Franz Kafka ~ Brief an den Vater

Franz kaavka Letter to Father read by hansjurg grosse Dear Father, You recently asked me why I told you that I was afraid of you. As usual, I couldn't answer you, partly because of the fear I have of you. That's partly why The justification for this fear involves too many details for me to remain coherent when I speak. The size of the material is far beyond my memory and understanding. The matter always seemed very simple to you. at least to the extent that you spoke it in front of me and without choice in front of many others.

It seemed to you that you had worked hard all your life. I sacrificed for your children, especially for me. luxury, I had complete freedom to learn what I wanted, I had no reason to worry about food, you didn't demand any gratitude for it, but at least you know the gratitude of children, some kind of adaptation, show some compassion instead . , I have always hidden from you, in my room, with books, with crazy friends, with crazy ideas, I have talked openly with you, I have never been to the temple, I have not come to see you in Franzensbad, I have never visited you in any other way , I never had a sense of family, I didn't care about the business or your other affairs, I forced you to go to the factory and then I left Ottla, I supported his stubbornness and while I don't lift a finger for you, I don't even bring you a ticket of theater, I do it for you Friends, if you put together your judgment about me, it turns out that you do not accuse me of anything frankly indecent or evil, with the exception perhaps of my last intention to get married, but coldness, strangeness, ingratitude and you accuse me of it As if it were my fault, as if I had something.

With a twist of the controls you can set everything up differently. While you're not the slightest bit to blame for it unless it's because you were too good to me, I only think your usual interpretation is correct to the extent that I also think you're completely innocent of our estrangement. as completely innocent. If I could get you to recognize that, then a new life would not be possible. We are both too old for that, but there is a kind of peace, no pause, but a softening of your incessant accusations. , some idea of ​​what I'm saying Interestingly, you recently told me, for example, that I've always liked you, although outwardly I wasn't as close to you as other parents usually are, precisely because I can't pretend to be like the others.

Now I will never have a father. I doubted your kindness towards me, but I think this comment is incorrect. You can't fake it, but only for this reason. , claiming that the other parents are faking is simply arrogance that cannot be discussed further, or in my opinion, that is really the veiled expression that something is not right between us and that you contributed to it, but without blame. you really want to say that then we agree. Of course, I'm not saying that I only became what I am thanks to your influence, that would be a huge exaggeration and I even tend to exaggerate; it is quite possible that even if it had grown up.

Completely free of your influence I would not have been able to become a person after your heart. I probably would have become a weak, anxious, hesitant, restless person, not Robert Kafka or Karl. But Hermann is completely different from who I really am and. We could have gotten along excellently. I would have liked to have had you as a friend, as a boss, as an uncle, as a grandfather, even if you were more indecisive as a father-in-law, but as a father. They were too strong for me, especially since my brothers died when they were little, and my sisters came a long time later, so I had to bear the first shock alone.

He was too weak for that. To put it very

brief

ly, I was a lion with a certain Kafka background, but not through the Kafka background. The desire to conquer life is set in motion, but rather by the sting of a lion that secretly acts in another direction and often exposes you. to a real Kafka in terms of strength, health, appetite, vocal power, oratory ability, self-satisfaction, world superiority, endurance, presence of mind, knowledge of human nature, a certain generosity, of course, with all the defects that entails. with these advantages and weaknesses that your temperament and sometimes your anger pushes you towards, maybe you are not exactly Kafka in your general view of the world, so I can compare you to uncle Philipp Ludwig Heinrich, that is strange.

Stricter than you, I inherited a lot. of you and I administered the inheritance too well without, however, having the necessary counterweights in my being like you, but on the other hand, you also went through different moments in this sense and perhaps you were happier when your children married you. Especially when I felt disappointed and depressed when strangers came to the house, you were different and you may have become happier again now that your grandchildren and son-in-law provide you with some of the warmth that the children, other than Walli, may not have. could. In any case, we were so different and in this difference so dangerous to each other, that if one had wanted to calculate in advance how we would behave towards each other, I, the slowly growing child, and you, the finished man .

One might have assumed that you would simply crush me, that there would be nothing left of me. It hasn't happened now, the living cannot be calculated, but maybe something bad has happened, but always remember that I never believe in the slightest that you are guilty. You had the same effect on me that you should have, but you should stop it for once. It was particular malice on my part that I succumbed to this effect. I was a fearful child, but I was certainly also stubborn, like children. My mother spoiled me too, but I can't believe she was particularly difficult to control.

I can't believe that a kind word, a calm handshake, a good look, you wouldn't have asked me for. everything you wanted, now you're basically a kind and soft person. The following does not contradict that. I am only referring to the appearance in which you appeared to the child, but not all children have the perseverance and fearlessness to search. for so long until it reaches the level of goodness. You can only treat your child the way you were created with strength, noise and jazon and in this case they also do it very well because you wanted to raise a strong and brave child.

Of course, I cannot describe the means of your education in the early years directly today, but I can imagine them based on the inferences of the later years and your treatment of Felix. then you were a disciple of the new poacher who was originally even more carefree than today and you were also completely tied to the business, which could only show me once a day and because of that you made an even deeper impression. For me, who almost never got used to it, I directly remember an incident from my early years. You will also remember that one time at night I cried for water, probably not out of thirst, but probably partly to entertain myself after a while. some strong threats didn't help, you got me out of this.

You took me to bed and left me there alone in front of the closed door in my shirt for a while. I don't want to say that was bad. Maybe back then there was no other way to get a good night's rest. Characterize myself I was probably already a town back then, but I had an inner damage due to the fact that, for me, the senseless request for water and the extraordinary. The terrible thing about being carried out, I could never make the right connection because of my nature, even after years of living under the tormenting idea that the huge man, my father, could come as a last resort, for almost no reason. and that at night they took me out of bed and took me to the pavlatche and that, as such, I was nothing to him;

It was a small start back then, but this happened to me often. The dominant feeling of nothingness, a feeling that is also noble and fruitful in other ways, often comes from your influence. I would have needed a little encouragement, a little kindness, a little keeping my path open. Instead, you blocked it for me, with the good intention, of course, that I would take a different path. I wasn't good at it, for example, you encouraged me when I saluted well and marched but I wasn't a future soldier or you encouraged me when I could eat a lot of food and even drink beer with it or when.

I could sing you songs I didn't understand or parrot your favorite sayings. None of this was part of my future and it is significant that even today you only encourage me in something when you yourself are affected, when it is about yourself. -estimates that it hurts me, for example because of my intention to get married, or that it hurts me when, for example, Peper insults me, then they encourage me, they remind me of my value, they point out the games that I have the right to play and Papeper is completely condemned , but aside from the fact that I'm almost inaccessible to stimulation at my current age, how would it help me if I did?

It only happens when it's not primarily about me. Back then and everywhere I would have needed the encouragement. I was already overwhelmed by your sheer physicality. I remember, for example, how many times we undressed together in a cabin, I was skinny, weak, thin, you were already strong in the cabin. I felt pathetic, not just in front of you. but in front of the whole world because for me you were the measure of all things, but then we left the cabin in front of the people, I was a small skeleton in your hand, insecure, barefoot on the boards for fear of the water, unable to imitate your swimming moves, which you continued to demonstrate to me with good intentions but in reality to my deep shame, then I was very desperate and all my bad experiences across the board came together brilliantly in those moments I felt more comfortable when sometimes you took off your clothes first and I could stay alone in the cabin and delay the embarrassment of appearing in public until you finally came to check on me and took me out of the cabin, I was grateful that you didn't notice my grades.

He seemed to be proud of my father's body, by the way, this difference still exists between us today, which corresponded to your spiritual supremacy, you had risen so high only with your own strength, as a result of which you had unlimited confidence. in your opinion, that's how it was for me Child not even as dazzling as later for the young man who grew up in your armchair you dominated the world your opinion was correct everyone else was crazy exaggerated mchuge not normal your self-confidence was so great that no you had to be consistent and still not stop well.

It could also happen that you had no opinion at all on a matter and as a result all possible opinions on the matter had to be wrong without exception. I could, for example, insult the Czechs, then the Germans, then the Jews, and not only in the national team, but in all aspects, and in the end there was no one left but you. To me, you got the disconcerting thing that all tyrants. You have whose right to your person is not based on thought, at least that's what it seemed to me. Now you really were amazing to me.

