![]() ![]() If you sum up your judgment of me, the result you get is that, although you don’t charge me with anything downright improper or wicked (with the exception perhaps of my latest marriage plan), you do charge me with coldness, estrangements and ingratitude. ![]() I have never talked to you frankly I have never come to you when you were in the synagogue, never visited you at Franzensbad, nor indeed ever shown any family feeling I have never taken any interest in the business or your other concerns I saddled you with the factory and walked off I encouraged Ottla in her obstinacy, and never lifted a finger for you (never even got you a theater ticket), while I do everything for my friends. Instead I have always hidden from you, in my room, among my books, with crazy friends, or with crackpot ideas. You have not expected any gratitude for this, knowing what “children’s gratitude” is like, but have expected at least some sort of obligingness, some sign of sympathy. It looked to you more or less as follows: you have worked hard all your life, have sacrificed everything for your children, above all for me, consequently I have lived high and handsome, have been completely at liberty to learn whatever I wanted, and have had no cause for material worries, which means worries of any kind at all. And if I now try to give you an answer in writing, it will still be very incomplete, because, even in writing, this fear and its consequences hamper me in relation to you and because the magnitude of the subject goes far beyond the scope of my memory and power of reasoning, to you the matter always seemed very simple, at least in so far as you talked about it in front of me, and indiscriminately in front of many other people. As usual, I was unable to think of any answer to your question, partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, and partly because an explanation of the grounds for this fear would mean going into far more details than I could even approximately keep in mind while talking. ![]() You asked me recently why I maintain that I am afraid of you. ![]()
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