Letters to Milena

by Franz Kafka

world. Writing letters is actually an intercourse with ghosts

one can even discover one’s own truth directly through you.”

She is a living fire, such as I have never seen; incidentally, a fire that, despite everything, burns only for him. At the same time she is extremely tender, brave, intelligent, and sacrifices everything, or if you prefer, acquires everything by sacrifice.

the anguish that “pulls its plow through sleep.”

As happiness receded into dreams, the passion ended where it began: in sleeplessness. The lovers never really recovered the four days spent in Vienna; these letters were their only progeny. And the ghosts consumed any consolation.

and if your silence is nothing more than a sign of relative well-being, which often expresses itself in an aversion to writing, then I am completely satisfied.

It occurs to me that I really can’t remember your face in any precise detail. Only the way you walked away through the tables in the café, your figure, your dress, that I still see.

your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting; even so, when I then want to raise my eyes to your face, in the middle of the letter—what a story!—fire breaks out and I see nothing but fire.