The Diaries of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka

hardly any longer to the people, rather to the Jewish God whom he now professes. Meanwhile the piano player has struck up a tune, the two in caftans feel moved by it and must start dancing. In the background stands the reunited bridal pair, they sing the melody, especially the serious bridegroom, in the customary old way.
    First appearance of the two in caftans. They enter Seidemann’s empty room with collection boxes for the temple, look around, feel ill at ease, look at each other. Feel along the doorposts with their hand, don’t find a
mezuzah
. 20 None on the other doors, either. They don’t want to believe it and jump up beside doors as if they were catching flies, jumping up and falling back, slapping the very tops of the doorposts again and again. Unfortunately all in vain. Up to now they haven’t spoken a word.
    Remembrance between Mrs K and last year’s Mrs W. Mrs K. has apersonality perhaps a trifle weaker and more monotonous, to make up for it she is prettier and more respectable. Mrs W.’s standing joke was to bump her fellow players with her large behind. Besides, she had a worse singer with her and was quite new to us.
    ‘Male impersonator’ is really a false tide. By virtue of the fact that she is stuck into a caftan, her body is entirely forgotten. She only reminds one of her body by shrugging her shoulder and twisting her back as though she were being bitten by fleas. The sleeves, though short, have to be pulled up a little every minute; this the spectator enjoys and even watches for it to happen, anticipating the great relief it will be for this woman who has so much to sing and to explain in the talmudic manner.
    Would like to see a large Yiddish theatre as the production may after all suffer because of the small cast and inadequate rehearsal. Also, would like to know Yiddish literature, which is obviously characterized by an uninterrupted tradition of national struggle that determines every work, A tradition, therefore, that pervades no other literature, not even that of the most oppressed people. It may be that other peoples in times of war make a success out of a pugnacious national literature, and that other works, standing at a greater remove, acquire from the enthusiasm of the audience a national character too, as is the case with
The Bartered Bride
, but here there appear to be only works of the first type, and indeed always.
    The appearance of the simple stage that awaits the actors as silently as we. Since, with its three walls, the chair, and the table, it will have to suffice for all the scenes, we expect nothing from it, rather with all our energy await the actors and are therefore unresistingly attracted by the singing from behind the blank walls that introduces the performance.
    9 October. If I reach my fortieth year, then I’ll probably marry an old maid with protruding upper teeth left a little exposed by the upper lip. The upper front teeth of Miss K., who was in Paris and London, slant towards each other a little like legs which are quickly crossed at the knees. I’ll hardly reach my fortieth birthday, however; the frequenttension over the left half of my skull, for example, speaks against it – it feels like an inner leprosy which, when I only observe it and disregard its unpleasantness, makes the same impression on me as the skull cross-section in textbooks, or as an almost painless dissection of the living body where the knife – a little coolingly, carefully, often stopping and going back, sometimes lying still – splits still thinner the paper-thin integument close to the functioning parts of the brain.
    Last night’s dream which in the morning I myself didn’t even consider beautiful except for a small comic scene consisting of two counter-remarks which resulted in that tremendous dream satisfaction but which I have forgotten.
    I walked – whether Max was there right at the start I don’t know – through along row of houses at the level of the first or second floor,