The Diaries of Franz Kafka (54 page)

‘No,’ the man replied, ‘but come on in, will you? I am not allowed to leave the doors open so long.’

‘He doesn’t know our father,’ Hans said to Amalia, and stood up; he felt relieved, now he would certainly not go in.

‘But of course I know him,’ said the man, poking his head farther forward in the aperture; ‘naturally I know him, the butcher, the big butcher near the bridge, I sometimes get meat there myself; do you think I should let you into the warehouse if I didn’t know your family?’

‘Then why did you first say that you didn’t know him?’ asked Hans, who, with his hands in his pockets, had already turned his back on the warehouse.

‘Because here, in this position, I don’t want to carry on any long discussions. First come inside, then we can talk everything over. Besides, boy, you don’t have to come in at all; on the contrary, with your bad manners I should prefer you to stay outside. But your sister now, she’s more reasonable, she shall come in and is entirely welcome.’ And he held out his hand to Amalia.

‘Hans,’ Amalia said, reaching out her hand to the stranger’s – without taking it, however – ‘why don’t you want to go in?’

Hans, who after the man’s last reply could give no definite reason for his disinclination, merely said softly to Amalia, ‘He hisses so.’ The stranger in fact did hiss, not only when he spoke but even when he was silent.

‘Why do you hiss?’ asked Amalia, who wished to intercede between Hans and the stranger.

‘I will answer you, Amalia,’ the stranger said. ‘My breathing is heavy, it is the result of having been here in this damp warehouse for so long; and I shouldn’t advise you to stay here too long either, though for a little while it’s quite extraordinarily interesting.’

‘I’m going,’ Amalia said with a laugh, she was now won over completely; ‘but,’ she then added, more slowly again, ‘Hans must come too.’

‘Of course,’ the stranger said and, lunging forward with the upper part of his body, grabbed Hans, who was taken completely unawares, by the hands so that he tumbled down at once, and with all his strength the man pulled him into the hole. ‘This way in, my dear Hans,’ he said, and dragged the struggling, screaming boy inside, heedless of the fact that one of Hans’s sleeves was being torn to shreds on the sharp edges of the doors.

‘Mali,’ Hans suddenly cried out – his feet had already vanished within the hole, it went so quickly despite all the resistance he put
up – ‘Mali, get Father, get Father, I can’t get out, he’s pulling me so hard!’

But Mali, completely disconcerted by the stranger’s rude onslaught – and with some feeling of guilt besides, for to a certain extent she had provoked the offence, though in the final analysis also quite curious, as she had been from the very beginning – did not run away but held on to Hans’s feet and let –

It soon became known, of course, that the rabbi was working on a clay figure. Every door of every room in his house stood open night and day, it contained nothing whose presence was not immediately known to everybody. There were always a few disciples, or neighbours, or strangers wandering up and down the stairs of the house, looking into all the rooms and – unless they happened to encounter the rabbi himself – going anywhere they pleased. And once, in a washtub, they found a large lump of reddish clay.

The liberty the rabbi allowed everyone in his house had spoiled people to such a degree that they did not hesitate to touch the clay. It was hard, even when one pressed it one’s fingers were hardly stained by it, its taste – the curious even had to touch their tongue to it – was bitter. Why the rabbi kept it in the washtub they could not understand.

Bitter, bitter, that is the most important word. How do I intend to solder fragments together into a story that will sweep one along?

A faint greyish-white smoke was lightly and continuously wafted from the chimney.

The rabbi, his sleeves rolled up like a washerwoman, stood in front of the tub kneading the clay which already bore the crude outline of a human form. The rabbi kept constantly before him the shape of the whole even while he worked on the smallest detail, the joint of a finger, perhaps. Though the figure obviously seemed to be acquiring a human likeness, the rabbi behaved like a madman – time and again he thrust out his lower jaw, unceasingly passed one lip over the other, and when he wet his hands in the bucket of water beside him, thrust them in so violently that the water splashed to the ceiling of the bare vault.

