The Diaries of Franz Kafka (41 page)

‘You’re tickling me,’ she said.

‘Because I like you. I don’t understand how they can say that you
are ugly. Because they did say it. But now I see that it isn’t true at all.’

And he stood up and walked up and down the room. She remained on her knees and looked at her hand.

For some reason this made him furious; he sprang to her side and caught her hand again.

‘You’re quite a woman,’ he then said, and clapped her long thin cheek. ‘It would really add to my comfort to live here. But it would have to be cheap. And you would not be allowed to take in other roomers. And you would have to be faithful to me. I am really much younger than you and can after all insist on faithfulness. And you would have to cook well. I am used to good food and never intend to disaccustom myself.’

Dance on, you pigs; what concern is it of mine?

But it has more reality than anything I have written this past year. Perhaps after all it is a matter of loosening the joint. I shall once more be able to write.

Every evening for the past week my neighbour in the adjoining room has come to wrestle with me. He was a stranger to me, even now I haven’t yet spoken to him. We merely shout a few exclamations at one another, you can’t call that ‘speaking’. With a ‘well then’ the struggle is begun; ‘scoundrel!’ one of us sometimes groans under the grip of the other; ‘there’ accompanies a surprise thrust; ‘stop!’ means the end, yet the struggle always goes on a little while longer. As a rule, even when he is already at the door he leaps back again and gives me a push that sends me to the ground. From his room he then calls good night to me through the wall. If I wanted to give up this acquaintance once and for all I should have to give up my room, for bolting the door is of no avail. Once I had the door bolted because I wanted to read, but my neighbour hacked the door in two with an axe, and, since he can part with something only with the greatest difficulty once he has taken hold of it, I was even in danger of the axe.

I know how to accommodate myself to circumstances. Since he always comes to me at a certain hour, I take up some easy work beforehand which I can interrupt at once, should it be necessary. I straighten out a
chest, for example, or copy something, or read some unimportant book. I have to arrange matters in this way – no sooner has he appeared in the door than I must drop everything, slam the chest to at once, drop the penholder, throw the book away, for it is only fighting that he wants, nothing else. If I feel particularly strong I tease him a little by first attempting to elude him. I crawl under the table, throw chairs under his feet, wink at him from the distance, though it is of course in bad taste to joke in this very one-sided way with a stranger. But usually our bodies close in battle at once. Apparently he is a student, studies all day, and wants some hasty exercise in the evening before he goes to bed. Well, in me he has a good opponent; accidents aside, I perhaps am the stronger and more skilful of the two. He, however, has more endurance.

28 May. Day after tomorrow I leave for Berlin. In spite of insomnia, headaches, and worries, perhaps in a better state than ever before.

Once he brought a girl along. While I say hello to her, not watching him, he springs upon me and jerks me into the air. ‘I protest,’ I cried, and raised my hand.

‘Keep quiet,’ he whispered in my ear. I saw that he was determined to win at all costs, even by resorting to unfair holds, so that he might shine before the girl.

‘He said “Keep quiet” to me,’ I cried, turning my head to the girl.

‘Wretch!’ the man gasped in a low voice, exerting all his strength against me. In spite of everything he was able to drag me to the sofa, put me down on it, knelt on my back, paused to regain his breath, and said: ‘Well, there he lies.’

‘Just let him try it again,’ I intended to say, but after the very first word he pressed my face so hard into the upholstery that I was forced to be silent.

‘Well then,’ said the girl, who had sat down at my table and was reading a half-finished letter lying there, ‘shouldn’t we leave now? He has just begun to write a letter.’

‘He won’t go on with it if we leave. Come over here, will you? Touch him, here on his thigh, for instance; he’s trembling just like a sick animal.’

‘I say leave him alone and come along.’ Very reluctantly the man crawled off me. I could have thrashed him soundly then, for I was rested while all his muscles had been tensed in the effort to hold me down. He was the one who had been trembling and had thought that it was me. I was still trembling even now. But I let him alone because the girl was present.

