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 I

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

Contents
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

Copyright © 1989 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States I . The Man at the Window 3
by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in
Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. 2. An August Evening, on the Schalengasse . 29
Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in Italy by RCS Rizzoli Libri S.p.A., Milan, 3· The Writer as Animal 50
in 1987. Copyright © 1987 RCS Rizzoli Libri S.p.A., Milano
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 4· Amerika 74
Citati, Pietro.
[Kafka. English]
Kafka I Pietro Citati; translated from the Italian 5· 19 13- 19 14 II I

by Raymond Rosenthal.
p. cm. 6. The Trial 12 7
Translation of: Kafka.
Includes index. 7· A Sino-Greek Intermezzo 162
ISBN 0-394-56840-0
I. Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924. 2. Authors, Austrian­
8. The Ziirau Aphorisms 173
20th century- Biography. I. Title.
PT2621.A26Z662513 1989
833' ·912 --dC20 9· Milena 197
[B] 88-45766
CIP 10. The Year of The Castle 221
Manufactured in the United States of America
I I. The Castle 232
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

12. "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 279

13· 19 24 297

Acknowledgments 303

Notes and Bibliograpby 305

•
 F

CHAPTER ONE

The Man at the Window

;\ II the people who met Franz Kafk<1 in his youth or ma­

A turity had the impression that he was surrounded by a
"wall of glass." There he stayed, behind that very transparent
glass, walking gracefully, gesticulating, speaking; he smiled
like a meticulous and buoyant angel; and his smile was the
last flower born of a gentleness that gave itself and immedi­
ately pulled back, spent itself and jealously closed in upon
itself. He seemed to say: "I am like you, 1 am a man like you,
1 suffer and rejoice as you do." But the more he participated
in the destiny and sufferings of others, the more he excluded
himself from the game, and that subtle shadow of invitation
and exclusion on the edge of his lips told us that he could
never be present, that he lived far away, very far away, in a
world that did not belong even to him.
What did they see, the others, behind the delicate glass
wall? He was a tall man, thin and lithe, who carried his long
body around as though it had been given to him as a gift. H~_
had the impression that he would never grow up and would
never know the weight, stability and horror of what others
with incomprehensible joy called "maturity." He once con­

- fessed to Max Brod: "I shall never experience manhood, from

 '~ r ~

",;.
KAFKA The Man at the WindoUJ 5
4
being a child I shall immediately become an old man with pressed one against his heart, like an old melodramatic actor
white hair." Everybody was attracted by his large eyes which or a new mime of the silent films. When he laughed, he bent
he held very wide open, at times staring, and which in back his head, barely opened his mouth, and dosed his eyes
photographs, struck by the sudden flash of magnesium, until they became the thinnest of slits. But whether the spirit
seemed those of ~!1:1a~ possessed or of a_~isionary. His of his soul was gay or sad he never lost that gift of the gods:
eyelashes were long; his pupils are described now as brown, supreme naturalness. He, of all people, who thought he was
now gray, now steel-blue, now simply dark; while a passport and indeed was contradictory and contorted-nothing but a
assures us that they were "dark gray-blue." When he looked relic, a stone, a broken piece of wood stuck in a torn-up field,
at himself in the mirror, he found that his gaze was "incred­ a fragment left over from other fragments, nothing but cries
ibly energetic"; but others never stopped commenting on and and laceration-left the impression that all his gestures
interpreting his eyes, as though only they offered a door to expressed "calm in motion." He attained quiet in his life even
his soul. Some considered them full of sadness; some felt before he attained it in his writing. Nothing can awaken a
observed and scrutinized; some saw them light up suddenly, deeper impression in men. They came to him, anxious or
glisten with golden granules, then turn pensive or even uncertain or simply curious, old friends, already recognized
forbidding; some saw them imbued with now a mild, now a writers, unhappy and megalomaniac youths, and they drew
corrosive irony; some perceived in them surprise and a from this an impression of well-being and almost of joy. In
strange cunning; some, who loved him a great deal, IJId!"~lJjDg his presence everyday life changed. Everything seemed new:
his enigma in a thousand ways, thought that he, like Tolstoy, everything appeared seen for the first time; often it seemed
knew something of which other men knew nothing; some new in a very sad way, but without ever excluding a last
found his eyes impenetrable; and some, finally, believed that possibility of conciliation.
at times a stony calm, a mortal void, a funereal estrangement \ When he made an appointment with his friends, he
always came late. He arrived at a run, an embarrassed smile
dominated his gaze.
Very rarely did he speak of his own initiative; perhaps it on his face, and held his hand over his heart, as though to
seemed to him insupportable arrogance to come out on life's say: "I am innocent." The actor Itzhak Lowy waited for him
stage without being summoned, His voice was soft, thin and in front of his house for a very long time. When he saw the
melodious: only illness was to make it muffled and almost light burning in Kafka's room, he speculated: "He's still
raucoUS. He never said anything insignificant; everything writing"; then the light suddenly went out but remained on
that is everyday was alien to him or was transfigured by the in the next room, and at that LOwy said to himself: "He's
light of his inner world. If the subject inspired him, he spoke having dinner"; the light went on again in Kafka's room,
with facility, elegance, vivacity, at times with enthusiasm; he where he, obviously, was brushing his teeth; when it went
let himself go, as though it were possible to say everything to out, LOwy thought that he must be hastily descending the
everyone; he formed his sentences with the pleasure of an stairs; but look! now it went on again, perhaps Kafka had
artisan satisfied with his craft; and he accompanied his words forgotten something.... Kafka explained that he himself
with the play of his long, ethereal fingers. He often con­ loved to wait: a long wait, with unhurried glances at the
tracted his eyebrows, wrinkled his forehead, pushed out his watch and an indifferent pacing to and fro, pleased him as
lower lip, joined his hands, rested them open on his desk or much as lying down on the couch with his legs stretched out
 I

The Man at the Window 7

6 KAFKA
fuse in that room into a single person. This was his dream of
and his hands in his pockets. Waiting gave a purpose to his
life, which otherwise seemed so indeterminate to him: he had power-the only one that he, the enemy of all power, ever
I a fixed point before him, which marked his time and assured wished to realize. As a boy he had dreamt that he was in a
him that he existed. Perhaps he forgot to say that coming late large hall crowded with people and was reading aloud The
was for him a way of eluding time: defeating it, wearing it Sentimental Education, from beginning to end without stop­
down little by little and escaping its regular beat. ping, without ever interrupting himself, for all the necessary
His friends saw him from a distance, dressed always in a nights and mornings and evenings, just as later he would
clean, tidy way, never elegant: gray or dark blue suits, like a dream of writing Amerika or The Castle all in one breath. The
clerk. For a long period of time, enveloped in his dream of others would listen to him, never getting tired, completely
asceticism and stoic impassibility, he wore only one suit for fascinated.
the office, the street, his writing desk, summer and winter; When the evening was over, Kafka returned home with
and well into November, while everyone else wore heavy his birdlike lightness. He walked with a quick step, slightly
overcoats, he appeared in the street "like a madman in a bent, his head a bit inclined, wavering as though the gusts of
summer suit and a small summer hat," almost as though wind were dragging him now to one side of the street, now
wanting to impose a single uniform on the diversity of life. to the other; he rested his crossed hands on his shoulders, and
As soon as he saw his friends, he seemed happy. Even his long stride, along with the dark color of his face, often
though he communicated with them only "with his finger­ caused him to be mistaken for a half-breed Indian. Thus he
tips," he had a Chinese formality, which was born from the passed, in the depths of the night, absorbed in his thoughts,
weariness of his heart and an almost unprecedented refine­ before the palaces, churches, monuments and synagogues,
ment of the spirit. He offered himself with ironic grace: a turning into the picturesque and dark side alleys that traverse
Carroll-like levity, the levity of a Hasidic saint or a romantic Prague. This was his way of taking leave of life and sapping
imp; a whimsical imagination, hovering and errant-the strength from the certain unhappiness of the following day.
delicacies of Oriental poetry, delightful marivaudages, games At eight in the morning he punctually arrived in his office
at the Institute for \Vorkmen's Accident Insurance for the
with smoke, the heart and death.
When he was with friends, he liked to exhibit his talent as Kingdom of Bohemia. At his desk covered by a disheveled
a mime. Now he would imitate someone twirling his walking pile of papers and dossiers, he dictated to the typist; every so
stick, the gesture of his hands, the movement of his fingers. often his mind halted, vacant of all ideas, and the typist
Now he imitated the complexities of a person's character, dozed off, lit his pipe or looked out the window. He
and his inner mimicry was so potent and perfect as to become participated in meetings, drew up documents and reports,
unconscious~(c)ften he read books he loved: with gaiety and carried out surveys. He was considered an excellent em­
rapture, eyes shining with emotion, a rapid voice, capable of ployee: "indefatigable, diligent and ambitious . . . a very_
re-creating rhythm by means of the secret vibration of song, zealous worker, of uncommon talent and extraordinarily
causing the intonations to stand out with extreme precision, scrupulous in the performance of his duties." His superiors
savoring certain expressions and repeating them or empha­ did not know that he was not in the least "ambitious." He
sizing them with insistence, until Flaubert or Goethe or worked there, in that din, among that crowd of clerks and
Kleist, he who was reading, his friends or sisters would all porters and injured workers only because he knew that he
 1"""""""

8 KAFKA The Man at the Window

9
must not devote all his time to literature. He feared that the food of vegetarian restaurants: green cabbage with fried
literature would suck him in, like a vortex, until he would eggs, whole wheat bread, semolina with raspberry syrup,
lose his way in its boundless territories. He could not afford lettuce with cream, gooseberry wine; and the soft foods of
to be free. He needed constriction: he must devote his day to the sanatoriums-apple jam, mashed potatoes, liquid le­
some extraneous activity, and only then would he be able to gumes, fruit juices, sweet omelets-which glided swiftly,
carve out from his quotidian prison those precious hours, almost unnoticed, down the throat. He tried to outdo those
those nocturnal hours, in which his pen pursued the un­ diets; and yogurt, Simon's bread, walnuts and filberts,
known world that someone had ordered him to bring to life. chestnuts, dates, figs, grapes, almonds, raisins, sugar, ba­
Office work gave him the subtle pleasure, which he savored nanas, apples, pears, oranges, pineapples filled him with that
as few others did, of being irresponsible: no autonomous gentle nourishment which had to sustain him during his
decision, no handwritten sheet and, at the bottom of the nocturnal labors.
sheets, not the name but the initials F.K. But what great Then he retired to his room, which was a passageway, or
tension this double life demanded! He grappled with the rather, a rackety connecting path between the living room
immense and tortuous work of the office and with the and his parents' bedroom. There was a bed, a closet, a small
phantoms of his nights; he had no ease, he had no time; he old desk with a few books and many notebooks. On the walls
had few hours left to sleep; and more than once he thought there perhaps still hung reproductions from the apartment on
that he would be torn to shreds by this conflict, or that the Zeltnergasse: a print of The Ploughman by Hans Thoma
madness was the only path to salvation. and the plaster cast of a small ancient relief, a Maenad who
He returned home, to his other prison-"so much more danced while brandishing an animal's thigh. The desk was
oppressive since it seemed a bourgeois home exactly the same not always tidy; from the drawer poured out pamphlets, old
as all others"-around a quarter past two in the afternoon. newspapers, catalogues, picture postcards, torn or open
He said he lived there like a stranger, great though his love letters, forming a kind of ramp; a brush lay there, bristles
was for father, mother and sisters. He did not participate in down, his change purse was open in case he wanted to pay
the family rituals, the card games, the gatherings. Sometimes for something, from the bunch of keys one protruded, ready
a shy good-night kiss from his mother brought him closer to to be used, and the tie was still partly knotted around the
her. "This is fine," he said. "I never dared," his mother collar. With his sensitivity sharpened by neurosis he could
answered, "I thought you didn't like it. But if you do, 1 too not stand noises: it seemed to him he lived and wrote in the
am very happy about it"; and she smiled at him with a "noise headquarters of the entire apartment," "with a con­
forgotten tenderness somehow resurrected for the moment. stant tremor on his brow." Doors slammed, and their noise
He did share the communal food. While the others ate drowned out the hasty steps of parents and sisters. The stove
meat-that meat brought back to his memory vivid with door in the kitchen banged. His father flung open the door to
hatred and disgust all the violence that men had sown over his room and passed close to him, dragging along his rustling
the earth, and the minuscule filaments between one tooth and robe; somebody was scraping the ashes from the stove in the
the next seemed to him germs of putrefaction and fermenta­ next room; his sister Valli asked at random, as though across
tion like those of a dead rat between two 'stones-he poured a Parisian alleyway, whether Father's hat had been brushed;
onto the table nature's rich cornucopia. He had always loved more hissings, more shouts; the house's entrance door
•
I KAFKA The Man at the Window 11
10

croaked like a hoarse throat; then it opened with the brief When he was about twenty, he experienced with Oskar
chirp of a female voice and closed again with a deep Pollak, a young art critic killed during the First World War,
masculine thump; and then there was the more tender, more one of those pure and exclusive friendships which can be
desperate noise of two canaries.... born only from the delicate fires of youth. He existed only
With painful weariness he threw himself down on the for his friend; and the tension was so great that at every
couch and stared at the light. When the door to his room was instant he feared his friend might become a stranger and
struck simultaneously by the light from the foyer and that desert him. This was a friendship rife with reticences,
from the kitchen, a greenish glow poured over the glass pane. caution and respect; he said that he ignored the other and that
If it was struck only by the kitchen light, the closer pane the other ignored him; he distrusted the words they ex­
turned a deep azure, the other an azure so whitish that the changed, and thought they could not communicate with one
design on the frosted glass dissolved completely. The lights another: "When we talk to each other, the words are hard, we
and shadows cast by the electric street lights were jumbled, walk on them as on an uneven pavement. On the more subtle
superimposed and hard to understand. The illumination points our feet swell and it is not our fault. We almost hinder
projected by the traveling tram onto the ceiling went by each other mutually, I run into you, and you ... I dare not,
milky, veiled and in mechanical jerks, while at the first fresh and you. . . We are dressed in dominos with masks over our
and full reverberation of the street lamps, a luminous dot faces, we make (yes, I above all) clumsy gestures and then
slithered along the equator of an earth globe, leaving it a suddenly we are sad and tired. Have you ever been as tired
brownish color like that of a russet apple. In the end, like with someone else as you are with me? ... When we talk to
Gregor Samsa and Joseph K., Kafka went to the window that each other we are always hindered by things that we want to
looked out on the river and the hill. It was late: he no longer say and cannot say that way, but we express ourselves so that
felt the weight of the light. Now he contemplated with we mutually misunderstand each other or don't even listen to
meticulous attention everything he could make out in the each other or deride each other. . . ." And yet suddenl y ,
dusk; now his empty and unfocused gaze, which rose from despite those uncertain, stammered, treacherous words with
the heart's unknown turmoils and complications, obliterated "swollen feet," he reached out to his friend impulsively,
things; now he entrusted to his motionless gaze his quiet offering him all of himself. "I take a piece of my heart,
melancholy, his flight from existence, his desire to live no carefully wrap it in a few sheets of written paper and give it
longer; now he stared into the faces of the passersby and at to you." Then this shy, reticent man who did not possess
the colors of the houses, and tried to establish a relationship himself, separated from all things by an insurmountable
between himself and the objects, and among the objects barrier, became his friend: lived through his friend: thought
themselves, as though he might be able to find in the streets with his mind, loved through his heart, saw with his
"any arm whatsoever to which he could attach himself." eyes-because he had not yet learned how to see for himself.
Perhaps in that gaze, only in that gaze, he found liberation "You were for me, besides many other things," he confessed
and salvation; that "unknown nourishment" for which he had to him later on, "also a sort of window from which I could
always longed. look out into the streets."
While he spoke to or walked with or wrote to Pollak,
Kafka split in two: he sat at his desk and another self
I'
I 12 KAFKA The Man at the Window
13
was present at Pollak's meeting with a girl; he lay, beatific, in away from here, or in vast fields which become even vaster
II bed and another self performed, like an ironic and indifferent ~ha~_~__ .r:':1~!1~o~: in one's eyes, or when I sit in the
IIII actor, his part on the streets. His friend was only one of these orchard with the children ... telling them stories or building
selves; and all these persons, whom Kafka extracted with sand castles or playing hide-and-seek or whittling small
ecstatic and dolorous amusement from his heart, ended up tables which-God is my witness-are never successful. A
loving each other, hating each other, attacking each other singular time, isn't it true? Or when I roam through the
with desperate neurotic intensity. During those years no one fields, all brown and melancholy now, with abandoned
had a more antagonistic soul than Kafka-the mildest of ploughs, which nevertheless send off silvery flashes when,
men. In the enchanting "Description of a Struggle," written despite everything, the sun makes its belated appearance and
between 1904 and 1910, which was born from these experi­ casts my long shadow onto the furrows (yes, my long
ences, the story is a vertiginous play of mirrors, in which shadow, who knows whether with it I might reach the
Kafka uninterruptedly depicts himself through ever new heavenly kingdom?). Did you already notice how the shad­
characters, and where even the words pronounced become ows of late summer dance on the dark overturned earth, how
invisible interlocutors. Among these figures there is no bulkily they dance?" This is an undulating, melodic, f1oreal,
respite: now they hate each other and would like to attack suspended, cryptic, angelic prose: an unreal efflorescence of
and kill each other; now they embrace each other, kiss each images which spring more from an overexcited imagination
other's faces, kiss each other's hands with tearful effusiveness. than from the mind, until the exhausted stylization of a
Undoubtedly Kafka realized that he risked being over­ gesture suddenly shatters it. As he said, it was "courteous"
whelmed by the violence of his projections; and with a prose: written by one who did not wish to bear on himself the
gesture that he repeated endlessly, he tried to transform violent light of truth, the clarity of the great work of art. He
friendship into a pure epistolary relationship. Was not lived in twilight and elusiveness; and if he had not dared to
perhaps the written word, of which he had been so doubtful, rip open this enchanting veil, he would have forever ob­
the perfect thing? !!e~.r~2P,.e!! ~o~pletely only when faces tained, without anguish and laceration, the gift of fluency
aredistant, when presence does not imprison US andglances and lightness.
do not touch; but cold and impassioned hands cover the Often he wished to transform all of reality into a dream,
white paper with signs. Then we become light, and above us into an aerial form suspended over his head. Once he
gleams the distant gaze of the moon. imagined that the character in one of his Hovels lay in bed, in
The letters to Oskar Pollak are Kafka's first masterpieces. the shape of "a large bug, a stag beetle or cockchafer," with
In them reign a contemplative passivity resigned to the a dark yellow blanket stretched tightly over him, while he
inexorability of things; an exhaustion without reserve, which enjoyed the air flowing through the open window. I Ie had
leads the young Kafka to become an echoing, empty place, in not descended but rather ascended to the animal level: he had
which the world comes to rest; and a sort of tranquil breakup acquired the contemplative sovereignty of rocks and of the
of the self. "It is a singular stretch of time that I am spending great divine-animal creatures; and from his bed, while a
here, you must have already noticed, and I needed so foolish and insignificant stand-in represented him in the
singular a period, a period in which I lie for hours on end on world, he dominated the reality of life, which asked him for
a vineyard wall and stare at the rain clouds that refuse to go permission to exist. I Ie did not often abandon himself to such
 r-­
il l
I
II KAFKA
.11
I
14 The Man at the Window
I 15
dreams of narcissistic omnipotence. But rather he was filled
beam of light. If Peter Schlemihl had lost his shadow, he had
with doubts about reality. He would have liked to know
not lost his body. He felt he was indistinct, had no contours,
what reality was like before showing itself to him, before his
was lost in the atmosphere. If he suffered from unreality, he
fragile and dissolvent eye had come to rest upon it; and he
had but one path before him in order to exist. He must
believed that, to all others, it offered itself whole, compact,
pretend, play-act ever new parts and characters on the great
round, heavy, all-encompassing. For them, even a small glass
stage of the universe: even put on the stage the part of the
of liquor stood firmly on the table, like a monument. As for
man who prays, because only by playing the part could he
himself, he was not at all certain that it was solid. The first
achieve contact with transcendence. But in the end, all
mark of reality was that of being unreal. Everything was so
play-acting was useless. He had only one desire: to escape,
fragile, uncertain, disjointed, full of cracks. "Why ever do
flyaway. Even as a young boy, when in the winter imme­
you act as though you were real? Are you perhaps trying to
diately after dinner it was necessary to light the lamp, he
make me believe that I am unreal, so comic on the green
could not refrain from shouting; he got to his feet and lifted
pavement? And yet much time has gone by since you, sky,
his arms to express his desire to fly away. He said to his
were real, and you, city square, were never real." And then
friends: "Every day I hope that I shall move away from
things began moving and vertiginously changed names:
earth." He did not know how he would fly: he did not know
should not that poplar be called "tower of Babel" or "Noah,
whether he would open large white wings, like those of
when he was drunk"? In that case, if the universe was only
angels. "Is not, for example," he asked himself, "also an
the illusionistic invention of a witty theatrical demiurge, he
aptitude for flight a weakness, since it is a matter of
must continue that game, with image and word. Who could
vacillation, uncertainty and flapping about?"
exclude that, with an act of magic, he might be able to create
He soon began to be aware of something more serious.
another universe, of cardboard, plaster and smoke? He
He was not only an unreal phantom: the phantom was
closed his eyes, and behold, he made a mountain rise,
dismembered, torn to pieces, a heap of small bones and
widened the banks of the river, created a forest, made the
nerves that no one could hold together. "If I lacked," he
stars ascend to heaven, erased the clouds, became smaller and
wrote, "here an upper lip, there the pavilion of an ear, here
sma!ler, with a head like an ant's egg and very long arms and
a rib, there a finger, if on my head I had hairless patches and
legs: at his gesture the wind blew through the town square,
my face was pockmarked, this still would not be sufficient to
lifting men and women into the sky; while his messengers­
match my inner imperfection." But even that was not
old servants in gray frock coats---climbed tall poles hoisting
enough: he must say everything. He was much less: an
enormous gray sheets from the earth and spreading them out
absence, a lacuna, a ditch that someone had excavated;
on high because their mistress wanted a misty morning.
something absolutely negative that an obscure god had
He too, like all things, was unreal: only a silhouette cut
imagined; an empty and restless form that was incapable of
from yellow tissue paper which rustled softly at each gesture
looking into the faces of strangers, that did not know how to
and each step; only a shadow that made no noise, that no one
answer questions, did not know how to think, speak, talk,
saw, that hopped along the houses, disappearing at times in
eat, love, sleep as others do. He had neither foundations nor
the panes of the shop windows, and could not expose itselfto
roots: he had no ground on which to rest, not even the little
the light because it would have dissolved at the sky's first
plot on which others set their feet and where they are buried;
 ,....",.'~

16 KAFKA The Man at the Window 17

he had neither country nor family nor heart nor feelings; and light as a feather; now he was a flat spool of thread, the clown
if he tried to think, all the ideas did not come to him from Odradek, thing and nonthing, incredibly mobile, infantile,
their roots but from some midway point. "So then try to hold who lived in attics, along stairs and corridors, and laughed
on to them," he cried, "try to hold and cling to a blade of like the rustle of dead leaves.... All these clowns played to
grass that begins to grow only halfway up its stem." His life escape the monotony and boredom of time: they played with
was like that of one of those Japanese jugglers who climb a nothingness and desolation, with a multitude of No One, the
ladder that does not rest on the ground but on the upturned ancestors of Beckett's clowns. The first fruit of these games
soles of a man lying on his back, and the ladder does not lean was "Description of a Struggle," a book of extremely subtle
against the wall but rises straight up into the air. What could intoxication, of continual euphoria, tender, ironic, whimsi­
he do then but imitate those trapeze artists of the void who cal, capricious, freakish, based on thematic leaps and dizzy­
were the most faithful symbol of his art? And he too climb ing changes in tone. Kafka could have stopped at this book,
the rootless ladder? Thus, little by little, he learned his like a writer without sin and without theology, if, during a
exercises. He walked along the beam, which led him over the night in 1912, he had not been overwhelmed by the tide of
watery abyss~ without having any beam under his feet. He his unconscious, which swept away all the tenuous games of
saw only his own image reflected in the water, and that his youth.
projection became the ground on which to move; his unreal Self-analyzing passion was not enough for him: he real­
ego was at times so strong as to seem one of the five known ized that it led down a blind alley. With a furious imagina­
continents, and it allowed him to keep the world united with tion, a superabundant fantasy, which his ego continuously
his feet. He walked, walked, with his arms stretched out in fired in him, he formed for himself ever new figures, which
the air, which for him replaced the tightrope walker's long were at once concrete characters and allegorical images. He
pole. knew that only transposition assures us of the truth. A few
Thus he began his delicate and funereal clowneries, which v_ears later, in several admirable pages of the (j5t~ and
he resumed just before dying, as if he wished to salute his 0!~10jj) he depicted himself in the image of th;&~helor.
own adolescence for the last time. Now he was Baudelaire's He "goes about with his jacket buttoned, his hands in his
clown, abstracted, inhuman, without a trace of emotion; now high jacket pockets, elbows pointed, his hat pulled down
he evinced the buffoonish sentimentalism, the funambulism over his forehead, while a false smile by now innate must
and brimming tears of Jules Laforgue's Pierrot; now he protect his lips just as spectacles protect his eyes, and his
seemed a swaying, moving pole, on which was clumsily trousers are tighter around his skinny legs than is becoming."
stuck a skull with yellow skin and black hair; now a bit-part With what truthful anguish did he describe the solitary
vaudevillian, who petulantly kicked up his legs, joyfully evenings of the old Bachelor, who begs for hospitality from
making his joints crack; now he was a Hasidic fool, for whom friends and strangers when he wishes to spend the evening in
four boards under his feet and a few colored rags were company: his return home, alone, the "Good nights" before
enough to recite unperturbed the role of the schnorrer who the front door, his not being able to run up the stairs swiftly
remained stretched out on the ground under any sort of together with a wife; the long illnesses in the lonely bed,
pressure, crying with a dry face, but as soon as the pressure the contemplation for weeks on end of the empty room and
ceased lost all weight and immediately leaped into the air, of the window, behind which glimmer uncertain forms; and
 .."....

18 KAFKA The Man at the Window '9

the side doors of his furnished room, which lead to the rooms any man, even the dearest, loved and desired, was pro­
of strangers. foundly repugnant to him. If he was in a room, talking with
Like Flaubert, he said that all those who have children friends, people who liked him, he' was unable to open his
were "dans Ie vrai." He had only to see a table with two chairs mouth: the whole room made him shudder, and it seemed to
and a smaller one to think that he would never occupy one of him he was tied to the table. His gray-azure gaze descended
those chairs with wife and child, and to experience a upon the others, cold, icy, alien, as if it descended from
desperate desire for that joy. He would have extolled the another planet or rose from the tenebrous cellars of existence.
"infinite, warm, deep, redeeming happiness of being close to For some, solitude can be a pleasure, an ease or a respite,
his child's crib, in the mother's presence." He imagined that or a moment of quiet; but the Bachelor's and Kafka's solitude
I, ,I only by having children can we forget our ego, dissolve "the was the kind without gesture and speech of the condemned
anguish of the nerves," the effort and tension, abandon animal, which withdraws into its burrow and does not ever
ourselves to that passive quietude and tender relaxation want to leave it again; the solitude of an object that lies in the
which the continuity of generations assures. Collaborating attic of a house, and which no one will ever go upstairs to
II
with others, at times, gave him the same happiness. He retrieve. What ravings in solitude, what hermetic and monk­
hoped that the dreadful burdens he carried on his shoulders ish dreams-the great cloistered monastery with no one
would become, in secret, shared by all, and that everyone living there, no one visiting, no one bringing him food, no
would rush to offer him help. "The few times that men give one ringing the bell-filled the Bachelor's mind. If by chance
me joy," he will write to Felice, "I discern no limits to this or mistake he entered inhabited earth, he immediately turned
joy, I can never touch them enough; although this may seem back and withdrew into the borderland between solitude and
not quite decent, I like to go arm in arm with them. I release community, the desert and Canaan, the snow-covered coun­
my arm and immediately slip it back, if I feel like it; I would tryside and the Castle, where he had the impression of
always like to urge them to speak, to hear not what they want waiting for a message. He had no home, except for the
to tell me but rather what I want to hear." gutters in the street. Or perhaps his true home was hotel
The Bachelor was the last incarnation of the Stranger: the rooms: the Stranger's residence, where the unknown objects
last form assumed in Western culture by Raskolnikov; this do not offer us the affectionate complicity, the friendly
man who lives in closets, experiences a tormented detach­ familiarity of old sofas, desks crammed with papers in our
ment from people, from his own life, from anything at all, rooms, wardrobes in which our clothes are gathered, arm­
who is unable to see the created shapes of the universe, does chairs which tenderly throw open their arms to us. The hotel
not participate in any of his own actions and if he does speak room was closed in, restricted, limited: it was a jail; and it
or act "seems to be repeating a lesson learnt by heart." Also resembled a grave, his grave-what the Bachelor preferred
the Bachelor, like Kafka, had "been kicked out of the world." over all else. "In a hotel room I feel particularly at my
He was excluded. He had no center, protection, family" ease.... I have to myself the space of a hotel room with four
income, love: nothing on which to rely; and he lived only on clearly visible walls, and being able to lock it, knowing that
himself, feeding on himself, sinking his teeth into himself, as my possessions, consisting of specific objects, are stored in
though he knew no other flesh. He had no human contacts. specific points in the closets, tables and clothes racks, always
He did not know how to live with his fellow man-because gives me at least a breath of a feeling of a new existence, not
 .
HIli'
111,11'[illl
The Man at the Window 2I
Ii
20 KAFKA
and nurses. What good were the plugs of Ohropax wrapped
yet consumed, destined for something better, possibly ex­
in cotton wool? They only muffled the noise.
tensible, which actually is perhaps only desperation driven
But if he escaped from home to obtain silence, he again
beyond itself and which has truly found its proper place in
knew despair in the furnished room. The landlady volatilized
~1, this cold grave of a hotel room."
The Bachelor, the Stranger, who was in Kafka, was until she became a shadow; the young man in the next room
disgusted with life: indeed, everyday existence, the existence returned in the evening tired from work and immediately
that seems most touching and defenseless, aroused in him the went to bed; he had stopped the pendulum of the clock in his
Gnostic's tremendous hatred. He could not live in disorder room, but what did it matter? There was the noise of the
and chaos: he could not tolerate his family's summer resi­ door, the landlady's whisperings with the other tenant, the
dence, where medical cotton lay next to a dish full of food, sound of the clock next door, the sound of the bell, two,
where nightshirts, clothes and sweaters were piled up on perhaps three bursts of coughing, a sudden crash in the
unmade beds, where his brother-in-law tenderly called his kitchen, a loud conversation coming from the floor below,
wife "darling" and "my everything," where the child defe­ and up there, in the attic, the mysterious, incessant rolling of
!II
cated on the floor, where his father sang, shouted and a ball, as in a game of bowls. "I struggled a bit against the
clapped his hands to amuse his grandchild. "I'm bored with noise, then I threw myself onto the couch with almost
!, making conversation," Kafka said. "I'm bored with calling on lacerated nerves, after ten o'clock silence, but by now unable
to work." Kafka knew the Stranger he carried within himself
people, the joys and sorrows of my relatives bore me to the
depths of my soul. Conversation deprives everything that 1 very well: he knew that he wanted silence because he desired
"'11 death. "The deeper one digs one's grave, the more silence one
think of its importance, seriousness, truth." But above all the
achieves." And yet he continued to search for pure, immac­
Stranger hated loudness, uproar, the noise of life. He
'I ulate silence: the silence that men violate, offend and lacerate
detested the slightest whisper, a cough, an infinitesimal
with their voices, because they refuse to accept death. "I'm
susurration, the rustle that immediately vanishes in the air,
'i'l again going with Ottla [his sister], we went to two stupendous
"II the tenuous song of birds: because sound is the distinctive
iii!! places I discovered recently," he wrote to Felice after a walk
sign of life, that which differentiates it from silent death, and
on the outskirts of Prague. "The first of these places is still
by means of sound someone had introduced sin into the
ril' covered with high grass, completely surrounded by low
terrestrial paradise. With lacerating hysterical tension, which
I!I,

almost seems on the point of breaking into madness, Kafka

slopes, irregularly close and distant, and entirely exposed to
a beatific sun. The other ... is a deep valley, narrow, very
recorded all noises in his Diaries and letters, as though he
II varied. The two places are as silent as the earthly paradise
were drawing up a musical score of the universe. At home
III after the expulsion of men. To break the quiet I read Plato to
there was the chatter of his sister and cousin, the card games
I
Ottla and she teaches me how to sing."
of his father and brother-in-law, laughter, howls, shouts, the
I,ll canary's dreadful twitter, noises as though of tree trunks
Thus, little by little, the Bachelor built his own prison.
behind the wall; the mechanism of the elevator which He suffered from it. He felt he was entirely imprisoned
)1 thundered through the empty attics, the maids' slippers on within himself, heard the faraway voices of men, friends,
'II

J1iII
the floor above, which tapped against his cranial vault, and in
the apartment below the cries and scamperings of children _
beloved women-and he desperately reached out his arms for
them to free him. Life seemed
.... __ .. to him .terribly monotonous: it
 KAFKA The Man at the Window 23
22

resembled the tasks schoolchildren are given when, in order wanted very high and impenetrable walls, like those of
~~QQ_p~pance for a misdeed, they must write the same Gregor Samsa's room or of the cellar where he dreamt he
sentence ten, a hundred, a thousand times. He felt oppressed could write.
by die Enge, "the tightness": his self, his home, Prague, the If he thought about himself, the Bachelor recognized that
office, literature (this barrier of limits), the entire universe he was, like the clown, the child of an original defeat, for
hemmed him in on all sides to the point of stifling him; and which fact he found no words that would express it except
he thought that even the eternity he carried in his heart the theological ones of sin and fall. Like the trapeze artist, he
hemmed him in, just like the small bathroom blackened by realized he had no ground under his feet-but if they both
smoke and with cobwebs in its corners with which he walked over the void, the trapeze artist at least had a safety
identified Svidrigailov's eternity in Crime and Punishment. He net that protected his flights. While all other human beings
spoke openly about prison; as the years went by, the walls' possessed space, even if they spent their entire lives sick in
barriers rose ever higher. Once, in writing to Milena, he bed-since besides their own they also had the space inhab­
recalled Casanova's prison in the Piombi: down in the cellar, ited by their families-he possessed a space that gradually,
in darkness, dampness, perched on a narrow board which with the passing of the years, grew smaller and smaller, and
almost touched the water, besieged by ferocious, amphibious when he died, the coffin was exactly what suited him. While
rats which screeched and ripped and gnawed all night. Once others had to be felled by death, because their robust
he wrote: "Everything is fantasy: family, oftice, friends, the relatives gave them strength, he became thinner, shrank,
street; all fantasy, more distant or closer, the woman; but the entrusted himself to death and died almost of his own
closest truth is simply the fact that you are pushing your volition, like Gregor Samsa, who dies of inanition and
head against the wall of a cell without windows and without sacrifice. He did not even have time. Other people, im­
doors." He tried, attempted to escape from this prison; he mensely rich, possessed present, past and future. He, the
fled into the open, uttered cries for help; perhaps literature Bachelor, had "nothing ahead of him and therefore nothing
was for him also a grand flight into the infinite, but did not behind him": he had no prospects, dreams, future; and so he
his desire for marriage-Felice, Julie-represent in turn the did not even have a past, since it is only the idea of the future
desire for another, tighter incarceration? Thus, toward the that orders our memories. The whole enormous expanse of
end, he wrote: "My prison cell-my fortress." And in a time, where as though in a highly mobile plot present, past
stupendous aphorism he added that the prison in which he and future alternate, was for him reduced to the moment, the
had lived had been a false prison. It was a cage; the bars were fleeting instant. He felt he had nothing but this tiny treasure;
at a meter's distance from each other; through them entered and only with the passing of the years would he be able to
the colors and sounds of the world, indifferent and imperious transform the instants into time, dissolve the fugitive illumi­
as though right at home; and, strictly speaking, he was free, nations and shards into the consoling and uninterrupted
he could participate in everything, nothing of what happened fabric of a story. If he reflected further, he realized he did not
outside escaped him, he could even have left his cage. His even have a body-like his uncle, so slim, so weightless, so
dizzying claustrophobia had no use for this condition midway sweetly crazy, so aerial as to resemble one of those birds
between freedom and prison. He wanted to be totally which barely interrupt nature's silence. "My blood," he was
enclosed, bolted in, cut off, abandoned by the world; he to write to Max Brod, "invites me to a new incarnation of my
I
I
 24 KAFKA The Man at the Window 25
uncle, the country doctor whom at times (with all and the atrocious must have been the moment in which he sensed in
greatest affection) I call 'the chirper' because he has such an himself Odradek's presence; the star-shaped spool of thread,
unhumanly subtle wit, that of a Bachelor, which issues from completely covered with frayed, knotted and tangled frag­
his narrow throat, a birdlike wit which never deserts him. ments of thread, from which protruded a small stick that was
And so he lives in the country, impossible to extirpate, as joined by another stick, to which another added itself at a
satisfied as one can be with subdued and rustling madness, right angle. That completely gratuitous object, without
which considers itself life's melodv." sense, without purpose, which laughed like the leaves, now
When the wind of depression blew most violently over mechanical, now almost human, which would survive all the
his soul, his tender, anxious, molecular, tragic sensitivity generations-was none other than he.
suddenly turned him cold and motionless as a stone. He no Who could affirm that the Bachelor was weak and
longer felt anything. He was cold in all of his limbs; the without intellectual knowledge? He had immense energy.
blood curdled in his veins; he turned to stone; and he felt an Like Archimede~, he had discovered the lever with which to
icy breath strike him from within his being, carrying with it lift the world. But the world was no longer there: there was
the taste of death. He felt he was a dead man who brings only he, who occupied the entire world; an Archimedes'
death, just as the corpse of a drowned man, borne to the lever was now used against him, to lift and detach him from
surface by some current, drags with it into the abyss the his hinges. While the act of Archimedes was the triumph of
sailors who try to save themselves from the shipwreck. At the calculating mind that dominates things, the Bachelor's act
that time, he felt he was becoming a thing. He did not, like only unhinged and destroyed his own ego. That was its only
Flaubert, have the ecstatic desire to lose himself in objects:_~~_ purpose. He lived and like everyone else tried to go down a
did not stare at a drop of water, a stone, a shell, a hair until path, but he had the impression that by the simple fact of
he had crept into them, penetrated them, was absorbed and living he blocked the road he was supposed to travel. There
swallowed by them, flowing like water, glimmering like he was, on the road opened for him alone, like a felled trunk,
light,d~scending deep into matter. He did not have the need like a stumbling block, an enormous boulder. The proof of
to become matter: he sensed within himself-grim, menacing, life was not given to him by his condition as a man who
irrefutable-the naked, bloodcurdling presence of the object, breathed, moved, had a body, was free: it was given him
the mute eternity of the thing, and he was nothing but this simply by the fact of his blocking his own path, being his
absolute otherness. He felt the stone within himself: "I am ,.' own stumbling block. On another occasiqn, in the later years
. -\..... L
t he same as my gravestone... '_~_.E.!L~y~g.':l~_
0 I h<?p~.s~~Ylves, \ ',~i\' of meditation during which he developed all the Stranger's
no better than the inscriptions on gravestones." Or else he . thoughts, he expressed the same condition with a marvelous
i
~;-apiece"orw;)(;d, adry stick ~~~~r~d fr~m'the trunk and and almost mad aphoristic concentration, as if only by
I i, shriveled by now, a coat rack hung in the middle of the room: hammering at the language and challenging its meaning
I, "a useless stake encrusted with snow and hoarfrost, lightly could he reach the truth. "His frontal bone blocks his path,
and obliquely stuck in the ground, in a deeply torn-up field, he beats his forehead against his own forehead until he makes
il at the edge of a vast plain, in a dark, wintry night"; or an iron it bleed."
,
"

gate or a moving pulley or a ball of thread; or an iro}~bQJLi!lto His was not a self: it was a battlefield on which innumer­
I
\y-~h. ~o_~e(~ne. ..h_a<:l. ..dis(:h.arged.apistQI,shot. Even more able adversaries confronted each other, all extracted from
 KAFKA The Man at the Window 27
26
him, all fraternal, and ranged one against the other. Once he impulses were represented by characters, where the perfect
form of a narrative architecture, closed and ambiguous, was
wrote tha! he .had two adv~r.~_r.i~~J6rieI>ursuedhim f[()m
behind from the beginning: perhaps it was his destiny, the , born-and he remained outside, identical with the totality of
condition into which he had been forcibly placed. The the book, and watched and looked and perhaps even judged.
second blocked the path before him: perhaps it was none His superhuman lucidity deepened his wounds-instead
other than himself, the way he livedi And besides there was of soothing them with peace of mind. His gift of duplication
his ;'-e1f which, on a second occasion, contained these two allowed him at every moment to detach himself from his self
enemies. On the restricted field of his existence, the two and see his self from the outside and judge it with the
enemies did not fight each other as he watched them, but meticulousness, coldness and hatred of the most invol ved and
both, simultaneously, fought him: one in front, the other at terrifying of Tribunals. All his offensive weapons, all the
the back. Then there was the third enemy, the worst: his self: accusations he addressed to his father or anyone else, were
because it was possible to gain knowledge of the intentions of instantaneously transformed, in his Letter to His Father or in
the two adversaries, but "who could know his intentions?" the Diaries, into weapons against himself. He accused him­
Depending on the circumstances, time, the passing of the self, tortured himself, wounded himself. "Every day 1 want
hours, the light and the night, alliances were formed on the at least one line pointed against me, just as today binoculars
field: now the self struggled with the first adversary against are pointed at comets." No matter what he did, he felt guilty:
the second, now the second against the first; these were the great sinner, even when Felice, in Berlin, had a toothache
alliances impossible to determine, which continually changed or a cold; masochism seems too weak a word for this grandiose
alignment, since one never knew whether in its heart the self tragedy which takes place inside a room's four walls, and on
favored the first or the second enemy. The Stranger knew small sheets of paper. "This morning for the first time after
that in the eternal struggle for his soul he could not hope for a long time the joy of imagining a knife twisted in my heart."
salvation to come from the victory of one or the other­ "Continually the vision of a sausage maker's knife which
because in fact he would have rushed to the assistance of the through one side enters the body with great speed and
weaker adversary, who was almost drained of all blood. He mechanical regularity and cuts the thinnest slices, which,
had only one dream: in a night so dark as never had existed, because of the speed, fly off almost rolled up." "I am being
he hoped to leave the line of combat "and because of his dragged toward the windows on the ground floor of a house
by means of a rope around my neck, and 1 am lifted, bleeding
experience of struggle be called to judge his adversaries."
Thus his salvation did not lie in a solution of the conflict: and dismembered, without regard, as if by someone who is
inattentive, through all the ceilings of the rooms, the furni­
there was no possible solution for the war that had assumed
the name of Kafka. The only hope was that the battlefield ture, walls and attics, until high above on the roof appears
should become that of another, and that he should be able to only the empty noose, as the shattering of the roof tiles has
watch the battle as one might watch a spectacle. Was this destroyed even my remains." "The most effective spot to
desire based on anything? Not in his lifetime: until the end, deliver the blow seems to be the one between neck and chin.
or almost the end, Kafka was torn by a struggle in which The chin must be raised and the knife pushed into the tensed
none of the bloody combatants perished. He found support muscles. One expects to see blood spurt out in torrents and
only in literature, in the "undulating act" of writing, where to lacerate a tangle of tendons and tiny bones like those found
 II
!I,
i'
28 KAFKA

in the thighs of roasted turkeys." Especially during his

i, youth, the desire for suicide gave him no peace. Rarely was
CHAPTER TWO
it the brutal violence of the pistol: almost always an impulse
for flight, the rush toward the window, the shattering of
wood and glass, straddling the sill, leaping into the void; or
becoming liquid and pouring from the balcony, just as the

1,1,
pail of dirty water is emptied indifferently by the housewife An August Evening,
'I
over the windowsill.
~depth~ _of his c sOliI he wanted _much~ more. Jt<:.o<
~anted to suffe~~rlficehimself, be immolated:~!lijji[~ "
on the Schalengasse .
'I of straw is destined to be set afire in summer and burned; like
Christ, like Georg B~ndeman~-~~duG--;:eg(~~S~~,-i:he-t~·()
111,111 heroes of the stories of his youth, who by immolation
j" reestablish nature's offended harmony. Then he would be
,,"! happy. As he told Max Brod, he was certain that on his
deathbed, if the pain were not too great, he would be "very
satisfied." His heroes die unjustly: suffocated by Oedipal
love, drowned in the river, dead of inanition or by a knife
M any were the memorable days in Kafka's life-marked
with a white stone, as Lewis Carroll said, or instead
with a black stone of misfortune. Certain days of his
through the heart. But while they were dying, the Stranger
childhood remained intact in his memory, surrounded by
carried on with them, inside them, a secret game. He was
their unspeakable horror: the night that his father put him on
glad to die; and in those too-human laments he insinuated his
the bedroom balcony; the mornings when the maid took him
hidden happiness, his lucid mind, his mild voice, his subtle
to school threatening to report him to the teacher; the
I feigning, his delicate clownerie, his metaphysical longing,
Sunday on which, a boy, he began to write a novel and was
1'1 everything that in him was supremely quiet-like the phoe­
scorned by his uncle; the day on which he made a gift of a
I, nix who lives alone in the Hindustan, without females or
twenty-cent piece to the beggar woman on the Kleiner Ring.
offspring, and when it is about to die, enveloped in a pile of
Those moments stood out, gigantically enlarged, isolated
palm fronds, pours from the hundred holes in its beak ever
from all the rest of his life. But the most memorable of all was
more tender, pure, heartbroken and lacerating sounds.
i'I!', the evening of August 1 3, 1912, when he met Felice Bauer.
I I'
, I' He remembered her always, down to the most infinitesimal
i details. His amorous memory needed anxious and total
completeness: he jealously wanted to possess all of the past,
all the seconds of that evening, and he incessantly returned to
that scene, interrogated it, knocked at the mind's doors, was
able to resuscitate now a gesture, now a word that he thought
'i
forgotten, as though the past were an island that slowly
,I:
,"II' surfaces from the gray sea of time. He did not select:
"ii
I

II,
 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Schalengasse . . . 31
;1
30
,
'111

1
he did not wish to distinguish between important and casual, its emptiness"; an almost broken nose, blond hair, a bit stiff
and unattractive, a strong chin. Her skin was dry and
11

significant and insignificant; but he leveled gestures and

1II ~
I

"
words in the same presence-absence of significance, because blotched, almost repugnant, and the very many gold teeth,
behind all of them destiny could be hiding. lIe was never which interrupted the grayish-yellow color of her filled teeth,
satisfied. He feared memory had lost something; and he frightened him \vith their infernal sheen and compelled him
turned to Felice's memory-perhaps as precise as his own­ to look at them again and again, as though it couldn't be true.
so that she might add one last color, one last shadow of the But what was the meaning of that empty face? Was Felice
scene. "Completing it," he wrote to her two and a half without a soul? Or was she \vithout sin? Yet that empty,
months later, "would give me much greater joy than I was absent face fired Kafka's furibund imagination in a way that
able to give you with this first collection of details." nothing else did.
That evening Kafka had an appointment with Max Brod The conversation began. Max Brod and Kafka handed
i
in Brod's parents' home at No. I Schalengasse. lIe was Felice the photographs of the trip they had taken to Weimar
I'
! I supposed to review with Max the sequence of the small prose the month before; Felice examined each image with great
pieces of Meditation, which was about to be printed by the seriousness, bent her head and each time brushed away the
publisher Rowohlt. The appointment was for eight o'clock. hair from her forehead. Meanwhile the telephone rang and
As usual Kafka arrived late, perhaps after nine. These she talked about the opening scene of an operetta, The Girl
evening arrivals represented a threat for the Brod family, with the Car, in which fifteen characters on stage hasten one
because as the hours passed Kafka's vivacity increased and after the other to the phone in the hallway. Later on, the
often this meant loss of sleep for Max's brother, Otto, who conversation turned to the quarrels between brothers; Felice
liked to go to bed punctually: the entire family pushed Kafka said she had learned Hebrew and was a Zionist; Brod's
affectionately out of the house as if he were a disturber of the mother began to talk about her profession, about the very
peace. When he arrived, Kafka saw a girl, an unknown girl, efficient Parlograph manufactured by the Lindstrom Com­
sitting at the living room table: he found out later that her pany and the fact that Felice had to go to Budapest to attend
name \vas Felice Bauer, that she lived in Berlin, was twenty­ her sister's wedding, for which she had made herself a
five and worked as a department manager at the Lindstrom beautiful batiste gown. When the conversation broke off,
Company, which produced the Parlograph, a rival to the they all got up hastily and went into the next room to listen
Dictaphone. She "lore a white blouse, rather casual; on her to some music. Kafka accompanied Felice, who \vas still
feet she had Mrs. Brod's slippers (it was raining and her little wearing the slippers; they went through a room immersed in
boots had been set to dry); her gaze was polite but imperious. darkness and she said, who knows why, that usually she
;il
I'
Before being introduced, Kafka offered her his hand even wore slippers with heels. While someone was playing the
I 1'1
though she had not gotten up and perhaps had no desire to piano, Kafka sat down behind the girl, sideways; she had
offer her hand to him. Then Kafka sat down and observed crossed her legs and several times touched that colorless, stiff
i
her attentively: with one of his alienating, implacable stares, hair which was her constant preoccupation. At the close of
II
'I which fixed things in space and in the memory and rendered the short concert, Kafka began to talk about his manuscript:
them immobile, dead and absurd like stones. She looked like somebody gave him advice on how to mail it; Felice said that
a maid. She had "a bony and empty face, which openly wore she loved to copy manuscripts on the typewriter and that she
 32 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Schalengone . . . 33

would have gladly copied Max Brod's. There was talk about the street and her mother would open the street door for her
a trip to Palestine; Kafka asked her to go there with him, and (another detail which, for months, plunged Kafka into a
she offered her hand to seal the promise. Afterward the vortex of fantastications). Brod's father advised her about her
company broke up; Brod's mother dozed off on the sofa; they trip: there were certain stations where one could get good
spoke about Max's books Arnold Beer and The Castle of lunch boxes; but like the modern industry department head
Nornepygge, which Felice had been unable to read to the end; she was, Felice answered that she preferred to eat in the
old Brod brought out an illustrated volume of Goethe in the dining car. They had arrived at the hotel. Kafka pushed into
Propilei edition, "announcing that it would show Goethe in the revolving door through which she had already entered
his underpants." Quoting a famous sentence, Felice said, and almost crushed her toes. They were all gathered in front
"He remained a king even in his underpants"; and this of the elevator; Felice haughtily said a few words to the
sentence, because of its banal solemnity, was the girl's only waiter; the last good-byes were said, Kafka once more
utterance that displeased Kafka. There is only one thing we maladroitly brought up the journey to Palestine-a trip no
do not know about that tranquil bourgeois evening, the same one but he took seriously. He dreamt that Felice would grasp
as hundreds of thousands of others which during those hours his hand and say into his ear, without any consideration for
took place throughout the world: When did Kafka decide on Dr. Brad: "You too come to Berlin, drop everything and
the sequence for the Meditation pieces: was it in the living come." While the elevator flew up in the large, remote and
room or the music room, at the beginning or toward the end? unattainable hotel, he got the idea of going to Franz Joseph
Everything happened rapidly, before Felice's inquisitive Station early in the morning, with a large bunch of flowers.
,:;.
eyes; and at the last moment the dedication "For Max Brod" But it was too late. All the florists were closed.
:i':
I I' as fully written out became: "For M. B." so as to allude at On the evening of August I 3, faced by that girl whom he
ill
least in the surname to Felice Bauer. had described with the coldness of an entomologist and the
Ilj i The evening came to a close. Felice hurried to put on her repugnance of an ascetic, Kafka felt irremediably caught. He
coat and boots, while Kafka leaning against a table languidly sensed a gash in his breast through which, for the first time,
said, "I like her enough to make me sigh." The girl came back the feeling of love entered and issued, sucking, without being
with her dry boots and a wide hat, white on top, black overwhelmed. He discovered that he belonged completely,
underneath, around which Kafka fantasized for days. They soul and body, to that woman of the lusterless hair, spoiled
left to accompany the Berlin guest back to her hotel. Kafka teeth and empty expression who for five years he transformed
was tired, confused, awkward; he sank into a half-wakeful into his life's radiant heart. No erotic desire dominated him;
state in which he accused himself of being good for nothing; he felt calm and reassured by the fact that Eros did not rule
and when they arrived at the Graben, out of desire, awk­ over their relationship. Immediately, at first sight, with an
wardness and restlessness he stepped down several times unshakable decision, he saw his wife in Felice: the humble
! I

from the sidewalk into the street. She asked him for his and prudent mediator, who could introduce him into the
address; then she spoke about a gentleman from Lindstrom's unknown city of men, the land of Canaan, to which he had
Prague branch with whom she'd gone that afternoon in a for so long wanted to be guided. Felice had all the qualities he
carriage to the Hradcin; and she told him that whenever she did not possess: she was active, sure, quick, practical,
Ii realistic, tranquil, observant. She was masterful in the realm
1
;1.'1.,
came home from the theater, she would clap her hands from
!i
Ii
I,
 Iii:
,Ill
I
34
KAFKA An August E'1xlling, on the Schalengasse . . . 3S

of numbers and calculations from which he was excluded; this hand which now taps the keys held yours when you
she was solar while he was nocturnal; she regulated time, confirmed the promise of going with him next year to
controlled the beat of clocks, while all his clocks were late or Palestine." As was his habit, precisely while he introduced
ran crazily fast. He could entrust himself to her completely, himself and should have affirmed his ego, he eclipsed himself
as one entrusts oneself to the creatures who live aloft, to Our and volatilized into the air like some sort of smoke. Perhaps
Lady of the land of Canaan: she imparted calm, strength, Felice did not remember him, perhaps he did not exist, and
quiet, certainty. besides, he was a very bad correspondent, incapable of
A month went by before Kafka decided to write to punctuality in answering ... he, of all people, the most
Berlin. He had not lost track of Felice; he had heard that at precise, most punctual, most obsessive correspondent in the
the end of August she was staying at Breslau, and he would history of the world.
II have liked to send her flowers there with the help of a certain Felice did not answer his second letter, and Kafka, who
: i
Dr. Schiller. He had gone "begging" for her address; first he lived only in expectation, let himself be gripped by anguish.
found that of her company, then that of her home, without He asked himself whether he had written something im­
the street number, and finally also the number. He was proper, or whether Felice's parents had disapproved of the
afraid the address might be wrong: who indeed might that correspondence between them. Then, desperate, he turned
Immanuel Kirch be? "There is nothing sadder than sending to Max Brod's sister and Felice's cousin, Sophie Friedman, so
a letter to an uncertain address, it is not a letter, it is more like that she would act as mediator. Her letter had been lost.
a sigh." He was full of uncertainties and disquiet, anguish, When at last Felice answered, Kafka was beside himself:
anxieties and hopes: each new human encounter aroused the anxiety and anguish still made him very restless; he could not
greatest tension. Slow, cautious, meticulous, full of scruples, become calm; he could not tolerate having lost all those weeks
he rested his hand for a long time on the knob before opening of his life without news; so exclusive and possessive was his
the door behind which was hidden the new human being, curiosity that he could not bear not knowing what the lost
and then he opened it very slowly. Dozens of times he letter contained. He went to the post office to try to find out,
composed his first letter by heart, in the evening before but in vain. He asked Felice to sum it up for him in ten
falling asleep; but when he began to write, the flow was words. Then, little by little, he calmed down and began his
arrested, and before his eyes he saw only fragments and slow approach toward Felice's heart. He changed his saluta­
could not see either among them or beyond them. Finally, at tion: "Sehr geehrtes Fraulein" (September 20), "Verehrtes
the office, he sat down in front of the typewriter; if he could Fraulein" (September 28), "Gniidiges Fraulein" (October 13),
not compose with the full elan of his heart, he could at least "Liebes Fraulein Felice" (November 2), "Liebstes Fraulein Felice"

~i write with "the tips of his fingers." He began: "My dear

Fraulein. In the easily possible likelihood that you no longer
(November 7), "Liebste, Liebste" (November 14); he arrived at
the intimate "du" and to kisses "on your beloved lips," even
remember me in the least, I introduce myself once more. My though "only in imagination." Locked up in his Prague
name is Franz Kafka, and I'm the person who met you for the prison, relieved only "by the undulating motion of writing,"
first time in Prague that evening at the home of Director he crawled toward her heart like a mole that digs in its
Brod, then handed you from across the table, one by one, the burrow until it is exhausted; and he tried to draw her into the
photographs of a trip to Thalia [Weimar], and finally with net with his slow, meticulous, spiderlike wiles, holding her
 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Schalengasse ... 37
36
prisoner with words written at a distance of eight hundred wrote the long, handwritten letters; he was euphoric, dancing
and Dionysiac. His life was going through a moment
kilometers.
Not much later, the precise Parlograph girl let herself be of expansion.
swept away by the enthusiasm of that strange bureaucratic Thus, during the months between the end of 1912 and
angel who filled her days with his boundless letters. She the beginning of 1913, from Kafka's hands was born the most
must have been attracted by his defenseless tenderness, his beautiful poem on the "mail" that was ever written. Letters
weakness, his affectionate possessiveness and the incredible replaced everything---office, family, friends, at times even
gift of imagination and metamorphosis, the burst of fire and literature; all of life became a letter on its way to Berlin; the
mi,st which kept her stupefied until the end. Soon she too remote and the absent became magically close; and upon
was writing a letter a day, telling him about her office life and contact with the mails and the mail carriers reality was
her little Berlin tales. As for Kafka, from the "gash" in his transformed into a cloud of smoke, a hilarious, aerial and
breast issued a tumultuous torrent, in which fluctuated and meticulous bureaucratic comedy. He did not like to phone
whirled and collided, foaming, leaping beyond the rocks Felice, in part because phoning produced in him too intense
and the obstacles on the bottom, snatches of life, literary an emotion and he avoided emotions, in part because "Ies
confessions-the treasure of his genius which had not yet demoiselles du telephone" put us in touch, bringing together
been expressed in books. Despite her cautious warnings, voices and souls, and he preferred epistolary distance. He
he refused under any circumstances to be moderate. We waited an hour to obtain a connection, he hung on to his seat
continue to marvel that this man, so modest, so discreet, so out of anxiety; then he would be called and ran to the phone,
elusive, should confide all without reserve, almost as though making everything shake, while the people around him,
he had always known Felice; the ardent and unlimited elan of either too happy or too loquacious, watched him. He asked
his heart, the gift of tenderness, the need for revelation, were for her in a plaintive voice and out of anxiety could neither
put on paper without the slightest let or hindrance. He hear her voice nor answer her (meanwhile, behind him, a
projected Felice outside himself, and he totally identified director bubbling with mirth suggested that he hold the
with his projection; he devoted himself to her, consecrated phone to his lips instead of his eyes). Finally he emitted an
himself to her, as though it were Felice and not literature that "anguished sound," whereas Felice later wrote him that his
gave meaning and value to his existence. "Write to you I voice had been "fearfully mean." But writing was a joy! He
must so that the last word written before falling asleep is wrote to her from all places and at all hours: he wrote to her
written for you; and everything, wakefulness and sleep, from the office, while the clerk was asking him for informa­
acquires at the last moments that true meaning that it cannot tion about insurance for convicts and the typist dozed off and
draw from my scribblings." His diary had almost come to stretched lazily before him; he wrote to her from the boss's
a halt: his lean, silent, hammered, fragmentary prose style desk, and then he had to stop because department heads must
I' not write letters to their girlfriends; he wrote to her in the
had been transformed into the wave of a dialogue or mono­
logue that nothing could contain. During those last months afternoon, right after lunch; he wrote to her at night, after
of 1912 he had confidence in himself-something that would working on A merika or "The Metamorphosis," when he was
il not distracted by life's noises, and often writing his "novel"
:1 never happen to him again. He was full of good humor; he
II
i' arrived at the office singing, he walked quickly, he quickly was nothing but the repressed wish to write to her, and his
il

:1.,
I'
il,i,
 r

I
I 38 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Schalengasse . . . 39
I
letters expressed something of the exhaustion and inebriation day. But Kafka was insatiable. At times thinking of the
of the solitary nights; and he even wrote to her when in a enormous incoming correspondence, he died of impatience,
state of half-wakefulness which seemed to him populated by distrusted his three messengers, agitatedly roamed through
the light, insistent clatter of the keys. He wrote all the time, the corridors, inspected the office boys' hands and finally
interminably, dozens of pages, reaching for the infinite, went down himself to the Institute's mailroom. When the
slowing down time: as though his hand's gesture were a kind letter arrived, he took it with the usual tremor of his hands,
of long, drawn-out lament, a slow and weary mewling. He read it, reread it, put it aside, went back to reading it, picked
bought envelopes and stamps, went to the post office, all the up a dossier, but he still only read the letter. He stood next
way to the central railroad station at night; he courted and to the typist to whom he was supposed to dictate, or to
pursued the mailmen who carried regular letters and regis­ someone asking him for information, and again the letter
tered letters, as well as the unattainable lords of the tele­ passed through his hands, and he thought only about Felice
grams. The letters left every few hours, they seemed to enclosed on a sheet of paper. It seemed to him that the sheet
pursue and dog each other's heels, one after the other, one on and the postcard gave him calm and security; it was enough
top of the other, as though he had reserved for himself alone for him to put his hands in his pockets and feel with his hands
all the postal traffic between Prague and Berlin. her words. Once he dreamt that the mailman was bringing
Then began the waiting, the long, dreadful waiting for him two registered letters and was handing them to him, one
Felice's letter, which was coming down from Berlin: the in each hand, with a magnificently precise movement of the
symbol of all the waiting for something or someone, a arms, which sprung out like the pistons of a steam engine.
message or a messenger, that fills Kafka's books to overflow­ They were magical letters. The envelopes were never empty,
ing. Almost always Felice sent her letters to his office. He just as from the hazelnut in the fairy tale streams meter upon
had given three of the employees orders to bring him her meter of extremely white linen, billowing and tumultuous
letters before the other correspondence. The first, the mes­ like the waves of the sea. Kafka would stand halfway up the
senger Mergl, was humble and solicitous and shared his stairs, read and drop on the steps the pages already read;
anxieties; but he almost always disappointed the hopes of continually new sheets filled the inexhaustible envelopes; the
Kafka, who began to dislike him intensely. The second entire stairs from top to bottom were covered with thick
messenger was the head of the clerical office, a certain layers of paper which gave off a loud rustle.
Wottawa, an old, tiny bachelor with a wrinkled face covered The speedy and scrupulous postal service of the Austro­
. ',11' with blotches of all colors, his face bristling with hair, who Hungarian Empire was his best ally. All one had to do was
Iii always smacked his damp lips while sucking on his Virginia write to Felice on Tuesday evening and she would receive the
cigar. But how divinely beautiful he was when, on the letter in Berlin at ten o'clock on the morning of the following
; ,Ii'
threshold, from his inner pocket he extracted Felice's letter day. This permitted a marvelous correspondence of tempos:
and delivered it! The third hope was Fraulein B6hm. When "I write you only for myself, to experience tomorrow at ten
she found the letter, she arrived radiant and handed it to o'clock the sensation of having arrived for one instant in your
i Kafka as though in reality the letter concerned only the two dear proximity which brings happiness." Subjected to the
II:,'
II of them; if the other two managed to get hold of it she almost regular rhythms of the mail service, Kafka had the feeling
felt like crying and resolved to be more attentive the next that there existed somewhere the rhythmic regularity that

III
 IiII'i III!,
!I!i, ,
40 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Schalengasse . . . 41

I!!i'l Ill! some attribute to the gods and to Providence. He had an for days and nights, slowing and hindering the flow of
"I! I
I!!,
' absolute need for this regularity: to soothe the anxiety of his time-"because here the clocks strike only when a letter of
'I'
heart, Felice's letters must arrange themselves in an uninter­ yours arrives." Perhaps it wasn't an employee: it was some
rupted sequence without hitches, without gaps, without dark power which amused itself behind his back, just as it
absences. Every day, at the same hour, the mailman must will amuse itself behind the backs of his characters; and
arrive at the Institute's mailroom with a letter for him from Kafka felt that he did not have a relationship with Felice, but
Berlin: "It is precisely their regularity that does the heart with an enigma, an ungraspable reality which sent him
good, always the same hour at which a letter arrives every messages that could be lost. \Vhen a letter was delayed, he
day, that same hour which carries with it a sense of peace, was full of anguish. He was alone in his office, in the
fidelity, order, the impossibility of ugly surprises." To presence of his typist, of clients who thought only about
propitiate the benignity of the postal service he sent only themselves, clerks who came to ask for information, and he
registered letters and begged Felice to do the same. Thus, asked himself: Did her mother torture her? Does her head
perhaps, he would be able to ward off the greatest of hurt her? Or her teeth? Or is she too tired? He was no longer
misfortunes: that a letter might lose its way forever in the able to work, talk, get through his days; and he begged for
dusty meanders of the offices, or be dropped mistakenly into the alms of two lines, a greeting, an envelope, a postcard,
a box in some town, some village. He had another postal "Felice on a bit of paper." When letters were lost, it was a
dream. He was in his room, in Prague, and next to his bed a tragedy. What to do? Give them up forever? That would
telegraphic apparatus communicated directly with Berlin; all have been reasonable. But he would have liked to go hunting
,['! one had to do was press a button and the immediate answer through the Empire's post offices, searching for them in the
:~Ii :
appeared on a sheet of paper. He was nervous; he was afraid pouches of all mailmen, in cellars where perhaps some
to telegraph, but he must do so because of a strong appre­ distracted person tossed lost messages-perhaps they con­
"il
! I hension and a burning desire to hear from Felice. His tained marvelous statements, unique truths that could save
I
younger sister pushed the button. Immobilized by expecta­ him from despair.
tion, Kafka watched the tape which unrolled without marks; We go through this immense correspondence with a kind
r
it was not possible to see them because no answer could of terror, so great is the intellectual and spiritual tension it
arrive before Felice was called to the apparatus in Berlin. But reveals in every line. We must devote to these letters the
how great was Kafka's joy when the first characters appeared same attention devoted to "The Metamorphosis" and The
on the tape! A true and proper letter followed, full of tender Castle, because they have the same dramatic concentration,
recriminations and affection, which dispersed in the laby­ the same symbolic charge; and our wonder is continually
rinths of his dream. renewed by this fantastic wealth in the pure state, such as the
i,I:,'~
I t I
I Despite precautions, sometimes the letters arrived irreg­ German world had not known since the times of the young
I, I
ularly or not at all. Kafka had the impression that at the Goethe and the young H6lderlin. Like the great lovers of life
center of the precise postal organization of the Austro­ and literature, Kafka questioned. Interrogated. He wanted to
Hungarian Empire there was an employee who played know everything that concerned Felice, even the facts that to
perfidious games with their letters. He sent them off when­ another would have seemed remote and indifferent; at a
ever he wished, and so they were delayed, kept one waiting distance of eight hundred kilometers, condemned by his own

II:
 42 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Schalengasse . . . 43

111: 1\:
wish to separation, he wanted to discern all the intimate realized two dreams in one: to live a love composed only of
I'll'"
details of her life and possess them with his maniacal gaze. images; to love a person in two different forms-but he
I;, 1'1
i,i
1
I,
He asked at what time she went to the office, what she ate for sensed that the two images had a tendency to fuse, th~.Jittle_
I
lunch, what were the names of her girlfriends, how was she
girlled.him t()~~~e grown_.ll1iss_<l.~c!.~~c0J!:l!1]~rlcl~<:Lh.ifTlto l1er.
I,

,II", I,
dressed, what she saw from her office window, to what Then, from Berlin arrived a wallet with a photograph inside.

