversary of his death. (His diary records this decision, first proposing a period of twenty-five years after his death and later settling for an interval of twenty years. TB [1951–1952] 18, 223.) His provision thus allowed for the possibility that his wife and his children might have the opportunity to read them—indeed, Katia Mann survived until 1980 (after the publication date of the first volumes). The diary passages about future publication do not register any concern about how his wife or children would react to what they might read.

  41. See, for only a few of a very large number of instances, TB (1918–1921) 118, 235, 379, 387; TB (1933–1934) 397, 405; TB (1935–1936) 58, 369, 381; TB (1937–1939) 181; TB (1940–1943) 304, 316, 339; TB (1944–1946), 40, 260; TB (1946–1948) 263; TB (1949–1950) 207. This linguistic tendency was evident even after the publication of the first volume of the diaries: it was noted by the critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki in his review (reprinted in Reich-Ranicki, Thomas Mann und die Seinen, 53). Occasionally, hübsch is applied to women—see, for example, TB (1935–1936) 128.

  42. Visiting Nordwijk in August 1947, Mann expressed his joy in returning after eight years. Seated on his balcony, looking over the sea, he surveyed the scene: “The Dutch type mostly not attractive. From a distance a few images to capture the attention.” The next day repeats the complaint: “Nothing for the eye to love (Augenliebe—eye candy?) in the vicinity, indifferent humanity.” After a few days, he confesses his boredom. TB (1946–1948) 145, 146.

  43. For prominent examples, see TB (1933–1934) 296 (January 24, 1934), TB (1935–1936) 177 (September 21, 1935), TB (1940–1943) 395–396 (February 20, 1942), TB (1944–1946) 215–216 (June 15, 1945), TB (1946–1948) 129–135, TB (1949–1950) 207–221. Even more explicit and extensive is the romance of the summer of 1950, when, on a visit to Switzerland, Mann was greatly taken with the charms of a young waiter, Franz Westermaier: see TB (1949–1950) 205–259 passim; these pages contain some interesting passages about his family’s reactions to his evidently besotted state. I shall explore Mann’s sexuality at greater length in section 4.

  44. Frederick’s sexual inclinations are unclear, but many of his contemporaries, as well as later scholars, have supposed that they were primarily directed toward men. Those suppositions rest on his early intimacy with one of his father’s pages, on the apparently sexless character of his marriage, and on his public celebrations of male friendship (as, for example, in the “Platonic” temple he had erected at Sans-Souci). Frederick would surely have been an outstanding subject for anyone with the complex sexual orientation assigned to Aschenbach—or felt by Mann himself.

  45. PT 1:67; PTM 61.

  46. PT 1:140–141; PTM 65. PT 1:415; PTM 72–73; PT 1:449; PTM 75. See also PT 403, 407, 459–460, 500, 503; not reproduced in PTM.

  47. PT 2:325; PTM 127.

  48. THBW 429.

  49. Essays 3:126–133, 247.

  50. TB (1933–1934) 335.

  51. For the poem, to which I’ll return, see PL 47. It is quoted in Essays 3:126–133, 246–247.

  52. PTM 24.

  53. It seems very probable that he had read the Plutarch dialogue, given his acknowledgment of having overlooked the homosexual references in Plutarch when he was young (PT 1:141; PTM 65).

  54. PT 1:60, 64; PTM 52, 56.

  55. PT 1:67; PTM 61. It is worth noting that, by the time Platen came to endorse this ancient view, women were already proving themselves in the ambient cultural world, so that his reiteration of the classical argument involves either blindness or self-deception. The classical justification would have been even less available to Thomas Mann, for whom female cultural achievements would have been even more impossible to ignore. Nevertheless, despite Mann’s knowledge of Katia Pringsheim’s unusual intellectual accomplishments (her ability in mathematics and physics, for example), and despite his celebration of them in Königliche Hoheit (where Imma Spoelmann guides the prince’s studies in mathematical economics), he took it for granted that his wife’s role was to support his own endeavors. See section 8.

  56. PT 1:90; PTM 64.

  57. PT 1:141; PTM 65.

  58. PT 1:457; see also the reaction to La Rochefoucauld’s less rosy view of friendship, PT 1:403 (these passages are not in PTM).

  59. PT 1:700–701; PTM 92–93.

  60. PT 1:838; PTM 102.

  61. PT 1:838; not in PTM.

  62. PT 1:781; PTM 101.

  63. PT 1:838–839; not in PTM.

  64. The same word, Abgrund, occurs in both their meditations (PT 1:838; GKFA 8.1:589).

  65. Platen writes: “Reading and eternal reading! It almost seems I only live to read, or even that I do not live but merely read” (PT 2:104; PTM 114).

