Part 1 (2/2)

26 March Theosophical lectures by Dr Rudolf Steiner, Berlin Rhetorical effect: Comfortable discussion of the objections of opponents, the listener is astonished at this strong opposition, further development and praise of these objections, the listener becoh they were nothing else, the listener now considers any refutation as completely impossible and is more than satisfied with a cursory description of the possibility of a defenseContinual looking at the paleneral, the spoken sentence starts off from the speaker with its initial capital letter, curves in its course, as far as it can, out to the audience, and returns with the period to the speaker But if the period is oer held in check, falls upon the listener immediately with full forceBefore that, lecture by Loos and Kraus

In Western European stories, as soon as they even begin to include any groups of Jee are now al under or over the plot the solution to the Jewish question too In the Judinnen, however, no such solution is indicated, indeed not even conjectured, for just those characters who busy themselves with such questions stand farthest from the center of the story at a point where events are already revolving more rapidly, so that we can, to be sure, still observe theet fronize in this a fault in the story, and feel ourselves all the more entitled to such a criticis, the possibilities for a solution stand so clearly marshaled about the Jewish problem that the writer would have had to take only a few last steps in order to find the possibility of a solution suitable to his storyThis fault, however, has still another origin The Judinnen lacks non-Jewish observers, the respectable contrasting persons who in other stories draw out the Jewishness so that it advances towards them in amazement, doubt, envy, fear, and finally, finally is transformed into self-confidence, but in any event can draw itself up to its full height only before theanization of this Jewish material see in this case alone, it is universal in at least one respect In the sa up of a lizard under our feet on a footpath in Italy delights us greatly, again and again we are moved to bon, but if we see the over one another in confusion in the large bottles in which otherwise pickles are usually packed, then we don't knohat to doBoth faults unite into a third The Judinnen can do without that most prominent youth who usually, within his story, attracts the best to hi a radius to the borders of the Jewish circle It is just this that ill not accept, that the story can do without this youth, here we sense a fault rather than see it

28 March P Karlin the artist, his wife, two large, wide upper front teeth that gave a tapering shape to the large, rather flat face, Frau Hofrat B, s out her heavy skeleton that she looks like a man, at least when she is seatedDr Steiner is so very much taken up with his absent disciples At the lecture the dead press so about hie? But do they really need it?

Apparently, though-Sleeps two hours Ever since soht he has always had a candle with him-He stood very close to Christ-He produced his play in Munich (you can study it all year there and won't understand it), he designed the costumes, composed the music-He instructed a cheot the best business advice from him He translated his works into French The wife of the Hofrat therefore has in her notebook, ”How Does One Achieve Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? At S Lowy's in Paris”In the Vienna lodge there is a theosophist, sixty-five years old, strong as a giant, a great drinker formerly, and a blockhead, who constantly believes and constantly has doubts It is supposed to have been very funny when once, during a congress in Budapest, at a dinner on the Blocksberg one , Dr Steiner unexpectedly joined the co (although Dr Steiner would not have been angered by it)He is, perhaps, not the greatest contened the task of uniting theosophy and science And that is why he knows everything too Once a botanist careat htened himThat I would look up Dr Steiner was interpreted toof recollection The lady's doctor, when the first signs of influenza appeared in her, asked Dr Steiner for a remedy, prescribed this for the lady, and restored her to health with it iood-bye to him with ”Au revoir”

Behind her back he shook his head In two months she died A similar case in Munich A Munich doctor cures people with colors decided upon by Dr Steiner He also sends invalids to the picture gallery with instructions to concentrate for half an hour or longer before a certain paintingEnd of the Atlantic world, leoism We live in a period of decision The efforts of Dr Steiner will succeed if only the Ahriet the upper handHe eats two liters of erow in the airHe coht-for further about theenerated But they soon wear out and he must replace thes”

MY VISIT TO DR STEINERA wo (upstairs on the third floor of the Victoria Hotel on Jungo in before her We wait The secretary arrives and gives us hope I catch a glimpse of him down the hall Immediately thereafter he comes toward us with arms half spread The woman explains that I was there first

