by Franz Kafka
Mrs Lustig, with a lot of children of every size and her fresh, self-assured, sprightly little sister. She spent so much time looking for a dress for a little girl that Mrs Brod shouted at her: ‘Now you take this or you won’t get anything.’ But then Mrs Lustig answered in an even louder shout, ending with a wide, violent sweep of her arm: ‘The mitzveh [good deed] is worth more than all these shmattes [rags].’
25 November. Utter despair, impossible to pull myself together; only when I have become satisfied with my sufferings can I stop.
30 November. I can’t write any more. I’ve come up against the last boundary, before which I shall in all likelihood again sit down for years, and then in all likelihood begin another story all over again that will again remain unfinished. This fate pursues me. And I have become cold again, and insensible; nothing is left but a senile love for unbroken calm. And like some kind of beast at the farthest pole from man, I shift my neck from side to side again and for the time being should like to try again to have F. back. I’ll really try it, if the nausea I feel for myself doesn’t prevent me.
2 December. Afternoon at Werfel’s with Max and Pick. Read ‘In the Penal Colony’ aloud; am not entirely dissatisfied, except for its glaring and ineradicable faults. Werfel read some poems and two acts of Esther, Kaiserin von Persien. The acts carry one away. But I am easily carried away. The criticisms and comparisons put forward by Max, who was not entirely satisfied with the piece, disturb me, and I am no longer so sure of my impression of the play as a whole as I was while listening to it, when it overwhelmed me. I remember the Yiddish actors. W.’s handsome sisters. The elder one leaned against the chair, often looked at the mirror out of the corner of her eye, and then – as if she were not already devoured by my eyes – gently pointed a finger to a brooch pinned to her blouse. It was a low-cut dark blue blouse, her throat was covered with a tulle scarf. Repeated account of something that happened at the theatre: some officers kept saying to each other in a loud voice during Kabale und Liebe: ‘Speckbacher is cutting a figure,’ by which they meant an officer leaning against the side of a box.
The day’s conclusion, even before meeting Werfel: Go on working regardless of everything; a pity I can’t work today, for I am tired and have a headache, already had preliminary twinges in the office this morning. I’ll go on working regardless of everything, it must be possible in spite of the office or the lack of sleep.
Dreamed tonight. With Kaiser Wilhelm. In the castle. The beautiful view. A room similar to that in the Tabakskollegium.85 Meeting with Matilde Serav. Unfortunately forgot everything.
From Esther: God’s masterpieces fart at one another in the bath.
5 December. A letter from E. on the situation in her family. My relation to her family has a consistent meaning only if I conceive of myself as its ruin. This is the only natural explanation there is to make plausible everything that is astonishing in the relation. It is also the only connexion I have at the moment with her family; otherwise I am completely divorced from it emotionally, although not more effectually, perhaps, than I am from the whole world. (A picture of my existence apropos of this would portray a useless stake covered with snow and frost, fixed loosely and slantwise into the ground in a deeply ploughed field on the edge of a great plain on a dark winter’s night.) Only ruin has effect. I have made F. unhappy, weakened the resistance of all those who need her so much now, contributed to the death of her father, come between F. and E., and in the end made E. unhappy too, an unhappiness that gives every indication of growing worse. I am in the harness and it is my fate to pull the load. The last letter to her that I tortured out of myself she considers calm; it ‘breathes so much calmness’, as she puts it. It is of course not impossible that she puts it this way out of delicacy, out of forbearance, out of concern for me. I am indeed sufficiently punished in general, even my position in my own family is punishment enough; I have also suffered so much that I shall never recover from it (my sleep, my memory, my ability to think, my resistance to the tiniest worries have been weakened past all cure – strangely enough, the consequences of a long period of imprisonment are about the same); for the moment, however, my relationship to them causes me little suffering, at least less than F. or E. There is of course something tormenting in the fact that I am now supposed to take a Christmas trip with E., while F. will remain in Berlin.
