Letters to Milena

by Franz Kafka

  Unmusicality is not as clearly a misfortune as you say—in the first place it isn’t for me; I inherited it from my predecessors (my paternal grandfather was a butcher in a village near Strakonitz;61 I have to not eat as much meat as he butchered) and it gives me something to hold on to; being related means a lot to me. But it is definitely a general human misfortune, similar or equal to being unable to cry or sleep. And anyway, understanding people who are musical means almost the same thing as being unmusical.

  F

  So if I do get to Vienna I’ll wire you or write you at the post office, Tuesday or Wednesday.

  I’m sure I put stamps on all the letters; can’t you see on the envelope that the stamps were torn off?

  [Meran, June 25, 1920]

  Friday evening

  What I wrote this morning was stupid, and now come both your letters, brimming with kindness. I will answer them orally; I’ll be in Vienna Tuesday, if nothing unexpected happens inside or outside. It would be a very good idea to tell you today (I think Tuesday is a holiday, the post office where I would send you a telegram or pneumatic letter may well be closed) where I intend to wait for you, but I would suffocate by then if I were to name a place right now and then have to see this place for three days and three nights, empty, waiting for me to arrive Tuesday at a certain hour. Is there as much patience as I need, Milena, anywhere in the world? Tell me Tuesday.

  F

  Vienna, June 29, 1920

  M. Jesenská

  Vienna VIII

  Poste Restante

  Post Office Bennogasse-Josefstädterstrasse62

  Tuesday 10:00

  This letter probably won’t arrive before 12:00, or rather I’m sure it won’t, since it’s already 10. So not until tomorrow morning—perhaps it’s just as well, for I am indeed in Vienna, sitting in a café in the Südbahnhof (What kind of cocoa is this, what kind of pastry? And this is what you’re living on?) but am not entirely here, I haven’t slept for two nights, the question is will I sleep the third night in the Hotel Riva where I am staying, next to a garage at the Südbahnhof. I can’t think of anything better to say: I’ll wait for you Wednesday starting at 10:00 A.M. in front of the hotel. Please, Milena, don’t surprise me by coming up from the side or from behind; I promise not to do this either. Today I’ll probably see the sights: Lerchen felderstrasse, the post office, the ring from the Südbahnhof to the Lerch-str., the woman who sells coal and things like that—as invisible as possible.

  Yours

  [Prague, July 4, 1920]

  Sunday

  Today Milena, Milena, Milena—I can’t write anything else. But I will. So today, Milena, just in haste, exhaustion, not-being-there (the last will be true tomorrow too). Why shouldn’t I be tired—they promise a sick man vacation for a quarter of a year and give him 4 days and then only a fraction of Tuesday and Sunday and they even cut mornings and evenings.63 Am I not right not to have fully recovered? Am I not right? Milena! (Spoken into your left ear, while you are lying on the pitiful bed in a deep sleep of good provenance—slowly, unconsciously, turning from right to left toward my mouth.)

  The trip? At first it was entirely uncomplicated, there wasn’t a single newspaper on the platform. A reason to run back out; you were no longer there—that was all right. Then I reboarded, the train pulled out, I started reading my paper, still everything was fine, after a while I stopped reading, but then suddenly you were no longer there; or actually you were there and I felt your presence with all my soul, although this kind of being there was very different from the kind we knew during the 4 days and I first had to become accustomed to it. I resumed my reading, but the entry in Bahr’s diary began with a description of Bad Kreuzen near Grein on the Danube.64 Then I stopped reading; however, when I looked out, a train was passing and on the car was written: Grein. I looked back inside the compartment. Opposite me a man was reading last Sunday’s Národní Listy: seeing a feuilleton by Růžena Jesenská, I borrow it, begin reading aimlessly, put it down and then sit there with your face, looking just the way it did when we parted at the station.65 What happened on the platform was a natural phenomenon I have never observed before: sunlight dimmed, not by clouds, but of its own accord.

  What else shall I say? My throat does not obey, nor do my hands.

  Yours

  So tomorrow the amazing story of the rest of the trip.