It was often quite obvious in conversation because there was almost no conversation, but it was really nothing. Especially incomprehensible, I felt very pressured by you in all my thoughts, even those that did not coincide with yours, and especially in all of them. From the beginning, these seemingly independent thoughts of his were loaded with his contradictory judgment. until the thought was fully and permanently carried out it was almost impossible to bear. I am not referring to any lofty thought, but to every small enterprise of childhood. You just had to be happy about something to go home. and the statement and the response was an ironic sigh a shake of the head a tap of the finger on the table I have also seen something more beautiful or tell me your worries or my head is not so rested or an event or purchase Of course, it could not be You would be expected to be excited about every little thing about a child if you were worried and tormented.

That's not the point, it was more about the fact that you were always giving the child such disappointments. In principle, you had to prepare for the force of your opposite nature, so that this contrast was constantly strengthened by the accumulation of material, so that finally it was usually affirmed when you shared the same opinion as me and that finally these disappointments of the child were not disappointments of ordinary life, but rather it was about your person, who was decisive for everything, basically the courage, the determination, confidence, joy in this and that didn't last until the end if you were against it. or even if your opposition could only be accepted and accepted it might well stand.

It was enough for me to have a little interest in a person. Because of my nature, it didn't happen very often that you did it without any consideration for me. feelings and without respect for mine Trial with insults, slander, humiliation and innocent people like each actor Löwi had to pay for this without knowing him. You compared it in such a terrible way that I've already forgotten about vermin and, like. As often happens with the people I love, you automatically had in mind that I remember what the actor said about dogs and fleas, because then I wrote your sayings about him with the comment: this is how my father talks about my friend, to whom he He doesn't even know it, just because he is my friend I can always counter him when he accuses me of lack of childish love and gratitude.

What always seemed incomprehensible to me was your complete insensitivity to the suffering and shame you could inflict on me. with your words and judgments,Even if you had no idea of ​​the power I have, I am sure that I have often offended you with words, but I always knew. It hurt, but I couldn't control myself. to retain the word. I already regretted it while she was saying it, but you earned your luck with your words without further ado. They were completely indifferent to you, but that was your entire upbringing. I think you have a talent for education. .

You certainly could have benefited a person in your class through education. He would have seen the wisdom of what you told him, he wouldn't have cared about anything else and he would have done things calmly. For me when he was a child. Everything you called me was a commandment from heaven. I never forgot it. It's still the most important means for me to judge the world, especially to judge yourself, and that's where you completely failed because when I was a kid, the main time was with him. you at meals were yours Lessons for the most part, lessons on proper behavior at the table, everything that came to the table had to be eaten, talk about the quality of the food was not allowed, but you often found the food not edible, you called it eating the cattle, the cook had spoiled it because you were very hungry and your special preference, everything heated up quickly and you ate a big bite, the boy had to hurry.

The gloomy silence at the table was interrupted by. warnings first, talk later, or faster, faster, faster, or you see, I already ate the bones. You weren't allowed to bite them, you know, vinegar. You weren't allowed to sip it. The main thing was that you cut the bread straight, but it didn't matter that you did it with a knife dripping with sauce. You had to make sure no food fell on the floor beneath you. At the table they allowed you to have the most. You only took care of eating, but you cleaned and cut your nails, sharpened your pencils, cleaned your ears with a toothpick.

Please, father, understand me well. Those would have been completely insignificant details. They only became depressing to me because you, the person who was so incredibly important to me, yourself. If you did not keep the commandments that you gave me, the world was divided for me into three parts: one where I lived as a slave. under laws that were invented just for me and that I could never fully comply with - I didn't know why - then to a second world infinitely distant from mine in which you lived busy with the government giving orders and with problems not to follow them and finally to a third world where the rest of the people lived happily and free of orders and obeying.

I was always far away ashamed. Either I followed your orders, which was a shame because they only applied to me, or I was defiant. which was also shame because how could I be defiant with you, or could not follow you because, for example, I did not have your strength, nor your appetite, nor your ability, even though you demanded it of me as something of your own. Obviously, that was the biggest shame. The thoughts didn't move that way, but the boy's feeling at that moment perhaps becomes clearer if he compares it to Felix. You also treat him similarly, and even turn back.

The things around him use a particularly terrible means of politeness against him, since when he does something that you think is impure while eating, you not only tell me like you did back then that you are a big pig, but you also add that you are a true gentleman or just like your father, but that could be detrimental. You can't say anything more than maybe to Félix, it's not really important because for him you are just a particularly important grandfather, but not everything you were to me. Furthermore, Félix is ​​a quiet, somewhat masculine character, who stands out for a voice of thunder that may surprise you, but does not allow you to determine it by the time it lasts. relatively rarely he is also under other influences that I could not choose, I had to accept everything without being able to say anything against because it is not possible to speak calmly about something that you do not agree with or that you simply do not agree with.

He doesn't come from you, your bossy temperament doesn't allow it. In recent years you explain it by your nervousness of the heart. I don't know if you've ever been significantly different. At most, the nervousness of the heart is. a means of exerting tighter control, since the thought of it has to stifle the other person's last speech. This, of course, is not an accusation, just a statement. You cannot talk about a fact, it is a fact. right in your face, you say, but it doesn't really jump at all. What is said afterwards can only irritate you more, never convince you, so all we hear from you is to do what you want.

I am worried, you are free, you are of age, I have no advice to give you and all that with a terrible hoarse tone of anger and total condemnation before which I only tremble today less than when I was a child because the The exclusive feeling of guilt of the child has been partly replaced by the understanding of our helplessness of both - the impossibility of having calm sexual relations had another really very natural consequence - I forgot how to speak Otherwise, I probably would not have become a great speaker, but I have mastered the usual and fluent human language.

But you forbade me to speak at a young age. When it comes to your stuff, you are an excellent speaker, a halting and stuttering way of speaking, after all, that was too much for you. I stayed silent at first, maybe out of spite, then because I couldn't think or speak in front of you and because you were my true educator, that had an effect on all parts of my life, it's a strange mistake if you think that I would never I have submitted to you, always going against everything. It really wasn't my principle of life towards you as you believe and accuse me.

On the contrary, if I had followed you less, you would certainly be much happier with me. , all his educational measures were exactly correct. I did not evade any control as I am, apart from the basics and influence of life, of course, the result of your education and my obedience is that this result is still shameful and you subconsciously reject it. Recognizing the result of your education is precisely because your hand and my material were so strange to each other. You didn't say a word of objection and wanted to silence the opposing forces in me that you found unpleasant, but.

This influence was too strong for me. I was too obedient and remained completely silent. I hid from you and only dared to move when I was so far away from you that your power, at least directly, was no longer enough. I stood in front of him and everyone seemed to be against you again, while it was natural that your strength and my weakness were yours. Effective oratorical means that never failed, at least for me, in my education were bad words, threats, irony, evil laughter and, curiously, self-indulgence. I don't remember you insulting me directly and with explicit bad words.

You also didn't need to have so many others with you in the conversation. Especially in the store, the bad words around me fell on others in such quantities that, as a child, I was sometimes almost surprised and had no reason not to apply them to myself too, because the people you insulted were no worse. that Certainly you and I were no more dissatisfied with them than with me and here also your enigmatic innocence and invulnerability became evident. Swearing with threats and now it was like that too. It was already terrible for me. This is destroying you like a fish, although I knew that nothing worse than a small child would come, but it almost corresponded to my ideas about your power.

You were also terrible. You ran around the table screaming for someone. Apparently you didn't want to believe it at all, but you did and your mother finally apparently saved you. Once again, it seemed that you had preserved the child's life through your grace and carried it. As your undeserved gift, threats about the consequences of this also belong here. The disobedience when I started doing something you didn't like and you threatened me with failure, the reverence for your opinion was so great that the failure was unstoppable, though. perhaps only for a later time did I lose confidence in my own actions unstable doubtful the older I became, the more material you could use to demonstrate my worthlessness.

Little by little, in a sense, you really became right again. I don't want to say that I only became this way because of you. You only reinforced what was, but you reinforced it a lot because you were very powerful over me and you used all your power to do it, you had a special confidence in education through irony. , it also corresponded better to your superiority over me, a warning usually had this form with you, you can't do it like this and like that Of course you don't have time for that, and every question like that was accompanied by an evil laugh and an angry face.