11 May. And so gave the letter to the Director. The day before yesterday. Asked either for a long leave later on, without pay of course, in the event of the war ending by autumn; or, if the war goes on, for my exemption to be cancelled. It was a complete lie. It would have been half a lie if I had asked for a long leave at once, and, if it were refused, for my dismissal. It would have been the truth if I had given notice. I dared neither, hence the complete lie.

Pointless discussion today. The Director thought I wanted to extort the usual three weeks’ holiday, which in my exempted status I am not entitled to, offered me them accordingly without further ado, claimed he had decided on it even before the letter. He said nothing at all of the army, as though there had been nothing in my letter about it. When I mentioned it he didn’t hear me. He seemed to find a long leave without pay funny, cautiously referred to it in that tone. Urged me to take the three weeks’ holiday at once. Made incidental remarks in the role of a lay psychiatrist, as does everyone. After all, I don’t have to bear the responsibilities he does, a position like his could really make one ill. And how hard he had had to work even before, when he was preparing for his bar examination and at the same time working in the Institute. Eleven hours a day for nine months. And then the chief difference – have I ever in any way had to be afraid of losing my job? But he had had to worry about that. He had had enemies in the Institute who had tried everything possible, even, as he had said, to deprive him of his means of livelihood, to throw him on the junk heap.

Remarkably enough, he did not speak of my writing.

I was weak, though I knew that it was almost a life-and-death matter for me. But insisted that I wanted to join the army and that three weeks were not enough. Whereupon he put off the rest of the discussion. If he were only not so friendly, and concerned!

I will stick to the following: I want to join the army, to give in to a wish I’ve suppressed for two years; I should prefer to have a long leave for various reasons that have nothing to do with me personally. But because of office as well as military considerations, it is probably impossible. By a long leave I understand – the official is ashamed to say it, the invalid is not – a half or an entire year. I want no pay because it is not a matter of an organic illness that can be established beyond a doubt.

All this is a continuation of the lie; but if I am consistent in it, approximates the truth in its effect.

2 June. What a muddle I’ve been in with girls, in spite of all my headaches, insomnia, grey hair, despair. Let me count them: there have been at least six since the summer. I can’t resist, my tongue is fairly torn from my mouth if I don’t give in and admire anyone who is admirable and love her until admiration is exhausted. With all six my guilt is almost wholly inward, though one of the six did complain of me to someone.

From
Das Werden des Gottesglaubens
by N. Söderblom, Archbishop of Upsala; quite scientific, without his being personally or religiously involved.

The primordial divinity of the Mesai: how he lowered the first cattle down from heaven on a leather strap to the first kraal.

The primordial divinity of some Australian tribes: he came out of the west in the guise of a powerful medicine man, made men, animals, trees, rivers, mountains, instituted the sacred ceremonies, and determined from which clan a member of another clan was to take his wife. His task completed, he went away. The medicine men could climb up to him on a tree or a rope and receive their power from him.

Other tribes: during their creative wanderings from place to place they also performed the sacred dances and rites for the first time.

Others: in primordial times men themselves created their totem animals by their ceremonies. The sacred rites thus of themselves begot the object of their veneration.

The Bimbiga near the coast tell of two men who in primordial times created springs, forests, and ceremonies in the course of their wanderings.

19 June. Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don’t find yourself.

With Ottla. Called for her at the English teacher’s. Home by way of the quay, the stone bridge, a short stretch of the Kleinseite, the new
bridge. Was excited by the statues of saints on the Karlsbrücke. The remarkable light of the summer evening together with the nocturnal emptiness of the bridge.

Joy over Max’s liberation. I had believed in its possibility, but now see the reality as well. But again see no possibility for myself.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden towards the cool of the day.

The calm of Adam and Eve.

And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.

God’s rage against the human race. The two trees, the unexplained prohibition, the punishment of all (snake, woman, man), the favour granted Cain, who is nevertheless provoked by God’s speaking to him.

My spirit shall not always strive with man.

Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.