IIII'
I"
theater she had been and where she had sat and what her
mood was and why. And what was the street where she lived
Desire gripped him at the throat; he continually opened the
wallet and contemplated the figure with an insatiable gaze­
like----quiet, hidden, far from Berlin's noise? And where was "in the light of street lamps, along the streets, in front of
she as she wrote? Was she resting the paper on her knees, and illuminated shop windows, at my desk at the office, at a
did she have to bend over? The streetcars in Berlin were sudden stop in the hallways, close to my typist as he dozes
slow, isn't that true? In long files, one after the other? And in off, at the living room window, while behind my back a large
the morning did she walk to the office? And in what boxes crowd of acquaintances and relatives filled the room ... "
did she drop her letters? And what were the guests at the And then all the other photographs that came down from
summer pension like? And whom had she met on the train? Berlin! They surrounded him on all sides; he looked at them,
And could he have a photograph of her office? Nothing could scrutinized them, questioned them obsessively with his eyes
ward off Kafka's total curiosity. After he knew her present, so as to grasp the mystery of that life so far from him. He
he wanted to know her past, right down to the very first called her by name, kissed her tenderly before falling asleep,
images of her childhood. He tried to meet people to whom felt he belonged to her entirely. At moments the distance
Felice wrote; he waited for them to pronounce her name; and seemed canceled: Felice was there at his side, imprisoned in
he resumed his inexhaustible questions. Even though he did a photograph; but if he looked more attentively, with the
not wish to possess her body, he was jealous of every glance multiplied tension of his feelings, he realized that Felice's
that grazed her, every thought directed at her, every greeting gaze, from the wall or his desk, refused to dwell on him, did
placed at her feet. "So then I am jealous of all the people in not stare at him and lost itself beyond the window. . . . "I
your letter, mentioned and not mentioned by name, men and turn your picture every which way, but you still find a way
boys, business people and writers (of course, especially the to look elsewhere and do so with calm and almost with
latter). I am jealous of the Warsaw representative. . . . I am deliberate intention." Now the closeness he had dreamt of
jealous of those who offer you better jobs, I am jealous of was shown to be illusory. He too sent to Berlin a photograph
Fraulein Lindner. ... I am jealous of Werfel, Sophocles, of himself as a child, before becoming "his parents' monkey";
Ricarda Huch, LagerlOf, Jacobsen . . . . But in your letters and a photograph of two or three years before, with a high
there are also other persons with whom I would like to pick collar and the eyes of a visionary dazzled by the magnesium
a fight . . . . " flash. Felice put the picture in a locket; and he was jealous of
I: ;
I"" Felice had sent him her photograph as a little girl, and his own portrait, wanted to go to Berlin, tear it out of the
I
I, then a photograph as an adult. Kafka kept the two images locket and keep Felice's gaze for himself alone, as though he
'III, side by side: Felice had split into two different persons, and felt that many Franz Kafkas roamed the earth, in reality or
I he was divided and wooed them both-the terribly serious image, hostile to one another.
little girl, the young miss who inspired respect. He had He thought about her all the time. Felice had become the
III
11'1
"~I
'"
 r
"1Illil
Iii
I
i! KAFKA An August Rvening, on the Schalengasse . . . 45
44
single obsession of his life: a tumult of ideas, feelings, images two "real" persons. If Kafka pushed his performance to the
and fantasies bore her name and assailed him from all sides. extreme, it was not without reason. I Ie complained, aroused
This obsession occupied his mind, heart and body, not in himself imaginary passions and sorrows, deliriously play­
ii
, , allowing anything else to dwell inside him. "It is as though acted death and destruction; and all along, his mind remained
the entire world had precipitated into you.... The love you free, lucid, detached from all that which, desperately moved,
grant me becomes blood that runs through my heart, I have mouth and heart cried out. Thus he achieved a superior
no other." "I would like you not to be in the world but tranquility: a limpid quiet within the heart of true and
'i
entirely in me, or better yet, that I should not be in the feigned tragedy; that "smile of the dying man" happy to die
! world, but entirely in you, I feel that one of the two is too which imbues his pages with a luminous tenderness.
many, the division into two persons is insufferable." With all During five years of correspondence, Kafka lived with
the power of his intelligence, he exasperated sensations: the Felice only for very few days. With every excuse and pretext,
i slightest facts took on an infinite resonance. His emotions, he avoided taking the train to Berlin and joining her. He did
which seemed to possess a physical quality, rose every day in not spend his vacations with her, did not share with her the
tone. His nervous tension grew, the emotional violence crowded or solitary railroad compartments. He understood
became intolerable, an obscure flame drove his spirit to a the risk "of having attached himself to a living person"; and
kind of fury. He would not, could not, stop. He could not he told her that he remained ill Pr_agu~_S!Uls.JQ-,"e_main<:los~r .
endure the rhythm of the daily letters. When he answered, to heJ. With extreme clarity, almost with cruelty, he ex­
he did not distribute his emotions tidily in separate sentences plained to her that he could love a woman only from a
but "vomited" all of himself into one long sentence, in a distance, protected by the twofold distance of space and
terrible tension that seemed to want to kill him, as though the literature. He pursued the dream of a love that never existed,
words sprang from an unfathomable biological depth. This a love that completely excluded proximity, daily sharing and
was not love but a battIe. With ardor, tenacity and despair, community, and he entrusted himself to the soundless words
he fought for her, against her, for himself, against himself, of letters and photographs. He was the one who "received
against all possible and imaginary enemies; it seemed to him messages" from a remote point in space, where a hand would
that the world was too small to contain the fantastic riches of incessantly write for him, as he would write to her without
his love. interruption. But what a strange distance! The sheet of paper
No one could doubt the tragic truth of Kafka's passion. palped and clutched in his hand was supposed to reveal to
But this correspondence is also fiction. This long love, him, as by a procedure of "high magic," what Felice was
celebrated in hundreds of letters, is a theatrical performance doing in Berlin: whether she was healthy or sick, gay or sad,
before a mirror, in which Kafka plays all the parts. He wrote whether she suffered from a toothache or nostalgia. "We
i
and answered himself all by himself. He spoke and was the must organize ourselves," he added, only apparently in jest,
ii!
echo that repeated the last syllables. He loved and loved "in such a way that at the very instant in which one asks
himself, hated and hated himself, or tried to damn and save something of the other, the mailman will enter at a run at any
himself at the same instant. Only someone who does not, by hour of day or night."
experience, know the power of imagination can believe that Without seeing her and speaking to her, Kafka made
such a performance is less authentic than the love between every effort to realize this magical communication and
~-IJIIII
46 KAFKA An August Evening, on the Scha/engasse ... 47
affinity of souls. In the evening, unimpeded by the day's din answers are given by word of mouth; by writing we do not
1'1
and by work, he tried to see her as she chatted with her understand each other, we can at most have a presentiment of
I;' mother; at night he tried to dream about her. He sent his happiness." He experienced the desolate anguish of distance.
magic vibrations in the direction of Berlin, and he had When he was alone in the office, before his untidy and
reserved a place for her in his office, which she could inhabit paper-covered desk, next to Felice's silent shadow, he
like a silent shadow, while like a shadow he would inhabit the thought that he would not be able to live with her and felt
Parlograph offices. What did places and spaces matter? like overturning tables, shattering the cabinets' glass doors,
Together, in Berlin and Prague, like the magnetic needles of insulting his office director. He had an almost animal need
the same compass, they formed "a single great reality" of for closeness and affection; he had the desire to grasp those
which they would always be certain; one of them would distant hands. "How is it possible to hold on to a person only
think something in a low or loud voice, and the other, at a with written words, one holds with hands. . . . I stop now,
distance of hundreds of kilometers, would answer, without it is already late. . . . A strange way to act, using one's hands
even having been questioned. Consciously or unconsciously, to write letters when they are made for something else and
Kafka had in mind the magical power of attraction that want nothing else than to hold you tightly." At least when he
utterly binds Ottilie and Eduard in the last chapters of was finished writing to her, he would have liked to look into
Elective Affinities. Thl!s distance would be turned into abso­ her eyes. He dreamed of taking walks with her along the
lute closeness. They would write continuously, until their avenues of Berlin. He offered her his arm, like a fiance, but
pens and papers would come close, almost merge, one would their shoulders touched closely, their arms adhered for their
read the other's letters, finding himself in the end in the entire length, like those of Joseph K. and his assassins. So,
other's arms. "Yes, yes, we ought to stop writing letters, but disappointed by both distance and closeness, he became
we ought to be so close to each other as to exclude the need convinced that he would spend all his life before a closed
to write; not only that, but so as not to have, due to excessive door, before the servant's entrance of Felice's house, waiting
proximity, even the need to talk." At such a moment their in silence to hear whether from beyond that door would
relationship would reveal its secret law. Theirs was not a come a word, a sound, an echo of laughter, an incomprehen­
human love, based on communication and words, but a sible mutter. He could wait for a long time, without impa­
magnetic love, like that which bound Ottilie and Eduard and tience, for eternity, because his capacity for waiting was
can bring two stones, two great stars in the firmament close immense, and because he knew that the door would never be
together. flung open to his timid knocks. Or, perhaps, who is to say,
Kafka was too whole a man to be satisfied by these tragic one day the door would open: Felice would appear in the
spiderwebs woven over the chasms of distance. On certain light of day-a shape glimpsed a few years before, a shape
days, at moments with terrible intensity, he was assailed by glimpsed in a dream and by now unrecognizable-getting
the sensation that their exchange of letters was a vain and into the carriage that waited for her. He would stand in the
delusive thing, which rendered the distance even more dust, the mud, the gutter: humble and humiliated like a dog,
irremediable. "Actually, if we were separated by continents or like one of those abject parasites that he-the Stranger­
and you were somewhere in Asia, we could not be more carried within him. At that instant he would throw himself at
distant than this . . . . This time too I do not give an answer, her feet and kiss her hand. "I will confine myself to kissing
III!
 48 KAFKA
An August Evening, on the Schalengasse ... 49
,I!" like a madly faithful dog your absentmindedly dangling
i' come from some obscure reserve. Like every Stranger, he did
I! I!
hand, and it will not be a sign of love, but only a sign of the
not know the future: "Naturally I haven't any plan or any
despair of the animal condemned to silence and eternal
foresight. I cannot enter the future, but I can fling myself
'i" separation. . . . " Then he would run after her carriage,
into the future, wallow in the future, stumble into the future,
through great whirling traffic, without losing sight of her,
fl: I and more than anything else I can lie down on the ground."
without letting himself be deflected by any obstacle. This
11;11 As for his love for Felice, it had been a disaster from the very
was the only thing he knew how to do. There would be
iil'"l',' i, beginning. It was an obscure necessity-a magnetic force,
~, i I nothing else: until the end of time he would remain the one
.' 'I excluded, rejected, deserted, alien. This was the principal
which attracted him and made him rotate in the distance, but
dl only to his ruination.
I' l~ , figure of his life: the countryman's waiting before the divine
He wrote to Felice at the beginning of March, asking her
r: law, the waiting of all the Chinese for the emperor's message,
',1" to chase him away. There were three possibilities. "Either
1i
the waiting for the angel, the waiting at the Castle populated
you have only pity for me ... or you do not have exclusive
1

;':~ ,I! I by gods: a waiting destined to remain eternally disappointed.

jI
I ,I!
It was not the intuition of God and the notion of transcendence
pity for me, but have been deceived for six months, do not
have an exact vision of my miserable nature, overlook my
, that generated Kafka's waiting, but rather this sense of wait­
confessions and without being conscious of it prevent your­
I'll ing, which coincided with the very fact of living, that gener­
I selffrom believing them." Or "it may be that you do not have
ated Kafka's idea of God and his theology.
I exclusively pity for me and also you understand my present
At the beginning of 1913, the impulse of exaltation, folly
: I state, but believe that one day I might still become a useful
and euphoria that had sustained him during the writing of
I man with whom a regular, tranquil, living dialogue is
"The Judgment," Amerika and "The Metamorphosis," and
I, ' possible. If you believe this, you are terribly deceived . . . .
which had allowed him to write to Felice, came to a halt.
Do not give way, Felice, to such illusions. You could not live
When Karl Rossmann was about to be lost in the American
at my side even for two days." Despite this, on March 22 he
! slums, he abandoned Amerika. Depression once more dom­
left for Berlin, stopping at the Askanischer Hof. He wanted
i I inated him. He was exhausted, desolate, defeated; he spent
only to prove to her that he was unworthy of her. "Presence
hours on end, "gloomy and dazed," in the bed where Gregor
!":IIi is irrefutable."
Samsa had awakened on his back, hard as armor; he took
dill "~I lonely walks, spoke to neither his parents, his sister nor his
"
friends; and he walked like a somnambulist, stumbling
through the streets, his heart reduced to a flickering muscle.
la
Before himself he saw nothing but despair, absolute, absolute
despair that no rational thought could ward off or alleviate,
I',
,
despair as the sole content of his life. Around him rose the
waters of a dark destiny. There was nothing but misfortune,
unknowable, without name or face, which every day hurled
its threats at him. No improvement was possible, because he
,II, had only the strength given him at birth and no succor would
: i
 ,1'111'
I"II: ,I The a'riler as Animal 5I
III ,II
CHAPTER THREE embarrassed by all that surrounded it, shy and above all full
II,I I

Ini!I' ' of gaps, Only truncated beginnings rose to the surface; every
fragment scurried ahout homeless and rushed in opposite
!,i I:ii
directions, "Almost nonc of the words I write is suited to the
'II I'!I, I others, I feel as though the consonants grate against each
II"
I, other with a tinny sound and the vowels accompany them
\', .I The Writer as Animal with song like Negroes at the exposition, My doubts stand in
II It I a circle around each word and I see them before I see the
word." The words scattered and he was not able to gather
I them into a complex sentence; and between one phrase and
the next crevices opened up that were so large he could push
both of his hands into them, or one sentence had a high tone
and another a low, or a sentence rubbed against its neighbor
as the tongue scrapes against a rotten tooth. To Max Brod
he described the first draft of Amerika (a book that would
turn out to he tumultuously rich) as an ensemble of "brief
Ii:
E ven in the years of his youth, Kafka experienced poetic
inspiration as a flow: as a tide or very strong wind that
filled his mind and his body and could have carried him far
pieces set side by side rather than entwined with one
another. "
out to sea, where the currents of great poetic creations run. Finally, liberation came. It was a Sunday-September
" I This wind arose in him particularly at night, leaving him 22, 19 12 , approximately a month after he had met Felice. He
Ii sleepless or at war with his own dreams; it was a liberating had spent the afternoon in a tedious family occupation: his
III force but also a fury that tore him limb from limh, a revolt brother-in-Iaw's relatives had for the first time come to visit
that rose from the outskirts, the abysses of his soul, the him: he never opened his mouth and would have liked to
unconscious darkness of his spirit. Somcthing inside him, he howl from boredom and despair. After supper, around ten
did not know where, resisted this tide, "contained it, op­ o'clock, he sat down at his desk. He had intended to describe
pressed it," did not give free rein to the unconscious and a war. From a window a young man saw a crowd approach;
precisely hecause of this could not guide it. Thus Kafka had at that his pen, almost unbeknown to him, began to write
the impression that, in him, instead of a majestically viva­ "The ]udgment"-a story of fathers and sons, tacit usurpa­
cious harmony there was an uproar. IIe sensed the hostility tion and condemnation, cruelty and sacrifice-which for the
of words: "My entire body puts me on guard against every first time mirrored his own Oedipus complex. He immedi­
word, before letting itself be written down by me every word ately had the impression that it was no longer a matter of
looks around it on all sides"; and his mind did not as yet "playing with one's fingertips," as at the time of "Description
impose on things that irresistible fluency which would be the of a Struggle." This story was written with all his energies:
I

i, , gift of his great novels. At each line he had to begin all over with mind, soul and body. It was a true and proper birth,
II' again, as if he were composing lahorious mosaics. On his "covered with filth and mucus," The powers of his uncon­
desk, everything looked to him dry, distorted, immohile, scious, which until then he had contained and repressed, had
 The Writer as Animal 53
KAFKA
52
In those few hours between ten in the evening and six in
suddenly come to light, breaking down the barriers that had
the morning, Kafka established once and for all his concep­
stood in their way.
tion of literature and his idea of poetic inspiration-the most
He wrote all night without ever interrupting himself,
grandiose after Plato and Goethe. He was certain that
without sleeping, his legs stiff from sitting at the desk; he slid
somewhere there was a "supreme power" that made use of
over the surface of events and things-no psychology, no
his hand. It did not matter who it was: whether an unknown
apparent explanation-while he brought to light the enor­
god, or the devil, or demons, or simply the sea of darkness he
mous richness of what he had stirred up. If he had halted for
always bore within himself and of which he was aware as a
an instant, if he had moved or opened a book or been
supremely objective force. He must obey it, follow its hints,
distracted, he would have blocked access to the until then
open himself to its word, transform his life, his mind and his
I,I'li~" unspoken truths. Writing was exactly this irresistible tide: it
body into a "precisely articulated" instrument to secrete
III had the unlimited, undefined and uninterrupted quality of
literature as the great writers whom he admired had done. It
water, and at the same time it seemed a navigation on water,
was a tremendous task! It meant continued labor, full of
I' as though successive masses were being superimposed one on
doubts and waits! He was not content to obey; he must
top of the other in the ocean's unity. Clinging to the desk as
destroy many things inside and outside himself, and with
to a rock or grave, he could not lift his hand from the page,
atrocious asceticism, with frightful avarice he must save and
for otherwise the story would have lost its elan, its impetus,
economize on everything that regarded his existence. So
its natural and continuous development-the magic fluidity
many things must be forgotten: family, friends, nature,
of breathing to which he had so long aspired. He understood
women, travel, Felice, children, conversation, music. It was
that one must write in a single breath, not only short stories
a kind of alchemy: to abolish life within oneself and transform
but also long novels like The Sentimental Education, which he
it into that pure, translucent, absent and empty substance
dreamt of reading in a single session to his audience: "Only
called literature. If he did not do this, if he was not burnt and
like this is it possible to write, only in connectedness of this
sacrificed at the foot of the paper altar, the god of literature
kind, with a complete opening up of body and soul." At two
would prevent him from living. "Tomorrow I will resume
he consulted the clock for the last time. His tiredness
writing, I want to throw myself into it with all my strength,
vanished. A few hours later, outside the window the air
I feel that if I do not write there is an inflexible hand that
gradually turned blue; a cart rolled by; two men crossed the
expels me from life." If he had stopped writing, he would
bridge. He turned off the lamp in the day's brightness. At
have become the prisoner of the slightest gust of wind: slow,
six, when the maid crossed the foyer for the first time, he was
turbid, incapable of understanding; alone like the stone or
writing the last paragraph. He pushed back the chair, rose
piece of wood he sensed he was at his own origin. If he
from his desk, left the room and stretched in front of the
wrote, there was-perhaps-some hope. He would be able
maid, saying: "I've been writing till now." Trembling, he
to stand up to the world; and the god of literature would have
entered his sister's room and read the story, whose meaning
brought him the gift of Felice.
he still did not know. He felt his eyes were bright. Then,
He knew that at night good men sleep, enclosed in their
exhausted and happy, he went to bed, "with slight pains
sleep like children, protected by a celestial hand against the
around his heart and twitchings in the muscles of his
'1, 1111
; :1,1I assaults of nightmares. Sleep is the purest and most innocent
I
abdomen."
 'JII!!!"'""

54 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 55

of divinities: a mild blessing, which descends only on the it into an interminable winter. Around him there was the
eyelids of pure beings. Sleepless men are guilty, because they most profound immobility, and it seemed the world had
do not know the quiet of the soul and are tortured by forgotten him.
obsession. Like all guilty men, he suffered from insomnia. In The night alone was not enough for him. Since his
the evening he fell asleep, but after an hour he woke up as inspiration came not from above but from the abyss, he too
though he had placed his head in the wrong hole. He was must descend ever lower, toward the depths of the earth, and
perfectly awake, had the impression of not having slept at all once arrived down there, lock himself up like the prisoner he
or having slept covered by a very thin skin, and he still had was in the depths of his soul. "I already thought more than
,
ahead of him the effort of falling asleep. Then he fell asleep once that my best way of life would be that of living with
again; his body slept alongside itself, while his self thrashed what was needed to write and a lamp in the innermost room
about and struggled with dreams. Around five, the last traces of a vast, closed cellar. I would be brought food; it would
of sleep were consumed; and the dreams were much more always be placed behind the cellar's farthest door. The
fatiguing than being awake. When he awoke completely, all distance to go in my robe and fetch my meal, passing beneath
his dreams were clustered around him and watched him with the cellar's vaults, would be my only walk. Then I would
silent, frightening eyes. But he understood that insomnia­ return to my desk, eat slowly and moderately, and immedi­
his sin-was also his strength. Anyone who slept in such a ately resume writing. Who can say what things I would
restless and agitated way lived in a close relationship to the write! From what depths I would draw them!" But not even
spirit of the night, the demons and powers that nest in this image was enough: some noise might perhaps reach all
darkness, the powers that crowded his unconscious; and he the way to the segregated cellar; perhaps someone-his
must evoke it, as on the night that he wrote "The Judgment," unknown companion, Felice, friends-would surmount the
at the cost of never sleeping again. obstacles and come to disturb him in his solitude. He wanted
In a History of the Devil he had read that among present­ something more than a hermitage, the profound sleep of
day Caribbeans "he who works at night" is considered a death, the imperturbable peace of the grave, where all human
creator of the world. He did not have the strength to create contact is done away with. So, having become a recluse and
or re-create the world; but if he were to stay awake at night a dead man, Kafka found at last the proper conditions for
he would be able to bring to light what his unknown god writing. Without the bother of the office, or human contacts,
had revealed to him. So he imposed this discipline on him­ or marriage, all of time was at his disposal: an infinite stretch
self: he sat down at his desk at ten o'c1oek in the evening and of time, because an inspiration boundless as the sea must not
got up at three, sometimes at six. He wrote in the dark, be confined. Shut within the profundity of night, he drew
silence, solitude and isolation while all the others-Felice, close to the core of his being, concentrated without effort and
whom he did not wish to see; his mother and father, with difficulty: yet at the same time "he expanded," "he poured
whom he exchanged very few words; and his friends­ out," issuing from the body's straits into the infinity of
slept; and it seemed to him that he still did not have enough writing; he liberated all that was hidden or rigidified inside
silence and that "the night was still not night enough." He him, and so obtained that great fervency and happiness that
would have liked to cancel day and summer, dawn and sun­ warmed his icy hands and shivering heart.
set, prolong the night beyond its brief confines, transforming As soon as he went to his desk in the evening, the tumult,
56 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 57
the violence, the splendid recitation of his letters to Felice projects, work schemes, or corrected and continually rear­
deserted him. There was no mirror there, nor other human ranged his book like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. None of this is
beings, nor he himself, to be convinced. Above the neurosis, true. Down there, in the cellar, writing Amerika or The Trial
hysteria and anguish that tortured him during the day, he or The Castle, Kafka did not even draft an outline or sketch:
found a superhuman corner of peace: that serenity of the for him the problem of narrative architecture did not exist.
mind, from which descend his accents of almost Taoist quiet. Like a man possessed, he surrendered himself to the illimit­
Down there he-the tortured one-never wrote a broken or able, wavelike imagination that flowed through him at night;
disjointed line: the terrible tranquility, the light, discreet and this nocturnal inspiration was endowed with all the
touch are not violated even when Gregor Samsa and Joseph structural knowledge he needed. The text was a great lava
K. are taken to their deaths. The story was the place where flow not divided by chapters, paragraphs, punctuation
everything was placated and set onto "the right path." marks-which were added at a later stage. He corrected
Meanwhile, precisely in the nocturnal place, the complete very, very little. Those months in the fall of 1912 were the
transformation of darkness occurred. He knew very well that decisive moment in Kafka's life. After the cobwebs and
his immersion in the unconscious involved tremendous dan­ clowneries of "Description of a Struggle" and Meditation, he
gers: he risked never coming back from his journey of discovered that he was not at all the exquisite and tenuous
exploration, or coming back with the madman's distorted writer he had thought. The shadows of the unconscious had
features. But he also knew that if he brought darkness before invaded him; and while he was writing letters to Felice, "The
the eyes of reason, transforming it into a daring intellectual Metamorphosis" and Amerika-an immense correspondence,
game as Poe had done, his work would have been in vain. So a story of incommensurable significance and a novel that
during those nights, the miracle took place that makes Kafka could have continued into infinity-he realized that he
unique among modern writers. Darkness lost none of its possessed a torrential imaginative wealth. Everything seemed
disquieting power, its viscosity, its irradiation; the uncon­ to be in his hands. Had he wanted to, he could have become
sciolls assumed a shape but remained unconscious; reason another Dostoevsky: author of a work that could compete
never interposed its mediation; and yet the whole unknown only with nature. I find it hard to say with how much
archipelago came to light, with not a single shadow or an awareness Kafka rejected this. As he said in a few illuminat­
undefined stroke, as though it were a creature of the day. We ing lines, he sent "the great masses" of his imagination down
receive a unique impression: we are immersed simultaneously "narrow roads" within "narrow limits." Down there, in the
in the unconscious and in a vortex of light. shut-in cellar, he must concentrate, renounce all desire for
His great novels are of an extreme complexity: a thousand expansion, all variation, all dilation. He must tend to the
relationships and internal connections run through them; an heart. Prison: this was the source of Kafka's greatness. No
impression or an event is corrected, at a distance of hundreds one knew, as he did, this dreadful desire for self-limitation,
of pages; every figure has only one meaning when counter­ which led him to restrict his circle more and more, check
posed to all the other figures; every sentence can be under­ whether, by chance, he were not hiding somewhere beyond
stood only if we set out from the totality of the book. So we the confines that had been assigned to him. Because, as he
would tend to believe that he laboriously drew up plans, said, "only a limited circle is pure." He could not do
 58 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 59
iii!

t otherwise. But for all his life he had the regret of having could not succeed in pushing the blood along the entire
I'I'i
III
committed a sin, rejecting the possibility the unknown god length of his limbs, which remained cold and stiff. He had no
had offered him. internal fire, nor that minimum of fat on which the spirit
Il'i He had other doubts. It was enough for him to stall might feed. Quite soon he understood the reason for this
i"
! before an obstacle, and for two days he would quit writing, thinness. All his energies had become concentrated on
I because he feared that he had forever lost his talent. He of all literature; he had suppressed the forces that, in others,
'i
people, who like no one else had an almost animal-like gift for induce one to eat, drink, listen to music, write about
writing, felt this gift to be a fragile, rarefied thing, liable to philosophy, and his body had grown unnaturally thin,
vanish at the first breath of wind. He did not trust his keeping him young like an ephebe, immutable through the
,. inspiration: he felt he was "vacillating," flying without passing of the years. The most serious thing was that this
interruption toward the peak of the mountain, but unable to body was alien to him, the most estranged among the
stay up there even for an instant. In part these doubts were elements that composed his nature as the Bachelor. What
understandable: he was not one of those writers who sit hostile divinity had imprisoned him in it, as though inside a
II down every morning before their worktable-inspiration hard bark? Now it was turned against him and plotted who
came and went; it could fall silent and abandon him for years, knows what traps. "All that I possess is against me, what is
plunging him into bitter despair. And besides, what if against me is no longer in my possession. If, for example, my
everything were an illusion of his? If no superior power stomach hurts me, it no longer is really my stomach but
intended to utilize him for its ends? And if, finally, the act of something that essentially is no different from some extrane­
writing, the gesture of shutting himself up in the cellar, were ous person who wants to give me a beating. And everything
the most terrible of sins? What if he had rejected the Law? is like this, my entire being is made of barbs which pierce
He adored literature, but he was the opposite of an aesthete. me, and if I try to defend myself by using force, all I do is
He had always believed that man's most sublime act was the push them in deeper." What was there inside his body?
act dictated by caritas, like Gregor Samsa who immolates Perhaps a ball of thread that rapidly unrolled, with an infinite
himself for his family. number of ends? And wasn't there a danger that it would be
overrun by enemy forces, coming from the world's alien
vastness? So until the years of his illness, Kafka decided to
Throughout his life, Kafka-the most spiritual of men-was appropriate and tame his body. He walked for hours, swam,
obsessed by his body. The body that someone had attributed did calisthenics, exposed himself half naked to the open air,
to him by chance or hatred when he was born, that hindered hoping the elements would reconcile him with himself.
him, sabotaged him, impeded his intellectual and spiritual He sensed an animal within him. Again and again,
development: together with it, he would never know any­ composing with the figures of his unconscious a bestiary just
thing but a miserable future. It was too long, angular and as immense as a medieval one, he felt within him a beetle or
pointy; it did not grow in a straight line, like the beautiful a hibernating cockchafer; a mole that dug tunnels through the
youthful bodies he admired, but forced him to bend and fall; ground; a mouse that fled the moment man arrived; a slith­
it robbed him of all spontaneity and naturalness. The weak ering snake; a worm squashed by a human foot; a fluttering
heart which now and then attacked him with painful twinges bat; a parasitic insect that fed on our blood; a sylvan beast
 ·'1 ....
~

I'
I!:I 60 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 61

Illil
that lay desperate in a filthy ditch or in its den; a crow gray pelled from the world like a parasitic animal that men can
I'l as ashes, with atrophied wings; a dog that snarled and bared
III
squash or kick about. He must have gone through moments of
"i
its teeth at anyone who disturbed him, or barked nervously total hallucination and delirium, almost completely losing his
!illilI
Iii
l
running around a statue; a twofold animal with the body of human dimension; and he conceived a brief story which
a lamb, the head and claws of a cat, the soft pelt and wild, pressed inside him and wanted to be released in words. As
flaming eyes of both; or one of those despicable, sinister always, possessed by the formidable speed of his inspiration,
I!,
and parasitic men he depicted in the last part of Amerika. he did not waste time. That very evening he began to write it,
'I He was horrified by many animals. When, at Zurau, he putting aside the writing of Amerika; immediately the story
lived among the mice, he was frightened by the silent, insid­ lengthened in his hands: it no longer was an apologue but a
ious, bestial force that he felt was lying in ambush; but at the story that expanded, broadened on all sides and embraced the
same time he felt that those verv beasts were hidden inside fantastic complexity of his life and that of all men; and he
of him. He was horrified by them precisely because he sensed would have liked to have before him an interminable night, in
the unknown potential beast that inhabited him and, with which to unravel it in its entirety, and then sleep forever. He
terror and desire, waited for it to reveal itself suddenly, for finished it on December 7. It was "The Metamorphosis."
his limbs to become covered with hair and his voice to begin During those days in the small room in Niklasstrasse a
chittering, as he had read in Ovid's Metamorphoses. He twofold transformation took place. Writing in his nocturnal
knew that in that way he would descend below the human den, Kafka descended ever more deeply underground, where
level, into the unknown darkness that yawns beneath our no explorer of the abyss had ever penetrated before him. Like
consciousness; but he was not afraid of it, because the de­ all creators, he revealed the gift of taking on all shapes and
scent would also be an ascent in rank, the conquest of a changing into all species: in the space of almost a month in
light and a music of which until then men had only a pre­ cold delirium he assumed another body; and with exceed­
sentiment. Then he understood the meaning of his sensations. ingly attentive and sensual eyes he followed the transforma­
The animal that inhabited him, bug or weasel or mole, was tion of his character, as though he too, as he was covering the
indeed nothing but his soul and his writer's body, which sheets of paper with signs denser than those vibrating little
every night and every winter shut itself away in the cellar, legs, was slowly turning into an Ungeziefer, an enormous
obeying the voice of inspiration, as certain animals spend parasitic insect. Tolstoy also became insect, horse and bird,
the winter hibernating in their nocturnal dens. transforming himself into the vastness of the living universe;
On the morning of November 17, 1912, he lay in bed, shut Kafka, however, transformed himself only in order to dis­
If!
up in his room. It was Sunday. The night before, while cover the depths in himself. For one thing, he transposed the
i'li writing Amerika, he had not been satisfied: it seemed to him apartment on Niklasstrasse where he lived with his parents
that the novel had gotten worse; then he dreamed that a into Gregor Samsa's apartment. Everything matched: the
fantastic mailman handed him two magical, inexhaustible closet filled with clothes, the desk and couch, the hospital
letters from Felice. Now, in bed, he waited for the real mail­ outside the window, the street lights reflected on the upper

I '1,1
i' :
man with Felice's real letters. He waited until a quarter to
twelve; and during those two hours ofdreadful waiting, he was
part of the room, the doors, the arrangement of the other
rooms in the apartment. So, for one month, his room became
assailed by his recurring anguish-the anguish of being ex­ the theater of a tragedy that lasted through the winter.
'11
62 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 63

When we begin the story, the metamorphosis has already represent with lacerating simplicity the terrible atony, the
taken place. In the evening, Gregor Samsa was an ordinary painful acceptance of life which makes Gregor the last and
traveling salesman; that night he had troubled dreams; in the greatest of Flaubertian heroes.
morning-a winter morning like the night on which Kafka The metamorphosis takes place before our eyes. At first
was writing-his back is hard as armor, his abdomen is Gregor Samsa feels that he is the prisoner of a body that does
arched, brown and divided by curved ridges, while innumer­ not belong to him and that he can neither direct nor dominate
able small, pitifully thin legs tremble and vibrate with with the same naturalness with which he directed his old
painful excitation before his eyes. All around, everything is limbs. When he opens his mouth to talk, he hears that
the same: the small old room, the fabric sample book on the unrestrainable and painful peep come up from below and
table, the female portrait cut out of an illustrated magazine, mingle with his words, and become so confused in the echo
the melancholy rain which falls from a darkling sky. How as to make him doubt he has heard them. He realizes that his
great is the participation with which we share the emotions of body is "incredibly wide." When he tries to get out of bed, he
the new Ungeziefer: like Gregor, we feel our back hard as no longer has hands and arms but only tiny legs; if he tries to
armor; slightly raising our heads we examine our arched bend one of them, he must stretch, and when he finally
abdomen and the thousand little quivering legs; we feel a manages to bend it, all the other little legs move, without his
I slight, dull pain in one side, an itch on the abdomen, moving them, with extreme and painful excitation. His
dampness, cold; we are astonished when an unrestrainable bestial nature soon progresses: his voice, half human and half
and painful peep mingles with our voice, and when those animal, becomes completely animal, and he clearly recog­
little legs which stir frenetically do not let us get off the bed. nizes the new words that before seemed obscure to him. He
No bestial metamorphosis-neither in Ovid nor in Dante­ begins to adapt to his new body and make it his own: the
has ever been so meticulous, so lenticular, so capable of innumerable twirling little legs no longer terrorize him; when
involving us irremediably. But Gregor Samsa seems much he touches the floor, he feels that they fully obey him, that
less involved than we are. He is not amazed, he is not they can transport him wherever he wishes, like his old legs,
stricken; it would seem that for him the metamorphosis is an and he experiences a sense of physical well-being and joy as
obvious natural fact, like catching the train at seven in the though he had just entered his true limbs. He begins to use
morning. Consciously or unconsciously, he minimizes every­ his antennae. When he immerses his head in the milk, which
thing that has happened to him; he attaches no weight to it, he once adored, it now disgusts him: now, as an insect, he
considers it revocable, almost as though he were incapable of loves withered, almost rotten vegetables, spoiled cheese,
tragically living the absurd tragedy of his fate. With pathetic putrefied food. The very-high-ceilinged room frightens him;
goodwill, he tries to impart order to what has happened to bestial instinct leads him to hide under the couch and wander
him and so both the incommensurable and the terrible through garbage and refuse.
become normal. Kafka had recourse to one of his hest-loved As Kafka follows him with his implacable eye, Gregor
narrative techniques, "restriction of the field," which de­ gradually loses all his old human senses, which had articulated
prives us of some elements of Gregor's consciousness (as, the shapes of the world for him. At first he still has sight and
later on, the consciousnesses of Karl, Joseph K. and K.). hearing. Like many wretches, sight had been his liberation.
Thus, without any narrative intervention, he was able to Many were the hours he passed at the window of his room
 ...
'II

64 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 65

looking out, and that sight had given him the hope of losing an atemporal twilight. Gregor has lost the memory of
himself in the elsewhere. Now, if he pushes a chair to the duration; and halfway through the story, he no longer knows
window, climbs onto the sill and looks out, he distinguishes whether Christmas is already past or still to come.
objects with less and less clarity: he can no longer discern the After a few weeks, having gained familiarity with his new
hospital across the way; if he didn't know he lived on Char­ body, Gregor learns to crawl to and fro on walls and ceiling.
lottenstrasse, he could believe that he was looking into the Clinging up there on high, far from the earth where men live
desert, where gray sky and earth joined indistinguishably. as prisoners of weight, he breathes more freely; a subtle
~ , Nothing is left but his hearing; and great is the anguish with vibration of well-being traverses his body, and with happy
which, closed in his room, he listens to the apartment's noises forgetfulness he begins to play, letting himself fall onto the
and voices-the voices that no one thinks he understands. But floor. Although he has lost his sight, the highest of human
he has not lost human emotions: dreams, a few seizures of senses, he has attained a condition superior to the human
megalomania, a few absurd hopes, memories-about his job, one: the ability to rise, the sovereign levity of birds and
his trips as a traveling salesman, some fleeting love affair, his angels, an almost physical and spiritual happiness, the
I
narrow and enclosed life. So the metamorphosis is not as incomparable gift of playfulness, contemplative joy. In his
I
"
complete as Ovid's. Gregor Samsa has not become a bug or incarnation as a traveling salesman, he had never known so
1,111 cockroach: he is a divided creature, split, a halfway creature, blissful a life. If these animal games had continued, Gregor
,I,
something that oscillates between animal and man, that could would have completed his transformation. Closed in his
become completely animal or return to being man and does not room cleansed of all human memory, without any more
III' have the strength for a complete metamorphosis. sight, memory or hearing, free from the sensations and
"~I
The external world is erased in the fog. All the immense thoughts that still bound him to our world, he would have
~ i "outside" is reduced to the rain on the windowpanes, which known the terrible happiness of silence, solitude and light­
:'1'1'
11'1
Ii
"
imparts rhythm to the step of the winter, the fog, the electric ness, becoming entirely an insect. Every day his sister would
il,
I' '

ill light from the street lamp, which reflects on the ceiling and come to bring him food, comforting him with her mute
on the upper parts of the furniture. In the room there is no presence, and his animal metamorphosis-this horror, this
other light: closet, desk and couch which once enjoyed the tragedy-would have become an incomparable bliss, saving
triumph of electric illumination know only those pallid twilit him from his Oedipal destiny. Begun under atrocious aus­
1:li I, irradiations; and down below, where Gregor Samsa is, there pices, dreamt in an anguished morning, the story would end
! :1 is darkness. The door, which is locked with a key, almost radiantly, in pure animal glorification. Kafka dreamt of no
1\ never opens. The room is a prison, in which the insect leads other fate. To live in a dark cellar, spacious and locked, with
I,
his life as a recluse, just as Kafka's claustrophobia had dreamt a lamp, a table and some sheets of paper, in a den, like an
il of so many times. Space has become concentrated. Time is animal, without seeing anyone, talking to anyone, just barely
completely lost. The alarm clock, which in the beginning grazed by the vague and distant breath of a sister-mistress.
scanned the hours and minutes, reminding Gregor of train Down there, he too could forget the thoughts of men. He
schedules and the vastness of the distant world, has vanished. could write for whole months, day and night, concentrated,
Someone has taken it away. In the dark room, no one marks without effort, drawing his material from the darkness of his
11'11 off the divisions of time any longer: the hours are confused in body, with the same supernatural lightness with which the

':11, 'I
I: II ,
'1'1 '

66 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 67

I I
I
insect happily vibrating climbs along the ceiling of his room. of supernatural lightness. Should we accuse him of weakness?
Gregor Samsa has a younger sister, for whom he harbors Should we demand from the humble traveling salesman an
feelings that are at once paternal and incestuous. Grete plays act of courage that no man ever performed? This descent into
the violin; before his metamorphosis, he had thought of the bestial could be accomplished only by Kafka, when in his
sending her to the conservatory to perfect her musical talent. imagination he went down into the dark cellar and there
Her brother's metamorphosis devastates Grete; she cannot wrote not like an animal but like a dead man.
bear the intense animal odor, the monstrous sight, and does The women had already removed the chest of drawers.
not dare touch the food bowl with her hands. Despite this The desk was still in the room, and on the wall a woman's
repugnance, brother and sister are still bound by their old portrait that Gregor had cut from an illustrated magazine,
amorous relationship. Between them an unspoken convention showing a seated woman who wore a cap and a fur boa and
is established; as soon as he hears the sound of the key in the raised toward the observer a heavy muff into which her
lock, Gregor hides under the couch and covers himself with forearm disappeared. On his melancholy evenings as a
the sheet, and his sister thanks him for his humble attention traveling salesman, Gregor had decorated the portrait with a
with a look of gratitude. Grete is jealous of him: she wants to frame carved from wood and covered with a thin layer of
be the only one to take care of him, and when the mother gold leaf. Like a meticulous and silent Flaubertian symbol,
cleans the room, she is offended and cries. While Gregor the portrait gathers all the repressed erotic desires of his
indulges in animal games, Grete understands his wishes; and youth, his unrealized dreams of love, perhaps his uncon­
she thinks of removing from the room the chest of drawers fessed fetishism. With an act of aggressiveness, Gregor
and desk laden with the past and family memories, so that he rebels: "They were emptying his room: taking everything
will be able to crawl about and fall freely from the walls. Her that was dear to him: the chest, which contained his fretsaw
unconfessed dream is that Gregor should become completely and other tools, had already been carried away; now they
animal, that he should play in the empty den, and that took apart his desk, so firmly planted on the floor, on which
between them should exist that pure magnetic love Kafka he had once written his homework when he was a student at
dreamt of having with Felice. The mother does not agree: she the Commercial Institute, in high school and even in gram­
does not want the inhabited room to change into a den; and mar school. ... " After a moment's uncertainty, he rapidly
she hopes that the pieces of furniture, with their ballast of crawls up to where the picture of the woman with the fur
affection, will keep Gregor from leaving men's existence. hangs from the almost bare wall: he climbs hastily and with
So Gregor stands at a crossroads. But immediately, his big body covers the glass, which gives pleasure to his
denying his own desires, he accepts his mother's thoughts: he warm abdomen. "This picture, at least . . . nobody was
will never renounce the warmth of those objects and the past, going to take it away." Gregor has made his choice. Hoisting
his old room "warm and furnished so comfortably with the the image of the woman in he,r fur, the symbol of his previous
old [family] furniture," as in a nineteenth-century novel. He existence, his artisan manias and his sentimental fantasies, he
does not have the strength to descend into the animal's rejects the dream of the silent and dark life it deux his sister
vertiginous world, without memory, without thoughts, with­ had proposed to him. The process of animal metamorphosis
out speech, without friends and relatives, renouncing his is arrested.
human past and his Oedipal conflict-assisted only by games Before his son's metamorphosis, the father had seemed

..
 'I'!I ......

68 KAFKA The ~Vriter as Animal 69

worn out: in the evening when Gregor returned from work, the first apples roll as if electrified along the pavement; then
he welcomed him sitting in his armchair, dressed in his robe, one apple grazes Gregor's body and another drives violently
unable to rise to his feet; during their walks together-two into his back, while his mother, her gown unbuttoned, begs
Sundays a year-he dragged himself more and more slowly, the father to spare him. Gregor stretches out full length on the
wrapped in his old cape, propping himself up with a sort of flOOf, in a total confusion of his senses. What a grotesque and
crutch. Now, since his son has been shut away speechless in terrifying scene, in which Isaac's sacrifice by Abraham is
the den-room and no longer threatens his vitality, he has finally accomplished, in which we feel the shudder of the
blossomed anew: he has sucked the blood, robbed him of the sacred and both the violation and fulfillment of the Law.
human lymph that, at one time, the son had taken from him. Gregor suffers for over a month from the wound. He lives
A short time before, he resumed working in a bank. He sits in his room-no longer a man, not yet an animal; wounded
quite erect in his tightly fitting blue uniform adorned with animal, degraded man. That apple embedded in his body is his
gold buttons; over the high, stiff collar of his tunic protrudes incurable wound, which no female hand will ever be able to
his large double chin; from his thick eyebrows the gaze of his alleviate, the visible memory of his father's hatred, the sign of
black eyes darts out, vivacious and attentive; his white, his martyrdom. Now he is unable to climb freely on the walls;
, !
untidy hair is combed flat, with a precise and shiny part he is locked in the human world; he will never again be able
under the cap with its gold monogram. The struggle between to flee; and almost as recompense, pardon and reconciliation,
!
I them is a struggle for survival: if the son had consciously he is reabsorbed into family life. Every evening the living room
; I
I I
tried to kill the father, the father now consciously wants to door opens: "so as to allow him, buried in the darkness of his
I '
kill the son. Gregor's metamorphosis is a misdeed, a sin, a room and invisible from the living room, to see the entire
caprice that must be punished with ferocious severity. f2mily around the lit-up table and listen to their conversation
ii. IiI::
I One evening, when the father returns home, the mother
I
with everyone's consent.... " Even though mute, he is re­
1.

ii'
lies in a faint and Gregor, full of despair, is stretched out on admitted to the world of speech. But at that contact which rises
i
l ;,I the living room table. As soon as he sees him, the father lifts from darkness, the family's life declines, and it becomes a
,.1:
his foot and the son is struck by the "gigantic size of the sole degraded repetition of its earlier existence. No longer are there
·I·"•,. i.
. of his boot," as though he were the ogre in a fairy tale. The the animated conversations of happy times; his uniform worn
IIII ',' father chases him through the room with his huge shoes, and and stained, the father falls asleep at table every night, the
he starts to gasp, terrorized and with his eyes closed. Ifhe had mother sews in silence, ruining her eyes, the sister studies
1 wanted to escape the paternal violence, he could have climbed stenography and French, the maid is discharged and the fam­
'1':11
.1 ,.\:Ii I
the walls, high up amid the furniture and pictures, taking
: ' ily jewels are sold. There is nothing sadder than these silent
i
refuge in his intact animal world and forever abandoning the evenings glimpsed from the dark room, while the women work
:i Oedipal world of men, where fathers kill their sons and sons and the father sleeps. Then a further descent: three boarders
I":
:~ are forced to kill their fathers. But he has renounced becoming are taken in; the family eats dinner in the kitchen; from his den
II Iii! an insect: he prefers to be a sacrificed son instead of a free Gregor hears the noise made by the masticating boarders and
,
liI;l11
insect. And so his painful race through the living room con­ senses his family's humiliation-his parents do not dare sit
tinues. The father removes some small red apples from the down; the father stands by the table, cap in hand like a beggar,
,,,,I' '.
I!I:
bowl on the cupboard and begins to bombard him with them: and bows. Gregor's existence is also degraded. i\vlother and
!' I

I'
 ,....,
11!11!
KAFKA The Writer as Animal 71
70
· II
I ;! sister consider him with the intolerance one has for a relation known archetype; the Flaubertian character's excited drive
'I"
or family member struck by an incurable disease, the intol­ toward unrealized and unrealizable hopes. When he lived as
II erance that his wife and children feel for Ivan Ilyich. Love is a man, in his life as a repressed and obedient son, in his fati­
extinguished: what remains is the incapacity to bear a super­ guing journeys as a traveling salesman, Gregor had not dis­
human misfortune. The sister, who once prepared his food covered his profound aspiration. Upon becoming an animal
with great love, now with great haste pushes any sort of food his soul had at last opened to the superhuman music. Only
into his room with her foot, unconcerned whether Gregor now, a parasitic insect, a wounded beast, filthy, covered
:i touches it. She no longer cleans, and she prevents the others with dust and leftover foods, he understands that his soul's
from cleaning; on the floor lie clumps ofdust and garbage, piles profound voice is an indefinable, inexpressible desire, which
I;:
of filth stretch along the walls. Unneeded furniture is thrown cannot be represented, which leads him to a goal beyond
'
I
the division between human and bestial.
II,II
'
I into the room, together with junk, the ash can and garbage
" I
I I,
,
pail. Gregor had rejected an empty den, where he could give Without realizing it, Gregor revives the two archetypal
way to his pleasures and his pure animal games; now, almost conditions of the fable: the dragon which jealously guards the
111

in contraposition, the den becomes a lumber room, where treasure; and the Prince transformed into a Beast, who lives
'Ii
"
humanity collects its refuse. Like a cockroach, he begins to at the side of Beauty and hopes to marry her and become a
"I
wander about among the household goods: all dirty, repulsive, man again. But unlike the Beast, Gregor does not wish to
covered with lint, dust, hairs, leftover scraps of food, which become a man again; he understands that, as his sister
I he drags about on his back and sides. suggested to him, the animal condition is the only one that
I
I
Some time goes by. One evening, surrounded by the suits him. He would like only to venture out as far as his
I
boarders in the living room, Grete plays the violin, standing sister, tug her by the skirt, induce her to come into his room
I II
,I iii
in front of the music stand; her face is bent to one side and her with her violin, because nobody appreciates her music as he
'i ,
eyes follow the lines of notes with attention and sadness; her does. He would lock her up in his room, barricading the
imprisoned soul yearns for its country. The boarders do not doors, holding off assailants, as the dragon kept the Princess
understand; they had expected an amusing piece, and now locked up, as Kafka locked himself up in the cellar so as to
they smoke their cigars nervously and with indifference. Gre­ write: because happiness can be attained only where walls
gor hears the violin's beautiful, sad sound; filthy with dust and enclose and imprison us: in jail. Now, finally, Gregor under­
covered with lint and hair, he crawls, leaves his room, ad­ stands the incestuous theme that his sister had proposed and
vances into the living room and keeps his head close to the floor he had rejected. His sister woulJ sit down on the couch and
to intercept his sister's glances; deprived of speech, commu­ bend toward him on the floor, so that he might be able to
j
'Ii I
nication with his eyes is the only kind left him. confide his plan in her ear (speaking with the chirp of an in­
In the past, when he was a man, he did not like music. sect, or with some sort of sound? He no longer had a voice):
II
Iilli ,I,
Now that he has descended and ascended toward the beast, he had meant to send her to the conservatory and, if his
'Ii
( music moves him, and it seems to open a path "to the desired misfortune had not occurred, he would have announced this
and unknown nourishment." We have reached the heart of to everyone last Christmas. "After his explanation, his sister
Kafka's work: "desired and unknown nourishment" is the would have burst into heart-felt tears and Gregor would have
great Platonic theme; the soul's aspiration toward the un- raised himself up to her shoulder and would have kissed her
 1
1 1'1,
I I
r
I,
72 KAFKA The Writer as Animal 73
on the neck, which now, since she started going to the office, three in the morning. He sees the sky brighten outside the
she left uncovered without scarf or collar." window. Then his head droops, and the last breath weakly
But precisely now that Gregor thinks he is close to the leaves his nostrils. He lives in darkness but dies in the light.
"desired and unknown nourishment, " Grete denies her broth­ Gregor's sacrifice has a cosmic echo: it announces the end
er. She, who had wanted to live in the den together with the of winter, the arrival of spring. If Gregor had not sacrificed
Gregor-animal and had been rejected, refuses the incestuous himself, perhaps nature would have been rigidified forever, in
dream he offers her. She takes her revenge: whenever she sees its dead wintry forms, "dry" like the corpse of the large insect.
him, she denies that that "monster" is still her brother, and in Now lymph can again flow through nature's veins, and the
the presence of father and mother she sentences him to death, universal metamorphosis resumes its cycle. The sad months of
with the cruelty of youth. "You perhaps do not under­ winter and rain which have battered Gregor's window give
stand him: I do. I don't want to pronounce my brother's name way to the first warmth of spring, under the light of the March
before this monster, and so I say only: We must try to get rid sun, which shines above city and countryside. The family
of it." Beauty kills the Beast. Gregor starts to turn around to casts off its wintry degradation, the father retrieves his lost
.!I go back into his room. Nothing could be more laborious: his dignity and expels the boarders, the sister's face becomes ani­
body is enfeebled by starvation, his head rigidified; he is mated and flushed, mother embraces daughter. All together
unable to understand how he could have covered that distance; shed tears over the sacrificed one, moved and reconciled.
and little by little, helping himself with his head, striking it But we mustn't believe in nature's goodness. No one buries
against the floor, breathing heavily because of the effort, Gregor's body: the task of his burial-in who knows what
resting now and then amid the deadly silence of the family, he way-is entrusted to the coarse, rude maid, the only person,
crawls back into his den. As soon as he is inside, Grete slams however, to have had a true relationship with the "old cock­
the door furiously, turns the key and cries: "At last!" At this roach." Gregor's metamorphosis-this capital event in the
I
point for Gregor, in the dark of the room, which no gleam from history of the universe, which has allowed us to understand
I! the street illumines, there is nothing left to do but die. He dies other worlds, to attain things and dreams that have remained
of starvation: he has gone without eating for too long. But his hidden, to take part in the life ofliterature-seems by now last
,i death is also a sacrifice: he accepts, bows his head to his death winter's nightmare. We have the strange impression that it
sentence, thinks back to his family with deep emotion and never happened. Father, mother and daughter go into the
IJI
!i
love. As Walter Sokel writes, he is a "scapegoat" who takes countryside by tram, and talk animatedly about the future.
, I'
upon himself the sins of those dear to him: he is the Christ who The prospects are attractive: the three jobs are very promising,
"
dies, to save all human beings. The supreme value is no longer they must look for a new place to live, better situated than the
,iI ·
the dream of mute bestial levity, or the expectation of the present one, and think about Grete's marriage. The girl rises
"desired and unknown nourishment," or the incestuous life to her feet and stretches her young body, with the triumphant
, ;' with his sister, the act of writing without lifting his hand from cruelty of life toward all sorrows and all deaths. Gregor has
I
the page in the cellar's silence, but it is sacrifice, caritas. Before saved the perennial nature of existence. But unlike Christ, he
dying, GregQ!:~!-s~~~if~~~!-Ee!~3:12~~I1~~aIlQbt~in has not redeemed it. Life continues as it always has been, with
_?~Iy before death: !he qy!e! ()Ltb~_empty :lIJQ cO[l~emplative its horrors and egoisms, and no one any longer craves our soul's
mi"ii<f For a last time he listens to the clock of the tower strike "unknown nourishment."

:llli I
 ,.,.
Amerika 75
CHAPTER FOUR those sobs he could not restrain. What sort of tears were
these? Of sorrow? Distress? Pity for himself and for every­
one? Or, on the contrary, of happiness over his book? Deep
emotion? Or were these the infinitely tender tears that bring
about catharsis?

,!
'1'1I" i !
Amerika Perhaps there is no moment more extraordinary in Kaf­
'I ka's work than these last months of 1912, when he embarked
ii' on two such opposite experiences as those of Amerika and
Ii
I!;I "The Metamorphosis": pushing to their extreme on the one
hand the forces of expansion, dilation and distance and on the
'I
other the forces of concentration, weight and profundity.
Iii. The man who wrote Amerika belongs to the family of the
great novelists: he possesses the gaiety of time, the pleasure
of storytelling, the joy of movement, at times a Dickensian
euphoria and caprice, and a levity and fluency which allow us

K afka began writing Amerika at the end of September 1912,

a few days after inspiration had reawakened in him as
he was writing "The Judgment." We can follow him almost
to glide over events without encountering anything that jars
or disturbs us. Whereas in "The Metamorphosis" he trans­
formed himself into himself, in Amerika he transforms himself
day by day through his letters to Felice: we come to know into all the persons in the world, drawing them from his
his fervor, his enthusiasm, his doubts, his despair; we know generous womb: with sovereign aplomb he surrenders him­
at what page, what line of the manuscript, he stopped on self to reality, moves and skitters about among things,
October 18, or at what line he resumed on December 24, and ventures beyond all limits, full of sympathy for parasites and
when he thought he was stopping forever. Never have we crooks, such as Robinson and Delamarche. There everything
been this close to the secrets of creation. He wrote rapidly, took place in a room, his room: here lives the excitement of
"in ecstasy," as Max Brod noted, in a state of exceptional adventure in the great American spaces which Kafka knew
'1'[,
creative felicity such as he had never experienced before. only from books. There existed a great symbolic concentra­
I "After having written well on the night between Sunday and tion: every page was layered like a cosmos; here meaning and
Monday-I could have written all night and day and again allusions assail us with less intensity and do not form such a
1
night and day, and finally flown away . . . . " It appeared that close-meshed net.
i,
the book resembled him; in it he felt safe, as had never Amerika is an encyclopedia of literary genres entwined
I,
happened to him when he wrote "Description of a Struggle" and harmonized with each other. It is not entirely impossible
i
and Meditation: something or someone protected him; all that Kafka, at least at the beginning, intended to write a
I! ' sensations and feelings and suggestions, from wherever they family saga: some say that he himself, like Karl Rossmann,
might originate, were placated and set on the "right path." was seduced by a governess when he was sixteen; young
Once, he who never wept, wept over his book, and was Robert Kafka, his cousin, certainly did have a son from his
afraid that he might awaken his parents in the next room with parents' cook in 1896. Furthermore, Otto, Robert's older
 ,I
,..,
'I
KAFKA Amerika 77
iilll'l
76
brother, emigrated in 1906 to the United States, where he from him, leaving him once again alone in the desolate desert
,1 ' had adventures similar to those of Karl and then later became of his existence.
111
a powerful businessman like his uncle Jacob. Three years When he told Karl Rossmann's adventures, Kafka's mind
later, another younger brother of Otto's, Frank, emigrated to was traversed by a gleam of hope. He knew he was con­
'!'I

I America, also at sixteen. With what great ease Kafka ex­ demned. Any story or novel that took its departure from a
,,1I1

ploited the resources of literature! As Marthe Robert points person like himself-the Stranger----eould end only in defeat:
out, Amerika is a realistic novel about modern cities: an a suicide in the waters of the river, or a death sentence, with
l
i'III",1

II 1
adventure novel (the boy who finds his American uncle); a a butcher's knife plunged deep into the heart. But what if he
1:1' serial novel (the young man who is thrown out of his home); were to narrate the adventures of another? Of someone who
Ii possessed all qualities contrary to his own? Someone who
a picaresque novel (life at the bottom with Robinson and
'I' had in common with him only the childlike gaze? Someone
111\'1 Delamarche); a fairy tale (the uncle who punishes Karl­
Cinderella at the stroke of midnight; Karl-Pinocchio explores blessed by grace? And so he told the story of Karl Rossmann,
Poll under's dark house with a candle; Green and the doorman cast out by his family, flung into a strange country, a country
:~ I,I,I! I 1,;"
as ogres); an educational book (Karl-diligent boy); a myth of insomnia and maelstroms. For some time Kafka hoped to
(the lost paradise); a utopia (the Oklahoma Theater); perhaps save him, because together with Karl he would have saved
II
a theological novel (the triple original sin). himself; and perhaps he imagined his comic redemption,
No book appears richer, more robust, better able to during the very same days in which he told the story of
I", expand ad infinitum. And yet "The Metamorphosis," the Joseph K.'s irremediable sentence in The Trial.
II
story that had interrupted its writing from November to I believe that Kafka never loved a character as much as he
December, probably irremediably undermined it. The de­ loved Karl Rossmann. What love could he have for Joseph
!I scent into the abyss of animal life, the discovery of literature's K., or for K., or for the lord of the burrow, or even for poor

~
il heart in the place where beetles and cockroaches lightly Gregor Samsa? Throughout the book, before Karl sets foot
I'
"
climb along walls and ceilings, prevented Kafka from going on American soil, or as he sinks into abjection, or when he
Iii II
I back to live in the open air, where so-called real life unfolds. observes the angels of the Oklahoma Theater, Kafka follows
,

:1
1

From December, his letters to Felice are full of ill humor, as him with such tender affection that it recalls Tolstoy's and
though the book no longer enchanted him. On the night of Stevenson's tenderness as they contemplated their beloved
December 23 he wrote, "How will it end if I will no longer creations Nikolai Rostov and Jim Hawkins. Like them, Karl
"I'II'iI be able to write? It would seem that the moment has come: possesses "natural grace": the most precious gift in a human
it is a week and more that I'm not accomplishing anything, in creature, which attracts the affection of others and perhaps
the course of the last ten nights ... I've been carried away that of God, a gift Kafka feared he did not possess and which
only once and that was all. I'm continually tired." I Ie he did not attribute to any other of his characters. Karl is
I I,
claimed that he worked by joining and patching together vital, joyous, naive; his father's horrible punishment, being
,; driven at fifteen across the ocean, has not cracked his
1
small passages, because inspiration had deserted him. On
January 26 he declared himself defeated and gave up the childlike confidence and faith in life. He has not yet been
book: he thought that it had taken flight and moved away disillusioned. His "marveling gaze" rejoices at the sight of the

I
 78 KAFKA
r Amerika 79
world's beauty and dwells on all of reality's spectacles. He himself. He has one illusion: that the world is rational, that
cares not for the past: he loves the present, the labile and everything can be explained, that good words and good
fugitive moment in which he lives, as though there were sentiments are enough to change the universe. The others
nothing else, even to the point of forgetting everything-his mock him, deride him, rob him. And yet at the end of every
umbrella, his suitcase, his hat-with a vagueness that charms illusion, sore in the flesh and wounded in the spirit, he
us. Often he is the victim of circumstances. He does not cannot stop himself from going to meet others with an
make plans, does not set himself goals, does not build his life impulse of love and devotion, of sympathy and trust. He
as adults do, even though the future seems to reveal to his needs friendship, affection and the sound of a human voice
gaze a treasure of desirable things. Like all people attached to like a dog, and if he is injured once again, he forgives.
life, he has the gift of transforming himself and changing, so Some critics have described him as a small Don Quixote,
much as to become the succubus of things and others. There a young Idiot, nourished on German books. Karl would not
is nothing more delightful than the scene in which, in a short understand this. He does not know the madness of vagabonds
!, II,
time, he becomes a perfect elevator operator. He had studied and saints. He would never fight with windmills; he would
'!
,I in high school; for one month he had been his uncle's favorite never sacrifice himself to save another creature and reestab­
I! I
nephew; and here he is in his handsome suit, with his pro­ lish the world's harmony. He is a "normal" boy, accustomed
! found bows, his artistry in accepting tips, his small chival­ to believing in the normal values of life: devotion to one's
, I!
ries toward the ladies, his agility in summoning a carriage parents, respect for the law and society's conventions, friend­
!
-as though he had been an elevator boy all his life. ship for one's comrades, an honest wish to ascend the social
'I
! According to an all-too-famous phrase, literature cannot ladder and become a perfect employee. Tragedy decrees that
depict "good sentiments." Karl Rossmann proves the con­ these values no longer exist in the contaminated Eden,
trary; the entire treasure of love, of affection, of impulses for protected by the angel's sword, which is to be found across
111!li! .! i !
! the good, of naive ideals, tender convictions and trust that the Atlantic. Karl never ate from the tree of knowledge, as
lilli:! '
.11.,,,,,
ever crossed men's spirits is to be found gathered in the quiet Gregor Samsa did without wishing to; and all the truths
I, lake of his heart. It is easy for us to imagine his childhood. about the body, the animal, incest and literature that the
. I
He was an obedient and loving son, devoted and extremely poor employee has learned through his metamorphosis are
diligent: an Isaac ready to be immolated by his father's ax; absolutely foreign to him. Now here he is in America, the
I!!
i'
and even now, when he is sixteen, we perceive in his voice, realm of great spaces: no adventurous desire to cross them
as Musil said, "the sense of excited childish prayers," "some­ animates him; the word freedom says nothing to him; his one
thing of the restless zeal that goes with diligent homework." dream is to find a refuge-no matter where, in a stoker's
Those who do not love him claim that he is only the ideal boy cabin, the room of a head cook-and plunge his head in the
to be found in textbooks. Despite the horror he has experi­ lap of a father or mother. Kafka wrote that "there exists only
, i enced at home, he has faith in the world's goodness: he one capital sin: impatience." If this is true, Karl does not
I !
believes in good causes and ideals-with the candor, light­ know what sin is. No character in a novel is more patient
heartedness, simplicity and lack of analysis that have always than he. With his exceedingly sweet childish stoicism he
distinguished pure goodness. No one is more honest, diligent accepts what destiny or chance offers; he believes everything,
and scrupulous than he, in whatever situation he finds hopes everything, tolerates everything, endures everything,
 80 KAFKA
r Amerika 81

as St. Paul said; and in whatever situation he happens to live, Samsa, he dreams of his soul's "desired and unknown
he meekly bows his head. nourishment. "
But Kafka did not wish or was unable to keep Karl When he is fifteen years and nine months old, Karl is cast
Rossmann completely distant from himself; and he injected off by his father, like a cat who has dirtied the floor and is
his own poison in him, as though he could not help but flung out into the street: shut in the lowest class of a ship that
contaminate him with what was perhaps a disease, perhaps a takes him to New York, with an old suitcase, an old suit, a
sign of election. Just as Kafka remained a pure adolescent few shirts and a piece of salami; expelled into a desert of
until maturity, so Karl refuses to grow up. Without knowing solitude and uncertainty. Why this vengefulness? Why this
it, he refuses to take the step that will leave him defenseless biblical ferocity against an innocent? Why this brandished
to the vice of maturity; he remains unchanged and candid sword? Karl is a loving son; he's been seduced---guiltless-by
through all his experiences-since experience is horror; and a maid much older than he. In "The Judgment" we heard the
11.\1:1 1 he preserves and hardens in his mind his inviolate childhood. father's reproaches against his son. Here, with one of those
1','11

I"
This is the ultimate secret of his charm: that which moves omissions of which he is a master, Kafka does not let us hear
'I
III, !
and enchants us to the point of tears. the voice of the father's Law. We must suppose that the Law
Seen with the eyes of childhood, adults eat and copulate. does not tolerate excuses. Despite the protest of innocence on
To avoid becoming an adult, Karl will eat little and copulate the part of the accused, it does not consider their feelings,
not at all. All the great and sanguine eaters who traverse the their general behavior or their heart's uncontaminated inno­
book gobble with inexhaustible greed squabs, sausages, cence. Karl has sinned against the form of the Law. When
sardines and chocolate creams, smearing their faces and the form is offended-even in a slight detail, which some
hands with grease; Dickens would have found them pictur­ judge has perhaps already forgotten-the Law condemns
esque and adorable; Karl (and Kafka) finds them disgusting. without mercy. Karl has allowed himself to be seduced by
When he meets Clara in Pollunder's immense house, dark as the maid, in his house's lumber room. He did not commit an
1~ll'II
a castle in a fairy tale, Karl perceives the fascination of that erotic sin (the Law is not moralistic), but he has violated the