You were punished, so to speak, before you even knew you had done anything wrong. Those reprimands where you were treated like a third person were also irritating. So the bad treatment was not even appreciated. You spoke formally to the mother, but in reality it was me who was sitting there, for example, of course, you can't have that about your son and things like that, which then had its counterpart in the fact that I didn't dare. , for example, and later it was a habit not to even think about asking you directly when the mother was there. It was much safer for the child to ask the mother sitting next to you about you.

Of course, there were also cases where people were very happy with the worst irony, that is, when it affected someone else, for example Elli, with whom I was angry for years. a celebration of malice and gloating when he said that he had to get up from the table 10 meters away almost every time he ate. They sit across the carpet and when you later sat angrily in your armchair without the slightest trace of sympathy or humor but rather like a sworn enemy, trying exaggeratedly to imitate her, how absolutely repugnant she was to your taste, how many times had she to repeat this and similar things, how little you had, I think it was because of the amount of anger and anger.

It seemed disproportionate to the issue itself. You didn't get the feeling that the anger was caused by that small detail of sitting away from the table, but rather that it was his fault. Everything was there from the beginning and only. because I took this as an opportunity to escape because they were convinced that I would find a reason to do so, they did not particularly recover and also became numb under the constant threat that they would not be beaten. gradually almost sure that you were becoming a grumpy and distracted persondisobedient child always in a generally internal escape so you loved like us you were absolutely right from your point of view when you said bitterly like the other day with clenched teeth and gurgling laughter which he had given to the child for the first time.

For the first time infernal ideas because of a letter from Constantinople, his company is completely incompatible with this attitude towards his children, it seemed to me when he complained publicly, which happened very often. I confess that, as a child, I probably didn't feel anything about it. everything and you didn't understand what you expected, you could find compassion, you were so great in all aspects, what did you care about our compassion or even our help? I didn't believe the complaints and looked for some secret intention behind them, only later did I understand. I know that you really suffered a lot for the children back then, but when in other circumstances the complaints might have been met with a childish, open and unhesitant mind that was willing to help in any way, to me they had to be only very clear means of education and humiliation as such, not very strong in themselves, but with that the harmful side effect is that the child gets used to not taking things.

Very seriously and should be taken seriously. Fortunately, there were exceptions to this, especially when you read silently and love and kindness with the power of it overcame everything that stood in the way and took over immediately. Rarely, but that was it. It was wonderful. For example, when I saw you sleeping a little tired in the tent during hot summer lunches after dinner with your elbow on the desk, or when you ran to our summer resort on Sundays, or when you trembled with tears when you my mother I was seriously ill on the bookshelf or when you came quietly to Ottl's room during my last illness, you simply stood on the threshold and craned your neck to see me in bed and, out of consideration, only waved at me.

You lay down and cried with happiness. I'm crying again now as I write it. You have a very beautiful, very rare, calm and happy smile that can make the person in question very happy. I do not remember that. It would have been expressly miraculous in my childhood, but it's definitely worth watching because why do you say that? I didn't feel good because he seemed unintelligent and he was very hungry. In the long run, even those friendly impressions did. nothing more than increasing my feeling of guilt and making the world even more incomprehensible to me. I preferred to stick a little to the current and current attitude towards you.

Claiming that it was partly because of a kind of revenge that I soon began. collecting and exaggerating the ridiculous little things I noticed about you, for example, maybe you let yourself be dazzled by people who usually only seemed to be of a higher rank and could talk andtalk about it, for example, from some imperial. Advice or something like that, on the other hand, something like that also hurt me that you, my father, thought that you needed such insignificant confirmations of your worth and flaunted them, or that I observed your preference for the indecent sayings that were said. as loud as possible and that you laughed as if you had said something particularly excellent during.

It was just a bit of indecency, but at the same time it was also a shameful expression of your life force. Of course, there were many. From such different observations I was happy. They gave me cause for whispering and fun. It was out of malice, out of disrespect, but believe me, it was nothing more than an inadequate means of self-preservation for me. It was jokes like that. Jokes are spread about gods and kings that not only can be combined with the deepest respect, but also belong to it. By the way, following your similar situation, you tried a kind of resistance towards me.

You used to point out to me how excessively. I was doing well and how well they treated me. That's true, but I don't think it essentially did me any good given the circumstances that existed. It is true that my mother was infinitely good to me, but with me. Everything that was related to you was not a good relationship. My mother unconsciously played the role of driver in the hunt, even if your upbringing in some unlikely case caused me to dislike you or even hate you on its own for the mother to compensate. being good with sensible words, she was the archetype of reason in childhood through intercession and I was pushed back into her circle, from which she might otherwise have helped you and me, the advantage would have exploded or So there was no real reconciliation. , that the mother only protected me from you in secret, gave me something in secret, allowed me something and then in front of you I was once again the shy creature of the cheater, the one to blame for his nothingness What he thought was his right Of course , I was only able to get there through secret routes, then I got used to using these routes to search for what I felt I had no right to do.

This increased my feeling of guilt. It's also true that you almost never hit me. the screams, the redness of your face, the hasty unbuttoning of the suspenders that were ready for her on the back of the chair was almost a bother to me, it's like when someone is about to be hanged, if they really hang him then it's the death. and everything ends when you have made all the preparations. She has to experience the gallows and only when the noose hangs in front of her face does she learn of her forgiveness, she may have to suffer for it for the rest of her life for this money raised.

Many times, in your clearly demonstrated opinion, she deserved a beating, but Grace had narrowly escaped yours, but again there was a great sense of guilt coming from all sides. You've always blamed me. alone or in front of others, due to the humiliating nature of the latter you had no feeling for your children's affairs they were always public that thanks to your work I lived in peace, warmth and abundance without deprivation, I think of comments that I owe. They have literally left grooves in my brain, like when I was seven years old I had to travel through the towns by car and we all had to sleep in the same room happily when we ate potatoes.

For years I had open wounds on my legs because of inadequate winter clothing. When I was a child I had to go to the store at home with only a few peseks. He received nothing, not even from the army. I still sent money home, but my father was always my father. who knows that today what children know is that no one has suffered it, understand that today such stories could have been an excellent educational tool for a child in different circumstances, they could have encouraged and strengthened him to survive the same hardships and deprivations that he had the father. past You didn't want that at all, the situation had become different as a result of your efforts, a chance to express yourself the way you had.

There was no such opportunity that would have had to be created. violence and overthrow Having to break away from home as long as you had the decision and strength to do so and that your mother had not used other means to counteract it, but you didn't want any of that. You called it ingratitude. , exuberance, disobedience, betrayal, madness, while you talked about it on the one hand giving examples and shame attracted you to it, but on the other hand you very strictly prohibited it, otherwise, for example, apart from incidental circumstances, Actually , I should have been delighted with Otla's adventure in Zyrau.

I wanted to go to the country where you came from. I wanted to have work and hardships like yours, I didn't want to enjoy your success at work, just as you were independent of yourself. father those were such terrible intentions as long as your example and your teaching were good, Otla's intentions failed and in the end the result was perhaps a little ridiculous with too much noise, she did not show enough consideration towards her parents but that was all It was your fault, not also the Halisses', and above all that you were so estranged from her, as you later became convinced, she was less estranged from you in the business than she was later in Zyrau, and if you hadn't.

You assumed that you had all the power and that you could have done something very good with this adventure through encouragement, advice, and supervision, perhaps even just through tolerance. After such experiences, you used to say in a bitter joke yes. We're doing too well, but in a sense this joke isn't a joke. What you had to fight for escaped from your hands, but the fight for the outer life, which was immediately accessible to you and from which, of course, we were not free. , it is something we have to fight for late in adulthood with the strength of children.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the reason why our situation is more unfavorable than yours, it is much more likely that it is equivalent to that, although the. The basic facilities don't compare. We are only at a disadvantage in that we cannot brag about our need and we cannot humiliate anyone with it, as you did with your need for it. I deny it. Not that it would have been possible for me to really enjoy it. fruits of your great and successful work, to use them and continue to work with them for your joy, but our alienation got in the way of that.

I was able to enjoy what you gave, but only with shame, fatigue, weakness, consciousness of guilt. That's why I can only be slightly grateful to you for the fact that I didn't. The next external result of all this upbringing was that I ran away from everything that only reminded me of you in the first place. The business itself, especially when I was a kid, as long as it was a shop in an alley I should have been very happy with it, it was so lively, lit up at night, you could see, you could hear a lot, you could help here and there, You could stand out, but above all, you would admire your great business skills, your way of selling, treating people, making jokes, being comfortable, and in cases of doubt you knew the decision well. and so on, the way you packed or opened a box was a sight to see and overall it certainly wasn't the worst school for kids, but as you slowly scared me out of business and covered for me, business was I don't feel comfortable either.

