Death in Venice, but instead of cholera it is Covid-19
Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice has been an important part of my life for the past 6 months. I first read it in January, when Covid-19 was already widespread in China, and it was beginning to spread in Italy and South Korea. I was reading it for a book report for my English lesson, yet the day I was doing it, though, Putin and Pence were in town for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. As a result, I had to leave early and I could refresh my memory over the week with a Hebrew translation. After that, I saw the Visconti movie (which I might discuss in another post), and was deeply touched despite the many differences between the movie and the novella (and I do prefer the original). Now, even though I don't live in the US, Israel has enough hell going around here regarding the virus, and during these times I keep being reminded by a certain passage in Mann's novella. After spending a month in Venice, the main character, German writer Gustav von Aschenbach, reads in the German-language newspapers rumors regarding a cholera outbreak, and all around the city there are notices in Italian, and there is a smell of disinfection in the air. After trying to figure out what is going on, he finally decides to ask a British travel agent.
He [Aschenbach] entered the English travel agency at St Mark's Square and after he had exchanged some money, he addressed the clerk with his fatal question, with the expression of the distrustful stranger. It was an Englishman in tweed, still young, his hair parted down the middle, with narrow-set eyes, and that kind of loyalty of character which seems so alien and peculiar in the roguish South. He said: "No reason for concern, sir. A measure without grave implications. These kinds of orders are issued all the time to combat the ill effects of the heat and scirocco. . . " But looking up with his blue eyes he met the weary and somewhat sad gaze of the foreigner which was trained with slight disdain at his lips. The Englishman blushed. "That is," he continued, "the official version which people are trying to uphold. I will tell you there is something else to it. . . " And then he told the truth in his honest language.
For several years Indian cholera had shown an increased tendency to spread and travel. Born in the sultry swamps of the Ganges delta, ascended with the mephitic odor of that unrestrained and unfit wasteland, that wilderness avoided by men, in the bamboo thickets of which the tiger is crouching, the epidemic had spread to Hindustan, to China, to Afghanistan and Persia and even to Moscow. But while Europe was fearing the specter might make its entrance over land, it had appeared in several Mediterranean ports, spread by Syrian traders, had arrived in Toulon, Malaga, Palermo, and Naples, also in Calabria and Apulia. The North seemed to have been spared. But in May of that year, the horrible vibrios were discovered in the emaciated and blackened bodies of a sailor and of a greengrocer. The deaths were kept secret. But after a week it had been ten, twenty or thirty victims, and in different quarters. An Austrian man had died in his hometown under unambiguous circumstances, after he had vacationed for a few days in Venice and so the first rumors of the malady appeared in German newspapers. The officials of Venice responded that the public health situation had never been better and ordered the necessary measures to fight the disease. But the foodstuffs had probably been infected. Meat, vegetables and milk contributed to more deaths and the tepid water of the canals was particularly to blame. It seemed as if the disease had become more contagious and virulent. Cases of recovery were rare; eighty of a hundred infected persons died in the most horrible fashion, because the malady came in the particularly severe form called "dry cholera". Here the body was unable to even get rid of the water that came from the blood vessels. Within a few hours the afflicted person dried up and suffocated on his viscid blood amid spasms and croaky cries of pain. Comparatively lucky were those who, after a slight feeling of nauseousness fell into a deep blackout, from which they mostly did not come to again. In early June the quarantine barracks of the hospital had been filling silently, in the two orphanages there was no longer enough room, and a horrific traffic developed between the city and San Michele, the cemetery island. But the fear of general damage, regard for the recently opened exhibition of paintings in the municipal gardens, for the enormous financial losses that threatened the tourist industry in case of a panic, had more impact in the city than love of truth and observation of international agreements; it made feasible the official policy of secrecy and denial. The highest medical official had resigned, filled with indignation, and had been replaced with a more docile person. The people were aware of that; and the corruption at the top together with the reigning uncertainty, the state of emergency caused by the suffering all around, caused a certain demoralization, an encouragement of unsavory antisocial tendencies, which took form as debauchery, wantonness and a rise of criminal behavior. Against the normal rule, many drunken men were noticeable in the evenings; vile rabble made the streets unsafe in the night; robbery and even murder happened again and again, for two times it had already proven that supposed victims of the epidemic had in reality been killed by their relatives with poison; and prostitution became more obtrusive and excessive, in a way that was normally more associated with the South of the country or the Orient.
Sounds familiar to anyone?
(Originally posted: 23 July 2020)