‘You will probably have drawn your own conclusions as to this battle,’ I said to the girl, walked by him with a bow and sat down at the table to go on with the letter. ‘And who is trembling?’ I asked, before beginning to write, and held the penholder rigid in the air in proof that it was not me. I was already in the midst of my writing when I called out a short adieu to them in the distance, but kicked out my foot a little to indicate, at least to myself, the farewell that they both probably deserved.

29 May. Tomorrow to Berlin. Is it a nervous or a real, trustworthy security that I feel? How is that possible? Is it true that if one once acquires a confidence in one’s ability to write, nothing can miscarry, nothing is wholly lost, while at the same time only seldom will something rise up to a more than ordinary height? Is this because of my approaching marriage to F.? Strange condition, though not entirely unknown to me when I think back.

Stood a long time before the gate with Pick. Thought only of how I might quickly make my escape, for my supper of strawberries was ready for me upstairs. Everything that I shall now note down about him is simply a piece of shabbiness on my part, for I won’t let him see any of it, or am content that he won’t see it. But I am really an accessory to his behaviour so long as I go about in his company, and therefore what I say of him applies as well to me, even if one discounts the pretended subtlety that lies in such a remark.

I make plans. I stare rigidly ahead lest my eyes lose the imaginary peepholes of the imaginary kaleidoscope into which I am looking. I mix noble and selfish intentions in confusion; the colour of the noble ones is washed away, in recompense passing off on to the merely selfish ones. I invite heaven and earth to take part in my schemes, at the same time
I am careful not to forget the insignificant little people one can draw out of every side-street and who for the time being are more useful to my schemes. It is of course only the beginning, always only the beginning. But as I stand here in my misery, already the huge wagon of my schemes comes driving up behind me, I feel underfoot the first small step up, naked girls, like those on the carnival floats of happier countries, lead me backwards up the steps; I float because the girls float, and raise my hand to command silence. Rose bushes stand at my side, incense burns, laurel wreaths are let down, flowers are strewn before and over me; two trumpeters, as if hewn out of stone, blow fanfares, throngs of little people come running up, in ranks behind leaders; the bright, empty, open squares become dark, tempestuous, and crowded; I feel myself at the farthest edge of human endeavour, and, high up where I am, with suddenly acquired skill spontaneously execute a trick I had admired in a contortionist years ago – I bend slowly backwards (at that very moment the heavens strain to open to disclose a vision of me, but then stop), draw my head and trunk through my legs, and gradually stand erect again. Was this the ultimate given to mankind? It would seem so, for already I see the small horned devils leaping out of all the gates of the land, which lies broad and deep beneath me, overrunning the countryside; everything gives way in the centre under their feet, their little tails expunge everything, fifty devils’ tails are already scouring my face; the ground begins to yield, first one of my feet sinks in and then the other; the screams of the girls pursue me into the depths into which I plummet, down a shaft precisely the width of my body but infinitely deep. This infinity tempts one to no extraordinary accomplishments, anything that I should do would be insignificant; I fall insensibly and that is best.

Dostoyevsky’s letter to his brother on life in prison.

6 June. Back from Berlin. Was tied hand and foot like a criminal. Had they sat me down in a corner bound in real chains, placed policemen in front of me, and let me look on simply like that, it could not have been worse. And that was my engagement; everybody made an effort to bring me to life, and when they couldn’t, to put up with me as I was. F. least of all, of course, with complete justification, for she
suffered the most. What was merely a passing occurrence to the others, to her was a threat.

We couldn’t bear it at home even a moment. We knew that they would look for us. But despite its being evening we ran away. Hills encircled our city; we clambered up them. We set all the trees to shaking as we swung down the slope from one end to the other.

The posture of the clerks in the store shortly before closing time in the evening: hands in trouser pockets, a trifle stooped, looking from the vaulted interior past the open door on to the square. Their tired movements behind the counters. Weakly tie up a package, distractedly dust a few boxes, pile up used wrapping paper.

