Kafka

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How Kafka wrote letters to comfort a girl upset about losing her doll

By Stephen Wilson

 

          A charming and poignant story tells of how the Czech writer Franz Kafka on a walk in the park by chance, stumbled across a distressed girl upset about losing her doll. Kafka is said to have comforted the girl by improvising an invented story on the spot. The story goes as follows:

One day, Kafka and his girlfriend Dora Diamant were going for a walk in the Steglitzer park in Berlin. They noticed a little girl in tears, sobbing her heart out. She seemed inconsolable. Kafka approached her and asked, "What is the matter?" The girl answered "I have lost my doll". He immediately began inventing a convincing story to explain what had happened to her doll. He told her, "Your doll has gone on a journey." The girl looked at him a bit suspiciously and said, "How do you know that?" "Because she has written me a letter telling me". "Show me the letter " demanded the girl. "I can't show you the letter because I left it at home, but I'll bring it tomorrow to show you it ". 

Kafka went home, sat down at his desk and wrote a letter. Dora Diamant recalled, 'He got down to work in all earnestness, as though he was to create a literary work. He was in the same tense state as always when he sat down at the desk. Franz had solved a child's conflict through art - the most effective means at his disposal for bringing order into this world.'

 

When Kafka met the girl the next day he handed her the letter. The letter began, 'Please don't mourn as I have gone on a trip to see the World. I will write to you of my adventure.'

This was the beginning of many letters given to this girl. He continued writing those letters for three weeks. When he last met the girl he brought her a new doll he had bought saying, "You doll has returned from her journey. 

"But that doll doesn't look like the one I had," answered the girl. Kafka replied, "After a journey a person's appearance always changes." 

Later, when the girl had grown up, she found in the crevice of the doll a note with the words, 'We all lose people and things we love, but love always returns to us in a different form'. One year later after meeting the girl Kafka died of tuberculosis shortly of his 41st birthday.

 

Save for the last part of the story about the note which was a moral added by subsequent storytellers, the story seems to be plausible. The main primary source of this story was his girlfriend Dora Diamant who lived with the author. But not everyone believes this incident happened. It has even assumed the form of a legend where - maybe it happened, may be it did not. For example, one author states this behavior is at odds with the Kafka we know as he was very introverted and self absorbed. He was too reserved a person to instantly strike up a rapport with a stranger. Could the writer of such dark novels such as 'The Trial' and 'The Castle' write such a positive story about a doll? Since Dora Diamant was a bit of a mystic, she can't be counted as a reliable witness. What are we to make of this claim? 

If you read the extensive correspondence, novels and diaries of Kafka, then what emerges is a very deep complex character where the words 'introvert ' and self-absorbed' do him scant justice. If you read a biography by Klaus Wagenbach you find that far from him being self absorbed he was always going around helping people, writing to them, counselling them and lending them money. He even wrote special reports with recommendations of how employers could install safer machinery to prevent tragic accidents in the workplace. In deed, Kafka comes across as a caring, compassionate and empathetic person. In the sanatoriums he was always trying to console and help younger patients. He did not wallow in self-pity. Wagenbach writes, 'Kafka's friendships during his final years were all counselling helping relationships with persons much younger than himself ... Kafka, himself carrying a heavy load, was genuinely something like an adviser and helper to the heavily laden during those years.' So why should it be so implausible to consider Kafka taking the trouble to help a little girl? Dora Diamant respected Kafka too much to fabricate such a story.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons for this interpretation is that there exists a prevailing literary criticism which views most works of literature not as invention but mainly a reflection or a mirror of the author's life. People confuse Kafka's characters with the author himself while in fact those characters were invented. We should heed a wise Russian saying which states, 'A tale is an invention, the song and the truth.' And this truth should be interpreted as metaphorically and not too literary. Unfortunately, much literary criticism attempts to explain novels by exploring the author's personal life. Perhaps people have forgotten the magic of fiction and really believe that reality is more fascinating than fiction. They are more interested in factual accounts than invented genres.

 

Nevertheless, people are captivated by this story. The story appeals because it illustrates the healing potential and power of not only telling stories to children, but letter writing. By telling this story in such away the child could learn better how to cope with all kinds of loss including coming to terms with death. The advantage of telling a story is that the listeners can draw their own conclusion and the therapist avoids preaching or teaching didactically. The advantage of storytelling is that direct eye contact makes the experience between the storyteller and listener more personal and interactive. Oksana Chebotareva, a Russian English teacher, wrote that storytelling "is particularly precious in the age of digital technologies and Artificial intelligence, as it starts to threaten the job of teachers as well as other professions. It might be the last factor that makes us more valuable than computer technologies and video games". 

Kafka's story of the doll shows the strength of using both storytelling and letter writing as a kind of potent therapy which can help bind the wounds of those in grief. Kafka was a great writer of letters. It is worth recalling that the origins of the English novel lie with the novel Clarissa by Samuel Richards. The novel published in 1748 assumes the form of letters. It goes without saying that handwritten letters are more reassuring to people than e-mail. There is something more personal, intimate and authentic about a handwritten letter than a digital one. One thing which a hand written letter and story share is that both contain the implicit message to people to "Slow down" in an age where people are often in a frenzied hurry, never taking time off to meet other people. We feel if we don't meet this or that deadline it will be the end of the World. Daniel Ogan the storyteller once told me, "Don't hurry. Most accidents are caused by being in a hurry."  He ought to know because his job often involves intervening in emergency situations to calm down people. If you want someone to listen to you reciting a poem, you should tell it slowly but well. If you recite it too quickly people will be less likely to listen.

 

A third point is that real maturity in adulthood is reached when people understand how seriously a child treats his toys. We never entirely abandon playing with toys. Unfortunately, many people believe that we should abandon playing with those 'childish things' just as the Romans ritually sacrificed them when they reached 12. I'll never forget seeing a boy taking all his toy cars and stamping them to pieces at school as a means of affirming his entrance to secondary school. What happens when you have children or grandchildren of your own? Do you stop playing with children because playing with their toys is childish?  In a sense Kafka was playing with a doll by inventing stories.

 

What happened to the letters of the doll which Kafka had left with Dora Diamant? Diamant stated the Gestapo raided her apartment in 1933 and confiscated all of Kafka's stories as well as the letters telling the adventures of the doll. What became of such letters we will never know! They could well have been destroyed during an air raid. It would be strange to think that they might be lying in some obscure Russian archive. Most likely they vanished along with the little girl's doll!