Epilogue: Franz Kafka: Prophet of Doom
"In peace time you don't get anywhere. In war time you bleed to death."
-- Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka lived all but two of his 41 years in Prague. Julie Lowy Kafka, wife of Hermann Kafka, delivered her firstborn child on July 3rd, 1883. They gave him the Jewish name Amschel (Adam) and secular appellation Franz, after Emperor Franz Josef.
The word "Kafka" meant jackdaw, a type of crow. Hermann Kafka's retail clothing business used the image of a jackdaw as its logo. Emperor Josef II's 1782 Edict of Tolerance required all Jews to take surnames. Franz suspected that "Kafka" represented a negative stereotype, since crows were known for hook-shaped beaks, cunning, and knavery. Ronald Hayman observed that many of Kafka's fictional works featured animals with unpleasant characteristics:
" ... ape(s), dog(s), rodent(s) -- species whose names are borrowed as terms of abuse." [1]
Franz never forgot that a teacher once called him a "crocodile" for not admitting that he left his logarithmic tables at home. When reviewing his friend Max Brod's novel The Jewesses, he remarked that Jewish yentas reminded him of "lizards." [2] This tendency of identifying people with animals may have come from his father, who referred to a consumptive employee as a "sick dog," and sometimes threatened to rip Franz in half like a herring when he misbehaved.
Hermann Kafka, energetic son of an impoverished kosher butcher from Wozzek, worked hard to become a successful clothing and accessories merchant. As a young man he attained the rank of sergeant while serving three years in the Austro-Hungarian Army. During the Jewish riots of 1905 anti-Semitic vandals bypassed his store because Hermann was a patriotic veteran who acted "more Czech than Jewish."
Julie Lowy Kafka's father operated a thriving brewery in Podiebrad. Her mother died of typhus when she was only three. After Franz's birth, she found herself in the middle of an Oedipal triangle, trying to care for a hypersensitive son as well as her gruff and demanding husband.
Like Klara Hitler, Julie lost two baby sons to childhood diseases. As survivor, Franz may have experienced both feelings of guilt and "chosenness." Following the deaths of Georg (1887) and Heinrich (1889) Julie had three girls in a row: Gabrielle (Elli, 1889,) Valerie (Valli, 1890,) and Ottilie (Ottla, 1892.) Because her husband required Julie's help in running his store, she worked twelve hour days there, six days a week, leaving the children with servants. Most evenings at home Hermann insisted that she fritter away hours playing cards with him.
Like Alois Hitler, Hermann Kafka relocated frequently. During Franz's first eight years he moved the family from Maiselgasse in Prague's old city section to Wenzelplatz, then to Geistgasse, next to Zeltnergasse, finally to Grosser Ring.
Kafka did not have many fond childhood memories. In a 1912 letter to his fiancee Felice Bauer, he wrote:
"I was all alone, forever battling nurses, aging nannies, snarling cooks, morose governesses, because my parents spent all their time in the shop ... [3]
An ill-humored servant named Frau Anna walked him to school.
Our cook, small, desiccated, thin, with pointed nose, hollow cheeks ... took me to school every morning... As we left the house (she) would threaten to tell the teacher how naughty I had been at home ... School was in and of itself a horror and now the cook was trying to make it even worse. I began to plead, she shook her head... I stopped, begged her forgiveness, she dragged me on. I threatened her with retaliation by my parents, which made her laugh ... I clung to the storefront gates, to curbstones, refused to go on until I'd been forgiven. I pulled her back by her skirt, ... but she dragged me on, all the while assuring me that this too would be told to the teacher. .. " [4]
Frau Anna called him a little "ravachol," Czech slang for "crooked Jew."
Besides reading and swimming, Kafka only admitted to liking one other activity. On holidays he wrote and directed one-act plays, using his sisters and servants as actors. The audience usually consisted of Hermann, Julie, a few relatives, and friends. Elli, Valli, and Ottla enjoyed these performances, but thought their brother was too much of a perfectionist.