8 December. Yesterday for the first time in ever so long an indisputable ability to do good work. And yet wrote only the first page of the ‘mother’ chapter,86 for I had barely slept at all two nights, in the morning already had had indications of a headache, and had been too anxious about the next day. Again I realized that everything written down bit by bit rather than all at once in the course of the larger part (or even the whole) of one night is inferior, and that the circumstances of my life condemn me to this inferiority.
9 December. Together with E. K. of Chicago. He is almost touching. Description of his placid life. From eight to half past five in the mailorder house. Checking the shipments in the textile department. Fifteen dollars a week. Two weeks’ holiday, one week with pay; after five years both weeks with pay. For a while, when there wasn’t much to do in the textile department, he helped out in the bicycle department. Three hundred bicycles are sold a day. A wholesale business with ten thousand employees. They get all their customers by sending out catalogues. The Americans like to change their jobs, they don’t particularly like to work in summer; but he doesn’t like to change, doesn’t see the point of it, you lose time and money by it. So far he has had two jobs, each for five years, and when he returns – he has an indefinite leave – he will go back to the same job, they can always use him, but can always do without him too. Evenings he generally stays at home, plays cards with friends; sometimes, for diversion, an hour at the cinema, in summer a walk, Sunday a boat-ride on the lake. He is wary of marriage, even though he is already thirty-four years old, since American women often marry only in order to get divorced, a simple matter for them, but very expensive for the man.
13 December. Instead of working – I have written only one page (exegesis of the ‘Legend’87) – looked through the finished chapters and found parts of them good. Always conscious that every feeling of satisfaction and happiness that I have, such, for example, as the ‘Legend’ in particular inspires in me, must be paid for, and must be paid for moreover at some future time, in order to deny me all possibility of recovery in the present.
Recently at Felix’s. On the way home told Max that I shall lie very contentedly on my deathbed, provided the pain isn’t too great. I forgot – and later purposely omitted – to add that the best things I have written have their basis in this capacity of mine to meet death with contentment. All these fine and very convincing passages always deal with the fact that someone is dying, that it is hard for him to do, that it seems unjust to him, or at least harsh, and the reader is moved by this, or at least he should be. But for me, who believe that I shall be able to lie contentedly on my deathbed, such scenes are secretly a game; indeed, in the death enacted I rejoice in my own death, hence calculatingly exploit the attention that the reader concentrates on death, have a much clearer understanding of it than he, of whom I suppose that he will loudly lament on his deathbed, and for these reasons my lament is as perfect as can be, nor does it suddenly break off, as is likely to be the case with a real lament, but dies beautifully and purely away. It is the same thing as my perpetual lamenting to my mother over pains that were not nearly so great as my laments would lead one to believe. With my mother, of course, I did not need to make so great a display of art as with the reader.
14 December. My work goes forward at a miserable crawl, in what is perhaps its most important part, where a good night would stand me in such stead.
At Baum’s in the afternoon. He was giving a pale little girl with glasses a piano lesson. The boy sat quietly in the gloom of the kitchen, carelessly playing with some unrecognizable object. Impression of great ease. Especially in contrast to the bu
stling about of the tall housemaid, who was washing dishes in a tub.
15 December. Didn’t work at all. For two hours now have been looking through new company applications for the office. The afternoon at B.’s. He was somewhat offensive and rude. Empty talk in consequence of my debility, blankness, and stupidity almost; was inferior to him in every respect; it is a long time now since I have had a purely private conversation with him, was happy to be alone again. The joy of lying on the sofa in the silent room without a headache, calmly breathing in a manner befitting a human being.
The defeats in Serbia, the stupid leadership.
19 December. Yesterday wrote ‘The Village Schoolmaster’88 almost without knowing it, but was afraid to go on writing later than a quarter to two; the fear was well founded, I slept hardly at all, merely suffered through perhaps three short dreams and was then in the office in the condition one would expect. Yesterday Father’s reproaches on account of the factory: ‘You talked me into it.’ Then went home and calmly wrote for three hours in the consciousness that my guilt is beyond question, though not so great as Father pictures it. Today, Saturday, did not come to dinner, partly in fear of Father, partly in order to use the whole night for working; yet I wrote only one page that wasn’t very good.
