Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: So then guess, gentlemen, how many books I have with me.

FIRST MAN OF LETTERS: Your collected poems, I suspect — I have yet to see you without them.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: That would not yet even make one.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: Thirty-eight books, venerable sirs.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: You are not to be taken seriously.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: Wager? For a bottle of champagne?

FIRST MAN OF LETTERS: Stop talking nonsense.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: Then, please, see for yourself.

We hear a progressively louder “Ah, ah, ah” from all parties. The titles can be altered at will and should be divided among the various speakers in turn:

Almanac of German Muses, Almanac for Noble Souls, Calendar of the Muses and the Graces, Genealogy of the Braunschweig-Lüneburg Electorate, Almanac for Health Fanatics, Church and Heresies Almanac, Handbook of Social Amusements, Almanac for Children and Youth, Almanac for the Promotion of Domestic Happiness.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: Almanac for the Promotion of Domestic Happiness. Yes, we were lacking that. Since nine tenths of all domestic distress derives from just this damned reading of Almanacs — by way of which every wench fancies herself a Chloe or even an Aspasia.

MORITZ: Yes, that is an accursed collection you have put together. And a poor schoolteacher such as myself wonders how he could rival so much erudition. — I reproach these calendars with their rhymes, anecdotes, songs, excursions, and dances, little essays and notices, geographical maps and small copperplate engravings and costumes for diverting even the educated public from serious works.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: That’s exactly it, Deputy Headmaster. Everything is fragment, shadow, and sampler. I can see the day coming when they will even trivialize the Holy Scriptures, and fill the Old Testament with cartoons of the Patriarchs.

MORITZ: We are caught in the middle. The better public are devoted to dalliances, amorous verses, maudlin novels; and the simpler folk — insofar as they read — are in the clutches of the colporteurs who bring robber and ghost stories directly to their house by the sheet. In this you have it better, Pastor: Heaven and Hell have something to say to every class of society.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: If you think that my sermons are a match for those fashionable new tales of chivalry, then you are mistaken. One would have to be an Abraham a Santa Clara to hold people’s attention. 15And it just gets worse from one Mass to the next.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: One moment, gentlemen. That must be Unger there, sitting right behind you. He surely has the most recent catalog for the book fair, so we’ll see right away. — One moment, please, my esteemed Unger.

UNGER: Oh, it’s you, my dear man. To be honest, had I known, I would have had my coffee elsewhere. You are right to remind me. But ask all of my authors, ask Moritz, I can’t print anything until I resolve the question of the new typeset with my colleague Didot in Paris. 16

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: But I beg of you, I will not press you. It’s not at all about that. Set aside your Berlin Monthly 17for a moment, reach in your pocket and pull out the new book fair catalog. — You see, my gentlemen, we’ve already got it.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: Gentlemen, one moment’s peace! Listen to this! You will blush for shame. Have you ever heard of the Widtmann Press in Prague? Neither have I. And wrongly so, gentlemen, wrongly so. To this publishing house we will soon owe the masterpiece of the following title: “The Little Jewish Grandmother, or, The Terrifying Specter of the Woman in the Black Robe.” 18But Mr. Widtmann has competition in Prague. What do you say to: “The Night Watchman, or, the Ghost Encampment at Saaz in Bohemia. A Horrifying Tale from the Age of Gruesome Sorcery.” 19—Or listen to this — no, you won’t believe it possible, my esteemed Deputy Headmaster. Step over here and take a look: Adelmar von Perlstein, the Knight of the Golden Key; or, The Twelve Sleeping Maidens, Protectors of the Enchanting Young Man. Knight’s Tales and Ghost Stories from the Middle Ages as Companion to Knight Edulf von Quarzfeld ., 20

FIRST MAN OF LETTERS: Clearly, Mr. Waldner, who wrote that, need not fear any competition from our good Mr. Vulpius.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: And what dross is he coming out with this time? He will certainly not fail to weigh in.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: But, of course. Here it is: “Rinaldo Rinaldini, Robber Captain.” 21By the way, this Vulpius …

MORITZ: Just don’t tell me that he is the future brother-in-law of Mr. von Goethe. First of all, we’re not that far along. Second, I hold the composition of robber stories to be a thoroughly honest profession. Yes, Pastor, you will contradict me. But I must tell you, these are all completely harmless things in comparison to that worthless trash put out by this Mr. Spieß, for example, who decks his miserable products in all manner of prettifying or cloying trappings. 22

UNGER: Yes, our Spieß is edifying: in him you lost a colleague,

Though Spieß is an historical figure, his name also connotes “one who is narrow-minded, pigheaded, petit-bourgeois,” and this sense plays throughout the ensuing dialogue. [Trans.]

Pastor. Sometimes one would really sooner believe one was reading a high-minded book of meditations from 1650. But in the end there’s really only one of these tearful domestic stories behind it all. I haven’t actually read any of them. The title of his last was enough for me … What was that thing called again?

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: The Injustice of Humankind, if I’m not mistaken. The Injustice of Humankind or the Journey through Dens of Woe and Chambers of Misery. 23In truth, a disgusting mess.

MORITZ: Allow me to return to this once more, gentlemen. What strikes me as reprehensible is the hypocrisy with which such scribblers, with their comfortable earnings, behave as though their sole concern were the enlightenment of the human race, civic-mindedness, and the promotion of propriety. Of course, these things have already penetrated into the schools. Look here, please! Less than three hours ago, during a Greek lesson, I caught a rascal with this book under the bench.

UNGER: No, really, Deputy Headmaster, let me see! I’ve never read a word of this Spieß.— Biographies —No, listen to this: Biographies of the Insane . 24

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: And what if I were to tell you that the man has already completed four volumes, and I believe the thing has not yet run its course.

UNGER: No, Pastor, give me that! In the debate between Mr. Moritz and his student, I would at least like to be the tertius gaudens and actually look at something the man wrote.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: Read aloud, Mr. Unger! Our society is really far too refined. None of us has ever seen anything by Spieß.

UNGER: As you wish, my gentlemen, as you wish. But I think we’ll limit ourselves to the Preface.

PASTOR GRUNELIUS: Let’s say, a small section of it. That should suffice.

UNGER: “Can I expect thanks,” writes this Spieß:

Can I expect thanks, if I warn those who stray away from the abyss; is it my duty to caution the parched wanderer against taking a precipitous draught from that cool well through which he will meet his death? If so, then I have fulfilled it, and can ask you, dear Reader, to take the content of this little book to heart. Insanity is terrifying, but more terrifying still is how easily a man can fall prey to it. Overwrought, violent passion, deluded hope, lost perspective, and often merely fancied dangers can rob us of that precious gift of our Creator, our understanding — and what mortal can boast that he was never himself in a similar position, and, it follows, in the same danger? When I relate to you the biographies of these unfortunates, I wish not only to awaken your compassion, but also to offer you excellent proof that each was the author of his own misfortune, and that accordingly it remains in our power to avert similar misfortunes. Admittedly, I cannot hold out against the torrential current if I dare recklessly to venture into its depths, but he who convinces me of its depths through examples and warns me of the imminent danger before I have stepped from the bank deserves my thanks and praise. How richly, how sublimely, would I think myself rewarded were my stories to restrain the gullible maiden, the careless young man, from the execution of a bold plan that could someday rob them of their understanding. 25