I'
I: i
'I
"":mlil', ,
:
, ,
~
flushed face and young athletic body, tensed beneath the
clinging dresses. But it is barely the shadow of a temptation,
pact of fidelity and exclusive belongingness that bound him
to the family. If for one instant he dissolved the bond, the
like the one he experienced with Brunelda; he unconsciously bond flings him away with the violence of a sling.
I I
I ' removes them from his mind. The sexual act continues to We can imagine how dreadful for Karl must have been
:I:! !I:i I seem repugnant to him. The sole sexual experience of his life the evening on which he was informed that he would be
: '
has forever left in his mind the remembrance of a sinister expelled from the family. But he does not remember that
combination of possessive desire, physical overpowering, evening: he has removed it from his consciousness, erasing
heat, grease, hysteria, incest, servility, sentimental falsity, the wound's unbearable violence, the sorrow over the offense
, ,
alienation from his self, humiliation and misery. The last and the desire for revenge. When his memory harks back to
I
, Kafkian trait we encounter in Karl is the most unmistakable: his German childhood, it summons up scenes of a family
II'
[I nostalgia. When he sings his beloved soldier's song, trying to idyll enclosed within itself: tranquil evenings, when his
find a new song in the old song, he reveals his striving toward mother locked the door of the house and sewed with her
the indefinite, the impossible, the unattainable. Like Gregor needle, his father read the paper or did his accounts, and he
r II
 r' Amerika
82 KAFKA 83
did his homework, seated at the table with his parents. Karl We wonder what would have happened if at the end Karl
is neither the brother nor the heir of Georg Bendemann or had adopted the stoker as a father-this amiable brother­
Gregor Samsa, the Oedipal sons who have tried to kill the father, \vho is unacquainted with the rigors and exquisite
father or take his place in the family. He accepts his father's ferocity of the Law. He might have forever eluded the world
authority, defends him and would like to regain his esteem of the Law, of the father, of Oedipus, of God. Like a
and love. The feeling he has for him is that solid affection picaresque vagabond, together with the stoker, Karl would
made up of habits lived in close proximity, that very sweet have passed through all the ports and cities of America,
and painful physical tenderness which sons experience living coming to know its streets, adventures, its open air, the flavor
every day with the father, taking breakfast in the morning in of its rivers, its clouds, grass and skies; and Amerika would
bed with him, strolling around the apartment in pajamas or have become a kind of new Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
doing homework at the same table. There is no page more written by a clown and a Stranger who had escaped condem­
, ,
anguishing-the Kafkian anguish, lacerating like a knife­ nation. How much we would have gained! How much we
,I
1"

than the one in which, chased away by his uncle, lost in a would have lost! This is Kafka's second great refusal-after
I the refusal to represent Gregor's life as a pure animal-and I
dark American inn, Karl picks up his parents' photograph­
his father standing upright with his fist clenched, not looking believe that he always loved "The Stoker" (the title of the
at him, his mother with her hand dangling from her chair's first chapter in Amerika) so passionately because in it the Law
armrest, so close he could have kissed it-rests his face on it, does not appear. But destiny demanded that Kafka live
feels its cool against his cheek and falls asleep with this within the Law and depict it alone. So Karl is forced to leave
sensation of peace and quiet. the stoker; and with dismay, tenderness, the hidden knowl­
As soon as his ship docks in New York Harbor, Karl loses edge that his life is forever deflected, with sympathy for the
suitcase and umbrella: Flaubertian objects, to which Kafka fate of all the defeated, he seizes the rough, almost dead
attributes an intense symbolic charge, which takes the place hand, kisses it and weeps, pressing it to his cheek like a
of a long psychological analysis, as does the female portrait in treasure he must give up forever.
Gregor Samsa's room. He does not lose them by chance: he \Vhen the ship enters New York Harbor, Karl catches
wants to lose them because they are the signs of his laceration, sight of the Statue of Liberty immersed in a suddenly more
of the journey, of the wandering into which he is forced; they vivid light. America, the land looked forward to by immi­
will disappear in the pauses, when he will have found a grants, the land of Karl's hopes, seems to be the space of
home, and they will all reappear together, with his cap, as light. That splendor illuminates a strange spectacle: Liberty's
soon as he is seized again by exile and uprooting. Meanwhile, arm brandishes not a torch but a sword-the same flashing
Karl already finds a first home abroad, in the stoker's cabin, sword with which the cherubs, after Adam's fall, kept men
I
I: I where he feels at ease and rests and almost sleeps, calm and away from "the path to the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24). So
Ii pacified, as will never again happen in the novel. With one of Karl goes down a road in the opposite direction from Adam's:
,I those emotional impulses of which he alone is capable, he he leaves old Europe, where without wishing to he ate the
feels he belongs to the stoker: he chooses him as a father, a apple and where he was cursed by the Father-God, crosses
son, an older brother. the ocean and returns to Eden, out of which the first man was

I
 r Amerika
84 KAFKA 85

driven. Everything has remained as it was then: the old angel located on the sixth, surrounded by a narrow balcony which
is still there, his sword raised, and allows him to enter the overlooks the street. Fascinated and bewitched by the sight,
land, where, perhaps, the tree of life stands. Karl spends hours looking at the traffic which flows in a very
Some time later, Karl arrives in the city of Rameses. The long straight avenue between two rows of houses which
name is not new to us: we have already encountered it in vanish in the mist, where the enormous shapes of a cathedral
L Exodus, where the Jews, fallen into slavery, are forced by the rise. His gaze possesses a unique gift. From up there he goes
Egyptians to build the treasure cities of Pithom and Ramses down into the street and looks at things from below, as
and where "they made their lives bitter with hard labors in though he were set at the lowest level of things; and he sees
the preparation of the mortar and bricks" (I: 11-14). Eden is also what nobody is able to see, noises and smells. Things
therefore false, the angel a purely human image: fleeing mix with and contaminate each other in an incessant move­
toward paradise, Karl has landed in the New Egypt, where ment: down below, a mixture of contorted human figures and
men are enslaved. It is precisely in the hotel at Rameses that the tops of vehicles; above, a new mixture, even more
Karl is told the story of Therese's mother, one of the mas­ complicated and tumultuous, of sounds, dust and smells­
terpieces by that Dickensian-Dostoevskian Kafka for whom and above it all, a final stratum composed of light. It is a
we feel such regret. The mother, consumptive and starving, potent and full-bodied light that is dispersed and carried
,
has no bed in which to sleep with her daughter; she wanders away by the mass of objects and then quickly gathers again;
I
all night through a New York struck by a blizzard, dragging and it seems to the eye that a scintillating slab of glass which
I
along the little girl; she enters houses, squats gasping on covers everything is at every instant shattered with great
the steps, goes again and again through narrow labyrinths force above the street. These are Karl's impressions: in
and freezing hallways which lead to the top floors, knocks at America everything is visible, also the invisible; nothing is
random on doors. Here and there the inferno of the under­ pure, everything is mixed and contaminated; everything is
ground opens up, releasing a smoky mist of unbreathable physical, even light, the most spiritual of objects.
air; strangers and drunks climb the stairs stomping their feet Later on, Karl understands that the essence of American
heavily or spitting, until in the morning the mother climbs life is automatism. The first encounter is a prodigy of me­
up the ladder of a construction site-surrounded by the chanical engineering, which attracts his childlike spirit. His
same scaffoldings, beams and bricks of the old Rameses-and uncle has left in his room a typical American writing desk,
,.11I
1

plunges into the void. This is the inferno of America, which with a hundred compartments of all sizes, which could have
at the end of the book Karl will know with his own eyes. And contained even the papers of the president of the United
yet we must not forget what his uncle tells us. While Europe States. On the side of the desk there is a regulator; by turning
is a land of pure appearances, the "signs and miracles" of the a handle, depending on need or whim, the most diverse
Old Testament are still alive in America, as the novel changes and adjustments can be obtained. It is enough to
Amerika will prove, full as it is of "signs and miracles," right turn the handle, and the thin dividing partitions descend,
down to the incomplete miracle of the Nature Theater of slowly or with prodigious speed, to form the base and ceiling
Oklahoma. of new compartments. Also his uncle's house is a kind of
Uncle's house, where Karl lives in New York, has six enormous desk, a mechanical toy. Outside it is iron; the inner
Ili stories, besides being over three cellars, and his room is walls are glass. A special elevator can lift a concert piano or
..
II
'

1:
",
i
 ",,"'
86 KAFKA Amerika 87
an entire truckload of furniture as high as the sixth floor. Karl Karl sees New York from above, the harbor and the long
goes up on the regular elevator and, deftly maneuvering a narrow bridge over the East River, he does not see anything:
lever, stops level with the freight elevator so as to stare on the bridge there does not appear to be any movement, the
through the glass panes at the beautiful piano his uncle has ships seem motionless, the sea smooth and inanimate, every­
given him. In the immense offices automatism stages a gran­ thing is empty and without purpose. Perhaps, down there, in
diose and absurd puppet comedy. In every telephone booth the invisible depths of the streets, life continues, automobiles
there is an employee, indifferent to the enormous racket: a move, men walk, live and die; but farther up one sees only a
steel clamp grips his head and presses the phone against his light mist which effortlessly dissolves.
ears; his only task is to transcribe as exactly as possible the American automatism reaches its peak in the enormous
incoming conversation; his fingers vibrate with a regularity lobby of the enormous Occidental Hotel. Behind the slabs of
and speed that is somehow inhuman, while another two glass, two assistant desk clerks recite their information to the
employees simultaneously record the same conversation. patrons like litanies, attaching one answer to the next without
Thus all error is excluded from the great American machine, interruption: they look neither at the desk nor into the face of
which operates above and outside man. But the telephone­ those with whom they talk, but straight ahead, into empty
employee cannot lift his head or talk or answer the voices that space, to conserve and gather their strength. They talk into
reach him from afar, not even if he must present serious their beards, now German, now French, now Italian, now
objections or communicate a decisive piece of information. who knows what foreign language issues from their autom­
In the open air, automobiles swarm through America: aton's lips, always distorted by a strong American accent.
they advance and overtake each other swift and light; and The patrons understand almost nothing. They stand there,
it seems that from one end of the horizon always come the openmouthed, barely grasping a few pieces of information,
same number of vehicles, while at the other end the exact without realizing when the answer addressed to each of them
same number are expected. As he watches them, Karl thinks is completed. The laborious effort is overwhelming for all
he is contemplating an admirable universal automatism, a of them, assistant desk clerks, messenger boys, patrons,
perfect order, that is governed not by any human person but subjected to this flood of senseless words. As soon as the
by the very force of the machinery. He cannot make out clock marks the hour, a bell rings. Immediately from a side
whether anyone sits at the steering wheels. The cars accel­ door enter two new automatons, two new assistant clerks,
erate or slow down all at the same time, almost as though each followed by a messenger boy; they place themselves
regulated by a single set of gears; they never stop, and no at the window, lightly tap the shoulder of the first assistant
illilil passenger descends from those phantomatic shapes. Above clerks and take their place, with a speed that astonishes
them there is not a trace of dust-the dust that abounds and frightens the patrons standing before the slab of glass.
I I
;1'
i,l where the weight of nature and soil dominates. All contrasts So continues the endless game of answers, while the first
I and individual tensions are annulled; an impression of calm assistant clerks sit down in a corner of the reception office,
and quiet is born, as though America were the realm of
:1.;1" III,
J,I
'i "1 1
universal harmony, obtained without man's participation. But
stretch their arms and pour water from a basin over their
heads burning with fatigue.
i ::1 does this machinery really exist? Is America real? Or is it
:1, ' Toward the end of the book, from the top of Brunelda,
", not rather a dream of the mind, an illusion of specters? When Robinson and Delamarche's house, we witness an election
III Y'illl
I
 r
88 KAFKA Amerika 8<)

rally. It is evening. At the end of the street, trumpet peals, described by Kafka with an extraordinary sensitivity to the
drum rolls, dense ranks of drummers and trumpeters, and interplay of masses of people, lights and sounds, derives its
shouts from the houses. On the sidewalk young men march effectiveness from an omission. High up on his balcony, Karl
with long strides, their arms flung wide, their caps raised and does not understand a thing: neither the candidate's name nor
in their hands long poles on which sway lanterns surrounded his speech nor the howls of his opponents nor the words
by yellowish smoke. Then, at the center of this massed shouted by Delamarche; so the scene seems a pantomime at
escort, a gigantic man appears. On his shoulders sits a once silent and deafening, and America becomes a slapstick
gentleman; from the high balcony where Karl is, one can farce, absurd and abstract, as in the clowneries of Kafka's
make out only his bald, shiny head-and the top hat that he youth.
holds raised in a continuous salute. The crowd claps its When he looks out from his uncle's house, contemplating
hands and shouts a short, incomprehensible word, perhaps the traffic of automobiles below, Karl is stricken by the first
the name of the gentleman with the top hat. Some people American disease: the disease of the gaze. Confronted by that
arrive with very powerful automobile headlights, lighting up vortex of bodies, noises, smells and lights, confronted by that
the houses on both sides of the street. The crowd stops in visual excess, confronted by the desks, telephones, vehicles,
front of a tavern. A man signals with his hands. The bald reception offices, the American election rallies in which
gentleman tries unsuccessfully to stand upright on the gigan­ automatism triumphs, Karl's gaze is spellbound, enchained
tic man's shoulders; he straightens up, but falls back to a and benumbed, like the gaze of someone who has stared for.
sitting position, and then he delivers an equally incompre­ too long into a vortex and can no longer take his eyes away
hensible speech, waving the top hat in front of him with the from it. Some immigrants spend entire days on the balcony,
speed of a windmill, while all the headlights of the cars turn staring at the street below, like lost sheep. The uncle, who
toward him, make him the center of a luminous star. On the knows more about this danger than anyone, tries to help his
balconies, the people are dressed for the night: many have nephew overcome the disease of the gaze; he advises detach­
thrown a coat over their shoulders, the women are wrapped ment, coldness, care not to pass hasty judgments that might
in large black clothes, the children, no longer tended to, introduce confusion into all his future opinions. But there is
climb frighteningly about on the railings. The people shout. another American disease, of which the uncle is completely
On the balconies occupied by the bald man's supporters, a prisoner: insomnia. With its perennial tension and agita­
they all sing his name in unison and mechanically clap their tion, its continuous visual provocation, the enormity of its
hands; on the other balconies, occupied by his adversaries, spectacles, America is, as Macbeth says, the country that
they shout other names, whistle, play phonographs, fling "murders sleep." So it is a country not of innocents but of
objects. When the racket becomes excessive, drummers and culprits. Even though he is innocent, Karl never sleeps: he
trumpeters again blow the trumpets and beat the drums, and does not sleep on the ship that takes him to America, he does
a tremendous clamor drowns out the voices. Suddenly the not sleep enough in his uncle's house, in the first hotel,
noise ceases abruptly; and the crowd of people in the street, the second hotel, he dozes a bit in Poll under's car; and
which hold up the bald gentleman, exploit the moment of like him the young elevator boy does not sleep, Therese and
silence to begin howling their party slogan, their gaping . her mother do not sleep in the l\;ew York night, nor does
mouths illuminated by the headlights. The great scene, the student who during the day works as a salesman in a
 KAFKA
r' Amerika <)1
<)0

department store and at night, in the open air, reads his reception office's information, the rally, the great cycle of
medical textbooks. sounds and lights-transform it all into a playful spectacle
From the very beginning, Karl confusedly senses these that consoles our childlike soul. This is what Kafka did,
dangers. When his uncle gives him the piano, he puts it in madly amused by his bureaucratic-automatic inventions and
front of the window thrown open to the noises of the street; carrying them into the absurd, with a fresh, joyous laughter
and he plays a soldier's song from his native country--one of that one does not hear in any of his other novels. 1'\0 one can
those songs that soldiers sing of an evening, sitting on the sills say how he would have written the conclusion of this book.
of the barracks windows, looking into the dark square-in But the Oklahoma Theater is also a mechanical prodigy, a
the childlike hope that music might have an influence on mobile automaton, a providential game, like the desk with its
American life, restoring harmony where he had seen only a hundred compartments. Perhaps grace, while descending to
cruel mixup of sights and sounds. But Karl fails. Nothing save Karl, would with childish enjoyment play with those
changes, in the street and in life. For him reality remains jerkily advancing Magi, those twinkling stars, those small
alien and impenetrable, like the traffic that nobody directs: fleeing rabbits, with all the great inventions of the American
an immense cycle, a great circle that incessantly rotates machine.
before him, just as again and again the mixup of vehicles, When he leaves the ship together with his uncle, Karl
people, noises, smells keeps ever forming anew, compene­ bursts into a flood of tears; he cannot bear to have abandoned
trated by the full-bodied light. There is only one possibility and betrayed the stoker-his humble brother-father. Uncle
of salvation. To arrest the great cycle, he must come to know Jacob puts a hand under his chin, hugs him against his body
all the forces that keep it in motion: all the sensations, and caresses him; and tightly embraced he descends the
sentiments, impulses, tensions, violences and insomnias of ship's gangway with him, stepping onto the boat that takes
American life. Naive Karl will not even attempt this cognitive them to shore. Karl accepts his second father in silence. At
task. The person who will try to know the great cycle in all first he feels a strange distrust of him: when his uncle
of its parts is his older brother, Franz Kafka, in the densely embraces him he remains cold and suspicious. Then he seeks
articulated complexity of his novel. the only relationship with him that, for the time being, is
On seeing the American desk, Karl is reminded of a possible: he looks into his eyes-but the uncle's eyes avoid
mechanical creche he had admired during the Christmas his, just as in the family photograph the son cannot catch the
festivities of his childhood: an old man who turned a handle, first father's eyes, and stare at the waves that rock the boat.
the three Magi who advanced jerkily, the star that lit up, the Wrapped in their numinous omnipotence and their tenebrous
11

11
, III
'. I
child in the holy stable, the tiny rabbit in the grass rising on
its hind legs and dashing away. American inventions re­
blindness, the father-gods, the great custodians of the Law,
do not grant the light of their gaze to those who seek it.
1:1 awaken in him a childish pleasure in ingenious contraptions Arrived in New York, in the iron and glass house, Karl's first
~I that encourage fantasies. This is another road that Kafka impression is tempered. His uncle is a man of rigid principles
offers us, through Karl, to save ourselves from modern life. in both public and private life: a concentration of ego and
ii'III The only way is to transform everything that casts a spell and puritanical self-control. He does not bestow on Karl the
renders our gaze sleepless-the desk, the glass-enclosed fatherly tenderness that he desperately desires, but he cares
elevator, his uncle's telephone, the automobile traffic, the for him. He tolerates his little whims, his passion for the desk
 92 KAFKA
r Amerika 93
and piano; and he tries to give him the austere manly the Labyrinthine: it is traversed by terrible drafts, which
upbringing that will prepare him to confront without too scurry down the passageways and blowout the light; it looks
much danger the maelstrom of lights and sounds that con­ like a papier-mache cathedral in which actor-automatons run
stitutes American life. about; and Green's hand blocks all the doors, imprisons Karl
Sometime later, in the false American Eden the great in those old walls and deprives him of the open air, the
event of the Temptation, Fall and Sentence occurs a second perfume of the trees, and the full moon. The villa is a
time; now that Karl has entered the house of the Law, continuation of his uncle's empire: a perfectly specular
nothing can prevent the inexorable mechanism of Prohibition couple is at his service: Green with his odious vitality and
I
'I
and Sin from striking him. This time the serpent is not a poor Pollunder with his unctuous sentimentality. Green could be
hysterical maid, but three people: Mack (a friend of Karl's), one of those gobblers of food who enchant us in Dickens's
Mr. Pollunder and his daughter, Clara: now too Karl yields novels: he voraciously gulps down his soup, quarters the
to Temptation; and the American Jehovah is his second squabs with great slashes of his knife, seizes the food with a
father, his uncle Jacob. Hidden in the semidarkness of the leap of the tongue, desires women as though they were food,
room like a disgruntled god, the uncle does not like his contaminates the dining room with smoke, rummages in his
nephew to be invited to the Pollunder house in the suburbs enormous wallet as though it were his stomach. But what in
of New York: this visit upsets the regular rhythm of the Dickens is candid, sparkling and rosy here is gloomy conta­
English and horseback-riding lessons which regulate Karl's gion. Poll under too could descend from the procession of
existence. But he does not clearly declare his will. Does it Dickensian hypocrites. Unhealthily fat, his back curved, his
matter? What difference does it make if the Law is not abdomen flabby and drooping, his face pale and tortured, his
pronounced? If no one puts into words the prohibition of gestures repetitive and coerced, he continually buttons and
eating from the tree of good and evil? The new Law, which unbuttons his jacket, then wipes his face with his handker­
during these months has begun to dominate in Kafka's world, chief and noisily blows his nose. When he talks he is
does not need to be promulgated. We-its sons and slaves­ ceremonious, tortuous, full of qualifications and concessions
must intuit it, know it, read it, come to meet it, bow our to the same extent that Green is abrupt and violent; he
heads to it, perform it, even if no father-god has formu­ pretends that he has a tender heart, and continually touches
lated it. Karl, puts an arm around his waist, hugs him, pulls him onto
Despite the uncle's displeasure, Karl yields to the small his knees, like an old homosexual.
temptation. In the evening, the car reaches the country Karl is steeped in malaise. He fears that he has been
house, surrounded by the soughing and fragrance of big remiss with his uncle, by not respecting his wishes. In the air
chestnut trees, while Karl has dozed off. When he opens his of the dark house, everything seems to announce sinister
eyes, he realizes that he has penetrated into America's night; events; and his affection for his second father, stifled for a
whereas his uncle's glass house coruscates with light, Poll un­ few hours, grips his heart and makes him suffer with a kind
der's unfinished villa is the realm of darkness-interminable of tender sorrow. The next morning, in New York, he would
dark passageways, atriums, galleries, chapels, empty rooms go to his uncle's bedroom, where he's never been until now;
that only the weak flame of the candle illuminates, as in a he would surprise him in his nightshirt, perhaps have
fairy tale about ghosts. It is the abode of the Disquieting and breakfast with him; and this breakfast together would become
 1: I
r
I
I 94 KAFKA Amerika 95
an infinitely affectionate habit. The house oppresses him: just as later on, at the Occidental Hotel, he will be an
Green and Pollunder detain him with all sorts of excuses; the excellent elevator boy. Even if his small infidelity were a
road that must lead him to his uncle, through the French crime, Karl repented that very evening; he missed his uncle
door, down the flight of steps, along the driveway and and did everything to return home. The great accuser would
country road, calls him in a loud voice. Time passes. The smile, or snicker like Green. The Law does not recognize
clocks mark eleven, quarter past eleven, half past eleven, extenuating circumstances, repentances, states of mind, good
eleven forty-five. To Karl, who wants to get out of the house, intentions, tender devotions, regrets. It ignores psychology;
it seems that time runs slowly, while for us those indications when it wishes, it neglects the unconscious, leaves this mined
of hours and minutes seem the ticking of a very fast infernal field to men---even though, afterward, it demands that men
machine that leads to catastrophe. Finally a bell tolls twelve make use of psychology and venture into the unconscious,
times, almost without interval: each toll strikes while the when they are expected to intuit by a kind of telepathic
preceding one is still resounding. The dark empty house is communication the prohibitions that the Father-God does
filled with this menacing presence, and Karl feels upon his not promulgate. The Law-the prosecution might continue
cheeks the air stirred by the movement of the bells. It is -is an exact science. For it there exist only admissible or
midnight: Green hands Karl his uncle's letter. It is the second mistaken actions, prescribed by a rigid norm. Karl should
sentence, as definitive as the first. not have left his New York home (even though no one ever
Thus, hidden among the events of an adventure novel, issued a prohibition), or returned there at the twelve strokes
Kafka has discovered the great edifice of Paternal Law, which of midnight (although this was materially impossible for
from then on never stopped obsessing him throughout his him).
life. As Karl will say, the Law's most evident characteristic is What could Karl's defense attorney answer? Probably he
that of not having any "good will." For the Law there are no would keep quiet, like Karl, who withdraws into the most
innocents, but only the guilty: the most innocuous things are obstinate silence. But he would have forgotten one thing.
seen in the most sinister light, and the guilt, as he will The Law, which boasts so much of being an exact science, is,
comment in "The Penal Colony," is always "beyond discus­ however, when it so pleases, the most inexact of moralities.
sion." Thus the Law initiates an interminable trial against us, Green and Pollunder, those arms of the Law, use every trick
which lasts longer than our lives. What are the charges to prevent Karl from returning to New York: they tell him
against us? Let us not confuse Paternal Law with human law, there is no car, no chauffeur, that the trolley stop is far away,
which charges us only with acts and ignores our unconscious. that he must say good-bye to Clara and wait for a letter. ...
Karl has not violated any prohibition; he has yielded to an But men rarely notice the Law's insidious, hidden activities.
I;
I innocent, childish whim, a slight infidelity to the paternal .Like Karl, they invest it with good sense, rationality, rea­
"

home, and the Law, here as in "The Judgment," accuses him sonableness, understanding, a readiness to compromise. Pa­
precisely of these small desires and unconscious rebellions, as ternal Law possesses none of these very human qualities; and
though they were capital crimes. it is precisely because of this that we-blinded by the dark
Any defense attorney, actuated by the spirit of good violence of its light-worship it.
sense and tolerance, could stand up before the prosecution The event of the Temptation, Fall and Sentence IS
and maintain that Karl is a good and affectionate nephew, repeated for a third time at the Occidental Hotel: Karl is
 r Amerika
KAFKA 97
96
But this reality is not all of reality: it is not the rosy, dizzying
thrown out into the streets of Rameses. By now he has
world of food and love, adventure and fantasy, beer and sex,
reached the place from which there is no return. Just before,
rivers and streets, taverns and kitchens, laughter and mad­
he had lost his parents' photograph-upon which he had
ness, idiocy and euphoria-the "savage and completely inex­
fallen asleep and which for him represented family, native
plicable world, the best of impossible worlds," in which
country and hope of return-and although he does not open
Dickens lived. With a significant restriction, reality for Kafka
his mouth, we cannot forget the tragic intensity of his
is only the louche, the equivocal, the abject: the Dosto­
sorrow. He is alone, in the vastness of America. Then he
evskian "underground" where Brunelda, Delamarche and
loses his suitcase, so hated and loved, the symbol of his
Robinson perform like coarse ham actors. To discover this
expulsion and his journey; his jacket, which he leaves in the
underground, Kafka had no need to look very far from
hands of the Occidental Hotel's desk clerk; his money; the
himself, either in the crowd that went down the alleyways of
address of the Brenner rooming house, where the cook had
Prague or in the streets of his imaginary America; he carried
prepared a refuge for him; and the documents of which he
it within himself, because he, the purest spirit of his time,
was so proud, which he displayed with so much trust to the
was the Stranger-and the Stranger was also a parasite, like
ship's authorities, as though it were so terribly important to
the parasites in Jacob Gordin's Yiddish plays.
possess proof of one's own name. The situation in which he
At the time of The Trial, Kafka would have seen degraded
finds himself can be compared only to the terrifying scene
forms of the gods reflected in abasement. But in Amerika the
that shows David Copperfield fleeing down English roads,
underground did not yet have a metaphysical value. He
threatened by the horrible creatures of the abyss. But at the
could describe it without tremors and without anguish, with
end of his road, David has Betsey and Uncle Dick waiting for
an immense storytelling pleasure, an airiness of the hand that
him. Karl has nobody. With two of the most inspired
perhaps he never again found. Guided by the allied spirits of
omissions of his art, Kafka prevents us from knowing what
amusement and levity, he overcame all inner defenses and
II: III he feels in his heart when his uncle Jacob and the headwaiter
described America as a country that spends the night in the
at the hotel throw him out into the street. If we watch his
open air, at windows and on balconies, amid the sound of
face, we understand how much he has changed. There are no
phonographs, while in the street the electoral pantomime
longer the enthusiasms, outbursts, dreams, hopes and ten­
runs wild.
dernesses that made him so enchanting at the beginning of
The house of Brunelda, Delamarche and Robinson is the
the book. He is silent, and he bows his head before the
gigantic labyrinth-house Kafka had recently learned to love
irreparable. Naked, stripped, with an empty mind, an empty
in Dostoevsky. There are atriums, smaller and larger pas­
:'1
, heart, he contemplates reality w'ith petrified eyes and ob­
sageways, crowded and almost deserted courtyards, whole
I'I ' serves his degradation with sublime stoicism.
series of apartments; and the stairs, the terrible dark stairs
Iii Coming out of the Occidental Hotel with Karl, Kafka left
which at every landing widen and continue to climb without
behind him the reign of the Law, where we live only to be
apparently ever coming to a halt-symbol of the cloistral and
sentenced. No more fathers, or father substitutes; nor moth­
of the vertigo of the infinite. Instead of at the bottom of the
Ii ers, all victims of the paternal will. Now Karl lives in the lap
stairs, the underground is found at the top of the stairs: here
of reality, where he could have lost himself if he had fled with
and in The Trial the experience of the den-burrow becomes
the stoker on the riverboats or over the plains of America.
 ~
KAFKA Amerika
98 99
that of the attic. High up there, where one should experience soft body of the huge she-elephant whose head protrudes
openness and light, one is enclosed as in a prison. A curtain above the closets.
reaching down to the floor prevents the sun's rays from Up there, among the rooftops, in the enclosure of her
penetrating; closets and hanging clothes clutter the stifling, dusty den, protected by the lowered curtains, Brunelda
dusty room; unwashed dishes with remnants of food are carries out her erotic mission. She does not know the
piled up on the chairs; on the floor are burrows formed by excitement and fire of desire-but rather eros as enslavement,
clothes, blankets and drapes; under the sofa are balls of dust abasement, degradation. Delamarche waits on her like a
and women's hairs, big boxes and smaller ones; and from the servant, dresses her, cleans her, combs her, bathes her; he
i II drawers flows an irresistible lava of dead things--old novels, dominates her sexually and is supported by her. Her deserted
:·.''i1 bundles of sheet music, small medicine and ointment bottles, husband pays Robinson to obtain news about her; and he
I

powder puffs, jars of rouge, hairbrushes, curls, letters, would pay a lot of money just to be able to stand on the
needles, scraps and lint compacted like felt. balcony, from which he hopes to watch the couplings of
The queen of this lowest of spaces, dusty and shut in, this Delamarche and his wife. But degradation reaches its nadir
burrow built on the rooftops, is Brunelda. The name recalls in the figure of Robinson, who is a man transformed into a
Wagner. If we are to believe the legend told by Leporello­ dog and who loves to be treated like a dog; he lives stretched
Robinson, she was in the past a great opera singer, a lithe and out on the balcony, where he quarrels with the cats, is
beautiful woman completely dressed in white and with a summoned by a bell, beaten on the snout with a whip. Kafka
small red parasol; but we never hear her sing, and all that amuses himself, playing with his vertiginously profound
remains of this gilded legend are a cape, a few laces and a pair theme. Robinson is not a debased Dostoevskian character
of opera glasses with which one can inspect the street. In her pretending to live the life of the soul and weeping over his
attic, Brunelda is degraded. She wears a small bonnet over degradation; he is not a Kafkian animal, which finds again in
her unkempt hair, several skirts pulled on one over the other, its darkness a truth that man ignores; and his depravity is not
dirty yellowish underwear; and coarse thick white wool even like Block's, a path toward the sacred. In this part of the
stockings reach almost up to her knees and make her look novel there wafts the aroma and breath of comic opera: an
like a shepherdess. She no longer even resembles a human eighteenth-century atmosphere that will never again be
I
creature but a soft animal, swollen and fat, a seal or a she­ expressed in Kafka's books. Robinson is a Harlequin or
elephant, which from its lips extracts a heavy, red tongue. Leporello, lazy, foolish, idle, sentimental, boastful and meg­
During the day she lies stretched out on the sofa, sleeps or alomaniac, who tries to infect Karl with his canine physiol­
snoozes; at night she snores and is racked by bestial night­ ogy. There he is, on the balcony, stretched out like a dog,
mares. She ingurgitates sex like an animal or an enormous pas­ chattering on and on. He eats a piece of black sausage, hard
sive plant; and she will end up in a whorehouse, as a kind of as a rock, dips bread in a can of sardines which drips oil from
sacred prostitute. She's always hot, almost as if she were burnt all sides, and dries his hands on one of Brunelda's shawls;
by an erotic fire or incessant hysteria, and she must extin­ then he soaks the bread in the hollow of his hands full of oil,
guish it, continually bathing in a small washtub. Robinson, chews a mass of squashed and glued-together chocolate
gasping, carries up the water, Delamarche, surrounded creams, and talks again and again about Brunelda, would like
by a thousand splatters and splashes, washes and rubs the to touch her, lick her, see her copulate with Delamarche,
 r""'

100 KAFKA Amerika 101

munch on that fat seal or she-elephant flesh, as though coitus would like to know everything-the color of the sky, the
were only a prolongation of his canine meal. bright or stormy clouds, the position of his desk, the quality
Karl works as a servant in this aerial den, surrounded by of his writing paper, the furniture in the room, the number
the cat-Delamarche, the dog-Robinson and the seal-Brunelda, of nocturnal passersby-about those fourteen exceedingly
works scrupulously, as he always does everything; he is an dense days during which Kafka wrote three works so pro­
excellent servant, just as he was an excellent son and an foundly different from one another. Today almost all scholars
excellent nephew and an excellent elevator boy at the hotel. are of the opinion that Amerika, like The Trial and "In the
The preparation of breakfast at four in the afternoon-in the Penal Colony," was supposed to conclude with a condemna­
kitchen are piled up the tenants' still unwashed dishes, jugs tion. To me this seems impossible. I believe that during those
with a bit of coffee-milk and coffee, tiny dishes with dabs of fourteen days, dividing and lacerating himself within him­
butter, biscuits spilled from a tin, and Karl transforms these self, grandiosely proceeding through the realm of possibili­
disgusting leftovers into a presentable breakfast, cleaning the .' ties, transforming himself into a vortex of antitheses, Kafka
tray, pouring together the dregs of coffee and mil k, scraping kept open before him two opposed theological and narrative
up the pieces of butter, cleaning knives and spoons, trimming
,..
hypotheses. On the one hand, at the end of Amerika, the
I
I
the nibbled rolls-is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Then he jIivine world as grace, welcome, acceptance, refusal of the
sinks even lower: errand boy in the whorehouse, where he written Law; on the other, in The Trial and "In the Penal
'I takes Brunelda in a little cart, and perhaps handyman for a Colony," the divine world as the Law of the father, scripture
band of gangsters where he is called Negro, if Hartmut Bind­ and condemnation. No great artist was ever woven of a single
I er's hypothesis (unverifiable) is correct. Whatever happens to fabric; and no one more than Kafka was inhabited by the
him, his nature does not change. He lives in debasement, sinks tragic game of simultaneously trying out all the extreme
into debasement: without repugnance, one might say. And yet hypotheses, all the polar contradictions of the universe.
he is not even grazed by debasement; he slides untouched We do not know how long after his imprisonment in the
through the experiences that are imposed on him, preserving whorehouse Karl sees on the street corner a poster with the
the immaculate soul of his childhood. notice: "Today from six in the morning until midnight, at
At this point, or just before, at the end of January 19 1 3, the Clayton Hippodrome, job applications will be accepted for
Kafka stopped writing Amerika. For more than a year he the Oklahoma Theater! The great Oklahoma Theater calls
wrote nothing; then came his engagement to Felice Bauer, you! Calls you only today, and only once. Those who miss
the breaking off of the engagement and the beginning of The this opportunity, miss it forever. . . . Everyone is welcome!
Trial. He asked for a leave from the insurance institute from We are the Theater that serves everyone, everyone at his
October 5 to October 18, 1914. lie would begin writing after rightful place! We offer this welcome to those who decide in
dinner and stay at his desk until five or half past seven in the our favor! But hurry, so that you can be admitted before
morning, and when the first lights and first noises visited midnight! At midnight everything will be closed down,
him, he abandoned the sheets on which he had written a never to be opened again! Cursed be those who do not believe
chapter of The Trial or "In the Penal Colony" and the us!" With irony, Kafka concocted this poster in two diamet­
penultimate and then the last chapter of Amerika, which Max rically opposed languages. On the one hand, the advertising
Brod entitled "The Nature Theater of Oklahoma." We language of a Luna Park in Chicago, which he had found in
 ,..
102 KAFKA Amerika 10 3

a German book: "What formalities must one observe, before to declare himself. It welcomes all professions, and tries to
being admitted here? What papers, passports, legitimiza­ discover each man's true vocation and set him on the road to
tions, tax receipts, christening certificates, labor permits it. Whereas according to the Law "all, also the innocent, are
must one produce to be admitted? Why! Nothing at all!* guilty," according to the Theater all-also the guilty, or
Our astonished American answers .... Everyone's wel­ those who have no merits or lie or hide their real name, like
come.... No one has to show papers, have his name Karl-are welcome and are elected. On the hippodrome's
registered in a book, neither his true nor his false one. podiums, the Law of the Father-which continues to rage in
Everyone is welcome.... " On the other hand, in the style "The Penal Colony" and The Trial-no longer exists. Here
of the notice, we hear the evangelical parable of the ten grace speaks. As Matthew says: "Ask, and it shall be given
virgins who at midnight go to meet their bridegroom; and you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
that appeal to the Kingdom of God, that dramatic sense of unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth; and to him
imminence which vibrates in the words of Matthew and who knocketh it shall be opened" (7:7-8).
Mark. "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at As in the Gospels, Kafka seized upon a theological
hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15). "When wisdom both ancient and subtle. But with lightheartedness
you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the and enchanting gaiety, he played: shoved onto the stage
doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, parodistic and comical images in which the form is degraded
till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass and inadequate in respect to its symbolic content. He knew
away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:33­ no other way to compel transcendence to appear in the pages
5). The Kingdom of God has already come with the word of of a novel. The burlesque anticipation of the Kingdom of
Christ. The Gospels' voice summons everyone to the last roll Heaven takes place in the hippodrome. Hundreds of women
call, everyone, the innocent and the guilty; summons them at are dressed as angels in flowing white robes, loose hair flying
a moment defined in time, at this moment, because afterward and great wings on their shoulders. They seem gigantic
the summons will not be repeated. figures because they stand on pedestals, some over two
The Oklahoma Theater is not a simple theater, although meters high, which are hidden by the flowing robes that
it can mount grandiose performances, which even the pres­ flutter in the wind, so that the angels seem to have extremely
ident of the United States attends. The Oklahoma Theater is small heads and too short, almost absurd-looking hair. As in
one of those "prodigies," those "signs and miracles," which the Annunciation and the Last Judgment, as in the paintings
by now, the uncle says, exist only in America: a realized of Simone Martini and Melozzo da Forli, they blow into
utopia, a Theatrum mundi, as vast as the universe, not unlike gleaming golden trumpets, but nobody pays any attention to
the utopias with which old Goethe played in the Wanderjahre. the beauty of the choreography and the harmony of the song.
It can gather together all professions and human proclivities, The giant angels sound their trumpets all at the same time,
all men, since "the number of seats is unlimited": engineers, producing a confusing uproar: now they play louder, now
mechanics, European high school students, elevator boys and they fall silent; and the visitors can climb up on the pedestals,
even ex-whorehouse errand boys, if Karl had the courage grasp a golden trumpet and begin to playa song heard in
some tavern, without anyone's protesting. The hippodrome's
* "Why! Nothing at all!" appears in English in the original.-Trans. betting booths are changed. into the offices of the Kingdom of
 KAFKA Amerika )05
104

God; and the signs with the names of the winning horses as an angel, a girl, Fanny, whom he had met during a phase
proclaim the announcements of Election: "Shopkeeper Kalla of his adventures unknown to us; an office manager of the
with wife and child," "Negro, mechanic." theater reminds him of a professor at the German high school
As had happened to Christ's message nineteen centuries where he was a pupil; and while at the table of the elect he
before, the notice of the Oklahoma Theater-that urgent, again runs into Giacomo, the elevator boy he knew at the
definiti\'e summons which ends at midnight-is understood Occidental I Iotel.
by only a few. It does not mention pay; and how could it In its selection of personnel, the Theater seems to follow
speak of this when it offered nothing less than salvation? Few the same procedure as the offices, organizations, institutions
believe the word's of the Annunciation, and those few are and factories that form the painful fabric of human history. It
once again the "indigent and suspect," the earth's derelicts, requires "identity papers." Karl has lost his passport at the
the homeless people without a country, those to whom the Occidental f Iotel, and also his very name, by sinking into
Oklahoma Theater addresses itself, just as the Gospel once depravity. Now his name is Negro. So when he declares that
addressed them. Karl accepts immediately, without doubts he has no documents, the Theater's office manager, just like
or second thoughts. His journey to America has meant, for any other bureaucrat on earth, says to him that "this is an
him, the progressive loss of illusions; he lost many of them incomprehensible negligence." But here the new Gospel of
when he left the stoker, others yet when he was thrown out the Theater shows up. Just as the office manager is about to
by his uncle, still others when he was discharged by the ask Karl the most important questions, his underling-the
Occidental Hotel and then, after being the servant of two scribe--quickly states that Karl is hired. Immediately after
parasites, descended into a whorehouse. But hidden under that, the same thing is repeated. When the office manager
disappointment and ashes, his childlike soul is not dead: still asks him his name, Karl is ashamed to announce his real
ready to believe, to delude itself, to devote itself completely name, and so he gives his false name: "Negro." The office
to something or someone. So when he reads the poster, he manager understands that this is a false name; he would
feels forgiven, loved, welcomed with open arms. "For Karl prefer not to put this name in his register and hire Karl, but
... there was in the notice something that strongly attracted the scribe writes "Negro" and informs him for the second
him." "Everyone is welcome!" it read. Everyone, therefore time that he has been hired by the Oklahoma Theater. The
also Karl. All that he had done up until now was forgotten, written Law-the Law of the Father, of documents, of name
no one would reproach him any longer. I Ie was given the and sentence-has been affirmed for an instant, only to be
chance to do work that was not shameful, for which in fact torn up publicly. In the Oklahoma Theater it is the oral law
one could be summoned publicly! ... Even if the bombastic that triumphs, in accordance with which, despite sins and
words in the notice were a lie, even if the great Oklahoma lies, "jeder ist willkommen," "everyone is welcome." While this
Theater was a small traveling circus, the fact that it wanted reversal takes place in the hippodrome, we witness another of
to summon people was enough for him. He did not read no less importance. The authorities are overturned. The
the notice a second time but fastened on the sentence: office manager is derided; the scribe, his underling-who,
"Everyone is welcome!" I Ie enters the hippodrome's circle, ironically, tears up the written law--decides in his stead. As
and his past-which with so much distress he was forced to in the Gospels, the Last have become the First.
give up-returns. In a few minutes he again sees, disguised On the hippodrome's tribune is set up a long table
 ~
106 KAFKA Amerika 10 7

covered with a white cloth. The elect dine: servants bring in that pomp, that gloom, capable of wiping out everything that
big chickens, such as Karl had never seen, with many forks Karl seems to have attained?
stuck into the roasted, crackling meat, and pour red wine into We do not know how the book-which is interrupted in
the glasses. All the elect are merry and excited, many stand the middle of a journey that seems serene, among high
up, glass in hand; one toasts the leader of the tenth recruiting mountains, dark and jagged valleys, broad streams which
company, whom he calls "the father of the unemployed." make one shiver with their fresh, cold breath-was supposed
But the heads of the Theater take no notice, perhaps they do to end. Should we trust Brod, who said: "With enigmatic
not wish to notice the toast of the poor people, the humble words Kafka smilingly hinted that 'in the almost limitless
elect in the Kingdom of God, who are here consuming their theater' his young hero would, as by a paradisial enchant­
first feast in the land of Cockaigne. Karl sits down last at the ment, find again a profession, freedom, support-and even
banquet, the last of the last; perhaps, therefore, the first of his native country and parents"? For some time the hypoth­
the first, as Luke says: "And they shall come from the east, esis of the Oklahoma Theater still occupied Kafka's mind.
and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, Then he reached the conclusion that, for his most beloved
and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, boy, diligent and scrupulous as in the school primers, there
there are last which shall be first, and there are first which was no hope of salvation-and if there wasn't any for Karl, so
shall be last" (13:29-30). Pictures of the Oklahoma Theater much the less would there be for him. He imagined that
are handed around among the people dining. No one looks at Grace would be changed back into the Law; and that
them. Into Karl's hands comes the picture that depicts the someone, in the Theater, or the Theater's entire prodigious
immense box of the president of the United States. Its machine, would prepare some horrible deception. Almost a
parapet of solid gold is broad and grandiose; between the year later, on September 30, 1915, he wrote in his Diaries the
columns are set medallions bearing portraits of past presi­ famous passage in which Karl Rossmann, the innocent, is
dents ranged in a series. Toward the box, from the sides and condemned to death like Joseph K., although "with a gentler
above, descend beams of soft white light which completely hand, more pushed aside than struck down." The innocent
disclose its front section; red velvet curtains, whose color too must be sacrificed to the wrathful god to whom Kafka
changes with the movement of their folds, fall over the had consecrated his art.
parapet; and the back of the box looks "like an empty, dark
:" space aglitter with feeble red reflections." As Karl gazes at
these colored images, we have reached the culmination of the With "The Judgment," "The Metamorphosis" and above all
novel. The president of the United States is not to be seen. Amerika, Kafka elaborated and fixed once and for all his
God, or whatever we wish to call the Prime Principle of this narrative method, which rests on a few very simple princi­
world of grace and election, does not appear. High up there, ples. The first of these principles, as everyone has observed,
an empty, dark space remains: his darkness, his absence. Did is the almost complete death of the figure of the Narrator:
perhaps Karl, the last of the last, having reached Oklahoma, this great Ego, who in the novel of every epoch exhibits his
have the ultimate revelation? Or would the box remain fabulistic and histrionic qualities, insists on his exclusive
forever empty? Or would some obscure menace come from relationship with the public, chatters volubly and comments
 r
KAFKA Amerika 10 9
108
on events, knows all occurrences, past, present and future, obscure tangle of events, woven by men and gods, becomes
and penetrates without resistance into the characters' souls. an Enigma-which we cannot illuminate, so long as we are
In place of the ~ arrator there is an immense void, and we unable to coincide with the books' living complexity. When,
still perceive the anguish that this death has created in the at the beginning of The Trial, we read: "Someone must have
world. With "The Judgment," Kafka began to narrate events slandered Joseph K., for without having done anything
from the viewpoint of a single character: Georg Bendemann, wrong, one morning he was arrested," we ask ourselves:
Gregor Samsa, Joseph K., K. and the animal without a name "Who is speaking? Who is telling us that Joseph K. did
in "The Burrow." As Martin Walser has recognized, this nothing wrong?" At first sight, it can be only the Narrator,
carries with it a narrative impoverishment that Kafka chose who establishes an incontrovertible fact by the authority of
deliberately. With a single gesture he condemned all those his voice. In reality, it is not the Narrator who is speaking:
I I, marvelous narrative games that a novelist obtains by bringing Joseph K. is thinking, through a Narrator's voice, and a naive
I together the figure of the Narrator and the viewpoints of reader will find it hard to understand that he is not at all
I ) many characters, one of whom often speaks through the innocent. Kafka therefore is not satisfied to omit what the
I voice of another: alternating omnipresence and absence, character does not know, but intentionally deceives us,
!

omniscience and ignorance, vision and omission, light and putting us on the wrong track. The art of trickery, which he
darkness. Kafka did not seek multiplicity but concentration, knew as did few others, contributes to the Enigma.
clausure, suffocation, stylistic compactness-all of which the We imagine that, in Kafka's books, the character is
I
I,
characters' viewpoint guaranteed for him. Occasionally, time speaking in the first person. Is it not perhaps an "I" that
i colors the story with its own eyes, its own knowledge and
passes more swiftly: Kafka condenses in one chapter (a
"summary") what happens in three months, or a character experiences? But, if we look for it among the great stories,
recounts his mother's death or the vicissitudes of a family the "I" comes to meet us only in two instances: "Investiga­
excluded from the life of the village. But this happens rarely. tions of a Dog" and "The Burrow," two stories of his last
Like Tolstoy, but for opposite reasons, Kafka did not like years. As for the novels, they are all written in the third
foreshortened or reiterated time; he accumulated direct person: after a few days of writing, the "I" of The Castle was
scenes, in the present, which the character-narrator experi­ changed into a "he." Only in "The Metamorphosis" is this
II

ences minute by minute. "he" colored by a sort of affectionate familiarity with the
In some modern novels, the character-narrator possesses character. Beginning with The Trial, Kafka adopted the
the same knowledge as the Narrator and helps us inter­ paradoxical condition of totally accepting the character's
pret the confused and manifold tangle of events. Kafka's viewpoint-but at the same time, he inserted a glass wall
character-narrator never orients us: he knows only what he between himself and Joseph K. and K., transforming that
sees; he does not know what happens in other places, does "I-he" into something radically extraneous. This condition
not know the thoughts and intentions of the other characters, becomes even more paradoxical because of yet another fact.
leaves certain capital events in the dark, dwells on minor If one supposes that Kafka is narrating in accordance with the
ones, or, simply, does not understand what is happening. We, viewpoint of Gregor Samsa, Karl Rossmann and Joseph K.,
who are reading, entrusted to a guide so uncertain and so it should follow from this that we know all their thoughts and
little worthy of faith, understand less than he does. A most feelings, as though a mirror were following their conscious­
 1J"""

110 KAFKA

ness at every instant. Instead, Kafka systematically has CHAPTER FIVE

recourse to restriction of the field. When he is supposed to
tell the capital events in Gregor's or Karl's life-how they
react to metamorphosis into an animal or to being thrown out
by the uncle or by the Occidental Hotel-he says nothing.
An impenetrable silence descends on the page. The more
tragic events are, the stronger becomes the reticence and 19 1 3- 1 9 1 4
omission: every time another writer would pour out with
abundance, he offers us the frightening absence of the void.
Without the help of the Narrator, without interpreta­
tions, subjected to omissions, absences, tricks, reticences and
restrictions of the field, we journey through Kafka's great
books as we would through the very body of Enigma. When
shall we ever be able to understand? \Vhen shall we be able
to choose among the thousand contradictory opinions? When
shall we be able to know the truth without shadows? A final
paradox decrees that Kafka's books are among literature's
least difficult. There is nothing subjective, arbitrary or doubt­
I n his masterpiece Stages on Life's Way, Kierkegaard wrote a
page that perhaps Kafka never read: "Should a soldier on
the frontier be married? At the frontier of the spirit can he
ful in them: Amerika is not the truth according to Karl, or The marry when day and night he struggles at the advance posts
Trial the truth according to Joseph K. Dickens is hard to un­ not against Tartars and Scythians but against the savage
derstand, not Kafka. We have only to keep in mind all the hordes of an essential melancholy? Can he get married at this
events and characters of Amerika or The Trial or The Castle; advanced post? Even though he does not fight day and night
establish a living relationship among them, a plot without end and enjoys long enough respites, he never knows when the
among all the words Kafka has left on paper. Only this is war will start again because he cannot mistake this lull for an
need<.:d: an art of patience. If all the threads are really pulled armistice. "
tight, the truth of Amerika or The Trial or The Castle-a truth Kafka too was a soldier on the desolate frontiers of the
that stands far above or lies much deeper than Karl, Joseph K., spirit: he too struggled with attacks of melancholy, the
K. and Kafka-will burst forth by itself, dazzlingly. temptations of nothingness, the anguish of the possible and
unthinkable; and like Kierkegaard, he thought that marriage
was "the magnificent central point of life and existence," the
"fullness of time," something totally divine and totally
human. He could not bear solitude. Alone, he feared he
would not be able to endure the assaults of his life, the traps
of time and age, the vague impulse of a desire to write,
insomnia, the proximity of madness. I-Ie wanted to get
married, to enter the longed-for land of Canaan. During
 r
1 12 KAFKA
19 13- 19 14 IIJ
those first months of 19 IJ, the thought of marriage assailed
certainly not negligible loss, you would acquire a sick, weak,
him and greatly upset him, forcing him into contradictions,
not very sociable, taciturn, sad, rigid, almost desperate man,
which nevertheless always led him to the same conclusion.
whose single virtue perhaps consists in loving you." Then he
He thought up always new objections to his marriage­
would express his repugnance, which lurked in his dark
always more arduous, difficult and unendurable-and he
animal's abyss: "I am greedy for solitude, the idea of a
ended by hoping that marriage would descend on him as a
wedding trip horrifies me, all couples on their honeymoon,
celestial grace. He insisted that for Felice and for him there
whether I relate to them or not, seem repugnant to me, and
was no future; they must leave each other: "That would
when I want to feel nauseated, 1 have only to imagine putting
absolutely be the right solution. What I will suffer, what she
an arm around a woman's thighs." A bond as tight as
will suffer-is not comparable to the common suffering that
marriage would have ended by dissolving his vague and
would result from marriage." But when Felice spoke of
nebulous form in the air. Literature rebelled against conjugal
marriage, he dared not resist, even though his love was
life; and it seemed to him that marriage was a region
suffocated by anguish. He would have liked to tie his right
completely covered by his father's gigantic body, or an aim
wrist indissolubly to Felice's left wrist. He knew that in this
too high for him-the prisoner, the outcast-to be able to
way, as he had read in a book about the French Revolution,
aspire to. He loved Felice with the boundless force of
they would have gone together all the way to the scaffold,
imagination, anguish and a sense of guilt; for her he had
but he preferred this scaffold-marriage to the absence of
created an altar in his soul-and precisely because of this he
marriage. Whatever his objections and reactions might be,
feared that by marrying her he would violate "a command of
the conclusion was the same. If he did not marry Felice, he
heaven," a sexual-religious taboo erected by someone, per­
would be ruined. "If we shall not be together soon, my love
haps the ancient shadow of incest. "I have the precise
for you, which does not tolerate the vicinity of any other
sensation that 1 am going to ruin with this marriage, with this
thought in my mind, turns toward an idea, toward a spirit,
bond, with the dissolution of this nothing that 1 am, and not
toward something absolutely unreachable, without which I
only 1 but also my wife, and the more 1 love her all the more
cannot absolutely ever be-and this thought could tear me
swiftly and dreadfully will it happen. Now you tell me, what
out of this world." Marriage with her was death-but the
should we do?"
only death that forced him to remain on this earth.
Then, once more, his resistances were swept away. He
Sometimes his anguished thoughts took another path.
decided to marry Felice. He was not marrying her for love,
He thought about Felice, what she would lose by marrying
even though he loved her very much; he was marrying her
him: "I would lose my loneliness which is for the most
out of obligation to the sacred idea of matrimony-like "the
part frightening and acquire you, whom I love above all crea­
I· soldier at the frontier," who has come home on a brief
tures. You, instead, would lose the life you've led till now,
furlough-out of duty toward her, toward himself, toward
with which you were almost completely satisfied, would
the torture he had imposed on himself and imposed on her.
lose Berlin, an office you like, your girl friends, your small
It was a tragic choice, formulated on the brink of suicide,
amusements, the hope of marrying a healthy, cheerful, good
where a thread separated total happiness from total misery.
man, of having beautiful, healthy children whom, if you
On August 14, he wrote in his Diaries: "Coitus as punishment
think about it, you ardently desire. In exchange for this
for the happiness of being together. To live possibly as an
 r
114 KAFKA 19 1]-19 14 I 15

ascetic, more ascetic than a bachelor, this for me is the only spinster with maternal feelings, who, I do not exactly know
possible way to endure marriage. But what about her?" So, why, would be big and robust"; instead, coming to meet him
rigid, mechanical, linear, in the letters that reached Berlin he saw a young girl, delicate, a bit frail. He felt sorry for her.
terrorizing Felice, he began to plan an ascetic, monastic "In some way it is also true that I feel sorry for all young
marriage. With an exasperation that seemed meant to destroy girls.... I still haven't figured out where this pity comes
the longed-for life in common, he depicted their menage. from. Perhaps I pity them because of the transformation into
The husband would return from the office at half past two or womanhood that they must undergo." With Grete, the
three; would eat, lie- down, sleep until seven or eight, hastily epistolary magic of the previous year was reborn: Kafka
eat something, go for an hour's walk, sit down to write and began to confide on paper; he talked about Felice, told stories
remain at his desk until two at night or dawn. "Would you be about Felice-but meanwhile he asked the usual tender
able to put up with such a life? Knowing nothing about your questions: "Have you already gotten a good place to stay?"
husband save that he is in his room writing? And spend fall He told her his dreams, enVeloped her in his exquisite
and winter in this way? And around about spring welcome gallantry, asked her to send him photographs, wanted to
him half dead on the study's threshold, and watch him meet her alone. He needed the tenderness that Grete gave
through spring and summer as he tries to regain his health for him: not even a spark reached him from the absent Berlin
the fall? Is such a life possible? Perhaps, perhaps it is even fire; above all, he needed to pour over her the stream of
possible, but you must think it over down to the last shadow tenderness that remained, dissatisfied, unexhausted, unused,
of a doubt." His wife would lead a cloistered life. Cut off in his heart.
from parents and relatives, deprived of all contacts, with the Grete soon developed scruples: it seemed to her that she
door of the house closed even to the best of friends, she was betraying her friend by carrying on such an intimate
would spend only one hour of the day "at the side of a vexed, correspondence with her fiance; she tried to break it off and
sad, taciturn, discontented, sickly man ... tied with invisible get her letters back. Perhaps she had fallen in love with
chains to an invisible literature." During that hour they Kafka. Kafka wouldn't let her break it off: "You have al­
would not converse, because he detested the wastefulness ready tried often enough to free yourself from the noose,
and futility of conversation; they would remain mute, in which however is not really a noose, but only ... well, in
silence, fascinated by their obscure magnetic affinity, like any case, I will try to hold tight to this noose with tooth and
Ottilie and Eduard in elective Affinities, and would commu­ nail, if you should try to untie it. But this is unthinkable.
nicate only with little notes, as now between Prague and And what about the letters? Obviously you can do as you
Berlin. wish with those in the past (not those in the future!), but why
During the last month of 1913, the tension between don't you want to leave them in my hands? Why introduce
Kafka and Felice became so violent that it led them to put even the slightest change?" He proposed that they go to
some distance between each other. Felice had the idea of Berlin together for his official engagement to Felice; as they
sending a friend of hers from Vienna, Grete Bloch, to sat facing each other in the same compartment she would tell
Prague, with the mission of "mediator"; and like all Kafkian him something amusing, and he would nod and shake his
mediators, she managed to complicate the situation she was head, squeezing her hand tightly as a sign of acceptance.
supposed to simplify. Kafka expected a "rather middle-aged When he and Felice would for the first time enter the house
 r
19 13- 19 14
116 KAFKA "7
they would share, she must be there to bless them, and even during the spring and summer to the point of deafening his
spend together with them the first period of their married ears. All his debates about marriage and asceticism, with
life. Despite the vulgarity of the formula, Kafka was thinking which he had made Felice and himself suffer, now seemed
of a sort of mariage Ii trois. His relationship with Felice utter nonsense.
remained unshakable and symbolic as before. A soldier at the Having abolished the clamor of reason, he lived in silence
frontier, grappling with Tartars and melancholy, was trying and mental quiet. He wanted to marry Felice simply because
to enter the land of Canaan through her; no Grete would lead he loved her, even if she felt for him nothing more than
him there, but the fragrance of affection and gallantry, with "a very tepid affection." He accepted her as she was, with
which he had in the past surrounded Felice, had become what there was in her of the good and not so good, with
exhausted and arid. His delicate soul needed it and had found her bourgeois common sense, aridity, pedantry, calculating
it with that modest Viennese typist. Thus, at the feet of this spirit, inability to understand him. When Felice asked
great, austere matrimony that would consecrate him as a man whether she would find in him "the support that she
of the community would be born this small, tender matri­ absolutely needed," with the purest impulse he answered: "If
mony, nourished by the soul's superficial emotions. you ask me now, I can say only: I love you, F., to the
i\leanwhile, under that mild influence, his tragic and exhaustion of all my strength, on this you can trust me
austere moralism seemed to thaw out a bit. Writing to Felice, completely. But for the rest, F., I do not know myself well
with intense words he condemned Friedrich Hebbel, the enough. I suffer surprises and disappointments in an inter­
men of "conscience," and rational control over one's actions. minable series. These surprises and disappointments will
"No aspect of his character is nuanced, he does not trem­ continue, I believe, only for me; I shall employ all my
ble.... Whenever he speaks of something he's done, he can energies so that only the good, the best surprises of my
always begin with the words: 'If a tranquil conscience is the nature will reach you; this I can guarantee; I cannot,
test of action ... ' How far I am from such men! If I wanted however, guarantee that I shall always succeed .... To your
to make this test of consciousness even only once, I should last question, whether it is possible for me to take you as
have to spend all of life contemplating the oscillations of this though nothing had happened, I can only answer that it is
conscience. So I prefer to detach myself. I don't want to hear not possible for me. But it is possible and even necessary for
about controls .... " He now rejected active analytical ob­ me to take you together with all that has happened and keep
servation of oneself: the habit of continually checking one's you to the point of madness." He dreamt he was going to
existence, attributing one emotion to this motive, a second visit her in Berlin. He arrived in Berlin and stopped at a
emotion to that motive, judging the circumstances that pension where there were only Polish Jews. He searched for
are at play at every moment. The self-analytical life-he a street map of the city to find Felice's house. But he could
observed-leads to an artificial existence, where every feeling not find one. One day, in the hands of one of the boarders he
aims at a goal and makes one forget all the rest; whereas true saw a book resembling a map; when he had it in his hand, he
life is the life of him who surrenders himself, spontaneously, realized that it contained a list of Berlin schools, tax statistics
passively, without checking on himself, without judging, or something of the sort. Then one morning he set out on
without acting. So he violently condemned all the psycho­ foot toward her house, with a feeling of calm and happiness
logical "constructions" that had passed through his mind and the certainty of arriving there. The streets followed one
 T"
1I8 KAFKA 191.~-1914 119

after the other; a white house displayed the sign TilE SUMP­ committed elsewhere, here one wants to live and just barely
TUOUS HALLS OF TilE NORTII. He questioned an old, amiable manages." On May 1 Felice came to Prague and took an
policeman with a red nose; he received useful advice about apartment on the Langengasse: "three rooms, sun in the
trams, the subway, and was even directed to the railing morning, in the center of town, gas, electric light, a room for
around a small grassy carpet in the distance, to which he the maid, a room for working, 1 ,Joo kronen." He didn't like
could hold on for greater safety. He asked: "It'll be half an the apartment: it was hemmed in by buildings, the street was
hour away, won't it?" In the dream the old man answered: "I noisy, no greenery was visible from the window. And he
get there in six minutes." What joy! As he walked toward liked the furniture bought in Berlin even less: heavy pieces,
Felice's house, someone-a friend, a shadow, he couldn't say too solid, mausoleums, funerary monuments to a clerk's
who it was-accompanied his every step. life-which oppressed his soul. "If during our visit in the rear
Kafka never reached that house on the Immanuel Kirch­ of the furniture warehouse we had heard the toll of a funeral
strasse. For a few days he thought he had arrived there, and bell, nothing would have been more appropriate." That
set foot in it; and then he realized that the street map had apartment was not made for him; it was just right for satiated
given him the wrong directions. On April 12 and 13, the people, for whom marriage was merely "the last big thick
ceremony of the unofficial engagement took place in Berlin. mouthful," whereas he had not founded any businesses, he
During the ceremony Kafka and Felice were never alone; he did not need a definitive residence: he wanted only a less
wasn't even able to kiss her; he had the impression of substantial house. He had labored so much, had worn
performing the comedy of a matrimony without the matri­ himself out, exhausted himself and had not attained his
mony, to amuse the others. He suffered horribly because of ultimate dream. "Up to now," he wrote to Grete, "I've
1: 1

this-and yet he wrote that never in all his life had he done obtained everything I wanted, but not right away, never
"anything so good and absolutely necessary." The Berliner without being sidetracked, indeed for the most part on the
Tageblatt published an announcement of the forthcoming way back, always with the last effort, and, so far as it is
marriage. The announcement upset him: the invitation to the possible to judge, almost at the last instant. Not too late, but
reception gave him the impression it had said that on almost too late, it was always at the heart's last beat. And I
"
Pentecost Sunday Franz Kafka would execute a descent on have never completely attained what I wanted. . . . "
the slide at the vaudeville theater-but their two names, On May 30, at half past ten in the evening, he arrived in
Franz and Felice, went well together. He could no longer Berlin for the official engagement, accompanied by his
bear the separation: "When one kisses from afar, one falls father, instead of the tender, loving Grete. He was ill or
with one's well-intentioned kiss into darkness and the absurd imagined he was. "My baggage will consist of insomnia,
instead of touching the dear distant mouth." heaviness in the stomach, twinges in the head, pains in my
He began to look for an apartment in Prague. On April 28 left foot." Then came the ceremony, at the Hotel Askani­
he saw one in the center of the city, one of those houses one scher Hof: Felice wore a very beautiful sky-blue dress and
inhabits in anxiety-laden dreams: the stairs full of smells, gave him the engagement kiss-but he felt in prison, shackled
crying children, bedbugs waiting in their holes for the night. like a criminal. "If with real chains they had put me in a
"Here-the house seemed to say-one doesn't work, one corner with gendarmes beside me and had allowed the others
works elsewhere, here no sins are committed, they are to look at me just like that, it could not have been worse." His
120 KAFKA lYJ- 19 14 121

doubts multiplied as soon as he arrived in Prague: it seemed In fact reinforced the cha-ge. The letter sent to Felice's
to him that his marriage was a lopsided edifice that would parents seemed to him "an lllocution from the scaffold." He
soon collapse, in its fall tearing out also its foundations. At returned to his hotel, visittd her parents, in the evening sat
night he slept barely two or three hours; and in the morning, under the linden trees, ate a a restaurant with Felice's sister,
as he lay exhausted on his bed, the strokes from the clock went to the swimming sch~ol on the banks of the Strahlau,
tower punctually reminded him that time passes and that traveled to Lubeck, Travtmunde and Marienlyst, like an
after the appalling night comes the appalling morning. He automaton repeating a lessen learned by heart. In his diary,
tried to cheer himself up by taking swimming lessons, doing he was silent about the houghts that during those days
calisthenics and drinking sour milk in a milk bar. In the crowded his mind. He reco'ded only the external gestures of
evening he went to Chotek Park, like the old married couples life: "A man drinking wine observes me as I'm trying to cut
who sat there at dusk, enjoying the carpet of grass, watching a small unripe peach with my knife. I couldn't manage it.
the sparrows and admiring the children's magnificent clamor; Ashamed under the man's tyes, I give up the peach and leaf
and he would write a letter to Grete. Writing to her soothed ten times through the Fliegetde Blatter. I'm waiting for him to
him, but then anguish attacked him again. It seemed to him decide to look somewhere dse. Finally I gather courage and
that all the sufferings of his existence were only mirages, despite him bite into the juiceless, expensive peach." At
behind which there awaited him the true core of his truest Marienlyst he went back to eating meat; until then he was
misfortune, which he did not yet know directly, but only nauseated by it: in the mcrning in bed, after having slept
through its threats. Seeking comfort he opened the Bible and badly with his mouth open, he felt his body "profaned and
came upon these words: "Because in His hand is that which punished like some extranems filth." Now that he had given
lies beneath the earth and His are also the summits of up Felice, from whose lays he had defended himself by
heaven." But they seemed to him words almost devoid of alimentary asceticism, he hai also given up the prohibition of
eating meat.
meanIng.
On J uly 12 there was another meeting in Berlin, with At the end ofJuly, he relurned to Prague, and took rooms
Felice, her sister, Grete and Ernst Weiss. When Kafka In the Bilekgasse, later in the Nerudagasse, in his sister's
reported the scene in his Diaries, he recorded only irrelevant empty house. In the begiming he regretted what hadn't
happened: marriage, Felict's embrace, his silent entrance
details: Felice running her hands through her hair, cleaning
into the unattainable land oj Canaan. Surrounding him there
her nose with her hand and yawning. That day, moved by
was perfect solitude: returnng home he thought "no desired
jealousy or sorry for having advised the marriage, Grete
wife" opened the door to hin. He had suffered deeply; and
played the role of accuser: from the letters Kafka had written
it seemed to him that sleep, nemory, the ability to think, the
to her she read certain passages underlined in red. Felice
strength to resist worries rod been incurably weakened in
delivered the prosecution's charge. Kafka said nothing, or
mumbled insignificant words. He had nothing to say. He him, almost as though he hailived for many years in prison.
had understood that all was lost and that the court judging But soon he began to live vithout thinking about Felice, as
him was only appearance. The true court was he, Franz though nothing had ever halpened between them and he had
Kafka; and he performed all of its roles-public prosecutor, never met the person who "lad come closer to him than any
chief judge, the court, the accused, the defense attorney who other person." He lived under constant, tragic tension. When
 r
122 KAFKA 19 13- 19 14 12 3

he thought about himself, it seemed to him he was the solitude cured him of past misfortunes; gave him strength and
bedbug he had just squashed against the wall: he was the again pushed him out among men, to converse with them. But
tortured bedbug and the contorted hand that had pressed and perhaps he was only driven by both misfortune and solitude.
held the bedbug; he shifted his gaze back and forth between And it seemed to him that his life was like the Kalda railroad
insect and hand, merging in himself the figures of tortured project: an ambitious project that someone, who knows who,
and torturer. What immense energies he wasted in these had drawn up a long time before and which had remained only
cruel exercises! But meanwhile, there he was, squashed, half finished, an abandoned and useless ruin.
upright against the wall, maintained there with superhuman Toward the middle of August, he began to write The
strength without dropping to the floor. He felt like an empty Trial-under the sign of the "tremendous Strindberg," re­
vase, still whole and already surrounded by its shards, or calling his "rage, his pages won by fighting with his fists." He
already a shard and still among the vases. It seemed to him was thinking about the end of 1912, when he had burrowed
that he had been wrong in everything. His ability to describe into the work like a rat and had felt completely secure; and an
his own "dreaming inner life" had atrophied and would impetuous novel, a great symbolic tale, an immense corre­
continue to atrophy for all the rest of his existence: the ability spondence had sprung up from his imagination's elan. Now
to live, think, love, travel, listen to music. And now, per­ he was colder. But now too his empty, mad, bachelor's life
haps, also his literary gift-his Archimedean point-had disclosed a reason and a justification. He was no longer
disappeared. He was finished as a writer. staring into darkness and an absolute void. He was no longer
He lived absolutely alone, somewhat disturbed by the a ghost or a bat fluttering around the writing desk. After two
chatter of his neighbors, strange noises and rumbles over his years, he had again found the succor of writing; and he hoped
head, and by whistles that every now and then broke the that literature would impart reality, wholeness and freedom
silence. He loved to walk in Chotek Park, looking at the to his destiny. Tense, febrile but extremely lucid as he was,
leaves on the trees and listening, partly abstracted and partly it seemed to him that in those months his "battle for
amazed, to the twitter and warble of the birds. His was a self-preservation" was beginning. He was approaching the
crazy life, a bachelor's life. "I withdraw from men into my theme he bore locked in his body and mind and had not yet
den not because I want to live a quiet life, but because I expressed with words. For almost six months he was unable
want to perish quietly." It seemed to him he was a stone, to stop. He wrote until late at night, sometimes until the
unable to think, observe, remember, talk, have experiences morning, as long as his strength-which already seemed to
together with others; or a stake stuck into the ground, in a him enfeebled and corroded-permitted it. He spent seven,
profoundly chopped-up field on a dark winter night; or a ghost eight, ten hours tied to his desk. Often he wrote almost in a
that fluttered around his desk. He vacillated, flying without state of unconsciousness: "enraptured," "completely enrap­
pause toward a mountain peak, and arrived up there, in the tured" by the continuous and desperate effort of writing
place of vertigo, fell and got up again, collapsed and again which carried him away like a current of water. He had
began to climb, suffering at every instant death's eternal tor­ found his tone: a long, monotonous modulation, a stifled
ture. He was writing in the desert, in the provisory, without lament, a slow loss of blood, a fastidious chinoiserie, without
earth, without roots, suspended like the Kalda railway clerk in ever permitting his voice to vibrate, or an image to disturb its
his wooden hut besieged by rats. If we are to believe this story, marvelous uniformity. As he wrote, he descended ever deeper
 12 4 KAFKA
r 1913- 19 14 12 5
i
into the depths; he dug down and down-which for him was silken sheen, brandishing the sword horizontally in his hand.
the only way to fly with firm, secure wings around the unat­ "So then, an angel," he thought. "He has been flying toward
tainable mountaintops. On November I, he sensed certain me all day long and I, skeptic that I am, did not know it.
"subtle obstacles" that he had to shatter in order to proceed; Now he will speak to me." When he lowered his eyes, the
then he had the impression that he had reached the "final ceiling had closed up again, and the angel hovering in midair
limit," where he would perhaps be halted for years, "perhaps was only a figurehead of painted wood from a ship's prow,
then to begin a new story which will again end by remaining whose sword hilt served as a chandelier, like those one sees
unfinished." In January 1915 he stopped definitively. on the ceilings of sailors' taverns. What an ironic transcen­
Some months before, at the end ofJune, he had entrusted dence, what a delusive apparition! No one had descended to
to the Diaries a story two pages long. The protagonist was, earth to free him. Night had fallen. The light bulb was
like himself, a bachelor, who from morning to night paced ripped out. The bachelor, not wanting to remain in the dark,
about in a room, surveying the walls with his eyes, following climbed up on a chair, stuck a candle into the sword's hilt and
II down to its final ramifications the design of the wallpaper and lit it. Thus he spent the entire night "beneath the angel's
its traces of old age. Why did he stare so? What was he tenuous light." What did it matter that the angel was only a
staring at with such intensity? Did he perhaps want to ship's figurehead and the transcendence delusive? The candle
produce a laceration, an opening in the ceiling? One evening, stuck into the hilt cast the same gentle, tranquil light that the
for the first time, seated on the windowsill, he looked at the gods bring to men when they descend to free them.
room, pacified. At that instant, the ceiling began to move: Kafka did not imagine that The Trial would plunge into
from its borders, around which ran a light plaster molding, his room like the tavern's figurehead-angel. During the years
small pieces of plaster broke off and fell to the floor with of his youth, he had been indifferent to the gods, or their
sharp taps. Soon the cracks widened. The center of the names concealed literary games. Suddenly, at the end of
ceiling began to emanate a radiant white, above the puny 1912, he was assailed by his Oedipus complex, whose import
light bulb: farther to one side a bluish purple blended in, and and implications he did not know. In Amerika, this complex
the color or perhaps the light continually spread toward the assumed on three occasions the forms of temptation, sin and
border, which grew darker. Golden yellow colors crept into Adam's condemnation in the earthly paradise. But Amerika is
the purple. It wasn't only a color: it seemed that behind the still not a book inhabited by God. During the months from
ceiling objects hovered and tried to burst through it, and September 1912 to August 1914 the Oedipus complex settled
soon an arm stretched out, a silver sword rose and fell. in the depths of Kafka's mind and conscience; it expanded,
The bachelor knew he had not prepared this apparition: a became more complicated, accepted succor from all parts of
nameless reality was descending into the room and soon the soul and culture, until it was transformed into the most
would free him from the chains of everyday life. He leaped grandiose and complex theological system in the modern
onto the table, ripped out the light bulb and flung it on the world. He did not know that he carried it within himself, just
floor, pushed the table against the wall. At that moment, the as the bachelor did not know that someone was hiding in his
ceiling opened up. From a great height, into the semidark­ room. Thus God descended into his life, suddenly, without
ness, an angel dressed in a bluish-purple robe girt by thick warning, like the angel with the large white wings and the
gold cords slowly descended on large white wings that had a brandished sword. But was it truly God? Or only his
I
"I

