How Was Is Possible …?

We speak of our failure. – 'When did you know that you'd failed?' We speak of the thinkers we admire. Do you remember X.? and Y? and Z.? Ah, that conversation we had with Z.! And with Y., that summer's day by the river! And do you remember when we had Z. to ourselves for a whole evening?

Then, with an even keener sense of awe, we speak of the thinkers we love to read. – 'How was it possible for a human being to write like that …?' We go up to the study and look in wonder through the pages of Rosenzweig and Cohen. – 'How was it possible for a human being to write such books?' Above all, it's not possible for us, and that first of all.

It's enough that Rosenzweig and Cohen existed. Enough that they were once alive and wrote these boo. The books are like great looming mountains, like flashing stars. How was it possible? How could a human being write such books? And above all: how impossible it would be for us, and especially us, to write such books!