Authors: H. G. Adler
I got smarter and no longer thought myself a genius, and I’m still just as hard a worker to this day. All that perspiration means is that I can persevere in order to hope to get something out of my otherwise wasted days. But back then, during the first two years of my landing in the metropolis, when I felt overwhelmed by even myself, overambitious, driven, and restless, I suddenly found a brilliant voice and capability inside me that allowed me to overcome all barriers in the world. The cynical irony with which I was greeted by people I knew and met I approached with naïveté or deliberately ignored, because I didn’t wish to give it credence and, with the overarching drive to achieve success as well as a meager living that I hoped to make from my chosen profession, I continued always to patiently sound out support that was vital to my future amid all the empty promises and even open refusals. I have never really known if I was treated any better or any worse by those who didn’t expect to be confronted in a social situation, as they kept their own willfulness in check and never let it show. For many years I didn’t understand it, but nonetheless played along. Even Johanna put up with it, she who had such faith in me, who did everything for me, and tapped her countless professional connections without knowing that she was not at all suited to the new way of things that had never been seen before. How could she know when even I, as a sociologist, had no idea that the social network had organized itself as a community, even though within it the rules were always changing, such that for certain functions in both private and institutional settings there were always correlating ways to say and do things
that one had to employ in order to attain any success. Such understanding eluded us, and soon Johanna learned that people were just smiling emptily when they spoke with her, or avoided her altogether or simply sent her on through a chain of one person after another, each of whom, with a shrug of the shoulders, would turn down all the unsuccessful requests for help and still innocently ask, “Well, my dear Frau Landau, what is it you really want? The best thing to do would be to send your husband around to an employment agency, and if he doesn’t get anything, then you should have a look for yourself!” In the end, Johanna no longer knew what she had even been asking for, and those who had been approached offered only the backhanded compliment that she certainly was a brave woman.
If I look back evenhandedly at my career path, as it is called, in the first three or four years since I arrived in the metropolis (and it’s important for me to do so, since I’m working on a study that I plan to call “The Position of the Creative Artist in the Age of the Large-Scale Social Organization That Threatens Culture”), then I haven’t a clue, since the intertwinings of my efforts are confused. The particular reasons for my failure are much less clear to me than the general rule that describes such failure. That rule says: Social institutions run or maintain culture or sustain themselves in a neutral manner when serving the clear purpose of supporting the well-being of the community and nothing that undermines its individual members. Out of this comes the corollary: Should social institutions no longer serve such clear purposes, then they will be utilized for other purposes than those for which they were meant, as these institutions only serve themselves, whereby the well-being of the community is threatened and the development of its individual members is inhibited or even harmed. If things should go this far, then it’s bad for culture, as it is then directed by institutions that are themselves marginalized, depleted, and finally replaced by ideologically run, industrial-sized disasters, the result being that any possible freedom for people to attain their own intellectual feats and works is continually shrunk until it disappears. Unique achievements of value become rare, while sound achievements that link to tradition are devalued and the realization of both is threatened, if not entirely forbidden. That which is produced independently is constrained if it does not come under the yoke of a totalitarian tyranny, having to forsake distribution unless it takes on a plethora
of economic and social burdens. This rule tells us of the collapse of art and scholarship which is caught unawares or is no longer desired at all, since everything has attached itself to guiding principles that have been set in place by the powerful and totalitarian realms of overarching institutions. Only that which follows these declarations will be deemed worthy, while only that which is produced through the aid of institutional powers—which today in the West means through the press, the media, or the control of advertising—will be supported or even allowed.
This is the situation in which I ended up. The social ineptness of a person such as myself, who has been kept out of almost all social organizations, rather than just declassed, makes it impossible to gain a foothold. Any foothold is taken away the moment you contact someone, prepare to make the proper approach, and set off but never arrive, nor does your work ever arrive, you being like a letter writer who writes letters to unknown or unauthenticated addresses. This tragedy, of which I’m a part, describes the position of the creative artist of this epoch. I can see, then, how it all connects together and prevents my taking part in society in any possible way, for it is all confirmed in me, which I also observe is what has happened to me in detail, this daily and weekly collapse, while these pinched attempts to escape this entrenched, but also this perpetual and not entirely perceivable, loneliness, I have not yet explained. The less of a person I am because I am not allowed to exist, the more the world is closed to me and cuts itself off behind a wall. If that didn’t exist, if it only had a door and could be walked through, then I myself would be this wall, but the world would also be the wall; put another way, the world and I would be bound together through the wall, and we would come together as a single seamless wall.