Things that at first I took for granted there tormented me, I was especially embarrassed by their treatment of the staff, I don't know, maybe it was like that in most stores, in Assurationi Generali. , for example, in my time it was very similar, but I did not explain it to the director there with all the truth. I didn't completely lie about my firing because I couldn't stand the bad words, which by the way they didn't. It affects me directly. I was overly sensitive about it from home, but I didn't care about other stores when I was a kid.

But I heard and saw screams in the store ranting and raging in a way that, in my opinion. , it had never happened again anywhere in the world at that time, and not only ranting, but also other tyrannies like you, for example, that you didn't want to be confused with others, and with your idiot you brought them down. the desk, just a little excusing the senselessness of your anger at you and the employee having to pick them up or your constant talk about a commissioner with a lung disease who had to die, the sick dog you called the paid enemy employees, that's what they were , but even before they became one, you seemed like their paid enemy to me.

I also learned the great lesson that you could be unfair to yourself. I wouldn't have realized it so soon. Too much guilt had accumulated for being right. , but according to my childhood opinion, which was later corrected a little but not too much, there were strangers who worked for us and that's why they had to live in constant fear of you, of course I exaggerated because I simply assumed that You seemed so terrible to the people like me. If that had been the case, they really wouldn't have been able to live since they were adults. With mostly excellent nerves, they shook off the reprimand effortlessly and it was over.

It hurt you a lot more than it hurt me, but it made the business unbearable. He reminded me a lot of my relationship with you. You were quite far removed from commercial interests and yours, even as a businessman, from your desire for power. He was so superior to all who ever learned from you that none of his achievements could satisfy you. Likewise, you had to be eternally dissatisfied with me, so I necessarily belonged to the staff group, by the way, because he was not. I understood how to do it out of fear I could insult a stranger like that and that's why out of fear the staff, who in my opinion was terribly upset, wanted to deal with you with our friends for the sake of my safety, it was no longer enough for me to behave normally and decent to the staff, not even modestly.

Rather I had to be humble and not only greet first, but also possibly dodge the return greeting and have. I, the insignificant person below, licked your feet, still would not have been compensation for the way you , the gentleman above, you attacked yourself. This relationship that I entered into here with other human beings had an impact beyond the business. and in the future, something similar but not as dangerous. And like me, Ottla's love for interacting with poor people runs so deep that sitting with maids and stuff is so annoying. Finally, she was almost afraid of the business and of anything. case was no longer my thing even before I reached high school and when it continued even more, it also seemed completely unattainable for my abilities since, as you say, it was even consuming yours, you were looking for it, so for me today it is touching and embarrassing because of my aversion to business, which hurts you a lot in your work, but to get you a candy alleging that I lack business sense, that I have higher ideas in Of course, your mother was happy with this explanation that you forced yourself to give and I Also, in my vanity and need, I allowed myself to be influenced by her.

But in reality it was only or mainly the superior ideas that dissuaded me. of the business that I now honestly hate. They should have expressed themselves differently than by letting me swim calmly and fearfully through high school and law school until I finally arrived at the clerk's desk. I ended up wanting to escape from you. I also had to flee from the family, including my mother. You could always find protection in her, but only in relation to you did she love you too much and was too loyal to you to be in the fight. The child could have been. a long-term independent spiritual power - a true instinct of the child, by the way, because as the years went by the mother became more and more closely attached to you, while always maintaining her independence within the smallest limits in a beautiful way and delicate and without you more and more significantly.

As the years passed, she blindly accepted his judgments and condemnations of the children more and more completely, more and more in her feelings than in her mind, especially in the serious case of the otler, You always have to take into account how tortuous it is. and exhausting the mother's situation was until the end. She was in the family, she struggled with household matters, she suffered twice all the illnesses in the family, but the last straw of all this was what she suffered in her intermediate position between us and You were always affectionate and considerate with her, but in this sense we did not forgive them any more than them, we hit them recklessly, you on your side, we on ours, it was a distraction, you.

You didn't think about anything bad, you only thought about the fight you had with us, that we had with you, and upstairs we went crazy with the mother, it was not a good contribution to raising children, the way you tortured. she without any fault on your part, of course for our sake, even seemed to justify our unjustifiable behavior towards her, what did she suffer from us for you and from you for us? Not counting those cases in which you were right because she forgave us, although even this forgiveness may sometimes have been just a silent and unconscious counter-demonstration against your system.

Of course, the mother would not have been able to endure all this if it were not for love for everyone. of us and because of that happiness of this love, her sister had been robbed of her strengthto endure it and then only partially left with me. Walli was happiest in her position with you, being closer to her mother, she also submitted to you in a. similarly without much effort or damage, but you also accepted it. Remembering your mother in a friendlier way, although there was little Kafkaesque material in her, but perhaps you had the right where there was nothing Kafkaesque.

You could yourself. Don't demand any of that. Nor did you have the feeling, like the rest of us, that she had missed something that could be saved by force. By the way, if you like the Kafka style to the extent that it is expressed in women. , you must never have particularly loved Wallis's relationship with you, she would perhaps have become even more friendly if the rest of us hadn't disturbed her a little. That is the only example of the almost total success of an advance of yours that she would least have had. I expected it from her when she was a child.

She was such a clumsy, tired, shy, sullen, guilty, too humble, resentful, lazy, greedy and stingy girl that I could barely look at her, I couldn't talk to her. She reminded me a lot of me, she was so similar. Given the same ties of upbringing, I found her stinginess in particular abhorrent because she probably had it even more strongly. Stinginess is one of the most reliable signs of deep unhappiness. She was so insecure about everything that she actually only owned what she already had in my hands or in my mouth or at least what was in the way and that's exactly what she took away in a similar situation.

I wanted to leave but all that changed. when she left home at a young age, that's the most important thing, she got married, had children, she became happy, carefree, brave, generous, selfless, hopeful, it's almost incredible how you didn't notice this change at all and at least not you judged him based on Merit You are so blinded by the grudge you have always held against Elli and you basically haven't changed, except that this grudge has now become much less relevant. Elli no longer lives with us and your love for Felix and your affection for Karl have. It is less important, only that sometimes Gerti still has to pay him fees, of course, I hardly dare to write, I know that by doing so I am jeopardizing the entire expected effect of the letter among ordinary people.

The circumstances, therefore, if she were not in special need or danger, you would only hate her. You yourself have admitted to me that, in your opinion, she intentionally continues to cause suffering and problems and while you suffer for her, she is satisfied and happy. a devilish place, what a tremendous alienation even greater than that between you and me must have arisen between you and her for your such tremendous ignorance to be possible. She is so far away from you that you can hardly see her anymore, but rather a ghost place. where was I suspicious of them, I admit that you had a particularly difficult time with yourself, I don't really understand the very complicated case, but in any case there was something like a l equipped with Kafka's best weapons between us, it was not a real fight , I soon finished with what was left.

What was left was flight, bitterness, sadness, inner struggle, but the two of you were always in a fighting stance, always fresh, always strong, a sight that was as magnificent as it was desolate, first, you were certainly very close, then even today, Of the four of us, Otla is perhaps the purest representation of the marriage between you and the mother and the forces that combined there, I don't know what. deprived you of the happiness of unity between father and son, it only makes sense to me to believe that the development was akin to the tyranny of your nature on your part.

For her part, despite the sensitivity, the sense of justice, the concern and all that, supported by the awareness of her strength, I also influenced her, but not by my own will, but rather by the mere fact of my existence Incidentally, she was the last to enter into already established power relations and was able to escape from them, I can even imagine that she doubted in her nature for a while whether she should throw herself towards you or towards opponents. Apparently you missed something at that moment and rejected them. But if it were possible, you would have done it.

It would have been a splendid couple in harmony, I would have lost an ally for it, but seeing you both would have amply compensated me, and it would have transformed you a lot in my favor for the incalculable luck of finding at least one child, which is everything Today, however , just a dream has no connection with her father, she has to find her way alone like me and to have more confidence, self-assurance, health, lack of hesitation that she has compared to me, in your eyes she is more evil and treacherous than me. I understand that she cannot be any other way about you, if she herself is capable of looking at herself through your eyes, of empathizing with your suffering and not despairing about it.

