Diary Entry: On Being a Jew
January 8. Lecture by [Leo] Fantl on Goldhaupt,1 “he tosses the enemy like a barrel.”
Insecurity, dryness, tranquility, in these everything will pass.
What do I have in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself and ought to stand, very quietly, content that I am able to breathe, in a corner.
Description of inexplicable feelings. Anzenbacher: Since the time that happened, the sight of women pains me, but it is not sexual excitement at all, nor is it pure sadness, it just pains me. It was that way even before I secured Liesl.2
Notes
[Jakov Hegner’s German translation of Paul Claudel’s tragedy Tête d’Or (1894).—Trans.]
[Anzenbacher is very likely a colleague of Kafka’s. He is described elsewhere as being plagued by the suspicion that his bride Liesl is cheating on him—Trans.]
Credits
Franz Kafka, diary entries, from Franz Kafka, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 6: Tagebücher und Briefe, ed. Max Brod (Berlin: Schocken, 1937), pp. 622–23.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.