Franz took after the Lowys. Men in his mother's family had been doctors, rabbis, and scholars. Brawny Hermann Kafka, who liked to show off his physical strength and sing army marching songs, did not know what to make of his bookish son. Franz's conflicts with his father eventually led to problems with other male authority figures. He once wrote: "I... became a rather obedient child, but ... suffered inner damage as a result." [5 ]At age thirty-six Kafka composed a fifty page letter to Hermann, in the form of a prosecutor's brief, but never gave it to him. He wondered why his beloved mother catered to his philistine father. Franz portrayed Hermann in the letter as
"a boss who treats his employees as 'animals' and 'paid enemies,' but turns into a deferential bootlicker before those he deems socially superior, a father who tyr;mnizes the whole household by his constant ranting, raving, and obscene threats of violence -- 'I'll tear you apart like a fish!' -- and who insists on proper manners in his children while he himself behaves at the dinner table like an orangutan ... " [6]
On the other hand, he admired Hermann's vigor, endurance, ambition, and industry.
At an early age Franz surrendered to his dysfunctional family and the despotism of local schools. Submission to these irrational forces drew him into a "Kafka-esqe" milieu. The Alstadter Gymnasium (High School) taught Latin, history, geography, and classical literature. Ernst Pawel explained that
"It accustomed the students to doing vast amounts of utterly pointless work. It trained them to fear their superiors and disdain ... inferiors, and ... conditioned them to the stupefying boredom of endless days spent shuffling papers in ... dreary offices." [7]
Of course, after graduation Jews hit an invisible barrier of discrimination. The Austro-Hungarian government, army, universities, and most corporations denied them opportunities. Jews could work as retail or wholesale tradesmen, manufacturers, attorneys, physicians, or money lenders. A tiny fraction of them became musicians, chemists, writers, and teachers. Almost all other occupations were closed to them. Franz's father objected when "Herr Sohn" decided to study philosophy at Prague's Ferdinand-Karls German University. Hermann Kafka considered philosophy gibberish, " ... a fancy way to starve to death." [8] Kant's "Critique of Pure Nonsense" plus two pfennigs couldn't buy you a cup of coffee. Bowing to pressure from family and society, Franz gave up and switched his major to law.
Kafka's parents only attended synagogue on high holy days-four times per year. He once described himself as Europe's "most secular Jew." [9] In November, 1916 Franz informed Felice Bauer that he did not celebrate Rosh Hashanah. "I scarcely said a word about the New Year. .. because for me the day has no significance." [10] Soon after making his Bar Mitzvah at thirteen, he lost interest in religion. Franz longed to assimilate into the "new Europe," but turn-of-the-century Prague had no place for young Jews -- even those who renounced Judaism. To their dismay, he and his Jewish friends discovered that public education took them "out of the ghetto-and straight into oblivion." [11]
Kafka always harbored ambivalent feelings toward the Jewish faith. While re-reading Genesis he expressed horror about "God's rage against humanity." [12] In September, 1916 he wrote Felice Bauer:
"I literally drowned in the terrifying boredom and pointlessness of ... temple services. They were hell's way of staging a preview of my later office career." [13]
While serving as an usher at his sister's wedding Kafka felt like a slapstick comedian in baggy tuxedo and top hat too small for him. His diary recorded bizarre impressions of Altneu synagogue.
"Muted stock-exchange muttering ... Churchlike interior. Three orthodox, presumably Eastern Jews. In socks. Bent over their prayer-books, prayer shawls pulled up over their heads, becoming as small as possible. At least two of them were weeping ... A man who looked like a bank clerk was shaking ... while he prayed ... " [14]
Franz spied a brothel operator and his family milling around in the background.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged a genealogical connection with his Jewish forefathers, and shared their "high literacy," which stressed the written word over idol worship. Toward the end of his life he learned Hebrew, took Talmud courses at Berlin's Academy for Jewish Studies, and bought phylacteries (headgear worn for morning prayers.) "Insufferable Jews" jarred Kafka's nerves, yet he recognized the fine line between obnoxiousness and candor. Only prideful "sons of disobedience» resented prophetic admonitions.
