by Franz Kafka
One famous Yeshivah is in Ostro, a small place eight hours by train from Warsaw. All Ostro is really only a bracket around a short stretch of the highway. Löwy insists it’s no longer than his stick. Once, when a count stopped in Ostro with his four-horse travelling carriage, the two lead horses stood outside one end of the place and the rear of the carriage outside the other.
Löwy decided, about the age of fourteen when the constraint of life at home became unbearable for him, to go to Ostro. His father had just slapped him on the shoulder as he was leaving the klaus towards evening and had casually told him to see him later, he had something to discuss with him. Because he could obviously expect nothing but the usual reproaches, Löwy went directly from the klaus to the railway station, with no baggage, wearing a somewhat better caftan than usual because it was Saturday evening, and carrying all his money, which he always had with him. He took the ten o’clock train to Ostro where he arrived at seven the next morning. He went straight to the Yeshivah where he made no special stir, anyone can enter a Yeshivah, there are no special entrance requirements. The only striking thing was his entering at this time – it was summer – which was not customary, and the good caftan he was wearing. But all this was soon settled too, because very young people such as these were, bound to each other by their Jewishness in a degree unknown to us, get to know each other easily. He distinguished himself in his studies, for he had acquired a good deal of knowledge at home. He liked talking to the strange boys, especially as, when they found out about his money, they all crowded around him offering to sell him things. One, who wanted to sell him ‘days’, astonished him especially. Free board was called ‘days’. They were a saleable commodity because the members of the community, who wanted to perform a deed pleasing to God by providing free board for no matter what student, did not care who sat at their tables. If a student was unusually clever, it was possible for him to provide himself with two sets of free meals for one day. He could bear up under these double meals so much the better because they were not very ample, after the first meal, one could still swallow down the second with great pleasure, and because it might also happen that one day was doubly provided for while other days were empty. Nevertheless, everyone was happy, naturally, if he found an opportunity to sell such an additional set of free meals advantageously. Now if someone arrived in summer, as Löwy did, at a time when the free board had long since been distributed, the only possible way to get any was to buy it, as the additional sets of free meals which had been available at first had all been reserved by speculators.
The night in the Yeshivah was unbearable. Of course, all the windows were open since it was warm, but the stench and the heat would not stir out of the rooms, the students, who had no real beds, lay down to sleep without undressing, in their sweaty clothes, wherever they happened to be sitting last. Everything was full of fleas. In the morning everyone hurriedly wet his hands and face with water and resumed his studies. Most of the time they studied together, usually two from one book. Debates would often draw a number into a circle. The Rosh Yeshivah explained only the most difficult passages here and there. Although Löwy later – he stayed in Ostro ten days, but slept and ate at the inn – found two like-minded friends (they didn’t find one another so easily, because they always first had carefully to test the opinions and reliability of the other person), he nevertheless was very glad to return home because he was accustomed to an orderly life and couldn’t stand the homesickness.
In the large room there was the clamour of card playing and later the usual conversation which Father carries on when he is well, as he is today, loudly if not coherently. The words represented only small shapes in a formless clamour. Little Felix slept in the girls’ room, the door of which was wide open. I slept across the way, in my own room. The door of this room, in consideration of my age, was closed. Besides, the open door indicated that they still wanted to lure Felix into the family while I was already excluded.
Yesterday at Baum’s. Strobl was supposed to be there, but was at the theatre. Baum read a column, ‘On the Folksong’; bad. Then a chapter from Des Schicksals Spiele und Ernst; very good. I was indifferent, in a bad mood, got no clear impression of the whole. On the way home in the rain Max told me the present plan of ‘Irma Polak’. I could not admit my mood, as Max never gives it proper recognition. I therefore had to be insincere, which finally spoiled everything for me. I was so sorry for myself that I preferred to speak to Max when his face was in the dark, although mine, in the light, could then betray itself more easily. But then the mysterious end of the novel gripped me in spite of all the obstacles. On the way home, after saying good night, regret because of my falsity and pain because of its inevitability. Plan to start a special notebook on my relationship with Max. What is not written down swims before one’s eyes and optical accidents determine the total impression.
When I lay on the sofa the loud talking in the room on either side of me, by the women on the left, by the men on the right, gave me the impression that they were coarse, savage beings who could not be appeased, who did not know what they were saying and spoke only in order to set the air in motion, who lifted their faces while speaking and followed the spoken words with their eyes.
So passes my rainy, quiet Sunday, I sit in my bedroom and am at peace, but instead of making up my mind to do some writing, into which I could have poured my whole being the day before yesterday, I have been staring at my fingers for quite a while. This week I think I have been completely influenced by Goethe, have really exhausted the strength of this influence and have therefore become useless.
From a poem by Rosenfeld describing a storm at sea: ‘The souls flutter, the bodies tremble.’ When he recites, Löwy clenches the skin on his forehead and the bridge of his nose the way one would think only hands could be clenched. At the most gripping passages, which he wants to bring home to the listener, he himself comes close to us, or rather he enlarges himself by making his appearance more distinct. He steps forward only a little, opens his eyes wide, plucks at his straight black coat with his absent-minded left hand and holds the right out to us, open and large. And we are supposed, even if we are not gripped, to acknowledge that he is gripped and to explain to him how the misfortune which has been described was possible.
