Franz Kafka ~ Brief an den Vater

Franz kaavka Letter to Father read by hansjurg grosse Dear Father, You recently asked me why I said 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 maintain coherence when I speak The size of the material is far beyond my memory and understanding The matter always seemed very simple to you, in 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.

As a result, I lived in luxury, I had complete freedom to learn what I wanted, I had no reason to worry about food, you did not demand any gratitude for it, but at least you know the gratitude of children, some kind of adaptation, show something of 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 as long as 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 just think your usual interpretation is correct to the extent that I also think you're completely innocent for our estrangement. I'm just like completely innocent." If I could get you to recognize that, then a new life wouldn't be possible. We're both too old for that, but there is a kind of peace, no stopping, but a softening of your incessant accusations. , any idea what I'm saying Curiously , recently you told me, for example, that I have always liked you, although outwardly I was not as close to you as other fathers usually are, precisely because I cannot 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 wrong. You can't fake it. That's right, but only for this reason. Claiming that other parents fake it is simply arrogance that can't be discussed further, or, in my opinion, that's really the veiled expression that something is not right between us and that you contributed to it, but without blame. If it really means that, then we agree. I'm not saying, of course, that I only became what I am thanks to your influence, that would be very exaggerated 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, neither Robert Kafka nor Karl But Hermann is completely different from what I really am and we I could have gotten along excellently, I would have liked to have you as a friend, as a boss, as an uncle, As a grandfather, although you were more indecisive as a father-in-law, but as a father you were "Too strong for me, especially because my brothers died when they were little, and my sisters came a long time later, so I had to bear the first shock alone.

I was too weak for that. Compare the two of us. 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 a lion's sting that secretly acts in another direction and that often exposes you to a real Kafka in terms of strength, health, appetite, vocal ability, 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. those advantages and weaknesses to which your temperament and sometimes your anger pushes you, maybe you are not exactly Kafka in your general view of the world, so I can compare you with uncle Philipp Ludwig Heinrich, that is strange.

Stricter than you, I inherited a lot from you and you managed 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 was disappointed and depressed when strangers came home, 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, apart from Walli, may not have. They were able to provide it. 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 I, the slowly growing child, and you, the finished man, would behave towards each other , I could have assumed that you would just crush me, that there would be nothing left of me.

It has not happened now the living cannot be calculated, but maybe something bad has happened, but please always remember that I never believe in the slightest that you are guilty. It had the same effect on me that you had to have, but you should stop it for once. It was a particular malice on my part that I succumbed to this effect. I was a fearful child, but I was certainly also stubborn, as children are. "My mother spoiled me too, but I can't believe she was so difficult to control. I can't believe that a kind word, a calm handshake, a good look, you couldn't have asked me for everything." you wanted Now you are basically a kind and gentle person.

The following does not contradict that. I am only talking about the appearance in which you appeared to the child, but not all children have the perseverance and fearlessness to search so long until they reach the level of goodness. You can only treat your child as you were created with strength, noise and jazon and in this case they also do it very well because you wanted to raise in me a strong and brave child. Of course, today I cannot directly describe the means of your education in the early years, but I can imagine them based on inferences from the later years and your treatment of Felix. , you were a disciple of the new poacher who was originally even more carefree than today and who was also completely tied to the business, which could only show me once a day and that is why you left an even deeper impression on me, who almost never managed to get used to it. , I remember it directly.

Just an incident from the early years, you will also remember that once at night I kept crying for water, not out of thirst, but probably partly to entertain myself. 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 people back then, but I had an inner damage from the fact that, for me, the senseless request for water and the extraordinary The terrible thing of being carried out, I could never achieve the right connection due to my nature , even after years of living under the tormenting idea that the huge man, my father, might 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 holding my path open, but you blocked it for me, with the good intention, of course, of me taking a different path. It wasn't worth it. For example, you encouraged me when I saluted well and marched but I was not 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, staggering 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 became very desperate and all my bad experiences across the board came together brilliantly in moments like this. comfortable when sometimes you would take 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 and took me out of the cabin.

I thanked you for not noticing my grades. He also 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 power. 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 ruled the world your opinion was correct everyone else was crazy exaggerated mchuge not normal your self-confidence was so great that You didn't have 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. You 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 have the disconcerting thing that all Tyrants have whose right over 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 really wasn't. something especially incomprehensible. I was under strong pressure from you in all my thoughts, even those that did not agree with yours, and especially in all of them. From the beginning, these seemingly independent thoughts of yours were charged with your contradictory judgments until the thought was fully and permanently carried out. It was almost impossible to bear. I'm not talking about lofty thoughts here, but about every small business of childhood. You just had to be happy about something be full of it come home and the expression 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 I don't have the head so rested or an event or buying something.

Of course, you couldn't be expected to be excited about every little thing about a child if you lived a worried and tormented life. That's not the point, it was much 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 that he had a little interest in a person. Due to my nature, it did not happen very often that you did it without any consideration for my feelings and without respect for mine. Judgment with insults, slander, humiliation and innocent and childish people like all actors Löwi had to pay for this without knowing him. You compared it in a terrible way that I have already forgotten about vermin and, 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, whom he doesn't even know, just because he is my friend I can always counter him when he accuses me of lack of love and childish gratitude.

