Following a diagnosis of tuberculosis in 1917, he had curtailed his duties at the insurance company. He often went away on cure, and in the spring of 1920 he traveled to Meran, where he wrote the first letters to Milena that have survived. What began as a business correspondence soon started to consume his sleep, as he noted in a letter to Max Brod from May 1920: My health would be good, if I could sleep. It’s true I’ve gained some weight, but recently my insomnia has been almost unbearable. This probably has several reasons, one of which may be my correspondence with Vienna. She is a living
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