Letters to Milena

by Franz Kafka

Writing letters is actually an intercourse with ghosts and by no means just with the ghost of the addressee but also with one’s own ghost, which secretly evolves inside the letter one is writing or even in a whole series of letters, where one letter corroborates another and can refer to it as witness.’

reckless in her choice of means when her passion was involved—

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.

So I’m expecting one of two things. Either continued silence, which means: ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine.’ Or else a few lines.

You see, my brain was no longer able to bear the pain and anxiety with which it had been burdened.

Most of the time it is amazing and on those occasions when it does falter, the German language becomes pliant just for you, of its own accord, and then it is particularly beautiful, something a German doesn’t even dare hope for; a German wouldn’t dare write so personally.

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.

you would have deprived me of the good fortune of knowing you

so you obviously don’t trust me to place them properly in the picture I am forming of you.

I am tilting my head way back, drinking the letters, aware only that I don’t want to stop drinking.

Where am I trying to lead you with all this? I’ve lost my way a little, but that doesn’t matter, because if you’ve accompanied me, then we’re both lost.

then I would forgo any meeting with you (which won’t happen anyway),

Your two letters arrived together, at noon; they aren’t there to be read, but to be unfolded, to rest one’s face on while losing one’s mind.

(you belong to me, even if I should never see you again)

I don’t know why I’m telling you this gruesome story. Perhaps only because the same demon is causing us to suffer and so the story belongs to us just as we belong to it.’

I am unable to read them and naturally I read them anyway, the way an animal dying of thirst drinks, and with that comes fear and more fear; I look for a piece of furniture to crawl under; trembling, totally unaware of the world, I pray you might fly back out of the window the way you came storming in inside your letter.

now I just think about my own sickness and health: however, in any case both of them, the first as well as the second, are you.

Instead of a greeting I said quickly, in response to something, in your face: ‘You imagined me differently.’

it didn’t matter to me in the least what you looked like—your words were all I cared about.

so great was the power of your words over me that from then on I liked what you were wearing very much.

(now I’m even losing my name—it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)

could have laid my head in your lap with a sigh of relief—if you were here (and I don’t mean just in body). This is surely a sign of sickness, isn’t it?

it’s late, I have to stop so I can go to sleep and I won’t be able to sleep because I will have stopped writing to you.

the whole night I kept formulating my reply to you, complaining to you, trying to scare you away from me, cursing myself.

At the moment it’s the only thing beyond doubt, the only thing not sicklied over, the only thing which makes me unconditionally happy.

I wouldn’t be able to see anyone but you, I know that much—

Is there as much patience as I need, Milena, anywhere in the world? Tell me Tuesday.

I felt your presence with all my soul,

What else shall I say? My throat does not obey, nor do my hands.

it’s impossible to understand how my breast could expand and contract enough to breathe this air, it’s impossible to understand how you can be far away.

What wouldn’t I do out of fear for you.

Of course it’s impossible that a letter could be here already, but explain that to my heart.

I knew—or thought I knew—that deep down, this disgust and filth were a necessary part of the whole, and it was precisely this (which she had indicated to me by one slight action, one small word) which had drawn me with such amazing force into this hotel, which I would have otherwise avoided with all my remaining strength.

I can’t go on for hours repeating to myself the words I’m planning to greet you with.

And now be grateful to me. I have happily overcome the temptation to add something crazy in these last lines (something crazy and jealous).