| a little more than a year | Another inconsistency in the chronology; it would actually have been less than a year. See 148/208. |
| pierced by the arrow of fate | In addition to fate, the arrow is also a symbol of pestilence (via the Greek god Apollo and various Biblical passages) and of love (via the Greek god Eros)—both plausible reference points in relation to Esmeralda. Another possible referent is the Christian martyr Saint Sebastian, whose image plays an important role in TM’s novella Death in Venice (1912), where it is associated both with homoeroticism and with art. |
| | Not for the first time, Z. invokes the aid of the Muses for his epic task. In doing so, he puts the Greco-Roman world in opposition to the medieval one of the Faust story, but he also calls up irrational powers. |
| | The German has frecher Sendbote (impudent emissary), which highlights that the porter is in the service of demonic powers. |
| | That is, a virgin, since Z. told us on 158/217 that L. had “never ‘touched’ a female” prior to his first visit to the brothel. |
| first Austrian performance of Salome | The first Austrian performance of the opera Salome (1905) by Richard Strauss (1864–1949) took place in Graz, the provincial capital of Styria, on May 16, 1906. It was attended by many leading composers of the day as well as (supposedly) Adolf Hitler. Aggressively dissonant, Salome was instantly recognized as a foundational work of modern music and a definitive break with the nineteenth century. |
| | Contemporary Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. In 1906 it was a part of the Kingdom of Hungary (itself a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). |
| without a religious shudder | Z.’s “religious shudder” moves Esmeralda into the vicinity of Wagner’s Kundry from the opera Parsifal; his line about one party forfeiting salvation while another finds it also recalls Senta and the Dutchman from Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. |
| nor will he have been the last | The most famous composer to employ “logograms” of this type is Johann Sebastian Bach (B♭–A–C–B♮, or B–A–C–H in the German notation system). |
| which Anglo-Saxons call a B | In the German system of musical notation, B♮ is known as “H,” B♭ simply as “B.” Other flats are designated by adding an “-es” or “-s” to the name of the note, making E♭ “Es,” pronounced exactly like the letter “s.” While Mann was busy working on DF, his contemporary Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) integrated the logogram D–E♭–C–B (or D–Es–C–H, alluding to the German spelling “Dmitri Schostakowitsch”) into his Violin Concerto No. 1 (1947). |
| | The number thirteen is presumably not an accident. Clemens Brentano (1778–1842) was a major figure of German Romanticism, known especially for his fantastical tales. |
| | The German is Kegelbruder or “bowling partner.” There are many German folktales about foolhardy young men who challenge the devil to a bowling match. |
| | Presumably a genital chancre, the distinctive symptom of primary syphilis. |
| hallmark of a face in world history | A reference to Adolf Hitler. |
| | In German a play on the homophones Rheinfall (“the falls on the Rhine”) and Reinfall (“failure, defeat”). |