What always seemed incomprehensible to me was your total insensitivity to suffering andshame 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 many times I have offended you with words, but I always knew. He hurt me, but I couldn't control myself. to retain the word. I already regretted it while she was saying it, but you won with your words without further ado. They were completely indifferent to you, but that was your entire education. I think you have a talent for education. Surely you could have benefited a person of your species through education.

He would have seen the wisdom of what you told him, he wouldn't have worried about anything else and he would have done things calmly. For me when he was a child. , everything you shouted at me was a commandment from heaven. I never forgot it. It is still the most important means for me to judge the world, especially to judge yourself, and that is where you completely failed because when I was a child, the main moment with you at meals was yours Lessons for the most part, lessons about the proper behavior at the table, everything that came to the table had to be eaten, talking about the quality of the food was not allowed, but you often found the food inedible, you called it eating the cattle, the cook had spoiled it because you had 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 reprimands. First talk later, or faster, faster, faster, or you see, I've already eaten the bones. You weren't allowed to bite them, you know, vinegar. You weren't allowed to slurp it. The main thing was that you cut the bread straight, but it didn't matter that you did it with a knife that was dripping with sauce, you had to be careful not to let food scraps fall to the floor beneath you. At the table they allowed you to eat to the maximum. You only took care of eating, but you cleaned and cut your nails, sharpened your pencils, and cleaned your ears with a toothpick.

Please, father, understand me well. Those would have been completely insignificant details. They only became depressing for 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 in which 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 for not following them and finally to a third world where The rest of the people lived happily and free of orders and by obeying I was always far away in Shame.

Either I followed your orders, which was a shame because they only applied to me, or I was defiant, which was also a shame because how could it be? defiant with you, or I couldn't follow you because, for example, I didn't have your strength, your appetite or your ability, even though you asked me to do it like Of course, that was the biggest shame. The thoughts did not move that way, but the child's feeling. My situation at that moment perhaps becomes clearer if I compare it with Felix. You also treat him in a similar way and even To change things, use a particularly terrible means of education against him: when he does something that you think is impure while eating, you don't simply tell me, as 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 other than maybe to Felix, it's not really important because to him you're just a particularly important grandfather, but not everything else. you were for me In addition, Félix is ​​a quiet, somewhat masculine character, who stands out for a The voice of thunder may surprise you, but it does not allow you to determine it by the duration. Above all, he is only with 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 simply does not agree. "It 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 have ever been significantly different. At most, the nervousness of the heart is a means to exert control stricter, since thinking about it has to stifle the other person's latest speech. This, of course, is not an accusation, just a statement. You can't talk about a fact, it's right in your face, you say, but actually originally it doesn't jump at all. You confuse the thing with the person, the thing is right in your face and you decide immediately without listening to the person.

What is said afterwards can only irritate you more, never convince you, then the only thing we hear of It is up to you to do what you want. As far as I am concerned, 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 a total condemnation before which today I tremble less than when I was a child, because the child's exclusive feeling of guilt has been partly replaced by the understanding of our both helplessness: the impossibility of a calm relationship had another actually very natural consequence: I forgot how to speak.

Otherwise, I probably would not have become a great speaker, but I would have mastered the usual and fluent human language. But you forbade me to speak at a young age when it comes to your things. You are an excellent speaker, a halting and stuttering way of speaking. That was too much for you, after all, 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 have never submitted to you, always going against everything, it really was not my principle of life towards you as you believe and accuse me.

On the contrary, if I had followed you less, I'm sure you would be much happier with me. Furthermore, all your 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, that this result is still shameful and that you unconsciously reject it. Recognizing the result of your education is precisely because your hand and my material were so strange to each other. You did not say a word of objection and wanted to silence the opposing forces in me that were unpleasant to you, but this influence was too strong for me.

I was too obedient and remained completely silent. I hid from you and only dared. move when he was so far from you that your power, at least directly, was no longer enough, but you stood in front of him and everyone seemed to be against you again, while it was natural that your strength and my weakness was yours Effective means of oratory 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. It wasn't necessary either. There were also so many other people in the conversation with you.

At home and especially in the store, the bad words around me fell on others in such quantities that, as a child, I was sometimes almost stunned by them and had no reason not to apply them to myself too, because the people I that you insulted were certainly no worse than me and you were certainly no more dissatisfied with them than with me and here too, your enigmatic innocence and invulnerability. They were obvious, you scolded without worrying about the situation, yes, you condemned bad words in others and prohibited them, you reinforced bad words with threats and that was also the case now.

It was already terrible for me. This is tearing you apart like a fish, even though I knew nothing worse than a toddler would come next. I didn't know it, but it almost corresponded to my ideas about your power. You were also terrible, even when you ran around the table screaming for someone. You apparently didn't want to believe it at all, but you did and your mother finally apparently saved you. Once again, it seemed as if you had preserved the child's life by 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, although maybe only for later. I lost confidence in my own actions. Unstable and doubtful. The older I got, the more material you could use to demonstrate my worthlessness. Little by little, in a sense, you really were right again. I am careful. 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 where you spoke formally with the mother, but in reality it was me who was sitting there, for example, of course, you can't receive that from your son and things like that, which then had its counterpart in the fact that I didn't dare and then It was already a habit to not 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.

Then you would ask the mother how the father was and that way you would protect him. protect yourself from surprises. 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. To me, it was 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 bitter enemy, exaggeratedly trying to imitate her, how absolutely repugnant she was to your taste, how often You had to repeat this and similar things, how little you had.

