Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann

Author:Thomas Mann
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Psychological, German, Short Stories (single author), General, Literary, Literary Criticism, Manners and customs - Fiction, Thomas - Translations into English, Classics, Short stories, Mann, European
ISBN: 9780965072519
Publisher: Book of the Month Club
Published: 1988-09-01T05:00:00+00:00

11

Herr Klöterjahn knocked at the door of Herr Spinell’s room; he held a large, neatly written sheet of paper in one hand, and wore the air of a man determined upon energetic measures. The post had done its duty, the letter had completed its curious journey from Einfried to Einfried and had duly reached its intended recipient. The time was four o’clock in the afternoon.

When Herr Klöterjahn entered, Herr Spinell was sitting on the sofa reading his own novel, the book with the baffling cover design. He rose to his feet with a surprised and interrogative glance at his visitor, while at the same time coloring perceptibly.

“Good afternoon,” said Herr Klöterjahn. “Pardon my intrusion upon your occupations. But may I ask whether you wrote this?” So saying he held up the large, neatly written sheet in his left hand and struck it with the back of his right, making it crackle sharply. He then pushed his right hand into the pocket of his wide, easy-fitting trousers, tilted his head to one side and opened his mouth to listen, as some people do.

Oddly enough Herr Spinell smiled; with an obliging, rather confused and half apologetic smile he raised one hand to his forehead as if he were trying to recollect what he had done, and said:

“Ah yes . . . that is so . . . I took the liberty . . .”

The fact was that on this particular day he had acted in accordance with his true nature and slept until noon. Consequently he was suffering from a bad conscience, his head was not clear, he felt nervous and his resistance was low. In addition there was now a touch of spring in the air, which he found fatiguing and deeply depressing. This must all be mentioned in extenuation of the pitifully silly figure he cut throughout the following scene.

“Did you indeed? Ah-ha! Very well!” Herr Klöterjahn, having got this opening formality out of the way, thrust his chin down against his chest, raised his eyebrows, flexed his arms and gave various other indications that he was about to come mercilessly to the point. His exuberant self-satisfaction was such that he slightly overdid these preparatory antics, so that what eventually followed did not quite live up to the elaborate menace of the preliminary pantomime. But Herr Spinell had turned several shades paler.

“Very well, my dear sir!” repeated Herr Klöterjahn. “Then I shall answer it by word of mouth, if you don’t mind, having regard to the fact that I consider it idiotic to write letters several pages long to a person to whom one can speak at any hour of the day . . .”

“Well . . . idiotic perhaps . . .” said Herr Spinell with an apologetic, almost humble smile.

“Idiotic!” repeated Herr Klöterjahn, energetically shaking his head in token of the utter unassailability of his position. “And I’d not be wasting words now on this scribbled piece of trash, frankly I’d not even have kept it to use

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