More Clips: Letters to Milena



Tomorrow I’ll send the father-letter to your apartment, please take good care of it, I still might want to give it to my father someday. If possible don’t let anyone else read it. And as you read it understand all the lawyer’s tricks: it is a lawyer’s letter. And at the same time never forget your great Nevertheless. 
*
But now I have to go to my sister’s wedding.—By the way, why am I a human being, with all the torments this extremely vague and horribly responsible condition entails? Why am I not, for example, the happy wardrobe in your room, which has you in full view whenever you’re sitting in your chair or at your desk or when you’re lying down or sleeping (all blessings upon your sleep!)? Why am I not that? Because I would break down with grief if I had seen your misery during these last days, or even if—you should leave Vienna.
*
How happy I am, how happy you make me! A client came—imagine, I have clients too. The man interrupted my writing; I was annoyed, but he had a kind, friendly, fat face, at the same time a very correct face, as only Germans from the Reich have. He was gracious enough to consider jokes official business; nonetheless he had disturbed me, and I couldn’t forgive him.
 
 

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