Franz Kafka - Letters to Milena (17)

The Talkative Crow reading a letter from Kafka to Milena. Saturday I keep asking myself whether you understood that my answer had to be the way it was, considering my state of mind; in fact it was actually much too gentle, much too deceptive, much too over-glossed. Day and night I keep asking myself this, trembling before your reply, I keep asking myself, futilely, as if I had been commissioned to hammer a nail into a stone for a whole week, without resting at night, and I must be both hammerer and nail in one. Milena! According to rumour—I can't believe it—all rail traffic with the Tyrol will stop tonight as a result of strikes. Your letter came, the joy of your letter. Beyond everything else, it contains one central item: that you might not be able to write me anymore once I'm in Prague. First of all, I'm singling that out for emphasis, for all the world to see—including you, Milena. So this is how one human being threatens another, and even while knowing that person's motives, at least from afar. And on top of that one pretends to treat this other human well. But perhaps you'd be right to stop writing me, several passages in your letter point to such a necessity. There's nothing I can plead against them. Those are exactly the passages where I know perfectly well and acknowledge with the utmost seriousness that I am at a great height, but precisely because of that the air is too thin for my lungs and I have to rest— I'll write tomorrow