As I first appreciated this insolvable conflict, I did something I never thought of doing before in my life. I wrote a story. The shallowness and meaninglessness of most of the letters we write had always pained me, for I think of the letter as a primary symbol of the person who has been excluded from something. And every person is excluded, every person reaches a border, no matter how many different ones may be drawn, some closer for some, for others farther away, or as visible as the Great Wall of China or spreading out into the distance in endless glittering flatlands, often not known or recognized, and yet the root of all human misery, sensed as eternity,
the depths, as the source of our behavior and the driving force behind our vices and virtues, the source of all despair and hope. To be human is to have a border, and to want to cross it through letters that will reach beyond to their goal. I worked hard on this story for a long while, polishing it, copying it over, and changing it, though it always remained unfinished and did not please me, as I am not a writer. Nonetheless, though it is also a failed piece, it still means a good deal to me, because it says more about me and my thinking than I have ever managed to express in my scholarly work. Which is why today I have picked it up again and revised it thoroughly once more. Here it is. It’s called:
THE LETTER WRITERS
Letters, for those who do not know, are an ancient invention. You write them, feel unburdened, and write some more. So it was millennia ago, so it remains to this day, no one finding it surprising, all thinking it good. People sit at home, look out the window for a bit, and think of their friends, then look up addresses that are often hidden away, take out envelopes and write down the names, towns, and streets with solemn letters. Then they reach for writing paper and spin away their thoughts.
Meanwhile, outside it has grown colder. Whoever does not have pressing business does not move along the streets, where at this time of year misery most likely awaits. If the letters are finished and sealed, one often strokes them tenderly, protecting them with religious or superstitious measures from the evil eye—from all harm—and from the danger of loss, carrying them out quickly at midday when the cold eases up for a little while. Many people, especially women, carefully wrap the letters in a scarf in order to protect them from the frost. Whoever does not want to pay to send them as registered mail, or does not trust only the large boxes at the post office, walks to the next mailbox, into which the anxiously guarded cargo is carefully slipped. Then the writers turn back home, anxious or relieved, though with an inscrutable mien, to write new letters to the same or other addresses.
Once your own addresses have been exhausted, you call up someone and say that you have some free time and would like to write the friends of their relatives and friends. This way, you get new addresses and are also asked to give freely of your own stock of them. This way you can build a treasure trove of addresses, and a good number of people are known for possessing loads of addresses. No one would admit this openly, for in contrast to the vanity that attaches itself to anyone with money who accumulates valuable things, in this case each is silent about his riches, at best alluding to it only by saying, “I’m busy, I still have many friends to write.”
The advantage of having many addresses is obvious. You do not lose hold of those that you must write to, and it pleases you the more that your collection of addresses grows, providing you with the revitalized prospect of increasing the number of your friends. This explains the popularity of the saying that one finds in many family albums: “The friends of my neighbors are also friends of mine.”
You feel good about your contacts, but no letter writer has ever received an answer back. If you abruptly ask one of them, he will behave like someone resting quietly in a church, but who has been disturbed by the suddenly loud babbling of a child, causing him to whisper excitedly with glazed eyes, “No, I haven’t gotten any answer yet. But that doesn’t matter, as long as there’s still hope. One must be patient and can always wait.” Perhaps he will then add, “It might be that I’ll get a number of letters at once and from a number of friends.”
Who came up with the convention of writing letters is unknown. The custom is very old. Some who think they know say that it goes back no further than the monks in Irish cloisters or in St. Gallen, but that is not correct. Others look back to ancient Greece, but whoever looks back more knowledgeably follows clues that lead to ancient Egypt and Ur. Lovers of the East also point to China and Tibet. The truth does not support their views. Though not as authentic as legends normally are, still attractive is the ancient legend
of Adam as the inventor of the letter, and no history of the letter can ignore this possible source.