An acquaintance comes and speaks to me. He makes the following statement: Some say this, but I say exactly the opposite. He cites the reasons for his opinion. I wonder. My hands lie in my trouser pockets as if they had been dropped there, and yet as relaxed as if I had only to turn my pockets inside out and they would quickly drop out again.

I had closed the store, employees and customers departed carrying their hats in hand. It was a June evening, eight o’clock already but still light. I had no desire to take a walk, I never feel an inclination to go walking; but neither did I want to go home. When my last apprentice had turned the corner I sat down on the ground in front of the closed store.

An acquaintance and his young wife came by and saw me sitting on the ground. ‘Why, look who is sitting here,’ he said. They stopped, and the man shook me a little, despite the fact that I had been calmly regarding him from the very first.

‘My God, why are you sitting here like this?’ his young wife asked.

‘I am going to give up my store,’ I said. ‘It isn’t going too badly, and I can meet all my obligations, even if only just about. But I can’t stand the worries, I can’t control the clerks, I can’t talk to the customers. From tomorrow on I won’t even open the store. I’ve thought it all
over carefully.’ I saw how the man sought to calm his wife by taking her hand between both of his.

‘Fine,’ he said, ‘you want to give up your store; you aren’t the first to do it. We too’ – he looked across at his wife – ‘as soon as we have enough to take care of ourselves (may it be soon), won’t hesitate to give up our store any more than you have done. Business is as little a pleasure to us as it is to you, believe me. But why do you sit on the ground?’

‘Where shall I go?’ I said. Of course, I knew why they were questioning me. It was sympathy and astonishment as well as embarrassment that they felt, but I was in no position whatsoever to help them too.

‘Don’t you want to join us?’ I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffee-house that was already almost deserted. ‘No, I don’t,’ I said.

It was already past midnight. I sat in my room writing a letter on which a lot depended for me, for with the letter I hoped to secure an excellent post abroad. I sought to remind the acquaintance to whom I was writing – by chance, after a ten-year interval, I had been put in touch with him again by a common friend – of past times, and at the same time make him understand that all my circumstances pressed me to leave the country and that in the absence of good and far-reaching connexions of my own, I was placing my greatest hopes in him.

It was getting on towards nine o’clock in the evening before
Bruder, a city official, came home from his office. It was already quite dark. His wife was waiting for him in front of the gate, clutching her little girl to her. ‘How is it going?’ she asked.

‘Very badly,’ said Bruder. ‘Come into the house and I’ll tell you everything.’ The moment they set foot in the house, Bruder locked the front door. ‘Where is the maid?’ he asked.

‘In the kitchen,’ his wife replied.

‘Good; come!’

The table lamp was lit in the large, low living-room, they all sat down, and Bruder said: ‘Well, this is how things stand. Our men are in full retreat. As I understand it from unimpeachable reports that have been received at City Hall, the fighting at Rumdorf has gone entirely
against us. Moreover, the greater part of the troops have already withdrawn from the city. They are still keeping it secret so as not to add enormously to the panic in the city; I don’t consider that altogether wise, it would be better to tell the truth frankly. However, my duty demands that I be silent. But of course there is no one to prevent me from telling you the truth. Besides, everybody suspects the real situation, you can see that everywhere. Everybody is shutting up his house, hiding whatever can be hidden.’
⁶⁹

It was about ten o’clock in the evening before Bruder, a city official, came home from his office; nevertheless he at once knocked on the door that separated his room from Rumford’s, the furniture dealer, from whom he rented the room. Though he could hear only an indistinct response, he went in. Rumford was seated at the table with a newspaper; his fat was troubling him this hot July evening, he had thrown his coat and vest on the sofa; his shirt –

Several city officials were standing by the stone ledge of a window in City Hall, looking down into the square. The last of the rearguard was waiting below for the command to retreat. They were young, tall, red-cheeked fellows who held their quivering horses tightly reined. Two officers rode slowly back and forth in front of them. They were apparently waiting for a report. They sent out numerous riders who disappeared at a gallop up a steeply ascending side-street opening off the square. None had yet returned.