Our best wishes for a most enjoyable sojourn.
Let us bring our poor service to your kind attention.
Goodbye! Sorry! Hello!
Your Excellency!
And by the way, sir...
our compliments to your little sweetheart, to your pretty little sweetheart.
Our best wishes, signore.
Take me to the steamship landing.
I said, take me to the steamship landing.
The signore is going to the Lido.
I know that, but first I want to go to San Marco.
I get the vaporetto from there.
- But you cannot take the vaporetto. - Why not?
Because the vaporetto does not take luggage.
That is my concern. Turn around.
How much do you charge for this trip?
The signore will pay.
I'll pay you no penny at all unless you take me exactly where I want to go.
You want to go to the Lido.
But not with you.
I am a good rower, signore. I row you well.
I don't understand it.
That gondolier is a bad character.
He has no license.
The other gondoliers telephoned. He saw the police waiting and he made off quickly.
Signore, you had a ride to the Lido for nothing.
Will you give me something for the trouble?
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Professor von Aschenbach.
Allow me to extend you the compliments of the management.
Professor Aschenbach's key.
I hope the room we have reserved will meet with your satisfaction.
The hotel is extremely quiet. Do not worry, Professor.
This is Professor Aschenbach's suitcase.
Your trunk, Professor, will be delivered to you immediately.
We have a marvelous beginning of season, just a little scirocco.
I hope you will have a marvelous time.
Third floor. Please.
This side, please.
Come in.
After you.
I hope the flowers won't bother you.
Professor Aschenbach's suitcase. Right away.
We have reserved the best room in the hotel for you, Professor.
I hope you will like it.
You have a marvelous view of the sea.
Today the weather is not very good, but tomorrow it will be better.
I hope you enjoy your visit...
and I hope that the room we have reserved for you is completely to your liking.
Well, if you need something, you call me, sir.
Thank you.
Your key, Professor Aschenbach. 308. Remember.
Excuse me.
He's going to be all right.
When do you think he'll be able to work again?
That's difficult to say in cases like this.
I must say he has no reason to be proud of his heart.
He needs to get away from it all. A long period of complete rest.
Gustav?
I remember...
we once had one of those...
in my father's house.
The aperture through which the sand runs is so tiny...
that first it seems as if the level in the upper glass...
never changes.
To our eyes, it appears that the sand runs out...
only at the end...
and until it does, it's not worth thinking about.
Till the last moment...
when there's no more time...
when there's no more time left to think about it.
Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Dinner will be served in ten minutes.
I'm sure you will enjoy the dinner.
I have a good appetite, I had a good walk today.
- What are you going to have to drink? - I'll have some dry sherry.
All right, dry sherry.
What would you prefer as wine, French or Italian?
- French. - French wine. And you?
I think I'd like my daughter to know about Tocai...
You are a bit tired. Pale.
If you stayed more in the sun, you would feel better.
You should take more care of Tadzio. He is too tired.
Starting tomorrow, ma 'am...
I will control more scrupulously his rest time.
Understood? If you keep getting so tired your holiday won't do you any good.
All right. I'll run less starting tomorrow.
Don't forget about your promise, sweetheart.
Good, my dear, we'll stay together tomorrow morning.
Are you glad?
You won't get annoyed.
I would like to have the children ready by 9:00 tomorrow morning.
I'll take care of it. You can count on me, ma 'am.
Let's join everyone at the table.
Soup and fish. Nothing else.
Beauty. You mean your spiritual conception of beauty.
But do you deny the ability of the artist to create from the spirit?
Yes, Gustav, that is precisely what I deny.
So then, according to you, our labor as artists is...
Labor, exactly!
Do you really believe in beauty as the product of labor?
Yes, I do.
That's how beauty is born.
Like that. Spontaneously. In utter disregard for your labor and mine.
It pre-exists our presumption as artists.
Your great error, my dear friend, is to consider life...
reality as a limitation.
But isn't that what it is?
Reality only distracts and degrades us.
You know, sometimes I think...
that artists are rather like hunters aiming in the dark.
They don't know what their target is, and they don't know if they've hit it.
But you can't expect life to illuminate the target and steady your aim.
The creation of beauty and purity is a spiritual act.
No, Gustav. No!
Beauty belongs to the senses.
