Subtitles

'Your intellectual career', W. says, laughing. 'Your career … how will you account for that? What will you tell them?' My God, how lucky I was to be lost among the mediocrities! How lucky to be born in a mediocre age! – 'No one watches out for you; no one notices. Do you think anyone is following what you do? Of course not! And you're lucky, because if they were …'

I pass for a non-entity, W. says, though I'm no non-entity. I pass for an ordinary mediocrity, though I am not that, either. – 'Something is dying in you. Something is coming to an end'. I'm a sign, a symptom, W. says. What matters is to read me correctly. And is that his task? Is that what he was put on earth to do?

Benjamin thought he could detect the signs of a turning of the age in the Paris Arcades. He took notes; he transcribed and assembled – he thought it was sufficient to show, rather than comment. Would it be sufficient to show, rather than tell in my case?, W. wonders. No: I need a commentary, W. says. I need an interpreter. Below everything I say, as in the subtitles on a foreign film, the words bullshit, bullshit, bullshit should succeed one another in inexhaustible profusion.