The Kafkas at the Grand Hotel
Kafka penned his key work The Judgement on a single, legendary September night in 1912 – “like a genuine birth, covered with mess and slime”. Kafka had dedicated The Judgement to Felice Bauer, and her initials match those of Frieda Brandenfeld, the fiancée in the story. The story of the young businessman George Bendemann was the first in a succession of completed works and the surety of style Kafka had now achieved would serve as his standard for all his subsequent texts. The story was published in the poetry yearbook Arkadia in 1913; three years later, it was published as a separate volume by Kurt Wolff in Leipzig.
The Johann-Gottfried-Herder Society hosted an author reading in the mirror room at the Hotel Archduke Stephen on 4 December 1912, directed by Willy Haas. First on the programme were poems by Franz Werfel and Otto Pick, followed by Max Brod and Oskar Baum giving tasters of their skill. Kafka, still barely known in literary circles, was to provide the grand finale. In a little less than half an hour, he read his story The Judgement.
His language is clear as crystal, and on the surface, you notice no aim other than to be right, clear, to fit the object. And yet drifting through this stream of pure language are dreams, visions of immeasurable depth. To peep in is to be captivated by beauty and idiosyncrasy.
Max Brod
The way the maid walked down the hall for the first time, as I wrote down the last sentence. [...] This is the only way anything can be written, only in such a context, with such complete opening up of body and soul.
Franz Kafka, Diary
You can find this story in our school reader Kein Schüler weit und breit [There is No Pupil Far or Wide].
