https://archive.org/details/dearestfathersto00kafk/page/52/mode/2up
Old, in the fullness of the flesh, suffering slight palpitations, I was lying on the sofa after lunch, one foot on the floor, and reading a historical work. The maid came and, with two fingers laid on her pursed lips, announced a visitor.
"Who is it?" I asked, irritated at having to entertain a visitor at a time when I was expecting my afternoon coffee.
"A Chinaman," the maid said and, turning convulsively, suppressed a laugh that the visitor outside the door was not supposed to hear.
"A Chinese? To see me? Is he in Chinese dress?"
The maid nodded, still struggling with the desire to laugh.
"Tell him my name, ask if I am really the person he wants to see, unknown as I am even to the people next door, and how very unknown then in China."
some odd copy, some google docs, possibly an annotators note
Indolent is a nice word but I keep forgetting it
so real? i mean not about indolent in particular obviously
they remembered my page! how kind
Sometimes it happens, the reasons being often scarcely imaginable, that the greatest bullfighter chooses as the place where he will fight some decayed arena in a remote little town whose name the Madrid public has scarcely heard of. An arena that has been neglected for centuries, here overgrown with grass, a place where children play, there hot with bare stones, a place where snakes and liz- ards bask. The tops of the walls long ago carried away, a quarry for all the houses round about. Now only a little cauldron that will seat scarcely five hundred people. No annex building, above all no stables, but the worst thing of all is that the railway line has not yet been extended so far and there are three hours to travel by cart, seven hours to cover on foot, from the nearest station.
December 8. Bed, constipation, pain in back, irritable evening. cat in the room. dissension.
If I say to the child: "Wipe your mouth, then you shall have the cake," that does not mean that the cake is carned by means of wiping the mouth, for wiping one's mouth and the value of the cake are not comparable, nor does it make wiping the mouth a precondition for eating of the cake, for apart from the triviality of such a condi- tion the child would get the cake in any case, since it is a necessary part of his lunch-hence the remark does not signify that the transition is made more difficult, but that it is made easier, wiping one's mouth is a tiny benefit that precedes the great benefit of eating cake.
Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.