3 July. First day in Marienbad with F. Door to door, keys on either side.

Three houses adjoined each other, forming a little yard. There were also two workshops under sheds in this yard, and in one corner stood a high pile of small boxes. One very stormy night – the wind drove the rain in sheets over the lowest of the houses into the yard – a student still sitting over his books in an attic room heard a loud groan in the yard. He jumped up and listened, but there was silence, unbroken silence. ‘I was probably mistaken,’ the student told himself, and resumed his reading.

‘Not mistaken,’ this, after a moment, was what the letters in his book seemed to spell out.

‘Mistaken,’ he repeated, and moved his index finger along the lines to calm their restlessness.

4 July. I awoke to find myself imprisoned in a fenced enclosure which allowed no room for more than a step in either direction. Sheep
are folded into pens of this kind, though theirs are not so narrow. The direct rays of the sun beat down on me; to shield my head I pressed it against my breast and squatted down with hunched back.

What are you? I am miserable. I have two little boards screwed against my temples.

5 July. The hardships of living together. Forced upon us by strangeness, pity, lust, cowardice, vanity, and only deep down, perhaps, a thin little stream worthy of the name of love, impossible to seek out, flashing once in the moment of a moment.

Poor F.

6 July. Unhappy night. Impossible to live with F. Intolerable living with anyone. I don’t regret this; I regret the impossibility for me of not living alone. And yet how absurd it is for me to regret this, to give in, and then finally to understand. Get up from the ground. Hold to the book. But then I have it all back again: insomnia; headaches; jump out of the high window but on to the rain-soaked ground where the fall won’t be fatal. Endless tossing with eyes closed, exposed to any random glance.

Only the Old Testament knows – say nothing yet on it.

Dreamed of Dr H. – he sat behind his desk, somehow leaning back and bending forward at the same time; limpid eyes; slowly and precisely, as is his way, pursuing an orderly train of thought to its end; even in the dream hear almost nothing of his words, simply follow the logic by which it is carried on. Then found myself beside his wife, who was carrying a lot of luggage and (what was astonishing) playing with my fingers; a patch was torn out of the thick felt of her sleeve, her arms took up only a small part of the sleeve, which was filled with strawberries.

That they laughed at him troubled Karl not a whit. What kind of fellows were they and what did they know? Smooth American faces having only two or three wrinkles, but these two or three tumid and
deeply graven in their brows or down one side of their nose and mouth. Native Americans, in order to know them for what they were it would almost suffice to hammer on their stony brows. What did they know –

A man lay in bed, seriously ill. The doctor sat at the little table that had been pushed next to the bed and watched the sick man, who looked at him in return. ‘No help,’ said the sick man, not as if he were asking but as if he were answering a question. The doctor partly opened a large medical work lying on the edge of the little table, hurriedly glanced into it from afar, and, clapping the book shut, said, ‘Help is coming from Bregenz.’ When the sick man, with an effort, squinted his eyes, the doctor added: ‘Bregenz in Vorarlberg.’

‘That is far away,’ the sick man said.

Receive me into your arms, they are the depths, receive me into the depths; if you refuse me now, then later.

Take me, take me, web of folly and pain.

The Negroes came out of the thicket. They leaped into a dance which they performed around a wooden stake encircled by a silver chain. The priest sat to one side, a little rod raised above the gong. The sky was overcast and silent; no rain fell.

I have never yet been intimate with a woman apart from that time in Zuckmantel. And then again with the Swiss girl in Riva. The first was a woman, and I was ignorant; the second a child, and I was utterly confused.

13 July. Then open yourself. Let the human person come forth. Breathe in the air and the silence.

It was an open-air restaurant in a spa. The afternoon had been rainy, not one customer had put in an appearance. The sky cleared only towards evening, the rain gradually stopped, and the waitresses began to wipe off the tables. The manager stood under the arch of the gate and looked out for customers. And in fact one was already coming up
the path through the woods. He wore a long-fringed plaid over his shoulders, his head was bowed down on his breast, and at every step his outstretched arm brought his stick down on the ground far in front of him.