Aschenbach decides to warn Tadzio’s mother, but when he sees her he fails to speak. The clerk advises Aschenbach to leave without delay. Aschenbach finally learns the truth from an English clerk: that Venice is in the grip of cholera, and that for fear of commercial loss the city authorities have tried to conceal it. Aschenbach asks the Leader of the Players directly if there is a plague in Venice. He follows them into St Mark’s, on a gondola ride and back to the hotel.Ī group of strolling players entertains the hotel guests, including Aschenbach and Tadzio. Aschenbach becomes obsessed with the desire, on the one hand, to know the truth about the sickness, and on the other to keep knowledge of it from Tadzio and his family.
In the Hotel Barber’s shop, Aschenbach learns that there is a mysterious sickness in the city and that many guests are leaving. Tadzio is victorious in the games but Aschenbach is unable to congratulate him. Aschenbach’s thoughts turn to Ancient Greece and, as the Voice of Apollo is heard and the children’s games become myths and the beach Socratic Greece, the writer’s muse is released. On the beach, Aschenbach watches Tadzio and his friends competing in a sequence of games.
He departs for the railway station but a mix-up with his baggage, which has been misdirected, sees him return to the hotel. Fearing the effect of the sirocco on his health and troubled by beggars and street vendors, he resolves to end his stay. Aschenbach crosses the lagoon to visit the city. His first impressions of the Polish boy – Tadzio – are confirmed. He buys some strawberries and observes a group of children playing on the beach. He is struck by the boy’s appearance and muses on the nature of beauty and its implications for the artist.Īschenbach is anxious that the sultry weather might force him to leave. Watching the hotel guests assemble for dinner, Aschenbach catches his first sight of a Polish boy and his family. Aschenbach is greeted by the Hotel Manager and shown to his room. On arrival at the hotel, the Old Gondolier disappears without waiting for payment. Aschenbach is rowed by an Old Gondolier who insists, despite Aschenbach’s protests, on taking his passenger direct to the hotel on the Lido. On the boat to Venice, Aschenbach is shocked by the behaviour and appearance of an Elderly Fop and some rowdy youths.
By the entrance to a cemetery in Munich, he encounters a Traveller and is filled with a longing for the sun and the south. The celebrated author Gustav von Aschenbach struggles with his incapacity to write.
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