All Family die after Kafka.
Kafka's father was a businessman who established himself as an independent retailer of men's and women's fancy goods and accessories, employing up to 15 people.
Charles Ferdinand University, where at first he decided to study chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. In the end of his first year, he met another student a year younger than he was, Max Brod
July 15, 1908, he resigned, and few weeks later found more suitable employment with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. He worked there until July 1922
1912, at the home of his lifelong friend Max Brod, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who lived in Berlin. Their relationship finally ended in 1917
In the early 1920s he developed an intense relationship with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská.
1923, he briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In Berlin, he lived with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the ghetto. Dora became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud - a book of Jewish law.
suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, boils, and other ailments, all usually brought on by excessive stresses and strains. He attempted to counteract all of this by a regimen of naturopathic treatments, such as a vegetarian diet and the consumption of large quantities of unpasteurized milk.
But the crowd is so huge. its dwelling places are infinite. If there were an open field, how he would fly along, and soon you would hear the marvellous pounding of his fist on your door. But instead of that, how futile are all his efforts. He is still forcing his way through the private rooms of the innermost palace. Never will he win his way through. And if he did manage that, nothing would have been achieved.
No one pushes his way through here, certainly not someone with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window and dream of that message when evening comes.
by Franz Kafka
Your friend is deteriorating in his Russia—three years ago he was already yellow enough to be thrown away, and, as for me, well, you see how things are with me. You’ve got eyes for that!”
“So you’ve been lying in wait for me,” cried George.
In a pitying tone, his father said as an afterthought, “Presumably you wanted to say that earlier. But now it’s totally irrelevant.”
And in a louder voice : « So now you know what there was in the world outside of yourself. Up to this point you’ve known only about yourself! Essentially you’ve been an innocent child, but even more essentially you’ve been a devilish human being! And therefore understand this: I sentence you now to death by drowning! ”
George felt himself hounded from the room. The crash with which his father fell onto the bed behind him he still carried in his ears as he left. On the staircase, where he raced down the steps as if it were an inclined plane, he surprised his cleaning woman, who was intending to tidy the apartment after the night before.
“Jesus!” she cried and hid her face in her apron. But he was already past her. He leapt out the front door, driven across the roadway to the water. He was already clutching the railings the way a starving man grasps his food. He swung himself over, like the outstanding gymnast he had been in his youth, to his parents’ pride. He was still holding on, his grip weakening, when between the railings he caught sight of a motor coach which would easily drown out the noise of his fall. He called out quietly, “Dear parents, I have always loved you nonetheless” and let himself drop.
At that moment an almost unending stream of traffic was going over the bridge.
Before the Law
by Franz Kafka
Translation by Ian Johnston
Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body.
The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.
It was a hot summer’s day. I was coming along the homeward road with my sister and passed the gate of a manor. I do not know if she knocked at it out of sheer mischief or merely threatened to do so with her fist and did not. A hundred yards farther up where the road turns left began a village. We were not acquainted with this village, but just after the first house people came out and waved at us. Whether out of friendliness or warning, they were apparently frightened and stooping in dismay. They pointed in the direction of the manor we had passed and reminded us of the knock at the gate. The landlord had brought an action against us and an investigation was to begin at once. I was very calm and calmed my sister also. She probably hadn’t even made any knock—and even had she done so, nowhere in the world was there proof of it. I tried to make the people around us understand. They listened, but withheld judgment. Later they said, not only my sister, but I too was to be charged. I nodded, smiling. We looked back at the manor, as when one observes a distant plume of smoke and waits for the flame. Dust rose, covering everyone. Only the points of the tall lances were visible. And scarcely had the troop vanished into the manor grounds when presently their horses appeared to have turned round, and were headed towards us. I pushed my sister aside—I would sort things out on my own. She refused to let me go by myself. I said she should at least change her clothes, so that she might come better-dressed before the gentlemen. In the end she followed and took the long way to the house. Soon the riders were upon us, nor had they alighted from their horses before they had asked for my sister. “She’s not here at the moment,” I answered anxiously, “but she'll come later.” The answer was received quite indifferently; it seemed significant above all that they had found me. There were two main gentlemen: the judge, a young, lively man; and his quiet assistant who was named Assmann. I was asked to enter a peasants’ cottage. Slowly, shaking my head and adjusting my braces, I sat down under the sharp gaze of the gentlemen at work. I still believed the word of honour, given by any of these peasants, would be enough for the townsfolk to set me free. But when I had crossed the threshold of the cottage, the judge, who sprang forward already expecting me, said: “I feel sorry for this man.” However, it was beyond all doubt that by this he did not mean my present state of affairs, but rather what would happen to me. The room looked more like a prison-cell than a cottage: large flagstones, utterly bare walls, immured by an iron ring; something was in the middle--half platform, half operating table.
Could I still taste other air than the prison’s? That is the great question; or on the contrary—it would be, if I still had some prospect of release.
"Alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I am running into."
