Kafka the Gardener

From the beginning of April 1913, Kafka sought to compensate for his office job in the insurance office, which he considered to be “compulsory labour”, a humdrum “living hell”, with physical work, especially gardening. He found that the weeding, watering, and bedding out was a balm for his frayed nerves; the light unskilled labour “in the cooling rain, just in a shirt and trousers” among the beds of the Dvorský nursery and market garden in the Prague suburb of Nusle relaxed him and helped him to sleep better at night. To Brod, Kafka described the market garden as “one of the positives” in his life. Later, in the early summer of 1918, Kafka helped at the Institute for Pomology, Viniculture, and Horticulture, a training institute in Troja near Prague. 

Can you tell from my handwriting that I’ve been doing heavy work today and that the pen is now too light an object for me? Yes, today, for the first time, I worked for a gardener out in Nusle, one of the suburbs, in the cooling rain, just in a shirt and trousers. It did me good. 

Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer

There is nothing better than such a craft. […] Intellectual work tears man out of human company. Craftwork on the other hand, takes him among people. Pity I can’t work any more in the workshop or the garden. 

Franz Kafka to Gustav Janouch