[Joseonggwan's Global Humanities Journey] "I Love You Like the Sea Loves the Small Pebbles in the Abyss"

Reading Kafka's Love Letters Again on the 140th Anniversary of His Birth (Part 2)

Prague Castle, the highlight of a trip to Prague. Below it lies Mal? Strana, the Lesser Town. Here is the Franz Kafka Museum, a place that encapsulates Kafka's 41 years of life. If you visit this place without knowing Kafka, you might feel bewildered at the Kafka’s Lovers corner. Felice Bauer, Julie Wohryzek, Milena Jesensk?, Dora Diamant. Four booths display items related to these four women. Women who shared love with the genius Bohemian novelist and remained immortal.

The collection of letters "Letters to Milena," translated by Professor Emeritus Park Hwan-deok of Seoul National University and published by Beomusa in 2003. Reading this book plunges you into a whirlpool of emotions similar to what Billy Haas in 1939 and Park Hwan-deok in 1982 felt. It is a guilty feeling, like secretly peeking at intimate letters you shouldn’t see. The 361 pages of letters depict the ecstasy and agony of love, passion for literature, Jewish identity, the anxiety of being a borderline person, and a body crumbling under tuberculosis. Here are some excerpts.

Milena Jezenska

‘... Suddenly, I realized that I cannot remember every detail of your face. Only the image of you walking between the tables in the coffeehouse, your clothes at that moment, remains vivid.’

This letter was sent long after Franz met Milena, who hoped to translate his works, at a caf? in Prague. Usually, correspondence involves writing a letter after receiving a reply, but Kafka’s case was different. He often wrote letters to Milena in Vienna before receiving her reply. Sometimes he wrote several letters a week.

‘... How faithfully you translated each sentence deeply moved me. I never thought I could translate so faithfully and beautifully and naturally into Czech as you did. Are German and Czech really that similar?...’

‘You asked if I am Jewish; perhaps it was a joke, but actually, you might be questioning whether I have the anxious Jewish temperament that worries incessantly... Considering the unstable status of Jews, both internally and socially, it is a phenomenon well understood by them, but they never believe anything other than what they currently hold or already have between their teeth as their own property, and they do not grant themselves the right to live beyond what they hold; once lost, it never returns to their possession... Danger lurks in places unimaginable to Jews.’

Franz Kafka Museum.
Photo by Seonggwan Jo

‘It is a wonderful thing to write a reply with a sleepless brain that could not sleep well after receiving your letter. But I don’t know what to say, so I am just wandering between the lines. Feeling your gaze and breath as I stroll between the lines feels like beautiful and happy days. Even if my head is sick and tired, and I have to leave via Munich on Monday, that day will remain beautiful and happy.’

‘I was somewhat hit. A telegram came from Paris saying that my elderly uncle will come to Prague tomorrow night. Why is it a hit? Because it will take up my time. I want all my time to be spent for you, thinking of you, breathing within you. This house here does not seem to be stable...’

‘How joyful it is. You have given me an indescribable happiness... Because just at the moment I got up, the messenger brought your letter. I opened it on the stairs, and wasn’t there a photo inside? A photo! This indescribable, more precious than a year’s worth of letters, eternal letter! What a thrilling thing. What could be better than this? Poor photo, I cannot look at it without a pounding heart and tears.’

‘... There is no mention of what happens later. The only certainty is that if I move away from you, I cannot live otherwise, only be seized by anxiety, and be gripped by anxiety beyond what anxiety desires. But I will fall into anxiety with joy without any coercion. I will be completely immersed in a state of anxiety...’

Kafka at Prague Old Town Square in 1922. This was during his ongoing relationship with Milena.
Photo by Franz Kafka Museum

‘At this moment, I am dazed and immersed in sadness. I lost your telegram. It cannot be gone, but just the fact that I have to look for it is bad enough. But this is entirely your fault. If the telegram were not so wonderful, I would not always carry it in my hand...’

‘... Thanks to the train timetable, an even better way: likewise departing here at 4:12, but arriving at Gm?nd already at 7:28 p.m. Even if departing on the Sunday morning express, since it leaves at 10:46, we have over 15 hours. We can sleep for a few hours during that time. There is an even better way. We don’t have to take this train. There is also a train to Prague at 4:38 p.m., so we can take that train. If we do so, we can spend 21 hours together. We (just think!) can theoretically be together for that many hours every week... Gm?nd station is in Czech territory, but the town side is Austrian territory. Would passport administration be so foolish that Viennese people need passports to pass through this Czech station? If so, people from Gm?nd going to Vienna would also need passports with Czech visas. That cannot be...’

‘... If you ask me how I can say Saturday was ‘good’ with an anxious heart, it is not difficult to explain. Because I love you (therefore I love you, who is slow to understand. Like the sea loves a tiny pebble in the abyss, my love overflows abundantly over you?if heaven permits, I too want to be a pebble by your side again) and love the whole world, which includes your left shoulder. No, it was initially your right shoulder... That world also includes your left shoulder, your face above me in the forest, your face below me, resting on your almost exposed chest. Therefore, your words that we were once one are entirely correct...’

‘The translation of the closing words is excellent. In that story, every sentence, every word, every?if I may say?music is related to anxiety. At that time, the wound first opened its mouth in the long night. I feel that the translation accurately expresses this connection with anxiety by your magical hand. Think about it. You now know how painful it is to wait for a letter...’

Kafka's grave in the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague. [Photo by Seonggwan Jo]

‘Yesterday I was examined by a doctor. Contrary to my expectations, neither the doctor nor the scale saw my health as improved. Of course, it was not worse either. But the doctor said I must leave for sanatorium treatment... It is a tuberculosis sanatorium. There, coughing sounds are heard all day everywhere, patients’ fevers do not subside, they must eat meat, and if they resist injections, old-fashioned wardens twist patients’ arms harshly...’

‘... I wandered around the city all afternoon, and I heard hatred of Jews everywhere painfully. I heard them called a miserable race. Isn’t it natural to leave a place where one is so hated?...’

‘... And these letters only bring pain, and born from incurable pain, they only give rise to incurable pain. What use is it to survive this winter?especially as the pain grows? The only way to live is to remain silently and quietly here or there...’

Kafka wrote to Milena at the end of November 1920 and did not write again until late March 1922. Being far apart, their love cooled. The last letter was a postcard written on December 23 in Berlin Steglitz. It conveys resignation to the fate of dying from tuberculosis.

Cover of 'A Letter to Milena'

Milena, a journalist, was the person who recognized Kafka’s genius. The fact that a Prague newspaper commissioned her to write an obituary when Kafka died speaks volumes. We conclude with this obituary as a reply to "Letters to Milena."

‘Few people know Kafka. It is true, but he walked his path alone, disheartened by the world... Kafka saw a world full of invisible demons that annihilate defenseless humans. Kafka was too sensitive to live, and like beautiful and noble beings, too fragile to fight... Kafka was a person with great discernment to understand others. Kafka, who grasped the world in a peculiar and profound way, was himself a peculiar and profound world. Because he saw the world transparently, Kafka could not bear this world, and without rational thought, only death remained for Kafka.’

Cho Sung-kwan, writer and genius researcher

Operator of 'Genius Table,' former editor-in-chief of Weekly Chosun