Diaries of Franz Kafka 1912.
2 January. As a result I let the awful clothes affect even my posture, walked around with my back bowed, my shoulders drooping, my hands and arms at awkward angles, was afraid of mirrors because they showed in me an ugliness which in my opinion was inevitable, which moreover could not have been an entirely truthful reflection, for had I actually looked like that, I certainly would have attracted even more attention, suffered gentle pokes in the back from my mother on Sunday walks and admonitions and prophecies which were much too abstract for me to be able to relate them to the worries I then had. In general I lacked princ.i.p.ally the ability to provide even in the slightest detail for the real future. I thought only of things in the present and their present condition, not because of thoroughness or any special, strong interest, but rather, to the extent that weakness in thinking was not the cause, because of sorrow and fear-sorrow, because the present was so sad for me that I thought I could not leave it before it resolved itself into happiness; fear, because, like my fear of the slightest action in the present, I also considered myself, in view of my contemptible, childish appearance, unworthy of forming a serious, responsible opinion of the great, manly future which usually seemed so impossible to me that every short step forward appeared to me to be counterfeit and the next step unattainable.
I admitted the possibility of miracles more readily than that of real progress, but was too detached not to keep the sphere of miracles and that of real progress sharply divided. I was therefore able to spend a good deal of time before falling asleep in imagining that some day, a rich man in a coach and four I would drive into the Jewish quarter, with a magic word set free a beautiful maiden who was being beaten unjustly, and carry her off in my coach; but untouched by this silly make-believe, which probably fed only on an already unhealthy s.e.xuality, I remained convinced that I would not pa.s.s my final examinations that year, and if I did, I would not get on in the next cla.s.s, and if by some swindle I could avoid even that then I would certainly fail decisively in my graduation examination, convinced also that I would all at once-the precise moment did not matter-reveal some unheard-of inability and very definitely surprise my parents as well as the rest of the world, who had been lulled to sleep by my outwardly regular progress. Since I always looked only to my inability as my guide into the future-only seldom to my feeble literary work-considering the future never did me any good; it was only a spinning out of my present grief. If I chose to, I could of course walk erect, but it made me tired, nor could I see how a crooked back would hurt me in the future. If I should have a future, then, I felt, everything will straighten itself out of its own accord. I did not choose such a principle because it involved a confidence in a future in whose existence I did not believe, its purpose was only to make living easier for me, to walk, to dress, to wash, to read, above all to coop myself up at home in a way that took the least effort and required the least spirit. If I went beyond that I could think only of ridiculous solutions.
Once it seemed impossible to get along without a black dress suit, especially as I also had to decide whether I would join a dancing cla.s.s. The tailor in Nusle was sent for and the cut of the suit discussed. I was undecided, as I always was in such cases, they made me afraid that by a definite statement I would be swept away not only into an immediate unpleasantness, but beyond that into something even worse. So at first I didn"t want a dress suit, but when they shamed me before the stranger by pointing out that I had no dress suit, I put up with having a tail coat discussed; but since I regarded a tail coat as a fearful revolution one could forever talk about but on which one could never decide, we agreed on a tuxedo, which, because of its similarity to the usual sack coat, seemed to me at least bearable. But when I heard that the vest of the tuxedo had to be cut low and I would therefore have to wear a stiff shirt as well, my determination almost exceeded my strength, since something like this had to be averted. I did not want such a tuxedo, rather, if I had to have one, a tuxedo lined and trimmed with silk indeed, but one that could be b.u.t.toned high. The tailor had never heard of such a tuxedo, but he remarked that no matter what I intended to do with such a jacket, it couldn"t be worn for dancing. Good, then it couldn"t be worn for dancing, I didn"t want to dance anyhow, that hadn"t been decided on yet in any case, on the contrary, I wanted the jacket made for me as I had described it.
