Kafka in Love by Jacqueline Raoul-Duval Read Free Book Online

13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, and 29). In July he writes her another sixteen letters. All of them urge her to reflect on the situation more, to be franker, more mature. He mentions glancingly, in the last line at the bottom of a page, a detail of negligible importance: “I am correcting the page proofs for the first chapter of my American novel,
The Stoker: A Fragment
, which is about to be published in an inexpensive series, 80 pfennigs.”
    “But,” he adds, “the moment I talk about anything other than you, I feel lost.”
    Not only has Felice made no comment to him about his texts, she has not even mentioned the articles in the German press praising his writings. He is forced to ask her to obtain them for him in the hopes that she willread the reviews and think more highly of his talents as a writer.
    She is clearly tired of hearing about his terrible confession, and appears not to believe a word he says, to the point of completely ignoring his finely wrought and stubbornly presented arguments. Is she no longer reading his letters?
    On June 16 there is an arresting new development. After laying out interminable arguments, he asks her for the first time, “Do you wish to be my wife? Do you?”
    These two question marks seem to leave him stunned. He is unable to write another word that day, the next, or the day after. Apparently destroyed by the proposal, it is only on the fourth day following that he is able to resume his question to the woman who has been his intended since the moment he first glimpsed her.
    He finishes his letter with this strange avowal: “I have to say that I am horribly afraid of our future and of the unhappiness that could result from our life together.”
    It is clear that he expects his proposal of marriage to draw a refusal. Each of their disastrous meetings in Berlin has persuaded him that Felice is unsure of her feelings toward him. Yet she accepts his proposal. Lower-middle-class girl that she is, she requires that he formally ask herfather for her hand, although she is twenty-seven years old. She is absolutely set on observing this convention.
    Franz promises several times to write her father but puts off the chore day after day and week after week. He has a more immediate task at hand. Caught short by Felice’s acceptance, he starts in on a most unusual trial. Never has a lawyer presenting a brief against himself been more eloquent or offered so many decisive arguments. He must lose this trial on which his future as a writer hangs. His life depends on it.
    He starts off pleading his case in a minor key, but the volume increases until it deafens Felice. The young woman has just said, “Yes, I want to be your wife.”
    He answers, “Then you are prepared in spite of everything to take up this cross, Felice? Attempt the impossible?”
    “Yes, you will make a good, kind husband.”
    “You’re wrong, you wouldn’t manage to live two days at my side. I am a soft worm crawling on the ground, I am taciturn, unsociable, gloomy, brooding, selfish, and a hypochondriac. Could you bear to lead the life of a monk, as I do? I spend most of my time locked away in my room, or else wandering the streets alone. Could you stand to be completely separated from your parents, your friends, and everyone else, since I cannot conceive of our life togetherin any other way? I want to spare you unhappiness, Felice. Step out of the accursed circle into which I have forced you, blinded as I was and am by love.”
    He advances the calamitous fact of his perpetual tiredness. She is strong, does she not recognize that he is in poor health?
    “What comes between you and me,” he says, “is the doctor. I am frail. Insomnia and constant headaches have robbed me of my strength.”
    “Don’t keep on about it,” answers Felice. “Stop tormenting me.”
    He then writes to her describing what married life will be like: “You won’t get much help from me. I leave the office around 3, eat lunch, sleep