Death in Venice

the onlooker thought he felt the tepid and mephitic odor of that unrestrained and unfit wasteland, which seemed to hover in a limbo between creation and decay, between the knotty trunks of a bamboo thicket he for a moment believed to perceive the phosphorescent eyes of the tiger and felt his heart beating with horror and mysterious yearning

The addressee of that smile ran away with it as if with a calamitous gift.

It was the smile of Narcissus who bends above the reflecting water, that deep, enchanting, protracted smile, with which he extends his arms towards the mirror image of his own beauty-a slightly distorted smile, distorted from the hopelessness of his longing to kiss the pretty lips of his shadow, flirtatious, curious and somewhat tormented, infatuating and infatuated.

form as a thought in the mind of God

arriving in Venice from the train station was like entering a palace through the servantsf entrance

it seems as if nothing dulls the noble and able mind quicker than the biting and bitter taste of awareness

For an important intellectual product to be immediately weighty, a deep relationship or concordance has to exist between the life of its creator and the general lives of the people.

he suddenly noticed a strange aroma in the air, which it seemed he had registered subconsciously for a few days already a sickly sweet smell reminiscent of distress and wounds and suspicious cleanliness.

After all we are only as old as our heart and mind feel and gray hair might be a greater falsehood than a little correction.

That was Venice, alluring and dubiously entrancing this city, part fairy tale, part tourist trap, in the putrid atmosphere of which art used to blossom luxuriously and which had inspired musicians with lulling melodies.