As the first person who heard the Lord’s edict not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and yet who in foolish arrogance did so anyway, Adam heard a voice that said, “Where are you?” Adam, who before eating the apple was innocent and knew neither fear nor cunning, was now afraid and tried to hide. Never before did the Lord have to ask where he was, and it was also known that eating the fruit was a light offense in comparison with hiding from the Lord, who strolled in the Garden, it being the first unforgivable sin handed down from generation to generation, and thus the original sin. Harsh was the penalty for the awareness that brought death to Adam, but such awareness was given to human beings, they knowing good and evil to this very day, but harder yet was the penalty for hiding, because for that he was expelled from Paradise.
When Adam cultivated the earth from which he had been formed, he was sad, and Eve, full of sympathy, tried to take care of him. Adam said, “Do you see the cherubim with their flat hewn swords defending the path to the Tree of Life from us? Know that I love and desire life, but the Lord has said that I am dust and must return to dust.” Eve knew what to tell him: “Go and make a sign to the Lord, so that he may know our wish and hear it.” Then Adam broke off a stone from a cliff and struck it and chiseled a sign of his wish into it. Through the sweat of his brow he earned from above the gift of writing, which in the midst of his need he thought to have invented himself. Adam showed Eve the stone, she praised him, and Adam tossed it in the direction of where the cherubim stood. Adam was blinded by the brilliance of their eyes and the points of their swords, such that he could not see where the stone fell upon the ground. There was also such a whirring in the air that he did not hear when the stone reached its target.
Adam was again sad, and again Eve spoke to him: “You do not know what happened to the stone. Fear not, chisel a new stone, write down on it a sign of our wish and throw it again.” Adam did
as Eve asked of him. He did it more and more, and he continued to do it whenever his sorrow consumed him upon the field. Thus did Adam, according to the legend, invent the letter, and the first letter was a wish tossed toward the Paradise that had been lost.
Not everyone believes the ancient stories, which are taken as late attempts to grant the most important inventions of the human race handed down from antiquity a mythic aspect, rather than to content onself with more prosaic, alleged explanations that are nonetheless much closer to the truth. In any case, what is certain is only that the custom of writing letters is handed down from parents to children. In many families, the offspring are introduced to it at a very tender age; hardly have the children learned to write than the parents insist that the youngsters write a little letter every day. At first, mother dictates it; later, they suggest what one can write, while the father corrects errors and worries about the address, until, after a few years, the children take letter writing to be a necessity.
As people grow, at some point they experience a severe crisis, most usually between twenty and twenty-five. Rarely does this lead to a renunciation of writing, though sometimes it lasts for some time, and is then quietly taken up again. More often it occurs that young people assume that an address is too old or, sadly, they think that a friend has died long ago. Then they mark the address with a cross and lay it to the side. If their conscience bothers them later, they erase the crosses with a good deal of effort and write to such addresses in an especially heartfelt and tender manner. Whoever overcomes such temptations or never succumbs to them will have nothing to do with such matters and says, “You shouldn’t do that. Who wants to see his friend in the grave?” This corresponded to the widespread belief that your friends have not died, have gained power and influence with age, or have produced able-bodied progeny who are full of joy over the devotion to one’s ancestors which letters manifest. There are also cranks, most of them ancient, who are known as collectors of old addresses. They usually direct their letters only to addresses that are more, or at least somewhat more, authentic.
It is assumed that an original response will be received; otherwise, this practice would not have survived or spread significantly. One cannot know today for certain, yet we know a great deal, often from very old legends that provide impressive evidence of replies having been received. One can foresee from these stories the wisdom that our forefathers spoke, thus providing reports of responses found here and there, though always only as rumors. If you looked at them more closely, you’d be shocked by the degree of stupidity and irresponsible nonsense that is generally dispersed, not as a swindle that people grant credibility but as exaggerated gossip that quickly rings hollow the moment you scrutinize it. At best, you find traces of a family tradition that says a grandfather once received a response, but which he showed to no one, though from that moment on he was supposedly happy. Sometimes such news surges through city and country in wild eddies and sets everything to reeling such that it hardly abates, for it’s fed with fresh material full of fantasies that frequently causes gullible people to turn such matters into fabrications.