The tailor"s stubbornness was increased by the fact that until now I had always submitted with shamed haste to being measured for new clothes and to having them tried on, without expressing any opinions or wishes. So there was nothing else for me to do, and also since my mother insisted on it, but to go with him, painful as it was, across the Altstadster Ring to a second-hand clothing store in the window of which I had for quite some time seen displayed a simple tuxedo and had recognized it as suitable for me. But unfortunately it had already been removed from the window, I could not see it inside the store even by looking my hardest, I did not dare to go into the store just to look at the tuxedo, so we returned, disagreeing as before. I felt as though the future tuxedo was already cursed by the uselessness of this errand, at least I used my annoyance with the pros and cons of the argument as an excuse to send the tailor away with some small order or other and an indefinite promise about the tuxedo while I, under the reproaches of my mother, remained wearily behind, barred forever-everything happened to me forever-from girls, an elegant appearance, and dances. The instantaneous cheerfulness that this induced in me made me miserable, and besides, I was afraid that I had made myself ridiculous before the tailor as none of his customers ever had before.
3 January. Read a good deal in Die Neue Rundschau. Beginning of the novel Der Nackte Mann [The Naked Man]. The clarity of the whole a little too thin, sureness in the details. Gabriel Schillings Flucht {Gabriel Schilling"s Flight] by Hauptmann. Education of people. Instructive in the bad and the good.
New Year"s Eve I had planned to read to Max from the diaries in the afternoon, I looked forward to it, and it did not come off. We were not in tune, I felt a calculating pettiness and haste in him that afternoon, he was almost not my friend but nevertheless still dominated me to the extent that through his eyes I saw myself uselessly leafing through the notebooks over and over again, and found this leafing back and forth, which continually showed the same pages flying by, disgusting. It was naturally impossible to work together in this mutual tension, and the one page of Richard and Samuel that we finished amidst mutual resistance is simply proof of Max"s energy, but otherwise bad. New Year"s Eve at Cada"s. Not so bad, because Weltsch, Kisch, and someone else added new blood so that finally, although only within the limits of that group, I again found my way back to Max. I then pressed his hand on the crowded Graben, though without looking at him, and with my three notebooks pressed to me, as I remember, proudly went straight home.
The fern-shaped flames blazing up from a melting pot on the street in front of a building under construction.
It is easy to recognize a concentration in me of all my forces on writing. When it became clear in my organism that writing was the most productive direction for my being to take, everything rushed in that direction and left empty all those abilities which were directed towards the joys of s.e.x, eating, drinking, philosophical reflection, and above all music. I atrophied in all these directions. This was necessary because the totality of my strengths was so slight that only collectively could they even halfway serve the purpose of my writing. Naturally, I did not find this purpose independently and consciously, it found itself, and is now interfered with only by the office, but that interferes with it completely. In any case I shouldn"t complain that I can"t put up with a sweetheart, that I understand almost exactly as much of love as I do of music and have to resign myself to the most superficial efforts I may pick up, that on New Year"s Eve I dined on parsnips and spinach, washed down with a gla.s.s of Ceres, and that on Sunday I was unable to take part in Max"s lecture on his philosophical work-the compensation for all this is clear as day. My development is now complete and, so far as I can see, there is nothing left to sacrifice; I need only throw my work in the office out of this complex in order to begin my real life in which, with the progress of my work, my face will finally be able to age in a natural way.
The sudden turn a conversation takes when in the discussion, which at first has dealt in detail with worries of the inner existence, the question is raised (not really breaking the conversation off, but naturally not growing out of it, either) of when and where one will meet the next time and the circ.u.mstances that must be considered in deciding this. And if the conversation also ends with a shaking of hands, then one takes one"s leave with momentary faith in the pure, firm structure of our life and with respect for it.
In an autobiography one cannot avoid writing "often" where truth would require that "once" be written. For one always remains conscious that the word "once"
explodes that darkness on which the memory draws; and though it is not altogether spared by the word "often," either, it is at least preserved in the opinion of the writer, and he is carried across parts which perhaps never existed at all in his life but serve him as a subst.i.tute for those which his memory can no longer guess at.
4 January. It is only because of my vanity that I like so much to read to my sisters (so that today, for instance, it is already too late to write). Not that I am convinced that I shall achieve something significant in the reading, it is only that I am dominated by the pa.s.sion to get so close to the good works I read that I merge with them, not through my own merit, indeed, but only through the attentiveness of my listening sisters, which has been excited by what is being read and is unresponsive to inessentials; and therefore too, under the concealment my vanity affords me, I can share as creator in the effect which the work alone has exercised. That is why I really read admirably to my sisters and stress the accents with extreme exactness just as I feel them, because later I am abundantly rewarded not only by myself but also by my sisters.
