rules, sir. It's the heat and the sirocco. The sirocco is oppressive. It's bad for the health... ".... He spoke as if surprised one could pose such a question, and demonstrated the sirocco's pressure with the flat of his hand. "So there is no disease in Venice?" Aschenbach asked very softly between his teeth. The jester's muscular features settled into a grimace of comic helplessness. "Disease? Of what sort? Is the sirocco a disease? Or our police-are they a disease? You must be joking! A disease? How can you say such a thing? A preventative measure, can't you see? A police order to combat the effects of the oppressive weather conditions"he gesticulated. "Very well," said Aschenbach, softly and tersely again, quickly dropping an unduly large coin into the hat. He then dismissed the man with his eyes. The man obeyed, grinning and bowing. But no sooner had he reached the steps than two hotel employees pounced upon him and started cross-examining him in whispers, their face hard against his. He shrugged, reassuring them, swearing he had been discreet. Couldn't they tell? Released, he went back to the garden and, after a brief consultation with his comrades under the arc lamp, stepped forward once more and sang a song of gratitude and farewell. It was a song the solitary traveler could not recall having heard before, a brash popular number in an unintelligible dialect and with a refrain of laughter blared out at regular intervals by all four. Words and accompaniment both would then cease, giving way to a rhythmic laughter, patterned in its way, yet very natural-sounding, and made to seem especially lifelike by the talent of the soloist. The artistic distance between him and the distinguished guests having now been reestablished, all his impudence returned, and the artificial laughter he shamelessly aimed up at the terrace was a laughter of mockery. Each time he came to the end of the words in a stanza, he seemed to be battling against an uncontrollable urge: he would choke, his voice would falter, he would press his hand to his mouth and hunch his shoulders till at just the proper moment an unbridled laugh would break, burst, bellow out of him and with such verisimilitude that it had a contagious effect on the audience, causing an objectless, self-perpetuating hilarity to take hold on the terrace as well. This seemed only to redouble the singer's exuberance. He bent his knees, slapped his thighs, clutched his sides, he nearly exploded, shrieking now rather than laughing; he pointed to the terrace, as if there were nothing more amusing than the people laughing up there, and before long everyone was laughing, everyone in the garden and on the verandah, including the waiters, lift attendants, and porters in the doorways. Aschenbach was no longer reclining in his chair; he sat upright as if to ward off an attack or take flight. But the laughter, the hospital odor wafting up to him, and the proximity of the beautiful boy coalesced in a trancelike spell that, indissoluble and inexorable, held his head, his mind in thrall. In the general commotion and confusion he ventured a glance in Tadzio's direction and, as he did so, noticed that when returning the glance the boy was equally grave, as if he were modeling his conduct and facial expression on Aschenbach's and the general mood had no hold upon him because Aschenbach remained aloof from it. There was something at once disarming and overwhelming in this telling, childlike obedience; it was all the elderly man could do to keep from burying his face in his hands. He also had the feeling that Tadzio's tendency to pull himself up and take deep breaths was the sign of a constricted chest. "He is sickly and has probably not long to live," he thought with the objectivity that strangely enough breaks free on occasion from intoxication and longing, and his heart swelled with pure concern and a concomitant profligate satisfaction. Meanwhile, the Venetians had finished their performance and were
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