From whom should the responses come? In serious circles, it is surmised that among the trove of still current addresses the overwhelming majority of the names are made up or invented; even where the names may, in fact, be actual, the town, street, and house numbers are in large part false. Some people are not afraid to admit such shortcomings, but they don’t put too much stock in them, and explain that those addressed in any case live way beyond the border in a foreign land, a reliable map of which no one owns, though it’s not necessary as long as the post forwards the letters. The main thing is that they reach those countries in which great care is taken to make proper deliveries, and the recipient is found or inquires himself. It’s hard to battle against this belief; whoever doubts the truth stays silent and guards against the enmity of the streets. In addition, most keep quiet about their doubts when they begin to think about the worth of their own addresses. Hardly anyone gives up on his own, but almost everyone keeps using them, despite any ideas to the contrary, saying, “We humans, what can we know? We can’t just give up.”
Commonly, the telephone is used to gather addresses, even though it is hardly ever used for personal matters, whether in business or socially. This is somewhat surprising, since it was not so long ago that the telephone didn’t exist. How such exchanges occurred then is unknown. Letter writing is indeed very old, and yet so little is known about its most recent history! The most likely version says that letter writers used to secretly seek one another out, whereby you would take a guest into an adjoining room and relay addresses back and forth through the closed door. Outwardly, this approach was supported by the letter writer’s penchant for stowing away secrets, while a much more esoteric lesson can be seen in this secret exchange. It’s said that the use of two separate rooms, between which a wall runs as a result of the closed doors, is modeled on an ancient ritual that invokes the desired exchange of letters across borders. However that may be, we cannot know for sure; one can investigate only those customs that are common practice today.
If you share your addresses on the telephone, a stream of fervent thank-yous follows. You are assured that you have done someone a great service, while it’s also strenuously emphasized what pleasure is accorded the one who gives out such information, since now you will have helped get more news to your friends. This is according to the custom of announcing the intermediary when writing to a new address in order to praise the one who helped and thereby enhance his reputation with the recipient. Whoever is always eager to accumulate new addresses—and that goes for the majority of letter writers—is called a street writer by those who are against this practice. With this insult, the unappeasable address hunters are branded, and are thought of as fickle people, lacking in conviction and reliability.
Different are the noble writers, who claim that only a few people, and at best only one, should write to his personal friends, in order not to confuse them and not to seem insistent. Some of them argue that one should write only rarely, for only then is the recipient overjoyed to receive a letter, and that, indeed, one should share meager though solid news, if only to awaken someone’s curiosity, and yet not bother those who are very busy. The adherents of this
conviction attempt to make themselves into beloved ones who, as a result, hope to receive a response.
The belief in a best friend, or what many consider to be the same, a best address, is shared by a group that proudly calls itself single-letter writers. They excitedly advocate that there is only one address of any real worth, while the rest are, if not in fact unused, only meaningless. Unfortunately, among the single-letter writers there is no agreement as to what the right address is. Each individual adherent thinks he knows, yet not one can substantiate the truth of his claim. That turns this group, valued as it nonetheless may be, into agitators and cranks who rarely agree on anything and most often fall prey to suspicion. Only a certain shyness holds back the single-letter writers from breaking out into open battle, but with other letter writers they share the tendency to talk about the virtues of this or that address over the phone. One invokes the beauty of a name or different unusual aspects, such as the sound, the number of letters, wanting to constantly discern or discover from its sequence or shape a rhythmic charm. Endlessly the question is posed, “So, then, do I have the best address?,” until someone complains about how much valuable time, which would be better used for writing, is idly being wasted through such talk. At which the other most often agrees, happy not to have to defend his hard-to-support rationale. Others avoid completely such pointless exchanges, though their own thoughts are occupied a great deal by this question.
Rarely will someone admit that he does not give out his best address, for this risks the possibility that he would not get any help from others. It can also happen, though rarely, that he turns down all inquiries. If he will respond only when someone visits in person, he is then called, with good-natured kidding, a whisperer, though it quickly gets around that there is nothing at all to learn from him, he being considered with a mixture of astonished shyness and indignation and called a lone writer.
Infrequent are those old fogies who spring up here and there like a weed and quickly explain in short order that they don’t care about addresses, they are not at all interested in this scribbling, and
want only not to be bothered with any of this. In this case there is no point in trying, for these heretics say nothing. What remains unknown is whether they still write letters secretly and, out of shame, arrogance, or eccentricity, don’t say anything about it. Some questions are posed to the heretics: Do you not take part because you don’t want any friends? Do you think writing is pointless because you don’t get any response and can never expect to get one? Do you think there’s a better way to keep in touch with your friends? But the answer remains unknown.