On November 16, 1920 anti-Semitic riots broke out in Prague. To his gentile girlfriend Milena Jesenska he confided:
"I've spent all afternoon out in the streets bathing in Jew-hatred. 'Filthy brood' is what I heard them call (us.). Isn't it only natural to leave a place where one is so bitterly hated? The heroism involved in staying put in spite of all is the valor of the cockroach, which ... won't be driven out of the bathroom. I just looked out my window: mounted police, a riot squad readying for a bayonet charge, the screaming mob dispersing, and up here in the window the ugly shame of always having to live under protection." [15]
With his dark good looks, intelligent conversation, and perfect manners Kafka favorably impressed fellow guests at Pension Ottoburg in April, 1920. However, he created a stir by disclosing his Jewishness one evening after supper. Dining companions quickly rose from the table. A retired military officer with whom Kafka had been conversing suddenly became
" ... restless, but out of politeness he (brought our) little chat to some kind of conclusion before striding hurriedly out." [16]
On another occasion well-bred Germans swapped anecdotes about
"Jewish roguery, brashness, cowardice ... They laugh with a certain admiration, (then) apologize afterwards to me." [17]
While acknowledging that highly cultured Franz was himself an exception to the rule, genteel Germans at Ottoburg still held Jews accountable for most ills of modern times. Kafka conceded his co-religionists' propensity to accelerate the pace of change, but did not think they ruined quality of life for plodding Teutons.
(Jews) have long been imposing on Germany things it could perhaps have achieved slowly in its own way, but has opposed, as coming from outsiders." [18]
In February, 1913 Dr. F. H. Theilhaber deeply affected Kafka with a lecture which argued that Jewish efforts to assimilate into Europe had utterly failed. Franz researched Theodore Herzl's concept of a Zionist homeland in Palestine. On September 8, 1913 he attended a session of the 11th Zionist Congress in Vienna. His objective was not to revive his dormant Jewish faith, but connect with fellow alienated Jews. He knew that Austrian anti-Semites lumped all his extended clan together as an "incorrigible race." The kibbutz idea -- derived from Fourier, St. Simon, and Tolstoy -- also intrigued him.
On October 4, 1911 Kafka attended a play performed by The Polish Yiddish Musical Drama Company at Prague's Savoy Cafe. He loved it. To his family's alarm, Franz befriended actor Yitzhak Levi, and began going twice a week to these melodramas. Something about the bathos and low comedy of folk-theater deeply resonated with him. Most educated Jews dismissed Yiddish drama as a debased vestige of the ghetto. Kafka thought that its exaggerations captured not only life's irrationality, but the absurdity of being a Jew in 20th Century Europe.
Franz's parents did not share his enthusiasm for Yiddish histrionics. Hermann Kafka wrote off Yitzhak Levi a "meschuggenah" (madman), and told his son that he did not want that "ritoch" (transient goofball) in their home. Hermann and Julie Kafka refused to attend Franz's fund-raising benefit for the Yiddish theatrical company in February, 1912.
Kafka empathized with his sister Ottla's indignation toward her gentile fiance Josef David, whom she married on July 15, 1920. Josef loved Ottla, but clung to ingrained prejudices against Jews. After he made offensive remarks at a party, she wrote him a letter, threatening to break off their engagement.
"Some Jews, perhaps even a majority, may now be doing what they ought not to do. But that certainly does not apply to all of them. In any case, I don't wish to be treated as an exception. I could not accept that." [19]
Franz fully appreciated his sister's feelings. He realized that to forsake Judaism would not only be an act of disloyalty, but fraudulence and self-destruction. Nevertheless, he understood why his Jewish friend Max Brod regarded orthodox Jews as "savages," [20] with whom "civilized" modernists of Hebrew extraction had little in common. While on vacation in Franzenbad with his mother and sister in July, 1916 Franz saw a Hasidic rabbi grandly sashaying about like a Hindu swami, attended by slavish hangers-on wielding parasols and fans. To Brod he wrote:
"He wears a silk caftan, open at the front, a wide belt around his waist, and tall fur hat, ... white stockings and ... white trousers ... His remarks are mostly like the trivial comments and questions of visiting royalty ... " [21]
Franz Kafka remained thin and youthful-looking throughout his short life, once wisecracking that he was the skinniest person on earth. On September 2, 1911 Max Brod wrote in his diary that Kafka quipped:
"'I'll go on looking like a boy till I'm forty, and then suddenly a withered old man." [22]
He worked on maintaining a good appearance. Anti-Semitic pamphlets caricatured Jewish males as hunched-over and bow-legged. To transcend the sedentary, "stoop-shouldered Jew" image, he swam regularly, rowed on the Vltava River, and performed exercises devised by Danish gymnast Jorgen Petersen Mueller to build up his slender frame.