But if I read to Brod or Baum or others, just because of my pretensions my reading must appear horribly bad to everyone, even if they know nothing of the usual quality of my reading; for here I know that the listener is fully aware of the separation between me and what is being read, here I cannot merge completely with what I read without becoming ridiculous in my own opinion, an opinion which can expect no support from the listener; with my voice I flutter around what is being read, try to force my way in here and there because they don"t expect that much from me at all; but what they really want me to do, to read without vanity, calmly and distantly, and to become pa.s.sionate only when a genuine pa.s.sion demands it, that I cannot do; but although I believe that I have resigned myself to reading badly to everyone except my sisters, my vanity, which this time has no justification, still shows itself: I feel offended if anyone finds fault with my reading, I become flushed and want to read on quickly, just as I usually strive, once I have begun, to read on endlessly, out of an unconscious yearning that during the course of the long reading there may be produced, at least in me, that vain, false feeling of integration with what I read which makes me forget that I shall never be strong enough at any one moment to impose my feelings on the clear vision of the listener and that at home it is always my sisters who initiate this longed-for subst.i.tution.
5 January. For two days I have noticed, whenever I choose to, an inner coolness and indifference. Yesterday evening, during my walk, every little street sound, every eye turned towards me, every picture in a showcase, was more important to me than myself.
Uniformity. History.
When it looks as if you had made up your mind finally to stay at home for the evening, when you have put on your house jacket and sat down after supper with a light on the table to the piece of work or the game that usually precedes your going to bed, when the weather outside is unpleasant so that staying indoors seems natural, and when you have already been sitting quietly at the table for so long that your departure must occasion not only paternal anger but surprise to everyone, when besides, the stairs are in darkness and the front door locked and in spite of all that you have started up in a sudden fit of restlessness, changed your jacket, abruptly dressed yourself for the street, explained that you must go out and with a few curt words of leave-taking actually gone out, banging the flat door more or less hastily according to the degree of displeasure you think you have left behind you and so cut off the general discussion of your departure, and when you find yourself once more in the street with limbs swinging extra freely in answer to the unexpected liberty you have procured for them, when as a result of this decisive action you feel aroused within yourself all the potentialities of decisive action, when you recognize with more than usual significance that your strength is greater than your need to accomplish effortlessly the swiftest of changes, that left alone you grow in understanding and calm, and in the enjoyment of them-then for that evening you have so completely got away from your family that the most distant journey could not take you farther and you have lived through what is for Europe so extreme an experience of solitude that one can only call it Russian. All this is still heightened if at such a late hour in the evening you look up a friend to see how he is getting on.
Invited Weltsch to come to Mrs. Klug"s benefit. Lowy, with his severe headaches that probably indicate a serious head ailment, leaned against a wall down in the street where he was waiting for me, his right hand pressed in despair against his forehead. I pointed him out to Weltsch who, from his sofa, leaned out of the window. I thought it was the first time in my life that I had so easily observed from the window an incident down in the street that concerned me so closely. In and of itself, this kind of observation is familiar to me from Sherlock Holmes.
6 January. Yesterday Vizekonig [Vice-King] by Feimann. My receptivity to the Jewishness in these plays deserts me because they are too monotonous and degenerate into a wailing that prides itself on isolated, violent outbreaks. When I saw the first plays it was possible for me to think that I had come upon a Judaism on which the beginnings of my own rested, a Judaism that was developing in my direction and so would enlighten and carry me farther along in my own clumsy Judaism, instead, it moves farther away from me the more I hear of it. The people remain, of course, and I hold fast to them.
Mrs. Klug was giving a benefit and therefore sang several new songs and made a few new jokes. But only her opening song held me wholly under her influence, after that I had the strongest reaction to every detail of her appearance, to her arms, stretched out when she sings, and her snapping fingers, to the tightly twisted curls at her temples, to her thin shirt, flat and innocent under her vest, to her lower lip that she pursed once while she savored the effect of a joke ("Look, I speak every language, but in Yiddish"), to her fat little feet in their thick white stockings. But when she sang new songs yesterday she spoiled the main effect she had on me, which lay in the fact that here was a person exhibiting herself who had discovered a few jokes and songs that revealed her temperament and all its strong points to the utmost perfection. When this display is a success, everything is a success, and if we like to let this person affect us often, we will naturally-and in this, perhaps, all the audience agrees with me-not let ourselves be misled by the constant repet.i.tion of the songs, which are always the same, we will rather approve of it as an aid to concentration, like the darkening of the hall, for example, and, as far as the woman is concerned, recognize in her that fearlessness and self-awareness which are exactly what we are seeking. So when the new songs came along, songs that could reveal nothing new in Mrs. Klug since the old ones had done their duty so completely, and when these songs, without any justification at all, claimed one"s attention purely as songs, and when they in this way distracted one"s attention from Mrs.
