The Art of Distance

In which Kafka meets a woman from Berlin, proceeds to write her 500 letters while avoiding actual meetings, and proves himself the unlikely prophet of modern digital romance.

On the evening of 13 Aug. 1912, Franz Kafka arrived—predictably late, as usual—at Max Brod’s apartment, clutching a manuscript of his soon-to-be-published Contemplation collection (which we explored in my last post). What he discovered there would alter not only his personal trajectory but his literary one as well: an unexpected guest, a woman from Berlin named Felice Bauer. His initial diary entry about her reads like a police report of profound disinterest:

When I arrived at Brod’s on 13 VIII, she was sitting at the table and yet looked to me like a maid. I also wasn’t at all curious about who she was, but rather immediately reconciled myself to her. Bony empty face, which wore its emptiness openly. Bare neck. Thrown-on blouse. Looked very domestically dressed, although, as it turned out later, she was not at all... Almost broken nose. Blond, somewhat stiff charmless hair, strong chin. As I sat down I looked at her more closely for the first time, by the time I was sitting I had an u…