  [Prague, July 4, 1920]

  Sunday, a little while later

  A courier has brought the enclosed letter (please tear it up at once, also the one from Max) and wants an immediate answer, I’m writing that I’ll be there at 9:00. What I have to say is so clear—how I will say it I don’t know. Good heavens: if I were married, I would come home and instead of the courier I’d find the bed, impossible to hide in and devoid of any subterranean passage to Vienna! I tell myself this so I’ll realize how easy the difficulty ahead really is.

  Yours

  I’m sending you the letter, as if by doing so I could transport you next to me, especially close, as I walk up and down in front of her house.66

  [Prague, July 4–5, 1920]

  Sunday 11:30

  3)

  I’m numbering at

  least these letters,

  not one of them can

  miss you, just like I

  couldn’t miss you in

  the little park.

  No result, despite the fact that everything is so clear and so clearly expressed by me. I won’t go into details, just that she didn’t say a single word that was even remotely angry about you or me. I was so clear I wasn’t even compassionate. The only thing I could truthfully say was that nothing had changed between her and me, and that it hardly ever would change, only—no more, it’s disgusting, work for a hangman but not for me. Just one thing, Milena, if she falls seriously ill (she looks very bad and her despair is boundless, I have to see her again tomorrow afternoon)—anyway, if she gets sick or if something else happens to her, it’s no longer in my control, for I can only go on telling her the truth, and this truth isn’t merely truth, but more, it is my being dissolved inside you while I am walking next to her—so if something does happen then, Milena, you have to come.

  F

  Nonsense: of course you can’t come, for the same reason.

  Tomorrow I’ll send the father-letter to your apartment, please take good care of it, I still might want to give it to my father someday. If possible don’t let anyone else read it. And as you read it understand all the lawyer’s tricks: it is a lawyer’s letter. And at the same time never forget your great Nevertheless.

  Monday morning

  I am sending you the Poor Fiddler today, not because it means so much to me; although it once did years ago.67 Rather I’m sending it because it is so Viennese, so unmusical, so sad, because he was looking down on us in the Volksgarten (at us! You were walking next to me; just think, you were walking next to me), because he is so bureaucratic, and because he loved a girl who was good at business.

  [Prague, July 5, 1920]

  Monday morning

  4)

  I received the Friday letter early, later on the Friday-night letter. The first is so sad—sad, sad station-face—and it’s sad not so much because of its content, but because the letter is old, because all that is past: the woods we shared, the suburb, the ride. Of course it will never fade, not ever, this ride we took together, straight as an arrow, up through the stone street, back along the avenue in the evening sun, it will never stop, and still it’s a stupid joke to say it won’t. Here there are various documents lying around, a few letters I just read, an exchange of greetings with the director in his office (not dismissed) and other colleagues here and there, and accompanying all of this is a little bell ringing in my ear: ‘She’s not with you any more,’ of course there’s also a mighty bell somewhere in heaven ringing: ‘She will not leave you,’ but after all, the small bell is in my ear. And then again there is the night-letter, it’s impossible to understand how my breast could expand
and contract enough to breathe this air, it’s impossible to understand how you can be far away.

  And nevertheless I’m not complaining, all this is not a complaint and I have your word.

