Back to Kafka and Felice
Soaked up quite a bit of Strindberg, now I'm returning to Franz's letters to Felice Bauer. This postcard, dated August 13, 1916, is worth inserting whole: Dearest, reading incontestable matters such as these, one becomes more and more confused: In 1876 Fontane accepted a civil service appointment as Secretary of the Royal Academy of Arts, and resigned from it at the end of 3 1/2 months amid appalling quarrels with his wife. To a woman friend he writes: "The whole world condemns me, thinks me childish, high-handed. I am forced to put up with it. I have ceased to discuss it, etc." Later: "I have held this appointment for 3 1/2 months. During the entire time I have derived not a single moment of enjoyment, experienced not a single pleasant sensation. The job is as distasteful to me from the personal as from the practical point of view. Everything galls me; everything stultifies me; everything laureates me. I have the distinct feeling that I shall always be unha...