126 KAFKA
r
counterfeit, his shadow, a wooden figurehead? \Vhatever he CHAPTER SIX
'I might think, KatKa lived for the rest of his life beneath the
I light of this fearful visitor.
With The Trial, Kafka turned his back on the grand novel,
which he had superbly attempted in Amerika. A novel is a
concentration of time, which unfolds and moves before our
eyes, with now a slow, now a swift rhythm; in The Trial this The Trial
temporal continuity and fluidity is absent. Each chapter is a
fragment of time-two hours or a day-wrenched from the
course of time, rigidified and paralyzed; and between these
fragments there is no connection or relationship or mediation,
but a crevasse that is often difficult to cross. The second hand
I,
II' of despair-as Gunther Anders said-runs without pause
and at a mad speed; but the clock is broken, and the hour
hand does not move. The structure could not be more
elementary. Whereas a novel is a symphonic intertwining of
motifs, the plot of The Trial is a series of polar encounters
between Joseph K. and the minor characters (the wife of the
K afka's writing is a roll of the dice flung into the void,
which simultaneously hazards opposing hypotheses, to
exhaust the mind's possibilities. Written at the same time as
doorman, Miss Burstner, the uncle, the lawyer Huld, Leni, The Trial and "The Nature Theater of Oklahoma," "In the
the industrialist, Titorelli, Block), who usually appear only Penal Colony" informs us that God is dead; that the machine
once and never meet each other. All narrative play is lacking, for punishment and ecstasy, which formed the old religion,
all modulation of plot, all fondu. In the central part, there is has gone to pieces; that God's last worshipper has died on his
a total novelistic void, filled by Huld and Titorelli's great cross; and awaiting us are times of tepid illuminism. In The
Platonic discussions, to which K. listens almost in silence. Trial the immense unknown God, whose name we never hear
What a distance from Amerika! Then Kafka had tried to pronounced, has a life so intense and a power so boundless as
take hold of the world and redeem it by imagination, and a perhaps he has never had throughout time. He invades all
thousand direct and delicate links tied him to Karl's destiny. reality, also the reality that should be most alien to him; from
II Now, as he wrote alone in his deserted house, he had the very first pages his messengers slink into the room where
il:
withdrawn at the same time from the world and from his Joseph K. is sleeping and arrest him, as no human power
own book; he had turned to stone, like Karl Rossmann in the would be able to do.
course of his peregrinations. He wanted to have nothing to What is the name of this God? Or what are his names? Or
do with his own hero and caused an inhuman wall of ice to perhaps it is not a matter of God but of a multiplicity of gods,
descend between himself and Joseph K. All the world's each of whom possesses infinite names and endlessly gener­
colors and lights have disappeared; everything is black or a ates other gods? At the beginning of Kafka's theology stands
gloomy gray; there no longer is any open air, and we stifle, a great omission: no one says that the Law is the house of
like Joseph K. in the Court's attics. God, or that the Court is an emanation of God, even though
III
II
KAFKA
r
128 The Trial 12 9
III
II the superscription IN FRONT OF TIlE DOOR persuades us that we mysterious totality; any relationship with them, even the
j,!'
are dealing only with him. This omission does not surprise most remote and indirect, is impossible; and none of our
us, because any consequential mysticism, Jewish or Chris­ prayers or implorations reaches the summits of the heavens.
tian, in the end leaps beyond the name of God. So then, can This transcendent God is light and can be nothing but
we attribute the Law and the Court to God? That is what light. Even though we are at the end of the great Platonic­
will be done in the course of this book; even though, in so Christian tradition, Kafka reaffirms twice, and with partic­
doing, we are committing a betrayal, because the lack of the ular solemnity, that from the door of God's house erupts an
name creates a void, an absence, a kind of death in God's "inextinguishable radiance," a "blinding light." What does it
body, which we replace with the fullness of a name. matter that we see it so rarely, and perhaps only when we are
The second sentence of The Trial's theology informs us obscured by the blindness and nearness of death, like the
that God is transcendent: no one in ancient or modern times, countryman? Despite everything, the fact that the God
not even the great Dionysian theologians, or the Islamic without name is light consoles us like an irrefutable truth.
mystics, perhaps ever affirmed God's absolute transcendence But this light has a singular property. When it descends upon
with a faith so desperate and cutting as Kafka did during the our world, and especially upon the sacred places of this
last ten years of his life. There is nothing else we can say, world, it generates blankets of darkness, as though a cosmic
because nothing can be said about this God without a name. law compelled the luminous gods to let us know only the
On the basis of some sentences in The Trial, we confine night. So here are the cemeterial shadow that reigns in the
ourselves to imagining that He forms a pyramid with infinite Court's attics, the candles in Huld's house, the feeble
steps, of which not even "the initiates can have a complete glimmer on Titorelli's stairway, the most complete darkness
vision." On the highest steps dwell the supreme judges: that will encompass the cathedral. This light has another
',: I
exceedingly distant, mysterious, invisible, similar to the lost property. Striking the Court's roof, God's fiery sun makes
I center of the world, to the emperor of China dead in his the air in the attics inhabited by the Law sultry, oppressive,
palace, to the forgotten idea that inspired the Great Wall. We unbreathable. The divine places are places of cloistering, like
I do not know what they are doing, and whether in other the "little room similar to bathrooms in the countryside,
,'I times, wise or mad demiurges, they created the world. darkened by smoke and with cobwebs in all the corners"
Today their task is only that of guarding the Law: now where Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment imagined that
'I
majestic, now arbitrary, now cruel as the assassin's knife, eternity dwelled. The Law contaminates life's air, destroys
II,I now supremely meek and delicate as the rays sent us by the the freedom and freshness of the universe, suffocates us and
moon. Higher up, above all this, does there stand a hidden prevents us from breathing freely. Someone might add
and absent God, a One, as The Castle and "The Great Wall of that only Joseph K. finds the atmosphere in the attic un­
China" seem to suggest? Or does the pyramid move away breathable; the clerks (and those tried a long time before)
endlessly into the sky? We can say only that, in some part of lived in these tenebrous and mephitic places, these under­
the universe, there is a totql gaze, which takes in all of the grounds below the roof, as though it were their natural
Trial's complexity, and the multiplicity of that which has atmosphere. For the elect, the vitiated air of the attics is the
become incarnate. As for us, who live in The Trial, we cannot pure celestial air.
discern either God or the gods; we cannot take in their For dozens of centuries we have been accustomed to
~I!I I
!

13 0
KAFKA

believing that God, or the gods, are the supreme Truth and
r The Trial

exists a Law, always identical with itself, accompanied by

13 1

the supreme Justice. The God of The Trial wiII not let himself Scriptures that introduce it and by the insatiable observations
be imprisoned in these too-human categories. He does not of commentators who always try to reinterpret it. This Law
love the word truth: or, more accurately, he stands above any is secret: only a few initiates turn the pages of the great Book;
single truth, any affirmation tied to yes and no; truth, for and as for the Trial, everything the judges compile----charges,
him, resides in the acceptance of opposites. God is at once documents, final sentences-is inaccessible to the accused as
truthful and deceitful, close and distant, accessible and well as the lawyers, and sometimes even to the judges. The
inaccessible, open and closed, luminous and tenebrous; two wisdom of the heavens must remain hidden. If we wish to
thoughts that exclude each other can be, for him, equally know more, we must turn to "In the Penal Colony." Here the
necessary, because "necessity" is the category closest to the simple words of the sentence, carved on our bodies, are
sacred. So we are not surprised if, like Greek gods, or those surrounded by a decorative labyrinth of closely hatched
of Goethe's Lehrjahre, the gods of The Trial have a very strong lines, which cross each other continually and make them
predilection for everything that is mendacity, falsehood, incomprehensible to unaccustomed eyes. The written Law is
deceit, theater. The guards of the court lie when they assure therefore a dreadful game that the divine powers are engaged
Joseph K. that "he will know everything in due time"; the in with us; this game has the purpose of hiding the truth from
Court lies when with some excuse it lures K. into the us and at the same time revealing it to us, because only the
cathedral; the priest deceives when he interprets the inscrip­ slow impression of the labyrinth on our bodies allows us to
tion; the portraits of the functionaries are false; and from know the divine voice, attain the dolorous ecstasies of the
what vulgar variety show have the Court's executioners sentence and perform the sacred rite. Joseph K. does not un­
come, these theatrical automatons in their top hats? As for derstand the enigma by which the heavens protect us: he de­
justice, the Court is supremely just: its judgments are mands arrest warrants, charges, documents, sentences, some­
infallible and no one can influence them, although a cruel thing written on paper. He does not understand that, beyond
irony decrees that it is a corrupt informer who affirms this the divine enigma, there exist only useless and desacraJized
truth. Like TitorelIi or Huld, Kafka is convinced that it does screeds: the vacuous memories of lawyers and their senseless
not and cannot make mistakes. If we are not told of any autobiographical attempts, which the encoded calligraphy of
acquittals, it is only because, unlike human courts, the the heavens derides with its tenebrous and blinding light.
heavenly Court with miraculous intuition accuses only the To reach the heart of the God ()f The Trial, we must
guilty. But it is a strange justice. Infallible, evenhanded, repeat the paradox that has tormented almost every religious
haughtily detached from men, at times it appears to us like conscience. That God so transcendent, so remote and distant,
the goddess of the Hunt or the goddess of Vengeance, so similar to the coldest and most invisible star, to the emperor
much pure hatred is enclosed in its inflexible heart. of China lost in his great palace, is at the same time immanent
Like the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic Law, that of the in the world, present in infinite reality, even in what should
I Court is a written Law, a Law of the book: some angel has be most repugnant to him. This is revealed to us by that most
!

dictated it to a human hand, or made a seer or prophet assured of guides, the equivocal painter Titorelli, with his
swallow it with its flavor of honey and gall, or has inscribed habitual irony. When Joseph K. is molested by some little
it in a heart. We hear from the priest that somewhere there girls, the painter bends over him and murmurs into his ear:
 ~I.:'I
,II
011,
,;'11
;' I
13 2 KAFKA

"Also these little girls are part of the Court." "What?" K.

asks, pulling back his head and staring at the painter. The
r The Trial

been a triumph; what could arouse more enthusiasm than

God's omnipresence, than a universe totally dominated by
133

I painter sits down again on his chair and says half in jest and his Law? But for Kafka this process was a tragedy without
II half in explanation: "Everything is part of the Court." There equal. All reality had been assumed into the Law, while
\
can be no doubts: not only the invisible summit of The Trial, remaining exactly as it was, or even more debased than at the
with its high secret judges, but everything that appears in time of Amerika; and now it moved against him, dominated
these pages, even the most repugnant guards, even these by its new, atrocious divine power.
corrupt and depraved thirteen-year-old girls, is the Court. The degraded sacred does have its privileged edifices, in
All reality has become the Law: all of everyday life has whose attics it dwells. They are the same edifices where, half
become sacred; God has incarnated himself in all things and a century before, Dostoevsky's most famous hero had ap­
firmly dwells in them. This is how we can resolve the peared. When Raskolnikov is summoned to the police station,
apparent contradiction that runs through the book. On the on the fourth floor of a new building, he descends into the
one hand, hidden in the high attics, the Court is secret, or, as world's "underground." The stairs are narrow, steep and
one of the functionaries says, "is not very well known to the filthy, awash with dirty water and filled with empty shells;
population." On the other hand, it has no need for privileged all the kitchens of all the apartments on all four floors give on
edifices, because it establishes itself in all houses, commands the stairs, remaining open almost all day long and spreading
all persons and all men, even the bank, where another power their suffocating stench; and also in the tiny rooms of the
should triumph; its emissaries are everywhere; and we soon police station there is a dreadful fug-the air is saturated with
become aware that all of the book's characters-the old the smell of cheap varnish made from rancid linseed oil. It is
people who look out the window, the landlady, the bank here that Raskolnikov faints.
clerks, the small manufacturer, the passersby, the sacristan­ In writing The Trial, Kafka has paid passing homage to
know about the mysterious Court and are informed, we do his great master: by identifying the police station offices of
not know how, of the strange trial brought against Joseph K. Crime and Punishment where Porfiry Petrovich rules, the
, I!I:
.1·':.'1
,. The Court is secret and manifest, concealed and apparent, clownish judge of the "underground," with the first location
. . invisible and most visible-as is God. of the Court, as though to signify that he too had descended
II In Amerika, the space of Robinson, Delamarche and into God's "underground." The first Court building is tall,
1

Brunelda, the equivocal and parasitic world of the "louche," gray, inhabited by poor people; the entrance courtyard is full
I
stood outside the Law's walls, like a colorful meadow to of locked vans. Three entrances lead to as many stairways;
I
which it paid no attention. l'ow, in The Trial, the "louche" along the stairs that Joseph K. climbs, the doors to the
has been accepted into the Law and has assumed a metaphys­ apartments are open, and in the small kitchen-living rooms
ical value; these guards, these functionaries, these prostitutes, women hold nursing babies and work over the stoves, while
these painters, lawyers and executioners are signs of something half-naked girls run about busily. On the fifth floor, the
else. While God's sphere is enlarged and dilated beyond Court's location, a young woman is washing children's
measure, the sacred is degraded: it has pitched its tent in the clothes in a tub. In the squalid adjacent room the air is filled
infamous and base, as had already happened in Dostoevsky. with vapors; dirty daylight turns the atmosphere whitish and
For a baroque writer, this process of dilation would have dazzling. On the upper floor, where the attics are, there is a
 134 KAFKA

long hallway, divided by broken doors, almost without light,

with long wooden benches on which the defendants sit, their
r
I
The Trial

up high and down below, in the supreme judges, in the

angels with their colored wings, who perhaps perceive the
135

backs curved, their knees bent, like beggars. Behind plain

wooden gates are the offices, where the functionaries spend I ultimate mysteries of the God without name, and in these
guards who steal their lunch, these judges who read porno­
the night. The tenants' clothes are hung to dry; the air is graphic books. "No man hath seen God" (John 1:18), and we
damp and heavy and Joseph K. is on the point of fainting like cannot reach him directly, as The Castle will repeat, but
Raskolnikov in the Petersburg office. The Court's second through a boundless multitude of mediators and procuresses.
building, with which we become acquainted a few months Perhaps his intense, intolerable light has to be veiled by
later, is even more repulsive. The neighborhood is even something dark; perhaps his majesty must be brought into
poorer, the houses are even darker, the streets full of filth on relief by contrast with something repugnant; or what is
the melting snow. Through a crack in the main door pours a sublime can express itself, on earth, through the basest.
disgusting liquid, yellow and steaming, which puts to flight These are God's mysteries, before which Kafka bowed his
a pack of rats; and from the workshop's door in the courtyard head; but only a great mystic, such as Rum) or 'A~~ar or St.
a large sheet of leaded tin casts a livid light on the faces of Teresa, certainly not poor, modern Joseph K. with his puny
three shop boys. The stairs are narrow, without railings, bank-clerk's thoughts, can grasp them.
enclosed between walls pierced by small windows; the doors We do not know all the activities of the Court, of this kind
to the apartments are of rough wood sloppily painted red; of secret freemasonry, interwoven with the entire life of the
and the sultry, oppressive air once again torments the universe, like the Society of the Tower in the Lehrjahre. If
wayfarer in the celestial underground. we must believe Kafka's book, today the Court has only
In these degraded places live the basest representatives of one activity: that of staging trials. But they are peculiar trials.
!
i'l the Court. Corrupt and crude guards, parasitic and scurri­ The Court does not accuse the defendant of having commit­
lous, lying and depraved, festive like dogs; errand boys with ted this or that misdeed, having broken this or that com­
an equivocal air, miserable ushers, badly dressed clerks, mandment of the Law, as do all human tribunals, or as
vain, louche and familiar judges, infamous painters, re­ happens also in "The Penal Colony," where the broken
I,
I:,I pugnant henchmen; and a procession of prostitute-custodians commandment is inscribed on the bodies of the sentenced
and prostitute-maids who offer to one and all their infantile persons. When K. is arrested, the guards do not bring any
and indecent charms, comfort and molest, both spies and specific accusation against him; and not even later, when the
accomplices of the accused. There is no world more depraved trial is already well under way, nor even under the execu­
than the world that vegetates on the lowest steps of the Law. ti(mer's knife, will he know what his crime is. What are we
And yet, in a mysterious and paradoxical manner, these supposed to assume? That the Court conceals his crime from
figures below the level of daily existence reveal to us some­ him to the very end? Or that Joseph K.'s crime is original sin,
thing about the Law. The very same guards, whom Joseph which forever taints human souls? This does not seem
K. despises, have a subtle theological knowledge of the possible, because only some men, in The Trial, are accused
mysteries of the divine world; and regarding guilt and the by the Court. Everything leads us to believe that K. 's sin
Law they say the same thing that the priest will reveal many (and that of the defendants in The Trial) is another. His is the
months later. There is only one Court. The Law is identical crime without name and without motive, the ineluctable
 KAFKA The Trial 137
13 6
crime, neither distant nor close, that no one committed even K. He meets some of them in the Court's attics; never before
at the earth's dawn, and which can weigh on many men, like has he seen persons so tortured by the feeling of guilt:
a halo of darkness, like a stain they will never be able to wash neglected in their attire, their faces humiliated, their backs
from heart and hands. In a word, his is the atrocious feeling bowed and knees bent, looking like beggars or dogs who lick
of guilt that tormented Franz Kafka throughout his life. the hands of their torturers, seated on the benches placed
The Court therefore has no need whatever for inquisitors in the hallways, they futilely wait for acquittal or sentenc­
and policemen, as human courts do, which try to find out ing, the end that will never come, the conclusion of the
whether a certain forbidden act was or was not committed, inexhaustible trial. When K. lays a hand on the arm of one of
whether Raskolnikov really robbed and killed the two old them, he gives a heartrending cry as though he had gripped
women. "Our authorities," as one of the guards puts it with him with a red-hot pincers: we will later find out that he read
great precision, " ... do not look, so to speak, for people's or thought he read his sentence on K.'s lips. Among them we
crimes, but are attracted, as it is stated in the Law, by the meet neither women nor the poor, for neither of these know,
guilt." The Court possesses a kind of superior sense which according to Kafka, an indeterminate sin but commit only
reveals to it the presence of sin: a magical olfactory sense precise sins. The lawyer Huld informs us that all of them,
which helps it discover who, among all men, is tainted by the even the most repulsive, become beautiful with the passing of
!
crime without name, just as the Furies smelled from afar the time. As in "The Penal Colony," any procedure of the
scent of spilled maternal blood and pursued the murderers. court is an election; neither crime nor punishment, but only
Thus the woman guard, who never saw Joseph K. before, the Trial, which degrades and demeans them, imparts a
recognizes him immediately when he knocks at the Court's strange beauty to their features.
door, asking: "Does a certain carpenter Lanz live here?" and The trial-process is unknowable, as are the Court's
in the same way the sacristan and priest recognize him in the highest hierarchies and the unknown God that presides over
cathedral's dense darkness. them. The judges, hereditary and childish, capricious and
Between Law and guilt, between God and sin, judges and vindictive, without any sense of reality and human relation­
sinners, there is a close affinity, as Kafka already told us in ships, do not know it as a whole: each one of them knows the
"The Penal Colony." If the Court is attracted by guilt, the smallest fragment of it, and for the rest does not know
"where it comes from" and "where it continues." As for the

l'
man who bears the gift of guilt in him is attracted by the
Court: accusers and sinners cannot live without one another lawyers, they are barely tolerated: the Court derides them
and magically communicate thoughts to one another. On the most cruelly; they cannot consult any of the documents or
morning of the first hearing, no one informs K. of the hour of testimonies or charges. So then what good are those memo­
the session or the correct staircase in the large tenement, and randa, full of Latin, of unspecified appeals, self-praise, hu­
yet K. arrives at the appointed hour and without uncertainty miliations, analyses? Only the total gaze, which descends
goes up the staircase to where the Court's attics are hidden. from the highest darkness of the superior gods, can grasp the
On the evening of his last day of life, nobody announces the totality of the trial-process; and can let fly and strike the
visit of the two executioners, and yet he awaits the assassins' precise judgment. In the expectation of that supreme mo­
arrival and puts on his dark ceremonial suit. The other ment, the trial proceeds down its slow, long road: especially
defendants are endowed with the same keen sense of smell as in modern times, when its step has become exceedingly slow
13 8 KAFKA

and enervating, perhaps because our guilt feeling is much

more tortuous and unseizable than that of our ancestors.
r
I
The Trial

like intuition. Nobody is innocent, nobody is absolved-this

is the dreadful postulate on which Kafka has constructed his
'39

Everything breathes procrastination: an always unchanged book. Only a few legends, similar to the Catholic legends
movement, neither ascending nor descending; whereas the about the cult of saints, of which Titorelli speaks with
accused yearns for the debate, the Court, to make us suffer veneration and scorn, continue to assure us that, yes, in the
more and at the same time obey its enervating and labyrin­ past, the distant past, perhaps the same past in which
thine nature, aims at the indefinite prolongation of the pre­ Anthony and Francis preached to the animals, someone had
trial investigation. Sometimes the trial-process comes to a halt. returned home enveloped in the radiant light of absolution.
The defendant receives a certificate of "apparent acquittal,"
but the accusation continues to hang over him intact, and a
judge can again issue an order for his arrest. So the pretrial When Kafka conceived Joseph K., to whom he gave his own
investigation resumes, with new canceled acquittals, new ar­ age, part of his name and something of his room, he canceled
rests, and new remands: it stagnates, slows down and is lost every trace of himself; he ventured into a place much further
like a trickle among the court's dusty papers. Until one day, from him than his master Haubert was distant from Frederic
without advance notice or warning, the trial-the defendant, Moreau. He was bound by tender affection to Karl Ross­
the meticulously drawn-up briefs, the lower-court judges­ mann; in The Castle, he admired K. 's very bold theological
is taken away from the attorney and vanishes. Everything is attempt; but what could he possibly care for in this average
gone. Everything has been transferred to the competence of "modern man," this excellent bank clerk, who does not
inaccessible courts, of invisible gods, from whom comes believe in heaven and has no trust in the invisible? As Kafka
down-just as suddenly-the definitive sentence. depicts him for us, Joseph K. is a lonely man, arid, sure,
What this sentence proves to be is the only certain thing arrogant, presumptuous, certain of his own good faith and
about the interminable trial-process. Attorney Huld alludes his innocence, orderly, aggressive, authoritarian, egotistical,
several times to trials with "a happy ending," but he does not incapable of understanding others, greedy for earthly suc­
offer us any details; and for the rest his task is that of keeping cess, at times a megalomaniac. He has all the faults of
his clients in the abject condition of hope. Titorelli says he "modern man." Unlike Karl Rossmann, he has killed in
does not know "any real acquittal"; the usher and uncle think himself every trace of childhood and does not allow the
the same. Joseph K. is not mistaken in adding: "A single unconscious to nourish him; he refuses to look into his heart,
executioner could replace the entire Court." As Kafka says in learns nothing from his own experience, does not love and
"The Penal Colony," "guilt is always certain." The Court does not want to be loved, detests the irruption of chance;
does not have theological pretensions: it does not insist that and he expects to impose the iron play of his will on reality.
all men are guilty; it does not exclude, purely as a matter of If Kafka selects him from among all the characters that
principle, that some may escape the enervating process; but perhaps crowded his mind, it was only because of a quality
it possesses precise vision, an unerring flair for uncovering K. would prefer to ignore. Although he does not believe in
sin, and all the persons that it accuses are proven to be guilty sin, like all laymen he is ridden by a very strong feeling of
of the crime without a name. The exceedingly slow trial guilt. This is the only stigma of his mediocre life. As though
apparatus serves only to confirm the Court's first, lightning- it wanted to redeem him, the trial-process makes this feeling
 140 KAFKA
r The Trial

still possess an august and luminous remnant of God's Law;

14 1

of guilt grow, mature, become more complicated; it renders 1

his intelligence more restless and subtle, to the point that it and he is sure of his innocence, as no one should ever be. I Ie
leads him to pronounce words that previously he would not would like to erase the irruption: by putting the furniture and
have even dared to think. night tables in their customary places, removing the cups,
One morning Joseph K. is arrested. The landlady's cook, dishes and cutlery of his breakfast, abolishing every trace of
who brings him breakfast around eight o'clock every day, the guards, he hopes to kill divine intervention in his life.
does not come to his room. This had never happened before. When he goes to the first hearing, he is surprised to find
When K. rings the bell, there appears an unknown man, thin himself in a place that rejects all forms, ritual and even
and robust, in a strange black suit, while the other rooms of decorum, not understanding that the Law of God derides all
the boardinghouse are occupied by equally unknown guards. of earth's formal crystallizations. Confronted by those black
I
Like "The Metamorphosis," the novel begins with a break: ceremonial jackets, those long, rigid, sparse beards, those
the irruption of the unusual and unexpected violently shatters tiny, flitting black eyes, he parades his superiority and his
a life petrified by habit. This irruption occurs in the morning, spiritual nobility; he is aggressive, ironic, cutting, sarcastic,
during the most risky moment of the day, because the danger sure of himself, exhibitionistic, and he impersonates the role
exists that, overnight, the world might change completely of the knight fighting against terrestrial injustices. As Kafka
and we might wake up in a different bed surrounded by lets us understand, K. has not understood anything of what
different furniture and walls, in a country or planet or has happened to him. His gravest sin is lack of attention: he
galactic system that knows nothing about us and our habits. does not possess the delicate, molecular patience, the meek
Till that day, K. had always been unaware that the trial­ passivity that alone assists us in matters of the spirit. Within
process is the essence of human life; and all of a sudden the a few hours the obsessive circle of trial and sentence closes
reality of the trial-process is revealed to his eyes and spirit. around him. Nobody, not even the old Mrs. Grubach,
But a second, no less peculiar thing takes place. Joseph K., shakes his hand, as though he were infected by the plague.
the arrested man, is released, just as Raskolnikov is given his His fate seems to be sealed.
freedom by Porfiry Petrovich: the Court, which has its seats After his arrest, Joseph K. leads the same existence as
everywhere, has no need to lock Joseph up in prison. He before. He works at the bank, continues in his mediocre
remains free and a prisoner, without chains and a confined habits, mingles as before with the gray sounds and colors
man-like all of us, who in the same way live in a prison of the world. But it is impossible to be more clearly marked
without bars. by prison bars than this man who continues to roam the
When the guards arrest him, Joseph K. questions the streets freely. Like the lowest of convicts, he lives only
existence of the Court, the Law and God. "I do not know the within the trial's dimensions, incapable of erasing from his
i I Law," he says. In the anonymous modern city he is the only mind the thought of that morning, the unknown men in his
one (perhaps together with Miss Biirstner) who does not room, the aggression in his house-whereas, if he knew how
know that the Law inhabits all the attics and from there, to forget, the guards, the judges and the Court's hierarchies
unobserved, governs the world's destinies. He does not would most likely go back into the void from which they
accept the arrest; he wants the guards to show him the came. Subjugated by his own repetitive obsession, he goes so
documents; he despises the guards, who in their depravity far as to perform the scene in Miss Biirstner's room in his
 14 2 KAFKA
r
, The Trial 143
boardinghouse. The great shadow of guilt envelops him existence: an exhausting labor, performed by WrItIng on
completely. When he walks along the street, he feels spied behalf of the accusation and against the accusation. But will
upon by real or imaginary eyes; when he is at home, he feels this autobiographical memoir not be a new mistake on K.'s
soiled by suspicion; and he goes to the Court without part? Who can assure him that his questions are the same as
anyone's having summoned him. As the months pass over the Court would have addressed to him? Who can believe
him, he loses all strength. Early in the morning he is already that he is able to track down all the tiniest events of his life?
crushed. He sits in his office, his arms stretched out on the Who can imagine that he is capable of penetrating the deepest
desk and his head bowed, like a defeated, bloodless man, like depths of his unconscious, where the guilt nests? As Kafka
a somnambulist. He does not receive clients, does not answer thought, autobiography, this weapon of the rational I, does
when spoken to, is unable to think and remember-and all not in the least assure us of reaching the truth about
along, for hours on end he watches the sno\v which continues ourselves. This truth is gained only by the self-destruction of
I~
to fall silently outside the window. In his dreams or when the I, or through the impersonal metamorphosis of story or
\ II'! , awake, he stares fascinated and obsessed at the most insig­ novel, in which the self is dissolved in a fabric of objective
I I
1111: I,. nificant details; he abandons himself to fantasizing and relationships.
, "II:
playing with the images of his mind; his person, his body, his Meanwhile, the trial, as interminable as the autobiogra­
11
name, everything that really concerns him is a burden; and phy, continues. We know that the other defendants are
;:\ he feels that he is the only man under accusation in the entire interrogated several times a week. As for Joseph K., we know
universe, while all the other men are his accusers. To stand only of the first hearing, when he accuses the Court, and of
1,1
at the window and contemplate things morbidly, to dream another interrogation, about which we are told by his cousin
of escaping from life-repeating, at least in this, Kafka's in a letter to the father. Nothing else: either Kafka thought of
il! destiny-seems to have become his only salvation. describing some sessions in chapters he planned but didn't
Restless, doubtful, without faith in his attorney, Joseph write; or he did not intend to describe the trial. The latter is
K. decides to defend himself. Since the Court does not reveal the more likely hypothesis. After the omission of the name of
the charge, he will simply have to interrogate himself, God, this is the second great omission in the book. No direct
becoming his own cross-examiner, and write his own biog­ account describes for us the interplay of questions and
raphy. Thus, desperately, he begins this interminable task, answers, the Court's accusations and K. 's defense, the slow
this infinite labor. Stealing time from office hours and sleep, ascent of the litigation toward ever more sublime courts and
asking for a period of leave from the bank, Joseph K. retells hierarchies, toward the absent space where the ultimate
his own life, summons up its events with meticulous care, Judge lives. Kafka sets another void at the center of his book.
examines his behavior in each case, probes on all sides and in Nothing can fill it: because Huld's and Titorelli's stories,
every place and every corner, trying to discover the fissure these indirect Platonic discourses around the Law, which we
through which the sentence's sting might penetrate. If he must interpret as the philologist interprets a torn and frag­
wants to defend himself, he must give up living, leaving his mentary papyrus, do not offer us any certainty.
job, forgetting habits and thoughts, the fugitive consolations Within the immense and desolate space of the trial,
of mornings, evenings and nights. The defense against his Joseph K. encounters two figures, the lawyer Huld and the
guilt thus becomes, as in Kafka's own case, a substitute for painter Titorelli, who offer him two contrasting possibilities
 144 KAFKA

of salvation, similar to the great allegorical figures of confes­

sion and renunciation. The attorney Huld lives in the
r The Trial 145

debased; and, if we are to believe her, she is even capable of

sacrificing herself for them, just as the lawyer Huld immo­
darkness that God has cast over the world; the house in I lates himself in the name of their redemption.
which he lives is dark, his nurse-waitress, Leni, illuminates
In the figures of Robinson and Delamarche, Kafka had
depicted the colorful and picaresque debasement that occu­
with a candle the lightless entrance hall and the dark room
where the lawyer lies, unshaven, in bed. But there, enclosed pies the heart of reality. In the character of the tradesman
and buried in darkness, Huld tells Joseph K. that he will be Block, accused by the Court, debasement becomes one of the
able to save himself from the Court's sentence only if he will paths that allow us to approach the sacred. With maniacal
follow the path of faith, devotion, unlimited religious obedi­ and inflexible dedication, Block consecrates time and spirit to
ence and trust in "grace" (fluid means "grace" in German), the trial that has been hanging over him for five years. He
which descends from above to save doubting and guilty men. leaves his home, lives locked up in the dark lumber room in
His juridical talent, his Talmudic exquisiteness must not lluld's house, physically and spiritually close to the Law. All
deceive us. For the accused who live together with him, he is day long he reads the sacred book the lawyer has ordered him
much more than an attorney: for them he enacts the role of to read: all day long the same page, while his finger glides
God the Father who gave his people the tablets from the along the lines-and his reading is prayer, dazed worship,
supplication. He is always there, waiting to be called by his
Sinai. "Who is your lawyer?" he asks the merchant Block.
lawyer-god.
"You are," says Block. "And besides me?" the lawyer insists.
When Huld does call him-one never knows when, the
"No one but you," Block says, repeating the words of the
lawyer is capricious, the bell might ring even at night-Block
Jewish people and of millions of men who from then on
advances on tiptoe, his hands contracted at his back, leaving
believed in God.
the door open behind him. As soon as he hears the lawyer's
At Huld's feet sits the servant-nurse, Leni, who enacts
voice, he totters as though someone had struck him in the
the role of the sacred prostitute. Leni does not prostitute
chest, halts, bends in two and raises his hands to protect
herself to all men in the slums of the great city: only those
himself, ready to flee. The lawyer speaks, and Block does not
accused by the Court, with the strange beauty set afire in
have the strength to look at him; he keeps his eyes fixed
them by the criminal proceedings, only men marked by the
somewhere in a corner, so as not to look at Huld's hidden
sign of guilt awaken her erotic desire. Before letting herself
resplendence. He trembles, falls to his knees, invokes him as
be possessed by K., she shows him a membrane of flesh that
though he were God, crawls on all fours, stretches toward
joins the middle and ring fingers of her right hand. Leni
the bed where the lawyer lies, cautiously caresses the feather
therefore is the siren, the great temptress, and her dark,
quilt and finally kisses his old hand three times. Then he
slightly protruding eyes, her pale cheeks, her temples and
subsides, waiting to hear his voice, with head bowed. He has
Ii rounded forehead, her long white apron, her obscene and
reached the ultimate degree of servitude, humiliation and
childish charms must forever bind the accused to the Law.
degradation: intelligence and sensitivity have grown dim in
She devotes to them that mixture of disgusting eroticism and
his mind. Like Robinson on Brunelda's balcony, like the man
sentimental affectation which distinguishes Kafka's women.
She kisses them, soothes them, looks after them, consoles in the legend who prays to the fleas in the doorkeeper's
fur-he has become a dog; and we would not be surprised if
them, comforts them, humiliates them and renders them
 ".
,
I¢ KAFKA The Trial 147

he crawled under the bed and barked. The sacred demands Ulysses-like tricksters* in the modern world. His closest kin
this mystical abjection from its devout. But degradation is is Goethe's Mephistopheles, from whom he derives his lucid,
not enough: Huld and Leni demand still more. Like Circe, corrosive intelligence; like Mephistopheles, he never deceives
Leni the siren offers her bed to Block, to Joseph K., to all the us (even though he is a liar), dominated by that desperate
accused, so that they will confess, repent, or at least pretend spirit of truth that only tricksters know. In Kafka's world,
to confess and repent. Only when the process of degradation heaven delights in choosing these ironic and depraved medi­
and confession is accomplished does the lawyer Huld ators between itself and earth.
promise-but in vague, uncertain words, without a shadow The universe of the Court is very strange. Titorelli is
of the certainty craved by K.-that one day the Court will employed by the Court as a religious painter and confidant;
put an end to the infinite proceedings and they will be able therefore he belongs to the sacred. And yet he resolutely
to issue, tamed and bowed but absolved, into the light of turns his back on the divine world; he lives in the sacred as if
the sun. it were no longer sacred. With ironic sobriety, he declares
If Huld lives in the heart of the night, Titorelli inhabits that he is not interested to know how it is formed and where
hell. We have already become acquainted with the wretched the supreme Tribunal is located. For him, all of Huld's
district of the city, the street door from which pours liquid, categories have no value: in his sphere, real absolution is
steaming manure, the rats in flight, the workshop's livid impossible; one renounces salvation and the hope of salvation;
light, the narrow, almost lightless stairs, the wooden door repentance, confession, abjection or sacred prostitution are
badly painted red, the corrupt little girls; and now we enter all unnecessary. Chatting with K. in the stifling little room,
the miserable little wooden room, covered with portraits and Titorelli informs him that he can hope for "apparent absolu­
landscapes, where the air is polluted and oppressive, close to tion" and "procrastination." In the case of the first, the
the Court's attics. In his nightshirt, barefoot, wearing a pair accused receives a certificate that releases him from the
of wide canvas trousers, Titorelli talks, chats at length with charge; but the charge continues to hang over him, and then
K., voluble, futile, brazen, cynical and impudent. On the it moves, rises to the superior courts, returns to the lower
one hand, he belongs to the Court's hierarchical nobility, courts, oscillates, halts, begins to move once more, until a
since he inherited from his father the position of painter and judge again orders an immediate arrest; and, 10 and behold,
the traditional standards for painting the judges, like a at that the possibility of apparent absolution reappears, and
painter of icons. But his portraits, his allegorical figures, his of a new arrest, and so on ad infinitum. On the contrary,
monotonous landscapes of heaths are so crude that they show procrastination consists in the fact that the trial continues to
us to what depth of degradation the sacred tradition has remain at a lower stage, revolving in the small circle to which
fallen in the modern world. He has nothing of Huld's it has been reduced. What the two proceedings have in
lawyer-like and Talmudic majesty-he hasn't even read the common is to prevent both the defendant's sentencing and
Law-and he has obscene relations with the corrupt girls on his real absolution. Thus all of existence becomes nothing
the stairs, who at every instant pop into his room. Those who but the trial and pretrial investigation, a succession of
know him treat him as a beggar, liar and adventurer. We, canceled acquittals, of postponed sentences. We live in
who have taken from him the most precious information
about the Court, realize that he is one of the thousand * English in original.-Trans.
 KAFKA
r The Trial 149
148

eternal culpability as though it did not exist, resigned to the looks at his feet, over his bent head the metamorphosis takes
endless proceedings, renouncing salvation, without truth, place. The light, which until that moment had entered from
without the absolute, without innocence, freedom or hope. behind, changes direction and erupts, blindingly, from in
The proposal advanced by Titorelli is modern life, as Kafka front. K. raises his gaze and contemplates it. What a
imagined it: this mediocre life, this monotony, this repetition, tremendous change! Until then K. believed that the Law was
this remand, this desperate absence of light and levity; the weight, opacity, darkness and persecution; now he under­
life that Joseph K. always knew and loved before the fatal stands that God is only an irradiation of light, an ecstasy of
morning on which, "without his having done anything lightness, which has the gift of making also us supernaturally
wrong," the guard penetrated into his room. light.
Joseph K. is changed. The sin without name, which has In the second dream, Joseph K. is walking in a cemetery.
been awakened in him, and the tormenting abrasion the trial It is a very beautiful day; all around him there is a strangely
has imposed on his soul have lifted him above himself, cheerful atmosphere, flags slap against each other with
opening his mind to spiritual intelligence and occasionally joyous violence, and he glides along a small path as though
pervading his behavior with a tragic nobility. He understands over a swift stream, with the floating typical of dreams. An
that neither Huld nor Titorelli promises him acquittal; not open grave, in which a tombstone is wedged, attracts his
even Huld can help him glimpse the light after he has attention. An artist begins to write with his pencil on the
crawled through the mud of debasement. So with desperate upper part of the stone; he writes sharply etched, beautiful
courage he rejects both roads. On the one hand, he defends letters, deeply engraved in perfect gold. "HERE LIES • . . "
the human dignity vilified by Block (although Kafka prob­ When he has written the two words, he looks back toward
ably considered mystical abjection a goal of the spirit). On K.; he is unable to continue, as though there were some
the other hand, K. wants to be freed f"rever from the taint of obstacle, and full of embarrassment he again turns toward
guilt: he cannot tolerate that more shadows should surround him. All the earlier joy and vivacity have vanished. Joseph K.
his soul; he cannot endure postponements, compromises, is desolate because of the sculptor's embarrassment: he
delays, half measures, procrastinations, appearances; and he begins to weep and sob for a long time, his hands covering his
would like to face the High Court. With all his desire, re­ face. As soon as he calms down, the artist decides to continue
discovering in himself forgotten or never existent yearnings, writing, though with reluctance: the script is less beautiful,
he dreams of the light. the gold is poor, the stroke pale and uncertain. A J is almost
At a moment in the writing of The Trial that we cannot completed. Joseph K. finally understands the reason for his
determine, Kafka thought of saving his transformed hero. reluctance: that grave is being prepared for him. Then, using
We have a trace of this in two dream fragments, which have all his fingers, he digs up the earth, which offers almost no
been analyzed with great subtlety by Walter Soke\. In the resistance; and, turned on his back by a slight current, he
first, Joseph K.-heavy, dark-undergoes a total transforma­ sinks into a big hole with craggy sides. While below he is
tion. Titorelli embraces him and pulls him along with him. received by the impenetrable profundity, up above his name
When they arrive at the building of the Law, they run up the darts over the stone, in powerful arabesques. At that moment
stairs: at first up, then up and down, without any effort, light he awakens, ecstatic. These marvelous pages remind us of
as a light boat on the water. And precisely at that point, as K. the conclusion of "The Judgment" and "The Metamorpho­
150 KAFKA
r The Trial 151

sis," but with more joyous and luminous accents. In his

dream, Joseph K. understands that by now his life and his
I appointment by the priest, K. learns that an Italian client of
his bank wishes to visit the cathedral and will wait for him at
body are an obstacle; and without rancor and sorrow, ten o'clock in the morning: he has the task of showing him the
without regret and emotion, he sacrifices himself, sinking monuments, paintings and sculptures. At ten the Italian fails
into the prepared grave, so that his death will cause the to show up; in the cathedral the sacristan and priest are
triumphant harmony of the universe to burst forth. He dies waiting for him, two messengers of the Law. Already at this
happy, while the miracle of art darts in golden letters over his point the Law lets us know by which ambiguous means the
tombstone. definitive revelation, which should illuminate, will take
Just as he had thought of saving the "innocent" Karl place, and forever cast Joseph K. into the darkness.
Rossmann, so Kafka thought of also saving the "guilty" \Vhen K. arrives, the narrow square of the cathedral is
Joseph K. In the airy suspension of the dream, he granted his deserted. All the window curtains are drawn: no human
hero two supreme gifts: divine illumination, and the ecstatic spectator can witness the encounter between the Law and
reconciliation with his destiny and his death. The Trial too this innocent-guilty human creature. In the cathedral, also
would be concluded with the miraculous gift of divine grace. deserted, darkness gradually falls, and the anguishing event
Thus his great novels once more reveal that they are living of the light which slowly grows weak, is extinguished,
fields of force, disposed to welcome every intellectual solu­ disappears from the earth, will form the background to the
tion. We do not know for how long Joseph K. remained anguishing dialogue between Joseph K. and the priest. At
saved: a few hours, a few days, a few weeks. Then Kafka was first, on the main altar, a large triangle of candles glitters: a
again seized by his own destiny. He understood that in his taper, large and thick, affixed to a pillar, instead of lighting
world Joseph K. could not be saved. He must believe that up the paintings on the side altars, increases the darkness that
God is darkness, violence, weight, oppression. He must envelops them. A lamp is set over a small pulpit. When the
succumb with reluctance, indignation, shame, in the night, priest climbs onto the pulpit, the weather outside worsens­
without any artist assisting him with his darting gold letters: it is no longer a dark day, it is deep night; no stained-glass
like a dog, while two sinister assassins twist the long window can break through the darkness with its gleam-and
butcher's knife in his heart. the sacristan begins to douse one by one the candles on the
main altar. The priest comes down from the pulpit, detaches
the small lamp, and hands it to K. so that he will carry it for
Toward the end of the book, on a rainy day of late autumn, him. And so they walk side by side in the dark side nave,
the Law-or at least a superior instance of the Law-reveals while the priest recounts the parable "Before the Law" and
itself directly to Joseph K., without being concealed by the comments on it. Meanwhile the small lamp goes out; for an
mediations of Huld and Titorelli. The prison chaplain instant the silver statue of a saint gleams with its own silver
encounters K. in the city's cathedral. But it would seem that reflection; and then on the church, on the soul of K., on the
the Law ignores all simplicity and clarity in its proceedings, universe definitive darkness descends. In this gloom there
that it cannot dispense with deluding and deceiving, moving takes place the sole revelation that light will encounter in The
in the most tortuous manner. Instead of being given an Trial: instead of illuminating, light becomes darkness, aug­
15 2 KAFKA
The Trial 153
ments darkness, covers K. with darkness, prevents him from
he will repeat almost the same words. Just as K. has waited
seeing the light, lets his soul be enveloped by the shadow of
for the priest at the bottom of the steps, so the Law waits for
ignorance, guilt and anguish.
K. if he will ascend to it: "The Court receives you when you
About halfway through this story of light and darkness I
come. /.,'s nimmt dich auf, wenn du kommst." The reciprocity
have just recounted, the priest climbs onto the pulpit. He seems perfect.
checks the light of the lamp, turns up the wick a bit, then
While they walk side by side, back and forth in the dark
slowly faces the balustrade, looking around. What utter
lateral nave, the priest tells Joseph K. the parable "Before the
silence reigns in the cathedral! On tiptoe Joseph K. is about
Law." The person commenting on the parable is a Catholic
to move away, the stone floor resounds under his light steps,
priest, the person listening to it is a man without faith; the
and the vaults send back a weak, uninterrupted echo. When
matter of the parable is Hebrew, the "scriptures which
he has almost left the space of the pews, he hears for the first
introduce the Law" are like a Talmud preceding the Bible,
time the priest's powerful, trained voice, which resounds
the tone of their elaboration resembles that of the Hasidic
through the cathedral ready to welcome it. The voice calls:
legends; the custodian and doorkeeper of the Law, with his
"Joseph K.!" K. stops, staring at the ground. Then he turns;
"fur coat, his big pointed nose, the long, sparse, black Tartar
with a sign of his finger the priest calls him closer, and he
beard," seems an Oriental Jew-unless that "sparse ...
runs with long, quick steps toward the pulpit. I Ie halts at the
Tartar beard" alludes to an even more distant Orient, to the
first pews: but the priest, with his index finger almost at a
China conquered by the Mongols, where Catholics and Jews
right angle, points to a seat just below the pulpit. K. obeys
could merge before Kublai Khan's extremely white mantle.
him, even though he must bend his head backward to see
We are not surprised to see that the Law is spatialized: that
him. He knows by now that he has exhausted all avenues: he
the one Book becomes an edifice with a hundred halls, one
has refused Iluld's assistance, has rejected Titorelli's sly
inside the other, with hundreds of doors and hundreds of
tricks; and the long labor of his autobiographical memoir
doorkeepers. The Torah as edifice is an image of the Hebrew
wears him out and irremediably debilitates him. He no
Gnosis, which arose again in Kafka's mind with prodigious
longer has any hope. He does not know that the priest
fidelity without his knowing anything about it.
represents, for him, the Law without mediations: the Law
Before the Law a doorkeeper stands on guard. One day a
that approaches him; the only road to salvation and redemp­
man from the country comes to this doorkeeper and begs him
tion for a man visited by sin. In the dark, empty and silent
to let him enter into the Law. But the doorkeeper says that
church, there takes place, infinitely tender, the encounter
for the moment he cannot permit him to do this. The
between the Law and a human creature. Even though he
countryman looks at the open door of the Law, the door­
speaks to him from on high and does not wish to forget the
keeper's face, and decides to wait until the moment when it
distance of his office, the priest participates in K. 's anguish.
will be granted to him to enter. For years he sits on a stool to
Needy and desirous of help as he is, Joseph K. invites him to
one side of the door; he vexes the doorkeeper with his
come down to his side: "Won't you come down? You don't
prayers, makes small talk, vainly tries to corrupt him, grows
have to preach to me. Komm zu mir herunter. Come down
old and little by little becomes acquainted even with the fleas
beside me." The priest descends, he holds his hand out to
on the doorkeeper's fur collar. At last his eyesight fails, and
him and offers him the small, still luminous lamp. Later on
he no longer knows whether it is really getting dark around
154 KAFKA

him or his eyes are deceiving him. But at that moment, in the
darkness he perceives a splendor, which streams inextin­
guishably from the door of the Law. He is about to die. He
r The Trial

doorkeeper did not deceive him. But there is more. If he did

not enter, it is because he respected the word of God's
messengers and guards, the innumerable hierarchy of God's
155

beckons to the doorkeeper because he cannot lift his stiffening mediators, whom he must venerate. Therefore he is innocent.
body. The doorkeeper bends over him: "What do you want And so we could continue on, like the old Talmudists,
to know now?" he asks. "You are insatiable." "Everyone interrogating and perforating the text from all sides, and we
strives toward the Law," the man says. "How is it that in all would always be led to face the same paradoxical reply. God
these years no one but me has asked to enter?" The door­ waits for us, in his high Castle, but he does everything
keeper realizes that the man is nearing the end, and in order possible, through his very messengers, to make sure that we
to penetrate his growing deafness, he shouts at him: "No one shall not reach him. God is near but far, accessible but
else could enter here, because this door was meant for you inaccessible. The door to the kingdom is open to all men, and
alone. Now I'm going to shut it." therefore, in Kafka's world, the most ecstatic hope of entering
llow should we interpret this parable? What was the the kingdom is born. But no one goes through that door
countryman's fate? What is this dazzling light? Was he because of God's deceptions, and so hope is never fulfilled.
deceived by the doorkeeper? Or is he guilty of not having God is the one who answers our words, but his answer is
entered the edifice? These questions, which we also address always mute.
to the text, are the same that, on that morning, in the dark Even though by a negative path, the parable describes
cathedral, preoccupied Joseph K. and the priest, and since what was for Kafka the supreme mystical way: the man who
then have disturbed all of Kafka's readers. The answer is enters the Law, steps over a thousand thresholds, passes
paradoxical, like all of Kafka's answers to questions about through a thousand halls, and when he reaches the heart of
God. On the one hand, Joseph K. is right. God "wants the Law he is dazzled by the splendor of the divine light.
nothing" from man: he does not desire our love, or our good Kafka knows that this is the culmination of every universe, of
deeds, or our desperate search for identity with him. Distant, his universe, but he also knows that it does not behoove him
cold, unattainable like the most separate star, he waits for to represent the light's full irradiation and beatitude. The
us: waits for us to come to him; and if we find the way and only mystical path that he can lay claim to is that of the
avoid all the deceits and perils along the road, he welcomes us countryman. He sits on his stool before the door, outside
into the edifice of a thousand halls that he inhabits. The door the door: he spends all of his life in expectation and exclusion,
of the Law is open; the Law is accessible to all, as the as Kafka thought of spending his life, waiting for an unat­
countryman thinks; the countryman had reached the door tainable Felice. Little by little he becomes a dog: he uninter­
that was meant for him, he was expected; and therefore the ruptedly watches the doorkeeper, who is only the lowest of
doorkeeper deceived him by forbidding him to enter. But on doorkeepers, comes to know the fleas on his fur coat, rots
the other hand, the countryman did not have enough faith: before the threshold, grows old and becomes so humiliated
he should have entered without asking, passed through the and abject as to beg the fleas to help him persuade the
door, open before him, without any uncertainty; if he did not doorkeeper. Who would ever be able to distinguish him from
enter, it is only because his question did not have enough the beggars, who in Kafka's books live in the mire and gutter?
strength to call up the answer. Therefore he is guilty; the He resembles Block, although, unlike him, who will never
 15 6 KAFKA
r The Trial 157
come before the Law, he remains seated there, in front of the Law's invitation. In the base and trivial adventures of his
door. In this place, he has the sole vision that is granted him: Trial, he had not been able to recognize the beckoning of
he sees the splendor stream inextinguishably from the door of grace. If he had understood, if he had divined the path of his
the Law, even though veiled by the shadow of his blindness, destiny, if he had opened the door prepared for him alone, it
by the shadow of the darkness which has descended on the would have been flung wide to his entrance. But Joseph K.
world, by the shadow of approaching death, by the shadow could not understand. No man can by himself travel the road
of the distance from the place where the light is born. I that leads all the way to the Law, unless some sign comes to
believe that Plato would have mocked the countryman and his aid; and K. had encountered only signs turned upside
his miserable gift of light. But for Kafka he is the symbol of down, obscure messages, indecipherable invitations.
the highest metaphysical state that can be achieved: a state To us, who after so many years read these pages over
neither Joseph K. nor K. managed to approach. which the world's mind has been racked, the priest's invita­
I The apologue that the priest tells Joseph K. overturns the tion seems clear. By relating the apologue, he is not proposing
"I
I meaning we had until now attributed to the difficulties of the to Joseph K. that he confess and repent, as the lawyer Huld
defendant and all the world's defendants. The trial-process had asked; the path of confession, the key to Crime and
rotates upon itself, turns head over heels and appears in an Punishment, in which Raskolnikov climbs the narrow, mal­
unexpected light. We had believed that the Court accused odorous stairs to confess to the murder, does not lead
Joseph K. of a sin without a name, against which he had tried anywhere in Kafka's books. The priest proposes to K. that he
in vain to defend himself. Instead, in the apologue, the Law enter the edifice of the Law, or that he wait near the door of
hidden behind the door, the Law that the countryman seeks the Law as does the stupefied, almost blind countryman, and
and that Kafka does not know he is seeking, reveals that it as does the Law----distant, separate, hidden behind the door.
waits for all men, and above all for Joseph K. So in the The category of waiting is at the heart of Kafka's world:
trial-process, where until now we had seen only persecution God's waiting, mankind's waiting. But the priest disguises
and the arbitrary, we must discern a sort of invitation that his invitation. As he talks to a limited man, like K., he does
Someone had addressed to him. The sin without name, the not explain to him that the Law is paradoxical. He tells him
feeling of guilt of which Joseph K. and the other defendants the story of a deception: the doorkeeper's deception at the
are guilty, is in reality a divine election; this sin renders them expense of the countryman. And in talking he deceives
"beautiful," while all other men, who do not live under this Joseph K. a second time, because his interpretation dwells
shadow, do not exist in God's eyes. God accused them and exclusively on the doorkeeper's figure and does not touch on
had them arrested by his disreputable emissaries, but this the essential points, those which closely concern K.-the
accusation was the sign of his search. All the investigations countryman's search, his waiting, God's waiting. If K. had
and the trial, the great machine on which the novel is understood the parable, he would have been saved, redeemed
constructed, were a sinister invention of the Court; the Law by the light, or at least he would have waited for long years,
was playing a game with itself, for how is it possible to sunk deep in sacred debasement, beside the door. But not
determine the meaning of guilt? The only relationship even this time does K. understand, nor can he understand.
between the Court and the accused is their magical affinity, Perhaps, being so active and aggressive, he is incapable of
their hidden attraction. Joseph K. had not understood the waiting. But even had he been capable of waiting, how could
15 8 KAFKA

he have understood that, up there, on the unattainable

r The Trial

He goes to the window-and looks once more into the

159

summits of the Court, a door was open for him and that dark street. Also the windows across the street-from which
someone awaited him? lie understands only the most obvious on the first day had appeared the avid spectators of his
thing: the doorkeeper's deception. All the rest remains torture-are almost all dark; many have their curtains drawn.
obscure for him. Thus the new exclusion and the new But from one window, still lit up, appears for the last time
sentence take place. the moving spectacle of life, which will continue to renew
Between the scene in the cathedral and the last chapter of itself after Joseph K.'s death: some babies, still unable to
The Trial there falls an immense blank space, more vertigi­ move about, play behind a grate and stretch out their little
nous than the one that precedes the last chapter of The hands to each other. K. and the two executioners go down
Sentimental Education. We do not know what Joseph K. does the stairs, reach the street, cross a deserted square and arrive
during the months that separate late fall and late spring: what at the bridge. K. stops for an instant, turning toward the
attempts he makes, what hopes still accompany him, and parapet: the river's water, refulgent and tremulous under the
whether some echo of the parable in the cathedral penetrates moonlight, divides around a small island, on which cluster,
his limited mind. We meet him again in late spring, on the almost crushed together, masses of trees and bushes. Then
evening before his thirty-first birthday. As the Court de­ they continue walking, pass through small climbing alley­
mands, he has put on a black ceremonial suit, and seated on ways, leave the town, until they reach a small stone quarry,
a chair near the door he slowly pulls on new gloves that are abandoned and overgrown, near a house that still has a town­
tight around his fingers. He is waiting for his executioners; like aspect. "Everywhere there was the brightness of the
no one has announced their visit, but he has sensed it because moon, with its naturalness and quiet, with which no other
of the magical affinity that links guilt and accusation, victims light is endowed." How heartrending these words are! For
and judges. Around nine o'clock, two men in frock coats the first time in the entire book, nature awakens from its
come to his house, wearing apparently irremovable top hats, absence and bestows on Joseph K. the quiet and tenderness
with smooth, pale, fat faces and heavy double chins, from he will never be able to possess. The mild splendor of the
which they seem to have just removed the greasepaint. They moon, which illuminates the murder, is a grace, like the
do not say a word. They are like automatons with plastic, splendor that illuminates the end of the countryman's life:
lifeless limbs: perhaps two old, tenth-rate vaudeville actors, the exceedingly sweet, dreadful grace that the Law grants
or two old tenors. Like the Society of the Tower in the only to the condemned.
Lehrjahre, the Court expresses itself through the appearances After an exchange of courtesies, one of the men ap­
of the theater; it seems to parody itself: the execution has proaches K. and removes his jacket, vest and shirt. K.
nothing sacred about it, such as those of many centuries shivers. Near the quarry's wall rises a boulder. The men
ago-but rather it is impious, empty, sinister, devoid of all make K. stand upright, prop him against the boulder and
majesty and decorum. At that moment; Joseph K. admits place his head on the rock. Then one of the men opens his
to himself that he expected a different visit. Whom did frock coat and from a sheath attached to the belt over his vest
he expect? A less undignified and theatrical death? Perhaps draws out a long, thin, double-edged butcher's knife, holds it
the priest, who had taught him how to move through the up and examines its edge in the light. Once more the
darkness? grotesque, disgusting courtesies, one man passes the knife to
 160 KAFKA
r The Trial 161

the other man over the stretched-out body, and the other so freely, convinced and happy-a sight that must have
man returns it to him across K. 's body. Joseph K. looks moved the gods: I also felt this deep emotion of the gods
around. His glance falls on the top story of the house beside almost to the point of tears." In "The Penal Colony" he had
the quarry. The shutters of a window are flung open with a described the ecstasy of punishment. The great machine
flaring light, and a figure, faint and frail because of the incised the violated commandment on breast and back;
height, impetuously leans far out, holds its arms out even during the first six hours the condemned man was nothing
I farther. "Who was it? A friend? A good soul? Someone who but pain; but starting with the sixth hour, he became quiet,
sympathized? Someone who wanted to help? Was it one deciphered the Law's writing through his wounds, his
person only? Were there all of them? Was there still some intelligence opened up, he compressed his lips as though
help? Were there objections that had been forgotten? ... listening; and the Law's light, incised on his body, was
Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High diffused like light from his transfigured countenance. In that
Court, which he had never reached?" sentence there took place the unio mystica between man and
'I, These last questions are K.'s last hopes before death: his God. Here, in the last pages of The Trial, the sentence
hopes that death renders vain. And yet this cry goes beyond does not generate any light or transfiguration: Joseph K. does
death, and not even the slaughter extinguishes it. Once more, not know the happiness of punishment, does not welcome it
the Court reminds us that the Law waits for men and, up "freely, convinced and happy"; nor do we sense, above him,
there, in the shape of a question and a figure faint and frail the deep emotion of the gods at his punishment and his joy.
because of the distance, holds out its arms to us. Kafka's Around K.'s throat are placed the hands of one of the
world is open to hope as no other, and the hope is realizable, assassins, while the other plunges the knife into his heart and
because if it were not, it would no longer be hope. We can twists it twice. Through eyes that are losing their light,
only establish a simple fact: for all we know, the hope is Joseph K. sees the men close to his face, cheek against cheek,
never fulfilled, the priest deceives K., and the executioners observing his death. No death can be more scandalous and
kill him. "Outside of this world that we know is there still undignified; nothing can redeem it: it is death to its darkest
hope?" Max Brod asked his friend. Kafka smiled: "Oh, depth, with all the shamefulness of the word-shame for the
certainly, much hope, infinite hope, but not for us." Kafka's crime committed by the Court, shame for the turpitude of
smiling answer confirms the conclusion of The Trial. If the act, shame for K. 's guilt that survives the sentence. Never
Kafka's world were without hope, it would be easier and did the horror of the sacred strike with greater fearsomeness
more bearable to live in it. But the fact that hope, despite than in these lines.
everything, is not dead, that it always blossoms anew, that it
flies high in the mild lunar sky, always to be again disap­
pointed by pitiless hands-this is what makes Kafka's world
so desperate, tragic and unbearable.
Kafka knew the happiness of punishment. In a dream,
which he recorded in his Diaries, he was punished and
derived from this a "boundless happiness." "The happiness
consisted in the fact that punishment came and I welcomed it
 r A Sino-Greek Intermezzo 16 3

of the Tibetan mountains. It is a series of partial construc­

CHAPTER SEVEN tions: walls five hundred meters long, each built by a group
of twenty workers, and not connected to each other. Between
one wall and the next, according to history or legend, great
gaps intervene. But of what use can so fragmented a wall be?
How can a wall so broken up protect? The barbarians can
A Sino-Greek Intermezzo slip through between one section and the next, advance into
the plain and demolish the walls built in the desert regions.
In any event, no one has ever seen the barbarians. The
Chinese read about them in old books, and the cruelties the
barbarians committed make them sigh as they sit on their
peaceful verandas. In the artists' realistic paintings they see
those faces of the damned, those gaping mouths, those jaws
armed with huge pointed teeth, those slitted eyes that
already seem to be spying out the prey that their jaws will
tear up and devour. Seeing these paintings, the children
Tike the Court's topmost hierarchies, the directorate of the
weep with fright. But that is all the Chinese know about the
~ Great Wall of China is located in an unattainable place.
barbarians. "We have never seen them, and if we remain in
Despite all the anonymous Narrator's questions, nobody has
our village we shall never see them, even if on their wild
ever found out where the directorate's office was, and who
horses they hurled themselves directly at us, as they hunt­
occupied it. Here, too, the center of the world is unknown.
the country is too vast and would not let them get close to us,
But in this unknown place, the world's supreme wisdom is
they would lose their way in the empty air." In fact, nobody
gathered. Although the Great Wall's directorate is not,
ever thought to build the Great Wall against the barbarians.
probably, divine, through the open window "the reflection
The directorate has always existed, as ancient as China's
of divine worlds" enters and illuminates the hands of the
gods; and the architectonic project too goes back to the most
directors who are drawing up the plans. What is striking in
remote past. The Great Wall is a philosophical idea, an ideal
the directorate's activity is its total scope. Up there is the
form, an architecture of the mind, which the celestial
harmonious seat of the All. Under the light from the broad
hierarchy invented to hold together the immense and multi­
windows illuminated by God arrive all of man's desires,
form Chinese people.
fantasies and thoughts, all his accomplishments and goals,
China's paradox resides precisely in this. The total
and the architectonic experiences of all known times and
directorate wants to construct a partial wall, limited and full
peoples. of gaps, because the totality of the celestial mind is best
The extraordinary thing is that this divine directorate,
mirrored on earth in fragmentary constructions. The All is
inspired by the breath of totality, has built onl y fragmentary
rigid, whereas the fragmentary is flexible, slow, disposed to
walls. The Great Wall is not a single construction that begins
adapt to reality's suggestions, to the solicitations of chance, to
in the northern steppes where the Mongols threaten, and,
the differences offered by China's territory and population.
after crossing plains, mountains and deserts, ends at the foot
 I~ KAFKA

The fragmentary is like water, the emblem of the Tao. The

directorate does not want to employ workers in a titanic
r A Sino-Greek Intermezzo

ear. The old man falls silent, looks at his son thoughtfully,
16 5

empties his pipe, slips it into his belt, caresses his son's cheek
undertaking, in which they would be overwhelmed by and presses his head against his chest. When they return
despair. It knows very well that the human creature (who has home, the rice is steaming on the table, some guests have
a basis in levity and resembles the dust that rises in the air) arrived, the mother pours wine into the glasses; the father
does not tolerate chains. When he is tied to an absorbing task, repeats the news just learned from the boatman: in the North
a superhuman undertaking, a single chain, after a short while the emperor has begun the construction of the Great Wall.
he begins to rebel, feverishly rattle his shackles, tear apart A section of the Great Wall is completed. During the
and throw to the winds the wall, the chains and himself. enthusiasm of festivities, the chiefs are sent far away; and
Many, at that period, spoke of the Tower of Babel: some during their journey they see rising here and there sections of
thought that for the first time in the history of humanity the the completed walls, they pass before the quarters of the high
Great Wall would provide secure foundations for a new chiefs and are presented with badges of honor, they hear the
';1 Tower of Babel. At this point, our anonymous Narrator exultance of the masses of workers who come in streams from
seems unable to understand. But the directorate's thought the villages, they see the felling of whole forests, which are
(Kafka's thought) seems clear to me. The Great Wall is the destined to become scaffolds for the Wall, they see mountains
anti-Tower of Babel. The first is the daughter of patience, being shattered, in sacred places they listen to the songs of
prudence and acceptance of human limitations; the second is the devout who pray for the completion of the construction.
the daughter of hubris, which intends to defy human limits All this appeases their impatience. They return to their
and the God in heaven. The first is a horizontal construction; villages. Their tranquil lives at home give them new vigor,
the second a vertical construction. The first is a fragmentary while the authority they enjoy, the humility with which they
construction; the second, like the Court in The Trial, aims at listen to the reports, the trust that the simple citizen places
reproducing the circularity and frightful tension of the All. in the future completion of the Wall help to keep the soul's
So, protected by the Wall, which does not defend it from strings taut. Then the frenzy to resume work becomes
barbarians but from itself, China lives its harmonious exis­ invincible, and they bid farewell to their native places, like
tence in the thousands of small communities that populate it: children animated by perpetual hope. They leave home
a China that, with a ductile hand, Kafka brings to life in the early; half the village accompanies them for long stretches.
delicacy and tenuousness of its colors. We are in a village of Along all the streets, clusters of people, banners, flags: never
the South. On a summer's evening (China's time is sunset), a before had they seen how great and rich and lovable China
father holds his son by the hand on the river's bank, while his was. Every peasant is a brother for whom a protective wall is
other hand runs along his long, very thin pipe as though it being built, and he is grateful throughout his life. Collective
were a flute. He thrusts out his broad, sparse, rigid beard, labor had until then been for Kafka a mechanical, anguished
enjoys the smoke from his pipe while gazing on high beyond and lifeless operation, as in Amerika. Now, for the first time
the river; his pigtail drops down, rustling faintly against the in his books, it becomes a sublime people's utopia: from the
gold-embroidered silk of his festive gown. A boat stops near veins of the individual the circle of blood flows softly, with a
the bank; the boatman whispers something into the father's perpetually repeated cycle, into the veins of illimitable
 166 KAFKA
r, A Sino-Greek Intermezzo 16 7

China; and this collective harmony of individuals takes place shaking them wildly. The center is distant; the links between
only because the Wall is not a total and rigid construction, the diverse parts of the empire are labile and loose, the laws
but a patient, prudent, flexible inlay of fragments. vague and never enforced. Some theologians of unity and
At the center of China stand the emperor-God and totality, some heirs of The Trial, could maintain that this
Peking: its living body. How immense the emperor is! He is leads to chaos and so call for a compact Wall, unitarian, rigid,
a space, a city: dwellings without end; the inner rooms of the like the most rigid religion. But even though he is so uncer­
imperial palace, swarming with the realm's great personages; tain, the anonymous Narrator of this story knows quite well
palaces upon palaces, stairways, courtyards, gate after gate, that the Chinese people are held together precisely because
and at last "the imperial city, the center of the world, filled to the wall has gaps, the empire's construction is slack and free,
I overflowing with its dregs." Wherever a Chinese lives, even Peking is distant, as though the emperor does not exist.
I
if he is a few miles from Peking, an incommensurable dis­ The emperor is dead: God is dead; perhaps forever. From
tance separates him from the center. Wherever he may live, his deathbed the emperor sends a message to his "most
he lives at the farthest periphery and from there he avidly wretched subject, a minuscule shadow who has sought
listens to the reports and legends that come from the very refuge from the imperial sun in the remotest reaches" of
distant capital. But he knows almost nothing. He does not China. He bids the messenger kneel at his bedside and
know which emperor reigns, and he is even doubtful about whispers the message to him; and so much does he care for
the dynasty's name. As for the past, in his village emperors the precision of his words that he has the messenger repeat
long since dead are worshipped: battles of ancient history are them in his ear. With a nod of his head, he confirms. Never
only now being fought, and the neighbor, his face glowing, as here, in Kafka's work, does God, the God who is dying,
brings the news: ancient imperial concubines, swollen with a show such delicate care for his subject: he sends a message
frenzy for power, excited by lust, swamped in luxury, con­ not to the universality of his subjects, but just to him, a
tinue to commit their misdeeds; an empress of thousands of person, a particular individual among the hundreds of mil­
years before is just now drinking her husband's blood in long lions of individuals who populate China. The mysterious
gulps. The people live outside Peking's and the emperor's message never reaches the last periphery. "The multitude is
time: they live past events as though they were present and so vast! Its houses are endless. If the fields were open and
the present as though it were the past. free, the messenger would fly, and instantly you would hear
The Chinese behave as though the emperor-God does not the splendid beat of his fists on your door. Instead he is not
exist. They have no craving for the absolute. They never feel at all in a hurry; he is still trying to cross the chambers of the
"'1111 for their emperor-God that desire for identity, for mystical innermost palace; never will he be able to get beyond them;
union, which torments the breasts of so many believers-and and were he to succeed, he would obtain nothing; he would
forces them to burn, fail, faint, in the terrible amorous have to struggle along the stairs; and even were he able to do
encounter. If the emperor does not exist, neither does the this, he would obtain nothing; he would still have to traverse
idea and institution of the empire exist. The wise hierarchy the courtyards; and after the courtyards, the second palace
knows that men must not be bound with chains that are too which encloses them; and again stairs and again courtyards;
tight: the reins are slack, as the Tao teaches, so that the and another palace; and so on through the millennia; and if in
Chinese are not aware of being held back and will not begin the end he were to dash precipitously from the last gate-but
 168 KAFKA
r A Sino-Greek Intermezzo 169
never, never will this occur-before him will stand the There are the potent and very beautiful figures of the uncon­
imperial city, the center of the world, filled to overflowing scious: the Sirens, whom Kafka evoked some time later; the
with its dregs. Here no one can pass, much less with the Sirens, who, after so many centuries, stretch out on the rocky
message of a dead man. -You, however, seated at your meadow, turn, fling to the wind their frightful loose hair and
window, dream about it when evening falls." spread their claws over the rocks. They sing as they did in
This last, very brief sentence contains an entire theology Ulysses' time: no longer, as then, tales of the Trojan War, but
-the theology by which live all those who, after God's death, mysterious and terrible words that the gods reveal to men.
believe in God. The humble Chinese does not wait for the Their song penetrates everywhere, seduces minds and hearts;
I message surrounded by the complete darkness in which the the chains with which the sailors tie themselves to the masts
I
priest in The Trial speaks to Joseph K., or the darkness in no longer serve, nor does the wax in their ears to which Ulysses
which the countryman perceives the inextinguishable stream­ has recourse. All those who listen to the sacred voice are lost:
ing forth of the light. Sitting at his window, he waits for the they cannot bear the revelation; and on the rocks lies a heap of
I II
messenger when the day comes to an end, interweaving light bones and shriveled skin. But from Ulysses' time to ours, the
and darkness, glimmer and dusk. Like each of us, he is Sirens have become even more powerful. Now their supreme
"without hope" (because God is irreparably dead) and "full of temptation is silence. Whereas in "News of the Building of the
hope" (because God will never die). He knows the divine Wall: A Fragment," a preliminary version of "The Great Wall
through the death of the divine; he lives as though the gods of China," the gods disappeared and died, here they pretend
were not there, and yet he dreams about them; and he is they are dead. The death of the gods-the theme that fas­
forever immersed in their crepuscular light and their fra­ cinated Kafka during these years-is therefore only the most
grance. Thus, lost in his dream, he has an airy existence, insidious of their ruses. In this silence there is an intolerable
free, natural, serene, mild, without the temptation of trag­ seduction. As soon as they fall silent, we commit the sin of
edy. He no longer has the obsession of the sacred, as does the hubris: we think we have reduced them to silence with our
I
city dweller of The Trial; but he is surrounded by the aura strength; overwhelming pride swells our heart; and what we
and protection of the living and dead image of the sacred. thought was our victory is transformed into our definitive
Now that God is dead, he has resumed a tender and defeat-our blinding.
confidential relationship with the father, as is shown to us by When Kafka's Ulysses reaches the sea of the Sirens, they
the image of the two on the river's bank, the son's head are not singing; they think they can overcome him with si­
tenderly resting against the father's breast-an image that in lence, or they forget to sing at the sight of the beatitude that
Kafka's work we encounter only here. pours from his countenance. They no longer have the desire
to seduce: they want only to clutch for as long as possible the
splendor that shines from his great eyes. To protect himself
In "The Great Wall of China" God is an empty place, an from them, Kafka's Ulysses is even more cautious than Hom­
absent and dying figure, an oasis of gentleness; and even er's: he has himself chained to the mast, fills his ears with wax,
though we do not know the message he sent to each of us, we whereas in The 0d..yssey, as a great expert of temptations and
cannot believe that he meant to seduce us with his fascinating mysteries, he had left his ears open to the Sirens' song. He
words. Not all gods are like the remote emperor of China. delights and trusts in his inadequate and puerile means, while
 17 0 KAFKA
r A Sino-Greek Intermezzo 17 1
all other voyagers had discovered that they were useless. He Ulysses is Kafka, the man who has taught us to coexist with
does not hear the Sirens' silence. He thinks that they are the death of the gods. When the last Chinese in the provinces
singing and imagines that he alone, with his ears stopped with does not receive the emperor's message, he understands that
wax, is kept from hearing them. Fleetingly, he sees them the ancient god is dead, and yet he goes on living, "without
stretch their necks, breathe deeply, notes their eyes filled with hope and full of hope," in the dream and memory of him.
tears, their barely opened lips, and believes that all this ac­ Ulysses understands that the death of the gods is the supreme
companied the melodies which, unheard, are lost around him. test the gods impose on us in our epoch, the ultimate divine
The spectacle barely grazes his eyes, turned toward the dis­ stratagem in the course of the long battle with men. If he
tances of his return. If he saves himself and defeats the Sirens, wants to survive he can only meet trickery with trickery; and
it is because of his limited, resolute, decisive character. He is he pretends he is a limited, puerile man, who believes in the
a simple man, a positivist, a man of action-the opposite of the protection of the mast and the wax. Who could be more of a
polymorphous, intricate figure, most attentive to divine voices fox than he? But at the same time more devout and religious
and spells, that he was in The Odyssey. He does not even imagine than he? Because in the desolate world that the death of the
for a moment that the Sirens' songs could defeat his ridiculous gods opens in the hearts of men, he continues to listen to
defenses; and he is so insensitive to the gods' lethal silence as their immortal voices-so terrible, so implacable and rich
to mistake it for a song he does not hear. But he is not an with seduction, as they had never been until now.
impious man: he does not let himself be overwhelmed by the I confess to having a predilection for this Sino-Greek
pride of having killed the gods. Thus, because of a curious experience, this untragic space, nourished with the colors of
combination of circumstances, Ulysses is the one man who the Tao and The Odyssey, that Kafka attempted in 1917, on the
survives the disappearance of the divine. margins of the tragedy that the revelation of his tuberculosis
Though with many cautious qualifications, Kafka offers was for him. It occupies a unique place in his work. Little
another version of the legend of the Sirens: the only one in more than two years before, he had completed The Trial and
i'l
I: which, evidently, he believes. Ulysses is not at all the lim­ "In the Penal Colony." This had been the absolute experience
ited, puerile hero whom, playfully, Kafka had supposed: he of the center: like the countryman, he had tried to enter in­
remained the man of The Odyssey, endowed at once with the to God's luminous-tenebrous edifice, and had desperately
most subtle religious wisdom and those human ruses which sought for union with him. But this experience had ended in
allow us to deceive the gods and coexist with them. When death and defeat: the ecstatic death of the condemned man in
he sees the Sirens stretch their necks, breathe deeply with the old colony, the shameful death of the officer and of
tear-filled eyes and just barely open their lips, he does not Joseph K. Now, during those years of quiet living and the
believe that they are singing or that the artifice of the wax loosening of his ties with Felice, during this time of small
prevents him from hearing. He understands that the Sirens stories and small tests, Kafka had moved away from the
are silent, that he is witnessing the silence and death of the center. Three years later, in a letter to Max Brod, he would
gods. But contrary to the other men, he does not let himself express with marvelous precision the meaning of "The Great
be defeated by the seductiveness of this silence, believing he Wall of China" and "The Silence of the Sirens": "The Greeks
had defeated them with his own powers. Cunning as a fox, ... were particularly humble people.... They imagined
he pretends he believes they are still singing. This modern the divine as far away from them as possible, that whole
17 2 KAFKA
f'
world of gods was simply a means of keeping the decisive CHAPTER EIGHT
element from the terrestrial body, to grant air to human
breath.... In theory there exists an earthly possibility of
perfect happiness, that of believing in what is decisively
divine and of not aspiring to attain it. This possibility of
being happy is as blasphemous as it is unattainable, but the
Greeks were perhaps closer to it than many others."* In
The Zurau Aphorisms
these two prose pieces Kafka had experienced at least as an
intellectual hypothesis the "perfect happiness," which he
later considered blasphemous. This was the one experience
of distance from the center that he ever attempted. Faith in
God in death and in the silence of God: the fragmentary,
gap-filled wall, which envelops the earth; flexible, slow,
mild, airy, patient, prudent life; the cautious bond with
others; the tender love between father and son in the summer
evening; the cunning of Ulysses with the Sirens ... Kafka
had never known so luminous an image of celestial and
earthly life.
D uring the night between August 12 and 13,1917, Kafka
had his first serious hemorrhage from the mouth. It was
four o'clock in the morning: he woke up, wondering about
the strange amount of saliva in his mouth; he spat it out; and
when he decided to turn on the light, he saw the large stain
of blood on his handkerchief. He thought this would continue
all night long until he slowly lost all of his blood. How could
he close up the source, since he hadn't opened it! Agitated,
he rose from his bed, went to the window, looked out, paced
the room, went over to the washstand, sat down on the
bed-blood, more blood. At last it stopped, almost suddenly;
and immediately, seeing that the definitive sentence had been
pronounced and it was useless to discuss it, he fell asleep as
he had never slept during the last three years. Sometime
later, in writing to friends, he said the illness did not surprise
him. He had foretold it in "A Country Doctor," when the
doctor discovers in the boy's right side a wound as big as the
palm of a hand: "pink in color, with diverse shades, dark at
the bottom, lighter toward the edges, slightly granulated,
* The central or third sentence was already written in the third octam with irregular clots of blood, open like the entrance to a
notebook, on December 19, 1917. mine."
174 KAFKA

He had no need to remind himself of the outward

symptoms of his tuberculosis: the incessant insomnia, head­
aches, fevers, the fearful nervous tensions, which had dis­
"
r; The Ziirau Aphorisms

tremely simple and crude. Was that all? he thought. Was the
celestial intervention nothing but a gush of blood, a pink
stain on his handkerchief? The illness, which he had not
175

tressed him during the five years of his engagement to Felice. sought out, took on in his eyes a strange protective and
By now he was accustomed to read all the events of his life as maternal quality. "Today I have for tuberculosis the feeling
a symbolic tapestry, of which he was the involuntary center. a child has for the folds of his mother's skirt to which he
On the stage of his existence there had been a struggle clings." He did not experience the illness as a test or a battle,
between the world-Felice was its representative-and his which he had to endure like a stoic combatant. He was not
ego, or two parts of his ego-the good one, which wanted to made for tests: they did not fortify him, and his first instinct
marry Felice, and the wicked one, which did not want to was to go to meet the blows and disappear under them. He
marry her. The good ego, which belonged to Felice, had wanted to get well; but he also wanted the contrary-to
suffered defeat. And now, weak, tired, almost drained of disappear once and for all, under the batterings sent him
blood, it leaned invisibly on her shoulder and, disheartened, by God.
watched the big wicked man who began to commit his The symptoms of the illness did not preoccupy him
vulgarities. Kafka insisted: "I shall never get well. Precisely much. He wrote to Brad that he "almost did not feel it." He
because this is not tuberculosis, which laid in a deck chair can had no fever, he did not cough much and was not in pain. He
be cured, but a weapon, whose extreme necessity remains as was short of breath-true enough-but if he lay down or sat
long as I live. And it is impossible for both to remain alive." he didn't notice it; and when he walked or did some sort of
Or perhaps another struggle had taken place, which also had work, he easily put up with it: "I breathe twice as quickly,
a symbolic relationship to Felice. After years of anxieties, his that's all, it's no great nuisance. I've come to the conclusion
brain could no longer endure the preoccupations and pains that tuberculosis, as I have it, is not a particular disease, an
imposed on it. He said: "I cannot go on, but if there is still illness worthy of a special name, but only a greater intensity
someone who cares to preserve my life let him take some of of the general germ of death, whose importance right now
my burden and it will be possible to stay alive for a little cannot be evaluated." He put on weight: a kilo in a week, two
longer." At that his lungs, which hadn't much to lose, came and a half kilos in three weeks. He made merciless jokes
forward, and after frightful negotiations they assumed the about the physicians' diagnoses. After the first examination,
burden. If he had had a tolerable loss of blood, he would have they had said that he was almost completely healthy; after
been able to get married, and in his private universal history the second, that he was even better; then there was a bit of
this victory would have had "something of the Napoleonic." bronchial catarrh on the left; later on, signs of tubercle bacilli
But the stain was immense, like the frightful red flower that on the right and left which, however, would disappear in
had opened in the boy's side in "A Country Doctor." Prague quickly and completely; and finally he could even
The play of symbols led ever higher, toward that Other, expect, but only for a day, an undoubted improvement. He
that tenebrous-luminous principle from which his life was had the impression that the others had become exceedingly
suspended. As with many interventions of the Other, he good to him: they all were immediately ready to make
sensed in this intervention something gentle (especially "in sacrifices, from the humblest to the highest. "But probably I
comparison to the average of recent years"), but also ex­ am mistaken, they are like this only with someone for whom
 17 6 K A F K A
r' The Zurau Aphorisms 177
no human help can be of use. A special sense of smell reveals of December, in Prague. He accompanied her in tears to the
such a case to them." railroad station; then he went to see Max Brod, at the office.
It seemed to him that doctors and friends wanted to His face was pale, hard and severe, but suddenly he began to
screen off with their backs the angel of death, who stood
weep, as he hadn't done since he was a child. He was sitting
behind them, and then gradually they moved aside. But he
on a small chair next to Brod's desk, where debtors, pension­
I
was not afraid of the angel of death; and this was the sign that
ers and petitioners usually sat. With tears streaming down
he was rapidly abandoning life and its allurements. With
his face, he murmured: "Isn't it terrible that this must
bitter irony he accepted death, which every day in his
happen?" Brod had never seen him so bereft of support.
apparent health took a step forward. While the others saw a
During the following days he wrote in the Diaries: "F.'s
past, present and future, he no longer saw anything: it
departure. -Weeping. Everything difficult, wrong and yet
seemed to him he was something dark that ran precipitously
right." Then: "Not fundamentally disappointed." Finally:
in darkness, and at times he felt he had not even been born.
"Of his own will he turned like a fist and eluded the world."
"If I could save myself like a bat digging holes, I would dig
On September 12 he left for Zurau, in the Bohemian
a hole." Max Brod reproached him for being "happy in
countryside, where his sister Ottla lived; and two years later
unhappiness." The reproach hit home. Almost with the same
he wrote that those eight months spent in a village where,
words he replied to Max and to Felice that to be "happy in under the tutelage of illness, he thought he had become
unhappiness" (which also meant being "unhappy in happi­
detached from everything had been the best time of his life.
ness") was probably the condemnation marked on Cain's
He had a warm and airy room, before which spread the open
forehead. He who bears that mark on his forehead leaves life,
countryside. "There cannot be, in any sense, anything better
shatters the world, no longer walks in step with the world; for breathing." The house was quiet-although sometimes
unable to reconstitute it alive, he is pursued and persecuted noises tortured him even there: the sound of a piano, a
through its rubble. Did he too bear the mark of Cain on his worker beating wood and another beating metal. He felt free
forehead? To both Max and Felice he protested he did not. as he had never felt before: free from family, work, Felice,
,Iii Despite his protestations he accused himself of not having reality, literature and, in a certain sense, even from worries
recognized the happiness that had been entrusted to him, and about his future, since his illness delineated the horizon line
of desperately enjoying his own misfortune. with precision. There were no tests he had to confront: he
"I All that was left to do was to leave Felice. On September
2 I, when she came to visit him in the country, Kafka had the
did not have to suffer comparisons; Ottla carried him "on her
wings through the difficult world." He lived with her in a
impression that the tuberculosis was the final weapon he had small, pleasant, everyday menage; he surrendered to its
invented to torture her. "I have committed the wrong for
rhythm gently, quietly, patiently, and with great goodwill.
which she is being tortured, and besides I serve as the
With her there never was the violent tension of a short circuit
instrument of her torture." He pushed her away, with a
as with Felice and later Milena, but rather a tranquil, placid,
gesture, and, as he said a few days later, played out his part: sinuous current.
"The scene I saw ... was too infernal for one not to have the
He kept away his friends, who would have asked ques­
wish to come to the aid of those present with a bit of music
tions he did not want to answer; and he did not want to break
capable of distracting them." He saw Felice again at the end
the evenness of his time with a trip into the inferno of
 l'
r ,-
17 8 KAFKA The Zurau Aphorisms 179
Prague. He did not enjoy seeing his father and mother. traced, wood nibbled, faint whistles even during their rests,
Confined in the countryside, far from the railroad, close to and all along the sense of stillness, of the secret working away
the indissoluble evening which descended without anyone or of an oppressed, proletarian people, to whom the night
anything opposing it, it seemed to him that he was repeating belongs." He had tried to save himself through thought by
the destiny of a member of his family: his uncle, the country placing the chief commotion near the stove, at the other end
doctor, with his subtle bachelor's or birdlike irony. He had of the room-but the noise came from all corners, all sides,
changed his life's regime on an essential point: he no longer and from time to time the entire tribe leaped down in a
wrote at night, as when he had struggled with the nightmares compact mass from some piece of furniture. He was utterly
of Gregor Samsa and the degraded gods. His time was distraught: he did not dare get up; he did not dare turn on the
wrapped in silence: he lived almost without talking, almost light; he simply tried to frighten them away with a few
without listening to words. He lay down close to the shouts. He was afraid of that relentless, crafty presence: he
window, reading or not reading. lie lived very well among had the impression that they had pierced the walls in a
the animals; he fed "the goats, \vhich with their muzzles hundred places and lay there in ambush, lords of the
reminded him of the face of his attending physician, or darkness. In the morning he could not get up because of
Jewish physicians and lawyers, or some girl, she too Jewish. nausea and depression; he stayed in bed until one o'clock,
A homemade lounging chair had been put together for him straining his ears to hear what those tireless beasts were
out of an old wide upholstered armchair, with two stools in preparing for the coming night. Then he took a cat into his
front of it; and it was carried to a large, semicircular hollow room. But he was afraid of her too. He did not have the
surrounded by a chain of hills. He lay there "like a king," courage to get undressed in her presence, do his exercises and
without a shirt, where no one could see him. lIe listened to go to bed when she was there; he hated her to jump on his
the voices of the world thin out and fall silent; he caught sight knees or dirty the floor.
of a beam, a streak of sunlight, and he thought he could see
happiness descend among the earth's hills; and he experi­
enced a total sense of fullness. "Not a drop runs over, but In Ziirau, in the thoughts that he disseminated in "octavo
there is no room for another." notebooks" and in letters, he boldly confronted his past. He
However, this was not only a sojourn filled with light. had failed in everything. In the city as well as in the family,
One night, about the middle of November, he was again in his profession, society, friendship, his engagement and
assailed by horror of the mute, insidious animal strength that literature-he had not "acquitted himself well," as had not
he sensed in himself and in the world. Every so often, during happened to anyone else around him. He had done nothing
that fall, he had heard a subdued gnawing, and once he had but ask questions: questions of all kinds; questions that were
risen trembling from bed to see what it was. But on that always more vexed, lofty and arduous, and he had never
night he witnessed the soundless and noisy rebellion of the received an answer. Now he did not understand how he
frightening mouse population. At two o'clock he was awak­ could have deluded himself that he had really asked ques­
ened by a rustle near his bed, and from that moment on it did tions. He did not have the air in which he could breathe; he
not stop until morning. "Up on the coal bin, down from the had no ground-laws, habits, thought, religion, literature­
coal bin, a race from corner to corner of the room, circles on which to set his feet. All his books-and the fragments
180 KAFKA l'I The Zurau Aphorisms 181

couriers, rear guards, snipers on his flanks, even though it is

which could only make him blush-he had written in the
language "of possessiveness and its relationships," not that of difficult to imagine who these allies were, seeing that Kier­
the spirit; and now all this seemed to him a pile of useless kegaard had also abandoned him. But on the other hand, he
paper, thousands of ink-stained pages, to be thrown away claimed the right to use the weapons of his adversaries.
with a single gesture, or to be entrusted to a merciful bonfire. Wasn't his condition perhaps essentially ambiguous? Didn't
All that was left of his life was an atrocious feeling of shame, he stand at all the crossroads, all the meeting places of
almost as though he had died wretchedly, or had been killed thought? A child of the night, he found himself fighting for
like his Joseph K., with a shame that survived his death. light; nourished only by gaps and empty spaces, he intended
Now, there, almost alone, protected by his sister's wings, to build an edifice of solid brickwork; child of the negation of
with a few books, he wanted to find an answer to all the his time, he sought to construct a metaphysic of the One.
questions that had tortured him, and had tortured men, ever What a paradoxical task! On the one hand, his supreme
since Adam had been driven from the earthly paradise. He obligation was that of constructing an All. He wanted to
had little time. He wanted to start from scratch, as though learn the letters that composed its invocation, invoke its
nothing had ever been written, as though time had never dream, dream its existence, intuit its closeness, brush close to
existed, and with one bound, like his daring acrobats, leap its design. And then, as he held the All in his hands, attack
with joined feet straight into the eternal. No one protected something or someone with a raised fist, "as one clutches a
his back, but he always forgot this and again sought protec­ stone to throw, a knife to butcher": to immolate and be
tion, at no matter what cost. As he told Brod, he was trying immolated, because that knife was also the sacrificial knife­
to achieve clarity on the ultimate things, whereas the ideas of and he must die at the foot of the All. But on the other hand,
West European Jews were not clear about anything. He where was this All? He held only fragments: a myriad of
wanted to "lift the world into the pure, the true, the thoughts, a quantity of aphorisms, disjointed, unharmonious
immutable." Separate truths no longer interested him-only sentences, splintered stones that would not have been able to
metaphysics, theology: God, nothing but God. But what else form even the gap-filled barrier of his Chinese wall. He did
had he done, during recent years? From the first glimmers of not want to construct an All. He did not want to elaborate
Amerika, to The Trial, to "The Great Wall of China," what a theory-because he detested theories that do violence to
had his work been if not an incessant search in which only the world, oppress it, deform it and end by destroying it.
the name of God was omitted? In reality, he had tried to Even though his work was totally molded by thought, it
reach God through the world: degraded reality, the lowest escaped all existing forms of thought. "Only from within"
emissaries, the Wall's gap-filled construction. Now, for the can one preserve "oneself and the world in silence and
first time, he would confront God face to face, with a pure truth." And where were those allies he had dreamt of, and
effort of his thought. together with whom he hoped to conduct a philosophical
The first lines he wrote in the third notebook allow us to or metaphysical battle? He was truly alone. "You are the
believe that he, like Pascal, wanted to conduct an intellectual task. Nowhere is a disciple to be found." It was fortunate
battle against his time and all times. "I cannot fight my that the ground on which he stood could not be greater
personal battle." In this battle he was not alone: he did not than the space covered by his feet. Digging right there, in
make war on his own, as he had thought; he had allies, that inexhaustible soil, utilizing its faults, its gaps, the
182 KAFKA

absence of foundation, its chasms, he would construct the

most fantastic of Chinese Walls.
The premise of the Ziirau research is an undemonstrated
"
, The Ziirau Aphorisms

You must not despair, precisely because the road climbs up

18 3

and "its regressions can also be caused by the conformation of

the terrain." But is it not preciselv this that could lead us to
and undemonstrable hypothesis: there exists a point of despair? That the terrain that takes us toward the Single One
arrival, whatever its name might be, God or the One or should be so steep that we shall never be able to surmount it?
Being, or "the indestructible," as Kafka calls it, in the That we shall never, at any price, reach the top?
manifest desire not to name it. Which is the road that leads to Kafka asked himself whether he might be able to reach
it? Which is the way to the point of arrival? The first answer the point of arrival with the help of the art of questions and
distresses us deeply: There is no road, not even a high answers, and he tried to interrogate the mechanism of this
mountain path. The "true way goes over a rope," and to art. And with what renewed anguish! In his hands the
traverse it one must be an acrobat, a tightrope walker, one of mechanism turned upside down, breaking down irreparably.
those performers whom the young Kafka loved, and who While we imagine that the question has an open face, as have
reappear here as the only mediators on the road toward all those who ask, it has, for him, "an inaccessible face": the
Being. But here a new difficulty arises: the rope is not stone face of the sphinx, the enigma. While we believe that
stretched up high between two houses, over a square or lake. this question travels along attainable paths, it plunges, for
The rope is stretched at ground level; and probably one must him, down the most remote and absurd tracks. \Vhile we
walk on it without touching the ground with one's foot. Thus suppose the question (with its flowing question mark) is
the old balancing aerialist who walked along the wire or "in ambush, timorous, hopeful," for him it is the answer
across the void with his extended arms taking the place of that interrogates, indeed slithers like a snake around the
a pole becomes a grotesque figure going into contortions question: while we imagine a question to be in motion and
on the ground, with none of his old prestige and nihilist the answer immobile and firm, for him the question is
glory. The rope no longer communicates between two points motionless and the answer is in eternal motion; while we can
over the void. "It seems to be there more to trip you up than believe that the question maybe "desperate," for him the
to be walked on." answer is inexorably desperate. If the question moves and
This is the most favorable hypothesis. At times not even slithers, shy, hopeful, desperate, it is possible that the
the ground-level rope exists, and there is "no way." What we answer may satisfy it. But if it is the answer itself that slithers
call the way is nothing but our hesitation, or our uncertainty, and despairs, who will ever be able to answer? Between
our restlessness, as Joseph K. knew quite well. Or there is a question and answer there opened an impassable abyss,
road, but it goes down a craggy slope, just as steep ahead of which no voice bridged.
us as it is behind us; and instead of going up we go down. Or The final paradox is that, despite these uncertainties,
the unmarked road goes through the desert, like the one that these obstacles, these arrests, these labyrinths and abysses,
led to the Promised Land; it is not a long straight route the true way truly exists, perfect and intangible, and we
through the desert but a labyrinthine road which goes back cannot "subtract from nor add anything to it." It is up there,
and forth, sideways and crisscross, and allows us to touch and it awaits us, and we can follow it. Or perhaps "follow it"
every single grain of sand with our foot. Confronted by the is not the right description. We are carried to it, moved to it,
second case, Kafka gives us a bitterly ironic piece of advice: swept to it in flight. As the maxim says, "he who seeks does
I I
18 4 KAFKA

not find, but he who does not seek will be found." Someone
~
I
The Zurau Aphorisms

ment of the fruit of the tree of life; perhaps we will know it

18 5

finds us. So we must overturn everything we have said until on the day that the separation between God and ourselves
now: the way that passes along the rope stretched at ground will fall away, and yet we already know it, because when we
level, the road without a road, the steep upward road, the live in the light of the eternal, we encounter the tree of life,
labyrinthine road through the desert indubitably lead us to the flower of all eternities. Up to here Kafka adheres to the
our point of arrival. Biblical text. But on one point he modifies it radically. If in
Up there, at the point of arrival, in the Place toward Genesis the cherubs protect the garden of Eden against the
which all our life and our way tend, what do we find? This return of men with "the flame of the flashing sword," Kafka
is one of the questions most discussed by Kafka's interpreters assures us that the garden still exists, even without us, and
and at first sight it seems insoluble. But Kafka is not Kant, still today is destined to serve us and is made for us. Despite
nor is he l'.'ietzsche. His intellectual battle, his edification of the expulsion, the indestructible that was in us was not
an All composed only of fragments, his task which concerns destroyed: original sin did not completely transform our
everyone but in fact him alone, does not conclude with the nature; we have acquired divine knowledge. But there is an
construction of a systematic theory. With despair and hope, even more consoling piece of news. Not only is paradise still
with violence and gentleness, Kafka hazards, speculates, open, but we inhabit it, we live up there while we dwell in
attempts intellectual hypotheses in all directions, continually our time, even though few or perhaps none of us realizes it.
thinks one thing and its opposite. Like an old rabbi, he We live already here, now, in the eternal. Eternity is not
incessantly glosses the first chapters of Genesis, and probes something that will come later, as the Christian and Persian
and turns their meaning this way and that. From the mass of religions affirm; it is unthinkable that something so corrupt
thoughts gathered in the octavo notebooks, a small part of as temporality should be overturned in the eternal, and thus
which ended up flowing into his aphorisms, we may derive at be justified. There are two lives, as there are two trees in the
least two great images of the life of the spirit. In the first (if Terrestrial Paradise. On one side, temporal life runs rest­
such cultural labels have any sense) Kafka is a monist with a lessly; on the other, like a quiet lake of light there extends and
resolution and completeness rare in the history of thought; in rests eternal life, which, in a fashion incomprehensible to us,
the second he is a Manichean. perhaps comprehensible to Kafka, "corresponds" to the
The first world culminates in the symbol of the tree of temporal life.
life. Whereas the tree of knowledge distinguishes between If from Edenic knowledge we pass to man's knowledge, if
good and evil, the tree of life describes a good that exists we join psychology to theology, we obtain the same truths.
before (or after) the distinction between good and evil: Everyday reality does not exist: in the universe there is
harmonious unity between the opposites of existence, the nothing but the soul, nothing but the spirit, only Seele, only
abolition of contraries, light without the taint of shadow. Geist; and this "deprives us of hope and gives us certainty."
\Vhereas the tree of knowledge invites its devotees to adhere But Kafka prefers to avoid this language charged with secular
to the virtues of active life, the tree of life recommends resonances and steeped in dualism; he purifies it, and he
mystical quiet: the gift that none of Kafka's characters ever speaks of the "indestructible," which inhabits us and domi­
knew or ever will know. Whereas we have already eaten the nates us and unites all men, as the origin "of the incom­
fruit of the tree of knowledge, we can have only a presenti­ parable, indivisible union" that forms mankind. That this
186 KAFKA

"indestructible" remains hidden from us, that we lose faith in

it, that we hide it behind all sorts of constructions and
illusions, and perhaps even behind a faith in a personal God,
r The Ziirau Aphorisms 18 7

it cannot recognize itself; he who wishes to recognize it must

be mendacious." In the Zurau aphorisms, analytical spirit,
self-consciousness, consciousness of the other are always
has not the least importance; the indestructible exists and is possessed by evil: evil knows itself and knows good, whereas
the sole foundation of our life. Evil on the contrary is nothing good rests in its own mild and obscure indistinctness, as the
but appearance: it is totally other in respect to man; it can tree of life teaches. We do not need experience; as always, it
tempt man, seduce him, deceive him, subjugate him, but it is enough to read the first chapters of Genesis. Sin has been
cannot become man; and in fact Satan was compelled to agree generated in man by his desire for knowledge-"what pro­
to be incarnated in the serpent. vokes sin and what knows it is one and the same"-and
Although Kafka avoids the name of God, his psychology should we wish to climb from the tree of knowledge, this first
is enclosed in a monist metaphysic. The fire that is within us, indispensable step, all the way to the tree of life and thus
that is to say, the "indestructible" in us, is sucked up by God: reach eternal life, we must cancel in us everything that acts as
"to believe means to liberate the indestructible in oneself, or, an obstacle-knowledge, your own self which speaks and
more accurately, to free oneself, or, more accurately yet, to knows.
be indestructible, or, better still, to be"; and Being is simply Kafka does not have enough words to condemn Joseph
a word to indicate God. A last sentence says: "The sky is K. 's vain desires: confession, self-observation, self-analysis,
mute, and acts as an echo only to him who is mute." It is psychology are all disguised forms of evil. "Confession and
unimportant that God does not speak to us, or even that he the lie are the same thing. In order to be able to confess, one
is dead, as "The Great Wall of China" had told us. Kafka lies. What one is one cannot express, precisely because one is
reverses every sentence about God's death. This sky, which that; one can communicate only what one is not, that is, the
is mute, is in accord with us, acts as our echo, answers us, if lie. 'Observe yourself' is the advice of the serpent." Analyt­
we too are silent, in accordance with that quietude of the ical psychology only mirrors the terrestrial world on the
soul, that mild inner silence which is counseled us by the tree soul's celestial surface. If we want to attain the indivisible
of life. truth in ourselves, we must forget ourselves, destroy our­
Where God and absolute truth exist, there no longer is selves, as the mystics teach: to find what we are beneath
speech or any form of expression whatsoever. "Mutism is an appearances, not to act or construct ourselves or impose on
attribute of perfection."* This ineffability of God, or of ourselves a self-discipline-but passively to contemplate the
truth, or of good, or of the soul, or of the spirit, is determined immense circle of our quiet soul.
by a more profound cause. The immense soul, which To live in accordance with the tree of life generates a
constitutes the sole reality of the universe, does not know particular art of seeing. In the first place, the gaze of our eyes
itself: quiet, mute, enclosed in the infinite silence of its must overlook ourselves and fall upon our ego as though it
darkness. Truth cannot be known: "it is indivisible, therefore were an extraneous object-one of those thousands of objects
that do not belong to us. Kafka also advises the same
* The German edition of 'foe Notebooks docs not include this aphorism, renunciation as regards the world. Any person who observes
which is found only in the Italian translation (p. 718). But the aphorism is
without a doubt Kafka's. Ervino Poear collated the text published by Brod in a certain sense participates in life, becomes attached to life,
with the manuscripts. tries to keep in step with the wind; and then we must not
 ,,~
,"oW:
188 KAFKA , 18 9
The Ziirau Aphorisms
observe, or if we have observed sinfully, we must forget and aspired? "I've never been in this place: breathing is different
cancel all that we have seen, transforming our memory into here: beside it shines a star more dazzling than the sun."
an empty reservoir. If the stimulus is still to be too strong,
our eyes must cast upon the world a light so dazzling as to
dissolve it and make it vanish into nothingness, as though it Here and there we encounter blazing maxims that we do not
had never existed. Thus the art of seeing becomes an art of know how to interpret. What does this mean: "Good, in a
not seeing. Only by being blind, as if we were without certain sense, is trostlos"? We could interpret it in the most
speech and without knowledge, can we preserve the supreme obvious manner: good is "disconsolate," "comfortless," "sad,"
gift: the uncontaminated purity of the gaze. "aggrieved," "inconsolable" (because a goal is lacking, it
He who lives in the eternal knows only the soul, has no cannot attain what it dreams of). Or instead, is it "without
knowledge and has no knowledge of himself, does not see and hope for improvement" (good is the supreme achievement, it
does not see himself-he accomplishes a radical renunciation cannot become better)? Or, finally, is good "discomforting,"
of the world, much more radical than Kafka had ever "mortifying," "discouraging," "desolate"? Everything leads
imagined. Now he is alone: never had the Stranger and the us to assume that this, the current interpretation, is the
Bachelor been so alone as this quiet mystic who for eight correct interpretation; and therefore we ought to believe that
months stayed in the Zurau countryside. But this total good emanates little attraction, arouses scant desire, is en­
renunciation overturns itself and becomes its opposite. While shrouded by a kind of grayness, mediocrity and desolation.
the Bachelor feared that solitude might prevent him from Another aphorism seems to exalt the metaphysics of Being,
loving man, by flinging him into the desert that spreads but with what a reversal! "To have does not exist, only to be
around the land of Canaan, now, precisely at the heart of this exists: only a being which yearns for its last breath, for
solitary renunciation of the world, Kafka discovers love for suffocation." The paradox of this Being is that it does not aim
the others. He understands that he cannot love men "within at eternity, immutability, the light without shadow, but at
the world" as he had done in his youth, because he who, the shame of death, a death that we do not know is natural or
"within the world," loves his neighbor commits the same provoked, but which might perhaps be unworthy, like that of
injustice as he who, "within the world," loves himself. He Joseph K. Whenever did Being, which is God, dream of
cannot love this person or that; he must shun single passions; dying of suffocation?
and from his ascetic renunciation blossoms the love of all These distressing maxims can probably be explained by
men, of all mankind, "of true human nature, which one the supreme nobility and supreme weakness of good as
cannot but love, provided one has nature's dignity." So, expressed in the aphorisms: its ignorance, its inability to
thinking desperately alone, with his back unguarded, mad as know, its desire not to know. But it would be mistaken of us
an acrobat, Kafka in a few months acquired a theology, a to believe that the Zurau theology of good occupied an
science of the soul, a mysticism, an art of seeing and a absolute place in Kafka's world. Never, not even during
morality. He no longer lacked anything. That edifice of the these months of meditation, did he share the pure innocence
All, which he had dreamt of, stood clear, evident, before of good; his art never renounced the gift of knowledge; his
his eyes. How could he avoid discerning at last the place, the theology, even if it was overturned as here in the expectation
utopian place, the place of light to which all his life had of Quiet, sprang from a dramatic, almost desperate intellec­
190 KAFKA
r
t
The Ziirau Aphorisms 19 1

tual tension; and while reality was annulled in the unknowing tion, we could affirm that Evil is the only Being in the
soul, he continued to be the sole paradoxical observer who universe.
scrutinized it. There is one thing that Kafka will never be Evil knows itself: none of its chasms, its twists, its ruses,
able to accept: to attribute exclusively to evil the dreadful its enigmas is unknown to it; all those who practice analysis,
strength of understanding the universe. Good, such as he confession, reflection and psychology are its pupils. Evil
pursued it all his life, was not only a mild, quiet and obscure knows the entire vastness of the universe: the innocent and
force: it was a tortured good, divided, wounded, shattered­ obscure extension of good, the great soul that ignores itself,
but fortified by all the light of knowledge, animated by an the secrets of the individual spirit. "Do not let evil persuade
immense will to understand. you that you can keep any secrets from it." This theology
The second intellectual edifice that Kafka constructed at culminates in a great enigmatic aphorism: "Evil is the starry
Ziirau is Manichean. It rests on the fact that in the Terrestrial sky of good." Confronted by such a sentence, analysis must
Paradise we have sinned: be it by having eaten the fruit of the come to a halt; and, after gathering together all the analogies,
arid tree of knowledge, be it-and above all-for not yet relationships and absent and present thoughts, it should
having tasted the blessed fruit of the tree of life, which admit that the intellectual content burns in the blinding light
constitutes the symbol of perfect existence. "The condition of the enigma, of the absolute sentence, which renders its
in which we find ourselves is sinful, independently of any own content vain.
guilt." Under this double, intolerable burden, Kafka's man is The point of departure is the celebrated sentence of
a sinner as no man had ever been: Augustine's man, the child modern philosophy: "Two things fill the soul with ever
who, "pale, with a bitter gaze," envied the brother who renewed and growing wonder and awe ... : the starry sky
sucked milk from the breast of the same mother, the child above me and the moral law within me." The first interpre­
who stole a few pears from a tree for the simple pleasure of tation is clear: evil (which knows itself and knows) is light,
doing evil, is an innocent compared to him. So he has forever while good (which is unaware of itself and is unaware) is
been driven from Paradise: the flashing flames of the cherubs' darkness. But perhaps Kafka tacitly invited us to read Kant's
swords have been raised to defend the gate; and now he lives entire page, in which the starry sky helps us know, on the
in the world's desert, without hope of ever again seeing the one hand, the place we occupy in the palpable external
garden, immersed in evil's everyday mud. world, and extends our connection to "an interminable
Never, in modern literature, had evil perhaps ruled over grandeur, with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems,
so gigantic a space and cast so sinister a shadow on the and then also to the unlimited times of their periodic motion,
universe. The wicked figure we meet in the aphorisms is not, their beginning and their duration"; and on the other hand,
as some believe, an optical illusion or a projection of ours; "annuls our importance as an animal creature, who must
this is not the small, everyday perversion; and neither is this restore again to the planet (a simple point in the universe)"
something purely objective-that which is "here," as the our body's matter. Does evil therefore impart to good the
maxim wishes to assure us. In these lines we encounter the consciousness of its infinite relationships with the universe
atrocious majesty of Absolute Evil: the transcendence of Evil; which it-by itself-would not possess? Does it impart to
a sort of upside-down Being, which some could venerate and good the sense of its finiteness? All this will remain forever­
worship. If we were to accept a brief story without reserva­ mysterious. In our mind persists the image of this prone,
'9 2 KAFKA

quiet, innocent, tenebrous, silent good, which looks to evil as

its light-and perhaps as the aim to which it aspires.
Like Baudelaire's evil, Kafka's evil is the greatest actor,
r
I
The Zurau Aphorisms

you realize that your old lips-those you thought were

yours-were never so docilely well suited to your bite. Then
it makes you speak. It doesn't make you speak, as some naive
'93

quick-change artist and illusionist that ever existed, whereas person might think, blasphemous words which offend the
good, in its undivided simplicity, is incapable of play-acting. good, or God, or the tree of life; but to your surprise, you
Evil knows how to impersonate all the roles offered it by the pronounce the "good word." After having demonstrated this
repertory of the universal theater; nobody surpasses it in the illusionistic power, it has no trouble seducing you. The first
part of the Evil One; it is always play-acting because it is artifice is the simplest. As Baudelaire revealed, as soon as it
always split, and yet a kind of weakness, or a hidden slips into us it tries to make us believe that it does not exist:
inferiority complex, leads it to don the role of the good above we are safe, with our secrets, protected by its omniscience. It
all. So we can witness terrifying spectacles. Before us, who can also choose a different path. What is more noble than
must choose, stand good and evil; they are not opposed fighting openly, frankly, without half measures, without
figures; it is always evil, now in its authentic nature, now in pause, against evil? Or what is sweeter than to converse with
its role of the good. If we do not realize this, we can only friends, breaking the quiet of silence? These are some of
succumb, because spurious good is much more alluring than evil's ruses: among the many that Kafka knew.
true good. But if we do realize it, a pack of devils drives us Some stupendous aphorisms which already have a story­
toward spurious good: like repulsive objects, we are rolled, like mode recount man's intermediary condition. We know
jabbed, swept toward it by a barrier of pinpoints, while the that, as in Platonic mythology, on the one hand he lives in
claws of spurious good reach out to seize us. We then pull the Terrestrial Paradise or in heaven and, on the other hand,
back a step and with yielding sadness are swallowed by true in the world of the Fall. We are double, woven of heaven and
evil which, at our backs, has waited all this time for our earth. In appearance, one of the texts repeats this condition:
decision. Out of delicacy toward us, or so as not to frighten every man is at one and the same time "a free and secure
our souls, or because of an artist's scruple, or because, for citizen of earth" and "a free and secure citizen of heaven,"
once, he has been enslaved by evil, Kafka has glossed over and he therefore has at his disposal all the moral and
the most significant fact. Our choice is between two forms of imaginative possibilities. But Kafka's images completely
evil. It is not that good is less alluring than evil. Good has transform Platonic mythology. The single man of the myth
vanished from the visible universe. The world, where until splits into two men who, in dramatic scission, in total
now we have seen only the divine Being, is completely schizophrenia, never meet. The "free and secure citizen of
occupied by this enormous, very intelligent, very agile, very the earth" becomes an earthly prisoner: his neck is fettered
luminous, very mobile negative Being. by a chain long enough to allow him to reach any earthly
We have not yet encountered the masterpiece of evil's place, but it prevents him from going beyond the limits of the
scenic art. Until now, it remained outside us and had earth; if he tries to ascend to heaven, earth's collar chokes
confined itself to performing perfectly the role of good. But him. The "free and secure citizen of heaven" becomes a
evil can do better. If it wishes, it marvelously transforms celestial prisoner: his neck is bound by an analogous chain; if
itself into you yourself: it becomes, indeed, your very own he tries to descend to earth, he is choked by the collar. The
lips, lets you nibble with your teeth, and as you are nibbling completeness of the double experience is lost. The inhabitant
 W;,,'\'
'94 KAFKA

of the Terrestrial Paradise, the man inhabited by the eternal,

r The Zurau Aphorisms

unable to reach the exit, which, perhaps, does not exist.

'95

the "indestructible," has become a prisoner: what seemed to They do not know what they ought to do or why they ought
be his salvation is now his condemnation, because nothing to do it: every moral question, every ethic of action, every
allows us to believe that heaven's prisons are more agreeable explanation of causes seems absent from their lives. And yet
than those of earth. life continues. With their senses in disarray, confused or
Confined in the earthly prison, we experience the desire hypersensitive, they create monsters for themselves; they
to die: as in Plato, this is the first sign that we are beginning abandon themselves to a game which is "kaleidoscopically
to comprehend. "This life seems unendurable to us, another fascinating or fatiguing, depending on the individual's mood
seems unattainable." We are no longer ashamed of dying. and wound": the loves, passions, desires and illusions that
Christian faith assures us that at the moment of our death we make our existence so colorful and painful. Despite the
will ascend to heaven, free from all constriction and all similarity of the theme, the distance separating Kafka and
weight; the Greek faith speaks to us of successive metamor­ Plato is unbridgeable. While the shadows in The Republic are
phoses, which will bring us to a higher form of life. In Kafka reflected by the sun and the real world of Ideas, in Kafka's
there is no liberation, no leap, no ascent, no sudden opening cave the light of the sun is not reflected. The monsters and
of the sky. We continue to live in an unstoppable cycle of the travelers' kaleidoscopic games are merely a simple fantasy
iron destinies. As in the Gnosis, we are "transferred from the of our excited senses, our whims and our sorrows, to which
old cell we hate into a new one, which we must still learn to nothing objective corresponds. In contrast to what happens
hate." The universe is a prison from which one never issues. in Plato, no educator will ever be able to free us from the
Hope, which seemed to have been revived on the deathbed, tunnel and lead us, little by little, out of the shadows and into
is immediately negated. And yet despite the inexorability of the light of the sun.
repetition, a thread of hope remains: an ironical, paradoxical The fourth small story is the most upsetting. A long time
hope, founded on nothing, documented by nothing-the ago, men were asked to choose between becoming the king
only one that Kafka knows and which every time is disap­ and becoming the king's couriers: gods or couriers of the
pointed. "Perhaps, during the transfer from the old cell to the gods. An enigmatic sentence: Who posed the choice? God?
new, the Lord will by chance be passing down the corridor, But at that moment there was no God, as we will learn soon
He will look into the prisoner's face and will say, 'That one after. A God without name? An absent God? Or was this an
should not be locked up again. He comes with me.' " anonymous choice, undifferentiated, posed by life itself? In
In the parable in Plato's Republic, men see the shadows of any case, as Genesis affirms and "Investigations of a Dog"
the ideal world reflected on the walls of the cave. In Kafka suspects, men, at the beginning of their history, could have
Plato's cave has become a modern railroad tunnel. A group of become gods and "lived eternally": promulgated the law,
travelers has suffered an accident: they are in a place from contemplated the stars, lived clustered around the tree of life.
which the light at the entrance is no longer visible, and the But because of their incurable childish frivolity, attracted by
light at the exit is so small that their eyes must continually horses, multicolored garments, bells, stagecoach stops, active
search for it, and continually lose it. One isn't even certain life, they chose to become the "king's couriers." So now we
I, II whether that light of a struck match comes from the begin­ live in a world \vithout gods, because at that original time the
ning or the end of the tunnel. The travelers stay there, gods were not created. ]\,'0 one hands down the law, gives
196 KAFKA

orders, promulgates the various messages. There are only

men, couriers, who galIop throughout the world, and since
r' CHAPTER NINE
there are no gods, they shout their senseless messages to one
another. What does it mean to continue a life so empty and
absurd? To continue carrying incomprehensible messages?
The couriers know this and would gladly be done with their
miserable existence and the entire universe. If they continue Milena
to run about with their peaked caps, their belIs and their
meaningless messages, it is because of the courier's oath that
they took at the world's beginning: an oath to a nonexistent
god, a pact woven of the void, a commitment to nothingness.
A few years later, Kafka would describe this part of his
search with another stupendous aphorism: "We are digging
the pit of Babel." In the land of Sennar, Noah's descendants
had built a city and a tower using brick instead of stone,
bitumen instead of cement; they wanted to remain united, so
as not to be scattered upon the face of the earth, and to raise
the top of the tower alI the way to the sky, so as to gain
I n the first days of April 1920, Kafka arrived at Merano, in
order to treat his tuberculosis in a milder climate. When he
saw it for the first time, the Ottoburg pension did not appeal
knowledge of God's secrets. Kafka had not built a tower, not to him: it was smalI and resembled somewhat a "family
even a Great Chinese walI, so that it might protect his tomb," indeed a "common grave." A few days later, on April
immense territory. His description of the luminous place of 10, he returned there; and the pension, despite its funereal
Being had perhaps been only an ilIusion. But he had dug the air, or precisely because of it, pleased him. The guests were
Pit of Babel: like Dostoevsky he had delved ever more alI Christian Germans. Kafka had asked to be seated at an
profoundly in the night and the abysses; he had descended isolated table, because of his vegetarian habits and his
into the animal's burrow, into God's underground; he had adherence to the Fletcher method, which obliged him to
described the dreadful Being of Evil, the existence of man in chew every mouthful a hundred times. But as soon as he sat
sin, the double prison, the dissipation of the king's couriers. down, a colonel, who acted as head of the table, immediately
What a superb pit of Babel! As he wrote down his aphorism invited him to the table d'h6te so cordialIy that Kafka could
in Berlin, he must have been assailed by disquiet. Perhaps he not refuse. Above alI he liked the balcony of his room: it was
too was guilty of hubris, like the men of Sennar, even though on the first Hoor, exposed to the sun and sunk in the garden,
it was a reverse hubris. Perhaps he too, desperately wanting surrounded, almost covered by bushes. Lizards and birds
to remain united, had been scattered on the face of the earth, came to visit him; and in the background, the hedges in fulI
inducing men to imitate him. Perhaps the result of his Hower, talI as trees, formed a kind of theatrical backdrop,
excavation had been only a confusion of tongues-a message while farther on, other large gardens-the trains from the
without meaning and incomprehensible, like the message of railroad-seemed to rustle. He spent the greater part of the
the king's last couriers. day lying almost naked on the balcony. One day, beside him,
 198 KAFKA

a beetle fell on its back and was desperate at being unable to

f Milena 199
his engagements, his feeling of guilt. Did he do this only with
right itself; Kafka did not help it because he was reading a Felice and Milena? Or was there in him-the solitary,
letter from Milena; a lizard slithered over the beetle and separate person-the gift of opening his heart to others, so as
righted it, for one instant the beetle remained immobile, as to bind them forever to himself, like Christ who says: "Vide,
though it were dead, and then in great haste it climbed up the cor meum"? Not only did he open his heart, but he tried to
wall of the house. make her open hers, insinuating that her lungs too were sick
During those April days he wrote two letters to Milena for psychic reasons, and presenting himself as confidant and
Jesenska, a young Czech woman who led a sad life in Vienna, doctor. He was immediately curious about everything that
at the side of a husband who tortured her. He had met her in concerned her, as he had been with Felice, though not in
Prague in October 1919, when Milena had told him she such a detailed way: "Do you have a beautiful house?" He
wanted to translate his stories into Czech. While he had asked her to surrender herself to her illness: "Every now and
remembered, even to the point of obsession, every detail of then there ought to be ready for you, in the shadow of your
Felice's face, he remembered nothing about Milena's: in his garden, a deck chair with a dozen glasses of milk within reach
memory had remained a figure, a dress, an aura. He turned of your hands. Above all, in any case ... draw from the
that frail memory over and over; it seemed to him that under illness ... the greatest possible sweetness. It contains a lot of
that delicate appearance he recognized an almost peasantlike it. " For her, he extracted from his wounded heart the
, i
freshness; and as ever more glowing letters arrived from delicacy and almost exhausted gentleness that was hidden in
III.' I'
Vienna, he transformed the impression of the letters into a it; and with an insinuating charm, with subtle verbal caresses
ill, remote vision, as precise as in a mediumistic communication. and kisses, he began luring her into his world: "It's not that
'l i The epistolary style became the light of her eyes, the breath you are not in full command of German. Generally, you have
I
,,11
III
1
'
of her lips, the movements of body and hands, so rapid and
so resolute-but when he approached the face he saw
an astonishing command of it, and if at times you don't, it
i,1
spontaneously bows to you, and this is more beautiful than
I:, nothing but fire. Milena had told him that she no longer anything; something that a German doesn't dare expect from
i'I!i ,,I "could breathe" in Vienna. The sense of her unhappiness
jl
I
I
his language, because he doesn't dare write it so personally.
I
i I attracted him, and with the audacity of the shy he immedi­ But I would like to read some of what you write in Czech,
ately invited her to Merano. "I do not give advice-how because Czech belongs to you, because only there are you
could I advise?-but simply ask: Why don't you leave completely Milena . . . while here you are still just the one
Vienna for a while? You are not without a country like other from Vienna or the one preparing herself for Vienna." This
people. Wouldn't a stay in Bohemia give you new energy? light stirring of his heart's placated waters provoked a crisis
And if for some reason that I do not know, you perhaps do of insomnia. But she slept tranquilly. With his gallantry at
not wish to go to Bohemia, you could go somewhere else, once of a boy and an old gentleman, he remarked: "So if at
perhaps even Merano would be fine." night sleep passes me by, I know the road it takes and I
With speed and naturalness, as though he had known her accept." He knew that sleep was the supreme mercy and that
forever, Kafka immediately confided to her the great secrets he, the insomniac, was the man of darkness, the supreme
of his life: his tuberculosis, the psychological explanation of culprit. But for once he mitigated his guilt. If he didn't
the tuberculosis, the Trial to which he was being subjected, sleep-he explained-it was because his body had no weight,
200 KAFKA f Milena 201

and instead of entering into the heaviness that was sleep, it dependency on him-but he knew very well that this was not
fluttered about capriciously even as high as the ceiling. true; he did not want from her the marriage he had asked of
A great part of this love was created by Kafka: most of it Felice, but only happiness-full, burning, unendurable hap­
he drew from his incendiary imagination. Whereas Felice piness. His letters were already an earnest of this future
had remained passive under those epistolary flares, the happiness: from them he drew joy, gaiety, salvation; it
imaginative Milena collaborated with continual inventiveness seemed to him that Milena was immolating herself for him;
in the creation of this long-distance relationship. Immediately and with a great rush of gratitude he thanked her for the
Kafka sensed in her the "fire" of passion: she was fire and her simple fact of existing. During the very long epistolary
letters generated fire, and he was like the gnat or butterfly of relationship with Felice, something in him had always
the Iranian fable, which was burnt by the flame. Without remained rigid; now he abandoned himself, relaxed and gave
really meeting, the two souls were inflamed by each other; himself with an immediacy he had never known before. For
separation kept them more united than proximity; the bodily the first time in his life he sensed what it meant to be free.
act, the kiss, the embrace, was not necessary; the uncontam­ He immediately had the presentiment that love, between
inated impulse of desire was enough, as though only distance them, could be only anguish and tremor. He feared that
could cancel the limits of persons confined in themselves. So Milena, after attracting him, would push him back into
Kafka saw Milena's image all day long in his room, on the misery: but precisely this eventual rejection fascinated him.
balcony, in the clouds: the beloved had traversed space and More profoundly yet, he was afraid of the upheaval that love
breathed next to him, upon him. "It is true that my room is would be, that it already was for him. "You are thirty-eight
small, but the true Milena who evidently escaped from you years old and you are weary in a way that one cannot be
on Sunday is here and, believe me, it is marvelous to be at because of age alone. Or, better put: you are not at all weary,
her side.... And what's more, it would be lying if I told but restless, and you are afraid of taking a single step on this
you that I miss you, this is the most perfect, most painful earth bristling with traps, therefore you always, so to speak,
magic, you are here exactly as I am and even more; wherever keep both feet simultaneously suspended in midair; you are
I am you're there with me and indeed even more so." not weary but you are only afraid of the enormous weariness
Faced by Milena's amorous assault, Kafka surrendered which will follow this enormous restlessness (you are not
immediately: passive, enervated, in a condition of total Jewish for nothing and you know what anguish is)-wear­
dependency, lost, reduced to a shadow, as had never hap­ iness which can be thought of as a stunned staring into the
pened in his relationship with Felice. He was Samson, who distance.... You've already become an invalid, one of those
had revealed to Delilah-Milena the secret of his strength and people who begin to tremble as soon as they see a toy pistol,
his life. With her he lost everything, even his name. At and now, now all of a sudden, it is as though you'd been
times, especially later on, it seemed to him "a sacrilege" to be summoned to the great struggle to redeem the world." At the
so dependent on another human creature, and this depen­ slightest untoward incident, he became hysterical: a wave of
dency gave birth to anguish-not the anguish innate in love, anxiety and frenzy poured over him; he was stripped of
but the anguish of amorous subjugation. He repeated that control and defense. "This crossing and clashing of letters
she belonged to him, even if he were never to see her again, must cease, Milena, they drive us crazy, one doesn't know
and so it would have been necessary for her to have the same what one has written, and what one receives in reply and, in
202 KAFKA
f· Alilena 20 3