Mine is despair, but to be very sad, you see us here too often together in apparent contradiction, we whisper laughter here and there. Do you hear yourself saying that you have the impression of shameless conspirators, strange conspirators, you have always been a main topic in our conversations and in our thinking, but in reality we are not sitting together to think something against you, but to do it with all rigor, with fun, with seriousness, with love, despite anger and reluctance. Surrender to guilt. conscience with all the strength of your head and your heart to talk about this terrible process that hovers between us and you in every detail, from everywhere, on all occasions, from far and near, this process in which always You claim to be more innocent while they are here, at least for the most part, I leave the door open to all the mistakes that, of course, I can think of.

You are a party as weak and deluded as we are. In the overall context, Irma was an instructive example. Of your educational effect, on the one hand, she was a stranger who came to your business as an adult and had you mainly as her own. Therefore, being a boss was only partially exposed to your influence and an already resistant age, but on the other. Then again, she was also a blood relative, she adored her father's brother in you, and you had so much more over her than the mere power of your boss, and yet she's the one for her.

In her weak body, she was so capable, intelligent and hardworking. she, modest, reliable, selfless, loyal, that she loved you as an uncle and admired you as a boss, that she had proven her worth in other positions before and after and that she was not a very good civil servant. Of course, we pushed her to do it too. being close to your girl's position and so great was the power of bending your being towards her that I only developed it towards you and hopefully without the deepest suffering of the girl, the forgetfulness, the negligence, the black humor maybe even a little despite the extent to which he was even capable of doing it, although I don't even take that into account.

Considering that she was sickly and not very happy in other ways and that a sad domesticity weighed on her, you summarized the relationship of your relationship with her to I in a phrase that has become classic for us, almost blasphemous, but which demonstrates the innocence in your treatment of people. The pious one has left me a lot of trouble. I could describe even more circles of your influence and the fight against it. but here she would be entering into uncertainty and would have to build in addition, the further you get from business and family, the friendlier, more docile, polite and considerate you become.

Participatory, I also mean externally, like a self-. ruler, for example, once he is outside the borders of his country, he has no reason to remain tyrannical and can engage in an affable manner with even the lowest of people. In fact, you were always there as an example. group photos by Františkovy Lázně Happy and happy as a king traveling among the grumpy little ones, the children could have taken advantage of this, but they would have had to know how to recognize what was impossible in their childhood and I, for example For example, there would not always have been been away, so to speak, in the background to live in the strictest circle of your influence as I really did, not only did I lose the sense of family as you say, but on the contrary, I still had a sense of family, but mostly all negatively due to the inner detachment from you, the relationships with you, which of course can never be ended.

People outside the family suffered even more because of your influence. You are definitely wrong if you believe that because of the family. Other people I will do everything for you out of love and loyalty and the family will do nothing out of coldness and betrayal. I repeat it for the tenth time. I've probably become a very fearful person in other ways as well. From there it's still a long, dark road to where I've really arrived. So far I have been silent about relatively little in this letter. From time to time I will have to keep silent about some things that I still have. admit it to you and to myself That's why I say it's difficult, so that if the big picture gets a little confusing here and there you don't think that a lack of evidence is to blame;

There is much more evidence that could make the panorama unbearable. rigid - it is not easy to find a middle ground here, it is enough. By the way, to remind you of the past, I lost self-confidence in front of you and exchanged it for a feeling of unlimited guilt in memory of this limitlessness. I once wrote correctly about someone: he fears that shame will outlive him. I couldn't suddenly transform when I met other people. I felt a deeper sense of guilt towards them because, like I said, I had to make amends with them. what you owed them under my shared responsibility in the business.

Plus, you openly or secretly had something against everyone he was involved with. I also had to ask him to oppose the distrust you tried to instill in me in business and family toward most people. Name me one person who was important to me in some way as a child, whom you would not criticize. core at least once and that, interestingly, even you didn't particularly complain about it, you were just strong enough to endure it and in reality maybe it was just an emblem of the ruler. This distrust, which I never confirmed on my part. With my own eyes, because everywhere I saw only unattainably excellent people, self-distrust arose in me and, in addition to the constant fear of everything else, I certainly could not save myself from you in general.

Maybe it was because you were wrong. Since you really knew nothing of my human contact and, distrustful and jealous, I denied that you loved me, I assumed that I would have to compensate myself for the loss of family life elsewhere, since it would be impossible for me. By the way, I still had some comfort in this sense, especially when I was a child, because he distrusted my judgment and told me that you exaggerated, as young people always do, even in small things. There were also great exceptions, but later I almost lost this comfort as I became more aware of the world.

I also found little salvation from you in Judaism. Here salvation itself would have been conceivable or, furthermore, it would have been conceivable that. we could meet. We both would have found Judaism or even gone from there in agreement but what kind of Judaism was that I received from you? I have commented on it three ways over the years. That's why I agree with you because I didn't go to the temple enough, I didn't fast, etc., I didn't think I was doing an injustice to you, but rather to you, and with the guilt that always existed. It came back to me later when I was young.

I didn't understand how you got on with the nothingness of Judaism around you. You ordered me to blame you for the fact that out of pity, as you say, I did not make a statement. effort to do something similar, as far as I could see, was really nothing, fun, not even fun. Then you went to the temple there four days a year, at least closer to the indifferent than to those who took it. Seriously, you patiently completed the prayers as a formality, sometimes surprising me by being able to scramble through the passage of the prayer book that was being recited, and I was allowed to do so if only that were the main thing at Huddle Temple.

Wherever I wanted, I yawned and dozed during the many hours I was there. Afterwards I think I just got bored in dance class and tried to enjoy the few small changes there were, for example when the Ark of the Covenant was opened. It made me happy, it always reminded me of shooting galleries where even if you hit a black person a box door would open, only something interesting always came out of there and here were always the old headless dolls. By the way, me too. I am very afraid, not only because of the many people with whom you, of course, came into closer contact, but also because you once mentioned in passing that I too might be knocked on doors.

For years I trembled about it. Otherwise, I was not significantly disturbed by my boredom, at most by the barmizzwe, which only required memorizing ridiculous things, only led to a ridiculous performance on the exam and then, as far as you are concerned, to small unimportant incidents, like when they were called to the Torah and survived this, in my opinion, exclusively social event well, or when they made love at the soul memorial ceremony in the temple and said goodbye to me, which took a long time, apparently because I was fired and Due to lack of further involvementIt completely corresponded to my situation.

In any case, I showed amazing foresight here. When I was little, I had pretty clear feelings about my studies and career. Since then he did not expect any salvation that he had long ago abandoned. I had almost no foresight, but as far as the meaning and possibility of marriage was concerned for me, it was almost the greatest horror of my life. The child had developed so slowly that apparently these things were completely out of place. the ordinary for him Here and there the need arose to remember that he was preparing a permanent, decisive and even the most bitter test, but in reality it was not evident.

Marriage attempts were the greatest and most hopeful attempt to escape from you, but. So the failure was also great. I am afraid that, since everything fails in this area, I will not be able to make these attempts at marriage understandable to you, and yet the success of the entire letter depends on it. Because in these experiments, on the one hand, all the positive forces that I had at my disposal were brought together, on the other hand, all the negative forces that I described as a result of your upbringing, that is, weakness, lack of confidence in self, the sense of guilt, gathered here in anger and literally pulled a cord between me and the marriage, the explanation will be difficult for me because I have thought and researched everything here again and again for so many days and nights that even now I am already confused. seeing it and the explanation will only be alleviated by your, in my opinion, complete misunderstanding.

Improving the issue a little on such a complete misunderstanding does not seem to be particularly difficult. First, you put failure. of marriage in the ranks of my other failures. On the other hand, I wouldn't have assumed at all that you would accept my earlier explanation for the failure. In fact, it's just in this row. You underestimate the importance of. matters and you underestimate it to such an extent that when we talk about it we are actually talking about completely different things. I dare say that nothing has happened to you in your entire life that would have had as much meaning to you as this.