"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.
Kafka's father was a businessman who established himself as an independent retailer of men's and women's fancy goods and accessories, employing up to 15 people.
Charles Ferdinand University, where at first he decided to study chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. In the end of his first year, he met another student a year younger than he was, Max Brod
July 15, 1908, he resigned, and few weeks later found more suitable employment with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. He worked there until July 1922
1912, at the home of his lifelong friend Max Brod, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who lived in Berlin. Their relationship finally ended in 1917
In the early 1920s he developed an intense relationship with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská.
1923, he briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In Berlin, he lived with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the ghetto. Dora became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud - a book of Jewish law.
suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, boils, and other ailments, all usually brought on by excessive stresses and strains. He attempted to counteract all of this by a regimen of naturopathic treatments, such as a vegetarian diet and the consumption of large quantities of unpasteurized milk.
But the crowd is so huge. its dwelling places are infinite. If there were an open field, how he would fly along, and soon you would hear the marvellous pounding of his fist on your door. But instead of that, how futile are all his efforts. He is still forcing his way through the private rooms of the innermost palace. Never will he win his way through. And if he did manage that, nothing would have been achieved.
No one pushes his way through here, certainly not someone with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window and dream of that message when evening comes.
by Franz Kafka
Your friend is deteriorating in his Russia—three years ago he was already yellow enough to be thrown away, and, as for me, well, you see how things are with me. You’ve got eyes for that!”
“So you’ve been lying in wait for me,” cried George.
In a pitying tone, his father said as an afterthought, “Presumably you wanted to say that earlier. But now it’s totally irrelevant.”
And in a louder voice : « So now you know what there was in the world outside of yourself. Up to this point you’ve known only about yourself! Essentially you’ve been an innocent child, but even more essentially you’ve been a devilish human being! And therefore understand this: I sentence you now to death by drowning! ”
George felt himself hounded from the room. The crash with which his father fell onto the bed behind him he still carried in his ears as he left. On the staircase, where he raced down the steps as if it were an inclined plane, he surprised his cleaning woman, who was intending to tidy the apartment after the night before.
“Jesus!” she cried and hid her face in her apron. But he was already past her. He leapt out the front door, driven across the roadway to the water. He was already clutching the railings the way a starving man grasps his food. He swung himself over, like the outstanding gymnast he had been in his youth, to his parents’ pride. He was still holding on, his grip weakening, when between the railings he caught sight of a motor coach which would easily drown out the noise of his fall. He called out quietly, “Dear parents, I have always loved you nonetheless” and let himself drop.
At that moment an almost unending stream of traffic was going over the bridge.
Before the Law
by Franz Kafka
Translation by Ian Johnston
Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body.
The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.
It was a hot summer’s day. I was coming along the homeward road with my sister and passed the gate of a manor. I do not know if she knocked at it out of sheer mischief or merely threatened to do so with her fist and did not. A hundred yards farther up where the road turns left began a village. We were not acquainted with this village, but just after the first house people came out and waved at us. Whether out of friendliness or warning, they were apparently frightened and stooping in dismay. They pointed in the direction of the manor we had passed and reminded us of the knock at the gate. The landlord had brought an action against us and an investigation was to begin at once. I was very calm and calmed my sister also. She probably hadn’t even made any knock—and even had she done so, nowhere in the world was there proof of it. I tried to make the people around us understand. They listened, but withheld judgment. Later they said, not only my sister, but I too was to be charged. I nodded, smiling. We looked back at the manor, as when one observes a distant plume of smoke and waits for the flame. Dust rose, covering everyone. Only the points of the tall lances were visible. And scarcely had the troop vanished into the manor grounds when presently their horses appeared to have turned round, and were headed towards us. I pushed my sister aside—I would sort things out on my own. She refused to let me go by myself. I said she should at least change her clothes, so that she might come better-dressed before the gentlemen. In the end she followed and took the long way to the house. Soon the riders were upon us, nor had they alighted from their horses before they had asked for my sister. “She’s not here at the moment,” I answered anxiously, “but she'll come later.” The answer was received quite indifferently; it seemed significant above all that they had found me. There were two main gentlemen: the judge, a young, lively man; and his quiet assistant who was named Assmann. I was asked to enter a peasants’ cottage. Slowly, shaking my head and adjusting my braces, I sat down under the sharp gaze of the gentlemen at work. I still believed the word of honour, given by any of these peasants, would be enough for the townsfolk to set me free. But when I had crossed the threshold of the cottage, the judge, who sprang forward already expecting me, said: “I feel sorry for this man.” However, it was beyond all doubt that by this he did not mean my present state of affairs, but rather what would happen to me. The room looked more like a prison-cell than a cottage: large flagstones, utterly bare walls, immured by an iron ring; something was in the middle--half platform, half operating table.
Could I still taste other air than the prison’s? That is the great question; or on the contrary—it would be, if I still had some prospect of release.
"Alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I am running into."
"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.