Death in Venice

by Thomas Mann

Never had he felt more sweetly the pleasure of words, never had he been so conscious that Eros dwells in the word, as during the dangerously delicious hours in which, seated at his rough table beneath the canvas, in view of his idol and with the music of his voice in his ears, he modeled his little essay on Tadzio’s beauty—that page and a half of choice prose whose purity, nobility and pulsating emotional tension were before long to excite the admiration of many. It is certainly a good thing that the world can see only finished works of art without knowing their origins, the conditions for their existence; for knowledge of the sources from which the artist derived his inspirations would often confuse and frighten away his public, thus vitiating the effects of his outstanding achievement. Strange hours! Strangely enervating labor! Oddly productive intercourse between the mind and a body! When Aschenbach put his work safely away and left the beach, he felt exhausted, indeed shattered; his conscience seemed to be accusing him as if he had committed some excess.