any case, one is always trembling.... My nature is: an­ letter on the back of a letter he had begun for her; and he
guish." The voice of Milena, who wanted him with her in confessed that, when he received the telegram, he kept
Vienna, was for him the terrifying voice of God himself who looking at it unable to read it. It was as though on it there
called to the prophets: like the prophets, he was only a small were a secret sentence that Wiped out what was written and
frightened child-or a sparrow pecking crumbs in his room, said: "Go through Vienna on your journey!"
trembling, listening with its head cocked, its feathers ruffled. He made childish tests: he threw some bread for a
The whole world collapsed around him. "I'm really begin­ sparrow in the middle of his room; if the sparrow entered, he
ning to tremble as under the hammering of an alarm bell, I would go to Vienna. From the balcony the sparrow glimpsed
can't read it, and of course I read it anyway, just as the his life's nourishment in the shadows, it was afraid but
animal who is dying of thirst drinks, and I have anguish upon enormously attracted, by now it was more in the shadow
anguish, I search for a piece of furniture under which I can than in the light-but when the moment of the test came, he
burrow, I pray trembling and completely beside myself in a spoiled it, making the sparrow flyaway "by a very slight
corner so that you, just as you have entered roaring with this movement." He insisted that he would never go to Vienna­
letter, can flyaway again through the window, I can't keep a or to Karlsbad; he certainly wouldn't come, but if to his most
hurricane in my room: in such letters you must have frightful surprise he were to arrive in Vienna, he would need
Medusa's grandiose head, for that is how the snakes of terror neither lunch nor supper, but rather a stretcher on which to
writhe around your head and, around mine, even more rest for a moment. He imagined his arrival: "A tall, gaunt
savage, writhe the snakes of anguish." His answers to Milena man will appear, he will smile gently (he will always do so,
were not the fluid, interminable letters he had written to he takes after an old aunt who also always smiled, but nei­
Felice, but shards, splinters, sometimes elliptical, obscure, ther of them does it intentionally, only out of timidity) and
nebulous, darkened, often falling back, as though to protect he will sit down where he is told. With this, the party will be
himself, on the literary figures of his adolescence. over, because he will say almost nothing at all, he lacks the
At the end of May, Milena invited him to stop off in vital energy to do so. . .. He will not even be happy, for this
Vienna, during his return trip to Prague. But Kafka de­ too he lacks the vital energy." Finally he bowed his head
murred and refused, fearing that love might again take on the before Milena's will and amorous violence: yes, he would
dreadful face it had assumed during his first engagement. "I come, at the end of June. He dreamt of his journey. He had
do not want (Milena, help me! understand more than what I forgotten her address, the street, city, everything; only
say), I do not want (this is not stammering) to come to the name Schreiber somehow surfaced in his mind, but he
Vienna because I would not be spiritually able to support the didn't know who that was. Milena was lost. In his des­
effort. I am spiritually ill, this pulmonary disease is only an pair, he made several cunning efforts, which, however, were
overflowing of the spiritual illness. I'm so very ill because of not carried out, and only one of which remained in his
the four, five years of my two first engagements." He had memory. On an envelope he wrote: "Milena," and below:
received a telegram from Julie, his present fiancee: "Appoint­ "Please deliver this letter, because otherwise the administra­
ment Karlsbad the eighth please write confirming." He told tion of the Treasury will suffer an enormous loss." With this
Milena about her, "the most disinterested, most tranquil, threat he hoped to set in motion all of the state's resour­
most modest" being; he said that perhaps he had sent Julie a ces to track down l\lilena. Or he dreamt that Vienna was
204 KAFKA

simply a smaIl tranquil square, one of its sides formed by the

f , Milena 20

trust, clarity, the strength of truth, the inability to lie,

5

house where Milena lived, across from the hotel where he clairvoyant inteIligence, courage, greatness of soul, sweetness
would stop: on the left the West Station, where he would which keeps away suffering.
arrive, and on the right the Franz Joseph Station, from which But Milena was also the opposite symbolic figure: the
he would depart. Then he refused again: he would not go to chaste moon, unattainable in its remoteness, which attracts
Vienna. Such a journey exceeded the spiritual energy at his the waters of the sea; the maiden, the virgin, the Beauty-the
disposal. opposite to him, dark animal of the woods. If Milena-mother
Before meeting Milena he had already formed an image of with a gentle hand pushed away all suffering, Milena-moon
that girl in Prague, who would dominate his existence for brought all suffering; her eyes shone with the world's
years. Felice had been for him the devout wife, without a suffering, she suffered and caused suffering-and she was
trace of eros, the woman who would lead him to the land of the queen of suffering. In her Eros had the face of Thanatos.
Canaan. Instead, Milena was a powerful, radiant erotic Already at the beginning of their correspondence, Kafka saw
figure; but her fascination was not rooted in sexuality and her as the angel of death, the most beatific among angels,
had nothing of that nocturnal atmosphere, that desire for dirt who robs men of the strength and courage to die. But Milena
and filth which he connected with sexuality, and which he was also something more terrible. From her letters, Kafka
depicted in the relationship between K. and Frieda. Milena's conjured up a dark story of horrors, which had accompanied
eros breathed the air of the earthly paradise before the sin of her youth; and he perceived in her Medusa, with the serpents
Adam and Eve. As KafKa explicitly said, Milena was "the of terror around her head, looking at him with so penetrating
Mother": the immense, vital, nurturing, erotic maternal an eye as to petrify him. He was terrified by her inteIligence,
figure, born from his incestuous dreams, which he had her strength, courage, vital energy, despair, her hidden
repressed throughout his life. When it came to Milena, he debasement, the grandeur of her soul. Only one thing in him
imitated the figure of the son, the child and pupil: "I would did not fear her: literature. While Felice, marriage, the land
like to be your pupil and continuaIly make mistakes so as to of Canaan put literature to flight, Milena's sweet and free
be reproached by you: I sit at my desk in school, I scarcely erotic embrace protected literature-and, perhaps, enclosed
dare raise my eyes, you bend over me and from on high it in itself.
continuaIly flashes your index figure with which you accom­
pany your remarks"; "and here I stand before you reaIly like
a child who has done something very bad, and now finds On June 24, Kafka wrote to Milena that he had decided to
himself before his mama and cries and cries and makes a vow: arrive in Vienna on the twenty-ninth, a Tuesday-"unless
'1'11 never do it again.' " Since she was the mother, Milena something unforeseen happens inside or outside." But he did
was also the sea, with its infinite masses of water, its not have the strength to make an appointment with her right
inundations, the force of its tide which attracts and is away: "I would be suffocated until then, if today, now, I
attracted; her letters were water to drink; and, reciprocaIly, were to teIl you of a place and for three days and for three
his love must be the wave that engulfed her, with no longer nights I saw how empty it is and how it waits for me to stop
any of the rigidity he devoted to Felice. So Milena, in reality there at a particular hour on Tuesday." He arrived in the
or dream, had all the material qualities: equilibrium, calm, morning at ten, almost fainting from anguish and fatigue. He
 r.r~'. :
2~ KAFKA I Milena 20 7

hadn't slept for two nights. He wrote to her immediately, something like a bit of a cold." Kafka made a distinction
from a cafe at the South Station: he would wait for her the between the days: "The first was uncertain, the second too
next morning, Wednesday, at ten, at the Hotel Riva. "I beg certain, the third contrite, the fourth good"; and the year
you, Milena, do not surprise me by arriving from the side after, writing to Brod, he said that "happiness was only the
and from behind." Meanwhile he would spend the time of fragments of four days wrested from the night." Sunday
waiting "looking at the monuments," visiting the places morning at seven, Kafka left for Prague; Milena accompanied
that Milena frequented: the Lerchenfelderstrasse, where she him to the station. "How beautiful you were at that moment!
lived, the post office where she received Kafka's letters poste Or perhaps it wasn't even you? It would have been very
restante, the southern traffic circle, the charcoal vendor's-all strange for you to have gotten up so early. But if it wasn't
of it, if possible, without being seen. But Milena did not have you, how could you know with so much precision how it
the patience to wait so long for her extremely complicated was?"
lover: she checked all the hotels near the station, and finally As soon as he got back to Prague, filled with happiness
found him, at an hour we do not know, on June 29· and a mad exhilaration, that Sunday evening Kafka wrote
So, at that unspecified hour-he almost in a faint, she Milena three letters. "I need all of time and a thousand times
affectionate and self-assured-there began Franz Kafka's four more than time and indeed all existing time to think about
and a half days in Vienna: the only days of intimacy with you, to breathe in you." By now there existed nothing in the
Milena. We do not know much about them; they spent many world but her and him: that "we" that he now declined ad
hours in the woods near Vienna; they lingered below Grill­ infinitum; neither past nor future existed any longer, but
parzer's statue in a park, went to a stationery store; he saw only the present that she irradiated with the light of her great
the house she lived in and her room, dominated by a most blue eyes. He annulled himself in her, lost himself in her
imposing wardrobe closet; and on Sunday morning, the day without leaving anything behind; there was no longer hus­
of his departure, she wore a "madly beautiful" dress. Here band or friend, and that "we" was so gigantic as to fill the
we have two versions: Milena's-positive and vitalistic-and world. He was no longer afraid to die: indeed, he wanted to
Kafka's-more perplexed. Some months later Milena wrote die of amorous happiness, and then be born again thanks to
to Max Brod: "When he felt that anguish, he looked into my the gift of that happiness. In the sky there was an immense
eyes, we would wait a moment as though we were unable to bell which tolled: "She will not abandon you"-though,
breathe or our feet hurt us, and in a little while it all went actually, mingled with that bell a tiny little bell insistently
away. There was no longer any need for effort, everything rang in his ear: "She's no longer with you. . . . " Lost in this
was simple and clear, I dragged him all over the hills around ecstasy, Kafka profoundly wounded another human being,
Vienna, I stayed in front of him running while he walked in a way he had never done before. He was ruthless ',\lith
slowly, stomping his feet behind me, and if I close my eyes Julie, his fiancee. He met her in Charles Square, talked to her
I can still see his white shirt and his neck scorched by the sun about Milena, and for many minutes the girl stood at his side,
and I see him struggling along. He walked all day, up hill and her entire body trembling. He could not keep from saying
down hill, exposed to the sun, he did not cough even once, he that next to Milena the entire world disappeared and was
ate a frightful amount of food and he slept like a rock, he was reduced to nothing. She formulated her last question: "I
simply healthy and during those days his illness seemed to us cannot leave, but if you send me away I will go. Are you
208 KAFKA
1· Mi/ena
I
20 9

sending me away?" Kafka answered: "Yes." And she: "But I he had an absurd hope: he looked at the rain from his open
cannot go." She insisted on writing to Milena, and Kafka window, and then-a most natural and obvious possibility­
agreed, though knowing he wouldn't sleep for two nights. he thought the door would open and Milena would appear.
The story of this letter ended tragicomically. Kafka had No letters arrived on Friday-and not even on Saturday, the
promised Julie to go on an outing on a steamboat on tenth ofJuly, Sunday, the eleventh. He was desperate. Never
Tuesday, at half past three in the afternoon. But he spent an would anything arrive again. On Saturday he went to his
almost sleepless night; and early in the morning he sent her office every two hours to see if there was any mail: in the
a letter by pneumatic mail, postponing the appointment until evening he went to the Tribuna, a newspaper, to see Laurin,
six. He added: "Don't send your letter to Vienna until we a journalist he knew, who told him about a letter from
talk about it." But the fact is that early that morning Julie, Milena, and just the thought of a letter from her made him
almost beside herself, not knowing what to say to Milena, happy; he spent the evening with Laurin, heard Milena's
had already written her letter and, in her anxiety, had mailed name several times and was grateful to him for it. He got
it. Now, on receiving that pneumatic message, completely bored, but he kept telling himself: "One more time, only one
under Kafka's domination, she ran in great distress to the more time I want to hear her name." Sunday was even worse.
central post office, managed to retrieve the letter to Milena, He spent the entire morning in bed, returned to the office to
grabbed it and-she was so happy-gave the postal employee ask if there was a telegram, then knocked at the door of a
all the money she had on her: an enormous sum. friend of hers, simply for the pleasure of uttering the name of
Thursday morning Milena's first letter arrived. And this friend, and finally he went to the Cafe Arco, where
immediately the Eden of the present, of pure memory, of Milena used to go, looking for somebody who knew her.
ecstatic happiness, in which he had lived for four days, was There wasn't anyone. But Monday, all at once four letters
shattered. Milena talked about her husband; Kafka would arrived-"this mountain of despair, sorrow, love, requited
have liked to leave for Vienna and tear Milena away from her love. "
husband and take her with him to Prague, or at least, he In one of these letters, Milena wrote something that
proposed that she should return to Prague together with a wounded him deeply: "Yes, you are right, I am fond of him,
friend, Stasa. This would confirm him in his existence: but, Franz, I am also fond of you." He read this sentence
precisely he, the pariah, the pawn of a pawn, would for the very carefully, word by word: "and yet, due to some
first time occupy the place of a king in a game of chess. Then weakness, I cannot succeed in grasping the sentence, I read it
he understood that Milena was not going to come. He began over and over and finally I once more transcribe it here so
coughing again day and night. Everything turned dark-also that you too can see it and we can both read it together,
Vienna, the distant city, although it had been so bright for temple against temple (your hair against my temple)." He
four days. "What is being cooked up for me over there, as I was wounded by that "also" with which Milena put him after
sit here and stop writing and clutch my face between my her husband. He had understood that Milena loved her
hands?" The "marvelously tranquilizing-disquieting" effect husband deeply-with a love composed of passivity, erotic
of Milena's physical proximity vanished as the days passed. subjection, complicity and debasement. And yet he accepted
He had nothing, except for anguish; and clinging to it and this: dark though it might be, that Jove did not make him
convulsed, he rolled with it through the nights. At moments envious; he did not demand exclusive affection, as he had
210 KAFKA

demanded it from Felice. "And if we should unite ... that

r Milena 211

yourself to shreds, plunge, disappear." He lived in the lower

would be on another plane, not within his domain." And depths-but to reach that peddler's or mouselike grayness,
what was this plane? Kafka asked for the exclusiveness of wings were needed. Then he realized that if she was tied to
conjugal attentions: of these he was extremely jealous; he her husband by an indissoluble, indeed sacred matrimony,
wanted all cares, kindnesses, the money needed to support he too was tied-he did not know to whom, but the gaze of
her to come only from him. "Write to me immediately if the this terrible wife often came to rest on him; and these two
money has arrived. If it got lost, I'll send you more, if that bonds reinforced each other. Who was this unknown? Tu­
gets lost, still more, and so on, until there's nothing left and berculosis, literature, death-or something even more re­
only then everything will be in order." As for Milena, he mote and mysterious, a bond of which one was not even
couldn't bear to hear her telling him that her husband needed aware? He understood that not only was Milena not going to
her, had an intimate need for her and could not live without leave her husband, but if she were to leave him she would not
her; Kafka could not bear this relationship of dependency; be doing it for him. He understood this with infinite
above all, he could not bear the external attentions she bitterness and desolation; and with his usual guilt complex he
bestowed on him, such as the habit of shining his shoes with attributed the cause to his nature as the last pawn in the chess
scrupulous, devoted care. "You continually pour all the game.
mystery of your unbreakable union, this rich and inexhaust­ He continued for some months to imagine and to receive
ible mystery, into your preoccupation with his boots. There letters: he did nothing but write letters, read letters, hold
is something that torments me! But it's very simple: if you letters in his hands, put them down, pick them up again, put
should leave, he will either live with another woman or else them down and pick them up once more; and he stared out
go to a boardinghouse and his boots will be shined even the window, like an adolescent. Despite everything, these
better than now." Kafka's immense jealousy focused on letters-the dear, faithful, gay letters, bearers of happiness
things, on fetishes-instead of on emotions. and salvation-brought him joy. Had there ever been in
During those days, Kafka wrote Milena a strange and universal history an emperor better off than he? He entered
ardent defense of himself-perhaps the only one he ever the room, and there they were, three letters: he had only to
offered. He was not-he said-----even a street musician: he was open them-how slow his fingers were-and rest on them,
one of those peddlers who, before the war, roamed through without daring to believe his own happiness. Then Milena's
the outskirts of Vienna, or rather, in the economy of Milena's portrait arrived: something inexhaustible-"a letter for a
big house, he was a mouse who could be permitted to freely year, a letter for eternity"-that he could look at only with a
cross the rug at most once a year. "And yet, if you decided throbbing, apprehensive heart. When there were no letters,
to come to me, if therefore-judging by musical standards­ he lived with Milena's phantom; he sat her down on a deck
you decided to abandon the whole world to come down to chair and did not know how to embrace with words, eyes,
me, to so Iowa place that from your position you could see hands the joy that was there and belonged to him. Or he
not only little but nothing at all, that for this purpose dreamt of her. They were sometimes sad dreams. She would
you-strangely, strangely!-would not have to climb down be talking; but her words contained something unfathom­
but rather in a superhuman way reach above yourself, on able, almost a rejection. Nothing betrayed her rejecting
high, to such a point that perhaps you would have to tear ways, but the rejection was there. Milena's face was pow­
212 KAFKA

dered, even too noticeably, perhaps she was flushed, and on

.r Milena 21

wrong; F wrong, yiflurs wrong, no more, silence, deep woods."

3

her cheeks the powder had formed patterns. He was always He himself, possession and love were lost in the darkness of
on the point of asking why she was powdered; as soon as she Vienna's woods, in the darkness of all the silences and can­
realized he was about to open his mouth, she affably asked: cellations and dissolutions and woods and deaths of the uni­
"What is it?" He did not dare ask the question; he sensed verse.
somehow that that powder must be a test, a decisive test, he How far away they were a month later-those four and a
understood that he ought to ask, and he wanted to do half days spent together in Vienna-the walks through the
so-but he did not dare. During the day, despite Milena's woods, their purchase at the stationery store, the stop in the
prohibition, on the sly he read her articles in the Tribuna. He park, the wardrobe closet-even though they had been only
found one that distinguished between the styles of swimmers: the tatters of happiness. Now there was only darkness: on all
there are some who swim elegantly, the body level with the things. And torture. The swords slowly approached the
water, and others who do so heavily, the body deep in the body; when they began to nick him, it was so frightening that
water. Naturally, he swam with the weight at his feet. Then immediately, at the first cry, he betrayed her, himself,
he found an article about fashion-and sought all around him everything. Milena tried to comfort him, proposing a future
on the streets of Prague for the Bohemian girls who obeyed life together. It was impossible: in no case was there the
Milena's precious suggestions. possibility they had thought they had in Vienna; they did not
He still dreamt of living with Milena. How lovely it have it even then, he had looked "beyond his hedge," he had
would be-question and answer, glance for glance. No clung to its top-then he had fallen back, with torn hands.
matter what other people might say about her and no matter "The world is full of possibilities, but I do not yet know what
what she might do, whether she remained in Vienna with her they are." They were never going to live together: in the
husband, or came to Prague, or remained suspended between same house, body against body; and before that "never" there
Vienna and Prague-she was right. For love of her, albeit was another "never." If she had come to Prague, he would
with clenched teeth, he was ready to put up with everything: have passed a test, perhaps the only one: he would have
distance, anxiety, preoccupation, lack of letters; and the days demonstrated to himself that he deserved the love of a
without letters were not horrible, they were only heavy, the woman-but he had failed it. So now he did not want to see
boat was overloaded, shipped too much water, and yet it her for a few days in Prague. "This morning, for example, I
floated on her waves. Often, as in Merano, he wanted to melt suddenly began to fear, to fear lovingly, to fear with an
in her: rest his face on her lap, feel her hand on his head and aching heart that, deflected by some fortuitous trifle, you
remain like that forever. He would have liked to lose his might unexpectedly arrive in Prague." Nor would he go to
name and form, and be only one of her objects, like the happy Vienna; he did not want to separate her from her husband,
wardrobe closet in her room, which could look into her face and every reference to this trip was a fire that she brought
when she sat on the deck chair or was at her desk or went to close to his bare skin.
bed to sleep. At the start, when writing to her, he had signed At the end of July, Milena heard from Max Brod that
his letters "Franz Kafka," then only "Franz," and then only Kafka was gravely ill and decided to see him immediately.
"yours": he wanted to lose his name, flinging it into her She did not love him: he was too angelic and unreal, while
shadow, forget his own identity. Finally he wrote: "Franz she planted her firm, brave and imaginative feet on the
21 4 KAFKA
r Milena 21 5
colorful ground of reality. But she understood him-with I more certain than that slight pain in his temple. He began to
intelligence, precision and feminine force. At first Kafka be afraid of the letters. \Vhen none came he was more
refused; like a scrupulous pupil, he did not want to tell lies at tranquil; if he saw one on his desk he had to summon up all
his office: the office-and before that grammar school, high his strength. He could not endure the sense of sorrow: it
school, the university, the family-was for him something came from the torment, incurable, and gave him only
alien to the point of absurdity, but to which he was joined in torment, incurable; and if he wrote to her, sleep was out of
a way that demanded respect. He sensed a secret anguish in the question. Disquietude and anguish tore him apart. "Love
her, he did not know whether for him or against him, a is for me the fact that you are for me the knife with which I
restlessness, a sudden haste. The appointment was set: they probe inside myself." Bitterly he repeated: "Yes, torture is
were to meet at Gmund, on the border between Austria and very important to me, it is my chief occupation to be tortured
Czechoslovakia. Then the plan fell through: Milena could not and to torture." He dreamt of her one more time. Milena was
come. Like a mole, Kafka had dug a passage from his dark on fire, and he tried to smother the flames, beating her with
apartment all the way to Gmund and had thrown away an old garment. Then the metamorphoses began. She van­
everything he had found in this passage which led to her. ished, he began to burn and beat himself with the garment,
Now he suddenly ran into the impenetrable rock of a without its having any effect. Now he was Milena, now
"Please-do not depart," and he was forced to go back again Milena was he. Then the firemen arrived, and Milena was
through the tunnel he had dug with such haste, and fill it saved. But she was completely different: spectral, inanimate,
with what was there. drawn with chalk on the darkness-and she fell into his arms.
On August 14 and 15 they met in Gmund. The mole had Or perhaps it was he who fell into someone else's arms? And
once again joyfully gone down into the dark tunnel, digging so he lived between darkness and fire, going from one
through the earth to reach the light. He arrived there with a transformation to the next, from sorrow to sorrow, without
strange feeling of assurance, like the "owner of houses." But certainty. Only one thing was certain. Someone had sent him
there he found no joy: they spoke to each other like two off from the Ark, like the dove of salvation; he had not found
strangers, separated by too many thoughts. He had the a trace of green; and now he had again-forever-slipped
impression of sinking: lead weights dragged him into the into the dark Ark.
deep sea; or he had been torn away, on the smooth wall there To Milena he had written that anguish was the best part
were no handholds to which he could cling. of him, perhaps the only lovable thing about him, and the
Back in Prague, all he did was sit, reading desultorily: he only thing with which Milena had fallen in love. It wasn't
did not want to see anyone; and he spent his time listening to only his anguish, but absolute anguish, the anguish of all faith
a very slight pain gnawing at his temple. He began coughing since always, and it forced him to be silent forever. It
again: every evening he coughed uninterruptedly from quar­ compelled him to withdraw from the world; he thought that
ter past nine until eleven, then he fell asleep, but at midnight then the pressure of the world would diminish. Instead, as he
as he turned from left to right he began coughing again until withdrew and locked himself away in his castle, the world's
one. He no longer cared for Milena's letters. In the past he pressure increased, and the anguish grew; and he gave heed
had read them to the end and would become ten times to it, nourished it, poured himself into it, with a sort of
hungrier and thirstier; now he bit his lips and nothing was sinister enthusiasm, a deadly ecstasy. He felt its hand at his
 r
216 KAFKA Milena 21 7
throat-"the most horrible thing I have ever experienced or food. Now he understood that "The Metamorphosis" had
rna y ever experience." Then, calling him back into life with prefigured the fate of his love for Milena. Like Gregor, he
her high spirits, Milena had helped him endure anguish; had experienced the desire for "unknown nourishment" and
there had been days when anguish had been only a light, the craving to return to his den in the forest, dragging Milena
smiling pressure against his temple, a light caress against his along with him. "If only I could take her with me!" he
throat. But now, as everything collapsed about Kafka, his thought, and the counterthought was: "Does darkness exist
amorous passion inflamed, dug up anguish, made it a hun­ where she is?" But he realized that it was not possible:
dredfold. Precisely the asexual and incestuous eros, which darkness and light are incompatible; he must write in the
had attracted him to Milena, was a source that could never be forest's darkness and anguish, Milena must walk radiantly in
placated. Anguish, not desire, was his erotic stimulus. In the light. So, almost without wanting to, he decided to
appearance, outside of this, there was only a "yearning for return to the darkness and silence whence he had come; he
something," for the "unknown nourishment" that had de­ must obey, he could not do otherwise. He broke off the
voured Gregor Samsa's soul; this yearning seemed to leap correspondence: the only way to live was to be silent; and for
beyond all emotions-and yet no, it was precisely the a last time, not in a dream, he had a vision. Milena's face was
yearning that more than anything else aroused anguish. hidden by her hair, he managed to part it to right and left,
He wrote to Milena: "I am dirty, Milena, infinitely dirty, her face appeared to him, he caressed her brow and temples,
that is why I make all this noise about purity. No one sings and held them between his hands.
as purely as those who are in the deepest depths of hell: what
we think is the song of angels is their song." He was not
dirty: he was infinitely less so than we; but he lived in The November letter was not the last: others, which were
darkness, in the underground, in the animal world, among lost, followed until January, while Kafka was in a sanatorium
mice and moles, he wrote at night; and he dreamt of celestial in the mountains at Matliary. Milena did not want to break
food. He had met Milena: the Beauty of the fairy tale, with him: for almost two years, she kept going to the Vienna
Gregor Samsa's sister. "Things stand more or less like this: I, post office to see whether there were any letters for her at the
a sylvan beast, was not, one might say, in the forest, I lay I poste restante, whereas he tried to avoid suffering at all costs:
know not where, in a filthy ditch (filthy, naturally, only "the desperation that scratches and lacerates the skull and
because of my presence) and then I saw, out in the open, the brain." At the beginning of January 1921, gathering all his
most marvelous thing I had ever seen, I forgot everything, strength, he asked for a last favor: not to write to him any
forgot myself entirely, rose, approached, fearful in that new more, make it impossible for them ever to see each other
and yet innate freedom, so I approached, I came all the way again. Indomitable, insatiable, Milena wrote him another
to you, you who were so good, I huddled next to you as letter that was supposed to be "the last," and another in
though it were my right, rested my face on your hands, I was April. Kafka asked Brod to tell him if Milena was in Prague
so happy, so proud, so free, so powerful, so at home, always so he could avoid stopping there, and to let him know if
like that: so at home.... " He had lived for a while in light Milena by any chance was coming to Matliary, so as to
and knowledge, as Gregor Samsa had lived playing in his escape in time. But at the end of January, toward morning,
dark room, while his sister in silent communion brought him he had a dream that filled him with happiness. On his left sat
218 KAFKA

a child in a camisole; he wasn't sure that it was his son, but

'r, '
,
(
"
r

,i
Milena

idea ever born that people can communicate with each other
21 9

he didn't care; on his right, Milena. They both clung to him, by means of letters?" In the first place, writing multiplies
and he told them the story of his wallet, which he had lost l.: misunderstanding. Besides, it is nothing but an intercourse
and found again. He cared for nothing but having those two with one's own ghost, which apparently sits at the desk; with
at his side, in the early radiant morning that changed into a I the recipient's ghost, expecting from us who knows what
sad day. words-and with all the other ghosts that populate the
At the end of September 192 I, back in Prague, he heard world, before whom we lay ourselves bare, and wait at the
that Milena was also in town, and he was afraid the threshold for the letters carried by the mailman. "Written
sleepless nights would begin again. A few days later, at the kisses do not reach their destination, but are drunk by
beginning of October, he gave her his Diaries, with the two­ phantoms during the journey. " Taking nourishment from
fold desire of being full y understood by her and of free­ this abundant alimentation, the phantoms multiply and the
ing himself from his past. Between October and November world becomes nothing but gray, perfidious ghostliness. All
they saw each other again four times; perhaps they went back of his life's misfortune came from the perverse habit of
to using the formal address, which they had used during writing letters. With his exquisite grace-the grace of an
the Merano period. What did they say to each other? acrobat and ghost-Kafka played and invited Milena to play
Did they talk with the old passion, tension, sincerity? Was by writing one of her articles on the subject of letters and
one the other's knife? Did they suffer and love to suffer? Did phantoms, so as to show "them" that they have been
anguish reappear? Did the swords come close to their bodies recognized. But it was a serious joke. His entire amorous life
again? Or instead had the veil of mitigated and defeated had existed through letters: a few meetings in Berlin, Marien­
passion already descended on them? When Milena returned bad and Vienna, and then nothing but letter after letter:
to Vienna, Kafka wrote in his Diaries that he was "infinitely he had thought that thus he could avoid the terror of
sad" because of her departure; and that Milena was "a proximity-and instead he had lost himself forever in trans­
beginning, a light in the darkness." The year after, they saw parent, disquieting, all-enveloping ghostliness.
each other again; in January, perhaps Kafka talked to her Despite the phantoms, the amorous, implacable Milena
about the idea for The Castle. In April, he dreamt about her continued to write. Sometimes Kafka answered, and told her
once more. They understood that a last possibility existed about his fantastic plans to emigrate to Palestine, his trips to
between them: that something or even much was still alive; the Baltic Sea, his transfer to Berlin, where he lived almost in
but both of them carefully guarded a closed door, "so that it the countryside. On December 23, 1923, he wrote her the
shouldn't open or rather that we shouldn't open it, since it last letter. He was ill. Also there in Berlin, his old troubles
did not open by itself." had discovered, assailed and defeated him: everything he did
Two months before, Kafka had written her an unusual was an effort; every stroke of the pen seemed too great,
letter, using a formal address full of politeness, distance and beyond his strength. If he wrote "Kindest regards," would
affection. People-he said-know of only two ways to these regards really have the strength to reach Vienna, the
communicate: if they are distant they think of each other, if noisy, busy, gray urban Lerchenfelderstrasse, where he and
they are close they clasp each other. "Everything else anything to do with him cannot even breathe? Well, he
surpasses human strength. . . . How in the world was the would send them anyway, his kind regards. What did it
220 KAFKA
f"
:
. l
matter if they fell to the ground as soon as they reached the 'l

garden gate, without the strength to get to the Potsdamer­

.~ CHAPTER TEN
platz, much less Vienna, just as the emperor's last message
will never reach the house of his last subject, who waits for
it sitting by his windows, and dreams about it when evening
falls?
The Year of The Castle

;\ t the beginning of October 1921, Kafka started a new

1\.. notebook, and he remarked that from now on his diary,
which had kept him company for almost twelve years, would
completely change in character. By now he was almost a
dead man. Like the dead, he had received the gift of a
terrifying memory: everything was memory, his life, his
loves, his errors were all fixed in his mind; he was incapable
of freeing himself from the slightest fragment of the past, and
therefore he had lost the ability to sleep. So he no longer
needed his diary to assist his memory, recording the events of
this external life: just as he holed up in his predeath den, the
diary would hole up in the darkness. From that day on,
Kafka's diary became even more concentrated: sharply
pointed, desperate, increasingly lucid, it gathered around the
great themes of his life and expressed them with an intellec­
tual tension that perhaps he had never attained before.
If Tolstoy tried throughout his life to discover what was
enclosed in the invisible and secret treasure of happiness,
Kafka could not endure happiness: he feared that the joy of
living might make him inattentive to the voice of destiny. His
obligation was to listen to anguish and despair and go
222 KAFKA
r The Year of The Castle 223
i
wherever they advised. No one was as wretched as he: i
.p
tightly than to any other thing, let us say to the pen holder in
around no one's head did the black raven fly as continually as your hand? Perhaps the fact that you belong to their species?
f
around his; no one had taken on so difficult a task-"it is not But you do not belong to their species, that is precisely why
a task, not even an impossible task, not even impossibility you formulated this question." He did not know how to
itself, it is nothing, not even that son a sterile woman's hope establish a relationship with someone, or endure an acquain­
might dream of." It was the air in which he breathed, as long tance, and he was filled with infinite amazement when
as he must breathe. He knew that the man defeated by life, looking at a merry company or even when faced by parents
the man dead in life, the survivor-such as he was-has a with their children. He had never loved a woman. "It is
clearer, more lucid and penetrating gaze, and discerns every­ mistaken to say that I've known the words 'I love you,' I have
thing that is hidden under the rubble. Despair is the most known only the silent expectation that should have been
potent weapon of the art of seeing. But on the other hand, he broken by my 'I love you': that is all that I have known,
wasn't a theologian of anguish either. Despair too, if it was nothing more."
too great, could distract or dim or obfuscate the gaze: The uniqueness of the pages he wrote in his diary at
torment too could completely close him in himself, paralyze Spindlermuhle in January-February 1922 consists in the fact
him and prevent him from writing. So if he wanted to keep that, for the first time, with a trust that surprises us, he
an open gaze and transform it into words, he must find a kind accepted being a denizen of the desert. Indeed, he proclaimed
of quiet inside anguish. himself fortunate at having reached the desert: the road to
He read Exodus again. I lis life was in the desert: he Canaan was most complicated, and yet he had found it;
incessantly traveled over every grain of sand, every track, he might have been crushed by the exile decreed for him
every mirage, every rare oasis; he would pitch his tent here by the Father; he might have met with a decisive rejection at
and there, wait, hope, but he would never reach Canaan, like the border and been unable to pass it, remaining in the
Moses, "not because his life was too short but because it was most horrible place-the soundless, empty place, neither
a human life." And yet at other times he thought that some Canaan nor desert. Instead he had arrived-and there at
people had reached Canaan, indeed had always lived in times he even found a strange, exhausted, cold and crystalline
Canaan: wasn't his father's world Canaan, the desired home­ happiness; freedom of movement; and the gift of attracting
land, which had always excluded him? As for him, his others, who loved him precisely because he was made only of
journey had been the opposite of Moses'. Forty years before, sand. Now he lived there: he was the desert's smallest, most
by being born, he had left Canaan, and for forty years he had fearful inhabitant-and in a flash he could be elevated but
lived permanently in the desert. Everything in his life had also crushed "beneath millennial marine pressures." The
been desert: literature; and his engagements, his loves, his greatest faculty he possessed was his "instinctive perception
"puerile hopes" as regards women (because women belonged of Canaan": the sense that life's splendor is ready all around
to Canaan) had been only "visions of despair." If he thought each one of us and in all its plenitude-but "veiled," in the
about it, he carried within him the desert's stigmata. lIe was depths, invisible, very distant-and comes to us if we call it
extraneous to men like an animal or a stone. He could not with the right words. Even though it was impossible and
stand human bodies-so fixed and limited. "What in these unattainable, Canaan remained the land of hope, because for
limited, speaking bodies with flashing eyes ties you more men no third country exists.
224 KAFKA
r
,F
The Year of The Castle 225

During the first days of 1922, he suffered a frightful cabala." Kafka spoke in the future tense, as if about a task
psychic collapse which he analyzed with his usual clairvoy­ that still remained to be done. Actually, he should have
ance. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't stay awake, he couldn't
spoken in the past tense: that "new esoteric doctrine," that
bear life and the tempo of life. His clocks did not run in
"cabala," born from the twofold assault by man against God
accord, the clock of ego had totally dissociated itself from the
and God against man, was already written in his Ziirau
clock of reality: whereas the first ran at breakneck speed in a notebooks.
demonic or diabolical and in any event inhuman fashion, at a
On January 29 he left for Spindlermiihle, a mountain
velocity that he never represented in his writings, the second
locality in the Riesengebirge. It seemed to him a place at the
laboriously followed a monotonous rhythm. But why­
end of the world, buried in snow; and the abandoned road
Kafka asked himself-had ego's clock accelerated its beat so
that went past the village beyond the bridge seemed not to
much? He couldn't give a certain answer. Only one thing have an earthly goal, like the road that in The Castle leads to
was evident. Kafka observed himself; analytic observation the village. During the first days the mountain air did him
did not bring calm to his ideas but rather brought them to the good. And he slept as he hadn't slept for three weeks. He
surface of his mind, probed, scrutinized, studied them; and rode on the sled, climbed up the mountain, even though
then this thoughtful gaze became the object of another physical exercise tired him. He even thought of putting on
observant gaze, and this in its turn of another, and so on, ad skis. At the hotel he had a curious adventure. He had written
infinitum. The diabolical element lay in the intelligence's his name on the guest list, the clerks copied it correctly twice,
fury, which he had condemned in Ziirau as the expression of and yet the hotel's blackboard still displayed the name of
Evil. Thus the two opposing worlds-that of reality and that Joseph Kafka, the hero of The Trial. The incident amused
of the ego-were severed: Kafka felt pierced and savaged by him, and then it worried him: literature was ironically
this tension; his introspective fury aimed at the extreme, tore reminding him that it possessed him, that he thought he was
him away from humanity, reduced him to frightful loneliness Franz Kafka, whereas he was only a character, a man
and risked plunging him into the dissociation of insanity. doomed to being sentenced to the most shameful death. His
There was, perhaps, one possibility of salvation. Instead incognito had been revealed. "Should I clear up the misun­
of opposing the demons, Kafka could let himself be carried derstanding or wait for them to make it clear to me?" A few
along by the fury: find a moment of quiet in the horror, hold days later, he was again seized by insomnia-to the point of
himself upright and so dominate it. Then self-analytical fury despair. He had the impression that the place's phantoms had
would be transformed into literature. Now he had become awakened and attacked him on the abandoned road, at the
the exclusive site of a great battle, a double assault would take end of the world. He tried to escape, with a few jumps. He
place in him: assault from below, on the part of the human, sought shelter in the house under the silent lamp. And yet
"against the last earthly frontiers"; assault from above, on the that light seemed to beckon to them from the windows, as
part of God, down, toward him, against him, against the though he had lit it to help them find the way. Once,
human that was in him and in all men. Thus mad self­ perhaps, he had the impression that his aggressor was God.
analytical fury would find peace, destruction would end in What could he do faced by enemies who were so exceedingly
creativity, being transformed into a "new esoteric doctrine, a powerful, who attacked him on the right and the left? He
 226 KAFKA
r" The Year of The Castle 227

must avoid the battle, flee through the mountain pass, which in his heart, he wrote to Max Brod, inviting him to join him
only a man with clear vision can find, and search for in the mountains. "It seems to me that I am in high school,
breathable air, the free life-"behind life," in death. the teacher paces to and fro, all the pupils have finished their
On January 22 he had written an enigmatic phrase in the tests and have already gone home; only I strive to develop the
Diaries: "nocturnal decision"; and during the following days fundamental error of my math test and keep the good teacher
, !
he told of having spoken about it with Milena, even though waiting." But what did it matter? If Max came for a few
in an inadequate fashion, and he complained because the days, they would continually roam the mountains, take rides
"nocturnal decision" remained just a decision. The excellent on the sleds, ski; and in the evening, having escaped the
pu blisher of The Castle, Malcolm Pasley, con jectures that this attacks of the spirits, they would write their books, to
"nocturnal decision" was the first flash, the first vague idea of summon the end, to hasten the death that was waiting-"a
The Castle-of the pilgrim in search of God. This is possible, peaceful end."
even though it is not at all certain. As soon as he arrived at On February '7 he returned to Prague, clinging to the
Spindlermuhle, the inability to write was lifted: with a book as though it were his last resort. He protested that even
pencil, the same one with which during those same days he though he sat at his desk from seven in the evening, he got
wrote the pages of the Diaries, he sketched the first pages of nothing done: his book was "a trench dug by scratching with
The Castle's beginning, and after that the impetuous tide of fingernails during the world war"; but in reality, he wrote at
inspiration was endless, until it came to halt, one doesn't his prodigious pace, his pace of a "large, tall soldier of
know why, at Plana. If this reconstruction is correct, we fortune" who leads "desperate men through the mountain
would have here another example of the extraordinary speed passes," since in two months he had written one hundred
with which inspiration crystallized in Kafka. He had arrived seventy printed pages. He seemed dominated by fury, by a
in the mountains with a confused idea of his book. At kind of neurasthenic rage, cleaving to his oyster-book; he
Spindlermuhle he took walks through the snow down the kept all disturbances at bay, all friends, all preoccupations;
road that led to the bridge: in the Diaries he recorded some he tried to shut out all noises; and just knowing that
thoughts about the desert and the land of Canaan-and all at somebody wanted to see him-even beloved Klopstock or
once, all this was transformed into the opening scene of The most beloved Milena-was enough to plunge him into in­
Castle, with K. crossing the bridge and asking for lodging at somnia. But his most serious enemies were internal. He
the inn. feared a renewed assault by his self-analytical fury: "And
In less than a month, Kafka's condition had been com­ what if one were stifled within oneself? If, by dint of insisting
pletely reversed. He had suffered the "collapse," the assault on self-examination, the opening through which one pours
of the inner clock, the fury of self-analytical passion, which out into the world were to become too small or close up
goaded and drove him to madness; and now, as he was entirely?" He feared, above all, the attacks of "the enemy"­
writing the first lines of The Castle, he experienced "the the terrible, devouring anguish, which took on an external
strange, mysterious, perhaps perilous, perhaps redemptive form. "The attacks, anguish. Rats that tear at me and I
consolation" of literature, which independent of reality fol­ multiply them with my gaze.... Felt it coming on already
lows the pure laws of its own movement and finds its own for two days, yesterday an explosion, then the pursuit, the
"incalculable, joyous, ascending" path. With this consolation enemy's great strength ... the serious 'attack' on the evening
228 KAFKA
,...
i
The Year of The Castle 229

walks ... at moments ruination, desertion, inanity, incom­ . t desk, he must cling to it with his teeth.... " He did not
mensurable abyss."* At times, he hoped to use the strength
of external and internal enemies, of terrestrial and celestial
\ want to call the attention of the gods to himself. He had the
feeling that if he continued to live there in his den, like a poor
assailants, and transform it into defensive strength or a old pensioner, while the days passed regular!y one after the
forward thrust. OnJuly 1 he was retired on a pension. A few other, the gods would not notice him and would continue to
days before that he went to the insurance institute to collect pull at the reins mechanically. But if he freely went to the
his things: in the wardrobe closet there was only his second railroad station with his luggage under the high sky, putting
jacket, gray and worn, which he kept there for rainy days. the world and above all his own heart in a turmoil, then the
He removed it and took some papers with him. For the gods would wake up and persecute him. It was too grand a
moment the office, where he had worked for fourteen years, gesture for his condition; and immediately insomnia caught
remained empty. Left behind on the table were a small glass up with him and he spent the entire night without sleeping.
vase with two pencils and a pen holder and a blue and gold He had no illusions. He understood very well that he was
teacup. One of the clerks told the cleaning woman, Frau behaving like a madman. If he went on like this he would
Svetkova, to throwaway Kafka's "rubbish." reach absolute immobility, living death, like certain schizo­
At the end ofJune he left for Plana, in the country, where phrenics who spend their lives staring at a spot on their
he was to live with Ottla and her family. As at Zurau, Ottla blanket or a stain on the wall. "It is thus decided that I must
protected him with her maternal tenderness. When he sat at no longer leave Bohemia, hereafter I will be confined to
the table in the big warm living room, she did not disturb Prague, then to my room, then to my bed, then to a
him, taking her little daughter into a smaller, cooler room. particular position of my limbs, then to nothing at all."
Then she let him have the master bedroom with the two While meditating during that sleepless night, Kafka once
windows, from which he could see the woods. But noises again realized that if so little was enough to distress him so
managed also to creep into this Eden: the children would deeply, he was not living like other men with his feet planted
come to play on the lawn in front of the house and Ottla firmly on stable ground. He lived in a den, which collapsed
was not always able to send them away; the small balls and crumbled on all sides, subjected to the attack of an
of Ohropax in his ears dazed him slightly. Once he was unknown wild beast; or in an abyss without walls and
chased from his bed, from the house, with aching temples unfathomable, a vertiginous, defenseless tunnel in which all
through fields and woods, without a shred of hope, like a the powers of night were free to rage, completely destroying
nighttime owl. his life. All he could do was transcribe the interminable
At the beginning of July, his old friend Oskar Baum babbling voice of the night, the insinuating perverse voice of
invited him to Georgental. At first he decided to go, then he the demons. "This descent to the dark powers, this unleash­
gave it up. He didn't want to leave his desk, his sheet of ing of spirits bound by nature, the problematic embraces and
paper, The Castle which was moving toward its end: "a all that may happen down there, about which nothing is ever
writer's life truly does depend on his desk, and if he wants to known up here when stories are written in the light of the
avoid madness, he mustn't, strictly speaking, ever leave his sun. Perhaps there exists another way of writing, but I know
* The first and third fragments are not included in the German edition, only this." He was therefore a sinner, one who renders
but only in the English, French and Italian editions of the Diaries.-Trans. "service to the devil." But he was also "mankind's scapegoat":
 ~
23 0 KAFKA The Year of The Castle 23 1
he immolated himself for other men, not to defeat the
demoniacal and expel it from the world, but to bring it to
J..
f'
J would not be able to sleep: the heart of the future power of
sleep was torn out with one bite; indeed, he was already
light while leaving it surrounded by its horror and tenebrous sleepless, he anticipated his sleeplessness, suffered as though
fascination, thus permitting men to know-"without guilt or he'd been sleepless the night before. He left the house, full of
almost without guilt"-that awesome sin which he himself anxiety. He could think of nothing else; he was seized by an
had committed. enormous fear and, in the most lucid moments, by fear of
In the evenings he walked in the forest near the house. this fear. At a crossroads he met Ottla by chance. If she had
The racket of the birds quieted down and here and there one approved his plan, even with a single word, he would be lost
heard only a timid warble: the birds were afraid not of him for several days; he would have to struggle with himself, an
but of the evening. He sat on a bench-always the same annihilating struggle which certainly would not end by
one---at the edge of the wood, before a broad panorama; but making him stay. Luckily, Ottla said that he couldn't stay:
here, instead of birds, one heard the horrible voices of the the air was too harsh, there was mist. But Kafka was still
children of Prague. Everything was beautiful, tranquil, worried: he still had to turn down the offer he had just
transparent, full of quiet happiness-but if a night or a day accepted. He had aroused too many things which already
were troubled, if the assaults of the "spirits" had tortured lived a life of their own and it was impossible to calm them
him, the birds' wood also became the center of restlessness. with a single word. As on all other evenings, he went into the
He was at ease only with Ottla, when his brother-in-law wood that was dear to him; it was already dark, and all he
wasn't there and there were no guests. His neurasthenia, experienced there was terror. That night he could not sleep.
anguish, insomnia and terror of insomnia, his nameless fear In the morning, in the garden under the light of the sun, the
and inability to decide grew day by day, right to the brink of tension dissolved: Ottla spoke to the landlady and, to Kafka's
madness. He suffered four psychic "collapses": the first on a great astonishment, the small matter that was on the point of
day when the children made a terrible racket under his tearing the universe apart was cleared up with the exchange
window; the second when Oskar Baum invited him to of a few words. "All day long I still sit with my eyes sunk
Georgental; the third at the beginning of September, when deep in my head."
Ottla wanted to go back to Prague and leave him alone at On September 18 he left Plana together with Ottla. The
Plana; the fourth some days later. Castle too remained unfinished.
Speaking to the landlady, he told her that he would like
to spend the winter at Plana, and that only the thought of
having to eat at the restaurant made him hesitate. The
landlady offered to take him in and feed him. He thanked
her, glad of the offer. Everything was decided: he would
spend the winter at Plana. When all was said and done he
was content: he very much wanted to live through the winter
alone, quiet, not spending much, in this region which
pleased him immensely. But as he was going up to his room,
the fourth "collapse" took place. Above all he realized that he
 "flI"""

The Castle 233

CHAPTER ELEVEN As in "The Metamorphosis" and The Trial, the beginning
is an absolute beginning: we have the impression that, before,
nothing ever happened, and that the universe, Kafka's life,
the history of literature begin that evening when K. arrives
at the foot of the hill enveloped in mist and stops on the
wooden bridge. Everything is simple, linear, light: there
The Castle is no dramatic-expressionistic intensification of the narration.
Whereas The Trial was a series of symbolic fragments, The
Castle is a novel in the great classical tradition, with a unity of
space and time, an incessant temporal fluidity, a skillful
symphonic interweaving of motifs, the return of characters,
attention to minor figures and even some moments of relax­
ation and idleness, as though Kafka wanted to remind lIS that
not everything in his book is equally significant. After the
book's first half, something incalculable happens. The action
he book begins: "It was late in the evening when K. slows down. The classical novel, with its balanced alternation
T arrived. The village lay under deep snow. The hill
could not be seen, mist and darkness enveloped it, and not
of action and dialogue, comes to an end. Immense and
immobile monologues, reported now directly, now indi­
even the feeblest ray of light indicated the large Castle. K. rectly, replace the narration, without any concession to the
stopped for a long time on the wooden bridge, which from theatricality and vivacity of the spoken word. Perhaps this
the main road led to the village, and looked up into the grave monological pedestal was to prepare an unexpected
apparent void." The entire year that I have described-the solution in the final part.
search of despair, the psychic collapses, the mad pace Eight years after The Trial, the fundamental situation
of the inner clock, the anxiety, the terrors, the "assaults," appears changed. There, the gods occupied the entire uni­
neurasthenia, dissociation, almost madness---dissolved, as verse and its center, of which the anonymous city was a
I! I though Kafka had never experienced it. The great book metaphor. Here they have withdrawn to the outermost
II periphery: in a separate place, forgotten, outside the world.
seems born in the loving womb of Quiet. Kafka had experi­
enced the discontinuity of time: the struggle between two Elsewhere the gods are dead. The Castle, the village at its
hostile times-one diabolically fast, the other slower-which feet, the two hotels where functionaries and servants stay are
fought each other almost to the point of tearing him apart and the only places in the world where the gods are still alive.
killing him. Yet as soon as he sits down at his desk, he Did they seek refuge here, coming from their ancient do­
immediately achieves a marvelous evenness of tone, continu­ mains? Or have they always lived in the old tower? Whereas
ity of breath, fluidity of the speaking voice, which only the in The Trial the gods were mixed together with the nondivine
interminable night could bestow on him. Not a break, a (the bank, the state), the Castle is the utopian place, the
change of pace, a lowering or raising of tone. The voice impossible place, where the divine is chemically pure. Here
proceeds at the same level-forever, to the end of the world. there are only gods, and the breath of creatures devoted to
 ~

234 KAFKA The Castle 235

the gods. This is the last strip of the land of Canaan, where huts and lies heavy on the low roofs; and the interiors of the
the people live with them. Nobody, in the entire book, houses are dark or semidark. Spring and summer also exist,
reminds us of the face or figure or history of some predecessor but they are instants which, in memory, seem no longer than
of K.'s, who is therefore the only one, the last one to set out two days, fablelike dreams; and it snows even then, though
in search of God. The great religious or metaphysical or with splendid weather. Is not perhaps the name of the
mystical adventure no longer interests the men of the modern supreme god who rules over the Castle West-West, sunset­
world, save for a derelict with a dubious past who is sunset? Without saying a word, K. experiences a terrifying
dangerously prone to mendacity. Even though some people surprise. Like the ancient pilgrims, he has crossed the snowy
arrive, the teacher informs us that the Castle "is not liked by desert to be welcomed by the amorous arms of Canaan; and
any stranger." he discovers that the site of the gods is the country of
From two fleeting allusions we can assume that the rest of darkness, deadly cold, eternal sunset. The gods live here,
the world still exists: there are southern France and Spain, to where the light is at an end, because they are dying.
which Frieda is drawn by longing; and some "neighboring The morning after his arrival in the village, K. for the
towns," "a meadow outside the village, along the stream," first time sees the Castle, which the darkness of evening had
where public festivities take place. About these places we concealed. From afar, it corresponds perfectly to the image of
know nothing: no traveler has told Frieda about the colors, the divine, which inhabits it. While below, in the village,
villages, seas and beaches of southern France or Spain. The snow, the symbol of weight, lies heavily on the low roofs of
only space is this: the Castle, the village. The rest of the the huts, on the hill there is little snow; and everything seems
world seems swallowed up by one of Kafka's enormous to rise freely into the sky, dominated by the leap of lightness.
blanks. Whenever anyone takes a step beyond the bridge, he The wintry air is limpid, and clearly and sharply defines the
takes a leap beyond the frontiers of reality, enters another outlines of the building. Lightness, freedom, limpidity­
space and another time, like Ulysses at Cape Malea, when what words could better define the divine? When K. ap­
the winds drove him beyond the route of the real, into a pure proaches, everything changes. The Castle is no longer a great
mystical element. The Castle is segregated from the rest of edifice, orderly and compact, "but a miserable little town, a
the world: just as Canaan is segregated from and protected by hodgepodge of village houses": long ago, they had been built
the desert of sand, the Castle is separated and protected by a of stone, and now the plaster has fallen off and the stone itself
desert of snow, which can be traversed only on foot. seems to be disintegrating. The gods have shabby, peeling,
The God of The Trial was light: "the inextinguishable rickety houses, just as in The Trial they inhabited the
splendor" which streams from the law's gates, the "blinding" suffocating attics of infamous houses. That leap of lightness,
dazzle which erupts from the palace of justice, even though which had struck K. from afar, had been an illusion. As he
afterward this light became shadow and darkness in the looks at the Castle, K. remembers the bell tower of his
places of the book. Here, there is no longer any trace of light. childhood village. How decisively it rose, without hesitation,
There reign extremely long, dark and monotonous winters, becoming slimmer toward the top, all the way to the roof
very short days, nights that are interrupted for an hour or covered by red tiles! It was, of course, a terrestrial building­
two, and immediately after it is night again; the roads are we can build only terrestrial things-but it aimed toward the
covered with snow which reaches up to the windows of the heights, how light and luminous it was, how saturated it was
 r
23 6 KAFKA The Castle
237
with celestial desires! On the other hand, the "hodgepodge of because of this, his eyes cannot dwell on the building and
village houses" that forms the Castle, and the very tower they slip away, as though it were invisible.
with which it culminates, have no upward thrust at all: it is The vision disappoints us. This miserable, shapeless
the domain of the here, of weight, limitation, degraded edifice, peeling and crumbling, squat and sad, gloomy and
gravity. menacing, chthonic, infantile, inhumanly quiet, with a light
The Castle's tower is a round and uniform construction that seems mad: where is the divine in all this? As we
partly covered by ivy, with small windows that glitter in the advance in our reading of The Castle, we realize that, among
sun; and it terminates in a kind of terrace whose uncertain, many other things, the divine is also this. And yet is it
irregular and crumbling battlements cut jagged into the blue possible that this is all? That the high Castle dreamt of by K.
sky. K. has curious impressions. It seems to him that the has nothing else to reveal to him? Perhaps the divine hides
tower is a sad inhabitant-perhaps a sick man, an unhappy itself, conceals itself from the gaze, like the functionaries who
person, more probably a person guilty of an obscure crime­ do not like to be seen: it is not the true Castle; and we must
who, in keeping with justice, should remain locked up in the not try to see the divine.
most remote room of the house but has instead broken If we want to approach the divine, there is another path:
through the roof, rising up high to show himself to the eyes the aural path-advised by many mystics, who preferred it
of the world. The divine is sad, gloomy, segregated, menac­ to the visual one. The evening after his arrival, K. telephones
ing: bereft of all grace. Two more details strike K. and above the Castle. When he picks up the receiver, from it comes a
all us who contemplate the Castle for the first time through buzz, a whisper, a rustle, that K. had never heard on a
his eyes. The light of the wintry sun, which strikes the small phone. The Castle does not articulate distinct and separate
windows, has something of the Irrsinniges, the senseless: the words, does not organize a discourse; this is "the undiffer­
light does not shine, dazzle, blind, as in The Trial-but it entiated murmur of language" which came before the word.
seems to engender madness. As for the uncertain battle­ "It was like the hum of innumerable childlike voices-but it
ments, which fret the blue sky, they seem drawn by a wasn't a hum, it was a chant of distant, very distant voices:
timorous or negligent childish hand. it was as though from this hum a single voice were inexpli­
Only one thing in the Castle seems worthy of the divine: cably formed, acute but resonant, which struck the ear as if
the quiet, the silence, the superhuman or inhuman calm. it were trying to penetrate beyond mere wretched hearing."
,
When K. looks at it after a few days, he cannot discover in it The divine is infinitely distant, unattainable, beyond our
the slightest sign of life: "Sometimes it seemed to him he was every glance and the perceptions of our hearing; the divine is
contemplating a person quietly sitting down, staring ahead, multiple, the very place where the innumerable lives, and yet
not lost in thought aIid therefore, isolated from everything, it forms a single voice, because its seat is the One; and it has
but free and carefree, as if this person were alone and no one' a childlike appearance, as we will come to know during the
observed him; and yet he must be aware of being observed, dawn spent by K. at the Lords' Hotel.
but this did not in the least disturb his calm." Man cannot We have just discovered the inaccessible quiet of the
bear the quiet of the divine: his eyes would like something up Castle, which caused the human gaze to turn and slip away.
there to move, to agitate, to give some sign of itself; precisely Now we know that the divine demands something from us: it
 ---
23 8 KAFKA
The Castle
239
approaches and addresses us; it is not satisfied to reach the
cavity of our ear, but insists on delving "more profoundly"­ obvious explanation. As we know from The Trial, the divine
all the way to the heart, or to the ultimate root of our being. deceives: it is one of its favorite games. But that hum, that
A more radical reversal could not take place; and we remem­ rustle, that chant of innumerable, very distant, childlike
ber the other demand that the divine makes of Joseph K. in voices which form a single voice-they are the voice of the
divine. It has no other.
The Trial, through the priest and the Burgel episode. Shortly
before, K. had heard the Castle's bell: a winged and joyous In The Castle, Kafka is much more polytheistic than in The
sound, which descended from the darkness and "made the Trial. He fashions a multitude of divine creatures, has us
heart tremble at least for an instant-because the sound was meet them, evokes others in the background, describes their
also sorrowful-as though it were threatening to fulfill what ranks and hierarchies, with the imaginative and meticulous
the heart obscurely desired." The divine does not only ask, it abundance of a Gnostic or a Chinese. At the top of the great
does not only wish to penetrate our being: it fulfills what we divine ladder dwells absolute Being, invisible Being, inacces­
desire without our knowing it, what we obscurely crave­ sible, incomprehensible, ineffable, unrepresentable, which
even though the fulfillment, like everything that descends here has taken the slightly frivolous name of Count West­
from the divine, has the sorrowful tone of a threat. West, the Lord of our and his sunset. When K. meets the
The acoustic path seems to have brought us much closer teacher, he asks him: "You know the Count, of course?"
to the divine: to its distance, multiplicity, unity-and to its "N 0," the teacher says, and turns to leave. But K. repeats the
question: "How's that? You don't know the Count?" "How
unexhausted and dolorous relationship with us. Some chap­
ters later, Kafka offers us the rational explanation for the could I know him?" the teacher says in a low voice, and adds
loudly in French: "Please have some consideration for the
strange telephonic noises: at the Castle the functionaries use
presence of innocent children." With these little games,
the phone continuously, and these uninterrupted communi­
cations are perceived by the village inhabitants, who hear Kafka reveals to us not only that the Almighty is unknowable,
them in the receiver, as that childlike chant which fascinated but that his name is taboo, and to repeat it in public, and all
K. We also learn something more serious. When an inhabit­ the more in front of children, is to offend the total otherness
of the divine.
ant of the village calls somebody at the Castle, the phones of
the lower sections ring up there: or, more precisely, they Shortly before, at the Bridge Inn, K. had seen a dark
would ring if the bells in most of them were not turned off. portrait hanging on the wall, which represented a fifty­
year-old man, with a heavy brow, big hooked nose, his head
Every so often, however, a clerk worn out by fatigue feels the
bowed on his chest and one hand furrowing his thick hair. In
need for a bit of distraction, especially in the evening and at
his naivete, which seven days of living around the Castle
night, and he reconnects the bells. And so the inhabitants of
were not able to dissipate altogether, he asks: "Who's that?
the village are answered. But the answer is just a joke-like
The Count?" "No," the innkeeper says, "it's the doorman."
the answer received by K. that evening. Should we therefore
As in the Islamic world or among the Byzantine iconoclasts,
give up auditory contemplation of the divine-the only kind
a prohibition forbids the portrayal of God's effigy. After the
that seems to have brought us to its borders? Is everything
first chapter, no one speaks about the Count again; we meet
nothing but an illusion of the senses? Or the deception of a
functionary tired out by too much work? This is the most functionaries, secretaries, servants, inhabitants of the village;
decisions are taken; but everything happens as though he did
240 KAFKA The Castle 24'
not exist. Count West-West, who because of a nervous intense emotion, the countless nuances of hope or despair of
ailment will spend his life confined to a room of the Castle or the onlooker. Only one thing remains unchanged in him: his
playing on a fashionable French beach, is a true and proper attire-the black coat with its long tails. The single, stable
deus otiosus, as religious historians put it. and fixed aspect of the transcendent, the single form that
Below this secret and inaccessible God, there are the defines it, Kafka says with marvelous irony, is its appearance,
other gods: the high functionaries, such as Klamm, Sortini, what all of us change morning and evening, spring and
Sordini, Friedrich; the secretaries, such as Erlanger and winter.
Burgel, the former silent, the latter delightfully garrulous; And yet this multiform Proteus always remains identical
the servants of superior rank, strong and large like angels, to himself, just as the god is the same in his metamorphoses.
chosen for their stature and even more reserved than the When Barnabas, who had compared aJl the testimonies
functionaries; and finally the wild, frenzied mob of servants concerning Klamm's appearance, meets him in an office at
of inferior rank. The high functionaries resemble eagles, as the Castle, he does not recognize him and for quite a while
K. observes apropos of Klamm. "The innkeeper's wife had cannot get used to the idea that this person is Klamm. But
once compared him to an eagle and this had seemed very when his sister asks him in what way that Klamm differs
ridiculous to K., but not anymore. He thought of his from the current idea one has of him, he cannot answer; or he
aloofness, his impregnable dwelling place, his silence, inter­ answers giving a description of the functionary met at the
rupted perhaps only by screams such as K. had never heard Castle which jibes perfectly with the idea everyone has of
before, his penetrating gaze which fell from on high, which Klamm. In his inexhaustible desire to see, K. manages to
one could never point out or confute, and of the circles that catch a glimpse of Klamm: Frieda violates the taboo, opens a
from the depths of the abyss in which K. found himself could small hole in the door and shows him Klamm, who is asleep.
not be destroyed, the circles which he traced in accordance And there, before his eyes: a fat, heavy man of average
with incomprehensible laws, and which could be glimpsed height, with a face still smooth but already flabby under the
only for a few instants-all this Klamm and the eagle had in weight of years, very long black mustaches, pince-nez cov­
common." Aloofness, inaccessibility, incomprehensibility, ering his eyes, and he sleeps sitting up in a comfortable round
silence, penetrating gaze: all this the deus otiosus and the high armchair at a desk illuminated by the brilliant light of a lamp
functionaries have in common. hanging from the ceiling. We believe that K. satisfies his
These inferior gods, or at least Klamm, have a particular curiosity by gaining access, though only once, to this vision of
quality: the transcendent, that which is, which subsists, the divine. But the dazzling lamp does not reveal anything:
which is equal to itself, is revealed in them through the games that coarse, heavy, trivial face might belong to almost any
of appearance and illusion. Klamm is continually changing, other person as well as Klamm. We have already experienced
like Proteus; and his perennial metamorphosis is the sign of this, in the winter morning before the Castle; and it is
the elusiveness of the divine. He is one thing in the village confirmed for us by the innkeeper's wife, who has been to
and another at the Castle: one thing before drinking his beer, bed with Klamm. The divine is invisible: our sight tells us
another afterward: another when awake, when asleep, by nothing about him and his secrets.
himself, when conversing: he is different in stature, bearing, The civilization of The Castle, as of The Trial, is a
corpulence, beard; he changes in accordance with the mood, civilization of the Book and the written document. Up there,
 "...

KAFKA The Castle

24 2 243
on the hill, in the inner rooms, there are large open books seems fatigue and is instead indestructible peace; and yet
that the functionaries consult standing up; we do not know they sleep a lot, beatific, like children, reacquiring in their
what they contain, whether it is the Law or the interpretation sleep calm, strength, distance. Their privileged realm is eros;
of the Law. Every question or problem or difficulty is turned and perhaps one of them, Klamm, is the god oflove. They do
into writing: the offices exchange correspondences, compile not know nostalgia, desire, fantasizing, long expectation,
reports, prepare documents, write letters to those on the memory, dream, return, chains: but only immediate and
outside, and the immense mass of written material fills the brutal physical possession. They delight in obscenities, utter
Castle's offices and even the superintendent's wardrobes and "shattering" vulgarities, because of their profound love of
attic, which are unable to contain them. So we should not be turpitude and because obscenity serves to bridge the distance
surprised that the Castle is omniscient: "Who could ever hide that separates them from men. As in an eighteenth-century
anything from Klamm?" says the innkeeper's wife. And yet gothic novel, they exercise the iusprimae noctis over the village
here again we encounter a new paradox of the divine, that girls: they take and abandon, possess and immediately forget;
The Trial did not know. Precisely Klamm, who seems to rest and the girls are grateful to the gods for being possessed and
on an unstemmable deluge of written pages, never reads the abandoned, because the erotic gift, not love, is the only gift
documents and reports: "Don't bother me with your reports!" that the gods give to the earth. Their sexual power is so
he always says. The gods stand above the written Law that exorbitant and explosive that they communicate it to the
they have laid down: they let the world be guided by papers other creatures, as does Klamm, who irradiates the Assistants
copied by diligent secretaries: they let the papers save or with his seed. So when they go down into the village, the
condemn-and enclosed in their ineffable wisdom, they Castle's servants abandon themselves to dances and unre­
don't even glance at them. So then what is it that makes up strained orgies, like a mob of wild animals. Nothing distin­
Klamm's wisdom? His penetrating gaze, his lofty flight? Is it guishes them from their masters. In them sexual passion is
perhaps made of memory? Not even of this. Klamm forgets joined to a profound desire for filth.
everything, and right away: the women he has loved as well Low down, on the last rung of the divine hierarchy, are
as the documents. The gods live in darkness, without the Assistants Arthur and Jeremiah, whom the gods have
writings, without memory, without speech, similar to that sent K. to help and mock him. Who they are we shall know
high-pitched, distant and childlike hum that resounds over at the end of the book-they are only people like ourselves
the telephones. with an old, heavy human body subject to falling ill and
With a complete reversal, the gods now revolve upon limping, separate individuals who express themselves with
themselves and, as in The Trial, they show us their other, such mediocre instruments as human words, fall in love and
contrary face. Precisely they, the incarnation of the transcen­ speak with good common sense. Nothing interests us in them
dent and of inaccessible distance, are the gods of undifferen­ when they appear as men. But with its extraordinary magic,
tiated vitality: they oversee the most palpable, violent and its gift of metamorphosis and enchantment, at the beginning
sanguine human reality; they themselves are this reality-a of the book the Castle transforms them into puppets, ko­
mass of flesh that desires and covets. During their divine bolds, who have a Shakespearean flavor together with strong
undertakings, they never grow tired, or if they do, theirs is suggestions of commedia dell'arte, Yiddish drama, romantic
the fatigue in the midst of a happy labor, something that fierie and Jules Laforgue. We know none who are more
 "..,..'

