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

change of expression.
    From then on he avoided crossing paths with Anton Klöterjahn, Jr., as best he could.
    10
    Mr. Spinell sat in his room and “worked.”
    It was a room like all the others at Einfried: old-fashioned, simple and elegant. Its massive chest of drawers was mounted with metal lions’ heads; its high wall mirror consisted not of a single smooth surface, but numerous little square pieces held together by lead; and its blue-painted stone floor, into which the stiff legs of the furnishings extended in the form of transparent shadows, had been left uncarpeted. A large desk stood next to the window, in front of which the novelist had drawn a yellow curtain, probably for the sake of turning inward.
    In the yellowish twilight he was bent over the surface of his secretary writing—working on one of those many letters he had posted every week, letters to which, humorously enough, he usually received no answer. A large, thick sheet of paper was stretched out in front of him, in whose upper left-hand corner, under an intricate sketch of a landscape, the name Detlev Spinell was written in the latest newfangled lettering. He was in the process of covering it with his small, carefully formed, exceedingly legible hand.
    â€œSir,” stood written there. “I am addressing the following lines to you because I cannot help it, because what I have to say fills me, fills me to the brim with anguished trembling, because the words come flooding with such force that I would choke on them, if I weren’t allowed to unburden myself in this letter . . .”
    To tell the truth, the bit about “flooding” simply wasn’t the case, and God only knows what had inspired Mr. Spinell to write it. Words certainly didn’t seem to come flooding into his head. For a man whose livelihood was writing, he was pathetically slow off the mark—no one could have watched him without becomingconvinced that an author is a person to whom writing comes more difficult than to everyone else.
    For fifteen minutes at a time he would sit pinching one of the strange downy hairs on his cheek between his fingertips, twirling it round as he stared off into empty space, making not a line’s progress. Then he would write out a couple of decorous words before once again faltering. On the other hand, it must be admitted that what finally emerged did seem polished and dynamic, though in terms of content it was bizarre, dubious, often even incomprehensible.
    â€œIt has become,” the letter went on, “an inescapable need of mine to make you see what I see—this indelible vision that I’ve had before my eyes for weeks now—to make you view it through my eyes, illuminated by the same words that illuminate it for my inner eye. I’m accustomed to following this impulse, which compels me, in unforgettably and scorchingly well-placed words, to transform personal experiences into those of the world. Thus hear me out.
    â€œI only want to put into words what was and what is. I will simply tell a story—a very short, unspeakably scandalous story—without commentary, without making accusations or passing judgment, just expressing things in my own way. It is Gabriele Eckhof’s story, sir, the woman whom you call your own. Take heed! It was your experience, but it is my words that will first allow you truly to appreciate its,
her
significance.
    â€œDo you remember the garden, sir, the old, overgrown garden behind the gray patrician house? Green moss thrived in the fissures of the weather-beaten walls around this dreamy wilderness. Do you remember the fountain in the center? Purple lilies drooped over that crumbling disk, and its white stream babbled mysteriously as it splashed down upon the cracked stonework. A summer’s day was almost at an end.
    â€œSeven innocent girls sat in a circle around that fountain; and yet only in the hair of the seventh, the leader, the one, did the