From Kafka's Diaries


     21 August. Today I got Kierkegaard's Buch des Richters. As I suspected, his case, despite essential differences, is very similar to mine, at least he is on the same side of the world.
***

This excerpt follows on a letter drafted to the father of Felice Bauer (explaining why Kafka shouldn't marry: "A marriage could  not change me, just as my job cannot change me"):

30 August. Where am I to find salvation? How many untruths I no longer even knew about will be brought to the surface. If they are going to pervade our marriage as they pervaded the good-bye, then I have certainly done the right thing. In me, by myself, without human relationship, there are no visible lies. The limited circle is pure.

***

In despair. Today, in the half-asleep during the afternoon: In the end the pain will really burst my head. And at the temples. What I saw when I pictured this to myself was really a gunshot wound, but around the hole the jagged edges were bent straight back, as in the case of a tin can violently torn open.
     Don't forget Kropotkin! 

 
 

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