| a judgment that we did not […] that first time | A highly ambiguous statement. On the one hand, Z. seems to be distancing himself from the nationalist rhetoric that framed the Treaty of Versailles as a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. On the other hand, he seems to also disavow German responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War. |
| our new retaliatory weapon | The V-1 rocket, first launched against London on June 13, 1944. The extent to which Z. is mixing sarcasm with genuine admiration throughout the following paragraph is an open question. |
| | The Sarmatians were a group of tribes that harried the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Z. is here using the term in a (perhaps unconsciously) derogatory fashion to refer to the Soviet army. |
| “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of strangers” | Possible allusion to Hebrews 10:31: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” |
| those two saviors of European civilization […] Uffizi in Florence | The joint visit of Hitler and Mussolini to the Uffizi Museum took place in May 1938. |
| Bolshevism has never destroyed works of art | Z. is being naïve, since the Russian Revolution was accompanied by widespread acts of iconoclasm. |
| rhetorical bourgeois who called himself a “son of revolution” | Not an actual person, but the compound figure already evoked in the previous paragraph. Also a possible allusions to TM’s disputes with his brother Heinrich during the period of the First World War. |
| “Councils of Intellectual Workers” | A “Council of Intellectual Workers” was formed in Munich in December 1918; TM’s brother Heinrich played a leading role, much to the disgust of his younger sibling. |
| a belletrist spoke […] on the topic of “Revolution and Brotherly Love” | Thinly veiled reference to Bruno Frank (1887–1945), a friend of the Mann family and a participant in the Munich council movement. |
| the young lady from Bayreuth | |
| little mermaid in Andersen’s fairy tale | See 246/337 and note that the mermaid’s eye color matches L.’s. |
| technically perfect interpretation of Tartini | The Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) is perhaps most famous for his “devil’s trill” sonata for violin. |
| the marionette piece, “The Godless Cunning” | See the description of L.’s puppet opera on 333/460. |
| “Do you leave your garment in her hand and flee?” | An allusion to Genesis 39:12 and the attempted seduction of Joseph by Potiphar’s wife. TM spent almost twenty years (from 1926–1943) adapting the story of Joseph into a literary tetralogy; this particular episode plays a prominent role in Joseph in Egypt (1936). |
| everything the word ‘platonic’ means to me | The term “Platonic love” can refer both to same-sex and to sexless relationships. |