Free Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann

world,’ what does that mean?”
    He explained it to her, softly and in a few words.
    â€œYes, 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.
    â€œThe 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 brokeoff 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 unconscious. — There was silence everywhere.
    â€œThat was Mrs. Höhlenrauch, the pastor’s wife,” he said.
    â€œYes, 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.
    â€œThose are bells,” she said.
    â€œIt’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 weightrestlessly for a moment from one foot to the other. And then, lo and behold,