If books and mountains cry, June 1924 was certainly a month for them tears. There are months of the calendar should be erased, tearing his sheet at a time without regard as anathema Bible. The Aztecs had disastrous five days marked on your calendar, days they did not deserve anything but contempt for the conjunction of foreboding and sorrows.
These days are met 89 years of a tragic week for literature and adventure, that scan you Cherry-Garrard referred to as "the physical expression of intellectual passion". A 3 June 1924 died within 40 years Franz Kafka, probably the greatest writer, and the most influential on subsequent generations, twentieth century. Five days later, the 8 June, el Everest engullía a George Leigh Mallory, 37 years, his way, with partner Andrew Irvine, to the top of the highest mountain on Earth.
Both died consumed by a passion: the literary in from hunting Kafka; el Everest, at Mallory
Both died consumed by a passion: the literary in from hunting Kafka ("Everyone has their own way to emerge from the underworld; I do writing "); el Everest, at Mallory ("We have to know the end to convince us that we can overcome; to know, should challenge all dreams "). The two were very young, leaving a trail evergreen and tuck the brilliant way to eternity.
«Make me; if not, You will be a murderer ». These were the last words he wrote Kafka, hours before death, when he could only communicate through writing (as, actually, had always done throughout your life). It was a plea to his friend Robert Klopstock, the doctor who attended him in his last weeks of life in a sanatorium Kierling, outside Vienna, pleading to spare him the death throes. On a cold January morning, with the Vltava trapped by ice, Genius words prowl my desire to get to the new Jewish cemetery in Prague, Straschnitz, where he is buried.
I travel in a convoy of Metro line A to the cemetery where he is buried Kafka, on the outskirts of Prague
I travel in a convoy of Metro line A to station Zelivskeho, to the last stop of the author of "The Metamorphosis", of the young man who had always felt "World sent a kick":
«I am a man locked in myself, taciturn, all social, dissatisfied, although it can not qualify all that misery for me, Well, it is only the reflection of my goal »
Leaving open, I cross a broad avenue toward the cemetery. Once inside, Guardhouse in force you to cover your head with the Jewish yarmulke. Contrasts the loneliness of this enclosure with the bustle of tourists who throng every day the old Jewish cemetery in Josefov, in the center of Prague.
Kafka debated throughout his life was debated between "the physical impossibility of writing and the inner need to do so"
Kafka, who throughout his life was torn between "The physical impossibility of writing and the inner need to do so" (alienated from her job in an insurance company, "Ungifted for friendship", reluctant to marry and any compromise that would distract from the literature), was fully aware that «The current against which one is so fast that one is sometimes desperate…”. But despite the difficulties ( «I turns to where I get, The black wave rushes over me »), why not lost sight of their true desire:
«How I scint at my open eyes that possible life!»
Walking in the shadows of the willows and cypresses not hard to find his grave, indicated even in the main avenue of the cemetery. On the right, next to the wall of the cemetery, Cubist is the family headstone Kafka, where he and his parents are buried writer. Here was buried one 11 June 1924, eight days after his death, but in that week, far away, among the world's highest mountains, another brilliant man of his generation, George Mallory, had lost his romantic life struggle with Everest.
On the right, next to the wall of the cemetery, Cubist is the family headstone Kafka
Three days after Kafka's death, the 6 June, Edward Norton Photography for the last time alive Mallory and Irvine, colacándose their oxygen equipment, about to begin the journey toward the field V. The love affair with Everest Mallory came from afar. This was his third attempt after those of 1921 and 1922. No doubt it was the mountaineer who seemed destined to crown for the first time. Student Cambridge, young George lived a youth between poets prohijado by the Bloomsbury Group, and subsequently, before fighting in the Great War, was professor of literature. A romantic halo always accompanied his attitude to life and to the mountain itself. «Why do you want to climb Everest?», once asked him. "Because it's there", said.
The 7 June, Today ago 89 years, Field reached VI. The next day, the most important of his life, had an appointment with the top. "Perfect weather for our work!”, wrote in a note left in the camp Noel Odell, photographer of the expedition.
Three days after Kafka's death, the 6 June, Edward Norton last photographed Mallory and Irvine alive
From a fissure 7.920 meters, to 12:50 in the morning of that fateful 8 June 1924, Odell vio Mallory and Irvine "Moving quickly in an attempt to reach the summit", supposedly above the Second Step (8.484 meters), a vertical wall that many doubt that they could overcome the time teams. Then, "That fascinating vision vanished, a cloud enveloped her again ". They were not seen again and the mystery of whether they achieved their goal still lingers almost a century later.
In the base camp at the foot of the glacier Rongbuk, where the expedition arrived 29 April, yet there is a stone inscription in memory of Mallory alongside a modern marble plaque that perpetuates the memory of all deceased climbers pioneering British expeditions in the years 20 a the big mountain. We must leave behind fixed tents of base camp and turn left to find them. From the cairn enjoying sensational views of the north face of Everest, against which fits only silence. On one side are traditional Tibetan prayer flags, Cold wind blowing in the Himalayan. From this spot, Mallory wrote to his wife Ruth:
"If anything we can help, is determined to continue forward when we are tired and lacking in energy, determination that we will overcome difficulties and move forward "
Did you get? Your Friend Geoffrey Winthrop Young, who knew well and with whom he had shared many hours of climbing, I had no doubt. "It would have been difficult for any climber turn around you have hit the main difficulty. For Mallory would have been impossible ".
"It would have been difficult for any climber turn around you have hit the main difficulty. For Mallory would have been impossible "
The 10 June there was still no sign of them. His fellow presumed dead. The next day, in old Europe, a hundred friends goodbye to Franz Kafka in the new Jewish cemetery in Prague. There was a prayer in Hebrew. When the coffin was lowered, his last companion, Dora Diamant, collapsed. Only heard the earth fall on his coffin. "It was clear, heavy, muddy, with bits of crumbling stone, full of pebbles falling sharply on the lid of the coffin ", recalled after John Urzidil, one of the members of the funeral procession.
Today, those who come to the tomb of Kafka, where rests "This body of mine taken from a storage room", often introduce votive offerings in the interstices of his tombstone, surely one of the most overwhelming of all Prague. I hope to have met meno "The desire for a shadow light" by pining.
Today, those who come to the tomb of Kafka, where lies "this body of mine taken from a storage room", often introduce votives on his tombstone
A week after the funeral of Kafka, the 19 June 1924, Mallory's widow and three children received a telegram announcing the death of British mountaineer. Clare, one of his daughters, never forgot that moment and, and octogenarian, remembered how his mother took them to bed "and lying to us gave us the bad news. We all cried together ". And we with them.
PDTA.- I recommend to anyone who wants to delve into the lives of both characters two books: "Franz Kafka. Daily " (Editorial Debolsillo 2006) and "Life and passions of Mallory", Peter in the Leni Gillman (Editorial Muscle and Fitnesshers 2001), from which I have borrowed some of the quotes that illustrate this report.