244 KAFKA The Castle 245

delightful. From that moment on, if they were two they of "A Hunger Artist," and with delightful skill has injected
become a pair; if they expressed themselves with words, they them into his theological construction. But the Assistants do
express themselves with gestures; if their body was of flesh, not always play with childlike grace. They are lemurs,
it is now of wood. And here they are, in the village streets: spectral inventions; their old bodies have no joy, and often
lithe, their faces alike, their complexion dark brown, with we get the impression that, in their games, the disquieting
pointed beards, thin legs, tight-fitting clothes, they walk and sinister accompanies the comic.
along with surprising speed and seem to have flexible, The gods administer the world, or at least that lowest
disjointed limbs. They stuff themselves with food, sleep part of the world-the village-that they still have; and
naked, covet the maidservants and Frieda, lubricious and Kafka has us witness the wittiest and most tremendous
erotomaniac, puerile, gluttonous, idiotic, angelic and frivo­ discussion on the ordering of the world and on Theodicy
lous like all their commedia dell'arte brethren. Now they since the times of Leibniz and Voltaire. When he arrives in
embrace cheek to cheek and smile with humble irony; now the village, K. is confident: the speed with which during the
they watch K., cupping their hands over their eyes like night he is at first rejected and then accepted seems to him
binoculars, pretending to smooth down their beards or the sign of a systematic, concatenated, coherent service.
sketching a military salute; now they huddle on the ground, Some days later he visits the gouty village superintendent,
amid laughter and whispers, cross their arms and legs, who gives him a solemn lecture on the Castle's bureaucracy.
bunching up like a ball; they play with the scarves and winds The first thing we learn is that it is an immense human
of the night, fill the closet with papers, watch K. as he makes machine, that it functions on its own, like a unique creature,
love, enter through the window, hop through the snow on so to speak without the functionaries' help, reaching "sudden
one foot, rap on the windowpanes. Whatever they do, they and lightning solutions" that no one seems to have dictated.
transform the events that take place around them, even What interest can this great machine, which occupies all of
the most tragic experiences, into a farcical episode of wind the Castle's rooms, as in the past it occupied all of the name­
and air. less city's attics, have in the "cases" of real people, the fate of
They are not opposed to the Castle, just as the wild mobs this or that creature, with his burden of desire and happiness
of servants are not. They too are the Castle: the ultimate and pain? The Castle's machine does not know what charity
divine emanation, the ultimate revelation from on high. As or love is: it is formalistic, like the Law in Amerika. This,
they eat, covet and flex their elegant wooden limbs, the coming from God, does not surprise us; God has always
sacred frees itself of its weight. The great edifice that loved formalism, for administering his contradiction-riddled
appeared in the winter morning was so heavy, gloomy and kingdom. We are, however, surprised-but with God we
grim; often the gods are intractable, and now suddenly the should never be surprised-that this triumph of form should
divine mocks itself, shows that it possesses the flightiness of be illegal: in the village the teacher draws up a report about
kobolds, the metaphysical grace of clowns, a kind of inno­ a conversation he had never heard.
cence that surrounds the enigma. All this is new in respect to That very same day, the superintendent explains to us
The Trial, where the guards did not have this puppetlike how the great machine works. "One of the principles regu­
grace. Kafka has recovered the delicate and anguished lating the administration's work is that one must never
clowneries of his youthful books, the sad threadlike clowneries contemplate the possibility of making a mistake. This prin­
 .....
246 KAFKA The Castle 247
ciple is justified by the perfect organization of the whole and only a note saying that the letter concerned the appointment
is necessary if one wishes to maintain maximum speed in the of an agricultural surveyor. Section A completely forgot
handling of the cases." The superintendent makes two about the matter. But in office B, the empty folder fell into
points: on the one hand, a theoretical principle that has the the hands of a most scrupulous employee, the Italian Sordini,
same absoluteness as a theological principle: that is to say, who sent the folder back to the commune to be completed.
the Administration, in theory, does not make mistakes; on By now months and years had passed since section A's first
the other hand, an experimental fact: one has never seen the letter, and no one at the commune (where, for that matter,
Administration make a mistake. Theodicy, therefore, is no files were kept) could remember what it was all about.
demonstrated twice over: on the theological plane as well as The superintendent answered, in a vague sort of way,
on the experimental plane. But let us examine a particular that he knew nothing about such an appointment and that he
case: in the matter of the summons of the agricultural had no need for an agricultural surveyor. Sordini, who saw
surveyor, the Castle made a mistake. What is the superin­ scoundrels everywhere, became suspicious and initiated
tendent's answer? "The control system ... is not meant to an intensive correspondence, asking why he had so suddenly
discover mistakes in the crude sense of the word, because thought of hiring an agricultural surveyor. The superinten­
mistakes are not made." And when K. insists: "Even if dent answered; another answer from Sordini; and so on,
through an exception a mistake does occur, as in your case, ad infinitum....
who is to say that in the end it really is a mistake? Who is to If we want a close-up view of the unimaginable confusion
maintain that the second office will judge it in the same way, of human history, as administered by God, we have only to
and also the third, and the offices after that?" The Castle contemplate the superintendent's files, some of which are
nullifies all experimental proof of the mistake; there are no kept in a closet in his bedroom-bundles of papers rolled up
mistakes, because there cannot be any. and tied together like kindling-some in the attic, some in the
Kafka's novel, which the Castle's authorities cannot re­ teacher's house, some which have been lost, while in another
fute, tells us what really happened: a catastrophe; the closet there are the files of pending dossiers that will perhaps
theoretical perfection of Theodicy covers the most absurd never be expedited. The superintendent's wife, holding a
human muddle. A long time before, the commune of the candle, searches for the lost document, while K. 's Assistants
village had received a decree from the Castle's section A (we rip papers from each other's hands; the document cannot be
say "A" to simplify matters, because the superintendent does found, and in the end the Assistants lay the closet flat on the
not remember at all which section is involved), which sent floor, stuff in at random all the dossiers, and sit on the closet
down word in categorical fashion that an agricultural sur­ door, trying to close it. So then, this is history, as adminis­
veyor must be hired and the commune must prepare the tered by God? We would be wrong to affirm this. The series
necessary plans and drawings. The superintendent an­ of cases, of qui pro quos, of confusions, senseless correspon­
swered, with thanks, that he did not need any agricultural dences and mislaid documents ends by forming a coherent
surveyor. The answer did not reach the section to which it destiny, such as is in fact K. 's.
was addressed-but by mistake it reached office B; what is Between the Castle's indecipherable world and those who
more, only an empty envelope arrived, because its contents are extraneous to it, like K. and even the small cosmos of the
had been lost in the commune or along the way; there was village, which lies at its feet and indissolubly belongs to it,
 KAFKA The Castle 249
24 8
there are no true and proper contacts. For the functionaries, while, pushed close to the lectern, stand small, low desks at
appearing in puhlic is torture; their only dream is to disap­ which sit the employees who write under dictation. The
pear: they think they are incapable, at least without lengthy functionary stands in front of his book, reads it and suddenly,
preparation, of enduring the sight of a stranger; they even without warning, begins to whisper. The scribe hears him
avoid the sight of the maids, producing indescribable com­ and starts to write, but often the functionary dictates in a
plications in the functioning of the hotel. They interrogate voice so low that the scribe cannot hear him if he remains
defendants at night in order to better conceal themselves; seated; he must stand up to grasp what is being dictated, sit
they do not wish to receive any news that rises from below, down quickly to write, then jump to his feet again, and so on.
from that obscure world in which the peasants live together Then the letter is not handed to swift messengers to take it to
with the stranger. We get the impression that they are afraid the men waiting impatiently. Time passes. The messenger is
of the human world: that a kind of neurasthenia, fear or inner again in Klamm's office, one of the innumerable Klamms
fragility prevents the gods-who are supposed to be so who have his face; and this Klamm suddenly wipes his
powerful-from looking men in the face. Sometimes, over­ glasses when the messenger approaches, and looks at him
coming their embarrassment or hesitation, as though the (granting that he sees him when he is without glasses: at such
passage from the divine to the human sphere were fraught moments, with his eyes half closed, he certainly seems to be
with danger, they descend among men, like Greek gods, sleeping and to be wiping his glasses in a dream). Meanwhile,
attracted by a female body. But they linger for so short a time the scribe rummages through a pile of documents he keeps
in our beds! A few fleeting visits, a few embraces: they do not under his desk, and pulls out a letter: it is not a recent but a
bring their beloved a gift, they only let them take a souvenir; very old letter, which has been there for a long time. How
and then they flee without ever again returning, without a can one believe, then, that a relationship can exist between
motive, completely forgetting those they have possessed. As the gods and our earth? These letters inspired by a book,
for men, those very few, in fact that single one-K.-who whispered, badly understood, delivered after delay, written
demands to see and speak with them, violating divine perhaps to one does not know whom, can contain only a
otherness, commits a most grievous sin: a sin of hubris. Far series of deceptions and illusions, like the letters that Klamm
better to maintain with them the indirect, elusive and sent to K.
misleading relations that K. rejects, because to meet and Like a source of light, the Castle sends out "reflections"
perhaps love them can bring about only a tragedy, like the all around it: not divine reflections-human beings or things,
one that overwhelms Barnabas's family. which nevertheless contain the most delicate essence of the
In the gloomy Castle, which sometimes must bore them divine. The first reflection is the "girl from the Castle." K.
and fill them with spleen, the gods write to men. Even meets her in a peasant hut during one of his wanderings. She
though they despise writing, writing (or rather dictating) is half lies on a tall armchair in a corner of the room, a silk
their profession. In the Castle there is a huge office, divided kerchief covers her head and half her brow, she has a nursing
into two parts by a lectern, which runs from one wall to the baby at her breast, she lies inert in the armchair; she does not
other. On the lectern there are large open books, one next to look at the child, but her weary blue eyes, marked by an
the other, more mysterious than the books of the Law in The unfathomable illness, stare vaguely into space, and a snowy
Trial. Before them stand the functionaries who consult them, gleam which enters through the window and speaks of other
25 0 KAFKA
The Castle 25'
worlds casts a silken reflection on her dress. K. observes this meso Everything about him reminds us of the Greek god: his
beautiful, sad and immutable scene for a long while: this litheness, speed, grace, elusiveness, the talent of learning
Italian Madonna lost in the country where the cold reigns. messages by heart. As we find out later, he is a rejected,
We know only that the woman, wife of a shoemaker, is "one excluded man; he is not a true messenger; and his tunic with
of the Castle's girls." The superintendent does not want to its silken reflections when it is untied displays over his
talk about her, as though it were forbidden. She has lived for vigorous and square servant's chest a coarse, much mended
some time above the snows, as a servant or mistress of a
shirt of a dirty gray color. And yet it is precisely to him that
functionary; and now, for an unknown reason, she has fallen
the Castle has entrusted that tunic which in appearance
into the country of the snows. She is ill: she cannot tolerate
reminds us of the garments of angels, that starry smile, that
the village air; the slightest incident, such as her casual
quick step in the night-the elegance and light it cannot
encounter with K., is enough to force her to take to her bed otherwise reveal.
for several days. Like a romantic heroine, she suffers from
The third "reflection" is a swig of cognac. K. slips into
Heimweh, homesickness for the Castle: the melancholy of the
the courtyard of the Lords' Hotel-what beauty, what quiet
separation and the expulsion consumes her soul; and with her down there, just after having left the snow-covered village!­
melancholy, weary and blue eyes we begin to look on high. and he sees Klamm's closed sleigh. He waits for him in vain,
The second "reflection," Barnabas, reminds K. of the while the twilight's shadow turns into dense darkness.
Raphaelesque grace and snowy luminescence that envelops Violating a first taboo, he climbs into the sleigh of the gods,
the "Castle's girl." He has a luminous and open face, huge where it is pleasantly warm: all is "luxury, calm, voluptuous­
eyes and a comforting smile, which shines mildly like the ness"; the wooden bench is upholstered with blankets,
stars in the sky: he wears tight-fitting garments like the pillows and furs, and wherever he turns he sinks into softness
Assistants, he is slim and agile in his movements. He wears and warmth. At his side, in a closed cabinet, stand bottles of
an almost white garment; the fabric is not silk, yet it has the cognac: K. violates a second taboo, he takes one out, un­
iridescence, softness and solemnity of silk, like the girl's screws the cap and smiles: "the aroma was so sweet, so ca­
dress. As soon as we meet him in the village inn, we are ressing, as when we listen to praise and kind words from a
enchanted. His gestures have such unearthly delicacy: when person very dear to us, yet we do not know exactly what is
he passes his hand over his face, almost as though wanting to involved and have no wish to know and are simply happy
erase the imprint of a smile, or when he leans against the that she talks to us in this way." So the coldness and
inn's wall and with one glance takes in the entire room, or impassivity of the gods are only a cliche? Do we love them
when he looks down at the floor, or lightly caresses K. 's and do they love us, and _send us heavenly perfumes,
shoulder, or when he runs, "flies" through the snowy night. ;1
I, ecstasies, praises and kind words? When K. drinks the divine
The essence of his nature never resides in what he does, but I: nectar, that sweet and caressing aroma is transformed into a
in the aura that surrounds him; and an invisible line keeps I
I coachman's brew. As in fairy tales, the violation of the taboo
him at a distance from people and things, as though he could and of divine distance is punished.
never mingle with any created person or object. We have touched four times on the same motif, which
If every character in The Castle has one or more arche­ constitutes one of The Castle's principal themes. Seen from
types, Barnabas's archetype is the god of messengers: Her­ afar, the Castle is limpid, bright, weightless, ascendant;
25 2
KAFKA
r ;. The Castle 253
whereas seen from close by, it proves to be a degraded medicine? Or is he lying? He is the absolute stranger,
edifice, grim, without grace or upward thrust. The distant stranger in the world, stranger to himself: he gives off a cold
I
hum of childlike voices, heard over the phone, that chant of shiver of indifference and loneliness; he possesses nothing­
a single voice that tries to reach our heart, is nothing but a r not even his own name, which even the poorest do possess.
mechanical effect. Barnabas's white tunic with its silken He lingers for a long time on the bridge, surrounded by the
~

reflections covers a coarse, dirty gray shirt: Hermes is a .> mists' "apparent void"; his choice is irrevocable, and he does
I
messenger no one appointed. The heavenly scent of the l­ not know that he is about to become doubly a stranger,
I
cognac which resembles the breath of a beloved person who " ... estranged and rejected also in Canaan. He takes a step
gives us praise and kind words is only a disgusting coach­ contrary to that of his author. During the months in which
man's brew. From these repeated motifs we must not draw I. he began the book, Kafka had settled in the desert, whereas
the mediocre conclusion that the divine is simply a deceit, 1 K., faithful to Kafka's old dreams, crosses the threshold that
unmasked by reality; or a fantasy of K. 'so The divine exists as from the desert leads to the kingdom of Canaan.
appearance, remote gaze, illusion, silken reflection, perfume; Although he does not display a literary aura, we have
and we must seize it when it reveals itself to us, know it, love already met K. many times: he has inspired writers, given his
it, without subjecting it to the test of reality or demanding a name to books, suggested interminable discussions, as though
direct vision of it-just as Plutarch and Goethe seized myth the essence of the West were concentrated in him. He is the
and the divine in their radiant "colored reflections." combination of Faust and Ulysses in the heart of our century.
No one is more aggressive, obstinate, tenacious, constant,
single-minded, concentrated than he: from the very begin­
Against the Castle's labyrinthine construction, its deceptions ning, the relationship with the Castle, in which others might
and its gifts stands a single man, K. He has arrived in the have seen a search or an expectation or a gift, is experienced
village on a late winter evening, poor, tattered, with a small by him as a battle in which he is the aggressor and from
mountain pack and a staff, like the wanderer in the fairy tale, which he must issue victorious. "You know," he says in a
like Ulysses returning home disguised as a beggar. We do not variant text, "I can be ruthless to the point of madness....
know when he left his country: and he has traveled a long and I am here to fight." He does not accept gifts or favors from
fatiguing road step by step, crossing the snowy desert that the Castle or anyone. He wants to force his way into the
surrounds Canaan, stopping who knows where, in the poor huilding on the hill-and goes down any road to attain his
desert hotels, or with peoples whose names we do not know, purpose: the love of women, the devotion of young boys,
or sleeping under the open sky. If he looks behind him, he natural attraction. He does not know what experience is:
can see a past which is radiant only in his childhood: one experiences, for him, are only means; he does not stop to
day-the empty and silent square was flooded with light-he seize them, love them, enjoy them, and he burns them one
jumped onto the cemetery wall, saw the crosses stuck in the after the other, without ever obtaining joy in the here.
ground, and felt greater than everyone, victorious over death Slowing one's step, waiting, postponement and delay are
and men. His present bold undertaking springs from that unknown to him. Like Faust, he is devoured by Streben:
day. But for the rest his past is unknown to us. Does he have anguish, anxiety, neurotic desire, the impatience to go ever
a wife and a child, as he claims? Has he any knowledge of further ahead; and in his impatience he abandons himself to
 ~.

254 KAFKA J' The Castle 255

dreams, incredible fantasies and hopes, and he cannot un­ innkeeper's wife, the Castle's bureaucracy) as well as those
derstand reality and other human beings. established by tradition and scripture. He wants to speak with
K. is also the modern incarnation of Ulysses. His mind is Klamm (with him as a private person, as though God were
sinuous, supple, mobile, crafty, disposed to adapt and yield not always one, in the multiplicity of his functions); and he
like water: it knows the art of circumvention, of cunning and waits for him in the night and freezing cold, but no one
machinations, that the village people do not know. And since comes to meet him. He wants to go beyond Klamm, to meet
heaven deceives us, Kafka does not become at all indignant the supreme God, Count West-West, the Lord of our sunset,
when his hero attempts to deceive heaven. But neither the whose portrait is invisible and whose name is taboo. What K.
aggressive desire for power nor the art of circumvention is of demands of the gods is not quite clear; perhaps it isn't even
much help in a battle with the divine; and each time K. sees clear to his tortuous mind. On the one hand, he is the
himself defeated by the lazy and sovereign nonchalance with "agricultural surveyor"; therefore he wishes to "measure," to
which the Castle conducts its game of chess. And so he know the divine rationally, as theologians do. So far as we
experiences the defeat that is always the lot of the too violent can sense, he desires a purified and rationalized divine:
or too ingenious, and particularly of a Faust disguised as without anything awesome or morally ambiguous about it,
Ulysses. After having drunk Klamm's cognac, K. remains without mystery and eroticism, just the contrary of the
alone in the courtyard, undisturbed, in the freezing cold of Castle's divine, and which does not impute sins to human
the snowy night. He, the man who relies only on his energy beings. On the other hand, as the cognac scene reveals to us,
and his ingeniousness, has achieved what he, at least appar­ he dreams of embracing the divine: perhaps of merging with
ently, wanted: independence, freedom, solitude, invulnera­ and losing himself ecstatically in the divine without defenses,
bility. But nothing is more desperate and absurd than this as al-Ballaj lost himself in God's indistinct unity. Though
freedom, this solitude, this waiting in the icy cold, that no these allusions are extremely vague and Kafka does proceed
person, gesture or gift from above will come to fill. with a hand more delicate than usual, it is probable that K.
Together with the protagonist of "Investigations of a wants even more. That God for whom he yearns is a prey to
Dog," K. is the only other character to whom Kafka has be conquered: perhaps he would like to ascend to the Castle,
entrusted an echo, albeit distorted, of his own search for take the place of the gods, wrest their secrets from them,
God. K. does not accept what Castle and village teach in a become one of them.
thousand ways and with a thousand images: that God is other, When K. arrives at the Bridge Inn he knows very well
distant, unattainable, invisible, incomprehensible. With the where the Castle is and what sort of proprietor it has.
force of his desire, the impulse of his own Streben, with the Someone has informed him. He hasn't come to spend a night
ruses of his Ulyssean nature, he wants to meet the gods face at the inn, like a vagabond beggar, but rather to be admitted
to face, see them, speak to them, as Moses did on Sinai. If to the village, to enter the Castle and live in the last country
Kafka had said: "In theory there exists an earthly possibility that is left to the gods. As soon as he arrives, he lies: "The
of perfect happiness: that of believing in what is decisively innkeeper and these gentlemen here are witnesses, if wit­
divine and not aspiring to attain it," K. has no use for this nesses should be needed. Meanwhile let me tell you that I am
kind of happiness. He tries to eliminate all mediations that the agricultural surveyor whom the Count sent for. 1\1 y
keep divinity at a distance: those which are human (the assistants will arrive tomorrow by coach with the instru­
25 6 KAFKA The Castle 257

ments." That he is lying is certain: the Assistants will never Peace. We have completely left behind The Trial's atmo­
arrive, and an inner monologue of his shows that he knows he sphere, where God pursued man with an accusation, inves­
is lying. Something remains dubious. How could K. know tigation, sentence and atrocious execution. This new God,
that actually, years before, the Castle did need, or thought it who does not impose anything, who welcomes and accepts,
needed, a surveyor? We could advance the hypothesis that, this passive, ironic, indifferent God who does not summon
like Joseph K. in The Trial, who intuits the Court's secret us, has mislaid any relationship with us.
intuitions, K. has mediumistically intuited the Castle's old Amid false telephone calls and false letters, the Castle
wishes. But this seems excessive to me: in no other passage sends K. the two false Assistants, the light and threadlike
does K. possess Joseph K. 's magical gifts. However, it is not wooden clowns whom, with a magical stroke, it had extracted
arbitrary to suppose that news about the search for a from their old and flaccid human flesh. They know nothing
surveyor had spread beyond the Castle's circle: K. has picked about agricultural surveying: they have neither maps nor
up the rumor and presented himself, with a lie, as the instruments; and with those pointy, disjointed limbs, which
agricultural surveyor requested some time before. bump into all the doors, they concoct only mixups. Their
Every reader imagines that the celestial bureaucracy will presence makes a parody of K.'s arrogance: his high religious
challenge this lie; it would not be difficult for it, despite the aims, his celestial dreams, his lofty sense of himself, his
disorder in which its files are kept. Instead the contrary takes search for erotic powel, his concealed childishness; and flings
place: first a phone call at night from the office manager in the vanity of his aims into nothingness. At the end of the
person, then a first letter from Klamm, head of the tenth book, when they have accomplished their mission, they
section, then a second letter takes on K. in the Count's explain it to the astonished K. The Castle has ordered them
service. K. had falsely asserted that he had been summoned to divest K. of his tragic hero's seriousness, lightening the
by the Castle, and the Castle receives him: he had said, no gravity of his gestures, bringing gaiety into his life, educating
less falsely, that he was an agricultural surveyor, and the him to the limited life, without heroic goals, that he will have
Castle accepts this; he had maintained, with a third lie, that to lead in the village. I wonder whether with these words the
he was waiting for his Assistants, and the next evening there Assistants aren't deceiving K. and us too. It seems unlikely to
arrive the two Assistants, whom he had ne\"er seen before me that the indifferent Castle should care about a human
and who claim they work for him. The Castle's technique is creature, a "stranger," to the point of wanting to educate
clear: it does not challenge lies, does not engage in any sort of him. As for K., he hates his Assistants: he maltreats them,
struggle, does not impose the weight of coercive relation­ hits them, chases them out into the snow, not only because
ships; but it welcomes with ironic and indifferent benevo­ they cast a derisory light on his life, but because he cannot
lence all of K. 's claims, sanctions his requests, passively bear the humorous and buffoonish face that the gods assume
yields to his wishes. There is only one thing, but it is an in them. Unlike Ulysses, always willing to grasp the divine
essential one, that the Castle does not accept: to let K. enter in the clownish, K. does not want to pursue the divine in the
the Castle and simply "see it." While it makes phone calls and foolish laughter and disjointed limbs of these two puppets.
sends exquisite and elusive letters, it spurns any real rela­ When K. begins his adventure in the village, he hears a
tionship and contact: its resistance is passive, undefined, sentence similar to the one that Joseph K. heard from
amorphous, like Kutuzov's military technique in War and Titorelli: "There's no difference between the peasants and
 -~

25 8 KAFKA The Castle 259

the Castle." In the land of Canaan, ruled by the gods, the weariness in the first house he enters, clings to Barnabas's
divine flows into the human smoothly and without a break; arm as to a rock, and at the end of the book, he will die of
the Castle is reflected in the village; and the inns are the exhaustion. We would be wrong to attribute this condition to
sordid places in which the revelation of the sacred takes K.'s nervous tension. Just as the atmosphere in the attic was
place. This is not a comforting discovery. When K. goes not made for Joseph's lungs, so the streets of the divine
through this soulless village, desolate even in the morning, homeland are not made for a stranger, and condemn him to
with its deserted streets and all of its doors shut; when he sees death.
those tormented faces, those swollen lips, those skulls which Meditating on Klamm's first letter, K. imagines that the
seem flattened by bludgeonings, those features shaped by the Castle is offering him two possibilities: either to be a worker
pain of blows, those dull expressions; when he comes to in the village, connected with the Castle by apparent ties, or
know that closed society, oppressed, avid and arid, in which to preserve only the appearance of a worker and direct his life
the women are subject to the sexual power of the gods, he in accordance with instructions from on high. He chooses the
must think with horror of the longed-for land of Canaan, first path, that of striking root, as though the desire to belong
where he wants to settle at all costs. In the country of the were stronger in him than his desire for the divine. But
gods, under the shadow of that squat, dispirited tower, there throughout the book he does nothing but follow the second
is not a trace of the divine. The peasants drive K. out of their path, and desperately tries to enter into a relationship with
homes, even though they are curious about him and, perhaps, Klamm, his god. Perhaps he does not yet know himself: he
would like to ask him something. The women understand does not know that the craving for transcendence, the anxiety
that he belongs to another race: he is not a man from their to see it and possess it-this craving which can burn only in
country, who cultivates the virtues of obedience, faithful­ a stranger's heart-is immensely stronger in him than that of
ness, constancy and reverence-but a hero who has come belonging to an earthly home, even though it be the homeland
from below, who can hover at unknown heights, an adven­ of Canaan.
turer who craves the unforeseeable, a fugitive, an astute One of the first acquaintances he makes in the village is
maneuverer. They fall in love with him at first sight, and Gardena, the mistress of the Bridge Inn: a woman so gigantic
would like to be set free like the princess in the fairy tale, that Frieda, standing up, barely reaches her shoulders as she
i carried off to Spain or France, or who knows where. Some of sits knitting in a chair. Fler enormous knees protrude beneath
them, among the Castle's lowest maidservants, dream that he her thin dress, her voice howls, raves, offends; yet the broad
will set fire to the Lords' Hotel or perhaps the Castle, and to face, furrowed by many tiny lines but still smooth, preserves
everything-so strong are the destructive tensions that seethe some memory of the past beauty that made her sought after
in Canaan. by the Castle's lords. In appearance, she is only a great
As he walks through the snow-covered streets, K. repeats maternal figure: a goddess of the hearth, a grotesque Deme­
the experience of The Trial's protagonist in the attics of the ter. No character is more imbued with an emanation of the
Court, where the unbreathable air made him faint. That first sacred: no one worships more than she the capricious and
moment, K. immediately feels tired, as never had happened inscrutable will of the divine world. Klamm has loved her
to him during his journey in the snowy desert: he wears three times; and then he left her without the slightest
himself out walking through the streets, falls asleep from explanation. Now, deserted for over twenty years, she has
 .........
~ '.

260 KAFKA The Castle 261

become the figure that is the exact opposite to that of K.: the features and gaunt cheeks; a low-cut cream-colored blouse
mystique of distance and separation from the celestial world. rests like an extraneous object on her puny body, but her
The gods are up there, invisible, unattainable, mute, unrep­ fragile hand is extraordinarily soft. As soon as he sees her,
resentable, ineffable: we can only worship them, and vener­ K. is struck by her air of superiority: her victorious and
ate the few signs they leave to us-those reports, those triumphant glance, which seems to possess the secret of all
writings that K., the mystic of divine presence, repudiates. mysteries. He soon discovers the reason for this; Frieda is
What a grotesque, puerile and heartrending figure this Klamm's mistress and in a very short time has risen from her
Gardena is! Precisely she who affirms the fatal separation lowly condition as stablemaid at the Bridge Inn to the tap
from the gods has done nothing but ask herself why Klamm room in the Lords' Hotel. As soon as the disgusting horde of
ever left her: all day long, sitting in the small garden of her Klamm's servants bursts in, Frieda grasps a whip and with a
house, and all the nights, together with her husband who high but somewhat uncertain leap, similar to the leap of a
tried in vain to fall asleep, she has thought about that small lamb, she swoops down on the dancers. "In Klamm's
desertion, which certainly should be quite clear to her. On name," she shouts, "all of you into the stable!" With in­
the marriage certificate at the registrar's, there was Klamm's comprehensible terror the servants crush together at the end
signature; the day of her wedding, unconcerned about her of the room, run out into the open air and go into the stable.
husband, she ran home, didn't even take off her wedding Suddenly the frail and melancholy taproom girl has become
dress, sat down at her table, spread open the document, read the goddess Circe, the witch-queen of animals, who domi­
and reread the dear name and with the girlish ardor of her nates the bestial impulses of the divine servants. K. watches
seventeen years tried to imitate that signature, filling entire the scene, immediately attracted by those triumphant
notebooks. Klamm had left her three mementos: a shawl, a glances. He stares into her eyes and understands that in them
nightcap, and the photograph of the messenger who had Frieda holds the secret of his destiny, which he senses in the
brought her his first invitation. During all the years of most confused manner.
separation, Gardena has lived only on these worn-out numi­ The love scene that takes place immediately after, behind
nous objects, trying to keep close to her heart that divinity the hotel's bar counter, and another scene at the Bridge Inn
whose irremediable remoteness she proclaims. One evening, are the only erotic experiences Kafka has ever described.
at the Lords' Hotel, she hears Klamm's step as he leaves and Klamm is asleep in his room; the servants are locked up in the
returns to the Castle. On tiptoe she runs to the door that stable; the indifferent, idle conversation between K. and
opens on the courtyard, looks through the keyhole, then Frieda comes to an end. The witch-queen of the animals
turns to the others with staring eyes and her face in flames, suddenly becomes a violently lustful Venus: she places her
beckons to them with a crooked finger, invites them to look small foot on the chest of K., who is hiding under the
at the divine figure as it moves away; then she remains alone, counter, kisses him quickly, turns out the light, stretches
bent in two, almost kneeling, as though imploring the key­ under the counter without touching him and whispers: "Mein
hole to let her through. Liebling! Mein susser Liebli'?g!"; she lies on the floor with
On the second evening of his sojourn in the village, K. outflung arms, as if exhausted by love; her frail body burns
arrives at the tap room of the Lords' Hotel. A young girl, under K.'s hands; they fall into a swoon which K. vainly tries
Frieda, is drawing the beer, a slight blonde with melancholy to shake off, spending hours of shared breathing and palpi­
 ,......,­
260
KAFKA The Castle 261

become the figure that is the exact opposite to that of K.: the features and gaunt cheeks; a low-cut cream-colored blouse
mystique of distance and separation from the celestial world. rests like an extraneous object on her puny body, but her
The gods are up there, invisible, unattainable, mute, unrep­ fragile hand is extraordinarily soft. As soon as he sees her,
resentable, ineffable: we can only worship them, and vener­ K. is struck by her air of superiority: her victorious and
ate the few signs they leave to us-those reports, those triumphant glance, which seems to possess the secret of all
writings that K., the mystic of divine presence, repudiates. mysteries. He soon discovers the reason for this; Frieda is
What a grotesque, puerile and heartrending figure this Klamm's mistress and in a very short time has risen from her
Gardena is! Precisely she who affirms the fatal separation lowly condition as stablemaid at the Bridge Inn to the tap
from the gods has done nothing but ask herself why Klamm room in the Lords' Hotel. As soon as the disgusting horde of
ever left her: all day long, sitting in the small garden of her Klamm's servants bursts in, Frieda grasps a whip and with a
house, and all the nights, together with her husband who high but somewhat uncertain leap, similar to the leap of a
tried in vain to fall asleep, she has thought about that small lamb, she swoops down on the dancers. "In Klamm's
desertion, which certainly should be quite clear to her. On name," she shouts, "all of you into the stable!" With in­
the marriage certificate at the registrar's, there was Klamm's comprehensible terror the servants crush together at the end
signature; the day of her wedding, unconcerned about her of the room, run out into the open air and go into the stable.
husband, she ran home, didn't even take off her wedding Suddenly the frail and melancholy taproom girl has become
dress, sat down at her table, spread open the document, read the goddess Circe, the witch-queen of animals, who domi­
and reread the dear name and with the girlish ardor of her nates the bestial impulses of the divine servants. K. watches
seventeen years tried to imitate that signature, filling entire the scene, immediately attracted by those triumphant
notebooks. Klamm had left her three mementos: a shawl, a glances. He stares into her eyes and understands that in them
nightcap, and the photograph of the messenger who had Frieda holds the secret of his destiny, which he senses in the
brought her his first invitation. During all the years of most confused manner.
separation, Gardena has lived only on these worn-out numi­ The love scene that takes place immediately after, behind
nous objects, trying to keep close to her heart that divinity the hotel's bar counter, and another scene at the Bridge Inn
whose irremediable remoteness she proclaims. One evening, are the only erotic experiences Kafka has ever described.
at the Lords' Hotel, she hears Klamm's step as he leaves and Klamm is asleep in his room; the servants are locked up in the
returns to the Castle. On tiptoe she runs to the door that stable; the indifferent, idle conversation between K. and
opens on the courtyard, looks through the keyhole, then Frieda comes to an end. The witch-queen of the animals
turns to the others with staring eyes and her face in t1ames, suddenly becomes a violently lustful Venus: she places her
beckons to them with a crooked finger, invites them to look small foot on the chest of K., who is hiding under the
at the divine figure as it moves away; then she remains alone, counter, kisses him quickly, turns out the light, stretches
bent in two, almost kneeling, as though imploring the key­ under the counter without touching him and Whispers: "Mein
hole to let her through. Liebling! Mein susser Liebling!"; she lies on the floor with
On the second evening of his sojourn in the village, K. outflung arms, as if exhausted by love; her frail body burns
arrives at the tap room of the Lords' Hotel. A young girl, under K. 's hands; they fall into a swoon which K. vainly tries
Frieda, is drawing the beer, a slight blonde with melancholy to shake off, spending hours of shared breathing and palpi­
 r-
262 KAFKA The Castle 26 3

tations; and in the morning, contrary to all her former the mistress of the inn, to Klamm's ineffable remoteness.
caution, Frieda beats with her fist on Klamm's door, shout­ When she meets K. she clasps him in her arms, possesses him
ing: "I'm with the agricultural surveyor! I'm with the and is possessed by him, and advances with him into the
agricultural surveyor!" foreign country where there is no longer stability nor quiet
As in The Trial, coitus is invasion by the foul and bestial: but eternal search and eternal going astray-she is happy at
the coitus of K. and Frieda takes place amid small puddles of having escaped indifference. She wants passion, joy, tender­
beer and the rubbish that covers the floor: as dogs desperately ness: absolute love made of the present and lived in the
scratch in the dirt, they dig into each other's bodies and lick present. She wants to devour K. 's body, remain at his side
each other's faces. Love is a foreign country, where no one forever, in a desire of confinement and c1austration, which
has ever penetrated: an unknown land where not even the concludes with a desire for death: "I imagine a ditch, deep
air is at all like one's native air, where one loses one's and narrow, in which the two of us lie embraced as in a vise,
way and seems to suffocate: a land like the divine land, I hide my face in you, you hide yours in me, and no one will
since the divine is the supremely foreign place; and yet ever be able to see us again." Thus she dreams of escaping
those two continue on ahead, go even further astray, proceed; Klamm's quiet plenitude: of leaving the village, the country
both are searching for something, both furious, with con­ of the gods, and of going far away to southern France and
tracted faces, they try to push their heads into the other's Spain, there to live in another space together with K. But at
breast; neither their embraces nor their bodies, which plunge the same time she's terrified by that new love which has been
into each other, help them forget; on the contrary, they revealed to her that night: "Why? Why was I the one to be
remind them of their duty to search further, disap­ chosen?" With her gaze drifting into the distance, her cheek
pointed, lost, probing one last happiness-in their insatiable, against K. 's chest, it seems to her that this love too is under
disappointed, exhausted craving for the infinite. In the end, Klamm's protection. She cannot free herself from him and
beneath the grayish half-light that precedes dawn, K. leave him with her mind. Smiling, she loves to discover the
feels lost. "What had happened? Where were his hopes? games of the gods in the Assistants, whom K. detests: it
What could he expect from Frieda, now that everything seems to her that their sparkling eyes look at her with
was revealed? 'What have you done?' he said, speaking to Klamm's gaze and that their desire for her is simply an
himself. 'We are both lost.' 'No,' says Frieda, 'only I am lost, irradiation of Klamm's desire-quiet, ferocious, omnipotent,
but then I have conq uered you.' " speechless.
Is Frieda truly lost? While she was Klamm's mistress she Like Frieda, K. has gone astray in the foreign land of
lived immersed in the plenitude of divine love, as if in a quiet eros, experiencing for the first time the power of love. But he
and potent water. The relationship with him filled her soul. would have liked to be close to the gods: look into their eyes,
Irritations, contentments, joys, the usual feelings of life, did speak with them; and he cannot grant Frieda the closeness
not affect her: it seemed to her that all such things had she desires. He leaves her at home: he is always away, busy
happened many years before, or had not been her lot, or she with his machinations with the teacher, the superintendent,
had forgotten about them. This was mystical quiet: a happi­ Morna, Barnabas, Olga, little Hans. His love for her is only
ness that, seen from below, seemed to resemble enervation a means to establish a relationship that is almost physical,
and indifference. But Frieda did not adapt completely, like close to the point of a secret understanding, with the Castle's
 KAFKA The Castle 26 5
264
gods. So Frieda is doubly alone: she has lost the empty love of solitude mark her as a creature apart. One of the
plenitude of divine love and has not obtained the presence Castle's functionaries, Sortini, ignorant of the world, ob­
of earthly love; she has neither Klamm nor K., but only the serves Amalia: he is startled when he first sees her, and
two lewd Assistants. In just a few days the freshness, the leaves. During the night he writes her a letter in which love,
assurance, the victorious and triumphant look, which had haughtiness, solitude, the gods' maladroitness in speaking to
enhanced that frail body, desert her: she loses her bloom, and men are turned completely around in the obscene language
cries without covering her face, turning her tear-drenched favored by the Castle. The girl's world collapses: perhaps she
face toward K., as though he deserved the sad spectacle of too is in love with Sortini; another woman from the village
her sorrow. Toward the end of the book, she leaves him. would have accepted the invitation, but confronted by the
When K. sees her again, only a day has passed; but Frieda insult, Amalia raises her arm and tears up the letter right in
already looks at him with the tender and astonished eyes of front of the messenger who delivered it.
memory and softly strokes his brow and cheek with her In the village, where the women welcome and seek out
hand, almost as though she had forgotten his features and the offers of the gods, nothing like this had ever occurred.
meant to call them back to memory. She rests her head on his The Castle is silent, does not bring any charge whatsoever
shoulder; and slowly, tranquilly, almost with a feeling of against Amalia and her family. In The Trial and "In the Penal
well-being, knowing that she is granted only a brief moment Colony," the Law accused us, engraved our sins on our
of rest, she repeats her sentimental dream to him: "If we had bodies with the most subtle and fantastic calligraphic em­
left right away, already that same evening, we could have broidery, whereas here God brings no charge, enclosed in his
been safe somewhere, always together, your hand always absence and indifference, in his elusive grace. This is the
close enough for me to seize it. How much I need to have you most awesome fact of the new religion: the end of condem­
close to me! How deserted I feel since I know you, without nation, where God and men used to meet and embrace.
your closeness! Your closeness, believe me, is the only dream Barnabas's family is covered with shame: abandoned by
I dream, and there is no other." everyone, afraid of the Castle, they spend the torrid July and
Interwoven with Frieda's story, like a more concentrated August days in the house behind bolted windows. The
and dramatic novel in the quiet flow of the larger novel, village watches them. Had they left the house, forgetful of
toward the middle of the book the story of Barnabas's family the past, and by their behavior shown that they had overcome
winds its way in: the father, head instructor of the village the incident, no one would have talked about their story ever
firemen, the mother, the daughters Amalia and Olga, the again, and the family would have recovered their old friend­
son, the radiant young messenger who brilJgs K. the truthful ships. But Barnabas's family does not know how to forget.
and illusory messages. The story begins three years before, If heaven has given up the weapon of condemnation, in
on June 3, during one of the festivities in which Castle and their hearts the guilt complex has not disappeared, this atro­
village consecrate their proximity and their separation. That cious devourer, which tortures them for having violated an
morning, Amalia is dressed with particular charm: she wears unwritten decree, for having evaded the divine embrace
a white gathered blouse with rows of lace and a necklace of and offended the celestial messenger.
Bohemian garnet; but the grim, cold, piercing, impassive So the village expels them: it does not accuse them of
look which skims above the others, her haughty pose, her rebellion against the gods; had they been able to overcome
 III"""""'"

KAFKA The Castle 26 7

266
misfortune, the village would have paid them very great the divine; her contracted and restrained gestures, rigid and
honors; but at seeing them bewildered by anguish, incapable fixed, do not have the naturalness inspired by the harmony
of freeing themselves of the thought of their sin, the village and quiet with which heaven sometimes regales us. That
excludes them, despises them, breaks every tie with them letter has taught her that God is evil: impurity, obscenity,
and calls them the "Barnabases," after the name of their violence, oppression, virile darkness. This is the only reality
youngest and most innocent member. Now the entire family and truth, which has become forever fixed in her mind; she
has become untouchable: the sin not vanquished in the heart cannot accept, like Olga (and perhaps like Kafka) the divine
has saturated souls, thoughts, bodies, clothes, the very in its infinite complexity: she loves a god of purity; and while
house-and even K., a man rejected as they are, finds them many lie when speaking of the gods and flattering the divine
repulsive. The family cannot live like this, without light and with their poor theology, her clear intelligence does not agree
without hope: each in his way asks for grace and forgiveness, to call evil by other names. Amalia's figure takes on a tragic
hoping to be freed from suffocation. Faced by the father's aura: her gestures seem those of a great actress who is in
prayers, the Castle has an easy time of it: "What in the world hiding, an Antigone who has fallen into Kafka's world. She
might he want? What had happened to him? What did he does not want to be reconciled with the Castle: she does not
want to be forgiven for? When and how had even a finger accept any contacts with it-prayers, pardons, implorations
been lifted against him at the Castle? ... But what were for grace, the service of messengers. She lives closed in her
they supposed to forgive him for? they replied: there are despair, drawing nourishment from despair, knowing and
no charges against him, at least they aren't yet in any of loving only despair: but her tragic experience, which perhaps
the reports .... " The father tries to bribe some clerks, and goes beyond the expressive possibility of any language, does
he tries to talk privately with one of the functionaries, as if not utter a single word, while her gloomy eyes continue to
the gods had a private life. Everything is equally futile. In his stare at Evil. After having rejected the gods' obscene vitality,
most handsome suit and wearing a small fireman's badge, he she observes the dictates of purity, asceticism, solitary
waits in the streets for the functionaries' coaches to go by, to virginity. Thus she lives in her house, confined in her
ask for forgiveness: he sits on the stone ledge of the gate to a negative dream, without seeing, without listening, and when
truck garden-together with his wife, he sits there all day she does listen she does not seem to understand, and when
and in all seasons, under rain and snow. Nobody ever stops; she does understand she seems not to care at all. Her cold,
every so often a coachman recognizes him and playfully flicks clear and motionless gaze never looks directly at the object it
him with his whip. "How many times," his daughter tells us, observes: it glides past it on one side, lightly, imperceptibly;
"we found them there, huddling against each other on their and this strange sidelong glance reveals a need for solitude
narrow seat, cowering inside a thin blanket that barely stronger than any other emotion. In the ice of her soul only
covered them, and all around nothing but the gray of the one affection survives: an Antigone-like affection for father
snow and mist, and far and wide for whole days not a man or and mother, whom, though innocent, she has dragged into
a carriage to be seen." sin; a Vestal's affection for the hearth. Almost insomniac, she
Not even Amalia, the gloomy virginal creature, casts off remains awake, fears nothing, is never impatient; cares for
the feeling of guilt: no one suffers as she for having offended her sick parents with pain-soothing herbs, while her brothers
 r-­
268 KAFKA The Castle 269
and sister restlessly pace to and fro in their miserable house. * allows him to enter its enclosure, and in the end, as though
The other virgin of the family, Olga, is blonde and mild, by chance, entrusts him with two messages for K. It seems
grave and quiet, as much as Amalia is gloomy and haughty; to Barnabas that a new world is opening up before his eyes;
and she accepts the radical ambiguity of the sacred. Before he cannot endure the joy and fear of this new turn of events
the gods, who do not know love, and the village, which has and hides the letter against his bare skin, continually bringing
forgotten the gift of caritas, she repeats the gesture of Christ. his hand to his heart to assure himself that he has not lost
Like Christ, who went on the cross to take on the sins of men, it. But he is a completely gratuitous messenger: he does not
Olga is a substitute victim. Whereas Amalia had refused her wear the regulation uniform, does not know whether the
body to Sortini, she offers her body to the gang of servants offices to which he has access are truly those of the Castle,
who, twice weekly, come down to the Lords' Hotel in order does not know he is speaking with Klamm, does not know
to give free rein to their instincts in the stable; whereas whether his messages are true messages or some of heav­
Amalia had offended Sortini's messenger, Barnabas takes his en's mystifications. Nothing is more problematic than his
place in order to carry messages between Castle and village. activity. And besides, even if he were a true messenger, what
So this sacred prostitute, this Dostoevskian Sonya, sacrifices is a messenger? His begging to be taken on as a messenger
herself for her family, hoping to erase the guilt that weighs is received like the wish of an idle child who pesters the
upon it and obtain reconciliation with heaven. But Olga is grown-ups to be sent on an errand, just to have something
less fortunate than Gregor Samsa, who saved his family and to do.
the continuity of the natural cycle. Her sacrifice serves no And yet heaven is both repelled and attracted by those
purpose. None of the gods notices her, or if one does notice who are rejected, those who live without the Law, who
her, he remains indifferent to this episode of sin and re­ inhabit the world's underground. Heaven loves guilt, even
pentance, guilt and expiation, in which God by now has though it has given up accusing people of it. At the foot of the
no interest. Castle it seems that only sorrow and misfortune can bring to
Barnabas is a substitute messenger, and he repeats the bloom the grace of a message, the gift of a word that consoles.
gestures of the distant and ever elusive messenger, whom Barnabas is the last of the last-but his radiant garments with
Amalia had offended. He goes to the Castle, waits for two their silken reflections, his smile, his swift step, his Hermes­
years to be called, becomes the man of expectation, of useless like elegance are in sum one of the very rare, precious
pause, of desperate procrastination, who always begins all "reflections" that heaven sends on the earth. And so perhaps
over again without any possibility of change-which is the family's entire sorrow has been purified.
exactly what the gods want from us, men vowed to an
expectation that will never be fulfilled. As it does with K.,
the Castle, ironically benevolent, lets him do as he wishes, Toward the end of the novel, exhausted by insomnia and
* There is only one detail I do not know how to interpret. At one point worn out by fatigue, K. by mistake enters the room of the
it is said that Amalia has been to the Castle and has brought back a letter Castle's secretaries at the Lords' Hotel. It is four o'clock in
for Barnabas. This seems unlikely. Amalia does not go up to the Castle.
One can think only that this is an oversight of Kafka's. If, however, it is not the morning. More than half the small room is occupied by a
an oversight, one must think that Amalia is still cultivating a relationship large bed; the electric lamp on the night table is lit, and
with the Castle, even though she obstinately denies it. beside it is a small suitcase. In the bed, hidden under the
 ,...,..
f
27 0 KAFKA The Castle 27 1
blankets, someone is moving restlessly and, from a slit when, under artificial light and before sleep, it is easier for
between the blanket and sheet, whispers: "Who is it?" K. the gods to tolerate and forget all ugliness. But although the
looks at the occupied bed with displeasure and pronounces Castle and village are sunk in darkness, in winter and eternal
his name. Then the man lying in bed lowers the blanket a bit twilight, the divine world is a diurnal space. At night it is
from his face, ready to cover up again should he see subject to terrible perils: in the dark nestles the small gap,
something he does not like. But then he resolutely throws off the invisible crack, that can bring down the Castle's squat
the blanket and sits up. He is a small man, quite handsome, wall. At that time the barrier between gods and human
with childishly pudgy cheeks and childishly merry eyes; his beings, although externally it appears intact, beings to
high brow and thin mouth betray mature thought; later, in a crack: the Law is weakened; the gods begin considering
dream, K. will see him in the guise of a young Greek god, things from a private point of view, lose themselves in the
completely naked, who squeals like a girl being tickled. sorrows and vexations of men, mislay all distance and all
Smiling, he introduces himself. He is Burgel, Friedrich's impassivity, forget indifference, give in to pity-exactly as
secretary, who maintains the liaison between Friedrich and we do, mediocre, sentimental, lachrymose human beings.
the village, between his secretaries at the Castle and his Thus the unthinkable, the impossible, the never seen
secretaries in the village. And he must keep himself ready at before, can happen-when strange human beings, strange
every instant to go up on the hill with his little suitcase. It is flecks, agile and thin as fish, try to slip through the holes of
late by now; Burgel no longer feels sleepy, and invites him to the Castle's exceedingly close-woven net. While god and man
sit on the edge of the bed, with a confidence and familiarity stand face to face, the complete reversal takes place. We
that K. had not yet encountered in the village. K. wants to knew that man considered the Castle unreachable, and now
sleep; he accepts the invitation, sits down on the bed, leaning it is the god who considers the bold human being, the
against the headboard, and thus as he slowly passes from extremely astute Ulysses, unreachable. We knew that the
wakefulness to sleep he listens to the delightful bavardage, the Castle is "the never seen, the always awaited, awaited with
effervescent and merry buffoonery of the small Greek god­ true craving," and now it is man who is awaited with infinite
secretary. This is what often happens: the ultimate truth of craving. We knew that the god loved the Law exclusively,
things, what we've always wanted to know and no one has ignoring souls and hearts, and now he seems to draw
ever revealed to us, is offered us by a comical chatterbox, nourishment only from tortuous and obscure human psy­
without our even realizing it. chology. We knew that the god did not hear prayers, and
In order to pass the time, or because he is charged with now he hears only prayers. We knew that he did not care, did
delivering the revelation to K., toward the end of the night not help, did not come to the rescue, and now he comes to
Burgel begins a long discourse. "Now pay careful attention," man's rescue like the most compassionate of mothers. At this
he says, "sometimes opportunities arise that almost are not in moment, there fall away distances, separations, oppositions,
accord with the general situation, opportunities when a which, through the centuries, had been formed between gods
word, a look, a confidential gesture can obtain more than and men; and a true unio mystica is created between divided
certain exhausting efforts prolonged for a lifetime." These bodies and souls. The old god dies, and he is happy and
opportunities arise at night: when the functionaries must desperate and intoxicated over his death. Overwhelmed by
hear the parties right after an inquiry is completed; and the lacerating triumph of universal love, by the passion for
~~' ,....,.
KAFKA
• The Castle 273
27 2
sorrows and sufferings till now unknown, he announces his delicious irony-"from a different point of view it is dismal."
own end: an end that will occur at night, in secret, but then But there is nothing but this world: as Kafka knew.
will be proclaimed on every day of the universe. His What we have described here is not a theoretical discourse
evangelist is Biirgel, the small, merry secretary who an­ that the buffoon metaphysician weaves around the different
nounces it with ecstasy, with a desire for dissolution, with faces of God, around caritas and Theodicy. The small, plump
despair and, above all, with sparkling, winking buffoonery. secretary is speaking to K.: the "nocturnal discovery" of
Should we therefore believe that the times are about to which he speaks is the nocturnal discovery that we have just
change, beginning with this night? That the God of caritas witnessed. He says: "With the loquaciousness of someone
will take the place of Count West-West, the empty, indiffer­ who is happy, one must explain everything to him. One must
ent and obscene god? And that in place of the squat, describe to him minutely and without neglecting anything,
degraded Castle with its sinister, disquieting tower, there all that has happened and for what reasons it has happened,
will rise a light, slim bell tower, pure as the sky, nourished how the offered opportunity is extraordinarily rare and great,
by childish voices and the peal of bells? And that Barnabas, how the petitioner [K.] stumbled upon it with the lightheart­
with his grace and in his tunic rippling with silken reflections, edness that is typical of him, but how at this point, if he so
will become the true messenger of the gods? And that the wishes, Mister Agricultural Surveyor, he can control events
cognac will always disclose its caressing fragrance? We must and therefore has only to manifest his desires, whose fulfill­
not delude ourselves: Kafka is not a utopian. With a sudden ment is already prepared, indeed flies around you." So there
reversal, Burgel is anxious to let us know that, in his is hope for K.: the door is open, he will be able to ascend to
experience, the nocturnal surprise "is an unusual thing, the Castle and see the gods. We are here in the same situation
known only by hearsay and never confirmed by the facts": as in The Trial, when the Court sends the priest to reveal to
God, until now, has never been pitiful, has never granted Joseph K. that the splendor of the Law awaits him.
grace to anyone, as we know from The Trial. The same The solution is identical. Just as Joseph K does not
applies to the future, and above all to the present, this understand the meaning of the fable, K-this strange small
decisive moment for the history of mankind, which we are fleck, agile and thin, which has by chance penetrated the
going through while K. has gone to sleep, "And even," Castle's net---does not know how to take advantage of the
Burgel insists enigmatically, "if that extreme impossibility opportunity offered him. To take the gods by surprise, one
were suddenly to take shape, would everything perhaps be must remain awake at night, like Kafka, who wrote "The
lost? On the contrary. That everything should be lost is even Metamorphosis" and Amerika and The Trial and The Castle
more improbable than that extreme improbability." The instead of sleeping. But K. is exhausted by the efforts of
possibility remains mere possibility. There is no salvation. penetrating the divine space. Precisely he, who seemed to
And so now Burgel shows us a new face: he of all people, defy with reason the exigencies of the body, is the body's
who had theorized about exceptional grace, the ecstasy of victim. Precisely he, presumed to be a nocturnal man (but in
caritas, the end of the old world, becomes the theoretician of reality, too diurnal, rational, Western), he who planned to
providential harmony in this world. "It is an excellent enter the Castle at night, is defeated by the night, which this
arrangement: we could not imagine another more excellent." time, with its usual irony, protects the gods. While salvation
Perhaps-he adds with the best of good graces and the most is announced to him, he sleeps-blinded by heaven, which
274­ KAFKA

makes him fail when he could win. While Burgel reveals to

him the "coming fulfillment" of his wishes, K. does not hear,
r The Castle 275
closed, the documents are carefully piled up on the threshold.
But now the difficulties begin. Either the list is wrong, or
shut offfrom all that happens. His head, at first reclining on the documents are hard to find, or the gentlemen protest
his left arm which is stretched out on the bed's headboard, for some other reason: a delivery here and there must be
slips down in sleep and lolls freely, dropping lower and canceled; then the cart goes back and through the crack in the
lower; he props his right hand and by chance grasps Burgel's door there is a restitution of papers. Whoever believes he is
foot, which sticks out from under the blanket. He dreams: entitled to the documents becomes very impatient, makes a
and in his dream he triumphs over Burgel, who is disguised tremendous racket inside his room, claps hands and stomps
as a Greek god; and never was a triumph more derisive, while feet and shouts the number of the documents, which is
his definitive defeat was consummated. Chattering volubly, always the same. One servant calms the impatient man; the
confiding and despairing, growing enthusiastic and effacing other, in front of the closed door, tries to get the restitution.
himself, the secretary-turbulent and insolent as a little Often the blandishments have the effect of irritating even
boy-makes fun of him. So the old story is repeated once more the impatient man, who refuses to listen to the ser­
again. God has left the door open to man; and if man did not vant's words and demands his documents; through the crack
cross its threshold, it is his own fault, because he does not in the door one of them spills a whole basin full of water on
understand enigmas or is sleeping. As we know already, the servant. The negotiations are protracted. Sometimes an
heaven is always innocent. agreement is reached: the gentleman gives up part of the
At five o'clock, still sleepy, K. leaves Burgers room, and documents and requests other papers in exchange; but it also
after a brief visit to Erlanger, he finds himself in the hotel's happens that someone must give up all his papers-and with
deserted corridor. It is almost dawn. Suddenly both sides of sudden resolve, angrily, he flings them down the corridor, so
the corridor are animated by an extremely gay bustle: now it that the string comes undone and the sheets flyaway.
sounds like the exultance of children preparing for an outing, Sometimes, instead, the servant gets no answer and remains
now like the awakening in a chicken coop, the joy of the before the closed door; he begs, implores, cites his list, brings
cocks and hens at being in full harmony with the rising day, up the regulations: all in vain, not a sound comes from the
and one of the functionaries even imitates the cock's crow. room, and the servant does not have the right to enter
The corridor is still deserted, but here and there a door opens without permission.
a crack and closes again hastily: the entire passage buzzes All around the interest is enormous: everywhere there is
with that opening and shutting of doors; above the partitions, chattering, all doors are in movement; looking out from
which do not reach the ceiling, appear and disappear just­ above the partitions, the functionaries' faces, curiously
awakened, tousled heads. wrapped in cloth, follow the events. One of the two servants
In the distance appears a servant pushing a small cart full never gives :.Ip: he grows tired, but he immediately bounces
of documents. A second servant accompanies him: he holds a back, jumps down from the cart and gritting his teeth makes
list in his hand and checks the numbers on the doors against straight for the door that must be conquered. Even when he
those on the documents. The cart stops in front of almost is repulsed by that diabolical silence, he does not admit
every door: the door opens and the papers, at times simply a defeat and has recourse to cunning. He pretends he is no
small slip, are introduced into the room. If the door remains longer interested in the door, lets it exhaust its silence and
 ~.
KAFKA
27 6 The Castle 277
turns to other doors; but soon after, he returns, obstinately without pause, as though to celebrate a victory. This delight­
and in a loud voice calls the other servant and begins to pile ful Functionaries' Dawn, perhaps the Castle's only passage of
up documents on the closed threshold as though he had pure entertainment, is orchestrated like a comic opera, with
changed his mind and were supposed to deliver, not remove, a hundred singers who do not show themselves, and a
documents. Then he goes farther, but he keeps an eye on the hundred mute voices, and the first servant as orchestra
door. When the gentleman cautiously opens the door, with conductor. The musical execution could not have been more
two jumps there he is, and he sticks his foot in the gap, exquisite. How childish the divine is! And at times, on bright
forcing the functionary to deal with him face to face. Only mornings, how scintillating, gay, light and irresistibly com­
one gentleman refuses to calm down: he falls silent and goes ical it can be!
wild again, just as violently as before. It isn't quite clear why Perhaps this bogus roosters' crowing already announces
he screams and protests like this so much: perhaps it isn't K.'s last hour. He is worn out by tension, insomnia and
because of the distribution of the documents; his voice fatigue; Frieda has deserted him; Olga has robbed him of
continues to echo stridently through the corridor, and the every hope as regards access to the Castle; the road that takes
other gentlemen seem to agree with him, encourage him to him to Brunswick's wife can only prove to be the road to
continue, with shouts and approvals and nods of the head. failure; and he has understood that he will never meet
Only at the end of the scene does K. understand that the Klamm and contemplate the gods. Kafka says almost nothing
reason for this turmoil, which upsets a normal "Function­ about his desolation: in the book there is a great void, like
aries' Dawn," is in fact he with his heavy human body. The those which mark Karl Rossmann's disappointments; the
functionaries do not like to be seen by strangers: barely optimistic pride and euphoric hubris of the first day have
awakened, they are too bashful to expose themselves to a given way to an atrocious feeling of failure. K. is defeated in
stranger's eyes, and even though perfectly dressed they feel both body and soul. In his long dialogues with Pepi, he
naked. They would have driven K. away, but they are so disavows his own nature. He understands that, in his life,
polite that they didn't raise their voices. Meanwhile the there's always been too much tension, too much effort, too
turbulent gentleman has discovered the button of an electric much Streben: he has never known calm, spiritual quiet, the
bell in his room: happy with this relief, he begins to ring the gift of living in the quotidian; and now, exhausted, he dreams
bell uninterruptedly. A murmur of approval rises from the of an "always more absolute lack of occupation." But he has
other rooms. From the distance the owner of the Lords' not changed, as some interpreters believe. Driven by his mad
Hotel already comes rushing, dressed in black and buttoned Faustian heroism, he does not give up his search.
up to his chin, and at every shriller sound of the bell he takes We do not know how K. spends his last days. Perhaps at
a small leap and rushes along more quickly. The hotel owner Gerstiicker's, as a watchman in the stable? Or perhaps even
drags K. away; the bell resumes its ringing and other bells lower down, in the ultimate underground of the divine? The
begin to resound, no longer out of necessity now but maids spend their lives confined in warmth and darkness, in
playfully and with an excess of joy. After K. goes by, the certain sepulcher-closet-burrows where they huddle next to
doors are flung wide open, the gentlemen come out, the each other without ever seeing the light. They invite him
corridor becomes animated, traffic develops in it as in a down there, to share their beds and their bodies, for the
narrow, busy lane, while all along the bells continue to ring entire duration of the interminable winter. K. had never
 ,~