The beginning of every story is ridiculous at first. There seems no hope that this newborn thing, still incomplete and tender in every joint, will be able to keep alive in the completed organization of the world, which, like every completed organization, strives to close itself off. However, one should not forget that the story, if it has any justification to exist, bears its complete organization within itself even before it has been fully formed; for this reason despair over the beginning of a story is unwarranted; in a like case parents should have to despair of their suckling infant, for they had no intention of bringing this pathetic and ridiculous being into the world. Of course, one never knows whether the despair one feels is warranted or unwarranted. But reflecting on it can give one a certain support; in the past I have suffered from the lack of this knowledge.
20 December. Max’s objection to Dostoyevsky, that he allows too many mentally ill persons to enter. Completely wrong. They aren’t ill. Their illness is merely a way to characterize them, and moreover a very delicate and fruitful one. One need only stubbornly keep repeating of a person that he is simple-minded and idiotic, and he will, if he has the Dostoyevskian core inside him, be spurred on, as it were, to do his very best. His characterizations have in this respect about the same significance as insults among friends. If they say to one another, ‘You are a blockhead,’ they don’t mean that the other is really a blockhead who has disgraced them by his friendship; rather there is generally mixed in it an infinite number of intentions, if the insult isn’t merely a joke, or even if it is. Thus, the father of the Karamazovs, though a wicked creature, is by no means a fool but rather a very clever man, almost the equal of Ivan, and in any case much cleverer than his cousin, for example, whom the novelist doesn’t attack, or his nephew, the landowner, who feels so superior compared to him.
23 December. Read a few pages of Herzen’s ‘Fogs of London’. Had no idea what it was all about, and yet the whole of the unconscious man emerged, purposeful, self-tormenting, having himself firmly in hand and then going to pieces again.
26 December. In Kuttenberg with Max and his wife. How I counted on the four free days, how many hours I pondered how best to spend them, and now perhaps disappointed after all. Tonight wrote almost nothing and am in all likelihood no longer capable of going on with ‘The Village Schoolmaster’, which I have been working at for a week now, and which I should certainly have completed in three free nights, perfect and with no external defect; but now, in spite of the fact that I am still virtually at the beginning, it already has two irremediable defects and in addition is stunted – New schedule from now on! Use the time even better! Do I make my laments here only to find salvation here? It won’t come out of this notebook, it will come when I’m in bed and it will put me on my back so that I lie there beautiful and light and bluish-white; no other salvation will come.
Hotel in Kuttenberg Moravetz, drunken porter, tiny, roofed court with a skylight. The darkly outlined soldier leaning against the railing on the second floor of the building across the court. The room they offered me; its window opened upon a dark, windowless corridor. Red sofa, candle light. Jacobskirche, the devout soldiers, the girls’ voices in the choir.
27 December. A merchant was greatly dogged by misfortune. He bore it for a long time, but finally was convinced that he could not bear it any longer, and went to one learned in the law. He intended to ask his advice and learn what he might do to ward off misfortune or to acquire the strength to bear it. Now the scripture always lay open before this sage, that he might study it. It was his custom to receive everyone who sought advice from him with these words: ‘I am just now reading of your case,’ at the same time pointing with his finger to a passage of the page in front of him. The merchant, who had heard of this custom, did not like it; it is true that in this way the sage both asserted the possibility of his helping the supplicant, and relieved him of the fear that he had been visited with a calamity which worked in darkness, which he could share with no one and with which no one else could sympathize; but the incredibility of such a statement was after all too great and had in fact deterred the merchant from calling sooner on the man learned in the law. Even now he entered his house with hesitation, halting in the open doorway.
31 December. Have been working since August, in general not little and not badly, yet neither in the first nor in the second respect to the limit of my ability, as I should have done, especially as there is every indication (insomnia, headaches, weak heart) that my ability won’t last much longer. Worked on, but did not finish: The Trial, ‘Memoirs of the Kalda Railway’, ‘The Village Schoolmaster’, ‘The Assistant Attorney’,89 and the beginnings of various little things. Finished only: ‘In the Penal Colony’ and a chapter of Der Verschollene,90 both during the two-week holiday. I don’t know why I am drawing up this summary, it’s not at all like me!