  66. PL 43.

  67. PL 47.

  68. Essays 2 (1919–1925) 272. Plainly, in Mann’s consciousness, Platen’s short p
oem resonated in Wagner’s Tristan, itself embodying ideas from Schopenhauer (akin to those expressed by Platen). The complex web of connections was reinforced by the knowledge that Wagner had written the great duet of act 2 of Tristan (in which Tristan and Isolde yearn for the abolition of their separate selves) in Venice, a city that had figured significantly in Platen’s own liberation. It was also the city in which Wagner himself would die.

  69. See, for example, PT 2:187–188; not in PTM.

  70. PT 2:928; PTM 216. Platen surely enjoyed the beach for reasons similar to those that moved Mann.

  71. Plato Phaedrus 250d; PW 528.

  72. PT 2:179; not in PTM. See also the entry for February 5, 1819 (PT 2:203).

  73. Entry of June 8, 1819; PT 2:281 (not in PTM). This part of the diary is in French, a language Platen used with his mother and in which, at various periods of his life, he records his thoughts and feelings in his diary. (He also writes in other languages—for instance, in Portuguese, when he is studying that language.) I have no general theory of why German gives way to French (or to other tongues).

  74. Entry of June 9, 1819; PT 2:283 (not in PTM).

  75. Entry of June 9, 1819; PT 2:284 (not in PTM).

  76. Entry of June 24, 1819; PT 2:288 (not in PTM).

  77. PT 2:314; not in PTM.

  78. PT 2: 313; not in PTM.

  79. Recall Mann’s letter to Grautoff, discussed in chapter 1 (n. 138 and accompanying text).

  80. PT 1:683–684; PTM 90.

  81. Entries of June 6 and June 18, 1816; PT 1:537, 538; the latter appears in PTM 82.

  82. Schopenhauer als Erzieher §I; NW 1:341.

  83. PT 1:838; PTM 102.

  84. GKFA 8.1:509; LP 9, L 201, K 8, H 14.

  85. She manages to leave her room at the beginning of chapter 3 and conducts the next series of “interviews” in one of the hotel’s public rooms.

  86. LIW 281–282.

  87. Later in Goethe’s reverie is an interesting passage on the androgynous nature of the artist: “It’s no accident that I resemble the doughty woman. I am my bronzed grandmother in the form of a man, I am womb and seed, androgynous art, determinable by everything and anything, but determined by myself, enriching what the world receives” (LIW 298–299).

  88. The exception is Jaschu, whose individuality is subsumed in his relationship to Tadzio.

  89. Unusually, Katia Pringsheim pursued studies in mathematics and physics at the university level. One of the reasons for her hesitation in accepting Mann’s proposal was her unwillingness to give up this part of her intellectual life. See dMM 1:924, HarpM 1:233, KMM 19, 28–29.

  90. GKFA 4.1:51, 50.

  91. GKFA 4.1:313.

  92. GKFA 4.1:293.

  93. GKFA 4.1:370.

  94. GKFA 4.1:395. See also GKFA 4.1:364.

  95. GKFA 4.1:399.

  96. As chapter 1 explained, the diaries, to which Mann confided his feelings and longings, records kept for years in a cabinet to which he alone had the key, were left in Munich when he began the journey that would turn into years of exile. After it was clear that he could not return to Munich, and after the plan for his second son, Golo, to collect the diaries and forward them had gone awry, Mann was clearly extremely anxious and disturbed. See chapter 1 n. 164 and accompanying text.

  97. KMM 77–78.

  98. TB (1918–1921) 470.

  99. TB (1918–1921) 470.

  100. TB (1918–1921) 453. The passage cited is preceded by the words “Rencontre with [mit] K.” followed by an ellipsis. The editor (Peter de Mendelssohn) omitted a more explicit description of what happened on this evening. On a visit to the Thomas Mann Archiv in Zürich, I was able to consult the original and thus to confirm that there was difficulty in consummating intercourse. I am grateful to Katrin Benedig and her colleagues in Zürich for their help in deciphering Mann’s handwriting.

  101. TB (1918–1921) 517.

  102. For Katia’s reassuring touch when the diaries seemed to have been confiscated, see TB (1933–1934) 66. For some of the many occasions on which he sought nocturnal comfort from her, see TB (1918–1921) 523 (May 27, 1921), TB (1937–1939) 168 (January 30, 31, 1938), TB (1946–1948) 230 (March 1, 1948), TB (1951–1952) 237 (July 6, 1952), TB (1953–1955) 299 (December 22, 1954).

  103. The most extensive confession of his homoerotic impulses comes in the summer of 1950, in the diary entries recording his attraction to “Franzl” Westermaier (TB [1949–1950] 205–259).

  104. TB (1933–1934) 397–398.

  105. TB (1946–1948) 318 (October 22, 1948).

  106. TB (1946–1948) 262, 263, 264, 265; the final vision was apparently some compensation for a walk abbreviated by the demands of work and correspondence.

  107. TB (1933–1934) 296.

  108. TB (1933–1934) 297.

  109. TB (1933–1934) 411. As in the earlier entry, Mann describes the relationship with Klaus Heuser as a “life-validating consummation.”

