“The Blind Man” J. Neugroshel, trans. (1979), p. 13
Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere [Earwitness: Fifty Characters] 1974
Context: The blind man is not blind by birth, but he became blind with little effort. He has a camera, he takes it everywhere, and he just loves keeping his eyes closed. He walks about as though asleep, he has seen absolutely nothing as yet, and already he is shooting it, for when all things lie next to one another, equally small, equally large, always rectangular, orderly, cut off, named, numbered, proven and demonstrated, then you can see them much better in any event.
The blind man saves himself the trouble of viewing anything beforehand. He gathers the things he would have seen and piles them up and enjoys them as though they were stamps. He travels all over the world for the sake of his camera, nothing is far enough, shiny enough, strange enough—he gets it for the camera. He says: I was there, and he points to it, and if he could not point at it he would not know where he had been, the world is confusing, exotic, rich, who can retain it all.
