The Diaries of Franz Kafka (68 page)

Oenone readily passed from one rigid pose into another; once, standing erect, her robe tightly wound about her legs, her arm raised and her fist steady, she delivered herself of a verse. Often veiled the expression of her face in her hands.

I was dissatisfied with the actress playing
Phèdre
when I remembered what satisfaction I had got from reading about Rachel in the period when she had been a member of the Comédie Française.

At a sight as surprising as the first scene offered, when Hippolyte, with his man-sized bow motionless at his side, was on the point of confiding in the Pedagogue, looking directly at the audience in quiet pride while he declaimed his verses as if they had been a holiday recitation, I had the impression – a slight one, though, as often in the past – that all this was taking place for the first time, and in my general admiration there was mingled admiration for something that had succeeded at its first attempt.

Sensibly conducted brothels. Clean shutters lowered everywhere over
the large windows of the house. In the concierge’s box, instead of a man, a decently dressed woman who would have been at home anywhere. In Prague already, I had often taken casual notice of the Amazonian character of brothels. Here it was even more pronounced. The female concierge who rang her electric bell, detained us in her box when she was notified that two visitors were just coming down the stairs; the two respectable-looking women upstairs (why two?) who received us; the light switched on in the adjoining room in the darkness or semi-darkness of which were sitting the unengaged girls; the three-quarter circle (we made it a full circle) in which they stood around us, drawn up in postures calculated to reveal them to best advantage; the long stride with which the girl who had been chosen came forward; the grasp with which the madam urged me on, while I felt myself impelled towards the exit. I cannot imagine how I got to the street, it happened so quickly. It was difficult to see the girls clearly because there were too many of them, they blinked their eyes, but most of all because they crowded too closely around one. One would have had to keep one’s eyes wide open, and that takes practice. I really only remember the one who stood directly in front of me. She had gaps in her teeth, stretched herself to her full height, her clenched fist held her dress together over her pudenda, and she rapidly opened and shut her large eyes and large mouth. Her blonde hair was dishevelled. She was thin. Anxious lest I should forget and take off my hat. Lonely, long, absurd walk home.

The assembled visitors waiting for the Louvre to open. Girls sat among the tall columns, read their Baedekers, wrote postcards.

Even when you walked round the Venus de Milo as slowly as possible, there was a rapid and surprising alteration in its appearance. Unfortunately made a forced remark (about the waist and drapery), but several true ones too. I should need a plastic reproduction to remember them, especially one about the way the bended left knee affected her appearance from every side, though sometimes only very slightly. My forced remark: One would expect the body to grow slimmer above where the drapery leaves off, but at first it is even broader. The falling robe held up by the knee.

The front view of the Borghese Wrestler isn’t the best one, for it makes the spectator recoil and presents a disjointed appearance. Seen from the rear, however, where for the first time you see his foot touching the ground, your eye is drawn in delight along the rigid leg and flies safely over the irresistible back to the arm and sword raised towards the front.

The Métro seemed very empty to me then, especially in comparison with the time when, sick and alone, I had ridden out to the races. Even apart from the number of passengers, the fact that it was Sunday influenced the way the Métro looked. The dark colour of the steel sides of the carriages predominated. The conductors did their work – opening and closing carriage doors and swinging themselves in and out between times – in a Sunday-afternoon manner. Everyone walked the long distances between branch connexions in leisurely fashion. The unnatural indifference with which passengers submit to a ride in the Métro was more noticeable. People seemed to face the door, or get off at unfamiliar stations far from the Opéra, as the impulse moved them. In spite of the electric lights you can definitely see the changing light of day in the stations; you notice it immediately after you’ve walked down, the afternoon light particularly, just before it gets dark. Arrival at the empty terminal of Porte Dauphine, a lot of tubes became visible, view into the loop where the trains make the curve they are permitted after their long trip in a straight line. Going through railway tunnels is much worse; in the Métro there isn’t that feeling of oppression which a railway passenger has under the weight – though held in check – of mountains. Then, too, you aren’t far off somewhere, away from people; it is rather an urban contrivance, like water pipes, for example. Tiny offices, most of them deserted, with telephones and bell systems, control the traffic. Max liked to look into them. The first time in my life I rode the Métro, from Montmartre to the main boulevards, the noise was horrible. Otherwise it hasn’t been bad, even intensifies the calm, pleasant sense of speed. Métro system does away with speech; you don’t have to speak either when you pay or when you get in and out. Because it is so easy to understand, the Métro is a frail and hopeful stranger’s best chance to think that he has quickly and correctly, at the first attempt, penetrated the essence of Paris.