Franz also wanted to avoid the "metropolitan Jew" stereotype. Therefore, he vacationed in mountain resorts, hiked in forests, and took up gardening. Influenced by her brother's interest in nature and agriculture, Ottla Kafka toiled on an experimental farm during the summer of 1915. Hermann complained to his son that, thanks to him, Ottla had wasted three months shoveling pig manure. Unfazed, Franz continued to advocate the value of "healthy, strenuous (outdoor) labor, as opposed to ghost-like office work ... " [23] However, an incident in 1913 gave him pause.
"I, who wanted to cure my neurasthenia by gardening, ... found out that the heir presumptive to (shrub and plant dealer) ... Dvorsky, and himself already the owner of a flower nursery, poisoned himself two months ago in a fit of depression at the age of twenty-eight." [24]
Since adolescence Kafka had been a hypochondriac who devised his own "ersatz kosher" dietary rules. Worries about minor ailments led him to adopt naturopathic methods of preventative medicine. He abstained from alcohol, coffee, tea, chocolate, and tobacco. His vegetarian fare included whole grain cereals, raw (unpasteurized) milk, yogurt, organic vegetables, fruits, and nuts. He followed Dr. Horace Fletcher's regimen of chewing every mouthful of food thirty times -- which made him seem to eat like a squirrel. Whenever constipated Kafka dosed himself with Regulin, a laxative composed of crushed seaweed. He once went through the painful ordeal of having his stomach pumped to remove toxins. Franz tried to follow the regimen of naturopath Moritz Schnitzer, who hailed the benefits of fresh air and condemned "overdressing." Thus, he endangered his health by keeping a bedroom window open on frosty nights, and strolling around Prague without an overcoat in frigid weather. On trips taken together, Max Brod surreptitiously closed hotel windows at night-to the consternation of Franz, who groused about feeling "buried alive" [25] in stuffy rooms.
Kafka's friends Else Bergmann and Ida Freund admired Anthroposophical guru Rudolf Steiner. He decided to visit the seer in March, 1911. Steiner wore shabby clothes. He had a bad cold, and kept twirling the tip of a handkerchief in his mucus-clogged nostrils. Franz tried to explain that the psychological state he reached while writing seemed similar to Steiner's notion of clairvoyance. Besides advising him to stop eating eggs, the red-nosed savant did little more than behold Kafka with a glassy stare and nod like a bobble-head.
Emancipated Jews such as Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, and Karl Kraus absorbed anti-Semitism along with German literature, history, and philosophy. As a means of identifying and controlling objectionable traits in his own character, Kafka sometimes read anti-Semitic tracts. Ernst Pawel confirmed that
"in moments of extreme distress (he) borrowed from their droppings to indulge his self-disgust ... " [26]
Like Dietrich Eckart, Arthur Trebitsch and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kafka admired mentally unbalanced Otto Weininger who contended that Jews had an irrepressible drive to annihilate themselves along with their gentile victims. Following Weininger's example Kafka wished to purge all traces of shtetl coarseness from his own behavior. Although a refined gentleman by nature, he studied Oscar Bies' Manual of Etiquette in order to sand off any remaining rough edges.
Though shy, Kafka had "presence." Ernst Pawel commented that "with no apparent effort on his part, he earned the instant respect of even casual acquaintances." [27] Gustav Janouch, a sixteen year old poet whom Kafka encouraged in 1920, described his kindness and beatific expressiveness.
"He used facial muscles instead of words... smiling or contracting or pursing his lips." [28]
Instead of laughing out loud when pleased or amused he would usually "(throw) back his head, parting his lips and closing his eyes to slits as if lying in the sun." [29]
An introvert by nature, Kafka felt drained rather than galvanized by other people. Acquaintances found him unfailingly polite -- to the point of suffering fools gladly. His diffidence stemmed partially from a wish to spare himself the bother of "feigning interest for civility's sake." [30] While taking a rest cure at Fountain of Youth Sanitarium in the Hartz Mountains during July, 1912 modest Franz was thrown in with a gaggle of eccentrics who paraded around nude.
