(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

LOST ORDERS OF THE DAY: BENJAMIN’S EINBAHNSTRASSE
81
Ich war in Riga, um eine Freundin zu besuchen, angekommen. Ihr
Haus, die Stadt, die Sprache waren mir unbekannt. Kein Mensch
erwartete mich, es kannte mich niemand. Ich ging zwei Stunden
einsam durch die Straßen. So habe ich sie nie wiedergesehen. Aus
jedem Haustor schlug eine Stichflamme, jeder Eckstein stob Funken
und jede Tram kam wie die Feuerwehr dahergefahren. Sie konnte
ja aus dem Tore treten, um die Ecke biegen und in der Tram sitzen.
Von beiden aber mußte ich, um jeden Preis, der erste werden,
der den andern sieht. Denn hätte sie die Lunte ihres Blicks an mich
gelegt — ich hätte wie ein Munitionslager auffliegen müssen. (GS
IV.1:110)
[I had arrived in Riga to visit a woman friend. Her house, the town,
the language were unfamiliar to me. Nobody was expecting me; no
one knew me. For two hours I walked the streets in solitude. Never
again have I seen them so. From every gate a flame darted; each
cornerstone sprayed sparks, and every streetcar came toward me like
a fire engine. For she might have stepped out of the gateway, around
the corner, been sitting in the streetcar. But of the two of us, I had
to be, at any price, the first to see the other. For had she touched me
with the match of her eyes, I would have gone up like a powder keg.
(SW 1:461)]
Here Benjamin, although in love, lapses strangely enough into a
language of military images, which also proves that he grew up in the
period of the German Empire. An instructive photograph presents a
sad-looking nine-year-old boy in the uniform of a Prussian hussar with a
saber and a lance. 24
Lehrstücke or Teaching the Author
Benjamin’s guidelines and instructions for authors reflect his moral aphorisms.
25 In “Ankleben verboten!” (“Post No Bills!”) he puts together
three sets of rules for the writer, which contain the number thirteen as
a weak numerological reference: “Die Technik des Schriftstellers in
dreizehn Thesen” (“The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses”), with
the last precept: “Das Werk ist die Totenmaske der Konzeption” (GS
IV.1:106–9; “The work is the death-mask of its conception,” SW 1:458–
60); “Dreizehn Thesen wider Snobisten” (GS IV.1:107; “Thirteen Theses
against Snobs,” SW 1:459); and “Die Technik des Kritikers in dreizehn
Thesen” (GS IV.1:106–7; “The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses,”
SW 1:458–59).
These sequences correspond to the program for writers that he
announced in his first section, “Tankstelle” (“Gas Station”). They are followed
by another “Nummer 13” (“Number 13”), which surprisingly for
the uninitiated reader combines the world of prostitution and the world