“Oddly enough you have some sort of notion of what I mean. For instance, a short time ago you said to me: “I have always been fond of you, even though outwardly I didn’t act toward you as other fathers generally do, and this precisely because I can’t pretend as other people can.” Now, Father, on the whole I have never doubted your goodness toward me, but this remark I consider wrong. You can’t pretend, that is true, but merely for that reason to maintain that other fathers pretend is either mere opinionated nests, and as such beyond discussion, or on the other hand—and this in my view is what it really is—a veiled expression of the fact that something is wrong in our relationship and that you have played your part in causing it to be so, but without its being your fault. If you really mean that, then we are in agreement.” Kafka, Brief an den Vater, 1919.
