„Der Schlaf ist das unschuldigste Geschöpf, und der schlaflose Mensch der schuldvollste.“
Letter from Franz Kafka to Milena (1920)
My dear Milena,
Sleep is the most innocent creature there is, and a sleepless man the most guilty. That is how it seems to me. When one cannot sleep, it is as if the soul were continually standing before a tribunal. The mind searches for something it has done wrong, or for something it has failed to do. One turns from side to side like a man who cannot find a place in the world.
But sleep—sleep is pure. It comes like a small, quiet animal and lies down beside us. It asks for nothing, it accuses no one. It simply takes us away from ourselves for a while. In sleep, the day’s burdens loosen their hold, and the soul rests from its questioning.
When I lie awake at night, I think of many things, and often of you. Thoughts come and go without order. Sometimes they comfort me, sometimes they disturb me. But they always return to the same point: the strange fact that a person far away can nevertheless become so present in one’s life that every quiet hour seems filled with her presence.
You must not think that I write these things in order to trouble you. On the contrary, it comforts me to write. A letter is like a bridge thrown across distance. Even if the bridge trembles, it still connects two shores.
For now I will try again to sleep. Perhaps sleep will come quietly and forgive the restless mind that has kept it away.
Yours,
Franz
Letter from Franz Kafka to Milena (1920)
My dear Milena,
Sleep is the most innocent creature there is, and a sleepless man the most guilty. That is how it seems to me. When one cannot sleep, it is as if the soul were continually standing before a tribunal. The mind searches for something it has done wrong, or for something it has failed to do. One turns from side to side like a man who cannot find a place in the world.
But sleep—sleep is pure. It comes like a small, quiet animal and lies down beside us. It asks for nothing, it accuses no one. It simply takes us away from ourselves for a while. In sleep, the day’s burdens loosen their hold, and the soul rests from its questioning.
When I lie awake at night, I think of many things, and often of you. Thoughts come and go without order. Sometimes they comfort me, sometimes they disturb me. But they always return to the same point: the strange fact that a person far away can nevertheless become so present in one’s life that every quiet hour seems filled with her presence.
You must not think that I write these things in order to trouble you. On the contrary, it comforts me to write. A letter is like a bridge thrown across distance. Even if the bridge trembles, it still connects two shores.
For now I will try again to sleep. Perhaps sleep will come quietly and forgive the restless mind that has kept it away.
Yours,
Franz