"When it rained he would see a (naked) old man 'charging like a wild animal across the meadow,' taking a rain bath." [31]
Not wishing to be antisocial, Franz mingled with fellow guests, but became known as "the man in ... swim trunks," [32] because of his aversion to nudism.
Kafka worried about lacking courage. Like Heinrich Heine in Luneburg, he felt that solitary devotion to the craft of writing had transformed him into a depressed, apathetic phantom who ignored immediate surroundings and couldn't look others in the eye. Yet cruelty or injustice sometimes roused him to bravery. He quietly supported the causes of labor unions and Jewish civil rights. When a sadistic teenaged bully taunted a servant girl in public, Kafka impulsively punched him.
Franz Kafka graduated from Ferdinand Karls University with a doctorate in law on June 18, 1906. To obtain his lawyer's license, he had to work one year as an unpaid clerk in the criminal courts. Because of Kafka's intelligence and impeccable manners Generali Insurance Co. overlooked his religious background and hired him as one of its first Jewish underwriters on November 1, 1907. The company's regimentation reminded him of Alstadter High School. Generali's lengthy rulebook demanded six workdays per week, occasional Sunday work, ...
"unconditional promptness, overtime without compensation, fourteen days vacation every second year at the convenience of the company, no resignation without three months' notice, no private property in office desks ... " [33]
The grind at Generali quickly dispirited him. Through the influence of Dr. Otto Pribram, father of his friend Ewald Felix Pribram, Franz secured employment with the Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute in July, 1908. He later observed that it was incomprehensible how the two Jews (working) there managed to get in, but it will never happen again." [34] While employed at the Institute he visited policyholders' workplaces to ensure that they were correctly classified and rated, based on degree of hazard. He also inaugurated a "loss control" program which required periodic inspections, and mandatory compliance with safety recommendations. Kafka has been credited with requiring steelworkers to wear hardhats, thus sharply reducing the number and severity of head injuries. These proposals helped Dr. Pribram turn Bohemia's Workers Compensation program from near insolvency to profitability within five years. Franz continuously wrote technical manuals and long reports for the Institute. A 1910 paper expatiated
"at length on the technical details of specific safety measures, which as ... modifications of a mechanical jointer plane that eventually (would) save the lives and limbs of .. workers ... in Bohemia's ... lumber industry." [35]
While at the Institute Kafka proved himself a friend of the working man. He once jeopardized his job by secretly counseling an elderly laborer with a serious leg injury who experienced problems with a compensation claim. Franz not only coached him on how to meet eligibility criteria, but also paid part of his lawyer's fee. Realizing far before others that many returning veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, Kafka inaugurated a pioneering mental health program at Frankenstein Hospital. In recognition of this service the Austro-Hungarian War Veterans Society nominated him for a medal (which he never received.)
Kafka's experience as an insurance underwriter influenced such literary works as "The Stoker" and "In the Penal Colony." It also colored his private correspondence. In a letter to his friend Max Brod, he joked:
"You have no idea how busy I am. In my four districts ... people tumble off scaffolds and into machines as if ... drunk, all planks tip over, all embankments collapse, all ladders slip, whatever gets put up comes down, whatever gets put down trips somebody up. And all those young girls in china factories (who) ... constantly hurl themselves down whole flights of stairs with mountains of crockery give me a headache ... [36]
In November, 1911 his brother-in-law Karl Hermann, convinced hesitant Franz to participate as a "silent partner" in the Kafka-esque enterprise of an asbestos factory. Karl and Elli, with tacit support from him, then prevailed upon Hermann Kafka to invest in the project. Against his will, Franz soon found himself working nights as the plant's bookkeeper and assistant manager. Drudgery in the asbestos factory office stressed him out, provided little income, and afforded no satisfaction whatsoever. Worse yet, it interfered with his writing. He came to regard the firm as a personal, financial, and ecological nightmare. When this distasteful business failed to reap expected profits, his father blamed him not only for luring him into a losing proposition, but lacking the ambition to turn it around. Franz became so dejected over this situation by March, 1912 that he contemplated suicide. When the Austrian army drafted Karl Hermann in 1914, Kafka had to devote even more time to the plant. To his relief, a materials shortage forced a slowdown, then closure by March, 1915.
