168
PARTISAN REVIEW
never made this impression. It seemed angular because of the inner
tension: every word a stone. The hardness of his speech was caused
by the effort at exactness and precision. It was thus determined
by
positive personal qualities and not by group characteristics.
His
speech resembled his hands.
He had large, strong hands, broad palms, thin, fine fingers with
flat, spatulate fingernails and prominent yet very delicate bones
and
knuckles.
When I remember Kafka's voice, his smile and
his
hands,
I
always think of a remark of my father's.
He said, "Strength combined with scrupulous delicacy: strength,
which finds the small things the most difficult."
About three weeks after my first meeting with Franz Kafka,
I went for my first walk with him.
In the office he told me to wait for him at four o'clock at
the
Hus Memorial on the AltsHidter Ring, and he would return to
me
an exercise-book of poems which I had lent him.
I was at the appointed place at the appointed time, but Franz
Kafka was nearly an hour late.
He apologized, "I can never keep an appointment punctually.
I
am
always too late. I
am
determined to be on time, I have the good
and upright intention of keeping the appointment as agreed, but
circumstances or my body always destroy this intention, in order
to
prove to me my own weakness. Probably that is the root of
my
illness."
We walked along the AItstadter Ring.
Kafka said that it might be possible to publish some of
my
poems. He wished to give them to Qtto Pick.
"I have already discussed them with him," he said.
I begged him not to publish the poems.
Kafka stood still.
"So you do not write in order to publish?"
"No. My poems are only an attempt, a very modest attempt,
to prove to myself that I am not altogether stupid."
We continued our walk. Franz Kafka showed me his parents'
warehouse and house.
"So
you are rich," I said.
Franz Kafka pursed his mouth.