I think it was because the amount of anger and being angry seemed disproportionate. the thing itself - you didn't get the feeling that the anger was caused by that little thing of sitting away from the table, but rather that it was in his Everything was there from the beginning and only because I took it as a reason Explode because they were convinced that I would find a reason anyway, they did not compose themselves much and calmed down under the constant threat that they would not be beaten. Little by little you were almost sure you were becoming grumpy. 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 the gurgling laugh that he had given the child for the first time. 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, when I was a child, I probably didn't feel anything about it at all 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? In reality, you had to despise them like we did so many times. Therefore, I didn't do it. I didn't believe the complaints and only later did I understand some secret intention behind them. I know you really suffered a lot because of the children back then, but when in other circumstances complaints might have been met with a childish, open and unhesitating mind that was ready to help in some way, to me it had to be only very clears of education and humiliation as such, not very strong in themselves, but with that the harmful side effect is that the child becomes accustomed to not taking very seriously the things that should be taken seriously.

Fortunately, there were exceptions to this, especially when 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 the hot summer lunches after dinner with your elbow on the desk, or when you ran to our summer place on Sundays, or when you shook with tears when your mother was serious. That moment 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 don't remember if 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 very hungry. In the long run, even such friendly impressions only heightened my senses. of guilt and made the world even bigger to meincomprehensible. I preferred to stick a little to the real and current attitude towards you. Claiming that it was partly out of a sort of revenge that I soon began to accumulate and exaggerate ridiculous little things.

Things I've noticed about you, for example, maybe you've been dazzled by people who usually only seemed of a higher rank and could go on and on about it, for example, about some imperial council or something. On the other hand, something like this also hurt me: that you, my father, thought that you needed such vain confirmations of your worth and flaunted them, or that I observed your preference for indecent sayings, pronounced as loudly as possible and that you laughed as if You would have 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 such different observations. I was happy with them. They gave me cause for whispering and fun. It was out of malice, disrespect, but believe me it was nothing more than an inadequate means of self-preservation for me. They were jokes like those spread about gods and kings. , jokes that not only can be combined with the deepest respect, but also belong to it. By the way, in line with your similar situation, you attempted a kind of resistance towards me. You used to point out to me how extremely well I was doing and how well, they really treated me, that's true, but I don't think it essentially did me any good given the circumstances that arose.

It is true that my mother was infinitely good to me, but for me everything was related to you. It wasn't a good relationship. My mother unconsciously played the role of leader in the hunt, even if her upbringing in some unlikely case caused me to dislike or even hate me of its own accord, so the mother compensated by being good with sensible speech. , she was the archetype of reason in childhood through intercession and I was led back into the circle of her who might otherwise have helped you and me. The advantage would have been unleashed or was it so that there was no real reconciliation, that the mother only protected I separated from you secretly, you secretly gave me something, you allowed something and then in front of you I again became the timid creature of the cheater, the culprit for his nothingness.

What he thought was right could only come to him through secret routes. "Of course, then I got used to using these routes to search for what I felt I had no right to. This increased my feeling of guilt again. It is also true that you almost never hit me. But the screams, the redness on your face , the hasty unfastening of the straps that were ready 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 death and it's all over when it's all over. preparations He has to experience hanging and only when the noose hangs in front of his face does he learn of his forgiveness, he may have to suffer for the rest of his life about this compiled from so many times where in his clearly shown In my opinion, he deserved a beating, but Grace had narrowly escaped yours, but again there was just a huge feeling of guilt all around.

I was indebted to you. You have always blamed me, either alone or in front of others, for the humiliating nature of the latter. You didn't feel anything about your children's affairs. It was always public that thanks to your work I lived in peace, warmth and abundance without deprivation. I think about comments that must 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 from not having clothes suitable winter.

I had to go to the store at home with only a few peseks. I didn't receive anything, not even from the army. I still sent money home, but still my father was mine, always the father who knows that, today what children know. no one has suffered understands 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 the father had gone through. After all, the situation had become different as a result of your efforts, a chance to express yourself in the way you had.

There was no such opportunity that would have had to be created through violence and overthrow. Having to break up with him at home as long as you had the decision and the 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 on the one hand you talked about it by giving examples and Shame attracted you to it, but on the other hand you strictly prohibited it, otherwise, for example, apart from incidental circumstances, you should have been delighted with the Zyrau of Otla. adventure.

She wanted to go to the country where you came from. I wanted to have work and hardship like you, I wanted not to enjoy your success at work, just as you were independent of your father, those were such terrible intentions as while 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 didn't show enough consideration towards her parents but that was entirely her fault, not also the fault of the halisses and, above all, that you were so far away from her.

As you later became convinced, she was less distant from you in the business than she was later in Zyrau, and if you had not assumed that she was in full power, you could have done some very good in this adventure by encouragement, advice and assistance. supervision, perhaps even simply through tolerance. After such experiences, you used to say in a bitter joke that we were doing too well, but in a way I understand that this joke is not a joke. What you had to fight for was out of our hands, but the fight for the outside life, which was immediately accessible to you and from which of course we did not get rid of, is something we have to fight for.

