Franz Kafka - Letters to Milena (11)

[@thetalkativecrow]

So now for the explanation I promised yesterday: I don't want (Milena, help me! Understand more than I am saying) I don't want (this isn't stuttering) to come to Vienna, because I couldn't stand the mental stress. I am spiritually ill, my lung disease is nothing but an overflowing of my spiritual disease. I've been sick like this since the 4 or 5 years of my first two engagements. (It took some time before I finally understood why your last letter was so cheerful; I constantly forget the fact that you're so young, maybe not even 25, maybe just 23. I am 37, almost 38, almost older by a whole short generation, almost white-haired from all the old nights and headaches.) I don't want to unfold to you the whole long story with its veritable forest of details, which still scare me, like a child, except that I lack a child's power to forget. What all three engagements had in common was that everything was my fault, entirely and unquestionably my fault. I made both girls unhappy and, to be sure-here I am only referring to the first, I cannot speak about the second, she is sensitive, any word, even the friendliest, would be the most monstrous insult, which I understand-and to be sure only because she (who might have sacrificed herself had I wanted her to) was unable to make me abidingly happy, calm, determined, capable of marriage, despite my repeated and entirely voluntary assurances that this was the case, despite the fact that I sometimes loved her desperately, despite the fact I knew of no worthier aspiration than marriage. For almost 5 years I kept battering away at her (or at myself if you prefer) but fortunately she proved unbreakable, a Prussian-Jewish mixture, a strong triumphant mixture. I myself was not so strong, anyway all she had to do was suffer, while I had to batter away and suffer. The end, even though I was just beginning, I can't write anything more, explain anything more; of course I should describe the spiritual illness, I should mention the other reasons for not leaving, a telegram arrived "Meet at Karlsbad eighth request letter." I confess it made a terrible face when I opened it, despite the fact that it was sent by the most selfless, tranquil, modest being and that it stems ultimately from my own desire. I can't explain this right now, since I cannot appeal to a description of the disease. But this much is certain: I'm leaving here Monday. Occasionally I look at the telegram and can scarcely read it-as if it contained a secret code, one which erases the above message and reads: Travel via Vienna!-an obvious order but without a trace of the terror orders always contain. I won't do it, even just at first glance it's senseless not to take the short route via Munich but one twice as long through Linz and then even further via Vienna. I am conducting an experiment: a sparrow is sitting on the balcony and waiting for me to throw him some bread from my table; but instead I toss it onto the floor next to me in the middle of the room. The sparrow is standing outside and sees the food of his life there in the semidarkness, enticing beyond measure, he shakes himself, he's more inside than out, but here inside is darkness and next to the bread am I, the mysterious power. Nonetheless he hops over the threshold, a few more jumps, but he doesn't dare go any further and suddenly frightened he flies away. But what vitality lies hidden in this pitiful bird-after a while he's back, inspecting the situation. I strew some more crumbs to make it easier for him, and if I hadn't driven him off with a slight movement-intentionally-unintentionally (which is the way of secret forces)-he would have obtained his bread. The fact is that my vacation will be over at the end of June and for a change I would like to go somewhere else in the country; moreover it's already getting very hot here. She wanted to go too; now we're supposed to meet there, I'll stay a few days, then perhaps a few more days in Konstantinsbad with my parents, and next travel on to Prague. Looking over these travel plans, and comparing them to my mental state, I feel a little like Napoleon must have felt if, while at the same time he was designing the Russian campaign, he had known exactly what the outcome would be. Back when your first letter arrived-I believe it was shortly before the intended wedding (the plans for which, by way of example, were quite exclusively my doing)-l was happy and showed it to her. Later-no, nothing more, and I won't tear up this letter a second time, our characters have similar traits but I don't have any oven nearby and there are certain indications which make me fear that I once wrote to that girl on the back of one of these unfinished letters. But all this is immaterial, even without the telegram I wouldn't have been able to go to Vienna, on the contrary, the telegram is more of an argument in favor of the trip. I will definitely not come, however if I should-it won't happen- find myself in Vienna after all, much to my terrible surprise, then I won't need either breakfast or dinner, but more likely a stretcher where I can lie down for a while. Farewell, it won't be an easy week here- If you'd like to write me a word in Karlsbad, poste restante, no, not until Prague. What kind of monstrous schools are those where you teach, 200 pupils, 50 pupils. I'd like to have a seat by the window in the last row, for one hour, then I would forgo any meeting with you (which won't happen anyway), forgo all trips and- enough, this endless white paper burns out one's eyes, which is why one writes. That was in the afternoon, now it's almost 11. I have arranged it the only way I can at the moment. I wired Prague to say I cannot come to Karlsbad, I'll explain this by my state of confusion, which is true on the one hand but not very consistent on the other, since it was precisely because of this confusion that I had wanted to go to Karlsbad in the first place. This is how I play with a real live human being. But I can't do anything else; in Karlsbad I would be incapable of either speech or silence, or more precisely: I would be speaking even with my silence, because at the moment I am nothing but a single word. Now there is no doubt that I will travel Monday via Munich, and not through Vienna-I don't know where, Karlsbad, Marienbad, in any case alone. I may write to you, but I won't receive your letters for 3 weeks, not until I'm in Prague, in order to make everything up to you.

[@scythralisa]

Why did this feel like 15 seconds? 😢 I miss Franz already. I guess it really is a knife that I twist inside myself.

[@thetalkativecrow]

Oddly enough, I much prefer his later letters - to which I will eventually meander - but I do love the image of him tempting the sparrow into the room.