Franz Kafka began writing short stories as a college student in 1904. Early tales such as "The Wish to Be a Red Indian," "Unhappiness," and "The Urban World" remained unpublished during his life time, but Hyperion literary magazine printed nine stories, including "Description of a Struggle" (1904) and "Wedding Preparations in the Country (1907.) In its March 27, 1910 edition the newspaper Bohemia published "Reflections of a Gentleman Jockey." Critics have designated "The Judgment" as his first signature work. He wrote in it one night -- Yom Kippur (Day of Judgment) -- September 22, 1912, possibly after his father scolded him for staying up too late.
In Kafka's short story "The Urban World" Oskar M.'s irascible father denounces him for being a useless "professional student." "The Judgment" also explores the theme of paternal disapproval. Georg Bendermann, a successful young businessman, wonders whether or not he should inform a friend living in Russia about his commercial success and engagement to pretty Frieda Brandenfeld. When Georg visits Mr. Bendermann senior to seek his advice, he finds him in a disoriented state, and helps him into bed. His father resents Georg for taking over the family business, even though sales have increased. The old man suddenly throws off the covers and turns into a raving fiend, shrieking that he's been in touch with Georg's Russian friend, who "knows everything." At the end of this diatribe, the older man points a finger at his son and declares: "I sentence you to death by drowning!" Georg's compulsion to obey "legitimate" authority overcomes his self-confidence, love for fiancee Frieda Brandenfeld, and all other considerations. He dutifully runs straight to a nearby bridge and jumps into the river.
With this dream-like story Kafka made the transition from realism to surrealism. By means of such "poisoned fairy tales" he wanted to reveal truth and thereby shock readers out of complacency. Literature should be prophetic. As a university student in 1903 he wrote that
"many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self.... We ought to read only books that bite and sting us ... If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull why bother reading it? ... What we need are books that hit us like a painful misfortune ... A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us." [37]
This commentary foreshadows the title of his later novel, The Castle. In German "Schloss" means both "lock" and "castle." Effective literature produces epiphanies, and reveals hidden dimensions of both external reality and one's own personality. This process often causes discomfort. Because of Kafka's compulsive probing Ernst Pawel and others put him not in the German tradition of Schiller and Goethe, but with that
"unruly crowd of Talmudist, Cabalists, (and) medieval mystics resting uneasily beneath the jumble of... weatherbeaten tombstones in Prague's Old Cemetery." [38]
Kafka's parents, aunts, and uncles treated his attempts at writing with hostility or indifference. Herrmann and Julie objected to him scribbling late at night. On several occasions, Herrmann stalked into Franz's room and confiscated his ink bottle, which compelled him to finish passages in pencil. At one family gathering in 1911 his uncle glanced at a page of Amerika and handed it back with the dismissive comment: "the usual stuff." [39] Franz dedicated The Country Doctor and Other Stories to his father. When he tried to hand him a signed copy in May, 1919 Herrmann barely glanced up from his newspaper and growled: "put it on the night table." [40]
Franz Kafka loved his mother and sisters, however most of his relationships with other women were troubled. He had his first sexual encounter with a shop girl in 1903 at the age of 19. From that time until his mid-thirties, he engaged in casual sex with working girls, hookers, and women encountered while on vacation. These trysts left him feeling emotionally unsatisfied and guilty. In September, 1908 he wrote Max Brod:
"I feel so desperately in need of just a friendly caress that yesterday I took a whore to a hotel... She was too old to ... be sentimental. .. " [41]
Brod's plan to loosen his friend up at a fancy Parisian bordello backfired in August, 1911. Viewing slit-eyed prostitutes in that garish Temple of Venus triggered an anxiety attack. Franz bolted out the door, ran outside, and trekked several blocks back to his hotel. He called this excursion through unfamiliar surroundings a "lonely, long, ridiculous walk home." [42]
Kafka desired personal privacy as well as intimacy with women. He noticed that his friendship with Max Brod deteriorated after the latter's engagement to his fiancee Elsa, commenting: "to me he's disengaged," [43] and "a married friend is no friend." [44] Balancing the contrary drives for solitude and a love relationship proved difficult, if not impossible. Most of the women in his life found Kafka "high-maintenance," as well as slightly disturbed. Puah Ben-Tovim, a Palestinian girl who gave him Hebrew lessons in November, 1922, described him as
"thrashing about like a drowning man, ready to cling to whoever came close enough for him to grab hold of." [45]
Twenty-four year old Franz met university student Hedwig Weiler during the summer of 1907 while on vacation in Triesch. Their short association set the pattern for future relationships. He wrote her several long confessional letters. Their correspondence lasted for a year, then trailed off She cancelled out of a planned visit to Prague in October, 1907. Sensing that her relationship with temperamental Kafka had no future, Hedwig asked him to return all of her letters in July, 1909, which he did.