  110. TB (1940–1943) 395–396.

  111. Platen’s diaries also contain a similar expression of joy in having loved—even though he cannot claim to have been loved: PT 2:167; PTM 121.

  112. Essays 2 (1919–1925) 277.

  113. Klaus Mann, Tagebücher (1933), 129; cited in HarpM 1:710. The passage continues by suggesting that, in contrast to his father, Klaus has not repressed his sexual drives but has lived them out to the full. Instead of thinking of passion and “intoxication”—even intoxication at the prospect of death—as seduction, Klaus claims to view it as an intensification (heightening—Steigerung) of life.

  114. KMM 21.

  115. For the contrast between the diaries’ treatment of Katia (whose name her husband wrote as “Katja”) and the attention to haircuts, coffee consumption, and other similar mundane features of Mann’s life, see Reich-Ranicki, Thomas Mann und die Seinen, 63 (from a discussion review, centered on the TB [1937–1939], a review originally published in 1981).

  116. TB (1933–1934) 140. Identifying the marriage in this way seems initially to inflate Mann’s sexual interest in his wife—Jaakob’s love for Rahel might appear to have a strong sexual focus, one at odds with the incompleteness of Mann’s attraction to Katia. Yet there are aspects of the treatment of the relationship in Joseph that point differently: the depth of Jaakob’s love for Rahel is most often expressed in the moments at which he comforts her, both in their long period of waiting and in the years of her infertility. By contrast, on the night of his first wedding, when the body that stimulates his sexual energy is that of Lea—a wonderful bed companion—the lovemaking is prodigious: she receives him again and again, and, although Jaakob and Lea do not count their acts of intercourse, the shepherds report that they made love nine times (JSB 224). Perhaps the love for Rahel was more detached from “the lower part of the body.”

  117. A conception to which Nietzsche seems tempted in the essay on Schopenhauer as Erzieher. See n. 18 and the corresponding text. I have argued at length against biological determinist accounts of “human nature”: see Vaulting Ambition (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985) and several essays in In Mendel’s Mirror (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  118. TB (1949–1950) 294 (November 24, 1950).

  119. The following paragraphs are indebted to comments by Mark Anderson and Fred Neuhouser.

  120. I am grateful to Mark Anderson for posing this sharp question.

  121. This would be appropriate for the conception of the artist-educator Aschenbach assigns himself.

  122. Notizbuch 7, 129; “Amor est titillatio concomitante idea re exterioris” (Spinoza, Tractatus de intellectus emendatione Ethica, part 4).

  123. According to the judgment of his brother Heinrich, Thomas Mann lacked the capacity fully to apprehend a different life and was dominated by raging passion for himself. The assessment was made at the time of the public dispute between the brothers and appears in a draft of a letter, never sent, written on January 5, 1918; see THBW 178 (Reich-Ranicki quotes the pertinent passa
ge and attributes it to p. 141 of this volume). Heinrich’s charge is substantiated by the overall tone of the TB; see section 8.

  124. GKFA 8.1:588–589; LP 72–73, L 260–261, K 60–61, H 136–137.

  125. See section 4 of chapter 1.

  126. GKFA 8.1; L 14. It is not only significant that the event occurs at a musical performance, at an opera, at a work by Wagner, but that it is Lohengrin. Lohengrin was very likely the first opera the young Thomas Mann attended (HarpM 1:43), and the Tagebücher reveal clearly how he continued to be moved by it throughout his life. See, for example, TB (1937–1939) 516; TB (1953–1955) 250 (July 20, 1954).

  127. Perhaps Aschenbach dies from cholera, and, if so, perhaps the obsession with Tadzio plays a causal role in keeping him in Venice and in leading him to eat something that transmits the infection to him. As the next chapter will suggest, we should beware of being too confident on these issues.

  128. Compare GKFA 8.1:112 and 589; L 22, 261.

  129. Genesis 39:7–20 provides the source for JSB 729–926.

  130. This is how she is introduced in the second sentence of the part (Hauptstück) of Joseph that deals with the first half of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (the first sentence echoes Genesis).

  131. See JSB 891–899.

  132. GKFA 8.1:531, 541. LP 26, 34; L 217, 224–225; K 22, 29; H 46–47, 62. Mann sometimes associates problematic teeth with premature death, as in the cases of Tom and Hanno Buddenbrook. As the TB reveal, he was plagued by frequent—and hard-to-solve—dental problems.

  133. JSB 45–49.

  134. JSB 387 (He “burned” to “show himself to the wider world”), 387–400, 404–410.

  135. JSB 908.

  136. JSB 925–926.

  137. This is described in one of the funniest—also most touching and disturbing—chapters Mann ever wrote, a scene in which Potiphar’s decrepit parents reminisce in front of Joseph, whom they take for a mute servant (stumme Diener); JSB 622–640 (Huij und Tuij). Their apparently indiscreet conversation is prompted by worries about what will happen to them after their (imminent) deaths.