Only to the senses!
You cannot reach the spirit...
You cannot reach the spirit through the senses. You cannot.
It's only by complete domination of the senses...
that you can ever achieve...
wisdom, truth and human dignity.
Wisdom? Human dignity?
What use are they?
Genius is a divine gift. No:
A divine affliction.
A sinful, morbid flash fire of natural gifts.
- I reject the demonic virtues of art. - And you are wrong!
Evil is a necessity.
It is the food of genius.
Tea is served.
- Do you want some tea? - Please.
If you want milk, help yourself to it.
Thank you.
You know, Alfred, art is the highest source of education...
and the artist has to be exemplary.
He must be a model of balance and strength.
- He cannot be ambiguous. - But art is ambiguous.
And music, the most ambiguous of all the arts.
It is ambiguity made a science.
Wait!
Listen to this chord...
or this one.
You can interpret them in any way you like.
You have before you an entire series of mathematical combinations...
unforeseen and inexhaustible.
A paradise of double meanings in which you, more than anyone else...
romp and roll about like a calf in clover.
Don't you hear it?
- Do you recognize it? - Stop!
It's yours! It's all your music!
Good morning, Professor von Aschenbach.
Good morning.
How's the weather, sir?
The scirocco...
How long do you think it will last?
Well, you must understand, signore, that the scirocco...
blows for three days if it starts on Tuesday.
Nine days if it starts on Friday.
But if it hasn't blown itself out by the tenth day, then...
it goes on for 21 days.
Now, it began a week on Friday.
That makes today the tenth day...
but sure the last.
Excuse me, Professor. Have a pleasant day.
Thank you.
Delicious, fresh strawberries!
Strawberries!
Get your fresh strawberries!
Strawberries!
They're delicious!
Bring me a chair and a table here.
Delicious oranges.
- Lemons. - Fresh strawberries!
Tadzio!
Look! Take it!
With this board, I'll make the drawbridge.
Is it okay like this?
No. Put it a little bit more on the right.
- Like this? - Yes, it's okay.
Leave them in peace, Tadzio!
It's at least the fourth time that they've tried to build the castle!
Leave them alone!
Those are childish games.
That's fine.
It's better if we go for a walk.
Hello. What's going on there anyway?
...my husband. - Yes.
- Will you buy them, madam? - No, just like this.
- Those aren't so bad. - How much is he asking for them?
And you?
You wanna watch out for these vendors.
They charge three times as much as the stuff's worth.
I want that, that, and the other one.
Seashells over here!
Would you like some strawberries?
- No, Dorothy! - They're tasty!
It's very dangerous in this hot weather.
You shouldn't eat any fresh fruit like that. No.
Only cooked vegetables.
No, don't...
Strawberries from the field!
It's cold, isn't it? It's good for you. All right, hurry up.
All right, come on.
Mother, please, let me...
No, no! Tadzio! Tadzio!
So, run after me! Go! Hurry up!
- Tadzio is in a good mood, as usual. - Let's go back to the hotel, Hania.
Come!
- Are you tired? - No, Mother.
Ground floor, please.
Second floor, please.
That's not shame, that's fear.
Shame's a spiritual distress to which you are immune...
because you are immune to feeling.
You are a man of avoidance, of dislike, the keeper of distances.
You are afraid to have direct, honest contact with anything!
Because of your rigid standards of morality...
you want your behavior to be as perfect as your music.
Every slip is a fall, a catastrophe, resulting in irreparable contamination.
- I am contaminated... - lf only you were!
To be in debt to one's own senses...
for a condition which is irredeemably corrupt and sick.
What joy for an artist!
Think what a dry and arid thing good health is.
Especially if it's of the soul no less than the body.
I have to find my balance somehow.
How unfortunate that art is so indifferent to personal morality...
otherwise you would be supreme, unreachable, inimitable.
Tell me, do you know what lies at the bottom of the mainstream?
Mediocrity.
You are leaving us tomorrow, sir?
Yes, tomorrow. Unforeseen circumstances.
- An unexpected obligation. - I understand, sir.
I have to return to Munich.
I heard the news this morning. It's unavoidable.
Also, I'm not very well and...
- this climate is... - Yes, sir.
...most trying for my health. - I understand, sir.
