Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

“If before the oppressive dearth of people had seemed confining, now it was liberating solitude. My mood thus changed in an instant. Nothing would have pleased me less than to be spoken to, or even observed. All at once I was returned to the destiny of my voyage, my solitary adventure, and again the moment arrived as when, while riven with pain, it first came to me above Marina Grande, not far from Ravello. Again I was surrounded by mountains, but instead of the stony cliffs with which Ravello descends to the sea, it was the marble flanks of the cathedral, and over its snowy slope, countless stone saints seemed to be descending in pilgrimage to us humans. As I followed the procession with my gaze, a deep fissure became apparent in the building’s foundation: a passageway had been excavated, which, after several sharp, even steps into the earth, led to a bronze door that was slightly ajar. I don’t know why I crept through this secluded underground entrance; perhaps it was only the fear that often engulfs us when we ourselves enter a place we’ve heard described thousands of times before, a fear that had dictated my roundabout route. But if I had believed that I would be entering the darkness of a crypt, I was duly punished for my snobbery. Not only was this room the vestry, whitewashed and bathed in bright light from its upper windows, but it was also filled with a tourist group, before which the sexton was about to share, for the hundredth or thousandth time, one of those stories in which the words echo the ringing of the copper coins he raked in each of the hundred or thousand times he told it. There he stood, pompous and corpulent, beside the pedestal upon which the attention of his listeners was fixed. Attached to it with iron clamps was an early Gothic capital, by all appearances ancient yet extraordinarily well preserved. In his hands the speaker held a handkerchief. One would have thought that it was because of the heat; indeed, sweat was streaming from his forehead. But far from using it to dry himself, he only absentmindedly dabbed it on the stone block from time to time, like a maid who, trapped in an embarrassing conversation with her master, occasionally glides her duster over shelves and tables out of habit. My inclination toward self-torment, which anyone who travels alone has surely experienced, again gained the upper hand and I let his declarations rattle my ears.

“ ‘Two years ago’—this was the content, if not the wording of his dragging speech—‘we still had a man here among the townspeople who, through the most ridiculous fit of blasphemy and crazed love, made this town the topic of everyone’s conversation for quite some time, only to try for the rest of his life to make amends for his false step, and even to atone for it, well after the offended party himself, God, had probably already forgiven him. He was a stonemason. After spending ten years as part of a team restoring the cathedral, through his abilities he rose to become head of the entire restoration. He was a man in the prime of his life, a domineering sort, with no family or attachments, when he fell into the web of the most beautiful and shameless cocotte ever seen in the demimonde of the neighboring seaside resort. She was taken with the gentle and stubborn nature of this man; no one suspected that her affection lay with someone else. Yet no one could have guessed at what price. And it would have never come to light, if the structural inspection team had not come from Rome for a closer look at the renowned renovation. Among the group was a young, impertinent yet knowledgeable archaeologist, who specialized in the study of Trecento capitals. He was in the process of improving his forthcoming, monumental publication by adding a treatise entitled “A Pulpit Capital in the Cathedral of V …” and had announced his visit to the director of the Opera del Duomo, who, more than ten years past his prime, was living in seclusion; his time to shine and be bold had come and gone.

“ ‘What the young scholar took home from this meeting was anything but instruction in art history. It was a conspiracy, which did not remain private and ultimately resulted in the following being reported to the authorities: the love that the cocotte had yielded to her suitor had proved no obstacle to her, but rather an impetus to charge a satanic price for her affections. She wanted to see her nom de guerre — the kind of name that women of her trade have traditionally assumed — chiseled in stone in the cathedral, as close as possible to where the Blessed Sacrament is delivered. Her lover resisted, but his power had limits and one day, in the presence of the whore herself, he began work on this early Gothic capital, which he disguised as older and more weathered, and deliberately misrepresented until it landed as corpus delicti on the desk of the ecclesiastical judges. Several years passed until all the formalities had been acquitted and all the documents were in place, at which point it proved to be too late. A broken, feebleminded old man stood before his work; no one suspected foul play when his once-imposing head, with furrowed brow, craned over the chaos of arabesques and tried in vain to read the name he had hidden there countless years before.’

“I was surprised to notice that I — why I don’t know — had been creeping closer; but before being near enough to touch the stone, I felt the hand of the sexton on my shoulder. Well-meaning but puzzled, he tried to ascertain the reason for my interest. In my insecurity and fatigue, I stammered the most senseless thing possible: ‘Collector,’ and promptly headed home.

“If sleep, as many maintain, is not only a physical need of the organism, but also a compulsion from the unconscious that acts on consciousness — causing it to leave the scene to make room for drives and images — then perhaps the weariness that overtook me had more to say than it normally would in a southern Italian mountain town at noon. Be that as it may, I dreamt, I know I dreamt the name. But not as it had stood before me yesterday, undiscovered in the stone; it had been abducted into a different realm — elevated, disenchanted, and elucidated all at once — and amid the intertwining grasses, foliage, and flowers, the letters, which in those days made my heart beat most painfully, swayed and quivered their way over to me. When I awoke it was after eight. It was time to eat dinner and broach the question of how the rest of the evening should be spent. My hours of napping forbade me from finishing the day early, and a lack of money and inclination prohibited me from seeking out adventures. After a few hundred indecisive steps, I came upon an open piazza, the Campo. It was getting dark. Children were still playing around the fountains. This piazza, forbidden to vehicles, was no longer a meeting place, only a marketplace; it had found its purpose as the great stone bathing area and playground for children. Which is why it was also a favorite location for carts selling sweets, peanuts, and melon, two or three of which were still gathered on the piazza and starting to light their torches. A blinking light escaped from the circle of idlers and children who had gathered around the one nearest me. Upon approach, I could make out brass instruments. I am an observant stroller. What will or what hidden wish had forbidden me to notice what could not have eluded the attention of even the most distracted? In this street, at whose entrance I now found myself again, without having expected it, something was afoot. The silk mats hanging from the windows were not drying laundry, after all, and how could I have thought that the old style of lighting would survive here and yet nowhere else in the country? The music got under way, penetrating into the street, which quickly filled with people. It now became apparent that wealth, where it brushes up against the poor, makes it even more difficult for them to enjoy what is theirs: the torches and candlelight clashed with the yellow circles of light cast by the arc lamps across the pavement and exterior walls of the houses. I was the last to join the throng. All these preparations had been made to receive the procession before a church. Paper lanterns and light bulbs stood intimately side by side, and the dense band of the faithful detached from the celebrating masses in their wake, disappearing through the curtain folds that shrouded the open portal.