Kafka in Love

From the First Glance
 

O
n this August 13, 1912, at the late hour when this story of singular loves begins, a south wind has swept away the banks of mist and the rain squalls that battered Prague all day. The stars are out, it is a true summer’s night.

In the heart of the old city, on quiet Obstgasse Street, a young man in a light-colored suit, vestless and wearing a straw boater, walks hurriedly. In front of him, between the gaping paving stones, are puddles, glistening under the light of the streetlamps. Like a man in an obstacle race, he jumps from puddle to puddle,
reflection to reflection, his feet neatly together. Here a decorated gable, there a window’s arch, a church lintel, an apostle’s outstretched arm, a pigeon taking flight. In accelerated time, he sees fragments of his city march past at his feet.

He is whistling “
Collection de boutons au Louvre
,” which Leonie Frippon has been performing recently at the City of Vienna cabaret. Carrying a large red envelope under his arm, the young man is on his way—as on many nights—to visit his friend Max.

Max Brod and he met by chance at the university, on November 23, 1903. They were both working toward a doctorate in law, both with the same lack of enthusiasm. Max, already a leader, was at the center of a group of students, organizing conferences on literature and philosophy, his ruling passions. Giving a talk about Schopenhauer one evening, he called Nietzsche a charlatan. It sparked a debate, and he was applauded. As the hall emptied, a young man approached him. You cannot call Nietzsche a charlatan. In a few sentences, the stranger developed his thesis. A firm voice, a shy demeanor. Max examined the young righter of wrongs, who was taller than he by a head. He noticed the young man’s elegance of dress, the tie and stand-up collar, the intensity of his gaze, his black eyes on fire. He was reminded of a Dostoyevsky hero.
The student’s high-cheekboned thinness and distinction made Max uncomfortable, and he regretted having overindulged in beer and fatty foods and neglected sports. But before Max could put his answer into words, the young man was gone. Where did this phantom come from? I’ve never seen him before, he has never participated in our meetings, never taken the floor. But can he have been reading the philosophers more attentively than all the rest of us?

The next morning, Max received a letter from the stranger. Along with apologies, it developed his argument. The reasoning was fine-grained, the style direct. Max kept this letter. And the dozens of others that followed. Several included little drawn figures, strange black marionettes hanging from invisible strings.

The two students became inseparable. They developed enthusiasms for the same books, the same movies, the cinematograph enthralled them. In late afternoon they could be seen leaving town together on long walks through the countryside. At night they attended the same shows, cheered and supported the Yiddish theater, patronized the same cafes. Max introduced his new friend to actors, young novelists, and poets, he knew all the most interesting literary circles, dance troupes, cabarets, and music halls in town.

Max confided to Franz that he wrote, but he was afraid to show him his writings. They were not up to his friend’s literary standards. Standards that exasperated him even more than his friend’s asceticism. Franz did not smoke, did not drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, slept by an open window even in the heart of winter, swam in icy rivers, and barely ate at all. Bad enough. But he would ruthlessly pluck a text naked, trim it of its fat: this metaphor made him despair of literature, that sentence was bombast, this other rang false, these two rubbed together like a tongue on a hollow tooth! He said once in a reverent voice, “You have to pull words from the void!”

“What void is that?” asked Max.

In answer, his friend extolled the pleasures of the commonplace, praised detail. “The smell of damp flagstones in a hall,” he quoted, savoring each word, that is how one has to write.

O
n this August 13, 1912, at the late hour when this story of singular loves begins, the young man in the light-colored suit who was earlier chasing reflections of his ancient city rings at his friend’s door.

“Do you know what time it is?” asks Max straightaway.

“He is always late,” offers a voice from a nearby room.
“He sets his watch an hour and a half ahead, but he is still late with everyone! Strange, to set your watch forward an hour and a half!”

The young man laughs. He deposits his straw boater in the entry hall and proceeds into the dining room, which connects to a library and a small music room. Otto, Max’s brother, is at the piano playing Lizst’s Sonata in B Minor, their mother is on the telephone, Herr Brod is rummaging the shelves for a book. They wave a greeting at their evening visitor.

In the dining room, a young woman in a white blouse is eating dinner alone. Seeing her, the young man is for a moment undecided. Then he walks straight for her, stretches out his hand, and introduces himself.

“Franz Kafka.”

He sits down across the table and looks so steadily at her that the young woman lowers her eyes and hesitates before answering.

“Felice Bauer.”

“You’re not from Prague. Where are you from? Are you traveling alone? How long will you spend here? What is your connection to the Brods? Do you work?”

Felice Bauer relaxes, answers in the same staccato: “I live in Berlin. I’m single. Related to the Brods by marriage. Yes, I work. I run the Parlograph department of the
Carl Lindström Company. And I leave tomorrow morning. Does that answer your questions?”

“I apologize, I’m always asking too many questions. May I keep you company?”

Without waiting for an answer, which wasn’t coming, Franz Kafka draws a packet of photographs from his red envelope and empties the contents on the table.

“Fräulein, may I show you these photographs? Max and I took them in Weimar, where we spent several days together. Why are you eating all alone at this big table?”

“I came back late. I was at the theater. No one waited for me.”

She smiles embarrassedly at Max, who comes to sit next to her. Franz shows her a photograph.

“Here is Goethe’s house, first of all, with its fourteen windows on the street and—”

“You counted them?” says Max.

“I am envious of everything that touches Goethe, absolutely everything. His parlor. His study. The staircase made by a convict from a giant oak tree, without a single nail. His Chinese porcelains. His bust, sculpted by David d’Angers. His garden theater with its two rows of seats for spectators. And even the gold laurel wreath over his casket, given by the German women of Prague.”

He picks out other photographs.

“We bribed the watchman, and he let us take pictures of everything, even the bedroom with its canopy bed. Would you like to see?”

Felice looks at each snapshot attentively. She pushes her unfinished plate away.

“Your meat is getting cold,” says Max.

“There is nothing more revolting than people who can’t stop eating,” says Felice.

A serving girl comes in to tell Herr Brod, who is reading in the library, that he is wanted on the telephone.