#max brod

Here, dear Max, are two books and a pebble. I’ve always tried hard to find something for your birthday that is of such a neutral nature that it cannot be changed, be lost, be spoiled, and be forgotten. And after having pondered the problem for months I once again could think of nothing but sending you a book. But books are a vexation; if on the one hand they are neutral, on the other hand they are all the more interesting; and then only my convictions attracted me to the neutral ones, but with me convictions are by no means the decisive factor, and at the end I found myself, still changing my mind, holding in my hand a book that simply burned with sheer interestingness. Once I deliberately forgot your birthday. That was of course better than sending a book, but it wasn’t good. Therefore I am sending you the pebble now, and will send one to you as long as we live. Keep it in your pocket; it will protect you. If you leave it in a drawer, it won’t be inactive either; but if you throw it away, that will be best of all. For you know, Max, my love for you is greater than myself and I dwell in it rather than it dwells in me. And if it only has feeble support in my insecure nature, by means of the pebble it comes to occupy an abode in rock, even if only in a crack in the sidewalk on Schalengasse. For a long time this love has saved me more often than you know, and right now, when I am more puzzled about myself than ever and when fully conscious feel half asleep, but so extremely light, barely existing—I go around as if my guts were black, you know–at such a time as now it feels good to throw a pebble like this into the world and thus divide certainty from uncertainty. What are books compared to that! Once a book begins to bore you, it goes on doing so, or your child tears it up, or, like Walser’s book, it’s already falling apart when you receive it. But the pebble cannot bore you; a pebble also cannot disintegrate, or if it does, only in times far in the future. You also cannot forget it because you are not supposed to remember it. Finally, you can never lose it for good since you’ll find it again on any old gravel path because it is just any old pebble… In short, I have found the finest of birthday presents for you and convey it to you with a kiss which is meant to express awkwardly my thanks that you exist. Yours, Franz.

. . . not even my setting it down in writing will keep it off, although there's some power even in that.