Icon and mirror! His eyes embraced the noble figure standing there by the edge of the blue, and in a rising wave of rapture he felt that as he looked he understood beauty itself, form as divine thought, the one, the pure perfection, which dwells in the mind, and of which a human image and metaphor, slender and lovely, was offered here for worship. This was Aschenbach’s delirium, and the aging artist welcomed it unhesitatingly—yes, greedily. His mind was in labor pains; his cultural baggage was all helter-skelter; his memory cast up ancient thoughts that had been taught to him as a youth but
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