It may have been the stranger’s perambulatory appearance that acted upon his imagination or some other physical or psychological influence coming into play, but much to his surprise he grew aware of a strange expansion of his inner being, a kind of restive anxiety, a fervent youthful craving for faraway places, a feeling so vivid, so new or else so long outgrown and forgotten that he came to a standstill—hands behind his back, eyes on the ground, rooted to the spot—examined the nature and purport of the feeling.

It was wanderlust, pure and simple, yet it had come upon him like a seizure and grown into a passion—no, more, an hallucination. His desire sprouted eyes, his imagination, as yet unstilled from its morning labors, conjured forth the earth’s manifold wonders and horrors in his attempt to visualize them: he saw.

THOMAS MANN, Death in Venice trans. Michael Henry Heim with an introduction by Michael Cunningham [HarperCollins].

WILL AITKEN on Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of the classic at TIFF’s Books on Film series, tonight.

Photo: [via]