Lot 1
  • 1

Peng Wei, b.1974

bidding is closed

Description

  • Peng Wei
  • Poetry Within Poetry
  • ink on xuan paper

    hanging scroll

signed PENG WEI, inscribed, dated 2016 in Chinese and with two seals of the artist

A letter from Kafka to his lover Milena. Peng Wei lifts excerpts of this letter in the Chinese inscription of lot 1.



Prague, August 28, 1920



Saturday



So beautiful, so beautiful, Milena, so beautiful. There's nothing so beautiful in the letter (from Tuesday)-but the peace, the trust, the clarity from which it springs.



There wasn't anything this morning; that in itself would have been easy to cope with; receiving letters now is very different, although writing letters has hardly changed-the need and the joy of having to write remain. Anyhow I could have coped with that; why do I need a letter, if, for example,   I spent the whole day yesterday and the evening and half the night in conversation with you, a conversation where I was as sincere and earnest as a child, and you as receptive and earnest as a mother (actually I've never seen such a child or such a mother), so all that would have been all right, I just have to know why you're not writing, so I don't keep seeing you sick in bed, in the small room, the autumn rains outside, you alone, with a fever (you wrote that), with a cold (you wrote that), also night sweats and exhaustion  (you wrote about all of that)-so  if it isn't all like this, things are fine and at the moment I don't want  anything better.



I won't attempt to answer the first paragraph of your letter, I still don't even know the notorious first paragraph of the prior letter. Those are very complicated things which can only be solved in conversation between mother and child; perhaps they can only be solved there because they can't possibly come up. I won't attempt to do so because the pain is lurking in my temples. Did Cupid's arrow pierce my temples instead of my heart? I won't write about Gmünd anymore either, at least not intentionally. There'd be a lot to say, but in the end all it would come down to is that the first day in Vienna wouldn't have been any better had I left in the evening.  Even so, Vienna  had the advantage over Gmünd because I arrived there half­ unconscious with fear and exhaustion, but when I arrived in Gmünd, on the other hand, I felt-although  I didn't  realize  this, fool that I was-so grandly confident, as if nothing could happen to me anymore. I went there like a homeowner; it's strange that, with all the uneasiness constantly coursing through my veins, this weariness of ownership is still possible; in fact, it may be my only genuine flaw, in this matter and in others.



It's already 2:45, I didn't receive your letter until 2:00, now I'm stopping to eat, all right?



Not because it might have any significance for me, but just for the sake of sincerity: yesterday I heard that Lisl Beer may have a villa in Gilgen. Is that connected to any torment for you?



The translation of the final sentence is very good. Every sentence, every word, every-if I may say so-music in that story is connected with the "fear." It was then, during one long night, that the wound broke open for the first time, and in my opinion the translation catches this association  exactly,  with that  magic  hand  which  is yours.



You see what's so agonizing about receiving letters-well, I don't need to tell you. Today between your letter and mine there is a clear, good being together, breathing deeply-as far as this is possible in the great uncertainty-and now I have to wait for the answers to my earlier letters, and these scare me. Incidentally, how can you be expecting my letter Tuesday,if I didn't receive your address until Monday?