"But little Hanno saw more than he was meant to see, and his eyes, those shy golden brown eyes ringed with bluish shadows. observed things only too well."
Little Hanno. What could have happened if he had lived? What would his life have been? It's such folly to ask what happens after the final act of a play, after the curtain has drawn for the final time at night. The answer is, of course, "The actors go home." And yet we cannot but wonder what could have been for Hanno, if another life was possible for him, or for any of them. If perhaps Tony could have been happy with her doctor, of Thomas with his flower girl. We are even programmed to expect such an ending, to see in the gentle foreshadowing the possibility of some small happiness--in spite of the subtitle's warning: "The Decline of a Family". No, happiness was not possible. The world, and the book, that they lived in would not allow it.
And yet, suppose it was possible for Hanno to escape. I do not propose another ending of the book, but rather that Hanno escaped the pages of the book, the doomed story that was written for him. If he were trapped, not in the pages of a novel, but rather in the real world, it's entirely possible that after his father's death, and the liquidation of the family business, his mother whisked him away to Munich. There, safe from the pressures of business and the keeping up of burgher appearances, he could pursue work in a field more suited to his sensitive nature, perhaps studying writing or journalism. Perhaps at the Technical University of Munich.
Perhaps his writing would be well-regarded. He might even publish a novel in his twenties that would later be cited as a reason for his being given the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ah, dare we suppose that his sensitive nature might even find liberty in romance? That his apparent love for the young Count Kai might find its adult expression? No, this would be too much, even for the real world. He would likely meet the external pressures of society and the internal pressure of his forbidden desires by marrying, perhaps a Jewish woman from an educated, well-regarded family. Even this would likely not give little Hanno any rest, however. A marriage of escape and denial is happy for neither party. Besides which, the world would soon be at war.
If not in marriage, perhaps there would be joy in parenthood, then. As many as six children, what a joy! And all of them marvelous, writers, actors, scholars, and one marine biologist who would go on to be known as The Mother of the Oceans for her tireless work in their behalf. What joy this would bring, unless the world once again went to war. Hanno's Jewish wife, and his refusal to compromise his morals, would surely make this period difficult as well. They would have to escape, perhaps to America.
Finally, in America little Hanno would be free of the cruel European world that had held him under its thumb for 65 years. That is, if it were not for the rise of McCarthyism. He would be so many of the things they would hate, fearless, staunch, sensitive, and egalitarian. No, this new world would offer no peace to a boy like Hanno. He would have to return to Europe. No doubt he would die there, aged 80.
And so it was that Thomas Mann died twice. He sealed himself in a book at the age of 25, and stayed there until his body caught up 55 years later. His extensive journals reveal the upsetting ways his heart stayed, and will stay, forever in Lubeck, aged 15, holding the hand of his young friend the count, seeing more than he was meant to, and in the only small solace, finding a way to write it down.
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