The Diaries of Franz Kafka

by Franz Kafka

  30 June. Hellerau to Leipzig with Pick. I behaved terribly. Couldn’t ask a question, answer one, or move; was barely able to look him in the eye. The Navy League agitator, the fat, sausage-eating Thomas couple in whose house we lived, Prescher, who took us there; Mrs Thomas, Hegner, Fantl and Mrs Adler, the woman and the child, Anneliese, Mrs K., Miss P., Mrs Fantl’s sister, K., Mendelssohn (the brother’s child; Alpinum, cockchafer larvae, pineneedle bath); tavern in the forest called Natura, Wolff, Haas; reading Narciss aloud in the Adler garden, sightseeing in the Dalcroze house, evening in the tavern in the forest, Bugra – terror after terror.

  Failures: didn’t find the Natura, ran up and down Struvestrasse; wrong tram to Hellerau; no room in the tavern in the forest; forgot that I was supposed to get a telephone call from E.74 there, hence went back; Fantl had left; Dalcroze in Geneva; next morning got to the tavern in the forest too late (F. had telephoned for nothing); decided to go not to Berlin but Leipzig; pointless trip; by mistake, a local train; Wolff was just going to Berlin; Lasker-Schüler appropriated Werfel; pointless visit to the exhibition; finally, to cap it all, quite pointlessly dunned Pick for an old debt in the Arco.

  1 July. Too tired.

  5 July. To have to bear and to be the cause of such suffering!

  23 July. The tribunal in the hotel. Trip in the cab. F.’s face. She patted her hair with her hand, wiped her nose, yawned. Suddenly she gathered herself together and said very studied, hostile things she had long been saving up. The trip back with Miss Bl.75 The room in the hotel; heat reflected from the wall across the street. Afternoon sun, in addition. Energetic waiter, almost an Eastern Jew in his manner. The courtyard noisy as a boiler factory. Bad smells. Bedbug. Crushing is a difficult decision. Chambermaid astonished: There are no bedbugs anywhere; once only did a guest find one in the corridor.

  At her parents’. Her mother’s occasional tears. I recited my lesson. Her father understood the thing from every side. Made a special trip from Malmö to meet me, travelled all night; sat there in his shirt sleeves. They agreed that I was right, there was nothing, or not much, that could be said against me. Devilish in my innocence. Miss Bl.’s apparent guilt.

  Evening alone on a bench on Unter den Linden. Stomach-ache. Sad-looking ticket-seller. Stood in front of people, shuffled the tickets in his hands, and you could only get rid of him by buying one. Did his job properly in spite of all his apparent clumsiness – on a full-time job of this kind you can’t keep jumping around; he must also try to remember people’s faces. When I see people of this kind I always think: How did he get into this job, how much does he make, where will he be tomorrow, what awaits him in his old age, where does he live, in what corner does he stretch out his arms before going to sleep, could I do his job, how should I feel about it? All this together with my stomach-ache. Suffered through a horrible night. And yet almost no recollection of it.

  In the Restaurant Belvedere on the Strahlau Brücke with E. She still hopes it will end well, or acts as if she does. Drank wine. Tears in her eyes. Ships leave for Grünau, for Schwertau. A lot of people. Music. E. consoled me, though I wasn’t sad; that is, my sadness has to do only with myself, but as such it is inconsolable. Gave me The Gothic Rooms. Talked a lot (I knew nothing). Especially about how she got her way in her job against a venomous white-haired old woman who worked in the same place. She would like to leave Berlin, to have her own business. She loves quiet. When she was in Sebnitz she often slept all day on Sunday. Can be gay too.

  Why did her parents and aunt wave after me? Why did F. sit in the hotel and not stir in spite of the fact that everything was already settled? Why did she telegraph me: ‘Expecting you, but must leave on business Tuesday?’ Was I expected to do something? Nothing could have been more natural. From nothing (interrupted by Dr Weiss, who walks over to the window) –

  27 July. The next day didn’t visit her parents again. Merely sent a messenger with a letter of farewell. Letter dishonest and coquettish. ‘Don’t think badly of me.’ Speech from the gallows.

