Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

IFFLAND: You are making us exceedingly curious.

HEINZMANN: That was my intention. And now, I ask that precisely you, Mr. Iffland, read this page for us. Such prose you will have seldom have recited. With the exception of your own, I’m quite sure.

UNGER: But aren’t you going to tell us who wrote it? The folder doesn’t betray anything.

HEINZMANN: The author’s name is Bräker. The book came out with Füßli and is entitled Life Story and Real Adventures of the Poor Man of Toggenburg.

IFFLAND: Not that the shepherd’s life is all fun and games. Not a bit of it! There are hardships enough. The worst for me by far was leaving my warm little bed so early in the morning, and tramping poorly clad and barefoot out into the cold fields, especially if there’s been a really harsh hoar-frost or a thick mist hung over the mountains. When the latter lay so high that I couldn’t surmount it by climbing with my flock up the mountainside, and couldn’t reach the sunshine, then I cursed the mist and told it to go to Jericho and hurried as fast as my legs could carry me out of the gloom into a dell. If, however, I did win the field and gained sunlight and the bright sky above me, with that great sea of mist under my feet and here and there a mountain jutting up like an island — why, what joy, the glory and the gladness of it! Then I wouldn’t leave the mountains for the whole day, and my eye could never see its fill of the sun’s rays playing on this ocean, and waves of vapor in the strangest of shapes swaying about over it, until towards evening they threatened to rise over me again. Then I wished I had Jacob’s ladder, but it was no use, I had to go. I’d grow sad and everything would blend into my sadness. Lonely birds flapped around overhead, dull and sullen, and great autumn flies buzzed so dismally about my ears that I couldn’t help weeping. Then I’d freeze even worse almost than early on and feel pains in my feet, even though they were as hard as shoe-leather.

Most of the time I also had injuries or bruises somewhere or other on me; and when one wound was healed then I went and got myself another, either by landing on a sharp stone and losing a nail or a piece of flesh from a toe, or else giving my hand a gash with one of my tools. There was seldom any question of getting them bound up; and yet they were usually soon better. Added to this, the goats, as I’ve said, caused me a great deal of trouble at the outset because I didn’t know how to handle them properly. 54

An uproar of voices drowns out the final words, until the following becomes audible again:

IFFLAND: My god, has Hell been unleashed in there? To resume: “If you want to run a decent home, be sure to leave pigeons and goats alone,” writes our poor man. “So you see: the shepherd’s life also has its share of troubles. But the bad times are richly compensated by the good, when I’m sure there’s never a king so happy. In Kohl Wood stood a beech …” 55

We hear again, this time more intense, an uproar of voices.

IFFLAND: This is completely intolerable. Just a moment, we will soon have some peace. That would be even better.

The creaking of a door is heard, followed by two unknown voices.

PASTOR: It pleases me to find you in such a good mood. Once again, I have one or two favors to ask of you.

HEAD FORESTER: Of me? How so — why — how so?

PASTOR: You should be well used the fact that I’m always begging on someone’s behalf when I stop by. 56

UNGER: But my dear Iffland, that’s … those are…

IFFLAND: Yes, I can’t believe my ears.

UNGER: The Hunters.

IFFLAND: Act Two, Scene Seven. And how hard these good people are trying.

UNGER: But still they are amateurs? A small private society, perhaps?

IFFLAND: Shhh. Listen.

PASTOR: The poor old man has a sick wife, many children. It’s a horrible fate. — In his youth — a hussar, beaten almost to a cripple and no pension — discarded in his old age — he is left to wander in despair.

HEAD FORESTER: Poor fellow.

PASTOR: If we could just get him through the winter — I have taken up a small collection.

HEAD FORESTER: May God make it worth your while. I would like to make my contribution. He who gives right away, gives twice as much.

PASTOR: But no — it’s too much.

HEAD FORESTER: It’s a hard winter.

PASTOR: That is really a lot. Please, less money, but a little wood.

HEAD FORESTER: The wood belongs to the Prince — the money is mine. 57—Tonight I will sleep soundly, and, God willing, just as soundly when I must depart for good.

PASTOR: Well, God willing, we are still far from that. But yes. Why not bear it in mind. Truly, one must have lived well, and what great joy not to be disturbed by that thought. All the same, life has no less worth.

HEAD FORESTER: It always pains me to the soul when people try so hard to paint the world and life in black and white.

PASTOR: Human life contains much happiness. But we should be taught early on not to think it of it as glorious and uninterrupted. Within the circle of a well-maintained household there are a thousand joys, and tribulations well borne are also a happiness. The dignity of the father is the first and most noble I know. A philanthropist, a good citizen, a loving spouse and father, in the midst of… 58

The voice suddenly breaks off.

HEINZMANN: You could see it didn’t hold his attention. He went inside.

UNGER: The good man, now he will teach these well-behaved Leipzig children to perform The Hunters, and in the ceremonial performance they will be able to say: directed by Iffland.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: I know, Mr. Unger, that you are on good terms with Iffland. But, just between us, may I ask you, can that be endured? Can one still listen to these tirades concerning humanity and this love of man? Are you not sometimes overcome with disgust at a virtue that is nothing but instinctive goodness of heart without content? Sometimes I catch myself feeling the way I do when I read in the newspaper yet again of a murderer who was good to his dog or his horse.

HEINZMANN: You are right about one thing. The ostentation of these pieces about do-gooding pains any finer sensibility.

UNGER: You could well say that of Kotzebue. But it’s unkind of you to lump my friend Iffland together with that scribbler.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: Let’s put Iffland to one side. And I’d even venture to say I am indebted to Kotzebue. Have you seen his unpalatable The Indians in England ? 59If one really wants to understand what Kant meant by the categorical imperative, with this iron “should” that annihilates every contingency, not just as a moral law, but as the inner stay of every poetic character, then one need only take a look at the mollusks with which our most celebrated playwright has populated the German stage.

UNGER: At any rate, we might sometimes wonder who we are actually working for in Germany, if it is still possible today to publish a rag such as the one Clas peddles in Berlin.

HEINZMANN: I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Unger.

UNGER: Sells for twelve groschen. You haven’t seen it? A literary magazine in which he brings Goethe and Schiller together with Kotzebue and Iffland.

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: Outrageous. You are right about that. But there is another side to the story that is perhaps even sadder It shows that the likes of Kotzebue have come to think of Goethe and Schiller as competitors at best, but never as real, dangerous, enemies to the death.

UNGER: You are forgetting the Xenien. 60

SECOND MAN OF LETTERS: The Xenien ? The Xenien? You know as well as I how they foundered. And that’s putting it mildly.