Einstein’s rocky picture show. Einstein überquert die Elbe bei Hamburg di Siegfried Lenz

In his short story, Siegfried Lenz explores the possibilities of language, time, and the different art forms through a photograph of a ferry crossing the Elbe near Hamburg. The «snapshot to be read», as the author calls it, relates the «unexpected suspension» of time and space caused by the appearance on it of an old man with a slouch-hat, long grey hair, and a pipe, who seems to control flow and movement and who turns out to be Albert Einstein. Instantly recognizable, like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, the embodiment of pure intellect, the genius among geniuses is here, ironically, a magician. His thaumaturgic presence reminds us of the existence of «certain uncertainties in what we perceive and say». Playing with the theory of relativity, Lenz experiments with writing and transfers Einstein’s space-time continuum into a language-time continuum. Thus, the reader is invited to enter into the photograph and become aware of its limits