Marriage attempts did it for me. That's what I mean. It's not that you haven't experienced something so important, on the contrary, your life was much richer, more worried and crowded than mine, but that's precisely why nothing like that happened to you. like when one person has to climb five low steps and another only has to climb one step as high as those five combined, the first will not only be able to master the five but hundreds and thousands more. very strenuous life, but none of the steps he climbed will have had as much meaning for him as the second, that first high level, which is impossible to climb with all his strength, which he cannot climb and which of course he cannot climb, had for him. will be able to go up.

I cannot go further, get married, start a family, accept all the children who want to come, preserve myself in this uncertain world and even lead a little, I am convinced that it is the extreme that a human being can reach and that apparently so many easily . achieve, is not evidence against it because, firstly, not many people actually achieve it and, secondly, most of them do not achieve it, but it just happens to them. This is not that extreme, but it is still very great and very honorable, especially because. Actions and events cannot be purely separated from each other and ultimately it is not about this extreme, but only about the surrounding distance, but about a decent approach.

It is not necessary to fly towards the center of the sun, but towards a place of pure smell. land where the sun sometimes shines and you can get a little warm. How was I prepared for this as little as possible? This is already clear from what has been said so far, but there is a direct preparation of the individual. creation of the general basic conditions Did you not intervene much from the outside? Otherwise, the general social class of the people and the customs of the time are not possible here. After all, you didn't intervene much there either because it was the prerequisite.

Such an intervention can only be strong mutual trust and we both lacked that for a long time to make the decision and we were not very happy because our needs were very different. What grabs me has to barely touch you and vice versa, what is innocence, it can with you. be my fault and vice versa what has no consequences with you can be the lid on my coffin. I remember one night I went for a walk with you and your mother, it was on Josefsplatz, near what is now Landesbank, and I started off stupid. conceited, superior, proud, cool, that was false, cold, that was real and disturbing, how I used to talk to you about the interesting things, and I began to blame you that I had been left without education, that my classmates had to accept that I had been on the verge of great dangers.

Here, in my own way, I lied blatantly to show myself brave, because because of my fear I had no sin apart from the usual sins of city children. The idea of ​​​​the main dangers indicated at the end that, fortunately, he now knew everything and no longer needed any advice and that everything was fine. I mainly started talking about it because at least it made me want to talk about it. then out of curiosity and finally also to somehow get revenge for something, you took it very simply according to your nature, you just said that you could give me advice on how I can do these things safely, maybe I had.

I just wanted to get an answer like that, it corresponded to that Lust of the physically inactive, eternally worried child, who was overfed with meat and all good things, but my external shame was so hurt by it, or believed it should be so hurt. , that I could no longer talk to you about it against my will and that the conversation was arrogantly insolent and abortive. It is not easy to judge your response at that moment, on the one hand there is something depressingly open and, to a certain extent, primitive. On the other hand , is very modern in terms of teaching.

I don't know how old he was then, much older than 16, certainly not for a boy like that. But it was very. The strange response and distance between the two of us is also reflected in the fact that it was actually the first direct and comprehensive teaching I received from you, its real meaning, but which I understood at the time, but only much later. The fact that I realized what you advised me to do was, in your opinion and especially in my opinion at the time, the dirtiest thing ever. The fact that you wanted to make sure he didn't physically bring any of that.

The dirty house was irrelevant. You only protected yourself, the main thing was that you stayed out of your council, a husband, a pure man, above these things. This was probably worse for me at the time. I also felt that marriage was a shame and therefore it was impossible for me to know what I had heard in general about marriage had to apply to my parents, as a result you became even purer, you reached even higher. The thought you could have given. Such advice before was completely unthinkable for me, so there was almost no trace of earthly dirt on you and you just pushed me like that.

If I were destined to sink into this filth with a few open words, the world consisted only of you and me, an idea that was very close to me, then with you this purity of the world ended and with me, by virtue of your advice, the filth It was incomprehensible that you condemned me like that. Only the old guilt and the. The deepest contempt on your part could explain it to me, and with that it once again moved me to the depths of my being. The advice that corresponds to their vision of life is not very pleasant, but it is still quite common in the city today, and perhaps prevents damage to health.

This advice isn't very morally strengthening for him, but why shouldn't he be able to fix the damage over the years? By the way, you don't have to follow the advice and under no circumstances. In this case, there is no reason in the council alone for B's entire future world to collapse and yet something like this happens, but just because A is you and B is me, I can also have a particularly vision. good of this mutual innocence because a A. A similar collision between us occurred again in completely different circumstances about 20 years later. Horrible in itself, in fact, but much more harmless than where was something in me, 36 years old, that could still suffer damage?

I mean a little discussion on one of the few excited days after I announced it. my last intention to get married, you told me something like I probably put on some kind of well-chosen blouse, as Jewish women in Prague understand and then, of course, you decided to marry her and as quickly as possible in a week. . Tomorrow today I don't understand you, you're older, you're in the city and you don't know any other advice. There is no other option than to marry someone immediately, if you are afraid. I will go with yourself. You spoke in more detail and more clearly, but I can't remember the details anymore.

VI I also felt a little fog in my eyes. I was more interested in the mother, how, although she completely. He agreed with her, at least grabbed something from the table and left the room with it. You probably never humiliated me more deeply with words and never showed me your contempt more clearly than you would have spoken to me more clearly. Similarly 20 years ago. In your eyes you can even see a certain respect for the precocious city boy who, in your opinion, knew how to enter life without detours. Today this consideration can only increase the contempt for the boy who made one.

The beginning of that time has been engraved in him and seems to be Yes, today I have no more experience, just 20 years more miserable. My decision to have a girl meant nothing to you. You had always unconsciously suppressed my power of decision. Now I subconsciously believed that you knew what I was worth. You knew nothing of my attempts to save me in other directions, as far as you could. You knew nothing of the train of thought that had led me to this attempt at marriage and you had done it. to try to guess it and, according to the overall judgment you had about me, you guessed it in the most disgustingly clumsy, ridiculous way and you did not hesitate for a moment to tell me the same thing out of shame. that you had brought me What you did to me was nothing compared to the disgrace you think I would bring to your name by marrying me.

Now you can answer me a lot about my attempts at marriage and you have. You wouldn't have much respect for my decision if I decided to get engaged F dissolved twice and resumed twice when I uselessly dragged you and your mother to the engagement in Berlin and so on, all this is true but how did it come about? The basic idea of ​​trying to get married was completely correct, starting a house, becoming independent, a thought that one has. Yes, the only nice thing is that it actually turns out like a child's game where one person holds the other's hand. and even squeezes him while he yells, oh, go ahead, why don't you go, which I find difficult in our case due to the fact that you've been going.

You have always said it sincerely, since without knowing it you have always held it. or, more correctly, you held me down by the power of your being. Both girls were chosen by chance but very well, again a sign of your total misunderstanding with which you can believe that I, the anxious, hesitant, distrustful one, decide. an idiot for a marriage, for example, for delight with a blouse, both marriages would have become much more reasonable marriages since it was said that day and night the first time years the second time months all my power of thought was applied to the plan neither of the girls have me, I'm just disappointed in both.

My opinion of them today is exactly the same as when I married them. It's not that I got the same results as the first when I got married for the second time. So to read, the cases were very different, especially my previous experiences. In the second case, which was much more promising, it gives hope. I don't want to talk about details here, so why didn't I get married? individual obstacles as everywhere, but in overcoming such obstacles life is the essence. Unfortunately, the obstacle was independent of the individual case, but I am obviously mentally incapable of marriage, which is reflected in the fact that from the moment.

I decide to get married, I can't sleep anymore, my head shines day and night, there is no life left, I stagger in despair, they are not really the ones who care about that. Caused by my slowness and pedantry, without ceremony. Worries also accompany me, but they are not the deciding factor. They complete the work on the corpse, but something else decisively hits me. It's the general pressure of fear, weakness, self-loathing. closer I try to explain here when I try to get married, in my relationship with you two seemingly opposite things meet more strongly than anywhere else.

Marriage is undoubtedly the guarantee of the greatest self-liberation and independence that a family would have. the highest one can reach in my opinion and therefore the highest you have ever reached, I would be your equal, all the old and eternally new shame and tyranny would be simply history, that would be like a fairy tale, but there That's where the questionable thing is. : it's too much, not much can be achieved, it's as if someone was trapped and not only had the intention to escape, which might be possible, but also, at the same time, the intention to convertthe prison into a pleasure palace for him, but if he escapes he can't convert it and if he converts it he can't escape if I'm in a particularly unfortunate situation.