So I walk behind him as he leads me into his roos when he lectures looks polished (not polished but just shi+ning because of its clean blackness) is now in the light of day (3 pm) dusty and even spotted, especially on the back and elbowsIn his roo out a ridiculous place forboots Table in thethe , he on the left side of the table On the table papers with a feings which recall those of the lectures dealing with occult physiology An issue of the Annalen fur Naturphilosophie (Annals of Natural Philosophy) topped a s about in other places as well However, you cannot loook around because he keeps trying to hold you with his glance But if for a molance He begins with a few disconnected sentences So you are Dr Kafka? Have you been interested in theosophy long?But I push on withis striving toward theosophy, but at the sareatest fear of it That is to say, I am afraid it will result in a new confusion which would be very bad for me, because even my present unhappiness consists only of confusion This confusion is as follows: My happiness,useful in any way have always been in the literary field And here I have, to be sure, experienced states (not many) which in my opinion correspond very closely to the clairvoyant states described by you, Herr Doktor, in which I completely dwelt in every idea, but also filled every idea, and in which I not only felt eneral Only the calm of enthusiasm, which is probably characteristic of the clairvoyant, was still lacking in those states, even if not completely I conclude this from the fact that I did not write the best of my works in those states I cannot now devote myself completely to this literary field, as would be necessary and indeed for various reasons Aside from my family relationshi+ps, I could not live by literature if only, to begin with, because of the slowof my work and its special character; besides, I a myself to what is, in the most favorable case, an uncertain life I have therefore becoency Now these two professions can never be reconciled with one another and adood fortune in one becoreat ood one evening, I a to completion This back and forth continually becomes worse

Outwardly, I fulfil my duties satisfactorily in the office, not my inner duties, however, and every unfulfilled inner duty becomes a misfortune that never leaves And to these two never-to-be-reconciled endeavors shall I now add theosophy as a third? Will it not disturb both the others and itself be disturbed by both? Will I, at present already so unhappy a person, be able to carry the three to completion? This is what I have come to ask you, Herr Doktor, for I have a presentiment that if you consider me capable of this, then I can really take it uponat me at all, entirely devoted to my words He nodded from time to time, which he seems to consider an aid to strict concentration At first a quiet head cold disturbed hi his handkerchief deep into his nose, one finger at each nostril

Since in contemporary Western European stories about Jews the reader has beco under or over the story the solution to the Jewish question too, and since in the Judinnen no such solution is indicated or even conjectured, there-fore it is possible that offhand the reader will recognize in this a fault of the Judinnen, and will look on only unwillingly if Jews go about in the light of day without political encourageard to this that, especially since the rise of Zionism, the possibilities for a solution stand marshaled so clearly about the Jewish problem that in the end all the writer has to do is turn his body in order to find a definite solution, suitable to the part of the problem under discussion

27 May Today is your birthday, but I' you the usual book, for it would be only pretense; at bottoive you a book I a only because it is so necessary for h it be only by un with the conize one by and in which I haven't written a word has been so i ashassaal and Czernoschitz How late I ht, a delayed start they would call it at the race track And the harm of such a misfortune consists, perhaps, not in the fact that one does not win; this is indeed only the still visible, clear, healthy kernel of theits boundaries, that drives one into the interior of the circle, when after all the circle should be run around Aside fros inthis period which was to some extent also happy, and will try to write it down in the next few days

20 August I have the unhappy belief that I haven't the tiood work, for I really don't have time for a story, time to expand myself in every direction in the world, as I should have to do But then I once more believe that my trip will turn out better, that I shall co, and so try it again

From his appearance I had a suspicion of the exertions which he had taken upon himself for ave hiht have sufficed and the deception would have succeeded, it succeeded perhaps even now Did I defend myself, then? Indeed, I stood stiff-necked here in front of the house, but-just as stiff-necked-I hesitated to go up Was I waiting until the guests ca about dickens Is it so difficult and can an outsider understand that you experience a story within yourself fro locomotives of steel, coal, and steam, and you don't abandon it even now, but want to be pursued by it and have time for it, therefore are pursued by it and of your own volition run before it wherever it may thrust and wherever you may lure it