I am supposed to pose in the nude for the artist Ascher, as a model for a St Sebastian.
If I should now, in the evening, return to my relatives, I shall, since I have written nothing that I could enjoy, not appear stranger, more despicable, more useless to them than I do to myself. All this, naturally, only in my feelings (which cannot be deceived even by the most precise observation), for actually they all respect me and love me, too.
24 January. Wednesday. For the following reasons have not written for so long: I was angry with my boss and cleared it up only by means of a good letter; was in the factory several times; read, and indeed greedily, Pines’s L’Histoire da la littérature Judéo-Allemande, 500 pages, with such thoroughness, haste, and joy as I have never yet shown in the case of similar books; now I am reading Fromer, Organismus des Judentums; finally I spent a lot of time with the Jewish actors, wrote letters for them, prevailed on the Zionist society to inquire of the Zionist societies of Bohemia whether they would like to have guest appearances of the troupe; I wrote the circular that was required and had it reproduced; saw Sulamith once more and Richter’s Herzele Mejiches for the first time, was at the folksong evening of the Bar Kokhba Society, and day before yesterday saw Graf von Gleichen by Schmidtbonn.
Folksong evening: Dr Nathan Birnbaum is the lecturer. Jewish habit of inserting ‘my dear ladies and gentlemen’ or just ‘my dear’ at every pause in the talk. Was repeated at the beginning of Birnbaum’s talk to the point of being ridiculous. But from what I know of Löwy I think that these recurrent expressions, which are frequently found in ordinary Yiddish conversations too, such as ‘Weh ist mir!’ or ‘S’ist nischt, or ‘S’ist viel zu reden’, are not intended to cover up embarrassment but are
rather intended, like ever-fresh springs, to stir up the sluggish stream of speech that is never fluent enough for the Jewish temperament.
26 January. The back of Mr Weltsch and the silence of the entire hall while listening to the bad poems. Birnbaum: his hair, worn somewhat longish, is cut off abruptly at his neck, which is very erect either in itself or because of its sudden nudity. Large, crooked nose, not too narrow and yet with broad sides, which looks handsome chiefly because it is in proper proportion to his large beard – Gollanin, the singer. Peaceful, sweetish, beatific patronizing face turned to the side and down, prolonged smile somewhat sharpened by his wrinkled nose, which may be only part of his breathing technique.
Pines: Histoire de la littérature Judéo-Allemande. Paris 1911.
Soldiers’ song: They cut off our beards and earlocks. And they forbid us to keep the Sabbath and holy days.
Or: At the age of five I entered the ‘Heder’ and now I must ride a horse.
Wos mir seinen, seinen mir
Ober jüden seinen mir.
[What we are, we are,
But Jews we are.]
Haskalah movement introduced by Mendelssohn at the beginning of the nineteenth century, adherents are called Maskilim, are opposed to the popular Yiddish, tend towards Hebrew and the European sciences. Before the pogroms of 1881 it was not nationalist, later strongly Zionist. Principle formulated by Gordon: ‘Be a man on the street and a Jew at home.’ To spread its ideas the Haskalah must use Yiddish and, much as it hates the latter, lays the foundation of its literature.
Other aims are ‘la lutte contre le chassidisme, l’exaltation de l’instruction et des travaux manuels
Badchan, the sad folk and wedding minstrel (Eliakum Zunser), talmudic trend of thought.
Le Roman populaire: Eisik Meir Dick (1808–94) instructive, haskalic. Schomer, still worse, title, for example, Der podriatechik (l’entrepreneur), ein höchst interessanter Roman. Ein richtiger fach fun leben, or Die eiserne Frau oder das verkaufte Kind. Ein wunderschöner Roman. Further, in America serial novels, Zwischen Menschenfressern, twenty-six volumes.
S. J. Abramowitsch (Mendele Mocher Sforim), lyric, subdued gaiety, confused arrangement. Fishke der Krummer, Jewish habit of biting the lips.
End of Haskalah 1881. New nationalism and democracy. Flourishing of Yiddish literature.
S. Frag, lyric writer, life in the country by all means. Délicieux est le sommeil du seigneur dans sa chambre. Sur des oreillers doux, blancs comme la neige. Mais plus délicieux encore est le repos dans le champ sur du foin frais à l’hewre du soir, après le travail.
Talmud: He who interrupts his study to say, ‘How beautiful is this tree,’ deserves death.
Lamentations at the west wall of the Temple Poem: ‘La Fille du Shammes’. The beloved rabbi is on his deathbed. The burial of a shroud the size of the rabbi and other mystical measures are of no avail. Therefore at night the elders of the congregation go from house to house with a list and collect from the members of the congregation renunciations of days or weeks of their lives in favour of the rabbi. Deborah, la Fille du Shammes, gives ‘the rest of her life’. She dies, the rabbi recovers. At night, when he is studying alone in the synagogue, he hears the voice of Deborah’s whole aborted life. The singing at her wedding, her screams in childbed, her lullabies, the voice of her son studying the Torah, the music at her daughter’s wedding. While the songs of lamentation sound over her corpse the rabbi, too, dies.
