In the Golden Lane

Some time in the middle of 1916, Kafka was seeking a quiet place in which to write. For this reason, he set off with his sister Ottla to the Golden Lane in the Prague Castle district, among other places. “Just for fun, we enquired in the little alley. Yes, a house would be available for rent in November.” A whole row of Kafka’s significant works were produced in the tiny house at number 22 from late autumn 1916, among them most of the stories which would appear in the 1920 collection A Country Doctor. Kafka usually spent his evenings in the house, after he had completed his day’s work. Admittedly, he could not stay in the little room overnight so he usually walked in the early hours of the morning or “around midnight down the Old Castle Steps to the city below”. 

The Spirit is only set free when it ceases to be a support.

Franz Kafka, Aphorisms

All in all: the way up there is lovely, it is quiet there, there is only a very thin wall separating me from my neighbour, but my neighbour is quiet enough; I carry my supper up there and am generally there until midnight; then there are the advantages of walking home: I have to decide to stop but then I have the walk which cools my head. And life there: it’s something special to have one’s own house, to shut out the world, not with the door just to the room or to the apartment, but the door to the whole building; to walk out of the front door straight into the snow on the lane. 

Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer