Part 3 (2/2)

One certainly could not overlook the sureness hich the artist relied throughout the discussion on the unexpected in his inspiration, and that only this reliance gave his work its best title to being alraphs, ”Apple Seller,” and ”Walk”

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you becoes which you constantly suffer and which in a general way are naturally believed, surmised, and admitted by you, but which you'll unconsciously deny when it co hope or peace from such an admission In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, e may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our forot to ad in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance

All yesterdaymy head was as if filled with mist from Werfel's poe straight into nonsense

Tor before last My startled gaze ran up and down his face and throat for an hour Once, in the midst of a facial distortion caused by excitement, weakness, and bewilderet out of the rooe to our relationshi+p Outside, in the rainy weather intended for silent walking, I drew a deep breath of relief and then for an hour waited contentedly for M in front of the Orient I find this sort of waiting, glancing slowly at the clock and walking indifferently up and down, als stretched out and hands in my trouser pockets (Half asleep, one then thinks one's hands are no longer in the trouser pockets at all, but are lying clenched on top of one's thighs) 24 Deceay at Baum's I was there with Weltsch Max is in Breslau I felt myself free, could carry every moment to its conclusion, I answered and listened properly,stupid it did not looe but blew over at once The walk home in the rain with Weltsch was the same; despite puddles, wind, and cold it passed as quickly for us as though we had ridden And ere both sorry to say goodbye

As a child I was anxious, and if not anxious then uneasy, when my father spoke-as he often did, since he was a businessman-of the last day of the month (called the ”ultimo”) Since I wasn't curious, and since I wasn't able-even if I soh withcuriosity once risen to the surface is often already satisfied by a question and an ansithout requiring that it understand as well, the expression ”the last day of thelistened more attentively) by the expression ”ultireat significance It was bad too that the last day, dreaded so long in advance, could never be completely done aith

Son, indeed with no special attention (I realized only much later that it always came after about thirty days), and when the first had happily arrived, one again began to speak of the last day, not with special dread, to be sure, but it was still so that I put without examination beside the rest of the incomprehensible

When I arrived at W's yesterday noon I heard the voice of his sister greeting ure detached itself fro in front ofed man, Austerlitz, who already has 2,800 circu out very skillfully It is an operationon a table, lies on his grandfather's lap, and by the fact that the person perfor close attention,by wrappings which leave only his member free, then the surface to be operated on is defined precisely by putting on a perforated metal disc, then the operation is performed hat is almost an ordinary knife, a sort of fish knife One sees blood and raw flesh, thefingers and pulls skin frolove At once everything is all right, the child has scarcely cried Now there re which the ers, not yet entirely unbloody, carries some wine to the child's lips Those present pray: ”As he has now achieved the covenant, so e, and the perforood deeds”

Today when I heard the race after randfathers, spent the ti of the prayer, I saw Western European Judaism before me in a transition whose end is clearly unpredictable and about which those most closely affected are not concerned, but, like all people truly in transition, bear what is iious forms which have reached their final end have merely a historical character, even as they are practiced today, that only a short ti to interest the people present in the obsolete custo it to the half an hour al, said toup at your hile waiting First I see a light there; if I have come early, as I usually do, I assuht is put out, in the next roo dinner; then the light goes on again in your rooht is put out, you are therefore already on the stairs, but then the light is put on again

25 December What I understand of conteh Lowy, and of conteht, points to the fact thatof minds, the coherence of national consciousness, often unrealized in public life and always tending to disintegrate, the pride which a nation gains from a literature of its own and the support it is afforded in the face of a hostile surrounding world, this keeping of a diary by a nation which is soraphy and results in a more rapid (and yet always closely scrutinized) development, the spiritualization of the broad area of public life, the assimilation of dissatisfied elements that are ination can do harration of a people with respect to its whole that the incessant bustle of thedown of the attention of a nation upon itself and the accepting of what is foreign only in reflection, the birth of a respect for those active in literature, the transitory awakening in the younger generation of higher aspirations, which nevertheless leaves its perement of literary events as objects of political solicitude, the dignification of the antithesis between fathers and sons and the possibility of discussing this, the presentation of national faults in aand deserving of forgiveness, the beginning of a lively and therefore self-respecting book trade and the eagerness for books-all these effects can be produced even by a literature whose development is not in actual fact unusually broad in scope, but see talents The liveliness of such a literature exceeds even that of one rich in talent, for, as it has no writer whose great gifts could silence at least the reatest scale has a real justification