You recognize strangers by the fact that they no longer know their way the moment they reach the top step of the Métro stairs, unlike the Parisians, they don’t pass from the Métro without transition into the bustle of the street. In addition, it takes a long time, after coming up, for reality and the map to correspond; we should never have been able, on foot or by carriage, to have reached the spot we stood on without the help of a map.

It is always pleasant to remember walks in parks: one’s joy that the day was still so light, watching out that it didn’t get dark suddenly – this and fatigue governed one’s manner of walking and looking about. The motor-cars pursuing their rigid course along the wide, smooth streets. In the little garden restaurant, the red-uniformed band, unheard amidst the noise of the motor-cars, labouring at its instruments for the entertainment of those in its immediate vicinity only. Parisians never previously seen walking hand in hand. Men in shirt sleeves, with their families, in the semi-darkness under the trees amid the flower beds, notwithstanding the ‘keep off’ signs. There the absence of Jews was most noticeable. Looking back at the tiny train, which seemed to have rolled off a merry-go-round and puffed away. The path to the lake of the Bois de Boulogne. My most vivid recollection of the first sight of the lake is the bent back of a man stooping down to us under the canopy of our boat to give us tickets. Probably because of my anxiety about the tickets and my inability to make the man explain whether the boat went around the lake or across to the island, and whether it stopped off anywhere. And for this reason I was so taken by him that I often see him, with equal vividness, bent all by himself over the lake without there being any boat. A lot of people in summer clothes on the dock. Boats with unskilful rowers in them. The low bank of the lake, it had no railing. A slow trip, reminding me of walks I used to take alone every Sunday several years ago. Lifting our feet out of the water in the bottom of the boat. The other passengers’ astonishment, when they heard our Czech, at finding themselves in the same boat with foreigners such as we were. A lot of people on the slopes of the western bank, canes planted in the ground, outspread newspapers, a man and his daughters flat in the grass, some laughter, the low eastern bank; the paths bounded by a low fence of curving sticks linked together, to keep
the lap dogs off the lawns, something we did away with long ago back home; a stray dog was running across the meadow; rowers toiling solemnly at their oars, a girl in their heavy boat. I left Max over his grenadine, looking particularly lonely in the shadow at the edge of the half-empty garden café past which went a street that was intersected as if by chance by another street unknown to me. Motor-cars and carriages drove out from the shadowy crossing into even more desolate-looking regions. Saw a large iron fence that was probably a part of the food-tax bureau; it was open, however, and everyone could go through. Near by you saw the glaring light of Luna Park, which only added to the twilight confusion. So much light and so empty. I stumbled perhaps five times on the way to Luna Park and back to Max.

Monday, 11 September. Motor-cars are easier to steer on asphalt surfaces, but also harder to bring to a stop. Especially when the gentleman at the wheel, taking advantage of the wide streets, the beautiful day, his light motor-car and his skill as a driver to make a little business trip, at the same time weaves his car in and out at crossings in the manner of pedestrians on the pavements. This is why such a motor-car, on the point of turning off into a side-street and while yet on the large square, runs into a tricycle; it comes gracefully to a halt, however, does little damage to the tricycle, has only stepped on its toe, as it were; but whereas a pedestrian having his toe stepped on in such fashion only hurries on all the faster, the tricycle remains where it is with a bent front wheel.

The baker’s boy, who until this point had been riding along on his vehicle (the property of the N. Co.) without a thought, in that clumsy wobble peculiar to tricycles, climbs down, walks up to the motorist – who likewise climbs out – and upbraids him in a manner that is subdued by his respect for the owner of a motor-car and inflamed by his fear of his boss. It is first a question of explaining how the accident happened. The motor-car owner with raised palms simulates the approaching motor-car; he sees the tricycle cutting across his path, detaches his right hand, and gesticulates back and forth in warning to it, a worried expression on his face – what motor-car could apply its brakes in time in so short a distance? Will the tricycle understand this and give the motor-car the right of way? No, it is too late; his left
hand ceases its warning motions, both hands join together for the collision, his knees bend to watch the last moment. It has happened, and the bent, motionless tricycle standing there can now assist in the description.

