"Kill me, or you'll be a murderer."
......
"Don't go."
"I'm not going to go."
"But I'm leaving."
On June 3, 1924, after saying these words, Franz Kafka closed his eyes forever, at the age of 41. His body was placed in a welded coffin and pulled back to Prague.
At 4 o'clock on June 11, he also laid a lowly position in the Jewish Cemetery in Prague-Štnitz.
Compared to the cemeteries of other celebrities, his tombstones can be described as simple, with no additional sculptures, no solemn sense of ceremony, not even an epitaph.
Kafka was born to write, regard writing as a belief, in the literary world of the 20th century, he is worthy of being a genius, and it is precisely because of literature that Kafka is labeled as lonely and destined to be incompatible with this world.
Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, to a Jewish merchant family.
His father, Herman, inherited the shrewdness of the Jews and single-handedly grew the family business.
In Kafka's eyes, his father not only had a shrewd mind, but also a strong body, and it seemed that the world's words that symbolized courage and strength were comparable to his father's.
But he was a complete tyrant: self-centered and wanted everyone else to revolve around him.
Kafka's loneliness, cowardice, fear, and indecisiveness stemmed from his father's tyranny.
So that when he grew up, he recalled his childhood self, and he would often say, "I am a timid child." ”
The indifference of the father, the alienation of the mother, the coldness of the family, Kafka's childhood was only endless loneliness and fear.
Growing up in loneliness and trepidation, he encountered the first "life and death" in his life.
In fact, Kafka originally had two younger brothers, but unfortunately, one died of urticaria and the other died of otitis media.
After the two younger brothers left, he became the only son in the family, and his father naturally had high hopes, hoping that Kafka would inherit his father's business.
And Kafka?
Shy, unable to say a word of toughness in the face of customers, the authoritarian father Herman constantly told Kafka about his family history, or in a cursing way, trying to make Kafka realize, which made Kafka feel stressed.
He even wondered if his brother would be better off if he didn't leave.
At least his father would not put all his attention on himself, but he could not resist his father's decision, and he made a compromise choice and studied law instead.
He longed for his father's approval, but never got it, fear, resentment seemed to be the norm in his life, and in such a suffocating life, God left a window for Kafka.
In the world of literature, he found his own small world and dissolved the unpleasantness of life.
Years later, he wrote about his life with his father in the novel "To Father": "I am thin, weak, and haggard; you are wide, big, and strong." ”
I sat on the side, completely like a stranger. My father asked me to play a hand, or at least watch them play, and I made up a reason to refuse. Since childhood, I have often repeated this rejection, what is the meaning of it? ”
This seemingly calm narrative is not so much a predicament of emotional alienation from his father as Kafka expressing the deepest sadness and despair in his heart.
Even the closest people could not share his loneliness, and such loneliness accompanied Kafka's life.
Kafka spends a lot of time reading and making friends, paying little attention to the girls around him, but that doesn't mean his emotional world is blank.
In 1900, Kafka met his first love, Selma Cohen, when he was 17 years old.
This summer, kafka's family went to the countryside near Prague to escape the summer, and they rented the second floor of the local postmaster's villa, and Selma was the daughter of the owner of the villa.
The two went for a walk in the countryside together, sat together under a tree and chatted, in fact, Kafka was slightly clumsy about chasing girls.
He had been reciting Nietzsche's works to Selma, and although for Selma she did not fully understand Nietzsche, she was willing to be his audience.
Without a fiery confession, their feelings were content to walk and chat, and he tried to persuade Selma to let her go to school, and Selma was moved, but when she went to beg her father, the postmaster, he refused.
Desperate, Selma did not dare to resist, nor could she resist.
Kafka felt the same way about her bitterness, after all, she had been living under the intimidation of her father since she was a child, and she had never had the right to say "NO", let alone that she was still a girl.
Accepting this result, he knew that he and Selma would not have a future.
Summer is over, and Kafka's first love has come to an end.
It is said that first love is unforgettable, and Kafka is no exception.
Selma to Kafka is like a rich stroke of his ordinary life, in fact, Kafka is not for Selma?
55 years later, when Kafka's old friend Max Broad, collecting information about Kafka, found Selma, she recalled the bits and pieces of that year, and her eyes were full of happiness:
"I'm beautiful, he's very smart, we're all so young."
Perhaps, Selma is not only thinking about Kafka as a person, but also the youth he once had.
The best way to end a lost relationship is to start a new relationship.
In 1912, at a dinner party in Berlin, Kafka met Felice Bauer.
Occasional occasions, occasional times, the blonde girl in front of her may not meet Kafka's standards, but every relationship begins with the lover's eyes, and Kafka is fascinated by her.
