Diaries 1912 by Kafka, Franz
Diaries 1912 by Kafka, Franz
2 January. As a result I let the awful clothes affect even my posture, walked around with my back bowed, my shoulders drooping, my hands and arms at awkward
angles, was afraid of mirrors because they showed in me an ugliness which in my opinion was inevitable, which moreover could not have been an entirely truthful
reflection, for had I actually looked like that, I certainly would have attracted even more attention, suffered gentle pokes in the back from my mother on Sunday walks
and admonitions and prophecies which were much too abstract for me to be able to relate them to the worries I then had. In general I lacked principally the ability to
provide even in the slightest detail for the real future. I thought only of things in the present and their present condition, not because of thoroughness or any special,
strong interest, but rather, to the extent that weakness in thinking was not the cause, because of sorrow and fear—sorrow, because the present was so sad for me that I
thought I could not leave it before it resolved itself into happiness; fear, because, like my fear of the slightest action in the present, I also considered myself, in view of
my contemptible, childish appearance, unworthy of forming a serious, responsible opinion of the great, manly future which usually seemed so impossible to me that every
short step forward appeared to me to be counterfeit and the next step unattainable.
I admitted the possibility of miracles more readily than that of real progress, but was too detached not to keep the sphere of miracles and that of real progress sharply
divided. I was therefore able to spend a good deal of time before falling asleep in imagining that some day, a rich man in a coach and four I would drive into the Jewish
quarter, with a magic word set free a beautiful maiden who was being beaten unjustly, and carry her off in my coach; but untouched by this silly make-believe, which
probably fed only on an already unhealthy sexuality, I remained convinced that I would not pass my final examinations that year, and if I did, I would not get on in the
next class, and if by some swindle I could avoid even that then I would certainly fail decisively in my graduation examination, convinced also that I would all at
once—the precise moment did not matter—reveal some unheard-of inability and very definitely surprise my parents as well as the rest of the world, who had been lulled
to sleep by my outwardly regular progress. Since I always looked only to my inability as my guide into the future—only seldom to my feeble literary work—considering
the future never did me any good; it was only a spinning out of my present grief. If I chose to, I could of course walk erect, but it made me tired, nor could I see how a
crooked back would hurt me in the future. If I should have a future, then, I felt, everything will straighten itself out of its own accord. I did not choose such a principle
because it involved a confidence in a future in whose existence I did not believe, its purpose was only to make living easier for me, to walk, to dress, to wash, to read,
above all to coop myself up at home in a way that took the least effort and required the least spirit. If I went beyond that I could think only of ridiculous solutions.
Once it seemed impossible to get along without a black dress suit, especially as I also had to decide whether I would join a dancing class. The tailor in Nusle was sent
for and the cut of the suit discussed. I was undecided, as I always was in such cases, they made me afraid that by a definite statement I would be swept away not only
into an immediate unpleasantness, but beyond that into something even worse. So at first I didn’t want a dress suit, but when they shamed me before the stranger by
pointing out that I had no dress suit, I put up with having a tail coat discussed; but since I regarded a tail coat as a fearful revolution one could forever talk about but on