Death in Venice and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

these parts. The clinic is flourishing. The porter at the entrance to the side wing sounds the great bell every time new guests arrive, and with all the formalities both Dr. Leander and Miss von Osterloh accompany those departing to their carriages. AndEinfried certainly has welcomed all types within its walls! There is even a writer, who has a name that sounds like a mineral or a precious stone, whiling away the days here . . .
    Moreover, in addition to Dr. Leander, there is a second physician in residence for the minor cases and the terminally ill. But his name is Müller, and he’s of no concern.
    2
    At the beginning of January the wholesaler Klöterjahn—of the firm A. C. Klöterjahn & Co.—brought his wife to Einfried. The porter sounded the bell, and Miss von Osterloh greeted the guests after their long journey in the ground-floor reception room, which, like almost everything else in the grand old house, was decorated exclusively in wonderful authentic Empire style. Scarcely a second passed before Dr. Leander too appeared. He bowed, and an introductory conversation was held for the orientation of both parties.
    Outside, the wintertime garden lay with its flowerbeds covered in matting, its grottos snowed under and its little shrines abandoned. Two house employees lugged in the new guests’ suitcases from their carriage, which, since there was no direct access to the house itself, had pulled up by the wrought-iron gate.
    â€œSlowly, Gabriele, take care, my angel. Keep your lips closed,” Mr. Klöterjahn had said as he led his wife through the garden. No one who had witnessed them could have helped but silently join, heart atremble, in the phrase “take care,” which Mr. Klöterjahn had said, without any particular reason, in English.
    The coachman who had brought the worthy couple from the station to the sanitarium, a rough, simple man of corresponding sensibilities, had practically bitten his tongue in helpless concern as the wholesaler helped his wife down from the carriage. Indeed, even the team of bay horses, their breath steaming in the frigid stillness ofthe air, seemingly strained to follow this harrowing procedure, their eyes rolled back in their heads, full of concern for such fragile grace and delicate charm.
    The young woman had a throat condition, something in the trachea, as was unequivocally stated in the letter announcing their arrival that Mr. Klöterjahn had addressed from the Baltic coast to Einfried’s director. Thank God it wasn’t the lungs. Had it been the lungs, however, the new patient could hardly have looked fairer and more delicately refined, more sublime and ethereal than she did now, seated beside her burly husband in her whitewashed, straight-backed armchair, leaning back weak and tired as she followed the conversation.
    Her beautiful pale hands, devoid of all jewelry except for a simple wedding ring, rested in her lap amid the folds of a heavy, dark cloth skirt, and she was wearing a silvery gray connecting bodice with a stiff standing collar and layers of arabesque patterns in raised velvet. These warm, heavy materials only rendered her indescribably delicate, charming, weary little head all the more moving, unearthly and delightful. Secured in a knot at the bottom of her neck, her light brown hair was brushed back flat, one single loose curl falling near her right temple, not far from the spot just over her clearly defined eyebrow where a strange little vein branched out, pale blue and sickly, across the otherwise unblemished perfection of her nearly transparent forehead. This little blue vein above the eye loomed unsettlingly over the entire fine oval of her face. It stood out all the more whenever the woman spoke, indeed whenever she as much as smiled, and gave her face the expression of exertion, even strain, which was the cause of considerable indefinite alarm. Nonetheless, she did talk and did smile. She talked openly and