Letters to Milena

by Franz Kafka

as long as our understanding of art is so imperfect that we require more than just the artist’s statement, ‘as long as we must place our fingers in the wounds, like Thomas, we have the right to convince ourselves the wounds exist, and that they are deep.’

As happiness receded into dreams, the passion ended where it began:

I’m fighting for myself when I ask you to stop.

sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.

But children take everything seriously and do not recognize impossibility,

Children become

uncanny whenever their words and intentions are furnished with the wisdom of an adult.

as things balance out quite well if there’s a little anger for you lurking in one corner of my heart.

only these capitalists of airspace are immune from worry and insanity,

I’m sitting at my desk, scarcely daring to look up, you are bent over me and your index finger is glittering in the air, finding fault, isn’t this the way it is?),

How’s this? And where are the laws of the world and the entire police force of heaven? You’re 38 years old and probably more tired than mere age can possibly make you. Or more correctly: You aren’t tired at all, just restless, just afraid of taking one step on this Earth teeming with pitfalls, which is why you always keep both feet in the air at once, you aren’t tired, just afraid of the terrible fatigue which will follow this terrible restlessness and (after all, you’re Jewish and know what it is to be fearful and anxious) which may—at best—be visualized as sitting in the garden of the insane

asylum behind Karlsplatz, staring into space like an idiot.

It’s easy to see that you aren’t like this by nature, and I, perhaps even I am not like this by nature, but this has almost become my nature, passing only when I am desperate or, at most, angry, and needless to say: when I am afraid.

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