Peretz: bad Heine lyrics and social poems. Né 1851. Rosenfeld: The poor Yiddish public took up a collection to assure him of a livelihood.
S. Rabinowitz (Sholom Aleichem), né 1859. Custom of great jubilee celebrations in Yiddish literature. Kasrilevke, Menachem Mendel, who emigrated and took his entire fortune with him; although previously he had only studied Talmud, he begins to speculate in the stock market in the big city, comes to a new decision every day and always reports it to his wife with great self-satisfaction; until finally he must beg for travelling expenses.
Peretz: The figure of the batlan frequent in the ghettos, lazy and grown clever through idling, lives in the circle of the pious and learned. Many marks of misfortune on them, as they are young people who, although they enjoy idleness, also waste away in it, live in dreams, under the domination of the unrestrained force of unappeased desires.
Mitat neshika, death by a kiss: reserved only for the most pious.
Baal Shem: Before he became a rabbi in Miedzyboz he lived in the Carpathians as a vegetable gardener, later he was his brother-in-law’s coachman. His visions came to him on lonely walks. Zohar, ‘Bible of the Kabbalists.’
Jewish theatre. Frankfort Purim play, 1708. Ein schon neu Achash-veroshspiel, Abraham and Goldfaden, 1876–7 Russo-Turkish War, Russian and Galician army contractors had gathered in Bucharest, Goldfaden had also come there in search of a living, heard the crowds in the stores singing Yiddish songs and was encouraged to found a theatre. He was not yet able to put women on the stage. Yiddish performances were forbidden in Russia 1883. They began in London and New York 1884.
J. Gordin 1897 in a jubilee publication of the Jewish theatre in New York: ‘The Yiddish theatre has an audience of hundreds of thousands, but it cannot expect to see a writer of great talent emerge as long as the majority of its authors are people like me who have become dramatic authors only by chance, who write plays only by force of circumstance, and remain isolated and see about them only ignorance, envy, enmity, and spite.’
31 January. Wrote nothing. Weltsch brings me books about Goethe that provoke in me a distracted excitement that can be put to no use. Plan for an essay, ‘Goethe’s Frightening Nature’, fear of the two hours’ walk which I have now begun to take in the evening.
4 February. Three days ago Wedekind: Erdgeist. Wedekind and his wife, Tilly, act in it. Clear, precise voice of the woman. Narrow, crescent-shaped face. The lower part of the leg branching off to the left when she stood quietly. The play clear even in retrospect, so that one goes home peaceful and aware of oneself. Contradictory impression of what is thoroughly well established and yet remains strange.
On my way to the theatre I felt well. I savoured my innermost being as though it were honey. Drank it in an uninterrupted draught. In the theatre this passed away at once. Orpheus in the Underworld with Pallenberg. The performance was so bad, applause and laughter around me in the standing-room so great, that I could think of no way out but to run away after the second act and so silence it all.
Day before yesterday wrote a good letter to Trautenau about a guest appearance for Löwy. Each fresh reading of the letter calmed and strengthened me, there was in it so much unspoken indication of everything good in me.
The zeal, permeating every part of me, with which I read about Goethe (Goethe’s conversations, student days, hours with Goethe, a visit of Goethe’s to Frankfort) and which keeps me from all writing.
S., merchant, thirty-five years old, member of no religious community, educated in philosophy, interested in literature for the most part only to the extent that it pertains to his writing. Round head, black eyes, small, energetic moustache, firm flesh on his cheeks, thickset body. For years has been studying from nine to one o’clock at night. Born in Stanislau, knows Hebrew and Yiddish. Married to a woman who gives the impression of being limited only because of the quite round shape of her face.
For two days coolness towards Löwy. He asks me about it. I deny it.
Quiet, restrained conversation with Miss T. in the balcony between the acts of Erdgeist. In order to achieve a good conversation one must, as it were, push one’s hand more deeply, more lightly, more drowsily under the subject to be dealt with, then it can be lifted up astonishingly. Otherwise one breaks one’s fingers and thinks of nothing but one’s pains.
Story: The evening walks, discovery of quick walking. Introduction, a beautiful, dark room.
Miss T. told me about a scene in her new story where a girl with a bad reputation enters the sewing school. The impression on the other
girls. I say that they, who feel clearly in themselves the capacity and desire to earn a bad reputation and who at the same time are able to see for themselves at first hand the kind of misfortune into which one hurls oneself by it, will pity her.
A week ago a lecture in the banquet room of the Jewish Town Hall by Dr Theilhaber on the decline of the German Jews. It is unavoidable, for (1) if the Jews collect in the cities, the Jewish communities in the country disappear. The pursuit of profit devours them. Marriages are made only with regard to the bride’s settlement. Two-child system. (2) Mixed marriages. (3) Conversion.