Klug but at the same time showed that she herself was not at ease in them either, part of the time making a failure of them and part of the time exaggerating her grimaces and gestures, one had to become annoyed and was consoled only by the fact that the memory of her perfect performances in the past, resulting from her unshakeable integrity, was too firm to be disturbed by the present sight.
7 January. Unfortunately Mrs. Tschissik always has parts which show only the essence of her character, she always plays women and girls who all at once are unhappy, despised, dishonored, wronged, but who are not allowed time to develop their characters in a natural sequence. The explosive, natural strength with which she plays these roles makes them climactic only when she acts them, in the play as it is written, because of the wealth of acting they require, these roles are only suggestions, but this shows what she would be capable of. One of her important gestures begins as a shudder in her trembling hips, which she holds somewhat stiffly.
Her little daughter seems to have one hip completely stiff. When the actors embrace, they hold each other"s wigs in place.
Recently, when I went up to Lowy"s room with him so that he could read me the letter he had written to the Warsaw writer, Nomberg, we met the Tschissik couple on the landing. They were carrying their costumes for Kol Nidre, wrapped in tissue paper like matzos, up to their room. We stopped for a little while. The railing supported my hands and the intonations of my sentences. Her large mouth, so close in front of me, a.s.sumed surprising but natural shapes. It was my fault that the conversation threatened to end hopelessly, for in my effort hurriedly to express all my love and devotion I only remarked that the affairs of the troupe were going wretchedly, that their repertoire was exhausted, that they could therefore not remain much longer and that the lack of interest that the Prague Jews took in them was incomprehensible. Monday I must-she asked me-come to see Sedernacht [Seder Night], although I already know the play. Then I shall hear her sing the song ("Hear, O Israel") which, she remembers from a remark I once made, I love especially.
"Yeshivahs" are talmudic colleges supported by many communities in Poland and Russia. The cost is not very great because these schools are usually housed in old, unusable buildings in which, besides the rooms where the students study and sleep, is found the apartment of the Rosh Yeshivah, who also performs other services in the community, and of his a.s.sistant. The students pay no tuition and take their meals in turn with the various members of the community. Although these schools are based on the most severely orthodox principles, it is precisely in them that apostate progress has its source: since young people from distant places come together here, precisely the poor, the energetic and those who want to get away from their homes; since the supervision is not very strict and the young people are entirely thrown upon one another, and since the most essential part of the instruction is common study and mutual explanation of difficult pa.s.sages; since the orthodoxy in the various home towns of the students is always the same and therefore not much of a topic for conversation, while the suppressed progressive tendencies take the most varied forms, differing in strength according to the varying circ.u.mstances of the towns, so that there is always a lot to talk about; since, furthermore, one person always lays hands on only one or another copy of the forbidden progressive literature, while in the Yeshivah many such copies are brought together from everywhere and exercise a particularly telling effect because every possessor of a copy propagates not only the text but also his own zeal-because of all these reasons and their immediate consequences, in the recent past all the progressive writers, politicians, journalists, and scholars have come out of these schools. The reputation of these schools among the orthodox has therefore deteriorated very much, while on the other hand young people of advanced inclinations stream to them more than ever.
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. Lowy 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.
Lowy 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, Lowy went directly from the klaus to the railway station, with no baggage, wearing a somewhat better caftan than usual because it was Sat.u.r.day 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 G.o.d 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 Lowy 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 pa.s.sages here and there. Although Lowy 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 clamor 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 clamor. 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 theater. 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 pa.s.ses 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, Lowy 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 pa.s.sages, 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 de la litterature Judeo-Allemande [The History of Jewish-German Literature], 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 [The Jewish Organism]; 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 [Count of Equals] 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 Lowy 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 embarra.s.sment 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 Ltterature Judeo-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 "Hede" and now I must ride a horse.Wos mir seinen, seinen mir Ober juden seinen mir.
