Reinhard Lettau
THE NEW IS UNKNOWN
In
one sentence, the device I am offering might be de–
scribed as a cube of glass inside which it is snowing. To comparisons
with ordinary snow-cubes, which are also on the market in the shape
of half-balls housing small fragments of landscape, I oppose two
arguments: first the size of my machine-it almost fills a medium–
size living room-and second the fact that I myself am sitting in it.
Of course I did not enter it after completion of the device, post
factum so to say, through some opening.
It
does not escape the at–
tentive observer that its seamless planes offer no motivation for the
reckless suspicion that
it
was at any
time
anything but a large, milky
cube inside which a lazy snowfall is taking place. My assistant-to
whom I also owe the transmission of these lines-often holds a piece
of paper up against one of the exterior walls for me to read that the
business magnate who happens to be inspecting the device at that
moment has just remarked that
it
does not look to him like a manu–
factured thing, but rather like something that has sprung into being
spontaneously. How many hands have I seen retracing the outer
edges of the cube, searching for a minute seam, a rough spot, a flaw.
And I have great satisfaction hearing the tentative taps of the scien–
tists, although in here it
is
hardly perceptible.
My current dwelling place obviously complicates my selling
the invention. Not that I question the persuasive faculties of my as–
sistant who is forced to undertake this task-there he smiles, my
faithful Bergmann, waving encouragement to me, his arm strangely
From
Obstacles,
by Reinhard Lettau, to be published by Pantheon Books, a
Division of Random House, Inc.
©
Copyright, 1965, by Random House, Inc.