In late adulthood with the strength of children, I'm not saying that's necessarily why our situation is more unfavorable than yours, it's much more likely to be equivalent to that, although the basic facilities don't compare. only at a disadvantage in that we cannot boast about our need and we cannot humiliate anyone with it, as you did with your need, I deny it, nor that it would have been possible for me to really enjoy the fruits of your great and successful work, 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 me, but only in shame, fatigue, weakness. Consciousness of guilt, for that I could only be miserably grateful. "To you for everything for the fact that I didn't do it. The next external result of all this education was that I ran away from everything that only reminded me of you from a distance, first of all the business itself, especially When I was child, if it were a shop in an alley, I should have been very happy, it was very lively, it was illuminated at night, you could see a lot, 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, the way you sold, the way you treated people, the way you made jokes, the way you were comfortable, and when in doubt you knew the decision immediately and so on, the way in which packing or opening a box was a spectacle worthy of see and, in general, it was certainly not the worst school for children, but since you gradually scared me from all sides and business and covered me, business was not comfortable for me either.

At first it tormented me, I was especially ashamed of its treatment towards the staff, I don't know, maybe it was like that in most stores, at Assurationi Generali, for example, it was very similar. in my time, but I didn't explain it completely honestly to the director, I didn't completely lie about my dismissal because I couldn't stand the bad words, which by the way didn't affect me directly. I was sensitive about it from home, but I didn't care about other stores as a child, but I heard and saw screamers in the store ranting and raging in a way that, in my opinion, had never happened again anywhere in the world. world of that time, and not only ranting, but also other tyrannies like you, for example, who did not want them to be confused with others, and with your imbecile you threw them off the desk, only excusing the senselessness of your anger a little and the employee had to pick them up or your constant talk about a commissar with a lung disease who should die, the sick dog you called the paid enemy employees, that's what they were, but even before they became one you "It seemed to me that it was their paid enemy.

There I also learned the great lesson that you could be unfair to myself. I wouldn't have realized it so soon. Too much guilt had accumulated because you were 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 because of that they had to live in constant fear of you, of course I exaggerated because I simply assumed that people found you just as terrible as you did to me. If that had been the case, I really wouldn't they could have lived since they were adults.

With mostly excellent nerves, they shook off the scolding effortlessly and it ended up hurting a lot more than it did. "For me, but it made business unbearable. It reminded me too much of my relationship with you. You were quite far removed from business interests and your own. Even as a businessman, your desire for power was so superior to everyone's. that they ever learned." of 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 I didn't understand how to do it out of fear.

I was able to insult a stranger like that and so, out of fear that the staff, who in my opinion were terribly upset, would want to take it up with our friends for the sake of my safety, it was no longer enough for me to behave that way. a normal and decent attitude towards the staff, and not even behave modestly, but I had to be humble and not only greet first, but also possibly also dodge the return greeting and have I, the insignificant person below, lick your lips. feet, it still wouldn't have been compensation for the way you, the lord above, attacked me.

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 in any case. 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 little candy by claiming that I lack business sense, that I have higher ideas in Of course, your mother was pleased with this explanation that you forced yourself to give and I too, in my vanity and need, allowed myself to be influenced by her.

But in reality it was only or mainly the superior ideas that dissuaded me. They took me away from the business that I now sincerely hate. They should have expressed themselves differently than by letting me, calmly and fearfully, swim 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 keeping her independence within limits. smaller beautifully and delicately 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, one must always keep in mind how devious she was. 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 you have done it. We don't forgive them any more than we forgive 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 in We went crazy with the mother, it was not a good contribution to raising children, the way you tortured. her without any fault on your part, of course for our sake, she even seemed to justify our unjustifiable behaviortowards 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 only a silent and unconscious counter-demonstration against your system. Of course, the mother would not have been able to endure all this if she were not out of love for everyone. of us and because of that happiness of this love, her sister had been robbed of the strength to endure it and then she only partially left with me. Walli was happiest in her position with you, being closest to her mother, she also submitted to you in a similar way without much effort or harm, but you also accepted her Remembering your mother in a friendlier way, although there was little Kafkaesque material in it, but perhaps you were entitled where there was nothing Kafkaesque.

Don't demand any of that. Nor did you have the feeling, like the rest of us, that she had missed something that she could save herself by force. By the way, if you like the Kafka style in what is expressed in women. You should never have particularly loved Wallis's relationship with you, perhaps she would have become even more friendly if the rest of us hadn't disturbed her a little. That is the only example of the almost complete success of a breakthrough of yours that I least expected of her when she was a child. She was such a clumsy, tired, shy, sullen, guilty, overly humiliating, spiteful, lazy, greedy and stingy girl.

I could barely look at her, I couldn't talk to her. She, she reminded me a lot of me, she was so similar. Given the same ties of upbringing, her stinginess in particular was abhorrent to me because it probably felt even stronger to me. 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 she 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're so blinded by the grudge you've always held against Elli and you basically haven't changed, except 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 made it less important, it's just that sometimes Gerti still has to pay her fees, of course, I hardly dare to write, I know that by doing so I am putting in jeopardy the entire expected effect of the letter among the common 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 tremendous alienation, even greater than between you and me, must have arisen between you and her for your such tremendous lack of knowledge to become possible. She is so far away from you that you can hardly see her anymore, but a ghost puts her in the place where she was. You suspect them, I admit that you had a particularly difficult time with yourself, I don't really understand the complicated case, but in any case case there was something like a l equipped with Kafka's best weapons. between us, it wasn't a real fight, I soon finished what was left.