The baker’s boy is hardly a match for the motorist. First of all, the motorist is a brisk, educated man; secondly, until now he has been sitting in the motor-car at his ease, can go right back in and sit at his ease again; and thirdly, he really had had a better view from the height of the motor-car of what had happened. Some people have collected together in the meantime who don’t stand in a circle round him but rather before him, as only befits the motorist’s performance. The traffic meanwhile must manage without the space these people occupy, who in addition move back and forth with every new idea occurring to the motorist. Thus, for example, at one point they all march over to the tricycle to have a closer look at the damage that is so much under discussion. The motorist doesn’t think it very serious (a number of people, all engaged in fairly loud discussion, agree with him), though he is not satisfied with just a glance but walks around it, peers into it from above and through it from below. One person, wanting to shout, sides with the tricycle, for the motorist is in no need of anyone’s shouts; but is answered very well and loudly by an unknown man who has just come up, and who, if one were to believe him, had been with the motorist in the car. Every once in a while several spectators laugh aloud together but then grow quiet at the thought of some new, weighty point.

Now there is really no great difference of opinion between the motorist and the baker’s boy; the motorist sees around him a small, friendly crowd of people whom he has convinced, the baker’s boy gradually stops monotonously stretching out his arms and uttering his protests, the motorist does not as a matter of fact deny that he has caused a little damage and by no means puts all the blame on the baker’s boy, both are to blame, therefore none, such things just happen, etc. In short, the affair would finally have become embarrassing, the votes of the spectators, already conferring together over the costs of the repairs, would have had to be called for, if they hadn’t remembered that they could call a policeman. The baker’s boy, whose position in respect to the motorist is more and more a subordinate one, is simply sent off by him to fetch a policeman, his tricycle being entrusted to the
motorist’s protection. Without any dishonourable intention, for he has no need to build a faction for himself, the motorist goes on with his story even in his adversary’s absence. Because you can tell a story better while you smoke, he rolls a cigarette for himself. He has a supply of tobacco in his pocket.

Uninformed newcomers, even if only errand boys, are systematically conducted first to the motor-car, then to the tricycle, and only then instructed in all the details. If the motorist catches an objection from someone standing far back in the crowd, he answers him on tiptoe so as to look him in the face. It proves too much trouble to conduct the people back and forth between the motor-car and the tricycle, so the motor-car is driven nearer to the pavement of the side-street. An undamaged tricycle stops and the rider has a look at things. As if to teach one a lesson in the difficulties of driving a motor-car, a large bus has come to a halt in the middle of the square. The motor is being worked on at the front. The passengers, alighting from the bus, are the first to bend down around it, with a real feeling of their more intimate relationship to it. Meanwhile the motorist has brought a little order into things and pushed the tricycle, too, closer to the pavement. The affair is losing its public interest. Newcomers now have to guess at what has happened. The motorist has withdrawn completely with several of the original onlookers, who are important witnesses, and is talking quietly to them.

But where in the meantime has the poor boy been wandering about? At last he is seen in the distance, starting to cut across the square with the policeman. No one had displayed any impatience, but interest is at once revived. Many new onlookers appear who will enjoy at no expense the extreme pleasure of seeing statements taken. The motorist leaves his group and walks over to the policeman, who has at once accepted the situation with a degree of calm that the parties involved were able to attain only after a half-hour’s lapse. He begins taking statements without any lengthy preliminary investigation. With the speed of a carpenter, the policeman pulls an ancient, dirty, but blank sheet of paper out of his notebook, notes down the name of the baking company, and to make certain of the latter walks around the tricycle as he writes. The unconscious, unreasonable hope of those present that the policeman will bring the whole matter to an immediate and objective conclusion is transformed into an enjoyment of the details of the statement-taking.
The taking of the statements occasionally flags. Something has gone wrong with the policeman’s notes, and for a while, in his effort to set it right, he hears and sees nothing further. He had, that is, begun to write on the sheet of paper at a point where for some reason or other he should not have begun. But now it is done in any case and his astonishment finds perpetual renewal. He has to keep turning the paper around over and over again to persuade himself of his having incorrectly begun the statements. He had, however, soon left off this incorrect beginning and begun to write in some other place, and so when he has finished a column he cannot tell – without much unfolding and careful scrutiny of the paper – where is the right place for him to go on. The calm the whole affair acquires in this way is not to be compared with that earlier calm which it had achieved solely through the parties involved.