  Went twice to the swimming-pool on the Strahlauer Ufer. Lots of Jews. Bluish faces, strong bodies, wild running. Evening in the garden of the Askanischer Hof. Ate rice à la Trautmannsdorf and a peach. A man drinking wine watched my attempts to cut the unripe little peach with my knife. I couldn’t. Stricken with shame under the old man’s eyes, I let the peach go completely and ten times leafed through Die Fliegenden Blätter. I waited to see if he wouldn’t at last turn away. Finally I collected all my strength and in defiance of him bit into the completely juiceless and expensive peach. A tall man in the booth near me occupied with nothing but the roast he was painstakingly selecting and the wine in the ice bucket. Finally he lit a long cigar; I watched him over my Fliegende Blätter.

  Left from the Lehrter railway station.76 Swede in shirt sleeves. Strong-looking girl with all the silver bracelets. Changing trains in Buchen during the night. Lübeck. Hotel Schützenhaus dreadful. Cluttered walls, dirty clothes under the sheet, neglected building; a bus boy was the only servant. Afraid of the room, I went into the garden and sat down over a bottle of mineral water. Opposite me a hunchback drinking beer and a thin, anaemic young man who was smoking. Slept nevertheless, but was awakened early in the morning by the sun shining through the large window straight into my face. The window looked out on the railway tracks; incessant noise of the trains. Relief and happiness after moving to the Hotel Kaiserhof on the Trave.

  Trip to Travemünde. Mixed bathing. View of the beach. Afternoon on the sand. My bare feet struck people as indecent. Near me a man who was apparently an American. Instead of eating lunch walked past all the pensions and restaurants. Sat among the trees in front of the Kurhaus and listened to the dinner music.

  In Lübeck a walk on the Wall. Sad, forlorn-looking man on a bench. Bustle on the Sportplatz. Quiet square, people on stairs and stones in front of every door. Morning from the window. Unloading timber from a sailing-boat. Dr Weiss at the railway station. Unfailing resemblance to Löwy. Unable to make up my mind on Gleschendorf. Meal in the Hansa dairy. ‘The Blushing Virgin’. Shopping for dinner. Telephone conversation with Gleschendorf. Trip to Marienlyst. Ferry. Mysterious disappearance of a young man wearing a raincoat and hat and his mysterious reappearance in the carriage on the trip from Vaggerloese to Marienlyst.

  28 July. Despairing first impression of the barrenness, the miserable house, the bad food with neither fruit nor vegetables, the quarrels between W. and H. Decided to leave the next day. Gave notice. Stayed nevertheless. A reading from Überfall, I was unable to listen, to enjoy it with them, to judge. W.’s improvised speeches. Beyond me. The man writing in the middle of the garden; fat face, black eyes, pomaded long hair brushed straight back. Rigid stare, looked right and left out of the corners of his eyes. The children, uninterested, sat around his table like flies – I am more and more unable to think, to observe, to determine the truth of things, to remember, to speak, to share an experience; I am turning to stone, this is the truth. I am more and more unable even in the office. If I can’t take refuge in some work, I am lost. Is my knowledge of this as clear as the thing itself? I shun people not because I want to live quietly, but rather because I want to die quietly. I think of the walk we, E. and I, took from the tram to the Lehrter railway station. Neither of us spoke, I thought nothing but that each step taken was that much of a gain for me. And E. is nice to me, believes in me for some incomprehensible reason, in spite of having seen me before the tribunal; now and then I even feel the effect of this faith in me, without, however, fully believing in the feeling.

  The first time in many months that I felt any life stir in me in the presence of other people was in the compartment on the return trip from Berlin, opposite the Swiss woman. She reminded me of G.W. Once she even exclaimed: Children! She had headaches, her blood gave her so much trouble. Ugly, neglected little body; bad, cheap dress from a Paris department store. Freckles on her face. But small feet; a body completely under control because of its diminutive si
ze, and despite its clumsiness, round, firm cheeks, sparkling, inextinguishable eyes.

  The Jewish couple who lived next to me. Young people, shy and unassuming; her large hooked nose and slender body; he had a slight squint, was pale, short, and stout; at night he coughed a little. They often walked one behind the other. Sight of the tumbled bed in their room.