[What we are, we are, But Jews we are.]Haskalah [Jewish Enlightenment] 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 cha.s.sidisme, I"exaltation de l"instruction et des travaux manuels." [the fight against Hasidism, the exaltation of education and manual labor.]Badchan, the sad folk and wedding minstrel (Eliak.u.m Zunser), talmudic trend of thought.Le Roman populaire [The Popular Novel]: Eisik Meir d.i.c.k (1808-94) instructive, haskalic. Schomer, still worse, t.i.tle, for example, Der podriatechik (l"entrepreneur), ein hochst interessanter Roman [The Podriatist (the entrepreneur), an extremely interesting novel]. Ein richtiger fach fun leben, or Die eiserne Frau oder das verkaufte Kind. Ein wunder-schoner Roman. [The Iron Lady or the Sold Child, a very beautiful novel]. Further, in America serial novels, Zwischen Menschenfressern [Among Maneaters] , 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. Frug, lyric writer, life in the country by all means. Delicieux est le sommeil du seigneur dans sa chambre. Sur des oreillers doux, blancs comme la neige.
Mais plus delicieux encore est le repos dans le champ sur du foin frais a l"heure du soir, apres le travail. [Delicious is the lord"s sleep in his room. On soft pillows, white like the snow. But yet more delicious is the repose in the field on fresh hay at sunset, after work.]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 favor 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. Ne 1851. Rosenfeld: The poor Yiddish public took up a collection to a.s.sure him of a livelihood.S. Rabinowitz (Sholom Aleichem), ne 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 traveling 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 theater. Frankfurt Purim play, 1708. Ein schon neu Achashverosh-spiel, 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 theater. 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 theater in New York: "The Yiddish theater 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 [Earth Spirit]. 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 theater I felt well. I savored my innermost being as though it were honey. Drank it in an uninterrupted draught. In the theater this pa.s.sed 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 Lowy. 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 Frankfurt) 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 Lowy. 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.
Amusing scene when Prof. Ehrenfels, who grows more and more handsome and who-with his bald head sharply outlined against the light in a curve that is puffed out at the top, his hands pressed together, with his full voice, which he modulates like a musical instrument, and a confident smile at the meeting-declares himself in favor of mixed races.
5 February. Monday. Weary even of reading Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth]. I am hard on the outside, cold on the inside. Today, when I came to Dr.
F., although we approached each other slowly and deliberately, it was as though we had collided like b.a.l.l.s that drive one another back and, themselves out of control, get lost. I asked him whether he was tired. He was not tired, why did I ask? I am tired, I replied, and sat down.
To lift yourself out of such a mood, even if you have to do it by strength of will, should be easy. I force myself out of my chair, circle the table in long strides, exercise my head and neck, make my eyes sparkle, tighten the muscles around them. Defy my own feelings, welcome Lowy enthusiastically supposing he comes to see me, amiably tolerate my sister in the room while I write, swallow all that is said at Max"s, whatever pain and trouble it may cost me, in long draughts. Yet even if I managed fairly well in some of this, one obvious slip, and slips cannot be avoided, will stop the whole process, the easy and the difficult alike, and I will have to turn backwards in the circle. So the best resource is to meet everything as calmly as possible, to make yourself an inert ma.s.s, and, if you feel that you are carried away, not to let yourself be lured into taking a single unnecessary step, to stare at others with the eyes of an animal, to feel no compunction, to yield to the non-conscious that you believe far away while it is precisely what is burning you, with your own hand to throttle down whatever ghostly life remains in you, that is, to enlarge the final peace of the graveyard and let nothing survive save that. A characteristic movement in such a condition is to run your little finger along your eyebrows.
Short spell of faintness yesterday in the Cafe City with Lowy. How I bent down over a newspaper to hide it.
Goethe"s beautiful silhouette. Simultaneous impression of repugnance when looking at this perfect human body, since to surpa.s.s this degree of perfection is unimaginable and yet it looks only as though it had been put together by accident. The erect posture, the dangling arms, the slender throat, the bend in the knees.
My impatience and grief because of my exhaustion are nourished especially on the prospect of the future that is thus prepared for me and which is never out of my sight. What evenings, walks, despair in bed and on the sofa (7 February) are still before me, worse than those I have already endured!
