Kafka's Letters to Milena (Over and Over Again)

There's a chance I'll make it back to the eternal city. If only for a single night and too far from the Stare Mesto (but still within walking distance). Knight-errant thoughts: Mozart, the children's drawings of Terezin, Petrin Hill, The Hunger Wall, Kafka and Milena, getting lost (a good thing) in Prague.

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A few clips from the letters:

Of course I understand Czech. I’ve meant to ask you several times already why you never write in Czech. Not to imply that your command of German leaves anything to be desired. Most of the time it is amazing and on those occasions when it does falter, the German language becomes pliant just for you, of its own accord, and then it is particularly beautiful, something a German doesn’t even dare hope for; a German wouldn’t dare write so personally. But I wanted to read you in Czech because, after all, you do belong to that language, because only there can Milena be found in her entirety (the translation confirms this), whereas here there is only the Milena from Vienna or the Milena preparing for Vienna.

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I am now calmer than I was 2 hours ago outside on the balcony with your letter. While I was lying there a beetle had fallen on its back one step away and was desperately trying to right itself; I would have gladly helped—it was so easy, so obvious, all that was required was a step and a small shove—but I forgot about it because of your letter; I was just as incapable of getting up. Only a lizard again made me aware of the life around me, its path led over the beetle, which was already so completely still that I said to myself, this was not an accident but death throes, the rarely witnessed drama of an animal’s natural death; but when the lizard slid off the beetle, the beetle was righted although it did lie there a little longer as if dead, but then ran up the wall of the house as if nothing had happened. Somehow this probably gave me, too, a little courage; I got up, drank some milk and wrote to you. 

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Dear Frau Milena, the day is so short, between you and a few other things which are of no significance it is over and done with. There’s hardly any time left to write to the real Milena, since the even more real one was here the whole day, in the room, on the balcony, in the clouds.

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Apparently I had judged your husband differently. In the café circle he seemed to me the calmest, most reliable, understanding person, almost exaggeratedly paternal, although also inscrutable, but not enough to cancel out the above attributes. I always respected him, I never had the occasion or the ability to get to know him better, but friends, especially Max Brod, had a high opinion of him, and this was always on my mind whenever I thought of him. At one time I especially liked his peculiar habit of receiving evening telephone calls in every café. Probably somebody was sitting next to the phone instead of sleeping, just dozing, using the back of the chair as a pillow, jumping up every now and then to call. A state I understand so well that it may be the only reason I’m writing about it. 

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It’s possible that the 3 syllables also signify the 3 movements of the Apostles on the Prague clock. Arrival, making an appearance, and angry departure.