Letters to Milena

by Franz Kafka

  She also mentioned—with this peculiar quiet weak voice—she had received a letter from you. Might this letter have been the reason for her coming? Or is it her nature to constantly float through the world, touching down like that here and there? Or is this only in pursuit of you?

  Please write about this, you often forget to answer questions these days. Although it’s true you said yesterday: ‘I have an unbearable headache.’187 I was happy to see good weather this morning and could see you in the lake already; now in the afternoon it’s gloomy once again.

  [Prague, September 2, 1920]

  Thursday

  Your letters from Sunday, Monday, and one postcard have arrived. Judge correctly, please, Milena. I’m sitting here so isolated, so far away and nonetheless in relative peace; many things pass through my mind—fear, unease—and so I write them down, even if they don’t make much sense, and when I’m speaking to you I forget everything, even you; only when two such letters arrive do I regain my awareness of the whole.

  I’ll telephone Vlasta tomorrow; I’ll go to an automatic phone booth, it won’t work from here. No answer at all from your father?

  I don’t entirely understand one of your apprehensions concerning the winter. If your husband is so ill, with 2 separate diseases, and if it’s serious then he can’t go to the office, nor of course, as a permanent employee, can he be dismissed. He’ll also have to arrange his life differently because of his diseases; this will simplify everything and at least make things easier on the surface, as sad as it all is otherwise.

  But treating the problem of guilt seriously is one of the most senseless things on this planet, at least so it seems to me. I don’t consider the reproaches senseless; obviously when one is in distress one makes reproaches all around (although not in the utmost distress, when no reproaches are made). I can also understand that such reproaches are taken to heart in a time of agitation and turmoil, but the idea that one can discuss this like any ordinary problem of mathematics and produce results so clear they may be used to define daily conduct—that I do not understand at all. Of course it’s your fault, but then it’s also your husband’s fault and then yours again and then his again—just as it has to be whenever two people are living together, and the blame accumulates in endless succession until it reaches the gray original sin; but how does rummaging around in original sin help me get through the day, or you with your visit to the doctor in Ischl?

  And outside it’s raining and raining and doesn’t want to stop at all. I don’t mind in the least; I’m sitting inside, dry, and am only ashamed at eating my bountiful second breakfast in front of the painter, who is standing on the scaffolding outside my windows and who has spattered the windows unnecessarily because he is enraged at the rain which has let up a little and at the amount of butter I am spreading on my bread. However, this too is only my imagination, since he’s probably 100 times less concerned about me than vice versa. No, now he really is hard at work in the pouring rain and lightning.

  I subsequently heard about Weiss that he probably isn’t sick, just without money—at least that’s how he was this summer—and in Franzensbad a collection was taken up for him. I answered him about three weeks ago, by registered mail—to the Black Forest, incidentally—before I heard about the matter. He hasn’t responded. He’s now at Lake Starnberger with his girlfriend, who sends Baum postcards which are gloomy-serious (that’s the way she is) but not exactly unhappy (also the way she is).188 I spoke with her briefly about a month ago before she left Prague (where she had good success in the theater). She looked miserable—she’s generally weak and fragile but unbreakable—was exhausted from acting. She mentioned Weiss more or less like this: ‘At the moment he’s in the Black Forest, he’s not doing well there, but we’re about to go to Lake Starnberger, things will get better.’

  Yes, Landauer is appearing in Kmen, I still haven’t read the second installment carefully; today is the third and last.

  Today the Jarmila affair is much less important than it was yesterday; her second visit only served to frighten me; I’ll probably neither write her nor visit. Every encounter with her conveys the strong feeling that she doesn’t do what she does for her own poor self; she’s really carrying out an assignment, and not a human one.

  [Prague, September 3, 1920]

  Friday

  Milena, only in haste. No letter came today, I have to keep swearing to myself it doesn’t mean anything extraordinarily bad. Last evening or more exactly last night I must have spent an hour reading your last letters.

  The trick with the telephone worked: today I’m meeting Vlasta at 6:00 in front of the Repräsentationshaus. It wasn’t easy; no telephone conversation ever is easy for me: this one was mostly a brief exercise in misunderstanding—why would I, a stranger, want to speak with her or meet her somewhere? It turned out she hadn’t caught your name, but I didn’t realize that and was wondering why she sounded as if she wanted to get rid of me. Once she understood what it was about, however, she was even very happy and it was very important to her and after having first suggested we meet Saturday she changed her mind and so we are meeting today.

  Yesterday at Max’s I saw a letter from your husband concerning the authorization. Calm writing, calm language. Here Max will probably be able to help.

  I just now received a card from Pick—he’s already in Prague but still hasn’t seen me—in which he writes: ‘You probably know Ernst Weiss is safe and sound in Prague.’ I didn’t know.