If I want to be independent, I have to do something that, if possible, has no connection. For you, getting married is the best and gives the most honorable independence, but at the same time it is also important to want to leave here in the closest relationship with you. Madness and every attempt is almost punished by it. It is precisely this close relationship that partly attracts me to get married. I imagine this equality that would later arise between us and that you could understand like no other, so beautiful because then I would be a free, grateful, innocent, complete person.

Son, you could be a non-oppressed, non-tyrannical, compassionate, satisfied father, but to do so we would have to undo everything that happened, that is, we ourselves would have to erase ourselves as we are, but marriage is closed to me because it is yours. own area Sometimes I imagine that He reached out and stretched over it and then it seemed to me that the only areas that mattered in my life were those areas that you either don't cover or that are not within your reach. and that corresponds to the idea I have of your size, there are not many areas and not very comforting ones and especially marriage is not among them.

This comparison shows that I in no way mean that you kicked me out of the marriage or the business because of you. For example, on the contrary, despite all the distant similarities I had in their marriage. A marriage in front of me that was exemplary in many ways in terms of loyalty and mutual aid, number of children and even when the children grew up and disturbed the peace. increasingly, they were unaffected by it. It was precisely from this example that perhaps a high concept of marriage was formed. The desire to get married was impotent because there were other reasons, they lay in the relationship with the children, which is the whole letter.

In your opinion, the fear of marriage sometimes comes from the fact that you are afraid that your children will later pay for your house. I don't think that what you have sinned against your own parents has much meaning in my case, because my feeling of guilt actually comes from you and is also too steeped in your uniqueness - this feeling of uniqueness is part of your tormenting nature - a repetition It's unthinkable, after all, I have to say that such a stupid, boring, dry person, A decadent son would be unbearable for me. If there was no other option, I would probably run away from him, like you wanted to do at the beginning because of my marriage, so my inability to get married may also be influenced by this, which is much more. important But is there fear for me?

That should be understood this way. I have already indicated that in my writings and in everything related to them I have made small attempts at independence. FL attempts to escape with the slightest success. By taking care of them, there is no danger that can protect me and there is no possibility of such danger reaching them. Marriage is the possibility of such danger, but it is also the possibility of the greatest support, but for me it is. It is enough that there is the possibility of danger. What would you do then if it were a danger? How could I continue living in marriage with the perhaps undemonstrable but in any case irrefutable feeling of this danger for the other person? but the final result is certain.

I have to give up the comparison of the sparrow in The Hand and the dove on the ceiling only fit very far in my hand, I have nothing on the ceiling, that's all and I still have to decide that. The conditions of struggle and the difficulties of life do not choose anything. I had to choose that the same way when choosing a career. However, the most important obstacle to marriage is the already indestructible conviction that in order to maintain the family and even the family. To manage it, everything that I have recognized in you is necessary, that is, all the good and bad together as they are organically within you, that is, the strength and mockery of the other, health and a certain excess of word, talent and insufficiency, the self. -trust and dissatisfaction with everyone else, world superiority and tyranny, knowledge of human nature and distrust towards most people, then also advantages without disadvantages such as hard work, endurance, presence of mind, bravery, comparatively I had almost nothing or very little. of everything and with that I wanted to dare to get married.

While I saw that even you had to struggle a lot in your marriage and even failed with your children, of course I did not ask myself this question explicitly or answer it explicitly. otherwise normal thinking would have taken over and shown me other men who were different, like when you call someone very different from you Uncle Richard and he still gets married and at least he doesn't collapse over it, which is a lot and I would have done it. It was enough for me, but I didn't ask this question, I experienced it since childhood and tried it.

Not only in regards to marriage, but also in everything, you convinced me with your example and with your education. , as I tried to describe it, of my inability and what was true in every little thing and did you good, of course, it had to be monstrous. From the greatest, from before marriage to attempts at marriage, I grew up as a businessman who lives the day with worries and bad feelings but without accurate accounting. He has some small gains that he always complains about and exaggerates, otherwise they are just daily losses, everything is written down but never accounted for. compulsion to take stock, that is, the attempt to get married and with the large sums that are expected here, it is as if there had never been even the slightest profit, everything was just a big debt and now get married without going crazy. , this is how my life with you ends so far and has so many perspectives for the future.

You could do it, if you understand the reasons why I fear. Answers You say I'm making it easy for myself if I change my way. I explain the relationship simply because of you, but I think that despite the external effort at least it is not more difficult for you but much more profitable. First of all, you also reject any blame and responsibility on your part. So our procedure is the same. although I am as open as I am You also want to take the sole blame on yourself, you want to be at the same time intelligent and too tender and you also want to absolve me of any blame.

It just seems to work, you don't want that anymore and it emerges between the lines despite all the talk about essence and nature and opposition and helplessness that I was actually the attacker while everything you did was yours alone. Now you've done it. You have achieved quite a lot with your lack of sincerity because you have proven three things: firstly, that you are innocent, secondly, that I am guilty and thirdly, that you are guilty out of sheer magnificence. You are willing not only to forgive me but also to show me what is more. and even less and wanting to believe for yourself that, contrary to the truth, I am also innocent, that could be enough for you now, but it is not enough for you yet.

You have it in your head. wanting to live completely on myself I admit that we fight among ourselves, but there are two types of fight, the gentleman's fight where the forces of independent opponents compete, each one stays for himself, loses for himself, wins for himself, and he. Vermin fighting, which not only stabs but also sucks blood to maintain its life; that is the real professional soldier and that is why you are not suitable for life, but you show that you can feel comfortable in it without worries and without yourself. -reproach that I have taken away all your ability to live and put it in my pockets.

What do you care now if you are not fit for life, I have the responsibility, but you make an effort and let me drag you physically and mentally? for life - an example of what you did last time You wanted to get married, you admitted it in this letter, but at the same time you did not want to get married, but in order not to have to make the effort, I would help you not to get married by forbidding this marriage for the shame that the union would bring to my name, but now it occurred to me.

Not at all. First of all, I never wanted to be an obstacle to your happiness here or anywhere else. Otherwise, and secondly, I never want to hear such a reproach from my son, but the self-conquest with which I gave you the freedom to marry helped me a little, not the slightest displeasure. She would not have prevented the marriage. On the contrary, it would have been an even greater incentive for you to marry the girl because the escape attempt, as you say, would have been more complete and my permission to marry did not prevent your accusations, as you know that it is definitely my fault that You may not have married, but you have basically shown me nothing here and in everything else except that all my accusations were justified and one particularly justified accusation was missing from them, namely the accusation of insincerity in love. servitude of parasitism If I'm not very mistaken, you still parasitize me with this letter.

I answer that, first of all, this whole objection, which can also partly turn against you, does not come from you. but for my part, so great that it is not even yours, I do not deny that there is a certain justification for the objection, which in itself also contributes new things to the characterization of our relationship, as well as the distrust in myself that you raised in me. . Of course, in reality things cannot fit together as the evidence in my letter does; in life it is more than a simple waiting game, but with the correction that results from this objection, a correction that I cannot and do not want to carry out. .

In detail, in my opinion, something has been achieved so close to the truth that it calms us both a little and makes life and death easier. Franz can make a note in his diary on Sunday, June 19, 1910. If I think about it, I have to say that my education did me a lot of harm in some ways. I wasn't raised in a secluded place, maybe in some ruins in the mountains. I cannot say a single word of reproach that I would like to. bring it up at the risk that the whole series of my old masters will not be able to understand this and I would have preferred to be that little inhabitant of the sunburned ruins that shone on the warm ivy among the rubble everywhere, even though at the At first it was weak.

If I had been under the pressure of my good qualities that had grown in me with the power of the weed, if I think about it, I have to say that my education did me a great favor. In a way, this accusation affects many people, specifically my parents, some relatives, people who visit our house, several writers, a very specific cook who took me to school for a year, a group of teachers who accompanied me. I have to press them tightly in my memory, otherwise I will forget one here and one there, but since I have put them together like this, everything falls apart again in some places, a school inspector slowly moving passers-by

brief

ly this La accusation cuts through society like a dagger.

I do not want to hear any contradictions to this accusation because I have already heard too many and since I have been refuted in most of the contradictions, I include them in my accusation and now. I explain my upbringing and this rebuttal has hurt me greatly in many ways. I often think about it and I always have to say that my upbringing has hurt me a lot in some way. This accusation is directed at many. people, but they are here together and they know, like in the old group photos, that they can't do anything with each other.