A literature not penetrated by a great talent has no gap through which the irrelevant ht force its way Its clai The independence of the individual writer, naturally only within the national boundaries, is better preserved The lack of irresistible national models keeps the completely untalented away from literature But even mediocre talent would not suffice for a writer to be influenced by the unstriking qualities of the fashi+onable writers of the n literatures, or to in literature that has already been introduced; this is plain, for exareat talents, such as the German is, where the worst writers limit their imitation to what they find at home The creative and beneficent force exerted in these directions by a literature poor in its coins to create a literary history out of the records of its dead writers These writers' undeniable influence, past and present, becomes so s One speaks of the latter and means the former, indeed, one even reads the latter and sees only the forotten, and since the writings themselves do not act independently upon the ain Literary history offers an unchangeable, dependable whole that is hardly affected by the taste of the day

A se one and so can digest the existing hly There are, to be sure, fewer experts in literary history employed, but literature is less a concern of literary history than of the people, and thus, if not purely, it is at least reliably preserved For the claim that the national consciousness of a small people makes on the individual is such that everyone must always be prepared to know that part of the literature which has come down to him, to support it, to defend it-to defend it even if he does not know it and support it

The old writings acquire a multiplicity of interpretations; despite the y that is restrained only by the fear that one may too easily exhaust them, and by the reverence they are accorded by co is done very honestly, only within a bias that is never resolved, that refuses to countenance any weariness, and is spread for miles around when a skilful hand is lifted up But in the end bias interferes not only with a broad view but with a close insight as well-so that all these observations are cancelled out

Since people lack a sense of context, their literary activities are out of context too They depreciate so in order to be able to look down upon it from above, or they praise it to the skies in order to have a place up there beside it (Wrong) Even though soh calmly, one still does not reach the boundary where it connects up with sis, one reaches this boundary soonest in politics, indeed, one even strives to see it before it is there, and often sees this li boundary everywhere The narrowness of the field, the concern too for simplicity and uniformity, and, finally, the consideration that the inner independence of the literature makes the external connection with politics harmless, result in the dissemination of literature without a country on the basis of political slogans

There is universal delight in the literary treatment of petty themes whose scope is not permitted to exceed the capacity of small enthusiasms and which are sustained by their polemical possibilities Insults, intended as literature, roll back and forth What in great literature goes on down below, constituting a not indispensable cellar of the structure, here takes place in the full light of day, what is there ainterest for a few, here absorbs everyone no less than as a matter of life and death

A character sketch of the literature of small peoplesGood results in both casesHere the results in individual instances are even better1 Liveliness: a Conflict

b Schools

c Magazines2 Less constraint: a Absence of principles

b Minor the off of the untalented3 Popularity: a Connection with politics

b Literary history

c Faith in literature, can make up their os

It is difficult to readjust when one has felt this useful, happy life in all one's being

Circuhout the house, wherever there is a door, tablets the size of a hand printed with Kabbalistic sy up to protect thethe time between the birth and the circuerous to her and the child at this time, perhaps because her body is so very open and therefore offers an easy entrance to everything evil and because the child, too, so long as it has not been accepted into the covenant, can offer no resistance to evil That is also the reason why a female attendant is taken in, so that the mother may not remain alone for a moment For seven days after the birth, except on Friday, also in order to ward off evil spirits, ten to fifteen children, always different ones, led by the belfer (assistant teacher), are admitted to the bedside of the iven candy These innocent, five- to eight year-old children are supposed to be especially effective in driving back the evil spirits, who press forwardOn Friday a special celebration is held, just as in general one banquet follows another during this week Before the day of the circuht is a night of wakefulness and untilsomeone watches beside the mother The circumcision follows, often in the presence of uished person present is permitted to carry the child The circumciser, who performs his office without payment, is usually a drinker-busy as he is, he has no time for the various holiday foods and so simply pours down so breaths It is therefore not very pleasant when, after the operation has been performed, they suck the bloody member with this mouth, in the prescribed manner The member is then sprinkled with sawdust and heals in about three days

A close-knit fa and characteristic of the Jews, especially those in Russia Fa Christians, after all, and the fact that women are excluded from the study of the Talmud is really destructive of Jewish family life; when the man wants to discuss learned taluests, the women withdraw to the next room even if they need not do so-so it is even ether at every possible opportunity, whether to pray or to study or to discuss divine ious one and at which alcohol is drunk only very moderately They flee to one another, so to speak

Goethe probably retards the develop Even though prose style has often traveled away from him in the interim, still, in the end, as at present, it returns to hi and even adopts obsolete idioms found in Goethe but otherithout any particular connection with him, in order to rejoice in the completeness of its unlimited dependence

