“I have made an extensive study of Boltzmann’s thermodynamics,” the Frenchman continues. “All of nature, it appears, is statistical.”
“Nature itself, or our view of it?”
“Who knows? But since entropy rises inexorably, the universe must fade and decay.”
“Then physics is a form of allegory.”
The Frenchman slaps his thigh and exclaims with delight at this observation. “Yes, the allegory of chance, a cosmic casino. Are you a betting man?”
“I have insufficient love of money.”
“Gambling is not about money, it is about perpetually renewed hope. Every turn of the wheel is independent of the previous one, the past is erased. Would you put a loaded revolver to your head?”
“Of course not.”
“Then perhaps you have an insufficient love of life. I had a friend who was an incurable gambler, his lucky charm was a counterfeit coin made of glass.”
“And what do you do?”
“For a while I was a musician with dreams of being a great composer. Now I am a philosopher like yourself.”
“A natural consequence of disillusionment.”
“Come to think of it, I believe I may have noticed you previously. Aren’t you a friend of the Russian actress?”
HIGH VOLTAGE
Prostitution is described as the oldest profession because it is the prototype of wage labour in general. The worker comes to see time as a commodity he can sell, and capitalism becomes its perpetual degradation, an attempt to buy time at lowest cost. Time travel became a theme of fantastic fiction only after the invention of the motor car: it is the myth of instantaneous arrival, just as the whore is the myth of instantaneous gratification. The greatest good is attached to whatever can “save time”, an acceleration imagined to preserve the moment of youth while hastening us towards death. In the modern allegory of commodities, the whore occupies a special position analogous to that of the skull in the Baroque.
REFRIGERATOR
Asja, you say you sleep with anyone you choose, that your partner doesn’t mind and does the same, because this is the most progressive form of existence. But do you really choose freely? Is there a hidden mechanism of association, a shell trick that gives the illusion of will and makes us believe in the power of choice when actually the game is rigged so that one must always lose? The Frenchman, he’s another, isn’t he? You sleep with every man on this island except me, because I’m the only one who loves you.
Consider my position. I have a wife in Frankfurt, a child I love dearly and would never do anything to hurt. My wife is an outstanding person, morally and intellectually, I admire and respect her. Yet I don’t desire her. Belief has abandoned me, as it abandoned the millions who saw their currency devalued to nothing. It is not only a wrecked economy that has brought me to Capri, it is also a wrecked marriage, one I know to be doomed, because it exists only on the plane of material reality, a surface without metaphysical depth. For a long time, thoughts of escape: to Palestine, Paris, anywhere.
I cannot resist this capitalist love, this desire to own and live in contemplation of you, to be loved by you. I envy the air that surrounds you, the light that reflects from your face when you waken, your eyes that are like an infinite ocean, I regret every minute of my life that has not been spent with you, all of it wasted. My life is not to be found in drawers, photographs, letters tied with ribbon, souvenirs without context; it lies in the future I yearn for. I will sacrifice everything for you, this is the meaning of passion, which is to say suffering and martyrdom, I shall be annihilated by your immortality, it is what I wish, though I know the desire is not a free one: that is what renders it authentic. We cannot choose whom we love; love chooses us, its emblem a skeleton wielding a scythe.
SEASON’S GREETINGS
“Yes,” says Benjamin, “I know Miss Lacis. You’re a friend?”
“I saw you with her,” the Frenchman declares as a fly settles on the rim of Benjamin’s wine glass. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you? I could tell. Don’t think I’m being rude, I’m an eccentric, that’s all, I speak my mind. We French, you understand, are experts in love.”
“You already told me you’re half-German.”
He laughs. “German only in my head, thank God, but I have the heart of a Frenchman. Oh yes, I’ve loved, many times, and always truthfully, I’m no libertine. But you see, sir, I embrace risk, and what greater risk is there than love? The game is only worth it if the stakes are high, and that means you must first of all love life. What are the two things men kill themselves over? Money and women. I asked if you would put a loaded revolver to your head. I’ve done it. Pulled the trigger and… click. I live another day. Imagine if everyone in the world were to do that.”
“Millions would die.”
“And the rest would love life. They would end all war and poverty, live together in peace and prosperity in a world blessed by chance.”
“You’re a utopian.”
“While you, I take it, are a Bolshevik, like the actress.”
An unexpected challenge to define himself; Benjamin doesn’t know what he is. “I think Marx was a philosopher of profound insight.”
“But does the situation in Russia prove his theory? You can hardly call it a Marxist revolution, more like a Blanquist one.”
“You mean a conspiracy rather than a proletarian uprising? Blanqui never had much success with that in France.”
“But Lenin has in Russia. Make everyone think it’s a popular revolution when really it’s a coup: that’s genius.”
LINGERIE DEPARTMENT
Comparison between Baudelaire and Blanqui: their isolation. De Tocqueville saw Blanqui at his trial and described him as looking like a skeleton in an overcoat, a hideous apparition. Baudelaire drew a portrait of Blanqui, his idol. The connection may be arbitrary: all the more reason to look into it more deeply.
DO NOT LEAN OUT OF THE WINDOW
“We haven’t even introduced ourselves, my name is Pierre Klauer.”
“Walter Benjamin. And you must tell me exactly how you know Miss Lacis.”
“Oh, I was invited to a dinner party a few weeks ago and she was among the guests. Then not long afterwards I noticed her with you.”
Klauer must really have remembered it as soon as he arrived at the café and saw Benjamin sitting there. Nothing is random.
“You say you were a composer.”
“I gave up music and haven’t touched a piano in ten years.”
“I find that extraordinary.”
“Some men forego sex, I renounced music, which is easier for me.”
“But why?”
“Because I no longer believed in it. Rather, I came to believe in something else. I was working on a large-scale orchestral piece, all I had done was a piano version; but that, I decided, would be my final work. As a composer I died. And was reborn.”
“As what?”
“A man who loves life. But you, sir, you aren’t happy, and it’s because of the actress. She’s leading you a merry dance, anyone can see it, even a perfect stranger like myself who happened upon you both in a restaurant.”
“It was really so obvious?”
“Painfully so. Intellectuals are always the worst victims, too much thinking.”
“Then what should I do?”
With a bent finger Klauer beckons his companion closer. “Get hold of a revolver, put a single bullet in it, spin the chamber and let fate decide.”