Milena Jesenska and Kafka initially met in 1920 when she was translating his early short prose into Czech; their friendship quickly became into a close one. Because of how he felt about her, Kafka revealed his journals to her, exposing his heart and his conscience in the process. When it came to making decisions, Milena was cold and calculating but impulsive when her emotions were involved. She once lived her life "so intensely down to such depths," according to Kafka. She had a huge hunger for life, so if she did suffer because of him, so be it. Although Milena's "talent for living" occasionally gave Kafka new energy, it eventually made him fatigued, and their relationship was to endure only briefly over two years. In 1924 Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna, and Milena died in 1944 at the hands of the Nazis, leaving these letters as a moving record of their relationship.