Letter from Gretel Karplus Adorno to Walter Benjamin, May 28, 1935
Gretel Karplus to Walter Benjamin
Berlin
28 May 1935.
Dear Detlef,
Your letter just arrived, and I am afraid I must confess that I found your news about E. extremely troubling. Not only was it from you – not him – that I learned he has finally been granted the visa; 1 there is airmail for such cases, after all. But you also do not seem so sure that Frank has not seduced him into turning to his previous consolation once again. Nothing could be worse for the friendship between myself and E., I not only asked him to be extremely careful, but also trusted him, and for him to disappoint me know would cause irreparable damage. Please do not be cross if I write you at somewhat greater length about these things today, for I have the feeling that it concerns you too. But I ask you to tear up today’s letter, i.e. this piece of paper, immediately. I am sure you have a fair idea of the situation from our conversations and my letters. Although E. often complains of my inexperience in practical matters and probably also life’s pleasures, I am overall more mature than he is, in so far as one can still say that at our age. I think the most important thing is for E. to come to himself again, which would involve finding a steady employment that satisfied him; he finally has to achieve something again, and in his profession there is ample opportunity to do so. He must also support himself financially, and banish his abandon and licentiousness to the intellectual realm instead of retaining them in daily life as bad Bohemian manners. I am expressing myself very badly, but perhaps you can nonetheless deduce what I mean, intellectual particularity combined with an orderly life. Please do not consider it presumptuous, but following the results I have often had my doubts about the stability of his marriage, and wonder whether it would not have worked without M in the end. Oh Detlef, cross your fingers for me that these days in Berlin will turn out well. –
Thank you also for your information. – Bloch no longer considers it necessary to write to me, which makes me both sad and angry about the loss of another friend. All I know is that he wanted to meet his friends the Hirschlers 2 in Italy. – Have you met Krac 3 in the meantime, what is he working on? Have you read his novel? – Have you meanwhile told Teddie about your negotiations with Fritz? 4 I consider that absolutely necessary and advisable. Is he coming to Paris after the end of the term? – I will see what I can do about the Kafka fragments tomorrow.
And now I shall come to the thing that is most important to me: the arcades study. I recall the conversation we had in Denmark last September, and I find it highly troubling that I have no idea which of your plans you will now be carrying out. It amazes me that Fritz is trying to find a possibility for the notes, are you thinking of writing something for the journal? I would actually consider that very dangerous, as you would have relatively little space and would never be able to write what your true friends have been awaiting for years, the great philosophical study that exists purely for its own sake and makes no compromises, and whose significance would help to compensate for a great deal of what has happened these last few years. Detlef, it is not simply a matter of rescuing you, but also this work. One should anxiously guard you from everything that could jeopardize it, and devote the greatest possible energy to supporting everything that might further it. I think you have rarely known me to be so enthusiastic about something, which shows you most clearly what high hopes I place in the arcades study. – I hope you will not resent my ecstacy. I await your news with longing and fear, please write to me about the exposé. 5 – I have so much time; if only I could keep you company a little in your hours of solitude and have you read to me from your notes. Fare thee well and kindly let me remain in good favour with you.
your Felicitas
Egon Wissing had applied for a visa for the Soviet Union in order to work there as a doctor. ↩
The doctor Maximilian Hirschler (1886-1963) had been a friend of Block since their school days; Hirschler’s wife, Helene (1888-1977), was likewise a doctor. ↩
This is Siegfried Kracauer. ↩
Fritz Pollock had offered to meet Benjamin to discuss the financing of the arcades project, but was forced to end his stay in Europe prematurely. Benjamin wrote the exposé on Pollock’s suggestion. ↩
It is entitled ‘Paris: the Capital of the 19th Century.’… Benjamin sent it to [Karplus] Adorno on 31 May. ↩