Phyllis was born into the petty bourgeoisie, his father cheated on him, and his brother was a loser.
Growing up in such a bad original family, she still maintained her unique sobriety and tenacity, which made Kafka feel admiration and pity.
Back at home, he sorted through the manuscript and reminisced about the first meeting with Phyllis, as if in that moment he was convinced that she was his ideal partner for the rest of his life.
So Kafka plucked up enough courage to write the first love letter to Phyllis, who was far away in Berlin.
Receiving Kafka's love letter, Phyllis appeared unusually calm, just a polite reply.
Who would have thought that their feelings would heat up rapidly in the exchange of letters.
Sometimes quarrelsome, sometimes reconciled, Kafka suffered from long-distance lovesickness.
He wrote about emotions and thoughts and completed the famous novel "Judgment". His marriage to Phyllis, as he wrote, seemed to be about to be hindered.
Just a few hours from Berlin to Prague, Kafka and Phyllis met again, and it turned out to be 7 months later.
When they met again, the familiarity and intimacy they had in the letters ceased to exist, replaced by strangeness and speechlessness.
Upon returning to Prague, Kafka realized the difference between her and her fantasies.
As for Phyllis, a woman's sixth sense told her that Kafka was not a long-lasting and reliable man, but she was addicted to his beautiful love words and could not extricate herself.
Time is the touchstone of love.
Kafka found that although Phyllis understood literature, his cultivation was not noble, and although he read a lot of books, he still could not change the aesthetic realm of the small people in the city.
Those works that Kafka regarded as gods, but she only used them to pass the time.
Tearing off the veil of deep affection, love finally exposes the unbeautiful truth, and the culprit is the "inconsistency of the three views".
She only wanted a worldly husband, not a writer's wife.
"Don't wear out your body for creation".
Phyllis's kind reminder was exchanged for Kafka's annoyance.
He was sincere and timid, and through the end he did not find a suitable way to balance his relationship with Phyllis.
But with people, he never understood, whether it is a father-son relationship, or a couple relationship, let him tired of coping.
But their affection, in a letter from Kafka to Phyllis's father, went to a break.
In the letter, he is useless, even selfish, just imagine any responsible parent, seeing that the future son-in-law is so unbearable, how can he let his daughter jump into the "fire pit"?
He wants to get married, but he endlessly presents his shortcomings to her one by one, and we have no way of knowing what he is doing.
He was once engaged to Phyllis and longed to get rid of the depression brought to him by his father through marriage, but fear struck his heart, and he deserted again and again.
"I'm like a criminal, kidnapped" Where is this like a person who wants to get engaged, how should I feel?
Helpless and helpless, Kafka wrote to his friend Gretel for help.
After Phyllis had her first experience of repentance, she also sensed this red flag, and she confided in Gretel, trying to find out why her fiancé had rebelled.
Gretel, who was a mutual friend of the two, could not bear the moral condemnation, and after cutting out some of the content that was too intimate with Kafka, Gretel gave the letter to Phyllis.
At this point, Kafka cheated on the hammer, like all women who were cheated on, this time Phyllis decided to take revenge, and all this, he was kept in the dark.
In July of the same year, Kafka went on vacation to Berlin, which he thought was a pleasant trip, but who had wanted to wait for him was a bloody trial.
In the hotel, when love letters were slapped on the table and the contents of the letters were unreservedly exposed, he felt self-conscious. In the face of Phyllis's accusations, he remained silent, which made Phyllis even more embarrassed and angry.
After venting his inner dissatisfaction, Kafka's attitude of "nothing important to say" completely made her despair, and the negotiation ended in his silence, and finally he dissolved the marriage contract as he wished.
After regaining his freedom, Kafka was tormented by guilt, but the days had to go on, didn't they?
Phyllis, who left Kafka, but he wrote more than 500 love letters to her, carefully treasured, can not get, then leave a thought.
This relationship, she loves very deeply, but it is also deeply hurt.
Soon after, when he heard the news of Phyllis's marriage, Kafka was very happy, and it seemed that at that moment, the stone in his heart fell to the ground.
Love completely fails, the door of the world is closed, and the burden of marriage is abandoned, which means that there is no emotional comfort, which makes Kafka grumble.
In 1919, Kafka, who was suffering from tuberculosis, fell in love with the waiter Juliet during convalescence, and they rented an apartment and prepared to get married.
On the eve of his marriage, he met the Viennese writer Milena, who was also one of Kafka's many lovers who knew him best. For this reason, Kafka ran away from marriage again.
Of course, the love with Milena, as he himself said: "If you make love with someone you love, you will lose your love for that person." ”
Milena is 13 years younger than Kafka, although she is a rich family, she has never been pampered, enthusiastic, intelligent and courageous, and her legendary experience has fascinated Kafka.
