After brief encounters during his bourgeois upbringing in Lubeck and Munich, Mann's taste for younger men settles into chaste flirtations, private diaries, or just " the secret energy in a gaze" .

他在吕贝克和慕尼黑的资产阶级环境中成长期间曾有过短暂的邂逅，此后，曼对年轻男人的涉猎逐渐转变为纯洁的调情、私人日记，或者仅仅是“凝视中的隐秘力量”。