Franz Kafka’s signature in a letter to Milena Jesenská. It reads:
Franz wrong, F wrong, Yours wrong/ nothing more calm, deep forest.
Prague, July 29, 1920.
Letters to Milena. Franz Kafka, trans. Philip Boehm. New York: Schocken Books, 1990.
Kafka and Jesenská met twice: once in Vienna for four days, and in Gmünd for one. Kafka gave her his diaries at the end of his life.
Thank you, bellswithin.
It’s entirely conceivable that life’s splendor surrounds us all, and always in its complete fullness, accessible but veiled, beneath the surface, invisible, far away. But there it lies, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If we call it by the right word, by the right name, then it comes. This is the essence of magic, which doesn’t create but calls.
‘Youth is full of sunshine and love. Youth is happy, because it has the ability to see beauty. When this ability is lost, wretched old age begins, decay, unhappiness.’
‘So age excludes the possibility of happiness?’
‘No, happiness excludes age’. Smiling, he bent his head forward, as if to hide it between his hunched shoulders. ‘Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.’
His smile, his attitude, his voice, reminded one of a quiet and serene boy.
— from Conversation with Kafka by Gustav Janouch, p. 30 (New Directions Publishing, 1971)
Thank you, Memory Green.
Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.
Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
The tremendous world I have inside my head, but how to free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite dear to me.
I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.
