Letter to His Father

Kafka wrote this letter in November 1919, at a boarding house in Schelesen, north of Prague, after his father had forbidden his engagement to Julie Wohryzek. He gave it to his mother to pass on; she gave it back to him, and his father never read it. Kafka later gave it to Milena Jesenská to read. It is a single letter, handwritten, then typed, about a hundred pages long, without divisions; this retelling condenses it, in Kafka's first person, keeping the order of his argument. The headings are added. The translation is new; Kafka's German text is followed closely in a few places, and summarised elsewhere.

Why I am afraid of you. Dearest Father, the other day you asked me why I say I am afraid of you. As so often, I had no answer — partly because of that very fear, and partly because the fear has so many roots that I could not have held half of them in my head while speaking. And if I try to answer you here in writing, it will still be very incomplete, because even in writing the fear and its consequences stand between us, and because the size of the subject goes far beyond my memory and my understanding.

You have always seen the matter simply, at least in what you said to me and to others. It seemed to you like this: you had worked hard all your life, sacrificed everything for your children, especially for me; and so I had lived like a lord, completely free to learn whatever I liked, without any worries about food — without any worries at all; and you had asked no gratitude in return, only some sign of sympathy. Instead I had always hidden from you, in my room, among my books, with mad friends and eccentric ideas; I had never spoken to you openly, never come with you to the synagogue, never visited you at Franzensbad, never taken any interest in the business; I had saddled you with the factory and then run away; I had encouraged my sister Ottla in her obstinacy; and while I did not lift a finger for you, I did everything for strangers. If you summed up your judgement of me, it came to this: that you did not reproach me with anything wicked, but with coldness, strangeness, ingratitude. And you reproached me as though it were my fault — as though I could have arranged everything differently with a turn of the wheel — while you yourself were not in the least to blame, except perhaps for having been too good to me.

That way of seeing it I think is right only in so far as I too believe you entirely blameless for our estrangement. But equally I am entirely blameless. If I could bring you to admit that, then — not a new life, for that we are both far too old for — but a kind of peace might be possible; not an end to your endless reproaches, but a softening of them.

What we were. Compare the two of us. I, to put it very shortly, a Löwy — my mother's family — with a certain Kafka foundation, but one that is not set in motion by the Kafka will to life, business and conquest, but by a Löwy spur that works more secretly, more timidly, in another direction, and often fails altogether. You, on the other hand, a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, superiority over the world, endurance, presence of mind, knowledge of people, a certain generosity — and with all the faults and weaknesses that go with these virtues, into which your temperament and sometimes your hot temper drive you.

I was a timid child; still, I was certainly obstinate too, as children are; my mother certainly spoiled me; but I cannot believe that I was especially difficult to manage; I cannot believe that a kind word, a quiet taking by the hand, a friendly look, could not have got anything out of me that was wanted. Now you are, at bottom, a kind and soft-hearted man; but not every child has the endurance and fearlessness to search until it comes to the kindness. You can only treat a child in the way you yourself are made: with strength, noise and temper.

The night on the balcony. I remember only one incident directly from my earliest years. You may remember it too. One night I kept whimpering for water — certainly not because I was thirsty, but probably partly to be annoying, partly to amuse myself. After several fierce threats had failed, you took me out of bed, carried me out onto the pavlatche — the long balcony that ran along the courtyard — and left me standing there alone, for a while, in my nightshirt, outside the shut door. I do not say this was wrong; perhaps there was really no other way of getting peace that night. But I mention it as typical of your methods of bringing me up and of their effect on me. I was certainly quite obedient afterwards; but it did me inner harm. Even years afterwards I suffered from the tormenting idea that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the balcony — and that I meant absolutely nothing to him.

The giant. I was weighed down even by your mere physical presence. I remember, for instance, how we often undressed together in the same bathing hut. I was thin, weak, slight; you strong, tall, broad. Even inside the hut I felt myself a miserable specimen — and what's more, not only in front of you, but in front of the whole world, for you were for me the measure of all things. And then, when we went out of the hut before the people, I holding your hand, a little skeleton, unsteady, barefoot on the boards, afraid of the water, I was in despair; and you would try kindly to show me how to swim, and that only made it worse.