KAFKA: FATHER AND SON
. 25
doing an injustice, not to myself but to you, and the consciousness
of guilt, which always lurked in readiness, ran through me.
"Later, as a young man, I failed to .understand how you, with
your pretense of Judaism, could reproach me for not exerting myself
(if only for piety, as you put it) in the service of a similar sham. The
whole thing, as far as I could see, was a delusion, a joke, not even
a joke. Four days in the year you went to temple. When you were
there, you were certainly more indifferent than anything else; you
patiently ran through the prayers as if they had been a mere form–
ality, and occasionally startled me by your ability to find the place
in
the prayer book. For the rest, I was permitted-and that was the
main thing-to run around wherever I liked. And so I yawned and
dozed through many hours there (I think that since then I have
never been so bored, except in dancing school) and tried to get as
much pleasure as possible out of the few little novelties that occurred,
such as when the Ark of the Covenant was opened. This always re–
mined me of the little box that opened at the shooting galleries when
you hit a bullseye, except that in the shooting gallery it was something
interesting that came out, while here it was always the same old head–
less dolls. What is more, I was very much afraid there too, not only,
as
was natural, because of all the people, but also because you once
mentioned in passing that I might be called up to the Torah. This
possibility kept me trembling for years. Otherwise I was never seriously
disturbed in my boredom, except perhaps by my
bar mitzvah,
which,
like a meaningless examination, required only a certain amount of
memorizing. And then again my attention was attracted by little in–
significant events, as when you were called to the Torah and cut a
good figure in this function, which I regarded as purely social; or
when in the memorial service you remained in the temple while I
was sent away. I did not understand this last occurrence, and for a
long time it aroused in me the almost unconscious feeling that some–
thig disreputable was going on.
"That was the temple. At home your religion was if possible even
more wretched. It was restricted to Passover, which became more
and more of a slapstick comedy, though, to be sure, the influence
of your growing children had a good deal to do with that. (Why did
you have to give in to this influence? Because you were the cause
of it.) This was the faith that was handed down to me. Unless I
include your pointing out to me 'the sons of F., the millionaire,' who
on the principal holidays came to temple with their father. It seemed
to me that the best thing to do with such a heritage was to get rid
of it as quickly as possible, and this riddance seemed to me the height
of piety.
