174
PARTISAN REVIEW
"So
most people think, but in fact it is not so," said Kafka.
"The Gennans have the God, who made the iron grow
(der Eisen
wachsen liess).
His temple is the Prussian General Staff."
We laughed. Franz Kafka, however, declared that he was per–
fectly serious and only laughed because I did. His laughter was only
an infection.
I was saying good-by to my friend Leo Lederer on the Platz
der RepubIik when Franz Kafka unexpectedly approached me.
"I followed you all the way from Teschnov," he said after
the usual words of greeting. "You were quite lost in your conver–
sation."
"Leo was explaining Taylorism to me, and the division of labor
in industry."
"It is a terrible subject."
"You are thinking of the enslavement of mankind, Herr Dok–
tor?"
"It is much worse than that. Such a violent outrage can only
end in enslavement to evil. It is inevitable. Time, the noblest and
most essential element in all creative work, is conscripted into the
net of corrupt business interests. Thereby not only creative work, but
man himself, who is its essential part, is polluted and humiliated. A
Taylorized life is a terrible curse which will give rise only to hun–
ger and misery instead of the intended wealth and profit.
It
is an
advance ..."
"Toward the end of the world," I completed his sentence.
Franz Kafka shook his head.
"If
one could only say that with certainty. But it is by no means
certain. So one can say nothing. One can only scream, stammer,
choke. The conveyor belt of life carries one somewhere- but one
doesn't know where. One is a thing, an object- rather than a living
organism."
Kafka suddenly stood still and stretched out his hand.
"Look! There, there! Can you see it?"
Out of a house in the
J
akobsgasse, where we had arrived in the
course of our discussion, ran a small dog looking like a ball of wool,
which crossed our path and disappeared round the corner of the
Templegasse.