Yesterday in the factory. The girls, in their unbearably dirty and untidy clothes, their hair disheveled as though they had just got up, the expressions on their faces fixed by the incessant noise of the transmission belts and by the individual machines, automatic ones, of course, but unpredictably breaking down, they aren"t people, you don"t greet them, you don"t apologize when you b.u.mp into them, if you call them over to do something, they do it but return to their machine at once, with a nod of the head you show them what to do, they stand there in petticoats, they are at the mercy of the pettiest power and haven"t enough calm understanding to recognize this power and placate it by a glance, a bow. But when six o"clock comes and they call it out to one another, when they untie the kerchiefs from around their throats and their hair, dust themselves with a brush that pa.s.ses around and is constantly called for by the impatient, when they pull their skirts on over their heads and clean their hands as well as they can-then at last they are women again, despite pallor and bad teeth they can smile, shake their stiff bodies, you can no longer b.u.mp into them, stare at them, or overlook them, you move back against the greasy crates to make room for them, hold your hat in your hand when they say good evening, and do not know how to behave when one of them holds your winter coat for you to put on.
8 February. Goethe: "My delight in creating was infinite."
I have become more nervous, weaker, and have lost a large part of the calm on which I prided myself years ago. Today, when I received the card from Baum in which he writes that he cannot give the talk at the evening for the Eastern Jews after all, and when I was therefore compelled to think that I should have to take it over, I was overpowered by uncontrollable twitchings, the pulsing of my arteries sprang along my body like little flames; if I sat down, my knees trembled under the table and I had to press my hands together. I shall, of course, give a good lecture, that is certain, besides, the restlessness itself, heightened to an extreme on that evening, will pull me together in such a way that there will not be room for restlessness and the talk will come straight out of me as though out of a gun barrel. But it is possible that I shall collapse after it, in any event I shall not be able to get over it for a long time. So little physical strength! Even these few words are written under the influence of weakness.
Yesterday evening with Lowy at Baum"s. My liveliness. Recently Lowy translated a bad Hebrew story, "The Eye," at Baum"s.
13 February. I am beginning to write the lecture for Lowy"s performance. It is on Sunday, the 18th. I shall not have much time to prepare and am really striking up a kind of recitative here as though in an opera. The reason is only that an incessant excitement has been oppressing me for days and that, somewhat hesitant in the face of the actual beginning of the lecture, I want to write down a few words only for myself; in that way, given a little momentum, I shall be able to stand up before the audience. Cold and heat alternate in me with the successive words of the sentence, I dream melodic rises and falls, I read sentences of Goethe"s as though my whole body were running down the stresses.
25 February. Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don"t surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment. I spent this evening at the family table in complete indifference, my right hand on the arm of the chair in which my sister sat playing cards, my left hand weak in my lap.
From time to time I tried to realize my unhappiness, I barely succeeded.
I have written nothing for so long because of having arranged an evening for Lowy in the banquet room of the Jewish Town Hall on 18 February, at which I delivered a little introductory lecture on Yiddish. For two weeks I worried for fear that I could not produce the lecture. On the evening before the lecture I suddenly succeeded.
Preparations for the lecture: Conferences with the Bar Kokhba Society, getting up the program, tickets, hall, numbering the seats, key to the piano (Toynbee Hall), setting up the stage, pianist, costumes, selling tickets, newspaper notices, censorship by the police and the religious community.
Places in which I was and people with whom I spoke or to whom I wrote. In general: with Max, with Schmerler, who visited me, with Baum, who at first a.s.sumed the responsibility for the lecture but then refused it, whose mind I changed again in the course of an evening devoted to that purpose and who the next day again notified me of his refusal by special delivery, with Dr. Hugo Hermann and Leo Hermann in the Cafe Arco, often with Robert Weltsch at his home; about selling tickets with Dr. Bl.
(in vain), Dr. H. Dr. Fl., visit to Miss T., lecture at Afike Jehuda (by Rabb. Ehrentreu on Jeremiah and his time, during the social part of the evening that followed, a short, abortive talk about Lowy), at the teacher W."s place (then in the Cafe, then for a walk, from twelve to one he stood in front of my door as large as life and would not let me go in). About the hall, at Dr. Karl B."s, twice at L."s house on Heuwagsplatz, several times at Otto Pick"s, in the bank; about the key to the piano for the Toynbee lecture, with Mr. R. and the teacher S., then to the latter"s home to get the key and to return it; about the stage, with the custodian and the porter of the town hall; about payment, in the town hall office (twice); about the sale, with Mrs. Fr. at the exposition, "The Set Table." Wrote to Miss T., to one Otto Kl. (in vain), for the Tagblatt (in vain), to Lowy ("I won"t be able to give the talk, save me!").
