Kafka is terminally ill. He is in constant pain, he is plagued by horrible spells. He stays in bed and reads Either/Or. A couple of days before he pens down the final entry in his diary, which we'll soon read, he copies a passage from The Pilgrim Kamanita, a Buddhist tale by the Dane Gjellerup, a tale of reaching nirvana:
Such a one, so long as he dwells in the body, is seen by men and gods; but after his body is fallen to dust, neither men nor gods see him no more. And even nature, the all-seeing, sees him no more: he has blinded the eye of nature, he has vanished from the sight of the wicked.
If it is not nirvana Kafka is interested in, what then? The vanishing act of man in nature Gjellerup describes, reminds me of the opening of Nietzsche's Über Wahrheit und Lüge im Außermoralischen Sinn or Houellebecq's exasperation with man's insignificance in The Possibility of an Island:
Look at the little creatures moving in the distance, look. They are humans.
But there's a significant difference as well. While Nietzsche and Houellebecq emphasize man's nullity and nullability, Kafka might have been interested in man's invisibility in nature after death. Once the dust has settled man disappears. His final being is to be amongst the things, invisibly. Nietzsche also reminded us, 'antespectively', of man's complete disappearance from the earth: after nature has drawn a few breaths all men, however smart they are, must die.
Death is inevitable: it happens whether you like it or not (K, Diaries). Shortly after the Kamanita passage, Kafka writes his own 'eulogy':
It is incorrect to say of anyone: Things were easy for him, he suffered little; more correct: His nature was such that nothing could happen to him; most correct: He has suffered everything, but all in a single all-embracing moment. (K, Diaries 1910-1923)
He's in bed, he's reading Either/Or. The final leap is only a couple of months away. Is it surprising that Kafka's last entry conjures up a spirit? Kafka's writing, which has accompanied him many nights, finally turns on its author:
More and more fearful as I write. It is understandable. Every word, twisted in the hands of the spirits - this twist of the hand is their characteristic gesture - becomes a spear turned against the speaker. Most especially a remark like this. And so ad infinitium. The only consolation would be: it happens whether you like it or not. And what you like is of infinitesimally little help. More than consolation is: You too have weapons. (K, Diaries).
After this, Kafka will write no more.