What was left was flight, bitterness, sadness, inner struggle, but the two of you were always in a fighting position, always fresh, always strong, a vision that was as magnificent as it was desolate. First of all, 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 parent-child unity, it only makes sense to me to believe that the development was akin to the tyranny of your nature on your side.

For his part, despite the sensitivity, a sense of justice. , restlessness and all that, supported by the awareness of her strength, I also influenced her, but not by my own will, but by the mere fact of my existence, by the way, she was the last to enter the already established power . relationships and she was able to escape from them, I can even imagine that she hesitated for a while whether she should go after you or against her opponents. Apparently you missed something at that moment and it made them back off. But if it were so possible, you would have been a splendid couple in harmony, I would have lost an ally for it, but seeing you both would have richly compensated me, and you would have been greatly transformed in my favor by the incalculable luck of finding at least one child, that that's all.

Today, however, only a dream has no connection with her father, she has to find her way alone like me and to have more confidence, self-confidence, health, without a doubt she has compared 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 being desperate for it. Desperation is my thing, but being 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 we are not really sitting together to think something against you, but to do it with all rigor, with fun, with seriousness, with love, despite the anger, and reluctance Surrender to the consciousness of guilt 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 all sides, on all occasions, from far and near. together, this process where you always claim to be more innocent while you're here, at least for the most part.

I leave the door open to all the mistakes that, of course, they can make me. You are as weak and deceived a party as we are. In the context of the whole, Irma was an instructive example of its educational effect: on the one hand, she was an outsider who came to her business as an adult and who had it primarily as her own, so being a boss was only partially exposed to her influence. and at an already resistant age. , but on the other hand 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 is the only one In her weak body, she was so capable , intelligent, hard-working, modest, trustworthy, selfless, loyal, who loved you like an uncle and admired you like a boss, who had proven herself in other positions before and after, and who was not a very good civil servant . also pushed by us to be 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 girl's deepest suffering, forgetfulness, negligence, maybe even a little dark humor. despite the extent to which she was capable of doing so, although I don't even take that into account.

Considering that she was sickly and not very happy in other ways and that a depressing domesticity weighed on her, you summarized the relationship of your relationship with her for me 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 Furthermore, the further you get from business and family, the friendlier, more accommodating, 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 continue being tyrannical and can engage in an affable way even with the lowest people.

For example, in the group photos of Františkovy Lázně. Happy as a king traveling among the grumpy little ones, the children could have benefited from it, but they would have had to know how to recognize the impossible in their lives. my childhood and I, for example, would not always have been absent, so to speak, deep down I was allowed 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 feeling of family, but mainly negatively because of 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. bad if you think that for others I will do everything for you out of love and loyalty and the family will do nothing out of coldness and betrayal. I repeat for the tenth time. I've probably become a very fearful person in other ways too, but from there it's still a long, dark road to where I've really gotten. So far I have been intentionally silent about relatively little in this letter. From time to time I will have to keep silent about some things that I have yet to admit 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, don't think that a lack of evidence is to blame; there are many more. evidence that could make the picture unbearably stark: it is not easy to find a middle ground here is enough. By the way, to remind you of the past, I had lost self-confidence in front of you and exchanged it for an unlimited feeling of guilt. "In memory of this limitlessness, I once wrote correctly about someone: he is afraid that shame will outlive him. I could not suddenly transform when I met other people, I felt a deeper sense of guilt towards them because, as I already said, I had to make amends with them what you owed them under my shared responsibility in the business.

Furthermore, you had something openly or secretly against everyone I was involved with. I also had to ask you to oppose the distrust that you were trying to instill in me in business and in Name me one person who was somehow important to me as a child, whom you didn't criticize to the core at least once and who, interestingly enough, even you didn't particularly complain about. , you were simply strong enough to endure it and in reality maybe it was just an emblem of the ruler. This distrust, which I never confirmed for myself With my own eyes, because everywhere I only saw unattainably excellent people, distrust in myself arose in me. and, besides the constant fear of everything else there, I certainly couldn't save myself from you in general.

The fact that he was wrong about this was perhaps because you really knew nothing of my human contact and, distrustful and jealous, I denied that you loved me, I assumed that I had to make up for the loss of family life somewhere else because it would be difficult for me. impossible to live the same life outside. By the way, I still had some comfort in this regard, especially as a child, because I distrusted my judgment. He told me that you were exaggerating, as young people always do, the small things too much for the big ones. exceptions, but then I almost lost this comfort as I became more aware of the world.

I also found little salvation from you in Judaism. Here salvation would have been conceivable in itself or, even more, 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 it that I received from you? I have commented on it three ways over the years. When I was a child I blamed myself for that according to 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 to you, and the guilt that was always there washed over 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 the effort to do something. It really was, as far as I could see, nothing, funny, not even funny. Then you went to the temple four days a year. There, at least closer to the indifferent than to those who took it seriously, patiently completing the prayers as a formality, you sometimes surprised me by the fact that you could scramble the passage from the prayer book that was being recited , and I was allowed to do so if only that was the main thing in the Huddle temple. wherever I wanted, I yawned and dozed for the many hours I was there, then 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, which It made me happy, it always reminded me of shooting galleries, where even if you hit a black one, a box door would open, only something interesting always came out of it and here were always the old headless dolls.