In Hebrew randfather, whom my mother, as six years old when he died, can re, white beard She remembers how she had to take hold of the toes of the corpse and ask forgiveness for any offense she randfather She also rerandfather's many books which lined the walls He bathed in the river every day, even in winter, when he chopped a hole in the ice for his bath My e Frorandmother became melancholy, refused to eat, spoke with no one, once, a year after the death of her daughter, she went for a walk and did not return, her body was found in the Elbe An even randfather, Christians and Jews held hi a fire a miracle took place as a result of his piety, the flames jumped over and spared his house while the houses around it burned down He had four sons, one was converted to Christianity and beca He had one son, whohter, ainst theand, weak after exerting all one's strength, to step over thesill through the splintered wood and glass

26 Deceht now So the three holidays during which I had hoped to write things which were to have helpedhelp On Christmas Eve, ith Lowy in the direction of Stern Yesterday Blumale oder die Perle von Warschau (Blumale or The Pearl of Warsaw) For her steadfast love and loyalty Bluuished by the author with the honorific title, ”Pearl of Warsaw,” in the na, delicate throat of Mrs Tschissik explains the shape of her face The glint of tears in Mrs Klug's eyes when singing a monotonously rhyth, see, the theater, the cares of all the audience, indeed h the back curtain into the dressing roo there in a white petticoat and a short-sleeved shi+rt My uncertainty about the feelings of the audience and thereforeon of its enthusiasm The skilful, amiable manner in which I spoke to Miss T

and her escort yesterday It was part of the freedoood spirits which I felt yesterday and even as early as Saturday, that, although it was definitely not necessary, because of a certain complaisance toward the world and a reckless ly eestures I was alone with my mother, and that too I took easily and well; looked at everyone with steadiness

List of things which today are easy to iars on the way to proht, the crossed girders of the bridge

A list of those passages in Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) that, by a peculiarity on which one cannot place one's finger, give an unusually strong impression of liveliness not essentially consistent hat is actually described; for instance, call up the ie of the boy Goethe, how curious, richly dressed, loved and lively-he makes his way into the homes of all his acquaintances so that hethat is to be seen and heard Nohen I leaf through the book, I cannot find any such passages, they all seehtened by any accident Iand then stop at the right passages

It is unpleasant to listen to Father talk with incessant insinuations about the good fortune of people today and especially of his children, about the sufferings he had to endure in his youth No one denies that for years, as a result of insufficient winter clothing, he had open sores on his legs, that he often went hungry, that when he was only ten he had to push a cart through the villages, even in winter and very early in thehe will not understand, these facts, taken together with the further fact that I have not gone through all this, by no means lead to the conclusion that I have been happier than he, that he s, which is so, that I cannot appreciate his past sufferings, and that, finally, just because I have not gone through the saladly I would listen if he would talk on about his youth and parents, but to hear all this in a boastful and quarrelsoether: ”Who can understand that today! What do the children know! No one has gone through that! Does a child understand that today!” He spoke again in the sa us She too has the huge face of all Father's relatives There is so about the set or color of her eyes At the age of ten she was hired out as a cook In a skimpy wet skirt, in the severe cold, she had to run out for sos cracked, the ski, in bed, that it dried

27 December An unfortunate man, one who is condemned to have no children, is terribly imprisoned in his misfortune Nowhere a hope for revival, for help from luckier stars He must live his life, afflicted by his n hier path, under other circumstances of body and time, the misfortune which he has suffered could disappear or even produce so that is wrong round ato appear that can rise up only out of the hole on his right But while this hole re after another rises up out of the hole on his left, keeps trying to attract his attention, and in the end succeeds in doing this without any difficulty because of its swelling size, which, much as the ht hole But the man-he does not want to leave this place, and indeed refuses to at any price-has nothing but these appearances, and although-fleeting as they are, their strength is used up by their -they cannot satisfy him, he still strives, whenever out of weakness they are arrested in their rising up, to drive the up others; for the perht of one is unbear-able, and moreover he continues to hope that after the false appearances have been exhausted, the true will finally appear

Hoeak this picture is An incoherent assu and the metaphor of the description

28 December The torment that the factory causes me Why didn't I object when they made me promise to work there in the afternoons No one used force to make me do it, but my father compels me by his reproaches, Karl [Hermann, Kafka's brother-in-law and owner of the factory] by his silence, and I byabout the factory, and this , when the committee made an inspection, I stood around uselessly with s I deny that it is possible for me to fathom all the details of the operation of the factory And if I should succeed in doing it by endlessly questioning and pestering all those concerned, ould I have achieved? I would be able to do nothing practical with this knowledge, I am fit only for spectacular performances to which the sound common sense of ood job But through this empty effort spent on the factory I would, on the other hand, robto me, which would of necessity lead to the complete destruction of my existence, which, even apart froed in