Franz first met Felice Bauer, the cousin of Max Brod's brother-in-law, in August, 1912. She worked for Carl Lindstrom A.G., a tape-recorder and dictating machine manufacturer, and had come to Prague on business. They discussed literature during a get-together at Brod's sister's house. Kafka did not fall in love with Felice at first sight. In fact his diary entry for that day described her as a drab young woman, who ...
" ... looked like a maid. I wasn't at all curious about who she was, immediately taking her for granted. Bony, empty face that carried its emptiness openly. Bare throat. Blouse flung on (any old way.) Her clothes gave her an air of domesticity ... Almost broken nose, blond, rather stiff, unappealing hair, strong chin ... " [46]
A few days later Franz sent Felice a letter.
"I am enclosing the little prose pieces you asked to see; I think they should add up to a short book .... I would be happy if the material pleased you at least to the extent of wanting to publish it ... " [47]
Their party banter led to a five year relationship marked by betrothal, wedding cancellation, second engagement, and final break-up. Between 1913 and 1916 Kafka wrote Felice two or three times a day and fussed when she "neglected" him by not replying daily. On December 29, 1912 he mailed her a forty page letter. Morbidly curious about the minutest aspects of her life, he suggested that, instead of composing letters, she simply keep a detailed journal and send him carbon copy dispatches every day. He instructed her to mention in the diary
"what you had for breakfast, the view from your office window, your work there, the names of your friends, ... why you get presents, who tries to sabotage your health by giving you confectionary, and the thousand things of which I know nothing." [48]
His own epistles went far beyond the usual love-note genre. Ernst Pawel observed that
"he wrote ... not short billets doux, ... but long letters, ... running the gamut from hysteria to humor, filled with self-pity, special pleading, and soaring sentiment, ... shrewd observations, acerbic comments, ... brilliant sketches ... buckets of anguished sympathy, and elaborate therapeutic advice ... " [49]
Yet the magic usually evaporated when he visited her. His desire for social contact, " ... changed to fear the moment it reached ... fulfillment ... " [50] Kafka suffered like a "chained prisoner" at their engagement party, and lamented the "hideous impression" [51] he made on Felice's family. He noted that her mother, wearing black as if in mourning, seemed "disapproving, reproachful, observant, impassive." [52] Felice's father died of a heart attack shortly after Kafka's visit. Franz blamed himself for his untimely death.
The heavy Victorian furniture Felice picked out made Franz nauseous. His oft-repeated opinion -- derived from August Strindberg -- that marriage was the antithesis of love, failed to kindle romantic sentiments in his fiancee. Nor did marital bliss seem probable with a man who promised not
"merry chatter arm in arm, but a monastic life side by side with a man who is fretful, melancholy, terse, dissatisfied, and sickly." [53]
He made it plain that writing would always come first.
"My life consists ... of attempts to write, most of them unsuccessful. But whenever I do not write, ... I am fit for the garbage." [54]
In his June 26, 1913 letter to her, he wrote:
"What I need for my writing is seclusion, not 'like a hermit,' that would not be sufficient, but like the dead. Writing in this sense is a sleep deeper than death, and just as one ... would not drag a corpse out of his grave, I cannot be made to leave my desk at night either." [55]
In a nervous fit Kafka even rejected Felice's suggestion that they take a week-long vacation on the Riviera, explaining
"My contact with you, which I am striving to maintain with all my strength, must never be jeopardized by such a journey together." [56]
Felice began to have second thoughts about marrying a man who recoiled at the idea of spending a few days in her company. The couple finally ended their relationship on Christmas, 1917.