I'm very afraid there, not only because of the many people you came into closest contact with, but also because you once mentioned in passing that I too might be knocked on doors. 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 you wentlike half-assed 14-day chemistry studies. Years of study only reinforced that basic belief. I studied so much that it meant that in the months leading up to the exams I was taking many nerves were spiritually fed on wood flour that had already been chewed by thousands of mouths, but in a certain sense, I enjoyed it as I did at school. secondary school before and after in the profession of public official, because everything 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 my career. From here on I didn't expect any salvation. He had given up on that a long time ago. I had almost no foresight, but when it came to the meaning and possibility of marriage for me, it was almost The greatest horror of my life. The child had developed so slowly that these things were completely out of the ordinary for him, here and there. The need arose to remember that I was preparing a permanent, decisive and even the most bitter test, but in reality it was not obvious.

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

To improve the matter a little in such a total misunderstanding does not seem to be particularly difficult. First of all, you put the failure of marriage in the row of my other failures. On the other hand, I would not have assumed anything that you would accept my previous explanation for the failure. In fact, only that one is in this row. You underestimate the importance of the matter and you underestimate it to such an extent that when we talk about it together we are actually talking about completely different things. I dare say that nothing has happened. For you in your entire life that would have had as much meaning for you as attempts at marriage had 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 and more concerned. and fuller than mine, but that is precisely why none of that happened to you, it is like when one person has to climb five low steps and another only has to climb a step that is as high as those five combined, the first one not only You will be able to master all five but hundreds and thousands more. He will have led a long and very strenuous life, but none of the steps he climbed will have had as much significance for him as the second, that first high level, which is impossible, had for him. for all his strength to climb, to what he cannot climb and which of course he cannot overcome, get married, start a family, accept all the children who want to come, preserve himself in this uncertain world and even lead a little, I am convinced According to the extreme that a human being can reach and that apparently many reach easily, there is no evidence against it because, firstly, not many people actually achieve it and, secondly, most of them do not achieve it, but are simply told. happens. "This is not so extreme, but it is very great and very honorable, especially since 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 of a decent focus.

Not necessary Fly towards the center of the sun, but always towards a pure one. Smell places on the earth where the sun sometimes shines and you can get a little warm. How did I prepare for this? The worst possible. This It is already clear from what I have said. "It has been said so far, but there is a direct preparation of the individual and a direct creation of the general basic conditions. Didn't you intervene much externally? It is not possible any other way. Here the general gender class of the people and the customs of the time.

After all, it did not intervene much there either because the prerequisite for such intervention can only be strong mutual trust and we both lacked a lot of time to make the decision and we were not very happy because our needs were very different. What grabs me barely has to touch you and vice versa what with you is innocence could be my fault and vice versa what with you has no consequences can be the lid of my coffin I remember that I went once at night to walk with you and your mother, I was on Josefsplatz, near the current Landesbank, and I started off as stupid, conceited, superior, proud, cool, that was false, cold, that was real and disturbing, how I used to talk to you about interesting things, and I started by reproaching them for not having educated, that my companions had to accept that I had been close to great dangers.

Here I lied, in my own way, shamelessly to show myself brave, because as a result of my fear I had no sin apart from the usual sins of city children at bedtime. However, a more precise idea of ​​the main dangers indicated in the end that, fortunately, I now knew everything and no longer needed any advice and everything was fine. I started talking about it because it made me want to at least talk about it, then out of curiosity and finally also so that I could 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, perhaps I had only wanted to get an answer like that, it corresponded to that Lust of the physically inactive, eternally worried child, who overfeeds himself with meat and all good things, but my external shame It hurt so much, or I thought it must hurt so much, that I could no longer talk to you about it against my will and the conversation was aborted with arrogance and insolence.

It is not easy to judge your answer at that moment, on the one hand, there is something depressingly open and to some extent primitive about it, on the other hand, the teaching itself is very modern. I don't know how old he was then, but older than 16, certainly not for a kid like that. But it was a very strange answer and the 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 I didn't physically bring any dirt home was irrelevant. You were only protecting yourself, House, the main thing was rather that you remained outside your council, a husband, a pure man, above them. This was probably made worse for me at the time because I also felt that marriage was a shame and therefore it was impossible for me to know that what I had heard in general about marriage had to apply to my parents, so I turned even purer, you reached even higher.

The idea that you could have given yourself similar advice before was completely unthinkable to me, so there was almost no trace of earthly dirt on you and you just pushed me like that. If I were destined to come down to this earth with a few open words, the world was formed only by 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 land. in itself was It is incomprehensible that you would condemn me like this. Only old guilt and 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 your vision of life is not very pretty, but it is still quite common in the city and perhaps prevents health damage. This advice does not strengthen you morally, but why couldn't you repair the damage over the years? By the way, you don't have to follow the advice and in any case there is no reason in the advice alone for B's entire future world to collapse and yet something of this kind happens, but only because A is you and B is me. I can also have a particularly good overview of this mutual innocence, because about 20 years later a similar collision occurred between us in completely different circumstances. as a fact, horrible in itself, but much more harmless than where was something in me , a 36-year-old man, who could still suffer harm?

I mean a little argument on one of the few excited days after I announced my latest intention to get married, you told me something like I probably wore 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 are older, you are 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 cloudy in my eyes. I was more interested in her mother, how, even though she completely agreed with her, she 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 in a similar way 20 years ago. In your eyes one can even see a certain respect for the precocious city boy who, in your opinion, he knew how to enter life without detours, today this consideration can only increase the contempt because the boy who made a The beginning of that time has remained engraved in him and seems to be Yes, today I have no more experience, but only 20 years more miserable.