This afternoon, while taking a walk, for the duration of a few steps I saw coinary members of the co

29 Decee 265, ”I therefore ledthese hours no other conversation save what concerned ination was drawn in quite another direction”

The difficulties of bringing to an end even a short essay lie not in the fact that we feel the end of the piece demands a fire which the actual content up to that point has not been able to produce out of itself, they arise rather from the fact that even the shortest essay de lost in himself out of which it is difficult to step into the everyday air without great determination and an external incentive, so that, before the essay is rounded to a close and one ht quickly slip away, one bolts, driven by unrest, and then the end must be completed from the outside with hands which must not only do the work but hold on as well

30 Dece of the actor in it, its chief lack is unity The whole range of those characteristics which are rough and striking, I cannot imitate at all, I have always failed when I attempted it, it is contrary to e to imitate the-sticks, the way they hold their hands, the ers, and I can do it without any effort But this very effortlessness, this thirst for imitation, sets me apart from the actor, because this effortlessness reflects itself in the fact that no one is aware that I a Only my own satisfied, or more often reluctant, appreciation shows me that I have been successful Far beyond this external i and strong that there is no room at all within me to observe and verify it, and it first confronts me in my memory But here the imitation is so complete and replaces my own self with so i it could be e The spectator cannot be asked to endure what passes beyond the bounds of playacting If an actor who is supposed to thrash another according to the plot really does thrash him, out of excitement, out of an excess of emotion, and the other actor screams in pain, then the spectator must become a man and intervene But what seldom happens in this way happens countless times in lesser ways The essence of the bad actor consists not in the fact that he imitates too little, but rather in the fact that as a result of gaps in his education, experience, and talent he i models But his most essential fault is still that he does not observe the limits of the play and ie drives him to this, and even if the spectator thinks one actor or another is bad because he stands around stiffly, toys with his fingers at the edge of his pocket, puts his hands on his hips improperly, listens for the proed coardless, still, even this actor who suddenly dropped froe is bad only because he imitates too much, even if he does so only in his mind (31 December) For the very reason that his abilities are so lih his ability may not be so small that it cannot be divided up, he does not want to betray the fact that under certain circumstances, by the exercise of his oill, he can dispose of less than all his art

In the , but now the idea that I am to read to Max in the afternoon blocks me completely This shows too how unfit I a that friendshi+p in this sense is even possible For since a friendshi+p without interruption of one's daily life is unthinkable, a great ain, even if its core reed core they are formed anew, but as every such for that is expected succeeds, one cae in one's personal ain where one left off last time Out of this, in friendshi+ps that have a deep foundation, an uneasiness reat that it is felt as such, but which can disturb one's conversation and behavior to such a degree that one is consciously astonished, especially as one is not aware of, or cannot believe, the reason for it So how a dohat follows, that I shall read it to hih the diary thisto see what I could read to M In this examination I have found neither that what I have written so far is especially valuable nor that it must simply be throay My opinion lies between the two and closer to the first, yet it is not of such a nature that, judging by the value of what I have written, I ard ht of the mass of what I had written divertedfor the next hour, because my attention was to a certain extent lost downstream, as it were, in the sah the time I was at the Gymnasium and before that, as well, I was able to think unusually clearly, and only the later weakening ofit correctly today, I still recognize at other ti to flatter s the serious consequences So I remember that when I was at the Gyhly, I probably tired easily even then-argued the existence of God with Bergmann in a talmudic style either in with a theazine (I believe it was Die Christliche Welt [The Christian World]) in which a watch and the world and the watchmaker and God were compared to one another, and the existence of the watchmaker was supposed to prove that of God In h this refutation was not firether forit Such a refutation once took place while alking around the Rathaus tower I reo, we reht I was distinguishi+ng uishan impression and in the i it insufficient thought that I endured always having to go around dressed in the wretched clothes which est by a tailor in Nusle I naturally noticed-it was obvious-that I was unusually badly dressed, and even had an eye for others ell dressed, but for years on endin my clothes the cause of my miserable appearance Since even at that time, more in tendency than in fact, I was on the way to underesti myself, I was convinced that it was only onas stiff as a board, then hanging in wrinkles I did not want new clothes at all, for if I was going to look ugly in any case, I wanted at least to be coliness of the new clothes to the world that had grown accusto-drawn-out refusals on the frequent occasions when my mother (ith the eyes of an adult was still able to find differences between these new clothes and the old ones) wanted to have new clothes of this sort made for , I had to conclude that I was not at all concerned about my appearance

Translated by Joseph Kresh