  Yesterday Jarmila wrote me 3 lines apologizing for having been here a whole hour, although in reality it was at most not even half an hour. Of course I’ll answer her now; it works out well, since this will give yesterday’s conversation the conclusion it lacked.

  On the other hand, I have no idea what I’ll talk about with Vlasta, but I don’t think there’s any possibility of saying anything really damaging or foolish.

  A bad paper, the Tribuna, still no news about Everyman.189

  [Prague, September 3–4, 1920]

  Friday evening

  Just to tell you the most important thing right away:

  All in all it went pretty well, we took the tram to her brother-in-law’s apartment on the Kleinseite, there wasn’t anybody home, we sat alone for ½ hour and talked about you, then her fiancé arrived—a Herr Říha, who joined the conversation immediately (but amicably), as if your affairs were common knowledge, and so brought it to a premature end. As it happened I had already said what was most important, although I hardly asked her a thing; still, the telling was essentially more important.

  She is quite pleasant, sincere, clear, perhaps a little absentminded, not entirely attentive. First, however, my demands in this respect are very great, and second this absentmindedness even has a certain merit, since I had secretly feared she might want to become very personally involved with every aspect of the matter, including your father’s point of view, but that’s not the case. Perhaps this absentmindedness is related to her being engaged; in any event I afterward saw her on the street with her fiancé in a conversation so lively it bordered on quarrel.

  She first said she had intended to write you right away (everyone I talk to about you begins like this) but didn’t know your address, then she accidentally saw it on the envelope of one of your letters (to your father); however, again she didn’t know whether it was the right one—here she got confused for a minute, either out of absentmindedness or a small sense of guilt.

  She went on to describe your father somewhat the way you do. Concerning you he’s much more approachable compared to before, although only in comparison; at the same time he’s always afraid of conceding too much to you. He has no desire to send you money beyond your monthly allowance (but I’m sure the allowance won’t be lowered)—it would merely sink into the void and be of no use to anyone. After your letter Vlasta had suggested he might make it possible for you to recuperate for three months in a sanatorium: he answered yes, that might be a good idea (she tried using his own words to cha
racterize his ponderous indecisiveness or obstinacy in this matter) but he didn’t bring it up again and left on vacation.

  I didn’t understand exactly what his last demand entails. When I asked about it in passing, she only repeated those 3 lines from the letter and when I interrupted with a question she merely added that he doesn’t mean you should live with him—at least, certainly not at first. When I observed that this had been the gist of his letter, she conceded as much and then said, ‘Yes, the letter he signed with Jesenský,’ which, taken in the context of everything else, really was intended—I hadn’t wanted to believe you—as a special ‘touch.’

  When she next asked me to describe your situation, in other words what I advised doing, what she should attempt to accomplish, I said something I’m actually afraid of admitting to you.

  No, before I go on, I should say my portrayal was certainly bad as far as details are concerned, but I’m sure it was generally good, in what was visible to Vlasta. Above all, I didn’t accuse a soul, not in the least. I’m not emphasizing this as any particularly superior way of thinking on my part, how could I even think of making accusations; besides, I’m sure a far better person than I wouldn’t find any grounds to do so here. So that’s not what I mean: I’m just stressing this as a rhetorical advantage, because in speech, after all—especially purposeful speech—it can easily happen one makes accusations against one’s will. I don’t think this happened to me, or at least if there was the possibility it might happen, it was immediately corrected. Incidentally, she was not in the least accusatory herself, but there her absentmindedness may have also played a part.

  Apart from that I may have succeeded in making clear why you are bound to be short of money. This is not so easy to understand from the outside. Vlasta calculates (and so does everyone): your husband’s large salary, 10,000 K from your father, your work, your modest demands and only 2 persons—why does there have to be any need? Vlasta herself once said something like—she may have been quoting your father again, I don’t know exactly: ‘Sending money doesn’t make any sense.136 Milena and money …’ But I twisted her arm rhetorically. So I believe my presentation was good.

  Moreover, they seemed to misunderstand your inward situation; except then I don’t understand them—both of them—entirely. Your father and Vlasta think you’re ready to leave your husband and move to Prague without further ado; in fact, they think you were ready to do so long ago and that the only thing tying you down is your husband’s illness. Here I felt I shouldn’t intervene and ‘enlighten,’ but if that’s what your father believes, what more does he want? In that case doesn’t he have everything he desires? So finally she asked me for advice. I thought the ‘sanatorium suggestion’ was very good, but grumbled about it a little bit (probably out of jealousy since it resembled my Meran suggestion) because you really don’t want to leave your husband during his illness. ‘I see another way to help,’ I said, ‘in leaving everything essentially as it is, in other words without undertaking anything more extensive, but just increasing the money supply, raising the allowance or something like that. However, if one doesn’t want to give money, being unsure it will be properly spent, there are then other possibilities, for example (this is entirely my own idea; it might annoy Milena very much and if she learns that it comes from me she may end up being angry at me; on the other hand, if I consider it halfway decent, and you Fräulein Vlasta ask me, then I have to suggest it, don’t I?) a gift certificate for proper midday and evening meals at the Weisser Hahn, Josefstädterstrasse.’