My decision to have a girl meant nothing to you. You had always unconsciously suppressed my power of decision and now I unconsciously believed that you knew my worth. You didn't know anything about my attempts to save me in other directions, so you could. You knew nothing about the train of thought that had led me to this attempt at marriage. and you had to try to guess it and, according to the overall judgment you had of me, you guessed it in the most disgustingly clumsy, ridiculous way and you didn't hesitate for a moment to tell me the same way. about the shame 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 couldn'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? Was the basic idea of ​​trying to get married completely correct, starting a house, becoming independent, a thought you have? 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 it while shouting, oh, go ahead, why don't you go, which seems complicated to me in our case because of the fact that you've been going.

You have always said it sincerely, since without knowing it you have always held me or, rather, you have held me down by the power of your being. Both girls were chosen by chance but very well, once again a sign of your complete incomprehension that you can believe that I, the anxious, hesitant, distrustful one, decide with a start for a marriage, for example for the pleasure of a blouse , both marriages would have become much more sensible marriages as it was said that day and night the first time years the second time months all my thinking power was applied to According to the plan, none 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 had the same results as the first time I got married. I got married 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 not? I get married? There were 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 getting married, which is reflected in the fact that from the moment I decide to get married I can no longer sleep, 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 -Sanguinism and pedantry, unceremonious worries also accompany me, but they are not the decisive factor. They complete the work on the corpse, but something else decisively hits me. It is the general pressure of fear, weakness, self. contempt. I want to get closer to it Try to explain to you 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 for greater self-liberation and independence. You would have a family, the highest one can reach in my opinion and therefore the highest you have ever achieved, you would be your equal, all the old and eternally new shame and tyranny would be simply history, that would be like a story fairy tale, but that's where the questionable thing is: it's too much, so much can't be achieved, it's like someone was trapped and not only had the intention to escape, which might be possible, but also, at the same time, the intention to turn the prison into a pleasure palace for him, but if he escapes he can't turn it and if he turns 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 with 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 for it. It is precisely this close relationship that partly attracts me to get married. I imagine this equality that would later emerge between us and that you could understand like no other, so beautiful because then I would be a free, grateful person, an innocent, upright person.

Being a son, one could be a non-oppressed, non-tyrannical, compassionate, satisfied father. , but for this we would have to undo everything that happened, that is, we ourselves would have to be erased as we are, but the marriage is closed. because it is your 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 do not 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 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 break with your example, on the contrary, despite all the distant similarities that I had in your marriage A marriage in front of me that was exemplary in many aspects in terms of loyalty and mutual help Number of children and even when the children grew up and They increasingly disturbed the peace, it did not affect them. 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 what the entire letter is about.

In your opinion, the fear of marriage sometimes comes from the fact that you are afraid that the 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 permeated by your uniqueness - this feeling of uniqueness is part of your tormenting nature - a repetition It is unthinkable, after all, I must say that such a stupid, boring, dry and 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 first because of my marriage, so my inability to get married may also be influenced.

But this is much more important. But is there fear for me? That should be understood like this. I have already indicated that in my writings and in everything related to them I have made small attempts at independence. FL tries to escape with the slightest success. My life consists of watching over them, there is no danger I can ward off and there is no chance 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 enough that there is the possibility of danger.

What would I do then if it were a danger? How could I continue living in marriage with the perhaps unprovable but at least irrefutable feeling of this danger to the other person? I may doubt, but the final result is certain. I have to give up the comparison with the sparrow. 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 combat conditions and the difficulties of life do not choose anything. I had to choose that the same way when I chose a career.

However, the most important obstacle to marriage is the already indestructible conviction that in order to maintain the family and even to manage it, it is necessary to have everything that I have recognized in you, that is, all the good and bad together just as they are organically within you, that is, strength and mockery of the other, health and a certain excess of speech, talent and insufficiency, self-confidence and dissatisfaction with others, world superiority and tyranny, knowledge of human nature and distrust towards most people, then also advantages without any disadvantages such as hard work, resistance, presence of mind, courage, 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 and I did not answer it explicitly, otherwise normal thinking would have taken over the matter and shown me other men who were different when you call someone very different from you Uncle Richard and he still got married and at least he didn't collapse because of it, which is a lot and would have been enough for me, but I didn't ask this question, I experienced it since childhood and I tried it.

Not only when it came to marriage, but also when it came to every detail, you convinced me through your example and through your upbringing, just as I tried to describe it, of my inability and what was true in every little thing. and it did you good, of course, it had to be monstrous. From the oldest, 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 wins that he always complains about and exaggerates about, otherwise they are just daily losses, everything is written down but never accounted for. because now comes the compulsion to take stock, that is, the attempt to get married and with the large sums expected here, it is as if there had never been even the slightest profit, everything was just a big debt and now to get married without becoming crazy, this is how my life with you ends so far and it has so many future prospects.

You could, if you understand my reasons for my fear of you. Answers You say I'm making it easy for you. I myself do change my relationship, I explain it to you simply because of you, but I believe 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. Our procedure is the same while I am there, but no matter how open I am. You also want to take the sole blame, you want to be clever and too tender at the same time and you also want to absolve me of any blame.