It doesn't occur to them at that moment to look down and they don't dare to smile. In advance there are my parents, some relatives, some teachers, a very specific cook, some girls from dance classes, some visitors to our house from previous times, some writers, a swimming teacher, a billette clerk, a school inspector , then some that I only met once in the guest and others that I can't remember at the moment and those that I will never remember again and finally those whose lessons somehow distracted me and I didn't notice at all at the time. Anyway, there are so many that there are eight of them, there is no need for me to name them twice and I express my accusation to all of them in this way, I present them, but I do not tolerate any contradiction because I have really endured quite a few contradictions and as with most of them I have refuted, I cannot help but do the same to include these refutations in my accusation and say that, in addition to my education, these refutations have also done me a lot of harm in many ways, one would expect that I was raised in some secluded place, no , in the middle of the city, I was raised in the middle of the city, not in one, for example, Ruin in the mountains or by the lake My parents and their entourage were covered and gray by my accusation until now.

Now you put it aside a little and smile because I put my hands to my forehead and think that it must have been the little resident ruin listening. cries of the mourners, overwhelmed by their shadows, chilling under the sun and scorched by the sun that would have shone upon me on all sides through the rubble of my ivy bed, though at first I had been a little weak in the sun. pressure of my good qualities The power of the weed should have grown on me. I often think about it and let the thoughts take their course without interfering and each time I turn it over I come to the conclusion that in some cases my education has done it.

It hurts me terribly. In this understanding there is aaccusation against many people: the parents with the relatives, a very specific cook, the teachers, some writers, friendly families, a swimming teacher, natives of the summer resorts, some ladies in the city park whom they did not even You would look, a hairdresser, a beggar, a tax collector, the family doctor and many others and there would be even more if I wanted to name them all and could briefly say there are so many that you have to be careful not to name them twice. Now you might think that even by this large number an accusation loses strength and simply has to become stronger.

He loses because an accusation is not one. field, it only goes forward and should not be distributed, especially in this case if it is directed against people from the past, these people can be retained in memory with a forgotten energy, you will hardly have a floor under you and even their legs. They will be smoke and now people in those conditions should be blamed for the mistakes they made in times past when raising a child, which is now as incomprehensible to you as it is to us, but you do not even mention them . to remember those times they can't remember anything and if you press them they push you aside silently no one can force them to do it but apparently you can't even talk about forcing them because chances are they won't even hear the words like tired dogs.

They stay there because they are using all their strength to stay alive in memory. But if you really get them to listen and talk, then you will hear counter-accusations ringing in your ears because people lose conviction. the venerability of the dead in the afterlife and represent it tenfold from there and if this opinion was perhaps not correct and the dead had a particularly great reverence for the living, then they would take even more care of their living past, which is the most close to them. and I would do it again Our ears are ringing and even if this opinion were not correct and the dead were very impartial, they would never approve of people getting upset with unprovable accusations because such accusations cannot be proven from person to person nor are they the existence of past errors .

In education it is necessary to demonstrate how the author first created it and now the reproach is shown that in such a situation it did not become a sigh, that is the reproach I have to make, it has a healthy inner life, the theory. maintains it, that is what really corrupts me but I forget it for the moment or I forgive it and do not make noise so that I can demonstrate at any moment that my education wanted to make me a different person than the one I have become, that is, the harm that my educators could have done to me according to their intention.

I reproach you for asking for it from the person I am now and since you can't give it to me, I beat the drum. of reproaches and laughter until the afterlife, but all this only serves as another way of reproaching me for having ruined a piece of me, ruined a good and beautiful piece. In dreams sometimes it seems to me like him. dead bride for others, this reproach that is always on the verge of turning into a sigh, above all, must emerge unscathed as an honest reproach. He is like that too, the big reproach to which nothing can happen takes the little girl on his back. hand, the big one jumps, the little one is there but once the little one is there he still stands out, we always waited for him and he plays the trumpet to the drum, I often think about it and let the thoughts take their course without interfering, but I always come to the conclusion that my upbringing has corrupted me more than I can understand.

In my opinion, I am such a human being, because my physical education was as different as my body was usual and although I. I'm quite short and a little fat, I like a lot of girls too, there's nothing to say about it, and the last one said something very sensible, oh if I could see them naked, they have to be pretty and kissable, she said But if I were missing a finger here, an ear, a finger there, if I had hairless spots on my head and scars on my butt, it wouldn't be a sufficient counterpart to my inner imperfection.

This imperfection is not innate. and that is why it is much more painful to endure than everyone else, I also had a center of gravity in me from birth, which even specialized education did not change. I still have this good center of gravity, but to a certain extent I do. I no longer have the corresponding body and a center of gravity that has nothing to work on turns into lead and sticks in the body like a shotgun bullet, that imperfection but I don't deserve it either, I suffered its creation through no fault of my own, that's why I can't find remorse anywhere, no matter how hard I look for it, because remorse would be good for me.

She cries to herself, leaves the pain aside and takes care of everything alone, like a job of honor. , we keep ourselves whole by making things easier for ourselves. My imperfection, as I said, is not innate, not deserved, but I bear it better than others, with a great work of imagination with chosen tools, much lesser misfortunes, a horrible wife, For example, bad conditions, miserable jobs and My face is not black with despair, but rather white and red. I wouldn't be the same if my education had penetrated me as much as I wanted it to. Maybe my youth was too short for that. , even now, in my 4 years, I praise the brevity of it with all my heart.

This allowed me to still have the strength to become aware of the losses of my youth, to overcome these losses, to raise accusations against the past. everywhere, and finally have some strength for myself, but all these forces have become only a remnant of those I had when I was a child and which exposed me more than others to the corrupters of youth. Yes, a good car. It is chased and overtaken by dust and wind and towards its wheels fly obstacles that one almost must believe in love. What is most clear to me now is the force with which the accusations want to come out of me.

There were times when I had nothing else. that accusations driven by anger, and when I was physically well, I clung to strangers on the street because they were The reproaches in me were thrown back and forth like water in a basin that one carries quickly, those times are over, the reproaches lie in me like strange tools that I almost no longer have the courage to grasp and lift and the corruption of the old seems to be the case. Education is starting to work more and more on me, trying to remember, perhaps a general characteristic of singles my age, my heart opens again to those people who should defeat my accusations and an event like yesterday was so common like food is now so rare that I write it down but beyond that I am myself. , who has now put down his pen to open the window, perhaps the best assistant in my attack.

I underestimate myself and that already means overestimating them but I also overestimate them and apart from that it's a shame that I still feel like making accusations, me. look outside of thisWindows that deny that the fishermen are sitting in their boats like students taken from school and taken to the river, well, their silence is often incomprehensible, like that of the flies on the window pane and, of course, the electric ones that pass above. the bridge, as always with the loudest noise of the wind and the people like broken watches, there is no doubt that the policeman, black from bottom to top with the yellow light of the medal on his chest, reminds us of nothing more than the hell and Now look with thoughts similar to mine at a fisherman who suddenly finds himself crying, has a nervous appearance or movement, the cork bends towards the edge of the boat, all this is correct, but at the time now only the accusations are correct, going against a lot of people, that can be terrifying and not only me but everyone else would rather look at the river from the open window the parents and relatives who have hurt me out of love makes their guilt even greater because how much they could have benefited me out of love then friendly families with the evil eye because of guilt they make them difficult and do not want to upload to memory then the piles of them The nanny the teacher and the writer and a very specific cook in their midst as punishment and then merging together a family doctor, a hairdresser, a tax collector, a beggar, a newspaper seller, a park attendant, a swimming teacher, then strange city park ladies you wouldn't even notice , natives of the summer resort as a mockery. innocent in nature and many others but there would be even more if I wanted to name them all and could in short there are so many that you have to be careful not to name one twice I think about it often and let the thoughts take their course without interfering But I always arrive to the same conclusion that my upbringing has corrupted me more than all the people I know and more than I understand, but I can only bring it up once in a while because if you ask me about it, it's really possible and you should believe it. .

I'm already trying to limit it out of nervous fear. On the outside I look like everyone else. I have legs, torso and head, pants and hat. gymnastics and although she was still quite small and weak, that was inevitable. Otherwise, I like it. Many girls, even younger ones, who don't like me, find me tolerable.