4 January. Great desire to begin another story; didn’t yield to it. It is all pointless. If I can’t pursue the stories through the nights, they break away and disappear, as with ‘The Assistant Attorney’ now. And tomorrow I go to the factory, shall perhaps have to go there every afternoon after P. joins up. With that, everything is at an end. The thought of the factory is my perpetual Day of Atonement.
6 January. For the time being abandoned ‘Village Schoolmaster’ and ‘The Assistant Attorney’. But almost incapable too of going on with The Trial. Thinking of the girl from Lemberg.91 A promise of some kind of happiness resembles the hope of an eternal life. Seen from a certain distance it holds its ground, and one doesn’t venture nearer.
17 January. Yesterday for the first time dictated letters in the factory. Worthless work (an hour), but not without satisfaction. Horrible afternoon previously. Continual headaches, so that I had constantly to hold my hand to my head to calm myself (condition in the Café Arco), and heart pains on the sofa at home.
Read Ottla’s letter to E. I have really kept her down, and indeed ruthlessly, because of carelessness and incompetence on my part. F. is right about it. Happily, Ottla is strong enough, once she is alone in a strange city, to recover from my influence. How much of her talent for getting on with people lies unexploited because of me! She writes that she felt unhappy in Berlin. Untrue!
Realized that I have by no means made satisfactory use of the time since August. My constant attempts, by sleeping a great deal in the afternoon, to make it possible for myself to continue working late into the night were absurd; after the first two weeks I could already see that my nerves would not permit me to go to bed after one o’clock, for then I can no longer fall asleep at all, the next day is insupportable and I destroy myself. I lay down too long in the afternoon, though I seldom worked later than one o’clock at night, and always began about eleven o’
clock at the earliest. That was a mistake. I must began at eight or nine o’clock; the night is certainly the best time (holiday!), but beyond my reach.
Saturday I shall see F. If she loves me, I do not deserve it. Today I think I see how narrow my limits are in everything, and consequently in my writing too. If one feels one’s limits very intensely, one must burst. It is probably Ottla’s letter that has made me aware of this. I have been very self-satisfied of late and knew a variety of arguments by which to defend and assert myself against F. A pity I had no time to write them down, today I should be unable to do it.
Strindberg’s Black Flags. On far-away influences: You were certain that others disapproved of your behaviour without their having expressed their disapproval. In solitude you felt a quiet sense of well-being without having known why; some far-away person thought well of you, spoke well of you.
18 January. In the factory until half past six; as usual, worked, read, dictated, listened, wrote without result. The same meaningless satisfaction after it. Headache, slept badly. Incapable of sustained, concentrated work. Also have been in the open air too little. In spite of that began a new story; I was afraid I should spoil the old ones. Four or five stories now stand on their hindlegs in front of me like the horses in front of Schumann, the circus ringmaster, at the beginning of the performance.
19 January. I shall not be able to write so long as I have to go to the factory. I think it is a special inability to work that I feel now, similar to what I felt when I was employed by the Generali.92 Immediate contact with the workaday world deprives me – though inwardly I am as detached as I can be – of the possibility of taking a broad view of matters, just as if I were at the bottom of a ravine, with my head bowed down in addition. In the newspaper today, for instance, there is an official statement by Sweden according to which it intends, despite threats by the Triple Entente, unconditionally to preserve its neutrality. At the end it says: The members of the Triple Entente will run their heads against a stone wall in Stockholm. Today I swallow it almost entirely the way it was meant. Three days ago I should have felt to my very marrow that a Stockholm ghost was speaking here, that ‘threats by the Triple Entente’, ‘neutrality’, ‘official statement by Sweden’, were only inspissated things of air of a certain shape, which one can enjoy only with one’s eye but can never succeed in touching with one’s fingers.