When she was young, she fell in love with erudite and popular Jew Ernst Pollack, but was strongly opposed by her father, but she was stubborn and chose to elope with Pollack and get engaged.
Maybe it was young, she didn't expect the marriage she had worked so hard to win, but she married a scumbag.
After marriage, she had to endure her husband's affair with other women while running for her own food and clothing, and in desperation, she asked her mother's family for help, but ate a closed door soup.
The difficulties of life did not make Myerena depressed, on the contrary, she had the tenacity of Nezha, "My life is up to me".
Milena's acquaintance with Kafka stemmed from a letter she wrote to Kafka in which she expressed her appreciation for Kafka and translated his work into Czech and recommended it to more readers.
Reading Milena's letters repeatedly, Kafka felt that he had met a confidant.
From Milena's writings, he felt that her wisdom, intelligence, and elegance were slightly rough, which surprised Kafka and "sank" for it.
Writing letters frantically, anxiously waiting for a reply, he found that the original lovers can become sympathetic through communication.
She understood his secret thoughts, but when he didn't want to speak, he rested his head in her arms and let her touch it at will, so that he could achieve the spirit of the heart.
After the sweetness, the pain follows.
Milena is a competent lover, she can love two men at the same time, neither of them can be separated.
Unlike the previous times, this time he was trapped in it and could not extricate himself, he could not wait for the answer, but what he got was always a rough reply, and the beauty of the first sight no longer existed, leaving only the infinite cycle of accusation and comfort.
They try to use a negotiation to regain their former happiness, but find that the past has finally passed.
This sympathetic love made Kafka try to enter the "siege" again, and this time it was Milena who flinched.
It turned out that after Milena's husband discovered his wife's strange appearance, he began to be enthusiastic about her, and he re-examined their relationship and tried to make up for it, which made her happy.
"I can't afford to leave my husband."
But at the same time, she didn't feel like she had lost her spiritual partner and wanted to see Kafka regularly.
Waiting in despair, Kafka's health grew weaker and weaker, and as Milena hesitated, a parting letter from Kafka ended the relationship.
"From now on, we will not contact each other again."
I have to say that Milena knows Kafka best, and she knows that she is only willing to be a worldly woman.
Because she knew that living with Kafka would be the beginning of another catastrophe.
"Don't live as a couple, don't have children, just write."
His ideal marriage, I believe that no woman in this world is willing to accept, perhaps he sees through this, but also knows that he will end up alone.
In addition to lovers such as Phyllis and Milena, Kafka's life has many short sexual encounters, love is the source of inspiration for Kafka's creation, but the most fatal is his capriciousness and indecision.
During his 5-year relationship with Phyllis, he betrayed her at least twice, and The appearance of Milena led Kafka to finally cancel Juliet's marriage contract.
"Whenever I almost want to bond with each other, I get scared." In the face of marriage, fear is Kafka's inner normal.
marriage? He has not yet entered the marriage, but he has been devastated by the so-called burdens and ills.
Love? He was often in love with his own illusions, and as for the living woman, he either did not want to accept it, or others did not want to accept her.
He likes to be lonely and needs companionship, but in the end, this literary giant who walks brilliantly in the world throws himself on the edge of life.
Constantly struggling emotionally, Kafka gained the experience of pain, and this pain blossomed into his words.
Just like in his masterpiece "Castle", he wrote a sense of identity.
The protagonist of the novel, K, is a land surveyor who is ordered to come to the castle to measure on a snowy night, and he tries his best to enter the castle even if he dies without being able to prove his identity.
The K in the novel is very much like Kafka in life, he desperately wants to get his father's approval and praise, but he can never get it.
The separation of his family and the alienation of his lover finally made him extremely depressed, and throughout his life, he always wandered outside the whole society, coldly watching and recording life.
So, he would write in his diary dated August 2, 1914: "Germany declares war on Russia, swim in the afternoon." ”
Just 12 words, full of loneliness.
The light fell back a hundred years, a lonely soul, in a hut at the end of the alley, a desk was waiting for him.
Thoughts were stirring, Kafka pushed open the door, he sat down in front of the window, opened a page of his notebook, and began to write.
Someone asked Gao Xiaosong what was the completely different feeling of reading Kafka in his youth, middle age and old age?
He smiled and replied: When you are lonely, you will understand.
. END .
【Text| Don't Fly 】
Edit | Drizzle】
【Typography | Drizzle】
Recommended articles in previous issues:
She is a talented girl recommended by Lu Xun, and Tang Wei once played her, but she only lived for 31 years in her bumpy life
Lu Xun's 10 most reasonable quotes, which one do you remember?