Of course, the latter only seems to work, you no longer want that and it emerges between the lines, despite all the talk about essence, nature, opposition and helplessness, that in reality I was the attacker, while everything that what you did was your work. Now you have achieved enough with your insincerity because you have proven three things: first, that you are innocent, second, that I am guilty, and third, that you are guilty out of sheer magnificence. You are willing not only to forgive me but also to try what is more and what is less and want to believe for yourself that, contrary to the truth, I too am innocent, that might be enough for you now, but it is not enough for you yet. .

You have it in your head. I have decided to want to live entirely on myself. I admit that we fight among ourselves, but there are two types of fighting, the knight's fight where the forces of independent opponents compete, each one stays for himself, loses for himself, wins. for themselves, and the fight against vermin, which not only stab but also suck blood to maintain their life - that is the real professional soldier and that is why you are not fit for life - but you show that you can feel comfortable in it without worries and without reproaches 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 the effort and let it drag you down 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. 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, 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 did not get 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 are still parasitizing me with this letter as such.

I reply 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 my distrust in myself, which you you posed. 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 didn't grow up in a remote place, maybe in some ruins in the mountains. I cannot say a word of reproach against that, I would like to bring it up at the risk that the whole series of my former teachers will not be able to understand this and I would have preferred to be that little inhabitant of the sun-scorched ruins that shone on the warm ivy among the rubble everywhere, even though it was weak at first.

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. "It is very damaging in some ways. This accusation affects many people, namely my parents, some relatives, individual visitors to our house, several writers, a very specific cook who took me to school for a year, a group of teachers that I have to press them tightly in my memory, otherwise I will forget one here and another 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 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 these contradictions in my accusation and now I explain my education and This refutation has hurt me a lot in many ways. I often think about it and I always have to say that my education has hurt me a lot in some ways. This accusation is directed at many people, but they are here together and they know, as in the old group photos, who 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, an inspector of school, 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 that time. In short, there are so many that there are eight, there is no need for me to name them twice and so I express my accusation to all of them, I present them, but I do not tolerate any contradiction because I have really endured quite a few contradictions and as in most of them I have been refuted. , I can't help but do the same to include these refutations in my accusation and say that, in addition to my upbringing, 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 move it away a little andYou smile because I moved my hands away from them to my forehead and I think that I should have been the little resident of the ruins listening to the cries of the titmouse, overwhelmed by their shadows, chilling in the sun and burned by the sun that would have shone on me for all of them. sides through the debris of my ivy bed, even if I had been a little weak at first under the pressure of my good qualities The power of the weed should have grown on me. Many times I think about it and let the thoughts take their course without interfering and every time I turn it over I come to the conclusion that in some cases my education has done me terrible harm.

In this understanding there is an accusation against many people: parents with relatives, a very specific cook, teachers, some writers, friendly families, a swimming teacher, natives of the summer resorts, some ladies in the city park those you wouldn't even look at, 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 two of them. Sometimes now you might think that even for that large number an accusation loses strength and simply has to become stronger.

It loses because an accusation is not a 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 anymore and even their legs will be smoke and now people in that condition 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 don't 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 make them listen and speak, then you will hear counter-accusations ringing in your ears because people lose the conviction of the venerability of the dead in the afterlife and represent it tenfold from there and if this opinion perhaps was not correct and the The dead had a particularly great reverence for the living, then they would care even more for their living past, which is closest 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 that 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 I sometimes seem like a dead bride to others, this reproach that is always on the verge of turning into a sigh, above all it must emerge unscathed as an honest reproach. He is like that too, the great reproach to which nothing can happen takes the little girl to the ground. 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 am quite short and a little fat, I like many girls too, there is 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 "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 for my inner imperfection.

This imperfection is not innate and, therefore, it is much more painful to endure than all the others if I too had a center of gravity from birth, which not even specialized education did not change I still have this good center of gravity, but to some extent I no longer have the corresponding body and a center of gravity that has nothing to work on turns to 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 mine "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, pushes the pain aside and takes care of everything alone, like a job of honor." , we stay straight making things easier for each other. 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 minor misfortunes, a horrible wife, For example, bad conditions, miserable jobs and My face is not black with despair, but rather white and red. It would not be the same if my education had penetrated me as much as I wanted. Perhaps my youth was too short for that.

Even now, in my 4 years, I praise its brevity with all my heart. This allowed me to still have the strength to become aware from the losses of my youth, to overcome these losses, to raise accusations against the past on all sides, and finally have some strength left for me, but all these forces have returned only as a remnant of those I had as a child and that exposed me more than others to the corrupters of youth. Yes, a good car is chased and overtaken by dust and wind and obstacles fly towards its wheels that we should almost 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 in 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 hardly have the courage to grab and lift. The corruption of my parents seems to be the case. Education begins 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 now it's so weird that I write it down but beyond that I'm 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 is a shame that I still feel like making accusations, I don't look outside of this Windows that deny that the fishermen are sitting in their boats like students taken out of school and taken to the river, Well, their silence is often incomprehensible, like that of the flies on the window glass and, of course, the electric ones that pass overhead. 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 it difficult for them and they don't 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, then merging with each other, a family doctor, a hairdresser, a tax collector, a beggar, a newspaper seller, a park keeper, a swimming teacher, then strange city park ladies whom you don't even notice you would say, 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. They forced me to do many things. 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.