The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin Page A

against the wall, my clothing and appearance should by rights have seemed conspicuous. But, strangely, nobody in the crowd paid any attention to me. Did nobody notice me, or did this man who was lost to this scorching and singing street – he who I was more and more becoming – appear to everyone to belong here? Pride filled me at this thought. A great sense of elation came over me. I did not enter the church. Content with having enjoyed the profane part of the festivities, I had decided to make my way home, along with the first of the well-satiated revellers, and long before the over-tired children, when I laid eyes on one of the marble plaques with which the poor towns of this region put the rest of the world’s street signs to shame. It was bathed in the glow of the torch, as though it were ablaze. Sharp and lustrous, the letters erupted from its middle and, once again, they formed the name that turned from stone into a flower, and from a flower into fire; growing ever hotter and more ferocious, it reached out for me. Firmly intent on returning home, I took off and was pleased to find a small street that promised to be a considerable shortcut. Everywhere, the signs of life had begun to subside. The main street, where myhotel was located, and which had been so animated until a moment ago, now appeared not only quieter, but narrower as well. While I still pondered the laws that connect such aural and optical images with each other, a distant but powerful blast of music hit my ear; and as I heard the first notes, illumination struck me like a bolt of lightning: here it comes. This is why there were so few people, so few bourgeoises, out in that street. This was the great evening concert at V…, for which the locals assemble every Saturday. At once, a new expanded city – indeed a richer and more vivid city history stood before my eyes. I doubled my pace, turned a corner and paused – paralyzed with astonishment – only to find myself, once more, on the street that had reeled me in, as though with a lasso. It was totally dark now and the music band offered up their last forgotten song to this lonesome listener.’
    At this point my friend broke off. His story seemed to have escaped him. And only his lips, which were still speaking a moment ago, bid farewell to it with a lingering smile. I glanced pensively at the marks that were smudged in the dust by our feet. And the undying verse wandered majestically through the arch of this story as if through a gate.
    â€”
    Translated by Sebastian Truskolaski .
    Written c. 1929; unpublished in Benjamin’s lifetime. Gesammelte Schriften IV , 780–7; also translated in Radio Benjamin , 260–6. As the editors of this volume note, ‘Benjamin borrows the title of his novella from Goethe’s poem, “Nicht mehr auf Seidenblatt” (No longer on a leaf of silk), a verse posthumously added to the West-östlicher Divan (West-Eastern Divan) , “Book of Suleika”. Benjamin refers to this verse in “Goethe’s Elective Affinities”.’

CHAPTER 24
Palais D…y

    Little Castle in the Air (Luftschlösschen) , 1915.
    I f, between the years 1875 and ’85 Baron X stood out in the Café de Paris, and if, as with the strangers of distinction, like the Count de Caylus, Marshall Fécamts and the gentleman rider Raymond Grivier, attention was also drawn to the Baron, it was not because of his elegance, his parentage, or his sporting achievements, but rather quite simply the recognition, indeed the admiration of the loyalty with which he had held to the establishment through so many years. A loyalty which he would later retain for something completely different and highly unusual. That is just what this story is about.
    It begins, strictly speaking, with the inheritance which the Baron should have received at some point over a period of thirty years and was due to receive and which indeed finally came to him in