I can't understand it and can't believe it I live only here and there in a small word in whose vowel (”thrust” above, for instance) I lose my useless head for aand end ofwith acquaintances at a coffeehouse table in the open air and looking at a wo heavily beneath her heavy breasts, and ith a heated, brownish, shi+ning face, sits down She leans her head back, a heavy down becomes visible, she turns her eyes up, almost in the way in which she perhaps so an illustrated paper beside her If one could only persuade her that one azine beside one's wife in a coffeehouse After a moment she becomes aware of the fullness of her body and ust Tomorrow I am supposed to leave for Italy Father has been unable to fall asleep these evenings because of exciteht up in his worries about the business and in his illness, which they have aggravated A wet cloth on his heart, vo back and forth to the accohs My mother in her anxiety finds new solace He was always after all so energetic, he got over everything, and nowI say that all the misery over the business could after all last only another three ht He walks up and down, sighing and shaking his head It is clear that from his point of view his worries will not be taken frohter by us, but even from our point of view they will not, even in our best intentions there is so of the sad conviction that heor his poking into his nose (on the whole not disgusting) Father engenders a slight reassurance as to his condition, which scarcely enters his consciousness, despite the fact that when he is well he usually does not do this Ottla confiro to the landlord to

It had already become a custom for the four friends, Robert, Samuel, Max, and Franz, to spend their short holidays every su the rest of the year their friendshi+p consisted ether one evening every week, usually at Sae roos and to acco a moderate a of things when they separated at ht; since Robert was secretary of an association, Samuel an employee in a business office, Max a Civil Service official, and Franz an e that anyone had experienced in his work during the as not only unknown to the other three and had to be told to them quickly, but it was also incothy explanations Butelse the consequence of the difference of these professions was that each was coain, since the descriptions (they were all only weak people, after all) were not thoroughly understood, and for that very reason and also out of friendshi+p were deainTalk about woed in, for even if Sa he was still careful not to demand that the conversation adapt itself to his requireht up the beer often appeared to hi these evenings that Max said on the way horetted, because of it one forgets all the serious concerns of which everyone, after all, really has enough While one laughs one thinks there is still tih for seriousness That isn't correct, however, for seriousness naturally reater demands on a person, and after all it is clear that one is also able to satisfy greater deh in the office because there is nothing better to be accomplished there This opinion was aimed at Robert, orked hard in the art association he was putting new life into and at the sas hich he entertained his friendsAs soon as he began, the friends left their places, stood around hihed so self-obviously, especially Max and Franz, that Salasses over to a side-table If they tired of talking Max sat down at the piano with suddenly renewed strength and played, while Robert and Samuel sat beside him on the bench; Franz, on the other hand, who understood nothing of h Samuel's collection of picture postcards or read the paper When the evenings became warmer and thecould be left open, all four would perhaps come to theand with their hands behind their backs look down into the street without letting theht traffic outside Now and then one returned to the table to take a s of beer, or pointed to the curls of two girls who sat downstairs in front of their wine-shop, or to the moon that quietly surprised theht to close the In suarden, sat at a table off to one side where it was darker, drank to one another, and, their heads together in conversation, hardly noticed the distant brass band Arh the park The two on the outside twirled their canes or struck at the shrubs, Robert called on theh for four, the other one in the middle felt hi, Franz, drawing his two neighbors ether that he couldn't understand why they e without difficulty to see each other, if not often, then at least twice a week They all were in favor of it, even the fourth one on the end, who had heard Franz's soft words only indistinctly A pleasure of this sort would certainly be worth the slight effort which it would now and then cost one of theh he had a hollow voice as punish uninvited for all of them But he did not stop And if sometimes one of them couldn't come, that's his loss and he can be consoled for it the next tiive each other up, aren't three enough for each other, even two, if it comes to that? Naturally, naturally, they all said Saed himself from the end of the line and stood close in front of the three others, because in this way they were closer to each other But then it didn't seeainRobert made a proposal ”Let's meet every week and study Italian We are determined to learn Italian, last year alreadyin the little part of Italy where ere that our Italian was only sufficient to ask the e got lost, rena And even then it reatest efforts on the part of those we asked We'll have to study it if ant to go to Italy again this year We siether?””No,” said Max, ”we shall learn nothing together I aht to study together””Aether, I always regret that eren't together even at school Do you realize that we've known each other only two years?” He bent forward to look at all three They had slowed down their steps and let go their arether yet,” said Franz ”I like it very well that way, too I don't want to learn a thing But if we have to learn Italian, then it is better for each one to learn it by himself””I don't understand that,” Samuel said ”First you want us to meet every week, then you don't want it””Come now,” Max said ”Franz and I, after all, just don't want our being together to be disturbed by studying, or our studying by being together, nothing else””Yes,” said Franz”And indeed there isn't much time,” said Max ”It is June now and in September ant to leave””That's the very reason why I want us to study together,” Robert said, and stared in surprise at the tho opposed him His neck became especially flexible when someone contradicted him

