CONVERSATIONS WITH KAFKA
167
case necessary, as my wings are atrophied. For this reason there are
no heights and distances for me. I hop about bewildered among my
fellow men. They regard me with deep suspicion. And indeed I am
a
dangerous bird, a thief, a jackdaw. But that is only an illusion. In
fact, I lack
all
feeling for shining objects. For that reason I do
not even have glossy black plumage. I am gray, like ash. A jackdaw
who longs to disappear between the stones. But this is only joking, -
so
that you will not notice how badly things are going with me today."
I no longer remember how often I visited Franz Kafka in his
office. One thing, however, I remember very distinctly: his physi–
cal
appearance as I- half an hour before the end of office hours–
opened the door on the second floor of the Workmen's Accident In–
surance Institution.
He sat behind his desk, his head leaning back, legs outstretched,
his
hands resting on the desk. Filla's picture,
A Reader of Dostoev–
sky,
has something of the attitude he assumed. From this point of
view, there was a great resemblance between Filla's picture and
Kafka's bodily appearance. Yet it was purely external. Behind the
outward likeness lay a great inner difference.
Filla's reader was overpowered by something, while Kafka's
attitude expressed a voluntary and therefore triumphant surrender.
On
the thin lips played a delicate smile, which was much more the
rtfIection of some distant alien joy than an expression of his own
happiness. The eyes always looked at people a little from below
upwards. Franz Kafka thus had a singular appearance, as if apologiz–
ing
for being so slender and tall. His entire figure seemed to say,
"I
am,
forgive me, quite unimportant. You do me a great pleasure,
jf
you overlook me."
His voice was a hesitating, muted baritone, wonderfully melodi–
ous,
although it never left the middle range in strength and pitch.
Voice, gesture, look, all radiated the peace of understanding and
goodness.
He spoke both Czech and German. But more German. And
his
German had a hard accent, like that of the German spoken by
the
Czechs. Yet the likeness is only a faint and inexact one; in fact,
they
were quite different.
The Czech accent of the German which I am thinking of is
harsh.
The language sounds as if hacked to pieces. Kafka's speech
