A conversation that occurred in 1920 between Franz Kafka and Gustav Janouch, first published in German in 1951.

I showed Kafka some new books published by the firm of Neugebauer. As he was turning the leaves of a volume with illustrations by George Grosz, he said:

“That is the familiar view of Capital — the fat man in a top hat squatting on the money of the poor.”

“It is only an allegory,” I said.

Franz Kafka drew his eyebrows together.

“You say ‘only’! In men’s thoughts the allegory becomes an image of reality, which is naturally a mistake. But the error already exists here.” 

“You mean that the picture is false?”

“I would not quite say that. It is both true and false. It is true only in one sense. It is false, in that it proclaims this incomplete view to be the whole truth. The fat man in the top hat sits on the necks of the poor. That is correct. But the fat man is Capitalism, and that is not quite correct. The fat man oppresses the poor man within the conditions of a given system. But he is not the system itself. He is not even its master. On the contrary, the fat man also is in chains, which the picture does not show. The picture is not complete. For that reason it is not good. Capitalism is a system of relationships, which go from inside to out, from outside to in, from above to below, and from below to above. Everything is relative, everything is in chains. Capitalism is a condition both of the world and of the soul.”

“Then how would you picture it?”

Kafka shrugged his shoulders and smiled sadly. 

“I don’t know. In any case we Jews are not painters. We cannot depict things statically. We see them always in transition, in movement, as change. We are story-tellers.”

The entry of one of the staff broke off our conversation. 

When the disturbing visitor had gone, I wanted to return to the interesting topic of conversation which we had begun. Kafka, however, cut me off and said:

“Let us forget about it. A story-teller cannot talk about story-telling. He tells stories or is silent. That is all. His world begins to vibrate within him, or it sinks into silence. My world is dying away. I am burnt out.  //

From Conversations with Kafka by Gustav Janouch, translated by Goronway Rees, New Directions, 2012, 151-152.