One thinks that one describes him correctly, but it is only approximate and is corrected by the diary

It probably lies in the essence of friendshi+p and follows it like a shadow-one elcoret it, the third not notice it at all- 26 Septeulin as a laxative, a powdered seaweed that swells up in the bowels, shakes them up, is thus effective mechanically in contrast to the unhealthy cheh the excre on the walls of the bowelsHe ly for no reason During the conversation, without interrupting it, he put one foot on his neck, took a large pair of scissors froes of his trousers Shabbily dressed, with one or so rather expensive details, his tie, for exampleStories about an artist's pension in Munich where painters and veterinaries lived (the latters' school was in the neighborhood) and where they acted in such a debauched way that the s of the house across the way, froood view could be had, were rented out In order to satisfy these spectators, one of the residents in the pension would sometimes jump up on thesill in the posture of a monkey and spoon his soup out of the potA ot the worn effect by means of buckshot and who said of a table: ”Noe must drink coffee on it three more times, then it can be shi+pped off to the Innsbruck Museu, but somewhat monotonous facial expression, he describes the s with the sae, size, and strength according to whether he is sitting, standing, wearing just a suit, or an overcoat

27 Septeirls, kepton one while it was just the other, as it proved too late, ore a plain, soft, brorinkled, ample coat, open a little in front, had a delicate throat and delicate nose, her hair was beautiful in a way already forgotten-Oldtrousers on the Belvedere He whistles; when I look at hiain; finally he whistles even when I look at hie button, beautifully set low on the sleeve of a girl's dress The dress worn beautifully too, hovering over A beautiful, and this unnoticed button and its ignorant sea on the way to the Belvedere, whose lively eyes, independent of the words of the moment, contentedly surveyed her story to its end-The powerful half-turn of the neck of a strong girl

29 September Goethe's diaries A person who keeps none is in a false position in the face of a diary When for example he reads in Goethe's diaries: ”1/11/1797 All day at home busy with various affairs,” then it seems to him that he himself had never done so little in one dayGoethe's observations on his travels different from today's because ion, develop more simply and can be followed much more easily even by one who does not know those parts of the country A cal sets in Since the country offers itself unscathed in its indigenous character to the passengers in a wagon, and since highways too divide the country much more naturally than the railway lines to which they perhaps stand in the same relationshi+p as do rivers to canals, so too the observer need do no violence to the landscape and he can see systereat effort Therefore there are few observations of the moment, ely bubble up before one's eyes; for instance, Austrian officers in Heidelberg, on the other hand the passage about the men in Wiesenheim is closer to the landscape, ”They wear blue coats and white vests ornamented oven flowers” (quoted from memory) Much written down about the falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen, in the er letters: ”Excited ideas”

