[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
about you, indeed, I poured out my complaints there only because
I couldn t pour them out on your breast. It was a deliberately long-
drawn-out parting from you, only that although it was you who
forced me into it, it took the direction I determined. But how little it
Letter to his Father 127
all was! Indeed, it is only worth mentioning it at all because it happened
in my life elsewhere it would have been hardly noticeable and also
because it dominated my life: in childhood as a presentiment, later as
a hope, and still later often as despair, and it dictated in your shape
again, it seems my few little decisions.
For example, my choice of profession. You certainly gave me
complete freedom here, in your magnanimous and even, in this
respect, tolerant fashion. Though in doing so, you were also follow-
ing the way the Jewish middle class generally treat their sons, which
was the standard you took or at least you were following their
value-judgements. Ultimately, it was also affected by one of your
misunderstandings concerning my personality. Out of paternal
pride, ignorance of my true nature, and inferences you drew from my
delicate health, you have always regarded me as particularly diligent.
As I child, in your opinion, I persevered at my lessons, and later
I persevered at my writing. That is not in the remotest bit true. With
far less exaggeration one might say rather that I learned very little,
and nothing with any effort; given a middling memory and a fair
intelligence, something has stuck, so it is not so very remarkable after
all. At any rate, the total sum of my knowledge and particularly of its
basis is utterly pitiful in comparison with the expenditure of time
and money in an outwardly untroubled and stable life, and in par-
ticular in comparison with almost all the people I know. It is pitiful,
but to me understandable. Ever since I have been able to think,
I have had such deep anxieties about asserting my intellectual exist-
ence that everything else was a matter of indifference to me. Jewish
Gymnasium-boys of our class and kind are slightly odd; one finds the
most unlikely types among them, but I have nowhere else come
upon my cold, scarcely disguised, ineradicable, infantile-helpless,
near-ridiculous, deadly complacent indifference, the mark of a self-
sufficient, but coldly imaginative child; in any case it was my only
defence against having my nerves ruined by fear and a sense of guilt.
Only my own anxieties absorbed me, though in the most various
ways. Such as anxiety about my health. It began unremarkably; now
and again some little alarm over my digestion, hair falling out, round
shoulders, and so on; this intensified in countless gradual stages, and
finally it ended with a real illness. What was it all about? It was not
really an illness of the body. But as there was nothing I could be sure
of, and as I needed some fresh confirmation of my existence from
128 Letter to his Father
every moment, and there was nothing I could call my own true,
undoubted, sole possession, determined by me and me alone, in
truth a disinherited son, it was natural that I should become unsure
of the thing closest to me, my own body. I shot up, but couldn t
cope with my height, the burden was too heavy; my shoulders
stooped; I scarcely dared move, let alone do gymnastics; I remained
weak; in amazement I regarded everything that still functioned as a
miracle my good digestion, for instance. That was enough to lose
it. And so the way was open to all kinds of hypochondria, until at last,
under the superhuman strain of my wanting to marry (I ll come to
that later) blood issued from my lung the part played by the flat in
the Schönbornpalais* may have been enough, of course though
I needed the flat only because I believed I needed it for my writing,
so that too belongs to my present theme. So it didn t all come from
overwork, as you always imagine. There were years when I spent
more time lazing on the sofa in the best of health than you have done
in your entire life, including every one of your illnesses. When
I dashed away from you, looking busy, it was mostly to lie down in
my room. The total amount of work I get through in the office
(where laziness is admittedly not very noticeable, and anyway was
kept within bounds by my timidity) as well as at home is tiny, and if
you had an overview of it all you would be horrified. It is probably
not in my disposition to be at all lazy, but there was nothing for me
to do. In the place where I lived, I was rejected, written off, kept
down, and though I put my utmost efforts into escaping, that was not
work, for it was a matter of something impossible which, apart from
small exceptions, was beyond my powers to attain.
So this was the state I was in when I received the freedom to
choose my profession. But was I actually still capable of making use
of such freedom at all? Did I still have the confidence in myself to get
as far as a real profession? My self-esteem was far more dependent
on you than on anything else, success in the outside world, for
instance. That gave me strength for the moment, nothing more, but
on the other side, your weight was always stronger, dragging me
down. I would never get through the first class in elementary school,
I thought but I managed it; I even got a prize. But I would cer-
tainly fail the entrance exam to the Gymnasium no, I didn t. But
now I ll certainly fail the first class in the Gymnasium no, I didn t,
and went on managing it. But this didn t give me confidence; on the
Letter to his Father 129
contrary, I was always convinced and to me the dismissive expres-
sion on your face was virtual proof of it that the more I succeeded,
the worse it was bound to end. In my mind s eye I often saw how the
terrible assembly of schoolmasters (the Gymnasium is only the most
concentrated example but it was the same everywhere around me)
would gather in conclave when I had got through the first class that
is, in the second class; and when I had got through that, in the third
class, and so on, to enquire how, in this unique and scandalous case,
I, the most incompetent and certainly the most ignorant of pupils,
had managed to sneak up into this class which, now that general
attention had been drawn to me, would naturally spew me out, to the
rejoicing of all just men now freed of this nightmare. It is not easy for
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]