KAFKA
27 8
reached so low; he had never come to know so profoundly the CHAPTER TWELVE
horror of darkness, of debasement and c1austration. Had he
gone down there he would have become like Karl Rossmann,
the servant in the brothel, renouncing alI his celestial dreams.
But destiny, or the Castle, or life, or whatever we might calI
that something which ends novels, spares him this degrada­
tion. According to Max Brod's account, K. dies of exhaus­
"The Burrow, "
tion: men are not born to breathe the atmosphere of the
divine. The people of the vilIage gather around his deathbed. "Investigations of a Dog"
At that precise moment the message comes from the Castle,
according to which K. is permitted to work and live in the
vilIage, though without the right of citizenship. It isn't easy
to understand a text from a friend's account, even a scrupu­
lous and faithful friend. But it seems impossible to interpret
this conclusion in a "positive" manner, as many do. Grace
arrives, ironically, at the point of death, when K.'s body is ;\ Ithou.gh Kafka never loved stories told in the first person,
about to be carried to the grave. And besides, what did K. ./"\ durmg the last years of his life he wrote two of them,
care about living and working in the village, in the here, the perhaps his most extraordinary, in which one character says
limited, among men-together with Gerstacker, Pepi, Bruns­ "I." This "I" can be a literary convention, a fictitious screen
wick, even Hans? K. wanted to live only among the gods. elegantly flung between the world and the person who
writes. And yet we have the impression that, this time,
Kafka is approaching himself as he had never approached
himself before: that he is there, before our eyes, strangely
desirous of making himself known; he had never led us so
deeply inside the mysteries of his art of darkness, nor had he
ever communicated to us his most secret thoughts. As though
to find a foundation, Kafka takes a leap backward, alI the way
to Notes from the Underground. All external events are abol­
ished; the traditional ruses of storytelling are done away
with; concentration, flights, return, search and revelation
take place only in the Narrator's mind; nothing alIows us to
affirm that, outside, there exists a real world with which we
must establish relations; at each step we realize that we are
moving within the enclosed, abstract and echoing space of a
mind, which envelops us from alI sides like a prison. We too
are prisoners, victims of a monologuing and solitary voice,
 ,..r­
280 KAFKA "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 281

which narrates, comments, reveals itself, disguises itself, rustle of some little beast that he immediately silences,
advances hypotheses, demolishes hypotheses, performs labo­ crushing. it between his teeth; with what well-being he
rious calculations in a fantastic and intellectual delirium stretches out in the fortress, warms himself in his own heat
which substitutes itself for the created universe. and sleeps; with what ecstasy he awakens from sleep and
"The Burrow" is the most grandiose attempt at c1austra­ listens, listens in the silence, which reigns unchanged day
tion that was ever accomplished in literature. The pro­ and night and is actually not an empty, passive silence but
tagonist-seen by the commentators as a badger or a mole or active and resounding, possessing its own noise. Kafka had
a hamster, all hypotheses which are correct and useless since never expressed the ecstasy of concentration and segregation
the exact term is deliberately omitted-is a kind of perfidious so profoundly and with such abandon. But the burrow is
self-caricature of Kafka: a selfish celibate, astute, voracious, above all the maternal home, the home of regression to
cruel, misanthropic, narcissistic, who many years before, childhood, where the animal can curl up like a small boy, fall
perhaps in his early youth, had built himself a burrow. What beatifically asleep, lie dreaming: the home of being; the home
a marvelous work had sprung from his labors! At the center of life and death. When he is in the tall stronghold, he feels
a fortress, filled with supplies of piled-up meat, which send it is his to such a degree that he could even accept a mortal
their odors everywhere: from these depart, each according to wound from his enemy, since his blood would imbue the
the general plan, ascending or descending, straight or curved, ground and would not be lost-such is the tragic greatness of
widening or narrowing, the silent deserted tunnels. Every his project. Outside the burrow stands finite time: inside,
hundred meters the tunnels widen out into small round infinite time. Outside the burrow stands weakness: inside the
clearings, where the animal can comfortably curl up, warm burrow, strength. Outside the burrow is light: inside the
himself from his own heat and rest. No animal had ever burrow, darkness, which is the only thing the unknown
suffered so much; the soil of the fortress would collapse: the animal (and Kafka) wants to explore.
animal then hammered it with his bleeding forehead until it The burrow represents Kafka's work such as he contem­
was compact, just as Kafka had drawn his books from the plated it in 1923, when it was almost completed, with the
painful labor of his forehead and his body. The great three great novels, the myriad of short stories and aphorisms,
monologue does not speak of any other burrow, of any other and the letters as a cortege-very few printed pages, and
beast at work. In Kafka's universe, there exists only this thousands of pages covered with his dense handwriting. At
burrow: the edifice created by the animal's brain and paws is that moment he had a revelation: his work was not only the
exclusive; any other project would have threatened the most jealous of secrets, but something external and visible-a
uniqueness and existence of his project. place, a burrow, with a stronghold, dozens of tunnels and
Although the story speaks of the fortress and tunnels, small fortresses. He lived inside Amerika and "The Metamor­
parading a vague militaristic terminology, the burrow is not phosis" and The Trial and The Castle and "The Burrow"
a defensive work; and it is not even useful for storing which he was now writing; around, all was quiet and silence;
supplies, despite its being pervaded by a very sharp odor of he listened to the silence and realized that it was a subterra­
game. The burrow is the archetype of the nameless animal. nean work, a true Pit of Babel, like the shelter of the un­
It is the realm of silence: with what joy the animal glides known animal. Despite his dreams, he had never had any­
through the tunnels for hours on end, only rarely hearing the thing to do with the light. His work-the maternal home, the
 r
KAFKA
282 "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 28 3
stronghold, the childlike regression, life, death, substance I would reach the point where sometimes I was overcome by
-gave him a very strong feeling of stability and firmness, the puerile desire not to go back into the burrow, but settle
such as he had never experienced. It was a nucleus that no in the vicinity of its entrance, spending my life watching it
weakness could damage, no aggression could destroy, no de­
and always having it before my eyes, considering to my great
feat could shake. Even if he were to die-as he knew he must
joy how much safety the burrow could give me, if I were
soon die-his blood would consecrate it.
inside it." As always his anguish is produced by the burrow:
The animal's burrow is not safe. The entrance is located
joy, happiness, quiet are offered him by life in the open,
very far from the stronghold, covered only by a light curtain
while the mind fantasizes that it is inside. So then will the
of moss, and from there the enemy could enter. "In that place
animal renounce the burrow? Will Kafka abandon his art
in the dark moss I am mortal and in dreams there is always an
of the underground, of the unconscious and darkness? Will
avid snout there that snuffles incessantly." But why, then,
he narrate what happens in the world of light? Will he reject
didn't the animal close it with a thin layer of pounded earth? c1austration? It is impossible. While he is outside the burrow,
He wanted to be able to flee into the open, if some impas­
the animal is not really observing himself inside, precisely
sioned predator, blindly probing the burrow, should slip into because he is not inside: the situation is not identical, as he
one of its passages or if the subterranean beasts of legend thought, but pure fantastication. In this situation, a stranger
gave chase to him inside it. The unknown animal is more to the burrow, Kafka is unable to bring together the two
terrified by the burrow (which should defend him) than by spiritual conditions that he must concentrate in one and the
the open space (from which all dangers ought to come). It same attitude. He controls (from the outside) the darkness of
is the act of building burrows, defending oneself, shutting his unconscious, but he cannot identify (from the inside) with
oneself up, concentrating oneself, isolating oneself, protecting darkness, as he desperately needs to.
oneself that gives rise to danger, as Kafka's life demonstrated. So the animal must return to the burrow; and Kafka to
If there were no burrows, there would be no dangers either; the Pit of Babel, which is the only place where he can write.
and the animal lives at the mercy of his anguish, moves about Nothing could be more difficult, because the others might be
and drags supplies with his teeth from one clearing to another. watching him. He makes several attempts: during a stormy
Thus Kafka realized that in his work, grown around him like night, he swiftly tosses a prey into the burrow; the operation
a cocoon, were hidden all the enemies who could do him harm. seems successful; or at a sufficient distance from the true
At times the animal comes out of the burrow and goes entrance, he digs a short trial tunnel, slips into it, closes it
into the open, hunting. At the start he does not feel free: behind him, patiently waits, calculates short or long stretches
imprisonment has caused him to lose all pleasure in freedom. of time, comes out to record his observations. At times he is
But then he begins to look at the burrow: he splits in two and tempted to resume his old life as a vagabond, bereft of all
observes himself as he sleeps in his prison, with a happiness security. Then he tells himself that such a decision would be
he had never had when shut away in his abyss. "It seems to true madness, "brought about only by living too long in
me I am not standing in front of my house but in front of absurd freedom." He wants to go back inside; but he is
myself as I sleep, and that I have the good fortune to be able afraid-a true anguish of persecution, an obsession that is
to sleep deeply and at the time watch myself attentively.... continually regenerated-and everywhere he sees animals
 r
28 4 KAFKA "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 28 5
spying on him, watching him from the back, just like Kafka pushes them down one of the main tunnels, which descends
when he went back into his prison. The danger is real. along a steep incline to the fortress. Everything is in order:
Possibly some small repugnant animal is following him out of only a little damage here and there, which he will be able to
curiosity and, unwittingly, acts as guide to the hostile world; repair easily: he inspects the second and third tunnels, and
or perhaps it is someone of his own species, a connoisseur through the latter he goes back to the fortress, after which he
and admirer of burrows. again returns to the second tunnel. Suddenly he is overtaken
If at least it came right away-if at least it began to probe by apathy: he curls up in one of his favorite spots and yields
the entrance, lift the moss, if it succeeded, if it would take to the desire of settling down as though he were going to
his place or had already entered-he would pounce on it sleep, in order to find out whether he can sleep as well as in
furiously, free of all scruples, and would bite it, tear it limb the past. He sleeps deeply, for a long time. When he
from limb, savage it, bleed it to death, adding its corpse to awakens-his sleep by now is very light-he hears an
his other booty. No one comes. So he no longer avoids the imperceptible hiss, which wounds and offends him: the
entrance, circles around it, and it seems almost that he beauty of the burrow coincides with its silence. The hiss is
himself is the enemy lying in wait for the right moment. If at now a kind of whistle, now the breath of a sound; now there
least there were somebody with whom to make an alliance! are long interruptions, now brief pauses; and he realizes with
The other would cover his back, as he enters the burrow. But terror that wherever he strains his ears, above or below,
this too is impossible: in the first place, he wouldn't want the along the walls or on the ground, at the entrance or in the
other to go down into the burrow, and then, besides, how interior, there is the same noise, which grows slightly in
can you trust someone at your back whom you cannot see? intensity.
"And what shall we say about trust? If I trust someone when In a delirium of hypotheses, a frenzy of conjectures­
I look into his eyes, would I be able to trust him just as much Kafka's art had by now chosen this path-the animal inter­
when I don't see him and we're separated by the moss rogates himself as to the causes of the noise. Perhaps the little
covering? It is relatively easy to trust someone, if at the same beasts in the burrow, not watched during his absence, have
time you watch him or at least can watch him, perhaps it is cut out a new passage, which has crossed an old passage; the
even possible to trust at a distance, but to trust from inside air is swirling around there, producing the hissing sound.
the burrow, that is, from another world, someone who is But the animal immediately cancels his hypothesis, because
completely outside, seems impossible to me." Finally he the noise resounds everywhere with the same intensity. So
makes up his mind: he thinks about his burrow, his strong­ he advances a new hypothesis. Perhaps it is a large unknown
hold; incapable of reflecting because he is so tired, his head wild beast. It digs through the earth feverishly, at the speed
lolling, tottering on his legs, almost asleep, feeling his way with which one strolls in the open; it works with its muzzle,
rather than walking, he approaches, gingerly lifts the moss, by a succession of thrusts, powerful tears; the hiss is the
slowly descends, leaves the entrance more uncovered than drawing in of air between one thrust and the next; the earth
necessary and finally lowers the moss. trembles because of that digging, even when it is over, and
Back in the burrow, the animal carries out an inspection; this successive vibration mingles with the noise of work very
his weariness is transformed into fervor; he lugs his prey far away. Convinced by his own thoughts, the animal begins
through the narrow, fragile tunnels of the labyrinth or to make plans. In an attempt to recapture the strength of his
286 KAFKA "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 28 7
;"
youth, he wiII dig a large tunnel in the direction of the noise. stronghold, like the most invisible and steady custodian,
Then he abandons the project. He imagines the wild beast holding it firmly between his claws. Like Gregor Samsa, who
has already traced several circles around the burrow; and he walked along the ceiling in his room and let himself drop
understands that danger is definitively installed in his old playfully to the floor, he would have played the clown:
oasis of peace. pulling himself up into the free space, sliding down, tracing
Who then is the Enemy? Where does the noise spring somersaults, abandoning himself to games of his imagination.
from? Is the hiss that of another animal? Or does the same "Then there would not be any noises in the walls, no
burrow animal split into two hostile figures? Is the hiss then impudent excavations would be made all the way to the
a mere obsession, born from a mind contaminated by soli­ clearing, peace \vould be guaranteed, and I would be its
tude and silence? Kafka's text is ambiguous. We can say only guardian; I would not have to eavesdrop with disgust on the
that the hiss, with its short and long intervals, the imaginary diggings of tiny animals, but would listen with ecstasy to
or real Enemy occupies the animal's mind as soon as he aban­ something that I now completely lack: the rustle of silence in
dons himself to the pleasure of sleep and the abyss, forget­ the fortress."
ting to control them. If he had not entered the burrow, or With these pages, written during the last months of his
had continued to guard it and inspect it, he would never have life, Kafka sealed his farewell to literature. The youthful
met the Adversary. Kafka knew that the menacing figures, project of the lord of the burrow was the literary project to
the images of nightmare, horror and danger pierced his spirit, which he had always been faithful, from the time of "The
tearing it apart whenever he abandoned himself passively Metamorphosis" down to that of The Castle and "The Bur­
to the darkness, from which he must draw his treasures row." When he wrote novels or short stories, he did not
as a writer. The identification with the unconscious, which control the darkness of the unconscious from the outside,
he had attained in sleep, was not all. lie could not forgo seated outside his abyss, like a split observer who pretends he
knowing it and representing it. is inside. He did not surrender himself passively to darkness
The story breaks off toward the end. By now the animal's and fantasies of the unconscious, in sleep or in ecstasy, like
fate is sealed: for him there is no possibility of salvation; the an intoxicated visionary. He lived immersed in the ultimate
huge unknown beast will spring from his obsessions and will profundity of darkness, excavating yet another abyss inside
bite him, tear him limb from limb, bleed him to death, just the abyss, a burrow inside the burrow: he was inside like no
as he in his imagination had killed many enemies. At the one else; and yet he maintained a detachment, a control
supreme moment, he returns in his mind to a project of his drawn from the very heart of darkness, indistinguishable
youth, which he had abandoned out of negligence. At that from the darkness. He played with the unconscious, leaped,
time, he had thought of isolating the fortress from the walked the rope, like the lithe, frail, desperate acrobat of the
surrounding earth; he would have left the walls intact to his night that he had always been since the days of his youth.
own height, and above that, all around the clearing, he would
have created an empty space as high as the wall. Thus he
would have dug a burrow inside the burrow, a void inside the In "Investigations of a Dog," written approximately a year
void, hiding himself ever more profoundly in the darkness. earlier, we do not find this smell of burrow and the hunt,
From there, from that void, he would have protected the these lethargies, these cruelties, these densely, heavilv bestial
 KAFKA
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288 "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 28 9
~,
odors. The dog who says "I" does not smell of the canine projection he had made of himself: the dream of an old age
world: he is a double metaphor for a Jew and a man. He is that he would have been able to know, when the time of the
old by now, and he no longer lives among dogs. But he great questions was over.
makes a point of saying that ever since his youth he has
Like Kafka at Zurau, the dog has a profound theological
always felt a stranger. Even then he realized that "something
passion and puts questions to himself about the prime
did not fit," that a small, imperceptible fracture divided him
problem: the creation of man, Eden, Adam and Eve, sin.
from the others. He felt a slight discomfort; it could be
Then the human-canine race was young, memory was free:
provoked not only by the great collective manifestations of
our total silence was not yet born; there were words, or at
the crowd but also by the mere sight of another dog, of a
least a possibility of speech, which today is completely lost.
friend; and this filled him with embarrassment, fear, perplex­
The iron destiny by which dogs cannot be but dogs, men
ity, even despair. This awareness of his nature as a stranger
cannot be but men was not established. Death did not yet
forced him to forgo the warmth of cohabitation and devote
exist. "The true wurd could still have intervened ... and
himself-all alone-to his small, fruitless investigations. At
that word existed, was at least close, on the tip of the tongue,
times he asked himself whether in the history of dogs there
everyone could learn it." It hung like a fruit from the tree of
had ever been a combination like his-so strange, so eccen­
life: it could have changed the destiny of the human-canine
tric. At times the knowledge of his diversity was less acute,
race; and men could have become gods or angels or gone
and others produced in him a less keen unhappiness. He too,
beyond the distinctions among men, angels and gods, with­
perhaps, was like all dogs: a bit more melancholy, cold,
out death and silence. Our progenitors never spoke that
reluctant, shy, calculating. Like all the others, the double
word: they were lazy, indolent, lingered at the crossroads
reason for his existence was his frenzy to ask questions and to
which led to the gods and to men, and hesitated to turn back,
remain silent.
toward the origins, because they wanted to enjoy a little
With the passing of the years, his feeling of estrangement
longer the human-canine life which seemed so beautiful and
is alleviated. He no longer protests: a subtle veil of disap­
inebriating to them. They did not see Eden and the tree of
pointment, bitterness and irony (what men call wisdom)
life, and they went astray forever, without thinking that they
envelops his words. He lives in perfect accord with his own
were definitively lost. Thus men and dogs were born, and
nature. At the bottom of his disappointment he finds tran­
the grim destiny of humanity, of silence and death, was
quility. When we remember the effusive sweetness of the old
established. As for us, today, we are "more innocent" than
dog (nameless, like the lord of the burrow) we ask ourselves
Adam and Eve: we have not committed the sin, although,
who he might be. Certain details-the despair into which he
perhaps, taking into account the unconsciousness and futility
could be plunged at the sight of a single human being-evoke
of the human race, we might have committed it. "I would
Kafka's youth, in the streets of Prague. But what about the
almost say: Lucky us who weren't those who had to shoulder
tranquility of old age, renunciation, the ironic and disap­
the guilt, and can instead go to meet death, in a world already
pointed gaze cast on human affairs? Kafka probably wrote
darkened by others, within an almost innocent silence." Now
"Investigations of a Dog" around the middle of 1922, while
we have forgotten the dream of becoming gods: ours "is the
working on The Castle or immediately after. During those
oblivion of a dream dreamt a thousand nights ago and a
months he did not at all resemble his dog. The dog was a
thousand times forgotten."
 '0·'·.
~
...

~,

KAFKA "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 29'

2<)0

Many thousands of years after the incomplete investiga­

tions into the "true word," the old dog continues his small
.' by a silence that nobody has broken since the time of Eden;
and this silence, of which they naturally hide both cause and
mystery, poisons the life of the dog-investigator. He cannot
religious-philosophical inquiries. He has always had a pas­
sion for analysis: he splits every fact into its parts, compares bear the silence: he questions, and again questions, and then
it to other facts, attempts analogies, experiments, inductions; questions again; he interrogates the dogs and heaven and
he investigates the origins and causes of the alimentation of earth-although he hates anyone who asks questions and
dogs; and he thinks that only these inquiries can give him the despises anyone who interrogates every which way, at
gift of happiness. Like the final Kafka, he nourishes a hope. random, as if they wanted to wipe out the traces of the real
He does not want an individual investigation, like the sort question. He wants answers or, if there are no answers, not
carried out by the dogs before him: dog-Plato, dog-Aristotle, a word. Thus also the dog-investigator ends by belonging to
dog-Kierkegaard, dog-Nietzsche; but an investigation carried the race of those who remain silent, either because he does
out by all the dog-men who together possess knowledge and not know the answers or because he does not want to
together also have the keys to it. "Iron bones, which contain communicate them. In reality, there are no answers. There is
the noblest marrow, can be won only by the common bite of only silence, eternal silence: all the dogs remain silent and
all dogs," a crossed-out page says. But is this dream realized? will remain silent forever; and also the dog-narrator will die
During the investigation the dream of the Great Wall is remaining silent, almost in peace, certainly with resignation,
realized: "Chest against chest, a dance of the people, blood no resisting all questions, also his own, from behind that
longer imprisoned in the puny circle of limbs, but flowing bulwark of silence that he is. This is Kafka speaking, while
softly with perpetual ebbs through infinite China"? The writing The Castle. There was indeed no answer to any of K.'s
dream remains utopian. The marrow, the aim of the inquiry, questions, despite all that Kafka did depicting the gods, all
contains "the poison": the dreadful poison of knowledge and that he had played and parodied and danced in an effort to
art, which had infected Kafka's limbs throughout his life. evoke heaven and the night-the final answer was simply
Although the dog apparently wants the bone to open under that there was no answer.
the pressure of the common forces, he then wants to suck the In the years of his old age, the dog-investigator protects
poisonous-beatific marrow absolutely alone, we do not know himself by remaining silent: he comes to resemble the animal
whether out of egoism or a desire for sacrifice. Not even in of the burrow, who delighted in silence, listened to its rustle,
these last pages, where Kafka seems to release and free its buzz and rumble, and died when it was violated by the
himself from himself, is there born a collective art and a imperceptible hiss, generated by the profundity of his sleep.
science of the people. The writer remains the "scapegoat," But at the time of his youth and his audacious maturity, the
who is sacrificed for all men: the dog-Kafka alone sucks the dog had violated the silence. He had gnawed the iron bone all
poison, which must transform itself for the others into an alone, searching for the "noble marrow," breaking the silence
almost innocent story. with the most audacious metaphysical inquiries. He had
The dog-men do not want our dog to investigate, because asked what was art and what was God. The gods, mild for a
they do not want to know the truth-the marrow of the iron change, had descended to meet him and had answered him.
bone. Some of them, perhaps, know more than they let on The first experience took place in his youth: during that
and do not want to admit it; all of them keep silent, protected beatific, inexplicable period, when everything had pleased
29 2
KAFKA
r'
1 .f
"The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog" 293
r ',.
him and he imagined that all around him were happening tension, a tremor, terror in the presence of the revelation;
great things, to which he must lend his voice. It was dawn; that apparent need for help, that making an appeal to the
the day was already bright, just a bit misty, with a wave of warmth of cohabitation was the meaning of solitude; that
confused and intoxicating odors. The dog lifted his eyes and impeccable play of gestures was the experience of guilt and
greeted the morning with timorous whimpers. Suddenly, shame. The seven dog musicians shared the experience of
seven musical dogs stepped out of the darkness. Unaccus­ literature that Kafka had known: tremor, solitude, guilt.
tomed to music, the dog heard only "a horrendous din such Much later, the dog had the second revelation. With his
as he had never heard before." But the dogs were not playing eyes closed, he had begun a fast in the forest, to provoke the
trumpets, violins, double basses, flutes or clarinets. They intervention of the gods. He lay down, sleeping or awake,
lifted and tapped their feet, moved their heads, ran about or dreaming or singing. He imagined, fantasized, cried, deeply
stood still, clustered together; one of them placed his front moved about himself. Then came hunger, his gut was on fire:
paws on the next one's back, and then they lined up so hunger, which was not something different from him, a
that the first one standing upright supported the weight of sensation, a pain-but nothing else but himself, which spoke
all of them; or they would crawl about with their bellies inside him and mocked him. "The way passes through
almost on the ground and form a nearly intertwined figure. hunger," he comments when old: "supreme things can be
The dogs were acrobats, dancers, gymnasts, like so many reached, if they are reachable, only through extreme efforts,
Kafkian acrobats of the darkness; and magically their gestures and this extreme effort is among us voluntary hunger": the
became sounds. descent of the gods must be provoked by our tension and our
The music came from everywhere, from on high, from will to die. Almost beside himself, he licked his hind paws,
below, from all sides, surrounding the young dog, flooding chewed them, sucked them in despair. He began to dream of
over him like a sea, crushing him like a stone, annihilating Adam and Eve; he detested them, because they had imposed
him and shrilling victoriously over his annihilation, so close a man's life on man, a dog's life on the dog; and he thought
as to be already remote, like a barely perceptible fanfare. The that the fast he had undertaken was at odds with canine and
dog let himself be overwhelmed: it was Kierkegaard's de­ rabbinical law. Despite prohibition and pain, he continued
monic music, Nietzsche's Dionysiac music, the voice of his fast and held to it avidly. "I would roll about my bed of
seduction. But in the seven-dog orchestra, one became dry leaves, I could no longer sleep, I heard noises every­
aware, toward the end, of something that surpassed all where, the world which had slept during my previous life
sounds and perhaps even literature and the forms of human seemed awakened by my hunger, I had the impression I
expression: "a limpid, severe sound which remained always would never again be able to eat, because I would have had
the same, which issued unchanged from a great distance, to reduce the freely noise-filled world to silence again and
perhaps true melody in the midst of crashing noise," vibrated would not have been able to do so; but the greatest noise I
and made his knees bend. It was the extreme experience, heard was in my belly, I often laid my ear on it and my eyes
driven beyond the limits, to which everyone is in danger of must have been filled with terror because I almost couldn't
succumbing. Meanwhile, in the din of the inaudible, the believe what I heard." Overcome by intoxication, he began
young dog watched the musicians. That apparent calm with to smell imaginary food odors, the odors of his childhood­
which they played in the void was in reality a supreme the perfume of his mother's teats. Then his last hopes
294 KAFKA

vanished. What good were his investigations, childish at­

lit , "The Burrow," "Investigations of a Dog"

From imperceptible details that perhaps no one else

295

tempts at a childishly happy time? Heaven was silent. He I

would have been able to notice, our dog became aware that
had the impression of being distant from everyone and of i ('
I the big hunting dog was preparing to sing, and he felt
being about to die-not from hunger but from abandonment. invaded by the new life aroused by his terror. The dog began
No one cared for him, no one below the earth, no one above to sing from the depths; he was already singing without
it, no one in heaven; he perished because of their indifference. knowing it, the melody hung in the air by its own law, and
Yes, certainly, he accepted death-not to end in this world of passed over his head, as though it did not belong to him; the
mendacity, but to arrive there, in the world of the true word. sublime voice became ever louder, the crescendo was without
He was alone in the forest, exhausted, delirious, im­ limits and shattered the eardrums. The melody was aimed
mersed in a puddle of blood, when a large, strange dog only at the dog-investigator, existed only for him, in the
appeared before him: a hunting dog, gaunt, brown, with grandiosity of the forest; as the priest in The Trial and the
white patches here and there, long legs and a beautiful, chant of The Castle's telephone have hinted, God's song
energetic, inquiring look in his eyes. "What are you doing belongs not to God, but to each of the men to whom it is
here?" he asked. "You must leave." "What renunciation addressed. Our dog was completely enchanted; he could not
would be easier for you," our dog answered, "to renounce resist; he was beside himself, lost in the ecstasy that alone
hunting or renounce sending me away?" "Renounce hunt­ produces the supreme experiences, and he plunged his face
ing," the strange dog answered without hesitation. Despite into his own blood, his own pain, because of the anguish and
the omission of the name, painful though it may be to fill the shame that we feel before the sacred.
blank left by Kafka with the fullness of a name, the large This communion between the divine and the human,
hunting dog with white patches is a form or shadow of God. which in other writers would have been transformed into a
As always with Kafka, he is the God of power; he cannot live long everyday affinity, lasts barely an instant: Kafka can
together with man; he must push him away, far away into experience only a vertiginous moment of revelation and
the regions where he is not, at the cost of renouncing the terror. The large dog does not forget that he is the God of
beloved practice of hunting; and man experiences "horror" power. He does not keep the dog-investigator with him,
before the revelation of the sacred. because the voice of God drives us away; it reveals to us the
This extraordinary page, this page of blood and shudders, song composed for us only to make it clear to us that we will
terror and ecstasy, has no parallel passages in Kafka's work. never be able to live together, that the relation between
In his texts, God has never revealed himself to men: he had divine and human is one of distance and separation. But what
sent off, for an instant, before our death, "inextinguishable did this distance matter? Despite everything, the strange dog
splendor"; or a messenger who will never arrive, before His had manifested himself: God had been revealed: his sublime
death. Now he is here and he speaks to us, breaking the voice continued to sing; and our dog, "driven by the melody,
silence which for thousands of years closed the mouths of with stupendous leaps," strengthened and lightened, flew
men. While he was writing The Castle, where God was from the encounter that could destroy it.
absent, invisible and unattainable, Kafka had flung himself to Our dog does not openly reveal to us the conclusions he
the other side and tried the opposite road, meeting God in has reached by his little inquiries. The limpid, severe, always
the guise of a dog. equal sound, coming from a great distance, hidden in the
 ..
296 KAFKA

soundless music of the seven dogs, and the sublime song of CHAPTER THIRTEEN
the strange dog, which grows boundlessly and hangs in the
air by its own law, are the same music. Music and religion,
art and metaphysics are the same thing. At the end of his life,
hidden in the guise of a dog, Kafka had understood that,
through so many meanderings and bleedings, buffooneries
and sorrows, he had done nothing but investigate the One. 19 2 4

T hen came the last months. In July there was the stay at
Miiritz, on the Baltic, where he met Dora Dymant, an
Eastern Jew: in September there was the move to Berlin,
together with Dora-peaceful streets on the city's periphery,
Miquelstrasse, Grunewaldstrasse, Heidestrasse. When he
left the house in the warm evening, from the old luxuriant
vegetable gardens, botanical gardens and woods h.e was met
by an overpowering fragrance such as he had never before
experienced. There was inflation, poverty, no money for
newspapers and electric light; food packages sent from home;
the mild light of the kerosene lamp that lit his nocturnal
vigils; study of the Talmud at the Superior School of
Hebrew Sciences, a place of peace in tumultuous Berlin;
there was the dream-the ironic dream, which was known to
.be impossible-of going to Palestine and opening a res­
taurant there, with her the cook and him the waiter, while all
he was granted was "to pass a finger over the map of
Palestine. "
There was the story of the doll, we do not know when.
He had met a little girl who was crying and sobbing
desperately because she had lost her doll. Kafka comforted

! I
298 KAFKA , 192 4 299

if I must be their victim, better here than there." He feared

l
her: "Your doll is traveling, I know, she has just written me
a letter." The child was very doubtful: "Do you have it with the spirits, who avidly sucked into their insatiable throats
you?" "No, I left it at home, but I'll bring it to you what he wrote to Milena or anyone else. He sensed the chasm
tomorrow." Kafka went home to write the letter. He sat at his feet, into which he could sink. So one day he had Dora
down at his desk and began to compose it as though he \vere
writing a short story, giving free rein to the great Dickensian I burn all his manuscripts, diaries, short stories, a work for the
theater. He often repeated: "Who knows if I've escaped the
game of warmth and fantasy that had always inhabited him. l phantoms?" What he wanted to write must come afterward,

~
The next day he went to the park, where the child was after he had acquired his freedom. Did he ever acquire it?
waiting for him. He read the letter aloud to her. In those Did he really become another man? It seems right to doubt
pages-perhaps interminable, like the ones written to this. The ritual pyre served no purpose. In January 1924 he
Felice-the doll politely explained that she was tired of
always living with the same family: she wanted a change of
air, town and country, leaving the little girl for a while, even
I dedicated this sinister self-portrait to Max Brod: "Now even
if the ground beneath his feet were solid, the chasm before
him filled, the vultures around his head driven away, the
though she loved her very much. She promised to write tempests above him calmed, if all this were to happen, well,
every day, giving a detailed account of her travels. So for then, things would be quite all right." "The Burrow,"
some time, by the light of the kerosene lamp, Kafka described written in Berlin (perhaps in a single night) is a grandiose
countries he had never seen, described adventures that were interpretation of everything he had composed during the
dramatic and had happy endings, and took the doll to school, long years in which the phantoms dominated him. If he
where she made new friends. Over and over the doll assured really had new hopes and dreams and revelations and desires
the girl of her love, alluding, however, to the complications for something absolutely different, he kept his lips closed,
of her life, to other duties and interests. After a few days, the with an art of silence more delicate than that of his wise
child had forgotten her loss and thought only about the old dog.
fiction. The game continued for at least three weeks. Kafka In March 1924, his temperature reached thirty-eight
did not know how to end it. He thought, thought again, degrees, permanently. He rose at seven o'clock, only to go
searched at length, discussed it with Dora, and finally de­ back to bed two hours later, and his cough tortured him from
cided to have the doll marry. He described the young fiance, morning to night. He stopped his walks to the Botanical
the engagement party, the wedding preparations, the young Garden, stopped the Talmud lessons. On March 17 he
couple's house. "You will understand," the doll concluded, returned to Prague; he saw an old schoolmate and smiled at
"that in the future we must give up seeing each other." him with a smile identical to that of his adolescence-but his
When he arrived in Berlin, he said that the spirits-the voice was reduced to a whisper. In April he was taken to a
old spirits that had inspired all of his books-had lost sight of sanatorium: first in the Wienerwald; then near Klosterneu­
him: "This move to Berlin has been a wonderful thing, now burg, close to Vienna, in a beautiful room adorned with
they look for me, but they don't find me, at least for now." flowers, which looked out on the greenery. Tuberculosis had
But spirits have excellent informers. At the end of October affected his epiglottis and prevented him from speaking,
he already wrote to Brod that the "nocturnal phantoms" had swallowing and eating.
tracked him down: "But even this is not a reason to go back; He had never remembered willingly. Now he remem­
 ,~.

KAFKA 301
300 192 4
bered the youthful friendship with Brod; the baths at the to die" if there wasn't too much pain. But the pain was
swimming school together with his father, that enormous tremendous, and yet he still wanted to live. On the morning
man who held a frightened bundle of tiny bones by the hand; of June 3 he asked for morphine and said to Robert Klop­
a few hours of joy in the country with his family; and stock: "You have always promised it to me, for four years
Karlsbad and Merano and beer gardens. Sometimes he now. You torture me, you have always tortured me, I don't
raved. He did not read: he played with the books, opened want to speak to you any more. This is how I will die." They
and leafed through them, looked and closed them again, with gave him two injections. After the second injection he said:
the old happiness. After he finished reading the galleys of his "Don't make a fool of me, you're giving me an antidote. Kill
last book, tears came to his eyes, as had never happened to me, or else you're a murderer." When they gave him the
him before. What did he mourn? Death? The writer he had morphine, he was happy: "This is good, but again, again, it
been? The writer he could have been and whom perhaps he isn't taking effect." He fell asleep slowly, woke up in
had seen in the last pyre? He praised wine and beer, and confusion. Klopstock was holding his head and he thought it
asked the others to drink in deep gulps those liquids-beer, was his sister Elli: "Go away, Elli, not so close, not so
wine, water, tea, fruit juices-he was unable to swallow. close.... " Then with a brusque and unusual gesture he
Whenever he could do so, he ate strawberries and cherries, ordered the nurse to leave the room; he forcefully pulled out
after having long inhaled their perfume. He had never the tube and threw it into the center of the room. "Enough of
described a flower in his books, or almost never a tree or a this torture. Why go on?" When Klopstock moved away
green thicket; and now he worried with maternal care about from the bed to clean the syringe, Kafka said to him: "Don't
the flowers with which Dora and his friend filled his room. go away." "No, I'm not going away," Klopstock said. With
"One should also see to it that the lower flowers in places a deep voice, Kafka answered back: "But I'm going away."
where they are crushed in the vases aren't harmed. What
should one do? Best of all would be to use very large bowls."
"I would like to take particular care of the peonies because
they are so fragile," he wrote on small sheets of paper. "And
put the lilac in the sun." "Do you have a minute? Then do me
a favor and spray the peonies." "Please make sure that the
peonies don't touch the bottom of the vase. That's why they
must always be kept in bowls." "Look at the lilacs, they're
fresher in the morning. " "Indoor flowers," he recommended,
"must be treated in a completely different way." "Let me see
the aglaia, it is too bright to stay together with the others."
"The red hawthorn is too hidden, too much in the dark."
"Would it be possible to have some laburnum?" Then, with
a leap into the utopia that he finally granted himself: "Where
is the eternal spring?"
Many years before, he had said that "he would be content
 rr

Acknowledgments

! i

As in my other books, this book does not have bibliographical

references. Here, however, I would like to thank those
,I writers to whom lowe ideas and information: Beda Alle­
'I
mann, Gunther Anders, Giuliano Baioni, Evelyn T. Beck,
Peter U. Beicken, Friedrich Beissner, Walter Benjamin,
Charles Bernheimer, Hartmut Binder, Hartmut
Bohme, Jurgen Born, Bianca Maria Bornmann, Max Brod,
Massimo Cacciari, Elias Canetti, Claude David, Kasimir
Edschmid, Wilhelm Emrich, Karl-Heinz Fingerhut, Ulrich
Gaier, Eduard Goldstiicker, Ronald Gray, Erich Heller,
Ingeborg C. Henel, Clemens Heselhaus, Heinz Hillmann,
Werner Hoffmann, Wolfgang Jahn, Gerhard Kaiser, Hell­
muth Kaiser, Jorgen Kobs, Winfried Kiidszus, Paul L.
Landsberg, Eugen Loewenstein, Claudio Magris, Ferruccio
Masini, Ladislao Mittner, Robert Musil, Gerhard Neumann,
Malcolm Pasley, Ernst Pawel, Heinz Politzer, Franco Rella,
Marthe Robert, Laurence Ryan, Jost Schillemeit, Carlo
Sgorlon, Richard Sheppard, Jean Starobinski, Johannes Urz­
idil, Klaus Wagenbach, Martin Walser, Luciano Zagari,
Giorgio Zampa, Anna Zanoli. But, among all of them, I take
 r
r

,,/
3°4 Acknowledgments

special pleasure in recording the names of Maurice Blanchot

and Walter H. Sokel.
Among the many reasons for gratitude that I have toward
Roberto Calasso and Federico Fellini, there is also .~at of ;.

having read the typescript of this book and havinggiven me ·~':t.'l:

advice. I am also grateful to Hartmut Binder, Bianca Maria

Bornmann, Ida Porena and Luciano Zagari for their opinions Notes and Bibliography
concerning details of Kafka's life.

JULY 1986

Numbers in Roman type indicate pages; the numbers In

italics indicate lines.

10,5-6: Br.F. 79 22, /0-1/: Tgb. 121

12, /5-/8: Br.F. 352 23, /2-22: Br.F. 71
13, /6-/8: Tgb. 100 23,33-37: Tgb. 223
14, 18: F:. 34 24,3/-33: Tgb. 334
14,34-37/ 15, /-7: Br. 24,3 6-37: Tgb. 344
9- 10 25,3-/ 2 : Br.F. 693
15, 10-/2: Br. 19 25, 34-37: Tgb. 393
15, 17-/9: Br. 20 26. 5-6: Hoch. 305
16, 17-33: Br. 14 26,37/ 27, /: Tgb. 15
17, 10-[[: Hoch. 10 27. /4-23: Br. 164
17, 28-Jl: Be. I-II 106 28. 7-9: Tgb. 20
18, 33-36: E. 134 28, 1/-/4: Tgb. 319
I 19,3-8: Tgb. 497 28,28-35: Hoch. 418
II.
19, 20-22: Tgb. 9 28,35-37 / 29, /-5: Be. 216
2 I, 4-9: Tgb. 12 9 29. 1/-13: Be. 216
2 I, 24-26: Tgb. 400 29, 27-28: Be. 22 2
21,33-37/22, /-2: Br.F. 30, 3-4: Be. 222
14° 30, 27-29: Tgb. 9
 Notes and Bibliography Notes and Bibliography 3°7
306
30, 34-37 / 3 I, 1-/4-" Tgb. 7 I, I: E. 89 121, ll-13: Br.F. 531 176,21-23: Tgb. 381
97,218,222,343 71,30-33: E. 91 121, 16-19: Tgb. 275 176,24-27: Br.F. 758
34, 1-4: Br.F. 61-2 73,9-10: E. 9 8 122, 18: Tgb. 293 176, 36-37 / 177, 1-2: Hoch.
34, 30-3 1: Tgb. 204 74,9-13: E. 99 ui, 25-Jl: Tgb. 293 7 2 -4
38, 2-4: Br.F. 45 74,21-23: E. 100-1 '.',-; 122-, 33-34: Br. 13 1 177,9-10: Br. 186
38, 17-26: Br.F. 43 77, 12-14: Br. 107 123, 6: Tgb. 299 177, 18-19: Br. 161
40, 9-lJ: Br.F. 181 79, 20-24: Br.F. 204 12 3, 12-lJ: Tgb. 3 I 5 17 8, 12-13: Hoch. 73
43,7-9: Br.F. 17 2 82, 18-19: Hoch. 30 123, 24-27-" Tgb. 300 178,22-27: Br. 198
43, 17-21 : Br.F. 186 87, 12: Ver. 40 12 3,35-37: Tgb. 294 180,5-6: Tgb. 382
45,29-37: Br.F. 21 4- 15 10 3, 18-27: Ver. 387 124,22: Tgb. 301 18o, 18-19: Hoch. 52
46, 13-18: Br.F. 211 106,9-20: Ver. 388 12 5,18- 19: Tgb. 317 180,37/ 181, 1: Hoch. 53
46, 29-Jl: Br.F. 208 106, 37: Ver. 40 I 126, 13-15: Tgb. 290 18 I, lJ-14: Hoch. 55
47, 10-16: Br.F. 384, 389 108, 10-1l: Ver.412-13 126,24-25: Tgb. 291 181, 17-18: Hoch. 61
4 8 , 37 / 49, 1-3: Br.F. 175 109, 3-4: Tgb. 344 13°,1/-12: Pro 103 181,30-3 1: Hoch. 52
49, 13- 14: Br.F. 93 110, 19-20: Pro 7 137,29-]2: Pro I I 182, 6-7: Hoch. 52
49, 24-27: Br.F. 206 114, 2-4: Tgb. 225 140, 5-6: Pro 131 182, 9-11: Hoch. 61
50, 1-6: Br.F. 101-2 114, 13-18: Br.F. 433 153,24-26: Pro 181 182,21-22: Hoch. 60
50, 12-17: Br.F. 107,235 114, 23-]2: Br.F. 402-3 153, 3 0-Jl: Pro 18 9 182,37:· Hoch. 36
51, 2-6: Br.F. 352 114,34-37/115, I:Br. 122 154,3-4: Pro 182 183, 17: Hoch. 65
52, 4-8: Br.F. 310 115, 12-17: Br. 420 155, 10-1l: Pro 189 183, 20-21: Hoch. 79
52, 13-24: Br.F. 31 8-9 115, 26-29: Tgb. 226 159,34-36: Pro 193 184, 10-22: Hoch. 80
52, 26: Br.F. 343 116, 1-8: Br.F. 408 160, 20-25: Pro 194 184, 26-28: Hoch. 75
53, 15- 17: Br. 85 116, 11-13: Br.F. 450 161, 12-15: Tgb. 393 18 4, ]2-35: Hoch. 69
53, 25-27/ 54, 1-2: Tgb. 20 116,24-26: Br.F. 472-3 16 3, 8-9: Be. 55 18 5,2-7: Hoch. 69,83
54, 10: Br. 100 I 16, 28-31: Br.F. 464 164, ll-15: Be. 56-7 185, 10-12: Hoch. 69
54, 27: Tgb. 212 I 16, 35-3 6: Br.F. 479 166, 34-,/5: Be. 59 18 5,14-22 : Hoch. 67, 71
55, 12- 14: Tgb. 210 117, ll-18: Br.F. 512 167,37/ 168, I: Be. 59 18 5, 22-26: Hoch. 67, 75
55,25-26: Br.F. 67 118,6-14: Br.F. 272 168, 11-25: Be. 59--60 18 5, 30-]2: Hoch. 66, 77
56, 14-16: Br.F. 197 I 18,37/ 119, I-I]: Br.F. 172, ll-19: Br. 279-80 18 5,33-34: Hoch. 67
57,3 1-37 / 58, 1-4: Br.F. 533-4 172,36-37: Hoch. 71 186, 8-10: Hoch. 69
25° 120, 5-6: Br.F. 548 17 3, 17-20 : E. I 15 186, 10-12: Hoch. 72
60, 10-1l: Tgb. 203, 312 120, 12-14: Br.F. 560 174, 7- 11 : Br.F. 757 186, 15-17: Hoch. 62
61,33-37/ 62 ,1-3: Br. 254 120, 19-20: Br.F. 567 174, .N-3 6: Br. 161 186, 20-21: Hoch. 7 I
69, 10-1l: E. 85 120,23-25: Br.F. 577 175, 11-16:Br. 177 186, 29-]2: Hoch. 249, 259
69, 34-37 / 70, 1-3: E. 86 120,30-32: Br.F. 650 17 5, 26-29: Br. 167 186,33/ 187, 1-6: Hoch.
70, 7-8: E. 86-7 121,1-7: Br.F. 572 17 6 ,3-4: Br. 179 53, 59, 63
3°8 Notes and Bibliography Notes and Bibliography 3°9
187, 8-24: Hoeh. 67, 68, 84 206,22-24: Br. 317-18 223, Jl-JJ: Tgb. 403, 404, 259, 21-24: Sehl. 2 18
188,4-6: Hoeh. 69 206, 25-28: Br.M. 147-8
4°5 259, 29-Jo: Sehl. 77
188, lJ-I5." Hoeh. 61 206, JO-J]." Br.M. 93 224, 18-22: Tgb. 406 260, 27-JJ: Sehl. 39 8-<)
188,20-21: Hoeh. 69 208, 7-9: Br.M. 104 221:' 2J-JJ: Br. 370-1 262, 18-2J: Sehl. 335
188, JJ-J5: Hoeh. 64 208, Jl-]2: Br.M. 104 ... 224,]7 / 225, 1: Br. 374 262, JJ-J6 / 263, 1-2: Sehl.
189, 28-Jo: Hoeh. 74 208, ]6-J7 / 209, l-J: 225, 2-J: Tgb. 412 344
190, 10: Hoeh. 86 Br.M. 112 225, 12- 15: Tgb. 414-15 266, 26-Jo: Sehl. 410
190, 2J-2J: Hoeh. 61 209, 9-11: Br.M. 98 225, 17-22 : Tgb. 416 267, 17-18: Sehl. 422
190, 24-25: Hoeh. 67 209, 14-18: Br.M. 121 226, 18-20: Br. 386 268, ll-IJ: Sehl. 421
19 1, 24-J6: Hoeh. 56 209, 2J-29: Br.M. 216 226, J5-J6 / 227, 1-2: Br.
f, 268,18-21: Sehl. 421-2
192, 11-19: Hoeh. 56 210, 2-9: Br.M. 123
386 268, 26-29: Sehl. 425
192,22-24: Hoeh. 62, 61 212,4-5: Br.M. 158 'I 227, lJ-25: Br. 384-6 268, J6-]7 / 269, 1-7: Sehl.
192,25-28: Hoeh. 55,62
192, Jl-J7 / 193, 1-12:
212,21-22: Br.M. 290
212, 28-J2: Br.M. 129 II
229, 1-2: Br. 415
230, 1-6: Sehl. 7
4 2 3-4
273,4-5: Sehl. 4 80 - 1
Hoeh. 70 214, 6-10: Br.M. 263, 290 2J2, 1-2: Sehl. 19 27 6 , J6-]7 / 277, 1: Be. I J2
193, 19-]7 / 194, 1-]." Hoeh. 21 4, J4-J5." Br.M. 134 2J2, 6-7: Sehl. 298 277, 22-JO: Be. 140-1
60 215,8: Br.M. 296 233, 14- 15: Sehl. 17 27 8 , 18- 19: Be. 143
194, 6-20: Hoeh. 54 215, lJ-17: Br.M. 228 234, 7-8: Sehl. 18 279, J-ll: Be. 144
194, ]2-J7 / 195, 1-21: 215, 21-Jl: Br.M. 262 234, 16-21: Sehl. 156 28 I, 22-25: Be. 153
Hoeh.66 216, 22-2J: Br. 317 235, 7- 1J: Sehl. 36 282, 18: Be. 18o
195, 24: Hoeh. 280 21 7,17: Tgb. 396 235, Jl-]]: Sehl. 29 283, 22-25: Be. 200
198, 20-26: Br.M. 4 217, 22-24: Tgb. 418 236,]7 / 237, 1-6: Sehl. 20 284, 4-10: Be. 200
199,4-8: Br.M. 8-10 217, 29-J2: Br.M. 302 237, J4-]7 /23 8, 1-7: Sehl. 28 4, 2J-25." Be. 192
199, 11-20: Br.M. 9 218, l-J: Br.M. 302 18 3-4 28 4, 27-Jo: Be. 54
199, 2J-24: Br.M. I I 219, 25-27 / 220, 1: Tgb. 239, 27-28: Sehl. 182 286, lJ-14: Be. 182
200, 8-14: Br.M. 44-5 4°1-2 239,]2: Sehl. 182 286, ]2-J6: Be. 185--6
20 I, 8-20: Br.M. 36 220, 18-19: Tgb. 392 243,7-12: Sehl. 103-4 287, 18-21: Be. 208
201, 2J-26: Br.M. 57 220, 29: Tgb. 407 243, 21-27." Sehl. 104-5 28 7, JO-]7 / 288, 1: Be. 210
201, Jl-J7 / 202, 1-5." 220, ]2-]7: Tgb. 395 248,20-24: Sehl. 174 288, 17-21: Be. 2I 1-I2
Br.M.60-1 221,4-7: Tgb. 4 1 3 25°,19-21: Sehl.1I 116 28 9, J2-.35." Be. 2 I 3
202, 14-19: Br.M. 29 22 I, 2J: Tgb. 407 25 I, 26-28: Br. 279-80 29 2, 24-26: Brod 172
2°3,4- 10 : Br.M. 38 22 I, 26-28: Tgb. 392 25 2, 24-27: Sehl. 9 29 2 , 27-Jo: Br. 45 I
2°4,7- 15: Br.M. 27, IJ6 222, 24-25: Tgb. 398 252,27-29: Sehl. 12-13 293, J-7: Br. 472-3
2°5, 14-19: Br.M. 80 222, 29: Tgb. 398 254, 2]." Sehl. 20 294,8-11: Brod 180-1 294,
205, 2J-24: Br.M. 81 223, 15-16: Tgb. 406 25 8 , JJ-J6 / 259, 1-2: Sehl. 11-2J: Br. 485,488,49°
206, 20-22: Br.M. 117 223,Jo: Tgb. 402 69-7 0
 Notes and Bibliography
3 10
The abbreviations and page und die Familie, ed. Hart­
numbers in the list of quo­ mut Binder and Klaus Wa­
tations refer to the following genbach (Fischer, 1974).
fi
volumes: E. Erziihlunget!, ed. .
Be. Beschreibung eines Max Brad (Fischer, 1980):
Kampfes. Novellen-Skizzen­ Hoeb. Hochzeitsvorberei­
Aphorismen aus dem Nachlass, tungen auf dem Lande, und
Index
ed. Max Brad (Fischer, andere Prosa aus dem Nach­
1980). lass, ed. Max Brad (Fischer,
Be. I-II Beschreibung 1980).
eines Kampfes. Die zwei ras­ Pro Das Prazess, ed.
sungen, Text edition by Max Brod (Fischer, [980).
Ludwig Dietz (Fischer, Schl. Das Schloss, criti­
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Bachelor, the, Kafka as, 17-26,
196 9). cal edition, ed. Malcolm (by Twain), 83 59, 122, 188
Br. BrieJe 1902-1924, Pasley (Fischer, 1983). "Amalia" (character), 264-8 "Barnabas" (character), 241,
ed. Max Brod (Fischer, Tgb. Tagebucher 1910­ Amerika (by Kafka), 37, 48, 51, 24 8 , 25 0 - 2, 259, 26 3-6,
1975)· 1923, ed. Max Brad (Fis­ 57, 00-I, 110, 125, 126, 27 2
Br.F. BrieJe an Felice, cher, 1983). 13 2 , 180, 245 Baudelaire, Charles, 192, 193
ed. Erich I Ieller and J urgen Ver. Der Verschollene, description of, 74-107 Bauer, Felice, 22, 27, 171,2°4
Born (Fischer, 11}76). Anders, Gunther, 126 Kafka's Berlin visits to, 49,
critical edition, ed. Jost
Anthony of Padua, St., 139 117- 19
Br.M. BrieJe an Milena, Schillemeit (Fischer, 1983).
Antigone, 267 Kafka's engagement to, 100,
expanded new edition, ed. Brad Max Brod, Uber aphorisms, Kafka's, 184-96 115,118,119,174
] urgen Born and Michael Franz Kafka (Fischer, Archimedes, 25 Kafka's first meeting with,
Muller (Fischer, 1983). Taschenbuch Verlag, Aristotle, 290 Z<r33,5 1
Br. Q. Briefe an Qttla 1974)· "Arthur" (character), 243-5 Kafka's hesitations about
"Assistants, The" (characters), marriage to, 111-22
243-5, 247, 25 6 , 257, 26 4 Kafka's letters to, ill, 21,
'An ar , 135 34-49,57,60,74,76,114
Augustine, St., 190 Kafka's phone calls to, 37
automatism, in Amerika, 85-7, Kafka's tuberculosis and,
90 - 1 17 6-7
photographs of, 42-3
8aum, Oskar, u8
Babel Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer.
anti-Tower of, 164 See "Great Wall of China,
pit of, 196,281, 283 The"
 Index Index
3 12 313
"Bendemann, Georg" (charac­ "Burrow, The" (by Kafka), Crime and Punishment (by Dos­ Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 57,97,
ter), 28, 82 108, 109, 299 toevsky), 22, 129, IB, 131, 196
Berlin, Kafka in, 49, 117- 19, description of, 280-7 157 characters of, 18,22,129,
219, 297-8 "Biirstner, Miss" (character), 133, 134, 13 6 , 140, 157
Berliner Tageblatt, I I 8 126, 140, 14 1 Notes from the Underground,
Beschreibung eines Kampfes. See Dante Alighieri, 62 279
"Description of a Strug­ Death Dymant, Dora, 297-300
gle" "Cabala," 225 of Gregor in "The Metamor­
Binder, Hartmut, 100, 310 Cain, mark of, 176 phosis," 72-3
Bloch, Grete, 114-16, 119, 120 Canaan, 222-3, 226, 234, 235, Kafka's acceptance of, 17 6 , election rally, in Amerika, 87-9
"Block" (character), 126, 144, 25 2-3, 25 8 , 259 300 - 1 Elective Affinities (by Goethe),
145, 148 , 155 Cape Malea, 234 Kafka's fantasies of, 27-8 46 , 114
Bahm, Fraulein, 38 Caribbeans, creation myth of, Milena as angel of, 205 "Erlanger" (character), 240,
Born, Jiirgen, 310 54 as proper condition for Kaf­ 274
Bridge Inn (in The Castle), 239, Carroll, Lewis, 29 ka's writing, 55 evil, in Kafka's writings, 184­
259, 261 Casanova, Giovanni, 22 silence equated with, 21 7, 19°-6, 224, 26 7
Brod, Max, 74, 1°7, 16o, 177, Castle, The (Der Schloss; by tuberculosis as an intensity Exodus (book of the Bible), 84,
3°0 Kafka), 128, 135, 139, of germ of, 175-6 222
on the ending of The Castle, 218,295 "Delamarche" (character), 75,
27 8 description of, 232-78 76 , 87, 89,97- 100 , 145
Kafka's letters and state­ Kafka's writing of, 225-31, "Description of a Struggle" Faust, 253, 254, 277
ments to, 3, 23, 28, 51, 29 1,2<)4 (Beschreibung eines Kampfes; Felice. See Bauer, Felice
17 1, 175, 176, 180,227, lack of narrator in, 10<), I 10 by Kafka), 12, 17,57, Flaubert, Gustave, 6, 18, 24,
299 Circe, 261 74 63,67,7 1,82, 139
Kafka's meeting with Felice "Clara" (character), 8o, <)2, 95 Deus otiosus, 240 Francis of Assisi, St., 139
at home of, 30-3 Clowneries, 16-17,244 Diaries (Kafka's), 17, 20, 27, "Frieda" (character), 2°4, 234,
and Kafka's relationship Collective labor, in "The 113, 120, 121, 124, 16o, 24 1, 244, 25<)
with Milena, 206, 2°7, Great Wall of China," 177, 226, 228n Friedman, Sophie, 35
213, 21 7 16 5-6 burning of, 299 "Friedrich" (character), 240,
Kafka's works edited by, Commedia dell'arte, 243, 1921 change in, 221-3 27°
100, 186n, 310 244 given by Kafka to Milena, functionaries' dawn (in The
Brod, Otto, 30 "Copperfield, David" (Dick­ 218 Castle), 274-7
"Brunelda" (character), 80, 87, ens's character), <)6 "Karl Rossmann" in, 107 Furies, the, 136
97- 100 "Country Doctor, A" (Ein Dickens, Charles, 80, <)3, 97,
"Brunswick" (character), 278 Landarzt; by Kafka), 172, 110
"Brunswick's wife" (character), 173 "David Copperfield" of, 96 "Gardena" (character), 25<)-60
277 "Count West-West" (name of Dietz, Ludwig, 310 Garden of Eden (Terrestrial
"Biirgel" (character), 240, 270, God in The Castle), 239­ doll, the, Kafka's story of, Paradise),84, 180, 185,
27 2-4 40, 255, 25 6 , 27 2 297-8 190, 193-4, 28 9
 3 14 Index r Index 31 5
Genesis (book of the Bible), "Great Wall of China, The" In der Strafkolonie. See "In the "Judgment, The" (Das Urteil;
184~5, 18 7, 195 (Beim Bau der chinesischen Penal Colony" by Kafka), 4 8 ,74,81,94
Georgental, 228 Mauer; by Kafka), 128, Institute for Workmen's Acci­ writing of, 51-4
"Gerstacker" (character), 277, 17 I, 180, 186 dent Insurance for the Julie (Kafka's fiancee), 22, 202­
27 8 description of, 162~8 . Kingdom of Bohemia 3, 20 7-8
"Girl from the Castle" (charac­ Greeks, the des~ription of Kafka's work
ter), 241)-50 Kafka on happiness of,
Gmiind, meeting between for, 7-8
17 1- 2 Felice's letters to Kafka at, "K." (character), 62,77, 109,
Kafka and Milena in, 2 I 3­ metamorphoses in religion
14 38-4 1,47 110
of, 194 Kafka's leave from, 100 "Frieda" and, 204, 241, 260­
Gnosis, the, 194 "Green" (character), 93-5
God (the gods) Kafka retired on pension by, 4, 277
"Grubach, Mrs." (character), 228 story of, 232-78
The Castle on, 233-7 8 14 1 "In the Penal Colony" (by "K., Joseph" (character), 10,
"The Great Wall of China" Guilt
on, 166-8, 171 Kafka),94, 100, 101, 103, 47, 56,62,77, 107, 101)­
in The Castle, 236, 265--6, 135-8, 161, 171 10, 126, 182, 189, 238,
as "the indestructible," 182, 268, 269
18 5--6 description of, 127, 13 I 25 6--<), 273
Kafka's feelings of, 54, 199, "Investigations of a Dog" (by evil desires of, 187
in "Investigations of a Dog," 211
Kafka), 109, 195, 254 Kafka's narrative method
29 1, 293--6 in Kafka's writings, 13 6- 8 , description of, 287--<)6 and, 10l)-1O
Kafka's notebooks on, 180­ 14 2-4, 14 8 , 15 2, 154, 156, Ius primae noctis (in The Castle), name of, on blackboard at
96 , 225 161
243 Spindlermiihle, 225
Kafka's tuberculosis and,
story of, 129, 61
174-5
Kafka, Elli (sister), 301
"In the Penal Colony" on, I:Iallaj, al-, 255 Jacobsen, Jens Peter, 42 Kafka, Frank (Kafka's cousin),
161 "Hans" (character), 263, 27 8
"The Silence of the Sirens"
"Jeremiah" (character), 243-5 76
"Hawkins, Jim" (Stevenson's Jesenska, Milena, 177, 226, Kafka, Franz
on, 172 character), 77 227 all manuscripts and diaries
as sole object of Kafka's Hebbel, Friedrich, 116 Gmiind meeting between burned by, 299
work, 296 Heller, Erich, 310 Kafka and, 213-14 aphorisms of, 184--<)6
The Trial on, 12 7-33, 135-7, Hermes, 250-1, 252, 269 characters created by. See
Kafka receives portrait from,
140 - 1, 154-7, 161,233, History oJ the Devil (book read under their names
2I I
234 by Kafka), 54 death of, 300-1
Kafka's symbolic relation­
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Holderin, Friedrich, 41 descriptions of
ship with, 202-5
6,32,4 1, 53, 147,25 2 Huch, Ricarda, 42 clothing, 6
Kafka's visit to, 202-7,
Elective Affinities, 46, 114 "Huld" (character), I 26, 129,
213 his eyes, 4, 43
Lehrjahre, 130, 135, 158 13 0 , 137, 13 8 , 143-8 , 150, letters to, 22, 19 8- 202 , his voice, 4
Gordin, Jacob, 97 152, 157 205, 20 7- 20 walking habits, 7
grace, in Kafka's works, 144, "Hunger Artist, A" (Ein Hun­ newspaper articles by, 2 I 2 dreams of, 39, 40, 54, I 17,
157, 159, 27 2, 278 gerkunstler; by Kafka), 245 2 I 1-12, 2 I 7-1 8
John (book of the Bible), 135
 r:.~

Index Index 317

3 16
Kafka, Franz (cont.) self-analytical fury, 224, Klosterneuberg, Kafka in sana­ Mark (book of Bible), 102
emigration to Palestine 226-7 torium in, 299 Mark of Cain, 176
planned by, 2 19, 297 tardiness, 5-6 "Kutuzov, Mikhail Ilariono­ Marriage
fiancees of. See Bauer, Felice; vegetarianism and vich" (Qlaracter), 25 6 Kafka and, 111-22
Julie Fletcher method, 8""9, Kierkegaard on, I I I
first person used in story by, 121, 197 See also Julie
279, 288 weeping over a book, Laforgue, Jules, 243 Martini, Simone, 103
home life of, 8-10, 20-1, 51 Lagerlof, Selma, 42 Matliary, Kafka in sanatorium
74-5
letters of writing at night, 51-6, Landant, Ein. See "Country at, 217
to Felice, 18,21,34-49, Doctor, A" Matthew (book of Bible), 102,
17 8 , 229, 273
57, 60, 74, 76 , 114 psychic collapses of, 224, Laurin (journalist), 209 10 3
Letter to His Father, 27 230-1 law, the Meditation (by Kafka), 17, p,
to Milena, 22, 198-202, tuberculosis of, 171, 17 3-8, in Amerika, 81, 83, 92, 94-5, 57,74
20 5, 2°7- 20 , 299 197, 198 , 208, 214, 291)­ 101, 103, 105, 107,245 Medusa, 205
to Pollak, 12-1 3 in The Castle, 242, 265, 269, Melozzo da Forli, 103
3°1
narrative method of, 107-10 27 1 Mephistopheles (Goethe's char­
sanatoriums, 217, 299
notebooks of, 179-96, 221 writings of. See specific writ­ "In the Penal Colony,"
in acter), 147
office work of. See Institute 265 Merano, Kafka at, 197-202,
ings by name
for Workmen's Accident at Zurau, 177""96, 224, 225 in The Trial, 127-8, 130-4, 3°0
Insurance mice, 60, 178--<) 140-1, 148-61, 26 5 Mergl (messenger), 38
personal characteristics of, Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, "Metamorphosis, The" (Die
Kafka, aula (sister), 21, 177,
245 Verwandlung; by Kafka),
3-7 228, 230, 231
caritas bel ieved to be most Kafka, Otto (Kafka's cousin), "Leni" (character), 126, 144, 37,48 ,57, 75,7 6 , 14°,
sublime act, 58, 72-3 14 6 233
75--6
Kafka, Robert (Kafka's cousin), Lindner, Fraulein, 42 description of, 61-73
clowneries, 16-1 7, 244
Lindstrom Company, 30- 2 narrative method of, 109
friendships, 6, I I, 300 75
Lords' Hotel (in The Castle), Milena. See Jesenska, Milena
insomnia, 53-4, 191)-200, Kafka, Valli (sister), 9
237,25 1- 2,258,260,261, "Momo" (character), 263
225, 227, 221)-3 1 Kant, Immanuel, 184, 191
268-77 monism, Kafka's, 184, 186
intolerance of noise, 1)-10, Karlsbad, 202, 300
Louche, the, 97, I J2, 134 Moreau, Frederic, 139
20-1, 177,228 Kierkegaard, S~ren, 181, 290,
LOwy, Itzhak, 5 Moses, 222, 254
isolation and solitude, 17­ 29 2
Lubeck, 121 Muller, Michael, 310
27,55, 122 Stages on Life'S Way, 1 II
Luke (book of Bible), 106 Muritz, Kafka at, 297-8
masochism, 27-8, 122, Kingdom of God, in Amerika,
Musil, Robert, 78
16o-I, 176 102-6
mutism, 186
memory sharpened, 221 "Klamm" (character), 240-3,
obsession with body, 58­ "Mack" (character), 9 2
249,25 1,254--6,251)-64,
61 269, 277 Manicheanism, 184, 190
Marienbad, 219 New York City, in Amerika,
reality transformations, Kleist, Heinrich von, 6
13-16 Klopstock, Robert, 227, 30 I Marienlyst, 121 84""9 1
 Index Index
3 18 31<)

"News of the Building of the Plutarch, 252 St. Anthony of Padua, [39 in "Investigations of a Dog,"
Wall: A Fragment." See Pocar, Ervino, '.01 ~(jn St. AugustiI;1e, 190 288
"Great Wall of China, Poe, Edgar Allan, 56 St. Francis of Assisi, 139 "K." as, 252-3, 259
The" Pollak, Oskar, I [--:.I3';. ;. St. Pall); &> Kafka as, 18-26, 28,47,49,
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, "Pollunder, Mr." (charader), St,~'rere~, 135 77, 188
[84, 290, 292 9 2-5 ,.: "Sall1S'a, Gregor" (character), Strindberg, August, [23
Notebooks, The (of Kafka), 17c)­ "Porfiry Petrovich" (Dosto­ 10, 23, 28, 4 8, 56, 58, Svetkova, Frau, 228
96, 22 I evsky's character), 133," 216- 17,268, 28 7 "Svidrigailov" (Dostoevsky's
Notes from the Underground (by 14° Kafka's narrative method character), 22, 129
Dostoevsky), 279 Prague and, IOC)-IO
Brod's home in, 30-3 "Karl Rossmann" compared
Chotek Park in, 120, 122 to, 77, 7C)-83 Talmud, Kafka's study of,
Occidental Hotel, in Amerika, Felice's apartment in, 119 story of, 61-72 297, 299
87, 95-6, I to Kafka's home in, 8-[0, 20­ Schillemeit, Jost, 310 Tao, the, 164, 166, 17 [
Odradek (clown), [7, 25 I, 5 [ Schiller, Dr., 34 Teresa, St., 135
Odyssey, The (by Homer), [6C)­ Kafka's [924 return to, 299 Schloss, Der. See: Castle, The Terrestrial Paradise (Garden of
72 Kafka's own apartment in, Sennar, land of, 196 Eden), 84, 18o, 185, 190,
Oklahoma Theater (in [2 [-2 sexual intercourse (coitus) 193-4, 289
A merika), 76, 77, 84, 9 1 , Prozess, /Jer. See: Trial, The in Amerika, 98-100 Theodicy, in The Castle, 245,
100-7, 127 in The Castle, 261-2 246 , 273
"Olga" (character), 263, 264, as punishment, Kafka on, "Therese" (character), 84, 89
267, 268, 277 "Raskolnikov" (Dostoevsky's 113- 14 Thoma, Hans, The Ploughman,
Ottoburg pension (at Merano), character), [8, [33, [34, in The Trial, 144, 262 9
197-8 [3 6 , 157 "Silence of the Sirens, The" time, Kafka's attitude towards,
Ovid's Metamorphoses, 60, 62, 64 renunciation of the world, (by Kafka), 16c)-72 5-6, 108, 224, 232, 281
[87-8 Sirens, the, 16c)-72 "Titorelli" (character), 126,
Republic (by Plato), 194-5 Society of the Tower (in Goe­ 12 9, 130-2, '38-<), 146-8,
Palestine, Kafka's plans to emi­
grate to, 219, 297
Parlograph, 30, 31
Pascal, Blaise, 180
Pasley, Malcolm, 226, 310
Paul, St., 80
Riesengeberge, 225
Robert, Marthe, 76
"Robinson" (character), 75, 76,
87,97- 100 , [45
"Rossmann, Karl" (character),
48,62, 126, [39,277,278
I
It
the's Lehrjahre), 135, 158
Sokel, Walter, 72, 148
Sophocles, 42
"Sordini" (character), 240, 247
"Sortini" (character), 240, 265,
268
150, 15 2, 257
Tolstoy, Leo, 57,61,77, 108,
221
Travemiinde, 121
tree of knowledge, 184, 187,
190
Peking, 166 Kafka's narrative method Spindlermiihle, 223, 225 tree of life, 184-5, 187, [90
"Penal Colony, The." See "In and, IOC)-IO Sta~a (friend of Kafka), 208 Trial, The (Der Prozess; by
the Penal Colony" story of, 75-[07 Statue of Liberty, 83 Kafka), 77, 97, 100, 101,
"Pepi" (character), 277 "Rostov, Nikolai" (Tolstoy's Stevenson, Robert Louis, 77 103, 171, 180, 233, 236-8,
Plana, Kafka at, 226, 228-31 character), 77 Strahlau (river), 121 24 2, 25 6 - 8 , 27 2, 273, 295
Plato, 2[, 53,156, [93-5, 290 Rumi, 135 Stranger, the, 97 description of, I 26-61
po
The Trial (cont.)
Kafka's writing of, 12 3--6
lack of narrator in, 10<)-10
Index

Vienna
Kafka in sanat~rium -in,
299
r
Tribuna (Prague newspaper), Kafka's visit to MiJena in?
209, 212 202-7, 213
tricksters, 147 Voltaire, 245
Trojan War, 169
Twain, Mark, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, 83 Wagenbach, Klaus, 310
Walser, Martin, 108
War and Peace (by Tolstoy),
Ulysses, 16<)-72, 234 25 6-7
"K." as, 253, 254, 257, 271 Weiss, Ernst, 120
"Uncle Jacob" (character), 84­ Werfel, Franz, 42
5,91--6, 110 Wottawa (messenger), 38
Urteil, Das. See ''Judgment,
The"
Zurau, Kafka at, 177--()6, 224,
225
Verwandlung, Die. See "Meta­ aphorisms, 184--()6
morphosis, The" mice, 60, 178--()
~

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pietro Citati was born in Florence, Italy,

in 1930 and grew up in Turin. He studied at the
University of Pisa, where he received his degree in Italian
literature in 1951. After teaching Italian language and literature
at the University of Monaco at Baviera for some years, he became
literary critic first for the newspaper 1/ Giorno, then, for fifteen
years, for Corriere della Sera, and finally for La
Repubb/ica, a position he has held since 1988.
His books include the biographies Goethe and To/stay
and the forthcoming Story: Happy at the Beginning but Then Very
Sad and Tragic, a novel. Since 1954 he has lived in Rome.
He is married and has one son.
r J4
¥QP'

f4
I

~ A NOTE ON THE TYPE

~ This book was set in a digitized

version of Janson. The hot-metal version
1
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a Hungarian, who most probably learned his trade from
the master Dutch type founder Dirk Voskens. The type is an
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