Franz Kafka: Absent-minded Window-gazing (Three Meditations)

.

Untitled: Miroslav Tichý, n.d. (Foundation Tichý Ocean)

Absent-minded Window-gazing (Zerstreutes Hinausschaun)

What are we to do with these spring days that are now fast coming on? Early this morning the sky was gray, but if you go to the window now you are surprised and lean your cheek against the latch of the casement.

The sun is already setting, but down below you see it lighting up the face of the little girl who strolls along looking about her, and at the same time you see her eclipsed by the shadow of the man behind overtaking her.

And then the man has passed by and the little girl's face is quite bright.

Untitled: Miroslav Tichý, n.d. (Foundation Tichý Ocean)

Rejection (Die Abweisung)

When I meet a pretty girl and beg her: 'Be so good as to come with me,' and she walks past without a word, this is what she means to say:

'You are no Duke with a famous name, no broad American with a Red Indian figure, level, brooding eyes and a skin tempered by the air of the prairies and the rivers that flow through them, you have never journeyed to the seven seas and voyaged on them wherever they may be, I don't know where. So why, pray, should a pretty girl like myself go with you?'

'You forget that no automobile swings you through the street in long thrusts; I see no gentlemen escorting you in a close half-circle, pressing on your skirts from behind and murmuring blessings on your head; your breasts are well laced into your bodice, but your thighs and hips make up for that restraint; you are wearing a taffeta dress with a pleated skirt such as delighted all of us last autumn, and yet you smile - inviting mortal danger - from time to time.'

'Yes, we're both in the right, and to keep us from being irrevocably aware of it, hadn't we better just go our separate ways home?'

Untitled: Miroslav Tichý, n.d. (Foundation Tichý Ocean)

The Street Window (Das Gassenfenster)

Whoever leads a solitary life and yet now and then wants to attach himself somewhere, whoever, according to changes in the time of day, the weather, the state of his business, and the like, suddenly wishes to see any arm at all to which he might cling -- he will not be able to manage for long without a window looking on to the street. And if he is in the mood of not desiring anything and only goes to his window sill a tired man, with eyes turning from his public to heaven and back again, not wanting to look out and having thrown his head up a little, even then the horses below will draw him down into their train of wagons and tumult, and so at last into the human harmony.

Untitled: Miroslav Tichý, n.d. (Foundation Tichý Ocean)

Franz Kafka: three short tales, written between 1904 and 1912, from Betrachtung (Meditation), 1913, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir in The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces, 1948

Franz Kafka b. 3 July 1883, Prague; d. 3 June 1924, Vienna
Miroslav Tichý b. 20 November 1926, Netcice, part of the town of Kyjov, Czechoslovakia; d. 12 April 2011, Kyjov, Czech Republic