Cabaret Lucerna Lucie Konig showing photographs with old hairstyles Threadbare face Sometimes, with her turned-up nose, with her arers, she succeeds on soen (the painter Pittermann), mimic jokes A production that is obviously without joy and yet cannot be considered so, for if it were, then it couldn't be perfor, particularly since it was so unhappy a thing even at the moment it was created that no satisfactory pattern has resulted which would dispense with frequent appearances of the whole person Pretty jus The whole thing reminds one of a private production where, because of social necessity, one vigorously applauds a wretched, insignificant perfor smooth and rounded from the minus of the production by er Vaschata So bad that one loses oneself in his appearance But because he is a powerful person he holds the attention of the audience with an animal force of which certainly I am consciously awareGrunbau inconsolability of his existenceOdys, dancer Stiff hips Real fleshlessness Red knees only suit the ”Moods of Spring” dance

30 Septe roo off, heard her voice She seemed to me in my mind to be overdressed not only because of the clothes she wore, but also because of the entire roo, dark shoulders which I had seen in the bath prevailed against her clothes For athe whole rooray-colored bodice that stood off from her body so far at the bottom that one could sit down on it and after a fashi+on ride along

More on Kubin: The habit always of repeating in an approving tone someone else's last words, even if it appears frorees with the other person Provoking-When you listen to his et his ihtened Soerous; he said he wouldn't go there, then; I asked him whether he was afraid to, and he answered (hand have a lot in front ofhe spoke often and-in my opinion-entirely seriously about ht, however, when I let e of the table, he saw part of my arm and cried: ”But you are really sick” Treated ently and later also kept off the others anted to talkto the brothel with theain froulin!”

Tucholsky and Szafranski The aspirated Berlin dialect in which the voiceof ”nich” The former, an entirely consistent person of twenty-one Fro-stick that gives a youthful lift to his shoulders to the deliberate delight in and contempt for his own literary works Wants to be a defense lawyer, sees only a few obstacles and at the same time how they may be overcome: his clear voice that after the manly sound of the first half-hour of talk pretends to becoirlish-doubt of his own capacity to pose, which, however, he hopes to get withinto a melancholic, as he has seen happen in older Berlin Jews of his type, in any event for the tin of this He will rimaces while he observes and draws in a way that resembles what is drawn Remindsmyself which no one notices How often I , on the way home, if I had observed myself from the outside I should have takenmust be in me, then, as distinctly and invisibly as the hidden object in a picture-puzzle, where, too, one would never find anything if one did not know that it is there When these metamorphoses take place, I should especially like to believe in a diue yesterday Kol Nidre Suppressed murmur of the stock ifts secretly left assuage the wrath of the bereft” Churchly inside Three pious, apparently Eastern Jews In socks Bowed over their prayer books, their prayer shawls drawn over their heads, beco, moved only by the holy day One of thely applies his still-folded handkerchief, at once to lower his face to the text again The words are not really, or chiefly, sung, but behind them arabesque-like melodies are heard that spin out the words as fine as hairs The little boy without the slightest conception of it all and without any possibility of understanding, ith the cla people and is pushed The clerk (apparently) who shakes himself rapidly while he prays, which is to be understood only as an atteest possible-even if possibly incomprehensible-emphasis on each word, by means of which the voice, which in any case could not attain a large, clear emphasis in the clamor, is spared The family of a brothel owner I was stirred iue

The day before the day before yesterday The one, a Jewish girl with a narrow face-better, that tapers down to a narrow chin, but is loosened by a broad, wavy hairdo The three s into the salon The guests as though in a police station on the stage, drinks on the table are scarcely touchedSeveral girls here dressed like the marionettes for children's theaters that are sold in the Christold stuck on and loosely sewn so that one can rip theers The landlady with the pale blonde hair drawn tight over doubtless disgusting pads, with the sharply slanting nose the direction of which stands in so breasts and the stiffly held belly, complains of headaches which are caused by the fact that today, Saturday, there is so great an uproar and there is nothing in it

More on Kubin: The story about Hamsun is suspect One could tell such stories as one's own experiences by the thousand from his works