Will you have my luggage sent on tomorrow, and any letters?
Of course, sir.
And have my bill made out immediately.
As you wish, Mr. Aschenbach. The bill of Mr. Aschenbach, immediately.
- Thank you. - I will have it right down.
Yes, thank you.
- Excuse me, sir, I have been told to... - Told to what?
Forgive my insistence, but the motor launch is waiting.
- Time presses, sir. - Time does not press.
Hotels try to get rid of one as soon as one has paid one's bill.
I find it intolerable.
If the motor launch cannot wait for me, then send my luggage on it.
- I'll follow on later by public conveyance. - I beg your pardon, sir.
Now let me finish my breakfast in peace. Send me a newspaper. Any one.
Yes, sir.
Farewell, Tadzio. It was all too brief.
May God bless you.
- Munich. First class. - For today, signore?
- What? - For today?
Yes.
I don't know that you can catch the train.
It leaves for Verona in four minutes.
If you miss that one, there is another.
- And you will miss also your connection. - Yes. Will you hurry.
Your change, signore.
Mr. Aschenbach! I am terribly sorry, sir.
I am mortified. An error, a most unfortunate...
Who are you? What do you want?
It's one of those things which should never happen...
but you know, it did happen.
- You're going to make me miss my train. - Your trunk has already left for Como.
Como?
- The company will try to get it... - I want it back now, immediately!
I am afraid, sir, that cannot be done. You will have to wait.
Wait? I want my trunk back.
- I insist on having my trunk here now. - Please, sir.
Take your train to Munich and the trunks will join you there within three days.
I will not leave Venice until my trunk is returned.
Very good, sir. You have most certainly taken the best course.
Take this back and get the money refunded.
And see the launch is ready. I intend to return immediately to the Lido.
Yes, sir.
Gustav.
Quick.
Darling, go and pick some flowers.
Hey, enough.
Come on, Daddy.
One more.
Let's see under your chin.
Yes, you love butter.
Darling, I think there's a storm coming up.
I think there's a storm.
A big, black cloud over the mountain.
Mother! Mother! Look what I've got for you!
Darling, come here quickly!
- Miss, quick, the bathing-wrap. - Yes, ma 'am, immediately.
Oh, dear! How dirty you are!
The sand is on your face, in your hair, everywhere...
- Ah, this child... - Have you brought me the shells?
Do you like them? Are you glad?
Come with me, everybody!
- The shells I found yesterday were nicer. - Look at this!
It's a lie.
- You're wrong. - It's so sweet of you.
Look how dirty you are!
Are you cold? Where is this from?
- He is in a fine state... - I don't know, but...
- He has sand all over. - There are lots on the beach.
Tadzio, may I have one?
I'll give you one later on, lwonko.
Darling, they're wonderful. It's very sweet of you.
Your shells were also very nice, lwonko.
But Tadzio doesn't want to give me any.
Thank you.
Basiu, let's go with mademoiselle.
- Take it. Eat that. - Thank you.
Come on, let's build another castle.
If you help me, I'll give you something.
I don't want to do it now. Maybe later.
Aniu, would you help me build a castle?
All right, lwonko. I'll be with you soon, but I prefer to finish my tea first.
- One moment. - Yes, Mr. Aschenbach?
Can you tell me why there is nothing in any of the newspapers...
about what is happening here?
Even I have heard stories.
You have heard those extravagant rumors, too?
No, believe me, sir, there is no epidemic, not even sickness.
What about notices being put up by the health department?
- You have seen those? - Certainly, Mr. Aschenbach.
But every year, in the summer months, Venice is papered with that sort of notice.
The police do it...
they are interested in avoiding any risk to the public well-being.
It's nothing more than that, I assure you.
Even if certain foreign newspapers take advantage of the situation...
to spread libelous rumors in order to discourage the tourists.
It's very unpleasant, don't you agree?
But no need to be concerned, Mr. Aschenbach.
No need for concern. Excuse me.
Esmeralda!
You must never smile like that.
You must never smile like that at anyone.
I love you.
MUNICIPALITY OF VENICE
What is this filthy smell?
It's everywhere in the city.
What is it?
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Come here.
Why are they disinfecting Venice?
The police orders, signore.
Because of heat and scirocco.
The scirocco is oppressive.
No good for health.