  Danish couple. The man often very proper in a dinner jacket, the woman tanned, a weak yet coarse-featured face. Were silent a good deal; sometimes sat side by side, their heads inclined towards one another as on a cameo.

  The impudent, good-looking youngster. Always smoking cigarettes. Looked at H. impudently, challengingly, admiringly, scornfully, and contemptuously, all in one glance. Sometimes he paid her no attention at all. Silently demanded a cigarette from her. Soon thereafter, from the distance, offered her one. Wore torn trousers. If anyone is going to spank him, it will have to be done this summer; by next summer he will be doing the spanking. Strokes the arms of almost all the chambermaids; not humbly, however, not with embarrassment but rather like some lieutenant whose still childish face permitted him liberties that would later be denied him. How he makes as if to chop off the head of a doll with his knife at the dinner table.

  Lancers. Four couples. By lamplight and to gramophone music in the main hall. After each figure a dancer hurried to the gramophone and put on a new record. A decorous, graceful, and earnestly executed dance, especially on the part of the men. Cheerful, red-cheeked fellow, a man of the world, whose inflated stiff shirt made his broad, high chest seem even higher; the pale nonchalant fellow with a superior air, joking with everyone; beginning of a paunch; loud, ill-fitting clothes; many languages; read Die Zukunft; the gigantic father of the goitrous, wheezing family; you were able to recognize them by their laboured breathing and infantile bellies; he and his wife (with whom he danced very gallantly) demonstratively sat at the children’s table, where indeed his offspring were most heavily represented.

  The proper, neat, trustworthy gentleman with a face looking almost sulky in its utter solemnity; modesty and manliness. Played the piano. The gigantic German with duelling scars on his square face whose puffed lips came together so placidly when he spoke. His wife, a hard and friendly Nordic face, accentuated, beautiful walk, accentuated freedom of her swaying hips. Woman from Lübeck with shining eyes. Three children, including Georg who, thoughtless as a butterfly, alighted beside complete strangers. Then in childish talkativeness asked some meaningless question. For example, we were sitting and correcting the ‘Kampf’.77 Suddenly he appeared and in a matter-of-fact, trustful, and loud voice asked where the other children had run off to.

  The stiff old gentleman who was a demonstration of what the noble Nordic wise-heads look like in old age. Decayed and unrecognizable; yet beautiful young wise-heads were also running around there.

  29 July. The two friends, one of them blond, resembling Richard Strauss, smiling, reserved, clever; the other dark, correctly dressed, mild-mannered yet firm, too dainty, lisped; both of them gourmets, kept drinking wine, coffee, beer, brandy, smoked incessantly, one poured for the other; their room across from mine full of French books; wrote a great deal in the stuffy writing-room when the weather was mild.

  Joseph K., the son of a rich merchant, one evening after a violent quarrel with his father-his father had reproached him for his dissipated life and demanded that he put an immediate stop to it – went, with no definite purpose but only because he was tired and completely at a loss, to the house of the corporation of merchants which stood all by itself near the harbour. The doorkeeper made a deep bow, Joseph looked casually at him without a word of greeting. ‘These silent underlings do everything one supposes them to be doing,’ he thought. ‘If I imagine that he is looking at me insolently, then he really is.’ And he once more turned to the doorkeeper, again without a word of greeting; the latter turned towards the street and looked up at the overcast sky.

  I was in great perplexity. Only a moment ago I had known what to do. With his arm held out before him the boss had pushed me to the door of the store. Behind the two counters stood my fellow clerks, supposedly my friends, their grey faces lowered in the darkness to conceal their expressions.

  ‘ Get out!’ the boss shouted.’ Thief! Get out! Get out, I say!’

  ‘It’s not true,’ I shouted for the hundredth time; ‘I didn’t steal! It’s a mistake or a slander! Don’t you touch me! I’ll sue you! There are still courts here! I won’t go! For five years I slaved for you like a son and now you treat me like a thief. I didn’t steal; for God’s sake, listen to me, I didn’t steal.’

  ‘Not another word,’ said the boss, ‘you’re fired!’

  We were already at the glass door, an apprentice darted out in front of us and quickly opened it; the din coming in from what was indeed an out-of-the-way street brought me back to reality; I halted in the doorway, arms akimbo, and, as calmly as I could despite my breathlessness, merely said, ‘I want my hat.’