More on Goethe: ”Excited ideas” are only the ideas which the Rhine Falls excite One sees this from a letter to Schiller-The isolated momentary observation, ”Castanet rhythms of the children in wooden shoes,” made such an impression, is so universally accepted, that it is unthinkable that anyone, even if he had never read this reinal idea

2 October Sleepless night The third in a row I fall asleep soundly, but after an hour I wake up, as though I had laidhole I a that I have not slept at all or only under a thin skin, have beforeasleep and feel ht, until about five, thus it remains, so that indeed I sleep but at the saside le with dreams About five the last trace of sleep is exhausted, I just drea than wakefulness In short, I spend the whole night in that state in which a healthy person finds hi asleep Then I awaken, all the dreaathered aboutI sigh into the pillow, because for this night all hope is gone I think of those nights at the end of which I was raised out of deep sleep and awoke as though I had been folded in a nutThe horrible apparition last night of a blind child, apparently the daughter of hter but only sons, one of who On the other hand there were resehter who, as I have recently seen, is in the process of changing froirl This blind or weak-sighted child had both eyes covered by a pair of glasses, the left, under a lens held at a certain distance froray and bulbous, the other receded and was covered by a lens lying close against it In order that this eyeglass ht be set in place with optical correctness it was necessary, instead of the usual support going behind the ears, to make use of a lever, the head of which could be attached to no place but the cheekbone, so that from this lens a little rod descended to the cheek, there disappeared into the pierced flesh and ended on the bone, while another small wire rod came out and went back over the earI believe this sleeplessness comes only because I write For no matter how little and how badly I write, I am still made sensitive by theseand even , the ireat moments which would tear eneral uproar that is within me and which I have no time to command, find no rest In the end this uproar is only a suppressed, restrained harmony, which, left free, would fill me completely, which could even widen me and yet still fill me But now such a mo does not have sufficient strength or the capacity to hold the presentthe night it cuts me to pieces unhindered I always think in this connection of Paris, where at the tie and later, until the Commune, the population of the northern and eastern suburbs, up to that tiers to the Parisians, for a period ofstreets into the center of Paris, dawdling like the hands of a clockMy consolation is-and with it I now go to bed-that I have not written for so long, that therefore this writing could find no right place within my present circumstances, that nevertheless, with a little fortitude, I'll succeed, at least temporarilyI was so weak today that I even told lasses in the drea sits next tocards, looks across at lasses even have, which I do not reht lens nearer the eye than the left

3 October The saht, but fell asleep with evenpain in h from a wrinkle too sharply pressed into my forehead To ood for falling asleep, I had crossed my arms and laid my hands on my shoulders, so that I lay there like a soldier with his pack Again it was the power offorth into wakefulness even before I fall asleep, which did not letmy consciousness of the creative abilities in me is more than I can encoet out offorth such powers, which are then not permitted to function, reminds me of my relationshi+p with B Here toe there are effusions which are not released butrepulsed, but here-this is the difference-it is a nificance tocar with a faether drove by me In the wake of the car, with the smell of petrol, a breath of Paris blew acrossreport to the district Chief of Police, towards the end, where a cli but look at K, the typist, who, in her usual way, becahed, tapped on the table and so called the attention of the whole rooht-for idea now has the additional value that it will make her be quiet, and the more valuable it becomes the more difficult it becomatize” and the appropriate sentence, but still hold it all in h it were raw meat, cut out of me (such effort has it cost reat fear that everything within me is ready for a poetic work and such a ould be a heavenly enlighten-alive for me, while here, in the office, because of so wretched an official document, I must rob a body capable of such happiness of a piece of its flesh

4 October I feel restless and vicious Yesterday, before falling asleep, I had a flickering, cool little flame up in the left side of my head The tensions over my left eye has already settled down and made itself at home When I think about it, it seems to me that I couldn't hold out in the office even if they told me that in one month I'd be free And most of the time in the office I do what I am supposed to, am quite calm when I can be sure that my boss is satisfied, and do not feel that ht I purposely made myself dull, w