| He needed an overview […] | The compositional problems created by the invariable interaction of part and whole would have been much on TM’s mind, since his American translator, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, was working on the English-language version of DF even while its author was still writing the novel. |
| | Street near the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich’s university district Schwabing. TM’s mother, on whom Frau Senatorin Rodde is modeled, moved here in 1893; TM lived in the vicinity during the 1890s. |
| | Prolific composer of Grand Operas in the French style, and thus regarded as a less-than-serious musician by many German intellectuals of the early twentieth century. This disdain was only increased by the fact that Meyerbeer (1791–1864) was Jewish. |
| | The term Sezession can refer to any number of artistic movements in the German-speaking world of the late nineteenth century that rebelled against the academic art of their time. The Munich Secession was founded in 1892. |
| | Fictional orchestra, modeled on the “Kaim Orchestra” which developed into the Munich Philharmonic. “Zapfenstösser” translates as “cone thruster”—in conjunction with Schwerdtfeger’s name an unmistakably phallic reference. |
| | Schwerdtfeger’s steel-blue eyes offer another variation on the theme established on 26/39 and 182/250. |
| | The German has sein Cello zu fegen, which draws a connection to Schwerdtfeger’s name with its possibly phallic implications. |
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| | The second floor of a stately residence, usually with higher ceilings than the other floors. |
| | A historical figure. In 1910, Mottl (1856–1911) was general music director at the Bavarian court and director of the Royal Opera. |
| Herr von Gleichen-Russwurm | Carl Alexander Freiherr von Gleichen-Rußwurm (1865–1947) was an acquaintance of TM’s and an actual great-grandson of Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). |
| | Latin idiom meaning “excuse me for saying this!” |
| | Italian town proverbial as a place of wealth and lax morals. |
| | The regency of Prince Regent Luitpold, necessitated by the mental illness of his nephew, King Otto of Bavaria, lasted from 1886 to 1912. |
| | Mann had already attacked Munich’s Wagner cult in his 1933 lecture “Suffering and Greatness of Richard Wagner,” which led to a “Protest of the Wagner City Munich” signed by more than a hundred cultural dignitaries, mostly from the ultra-nationalist and Nazi camps. |
| | Another example of uncanny laughter in the novel. Spengler’s double, Zink, had already been compared to a faun on 213/289. |
| Pfeiffering near Waldshut | Fictional toponyms, but closely modeled on the actual villages of Polling and Weilheim, twenty-five miles southwest of Munich. TM’s mother, Julia Mann (1851–1923), moved to Polling in old age, where her son frequently visited her. |
| | Modeled on the Schweighart farm (Fig. 11), in close proximity to Julia Mann’s apartment in Polling. |
| Klammer Pool […] Rohmbühel | Klammerweiher (Clinging Pool) is the name of a small pond in Bad Tölz, twenty-five miles east of Polling, where TM owned a vacation home in the early twentieth century. The real-life model for Rohmbühel Hill can be found just outside Polling. |
| | See 14/22, with its description of the linden tree at Buchel. |
| Winged Victory of Samothrace […] abbot’s study | The Greek goddess of victory, Nike. Both the “Nike parlor” (Fig. 12) and the abbot’s study, which will become central locations in the novel, are based on actual rooms at the Schweighart farm. |
| Painters were like daisies | Polling was indeed a popular destination for painters from the Munich Secession. |
| understanding […] most important thing in life | This attitude will become characteristic of Else Schweigestill, symbolically associating her with the Virgin Mary in the Christological scheme of DF. |
| | Pigs never seem to be very far away from the places where the devil appears in DF. In Matthew 8:32, Jesus drives the demons that have possessed two Gadarene supplicants into a herd of these animals. |