  ‘You’ll get it,’ the boss said, walked back a few steps, took the hat from Grassmann, one of the clerks, who had jumped over the counter, tried to throw it to me but missed his aim, and anyway threw it too hard, so that the hat flew past me into the street.

  ‘You can keep the hat now,’ I said, and went out into the street. And now I was in a quandary. I had stolen, had slipped a five-gulden bill out of the till to take Sophie to the theatre that evening. But she didn’t even want to go to the theatre; payday was three days off, at that time I should have had my own money; besides, I had committed the theft stupidly, in broad daylight, near the glass window of the office in which the boss sat looking at me. ‘Thief!’ he shouted, and sprang out of the office. ‘I didn’t steal,’ was the first thing I said, but the five-gulden bill was in my hand and the till open.

  Made jottings on the trip in another notebook. Began things that went wrong. But I will not give up in spite of insomnia, headaches, a general incapacity. I’ve summoned up my last resources to this end. I made the remark that ‘I don’t avoid people in order to live quietly, but rather in order to be able to die quietly’. But now I will defend myself. For a month, during the absence of my boss, I’ll have the time.

  30 July. Tired of working in other people’s stores, I had opened up a little stationery store of my own. Since my means were limited and I had to pay cash for almost everything –

  I sought advice, I wasn’t stubborn. It was not stubbornness when I silently laughed with contorted face and feverishly shining cheeks at someone who had unwittingly proffered me advice. It was suspense, a readiness on my part to be instructed, an unhealthy lack of stubbornness.

  The director of the Progress Insurance Company was always greatly dissatisfied with his employees. Now every director is dissatisfied with his employees; the difference between employees and directors is too vast to be bridged by means of mere commands on the part of the director and mere obedience on the part of the employees. Only mutual hatred can bridge the gap and give the whole enterprise its perfection.

  Bauz, the director of the Progress Insurance Company, looked doubtfully at the man standing in front of his desk applying for a job as attendant with the company. Now and then he also glanced at the man’s papers lying before him on the desk.

  ‘You’re tall enough,’ he said, ‘I can see that; but what can you do? Our attendants must be able to do more than lick stamps; in fact, that’s the one thing they don’t have to be able to do, because we have machines to do that kind of thing. Our attendants are part officials, they have responsible work to do; do you feel you are qualified for that? Your head is shaped peculiarly. Your forehead recedes so. Remarkable. Now, what was your last position? What? You haven’t worked for a year? Why was that? You had pneumonia? Really? Well, that isn’t much of a recommendation, is it? Naturally, we can employ only people who are in good health. Before you are taken on you will have to be examined by the doctor. You are quite well now? Really? Of course, that could be. Speak up a little! Your whis
pering makes me nervous. I see here that you’re also married, have four children. And you haven’t worked for a year! Really, man! Your wife takes in washing? I see. Well, all right. As long as you’re already here, get the doctor to examine you now; the attendant will show you the way. But that doesn’t mean that you will be hired, even if the doctor’s opinion is favourable. By no means. In any event, you’ll receive our decision in writing. To be frank, I may as well tell you at once: I’m not at all impressed with you. We need an entirely different kind of attendant. But have yourself examined in any case. And now go, go. Trembling like that won’t do you any good. I have no authority to hand out favours. You’re willing to do any kind of work? Certainly. Everyone is. That’s no special distinction. It merely indicates the low opinion you have of yourself. And now I’m telling you for the last time: Go along and don’t take up any more of my time. This is really enough.’

  Bauz had to strike the desk with his hand before the man let himself be led out of the director’s office by the attendant.

  I mounted my horse and settled myself firmly in the saddle. The maid came running to me from the gate and announced that my wife still wanted to speak to me on an urgent matter; would I wait just a moment, she hadn’t quite finished dressing yet. I nodded and sat quietly on my horse, who now and then gently raised his forelegs and reared a little. We lived on the outskirts of the village; before me, in the sun, the highway mounted a slope whose opposite side a small wagon had just ascended, which now came driving down into the village at a rapid pace. The driver brandished his whip, a woman in a provincial yellow dress sat in the dark and dusty interior of the wagon.

  I was not at all surprised that the wagon stopped in front of my house.