(selected excerpts)

*Sunday, July 19, 1910*

I often reflect upon it, and I am always compelled in the end to admit that my upbringing harmed me greatly in certain respects. This complaint is directed at a multitude of people who, standing together here as though in one of those old group photographs, do not know what to do with one another, do not dare lower their eyes or smile, so nervous are they. They are my parents, several relatives, a few teachers, one particular cook, some girls from dancing lessons, several visitors to our house from years ago, a number of writers, a swimming instructor, a lottery ticket seller, a school inspector, then some whom I met only once in the street, others whom I cannot remember at this moment, and still others whom I shall never remember at all. Finally, there are those whose lessons I had, in a sense, rejected at the time, whose influence I scarcely noticed.

In short, they are so many that I must take care not to mention anyone twice. To all of them I address my complaint, and by doing so I make them acquainted with one another. Yet I tolerate no objections. For indeed, I have endured enough objections already, and since most of them have only served to invalidate what I had said, I can do nothing but include those objections themselves in my complaint and say that, besides my upbringing, these refutations too have harmed me greatly in certain respects.

Does anyone imagine that I was brought up somewhere remote and isolated? No, I was brought up in the very heart of the city, in the very middle of urban life. Not, for example, in a ruined dwelling in the mountains or beside a lake. My parents and their entourage had until now stood wrapped in my complaint, grey and motionless; but now they step aside from it easily and smile, for I have removed my hands from them, placed them upon my forehead, and think:

I should have been the little inhabitant of ruins, listening to the cries of crows, watching their shadows pass over me in flight, cooling myself beneath the moonlight, even if at first I had been somewhat frail beneath the pressure of my own virtues, which would have grown within me with the strength of weeds — scorched by the sun that would have poured through the ruins from every side upon my bed of ivy.

*Source: Franz Kafka, Diaries I: 1910–1913.*

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From *Letter to His Father*

At that time, this was only a small beginning. Yet that feeling of insignificance which so often overcomes me — a feeling that, from another perspective, is nevertheless noble and fruitful — derives in large measure from your influence.

What I needed was a little encouragement, a little kindness, a small opening in the path before me. Instead, you blocked that path, though certainly with the good intention that I should take another road. But I was not made for those other roads.

You encouraged me, for example, whenever I saluted properly or marched well, but I was not destined to become a soldier. Or you praised me when I could eat heartily or even drink beer in abundance, or when I could sing songs by repeating words whose meaning I did not understand, or parrot your favourite expressions. Yet none of these things belonged to my future.