(|It seemed to him the pale and lovely Summoner out there smiled at him and beckoned; as though with the hand he lifted from his hip, he pointed outward as he hovered on before into an immensity of richest expectation' (83).) With the psychagogue of the German text,[11] the guide of souls to the underworld, we reach the end of the progression of Hermes-figures along Aschenbach's route, the foreigner in Munich who had stirred his wanderlust, the gondolier in his coffin-black boat, as it is described, and the street-singer.
Mann's classical ahusion to Tadzio as psychagogue, problematically realized by Visconti, is not (and probably could not be) specifically rendered in the opera's stage instructions: 'At a clear beckon from Tadzio, Aschenbach slumps in his chair.