Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of attraction toward minors manifesting in obsessive and predatory behaviors (e.g., stalking), and discusses historical anti-gay bias and historical acceptance of relationships between adults and minors.

Gustav von Aschenbach is a highly respected German writer who follows a rigidly disciplined daily schedule to maintain his productivity despite a weak constitution. One day he finds himself too restless after a taxing and frustrating morning of writing to take his habitual post-lunch nap. Instead, he goes for a long walk through his home city of Munich hoping to restore his spirits sufficiently to allow him to work several productive hours on his return. It is early May, and the weather has turned unseasonably warm. He takes increasingly quiet paths through the city’s English gardens and watches crowds of people from a distance until the sun begins to set. Finding himself fatigued and hoping to avoid the storm threatening on the horizon, Aschenbach waits by the North Cemetery to catch a tram home.

The tram station and its surroundings are deserted, and the courtyard of the nearby stone mason is so filled with graves and monuments that it looks like a second cemetery.