Franz Kafka - Letters to Milena (4)

The Talkative Crow reading from Franz Kafka's "Letters to Milena".
So it's the lung. I've been turning it over in my mind
all day long, unable to think of anything else. Not
that it alarms me; probably and hopefully-you seem
to indicate as much-you have a mild case, and even
full-fledged pulmonary disease (half of western
Europe has more or less deficient lungs), as I have
known in myself for 3 years, has brought me more
good things than bad. In my case it began about
3 years ago with a violent hemorrhage in the middle
of the night. I was excited as one always is by
something new, naturally somewhat frightened as
well; I got up (instead of staying in bed, which is
the prescribed treatment as I later discovered), went
to the window, leaned out, went to the washstand,
walked around the room, sat down on the bed-no
end to the blood. But I wasn't at all unhappy, since
by and by I realized that for the first time in 3, 4
practically sleepless years there was a clear reason
for me to sleep, provided the bleeding would stop. It
did indeed stop (and has not returned since) and I
slept through the rest of the night. To be sure, the
next morning the maid showed up (at that time I
had an apartment in the Schönborn-Palais), a good,
totally devoted but extremely frank girl, she saw the
blood and said: "Pane doktore, you're not going to
last very long." But I was feeling better than usual,
I went to the office and did not go see the doctor
until later that afternoon. The rest of the story is
immaterial. I only wanted to say: it's not your
illness which scares me (especially since I keep
interrupting myself to search my memory, and
underneath all your fragility I perceive something
like a farm girl's vigour and I conclude: no, you're not
sick, this is a warning but no disease of the lung),
anyway it's not that which scares me, but the
thought of what must have preceded this
disturbance. For the moment, I'm simply ignoring
everything else in your letter, such as: not a
heller-tea and apple-daily from 2 to 8-these are
things I cannot understand which evidently require
oral explanation. So I'll ignore all that (though
only in this letter, as I cannot forget them) and just
recall the explanation I applied to my own case back
then and which fits many cases. You see, my brain
was no longer able to bear the pain and anxiety
with which it had been burdened. It said: "I'm giving
up; but if anyone else here cares about keeping the
whole intact, then he should share the load and
things will run a little longer." Whereupon my lung
volunteered, it probably didn't have much to lose
anyway. These negotiations between brain and lung,
which went on without my knowledge, may well
have been quite terrifying.
And what are you going to do now? The fact that
you're being looked after is probably insignificant.
Anyone who cares about you has to realise that you
need a little looking after, nothing else really
matters. So is there salvation here as well? I said
already-no, I'm not in the mood for making jokes,
I am not being funny in the least and will not be
funny again until you have written how you are
planning a new and healthier way of life. After
your last letter I'm not going to ask why you don't
leave Vienna for a while, now I understand, but
after all there are beautiful places close to Vienna
as well, which offer many different cures and
possibilities of care. Today I'm not going to write
about anything else, I don't have anything more
important to bring up. I'm saving everything else
for tomorrow, including my thanks for the issue of
Kmen which makes me moved and ashamed, happy
and sad. No, there is one other thing: If you waste
as much as one minute of your sleep on the
translation, it will be as if you were cursing me.
For if it ever comes to a trial there will be no
further investigations; they will simply establish
the fact: he robbed her of her sleep. With that I
shall be condemned, and justly so. Thus I'm fighting
for myself when I ask you to stop.
Franz

[@z.k.9887]

It would be a pleasure to listen to more letters!

[@thetalkativecrow]

Working on that right now. The next one should appear tomorrow, with a bit of luck. Glad you are enjoying them.

[@z.k.9887]

Love the voice! Who's reciting?

[@thetalkativecrow]

That would be me!