Franz Kafka

The bastions of Riga enclose the old town in an irregular fivesided polygon, at each of whose corners a great tower stands, barely higher than the rest of the fortifications but projecting its mass a notable distance beyond their perimeter. Near the top of each tower lies a square platform surrounded by crenelated walls rising more than twenty feet above it. A flight of steps leads from the platform to an observation post set level with the crenelations in the outermost corner of the tower.

In the course of my tour of the northwestern tower, I decided to climb these steps in order to enjoy the view to which I imagined they would bring me. On the day of my visit this proved a difficult undertaking. Still wet from a recent shower, the steps were not only narrow but slippery, made as they were of a calcareous stone five centuries in use and wom perfectly smooth. There was no railing: after I had progressed less than half my way, I found myself obliged, in order to stay balanced, to bend over and lean one hand on the third or fourth step in front of me while with my other I groped for restraining fissures in the rough-hewn wall at my side. Even this effective if undignified tactic soon had to be abandoned when gusts of wind from above threatened to blow away my cap. I finished my ascent more or less on my hands and knees, or rather my hand and knees, with my other hand clapped on top of my head --- a posture that provoked derisive laughter from my companions below, although I scarcely heard them through the shudders of dizziness that had by now begun to afflict me. When at last I reached the vantage point so laboriously striven for, I beheld, instead of Riga and the waters of the Baltic, only unbroken fog, as dingy as an old newspaper under the clouded sky.

Several weeks later, when I was back home, a friend who knew I had gone to Riga showed me a passage in Kafka's notebooks describing his sojourn there. One paragraph read:

I decided to climb these steps in order to enjoy the view to which they would bring me. On the day of my visit this proved a difficult undertaking. Still wet from a recent shower, the steps were not only narrow but slippery, made as they were of a calcareous stone five centuries in use and wom perfectly smooth. There was no railing: after I had progressed less than half my way, I found myself obliged, in order to stay balanced, to bend over and lean one hand on the third or fourth step in front of me while with my other I groped for restraining fissures in the rough-hewn wall at my side. Even this effective if undignified tactic soon had to be abandoned when gusts of wind from above threatened to blow away my hat. I finished my ascent more or less on my hands and knees, or rather my hand and knees, with my other hand clapped on top of my head --- a posture that provoked derisive laughter from my companions below, although I scarcely heard them through the shudders of dizziness that had by now begun to afflict me. When at last I reached the vantage point so laboriously strived for, I beheld, instead of Riga and the waters of the Baltic, only unbroken fog, as dingy as an old newspaper under the clouded sky.

I was angry that Kafka had rendered this experience with such unaccountable inaccuracy. In saying this, I am not referring to his hat, which had nothing to do with my feelings; or, at least, nothing particular.