"Kafka, Franz - Diaries 1914" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kafka Franz)

11 February. Hastily read through Dilthey's Goethe; tumultuous impression, carries one along, why couldn't one set oneself afire and be destroyed in the flames? Or
obey, even if one hears no command? Or sit on a chair in the middle of one's empty room and look at the floor? Or shout "Forward!" in a mountain defile and hear
answering shouts and see people emerge from all the bypaths in the cliffs.



13 February. Yesterday at Mrs. X.'s. Calm and energetic, an energy that is perfect, triumphant, penetrating, that finds its way into everything with eyes, hands, and
feet. Her frankness, a frank gaze. I keep remembering the ugly, huge, ceremonious Renaissance hats with ostrich feathers that she used to wear; she repelled me so
long as I didn't know her personally. How her muff, when she hurries towards the point of her story, is pressed against her body and yet twitches. Her children, A. and
B.


Reminds one a good deal of W. in her looks, in her self-forgetfulness in the story, in her complete absorption, in her small, lively body, even in her hard, hollow voice, in
her talk of fine clothes and hats at the same time that she herself wears nothing of the sort.


View from the window of the river. At many points in the conversation, in spite of the fact that she never allows it to flag, my complete failure, vacant gaze,
incomprehension of what she is saying; I mechanically drop the silliest remarks at the same time that I am forced to see how closely she attends to them; I stupidly pet
her little child.


Dreams: In Berlin, through the streets to her house, calm and happy in the knowledge that, though I haven't arrived at her house yet, a slight possibility of doing so exists;
I shall certainly arrive there. I see the streets, on a white house a sign, something like "The Splendors of the North" (saw it in the paper yesterday); in my dream "Berlin
W" has been added to it. Ask the way of an affable, red-nosed old policeman who in this instance is stuffed into a sort of butler's livery. Am givers excessively detailed
directions, he even points out the railing of a small park in the distance which I must keep hold of for safety's sake when I go past. Then advice about the tram-car, the
U-Bahn, etc. I can't follow him any longer and ask in a fright, knowing full well that I am underestimating the distance: "That's about half an hour away?" But the old
man answers, "I can make it in six minutes." What joy! Some man, a shadow, a companion, is always at my side, I don't know who it is. Really have no time to turn
around, to turn sideways.


Live in Berlin in some pension or other apparently filled with young Polish Jews; very small rooms. I spill a bottle of water. One of them is tapping incessantly on a
small typewriter, barely turns his head when he is asked for something. Impossible to lay hands on a map of Berlin. In the hand of one of them I continually notice a
book that looks like a map. But it always proves to be something entirely different, a list of the Berlin schools, tax statistics, or something of the sort. I don't want to
believe it, but, smiling, they prove it to me beyond any doubt.



14 February. There will certainly be no one to blame if I should kill myself, even if the immediate cause should for instance appear to be F.'s behavior. Once, half
asleep, I pictured the scene that would ensue if, in anticipation of the end, the letter of farewell in my pocket, I should come to her house, should be rejected as a suitor,
lay the letter on the table, go to the balcony, break away from all those who run up to hold me back, and, forcing one hand after another to let go its grip, jump over the
ledge. The letter, however, would say that I was jumping off because of F., but that even if my proposal had been accepted nothing essential would have been changed
for me. My place is down below, I can find no other solution, F. simply happens to be the one through whom my fate is made manifest; I can't live without her and must
jump, yet-and this F. suspects-I couldn't live with her either. Why not use tonight for the purpose, I can already see before me the people talking at the parents'
gathering this evening, talking of life and the conditions that have to be created for it-but I cling to abstractions, I live completely entangled in life, I won't do it, I am
cold, am sad that a shirt collar is pinching my neck, am damned, gasp for breath in the mist.



15 February. How long this Saturday and Sunday seem in retrospect. Yesterday afternoon I had my hair cut, then wrote the letter to Bl., then was over at Max's new
place for a moment, then the parents' gathering, sat next to L.W., then Baum (met Kr. in the tram), then on the way home Max's complaints about my silence, then my