So there is no sickness in Venice?
A sickness? What sort of sickness?
The scirocco a sickness? Perhaps our police is sickness.
Just a precaution, signore.
Thank you.
Me to him?
- Nothing at all. - Absolutely nothing?
- I'm sly. - Fine, fine.
Thank you. Good afternoon.
- Good afternoon. - Good afternoon.
I want to change some German marks...
for lire.
- Three hundred. - Three hundred.
- Good day. - Good afternoon, sir.
Excuse me.
- Could I have a word with you, please? - Yes, of course.
- Now, sir, can I help you? - I'd be most grateful.
I've been trying to find out... No one will tell me the truth.
They're disinfecting Venice. Do you know why?
No cause for alarm, sir. A mere formality.
A precautionary measure in view of the unhealthy...
Thank you very much.
Just a moment, sir.
I'd like to have a word with you. Will you come this way?
Please.
Now that was the official explanation, which they seem to want to stick to.
But I can tell you, there's a bit more to it than that.
For several years, Asiatic cholera has shown a marked tendency...
to spread beyond its source...
which, of course you know, is in the waters of the Ganges.
First it spread to Hindustan...
then it moved east to China...
then it went west to Afghanistan and Persia.
- Are you following me, sir? - Yes.
From Persia, the plague moved along the great caravan route...
striking terror in Afghanistan, terror in Moscow.
From Moscow it was expected to spread across to Europe by land.
No. Instead, it was carried by sea from the Syrian ports...
to Toulon and Malaga...
and then to Palermo and Naples.
And it soon got a very firm grip on Calabria.
Northern Italy seems to have been spared so far.
But when you consider the vulnerability of Venice...
with its lagoons and its scirocco...
In May...
the horrible vibrios were found...
on the same day in two bodies:
On the blackened, emaciated body of a boatman...
and in a lady who kept a greengrocer's shop.
Both of these deaths, of course, were hushed up...
but now, week by week, there are more and more deaths.
It's quite impossible to count the number of the dead.
Do you know that in the hospitals there's not a single free bed to be had?
People all know, of course. They're terrified, but they're silent.
And do you know why?
Summer. Tourists.
The whole business of Venice is tourists.
Can you imagine Venice without tourists?
It would be more desolate than the winter.
You would be very well advised to leave today, sir.
Don't wait till tomorrow.
The blockade cannot be more than a few days off.
Madam...
will you permit an entire stranger...
to serve you...
with a word of advice and warning...
which self-interest prevents others from saying?
Go away immediately. Don't delay.
Please, I beg you.
Take Tadzio and your daughters.
I implore you. Please.
Venice is gripped by pestilence.
Please.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
What kind of road have I chosen?
What sort of road?
Gray.
Yes, of course. And you know why, signore?
Because of your negligence.
Because you don't take enough trouble over your appearance.
Understandable in a great gentleman such as you...
- but a big mistake, nonetheless. - No.
You're much too important a person...
to be a slave to conventions about nature and artifice.
You know, sir, we are as old as we feel, but no older.
You, for instance, signore, have a right to your natural color.
If I may.
Excuse me.
I will restore what belongs to you immediately.
- How? - Leave it to me.
And now the signore may fall in love as soon as he pleases.
Come on.
You cheat! You magnificent swindler!
What more do they want from me?
Pure beauty. Absolute severity.
Purity of form! Perfection!
The abstraction of the senses!
It's all gone. Nothing remains. Nothing!
Your music is stillborn and you are unmasked.
Alfred, send them away.
- Please make them go. - Send them away?
- I will deliver you to them! - No, Alfred, please.
Don't, please.
To them!
They will judge you and they will condemn you!
No, Alfred.
Wisdom. Truth.
Human dignity.
All finished.
Now there is no reason why you cannot go to your grave with your music.
You have achieved perfect balance.
The man and the artist are one.
They have touched bottom together.
You never possessed chastity.
Chastity is the gift of purity, not the painful result of old age...
and you are old, Gustav.
And in all the world...
there is no impurity so impure as old age.
Good morning, madam.
- Good morning. - Good morning, sir.
Good morning. Whose is this?
The Poles'. Mrs. Moore's and her family.
- When? - After lunch.
Fresh lemons!
Tadzio, Tadzio.