  Now the story of the trip and then you can go ahead and say you’re not an angel: I knew for ages that my Austrian visa had actually (and figuratively) run out two months back, but in Meran I was told it wasn’t required for transit and indeed I had no troubles when I crossed the Austrian border. Because of that I completely forgot about this omission while I was in Vienna. In Gmünd, however, the official at the passport control—a young man, hard—discovered it immediately. The passport was set aside, everyone else allowed to pass through to customs control, everyone except me. That was bad enough (I am constantly being interrupted, after all it’s my first day back, I don’t have to listen to the office gossip, not yet anyway, and people are coming in all the time and wanting to drive me away from you, that is, you away from me, but they won’t succeed, will they, Milena? Nobody will, ever.) So that’s the way it was, but then you started working. A border guard comes—friendly, open, Austrian, interested, cordial—and leads me through stairs and corridors to the headquarters of the chief inspector. A Rumanian-Jewish woman was standing there with a similarly defective passport, strangely enough also one of your friendly emissaries, you angel of Jews. But the opposing forces are still much stronger. The large inspector and his small adjutant (both yellow, emaciated, sullen, at least for the moment) take possession of the passport. The inspector is finished in no time: ‘Return to Vienna and obtain the visa at police headquarters!’ I can do nothing but repeat several times: ‘That is terrible for me.’ The inspector also repeats his answer several times, ironically and angrily: ‘You only think it is.’ ‘Can’t the visa be obtained by wire?’ ‘No.’ ‘Even if I pay all costs?’ ‘No.’ ‘Isn’t there a higher authority here?’ ‘No.’ The woman, seeing my distress, remains magnificently calm and asks the inspector to let at least me pass. Your means are too weak, Milena. You won’t get me through that way. I have to walk all the way back to passport control and fetch my luggage, there’s no question of my leaving today. And now we’re sitting together in the chief inspector’s headquarters, the guard has little consolation to offer except that the train tickets may be extended etc., the inspector has said his last word and retreated into his private office, only the small adjutant is still there. I calculate: the next train to Vienna departs at 10 P.M., arrives in Vienna at 2:30 A.M. I’m still covered with bites from the Riva-vermin, what will my room at the Franz Josefs Bahnhof look like? But since I don’t get a room, I go to the Lerchenfelder Strasse (that’s right, at 2:30 A.M.) and ask for a room (that’s right, at 5 a.m.). Anyway, whatever happens, I must obtain the visa Monday morning (will I get it right away or will I have to wait until Tuesday?), then go to your house and surprise you at the door, which you open. Good heavens. Here my thinking takes a break, but then continues: But what shape will I be in after such a night and the journey, and in the evening I’ll still have to leave on the train that takes 16 hours, what will I look like when I arrive in Prague and what will the director say, whom I’ll have to ask for sick leave once again? Certainly you don’t want all that, but what do you really want? There’s no way out. It occurs to me the only slight relief would be to spend the night in Gmünd and wait until morning before traveling to Vienna and so, already exhausted, I ask the quiet adjutant about a morning train bound for Vienna. There’s one at 5:30 which arrives at 11:00 A.M. Good, I’ll take that train and so will the Rumanian woman. But suddenly the conversation takes a turn, I don’t know how, at any rate in a flash it’s clear that the little adjutant wants to help us. If we spend the night in Gmünd then the next morning, when he’s alone in the office, he’ll secretly let us through onto the local train to Prague, where we would arrive at 4:00 P.M. But we’re supposed to tell the inspector that we’re taking the morning train to Vienna. Wonderful! Although just relatively wonderful, since I’ll still have to wire Prague. But even so. The inspector arrives, we act out a small comedy about the morning train to Vienna, the adjutant then sends us off, we’re supposed to pay him a secret visit later in the evening to discuss the remaining details. In my blindness I think that all this is your doing, whereas in reality it’s merely the last attack of the opposing forces. So now we slowly leave the station, the woman and myself (the express train which was supposed to have taken us on is still standing there, customs control is taking a long time). How far is it into town? An hour. That too. But it turns out there are 2 hotels at the station, we’ll go to one of them. There’s a track running right next to the hotel, we still have to cross it, a freight train is coming. I want to hurry across the tracks, but the woman holds me back and we have to wait. A minor contribution to our misfortune, we think. But precisely this moment of waiting, without which I would not have made it to Prague on Sunday, is the turning point. It’s as if you had run up and down knocking on all the gates of heaven to plead for me, just as you ran up and down knocking at all the hotels of the Westbahnhof, for now your guard comes running after us down the long path from the station, out of breath, shouting: ‘Hurry up, come back, the inspector is letting you through!’ Is it possible? Moments like that make one choke with emotion. We have to beg the guard ten times before he’ll take any money. But now we have to run back, fetch our luggage from the inspector’s headquarters, run with it to the passport control, and on to customs. But now you’ve already set everything aright; I cannot carry my luggage any further—by chance there’s a porter next to me; at passport control I run into a crowd—the guard clears the way for me; at customs without realizing it I lose the little case with the gold cufflinks—an official finds it and hands it to me. We’re aboard the train and leave at once, at last I’m able to wipe the perspiration off my face and chest. Stay with me always!