Excitements: About the lecture, one night twisted up in bed, hot and sleepless, hatred of Dr. B., fear of Weltsch (he will not be able to sell anything), Afike Jehuda, the notices are not published in the papers the way in which they were expected to be, distraction in the office, the stage does not come, not enough tickets are sold, the color of the tickets upsets me, the lecture has to be interrupted because the pianist forgot his music at home in Kosir, a great deal of indifference towards Lowy, almost disgust.
Benefits: Joy in Lowy and confidence in him, proud, unearthly consciousness during my lecture (coolness in the presence of the audience, only the lack of practice kept me from using enthusiastic gestures freely), strong voice, effortless memory, recognition, but above all the power with which I loudly, decisively, determinedly, faultlessly, irresistibly, with clear eyes, almost casually, put down the impudence of the three town hall porters and gave them, instead of the twelve kronen they demanded, only six kronen, and even these with a grand air. In all this are revealed powers to which I would gladly entrust myself if they would remain. (My parents were not there.) Also: Academy of the Herder a.s.sociation on the Sophien Island. Bie shoves his hand in his trouser pocket at the beginning of the lecture. This face, satisfied despite all disappointment, of people who work as they please. Hofmannsthal reads with a false ring in his voice. A close-knit figure, beginning with the ears pressed close to his head. Wiesenthal. The beautiful parts of the dance, for example, when in sinking to the ground the natural heaviness of the body is revealed.
Impression of Toynbee Hall.
Zionist meeting. Blumenfeld. Secretary of the World Zionist Organization.
A new stabilizing force has recently appeared in my deliberations about myself which I can recognize now for the first time and only now, since during the last week I have been literally disintegrating because of sadness and uselessness.
Changing emotions among the young people in the Cafe Arco.
26 February. Better consciousness of myself. The beating of my heart more as I would wish it. The hissing of the gaslight above me.
I opened the front door to see whether the weather would tempt me to take a walk. The blue sky could not be denied, but large gray clouds through which the blue shimmered, with flap-shaped, curved edges, hovered low, one could see them against the nearby wooded hills. Nevertheless the street was full of people out for a walk. Baby carriages were guided by the firm hands of mothers. Here and there in the crowd a vehicle came to a stop until the people made way for the prancing horses. Meanwhile the driver, quietly holding the quivering reins, looked ahead, missed no details, examined everything several times and at the right moment set the carriage in motion. Children were able to run about, little room as there was. Girls in light clothes with hats as emphatically colored as postage stamps walked arm in arm with young men, and a song, suppressed in their throats, revealed itself in their dancing pace. Families stayed close together, and even if sometimes they were shaken out into a single file, there were still arms stretched back, hands waving, pet names called, to join together those who had strayed. Men who had no part in this tried to shut themselves off even more by sticking their hands in their pockets. That was petty nonsense. First I stood m the doorway, then I leaned against the doorpost in order to look on more comfortably. Clothes brushed against me, once I seized a ribbon that ornamented the back of a girl"s skin and let her draw it out of my hand as she walked away; once, when I stroked the shoulder of a girl, just to flatter her, the pa.s.ser-by behind her struck me over the fingers. But I pulled him behind the bolted half of the door, I reproached him with raised hands, with looks out of the corners of my eyes, a step towards him, a step away from him, he was happy when I let go of him with a shove. From then on, naturally, I often called people to me, a crook of my finger was enough, or a quick, unhesitating glance.
How sleepily and without effort I wrote this useless, unfinished thing.
Today I am writing to Lowy. I am copying down the letters to him here because I hope to do something with them:Dear friend- 27 February. I have no time to write letters in duplicate.
Yesterday evening, at ten o"clock, I was walking at my sad pace down the Zeltnerga.s.se. Near the Hess hat store a young man stops three steps in front of me, so forces me to stop too, removes his hat, and then runs at me. In my first fright I step back, think at first that someone wants to know how to get to the station, but why in this way?-then think, since he approaches me confidentially and looks up into my face because I am taller: Perhaps he wants money, or something worse. My confused attention and his confused speech mingle.