  Then Vlasta had the good idea of writing you tomorrow without actually telling your father any of my news (at least so I understood) and would only talk to him as a result of this contact with you. I gave your Vienna address (which she suddenly recalled after having forgotten it until then)—I don’t know the one in St. Gilgen exactly (although yesterday on your husband’s letter I did catch a glimpse of Hotel Post) nor do I know how long you will be staying there, and naturally I didn’t want to give the post office box number.

  I felt the whole thing was sufficiently promising and that they are genuinely concerned about you (although unadvised and a little tired). Nonetheless, money does play a certain role. I still see the concern on her face (surely due to absentmindedness) when she wanted to calculate, out of the blue and without any promise of success, how much such a meal ticket to the Weisser Hahn might cost. But that’s almost malice on my part and blatant injustice; had I been in her place observing me I’m sure I would have seen things incomparably more scandalous. She is, as I said, an excellent friendly willing unselfish girl (except that—once again the malice—as a reader of Tribuna she shouldn’t powder herself, and as an assistant to a professor of dentistry she should have fewer gold fillings).

  Well that’s about all; I may remember some more if you ask.

  This afternoon a Fräulein Reimann was here (according to my mother who is very unsure of names), seeking my advice in some matter; according to her description it might have been Jarmila. My mother, the guardian of my sleep, lied without any effort that I was not home, although I was actually in bed 5 steps away.

  Good night, even the mouse in the corner next to the bathroom door is letting me know it’s almost midnight. I hope it won’t call my attention to every passing hour of the night the same way. How lively it is! It’s been so quiet for weeks.

  Saturday

  So as not to hide anything: I also read Vlasta a few passages from your last 2 letters and further advised that the monthly allowance be sent to you directly.

  And as far as the mouse is concerned, nothing more was heard in the night, but when I took the sheets off the sofa this morning something dark and squeaky with a long tail fell out and immediately disappeared under the bed. That could have very easily been the mouse, couldn’t it? Even if the squeak and the long tail were just in my imagination? In any case I couldn’t find a thing underneath the bed (as far as I dared look).

  Wednesday’s letter is funny? I’m not sure. I don’t believe the funny letters anymore, I almost said: I don’t believe any letters anymore; even the most beautiful ones always contain a worm.

  Be good to Jarmila, well that’s obvious. But how? Should I go visit her because yesterday a Frl. Reimann said she wanted my advice on something? Even disregarding the loss of time and sleep, I’m afraid of her. She is one of the angels of death, but not one of the high angels who simply lay their hands upon us mortals; she is of a lower sort, one who has to resort to morphine.190

  [Prague, September 5, 1920]

  Sunday

  Is the main thing what you claim to have written, Milena, or isn’t it really the trust? You wrote about it once before, in one of the last letters to Meran; I could no longer answer it.

  Robinson had to sign on, you see, had to make his dangerous voyage, had to suffer shipwreck and many other things—I would only have to lose you and would already be Robinson. But I’d be more Robinson than he. He still had the island and Friday and many various things and finally the ship that took him away and practically turned everything into a dream. I wouldn’t have a thing, not even my name, since I’ve given that to you as well.

  That’s why I’m independent of you to a certain extent—precisely because the dependency transcends all bounds. The either/or is too great. Either you are mine, in which case it’s good, or else I lose you, in which case it’s not actually bad but simply nothing at all: no jealousy, no suffering, no anxiety, nothing at all. And of course it’s blasphemous to build so much on another person, and that’s why the fear starts to converge around the foundation, but it’s not so much the fear about you as the fear that such constructions are dared at all. And that’s also why your lovely human face has so much of the divine (although it was probably there to begin with).

  So now Samson has revealed his secret to Delilah, and his hair, which she has been constantly ruffling in preparation, is now free for her to cut, but let her go ahead; it’s all the same as long as she doesn’t have a s
imilar secret.

  For 3 nights I’ve been sleeping very badly for no apparent reason—and you’re doing tolerably well?

  A quick answer, if it is an answer: the telegram has just arrived. It came as such a surprise (already opened, too) that I didn’t have time to be alarmed. Somehow I really needed it today; how did you know? Your natural intuition, which always has you send whatever’s needed.

  [Prague, September 6, 1920]

  Monday

  No letter.

  As far as Max’s essay is concerned, it depends on whether it’s ‘only’ your idea or Laurin’s. In the latter case it would still be possible, but not as a lead article, just as a feuilleton. Incidentally, there are various political considerations at play which would be too boring to list.