  F

  [Prague, July 5, 1920]

  Monday

  5) I think

  Naturally I should go to sleep, it’s one o’clock at night; I would have written you long before, this evening, but Max was here, whom I really wanted to see and whom I couldn’t see because of the girl and my worries concerning her. I was with the girl until about 8:30, Max had said he’d drop by at 9, then we went walking around till 12:30. Just think: he didn’t realize what I thought was blindingly clear in my letters: that you you you—again the writing stops for a moment—that it’s you I’m talking about; he didn’t realize, he didn’t learn your name until today (after all, I hadn’t ever spelled it out so bluntly, since his wife could have read the letters). And now once again, Milena, one of my lies, the second one: You once asked, shocked, whether I thought the Reiner affair in Mile (I wanted to write ‘Max’ but wrote ‘Milena,’ then crossed out the name; don’t condemn me for that, it really makes me hurt so much I want to cry) Max’s letter was meant as a warning. I hadn’t exactly thought of it as a warning, just something like a musical accompaniment to the text; however, when I saw how frightened you were I consciously lied to you (I had to get up, somewhere a member of that feared race of mice is gnawing away), denying there was any connection. Although it turns out there really wasn’t any connection, I didn’t know that and so I lied.

  IN THE MARGIN: And despite everything, I think that if it is possible to die of happiness then I will certainly do so. And if someone destined to die can be kept alive by happiness, then I will stay alive.

  The girl: she was better today, but at the high cost of my having allowed her to write to you. I’m very sorry I did. The telegram I sent to the post office in your name today is a sure sign of my anxiety over you: ‘Girl is writing you please answer kindly and’—here I really wanted to add a ‘very’—‘firmly and don’t abandon me’. On the whole, things went more smoothly today, I prevailed upon myself to talk peacefully about Meran, the mood became less ominous. But once the conversation returned to the main subject (her whole body went on shaking for minutes, next to me at the Karlsplatz) the only thing I c
ould say was that next to you everything else—even if it hasn’t changed in itself—disappears and turns to nothing. She posed her last question, against which I have never been able to defend myself, namely: ‘I can’t leave, but if you send me away, then I’ll go. Are you sending me away?’ (There’s something very loathsome, apart from the arrogance, in my telling you this, but I’m doing so out of fear for you. What wouldn’t I do out of fear for you. Look what a strange new type of fear.) I replied: ‘Yes.’ To which she said: ‘But I really can’t go.’ And then she became talkative beyond her strength, poor thing, saying that she didn’t understand it all, that you love your husband and still were talking with me in secret, etc. To be honest she also had some bad words about you, for which I would have liked to hit her and should have, but wasn’t I bound to let her at least pour out her grievances? She mentioned that she would like to write you, and in my worry about her—and in my infinite trust in you—I consented, although I knew this would cost me a few nights’ sleep. I was upset precisely by the fact that this consent calmed her down. Be friendly and firm, but more firm than friendly, but what am I saying, for don’t I know that you’ll write whatever’s best. And isn’t my fear, that in her distress she might write something insidious and turn you against me, a great dishonor to you? Of course it’s a dishonor, but what am I supposed to do if this fear, and not my heart, is beating in my body? I shouldn’t have consented after all. And now I’m going to see her again tomorrow, it’s a holiday (Hus), she begged me so much to go off with her somewhere in the afternoon; she said I wouldn’t have to see her for the rest of the week.68 Maybe I can persuade her not to write the letter, if she hasn’t already done so. On the other hand, I then say to myself: Maybe she only wants an explanation, maybe your word will calm her precisely through its friendly firmness, maybe—this is how all my thoughts run now—she will kneel before your letter.