"You"re a lawyer, aren"t you? A doctor? Please, couldn"t you give me some advice? I have a case here for which I need a lawyer."
Because of caution, general suspicion, and fear that I might make a fool of myself, I deny that I am a lawyer, but am ready to advise him, what is it? He begins to talk, it interests me; to increase my confidence I ask him to talk while we walk, he wants to go my way, no, I would rather go with him, I have no place in particular to go.
He is a good reciter, he was not nearly as good in the past as he is now, now he can already imitate Kainz so that no one can tell the difference. People may say he only imitates him, but he puts in a lot of his own too. He is short, to be sure, but he has mimicry, memory, presence, everything, everything. During his military service out there in Milowitz, in camp, he recited, a comrade sang, they really had a very good time. It was a beautiful time. He prefers to recite Dehmel most of all, the pa.s.sionate, frivolous poems, for instance, about the bride who pictures her bridal night to herself, when he recites that it makes a huge impression, especially on the girls.
Well, that is really obvious. He has Dehmel very beautifully bound in red leather. (He describes it with dropping gestures of his hands.) But the binding really doesn"t matter. Aside from this he likes very much to recite Rideamus. No, they don"t clash with one another at all, he sees to it that there"s a transition, talks between them, whatever occurs to him, makes a fool of the public. Then "Prometheus" is on his program too. There he isn"t afraid of anyone, not even of Moissi, Moissi drinks, he doesn"t. Finally, he likes very much to read from Swet Marten; he"s a new Scandinavian writer. Very good. It"s sort of epigrams and short sayings. Those about Napoleon; especially, are excellent, but so are all the others about other great men. No, he can"t recite any of this yet, he hasn"t learned it yet, not even read it all, but his aunt read it to him recently and he liked it so much.
So he wanted to appear in public with this program and therefore offered himself to the Women"s Progress for an evening"s appearance. Really, at first he wanted to present Eine Gutsgeschichte [A Good Story] by Lagerlof, and had even lent this story to the chairwoman of the Women"s Progress, Mrs. Durege-Wodnanski, to look over. She said the story was beautiful, of course, but too long to be read. He saw that, it was really too long, especially as, according to the plan of the evening, his brother was supposed to play the piano too. This brother, twenty-one years old, a very lovely boy, is a virtuoso, he was at the music college in Berlin for two years (four years ago, now). But came home quite spoiled. Not really spoiled, but the woman with whom he boarded fell in love with him. Later he said that he was often too tired to play because he had to keep riding around on this boarding-bag.
So, since the Gutsgeschichte wouldn"t do, they agreed on the other program: Dehmel, Rideamus, "Prometheus," and Swet Marten. But now, in order to show Mrs.
Durege in advance the sort of person he really was, he brought her the ma.n.u.script of am essay, "The Joy of Life," which he had written this summer. He wrote it in a summer resort, wrote it in shorthand during the day, in the evening made a clean copy, polished, crossed out, but really it wasn"t much work because it came off at once.
He"ll lend it to me if I like, it"s written in a popular style, of course, on purpose, but there are good ideas in it and it is betamt, as they say. (Pointed laughter with chin raised.) I may leaf through it here under the electric light. (It is an appeal to youth not to be sad, for after all there is nature, freedom, Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, flowers, insects, etc.) The Durege woman said she really didn"t have time to read it just then, but he could lend it to her, she would return it in a few days. He suspected something even then and didn"t want to leave it there, evaded, said, for instance, "Look, Mrs. Durege, why should I leave it here, it"s really just ordinary, it"s well written, of course, but . . ." None of it did any good, he had to leave it there. This was on Friday.
(28 February.) Sunday morning, while washing, it occurs to him that he hadn"t seen the Tagblatt yet. He opens it by chance just at the first page of the magazine section. The t.i.tle of the first essay, "The Child as Creator," strikes him. He reads the first few lines-and begins to cry with joy. It is his essay, word for word his essay. So for the first time he is in print, he runs to his mother and tells her. What joy! The old woman, she has diabetes and is divorced from his father, who, by the way, is in the right, is so proud. One son is already a virtuoso, now the other is becoming an author!