“I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.” I am 37, almost 38, almost older by a whole short generation, almost white-haired from all the old nights and headaches.” He also tells her: “ You see, the peaceful letters are the ones that make me happy (understand, Milena, my age, the fact that I am used up, and, above all, my fear, and understand your youth, your vivacity, your courage.” Here are two quotes which discuss their age difference: “ It took some time before I finally understood why your last letter was so cheerful I constantly forget the fact that you’re so young, maybe not even 25, maybe just 23. No other woman entranced Kafka so much, and despite the abrupt sad end of their passionate correspondence I still think Milena was just what he needed. They were very different in age and personalities but they fit perfectly as two hands when clasped together. When she yearned to see him in Vienna, he was reluctant when he wanted her to divorce her husband and come live with him, she wasn’t keen to do so. When one side was attached, the other cooled down, and vice versa. Their relationship was of a hot-cold character intense at one moment because their minds were alike, then alienating the other because of the distance. It is almost hard to imagine how two such strong, profound, dark souls could even live a simple life together. Slavic soul is a deep and dark place, one you better not wander into out of mere curiosity. Haas also reminds us that Dostoyevsky was her favourite writer and that we also mustn’t forget the propensity towards pain which is so typical for Slavic women. Passionate, vivacious and courageous, Milena suffered greatly nonetheless because of him, as Kafka said himself: “ Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.” She must have known that herself, and yet she chose to sink because ‘lust for life’ was part of her personality, and pain and rapture go hand in hand. Kafka later writes to her calling her a ‘savior’. In the introduction to letters Williy Haas describes Milena as a caring friend inexhaustible in her kindness and a desire to help. Milena haunted his thoughts, but he wasn’t the only one to suffer. I found it really interesting to know that Kafka was fluent in Czech.Īlthough Kafka confided to Milena about his anxieties, fears, loneliness, it wasn’t all honey and roses Kafka’s letters revealed the extent of his anguish caused by Milena, the sleepless nights, and the futile situation of their love. This is what he tells her: “ and write me every day anyway, it can even be very brief, briefer than today’s letters, just 2 lines, just one, just one word, but if I had to go without them I would suffer terribly.” The letters are interesting from a linguistic point of view as well Kafka wrote his letters in German while Milena wrote most of hers in her mother tongue, Czech. Kafka often wrote daily, often several times a day such was his devotion.
Franz kafka quotes by believing passionately series#
Such a simple request and formal demand very soon turned into a series of passionate and profound letters that Milena and Franz exchanged from March to December 1920. The correspondence started when Milena wrote to Kafka and asked for a permission to translate his short story “The Stoker” from German to Czech. They stripped the masks of their bourgeois identities and bared their souls. Despite the distance, despite the turbulent sea with insurmountable waves between Kafka in Prague and Milena in Vienna, the two developed an intense and intimate relationship. She recognised Kafka’s writing genius before others did. Kafka is a well-known figure in the world of literature, but who was Milena? Milena was a twenty-three year old aspiring writer and translator who lived in Vienna in a marriage that was slowly falling apart. In 1920, Franz Kafka and Milena Jesenská began a love affair through letters. Kafka wrote to her: “Written kisses don’t reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.” That, my dear, is love.” – this is what Kafka wrote to the mysterious Milena, and isn’t this sentence alone, with Kafka’s vibrant expressionistic definition of love, enough to lure you into reading the book? “You are the knife I turn inside myself that is love.
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