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Kafka on a Prisoner's Despair

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May 29, 2007

A first sign of incipient insight is the wish to die. This life seems unbearable – another, unreachable. One ceases to be ashamed of wanting to die; one pleas to be taken from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one will learn to hate. A residue of faith colludes with the hope that during the move the Lord will coincidentally meet the detainee in the corridor, look at him and say: “Don’t lock up this one. He’s coming to me.”

—Franz Kafka, Betrachtungen über Sünde, Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg in: Franz Kafkas Gesammelte Werke: Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande p. 40 (Max Brod ed. 1953) (S.H. transl.)

© 2007 The Harper's Magazine Foundation

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/05/20070529kafka