Kafka and a Game of Nine-Pins

From Letters to Felice:

But to prevent me from becoming presumptuous, someone right above my head in a studio (empty, not even let!!) stamps around all day in heavy boots and has installed some kind of quite pointless noise-machine to simulate the sound of a game of nine-pins. A heavy ball is rolled at great speed along the full length of the ceiling, lands in a corner, and comes slowly bumping back. Although the lady who lets the room can hear it too, she tries -- since nothing must be left untried for a lodger -- to use logic to deny the existence of the noise by pointing out that the studio is untenanted and empty. To which I can only reply that this noise is not the only illogical, and therefore irremediable, vexation in the world.