by Franz Kafka
Raban, who now stood on the edge of the waiting group, turned around, for someone had called out his name.
‘Ah, Lement,’ he said slowly and held out to a young man coming toward him the little finger of the hand in which he was holding the umbrella.
‘So this is the bridegroom on his way to his bride. He looks frightfully in love,’ Lement said and then smiled with his mouth shut.
‘Yes, you must forgive my going today,’ Raban said. ‘I wrote to you this afternoon, anyway. I should, of course, have liked very much to travel with you tomorrow; but tomorrow is Saturday, everything’ll be so crowded, it’s a long journey.’
‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. You did promise, but when one’s in love.… I shall just have to travel alone.’ Lement had set one foot on the pavement and the other on the cobbles, supporting his body now on one leg, now on the other. ‘You were going to get into the tram. There it goes. Come, we’ll walk, I’ll go with you. There’s still plenty of time.’
‘Isn’t it rather late, please tell me?’
‘It’s no wonder you’re nervous, but you really have got plenty of time. I’m not so nervous, and that’s why I’ve missed Gillemann now.’
‘Gillemann? Won’t he be staying out there, too?’
‘Yes, with his wife; it’s next week they mean to go, and that’s just why I promised Gillemann I’d meet him today when he leaves the office. He wanted to give me some instructions regarding the furnishing of their house, that’s why I was supposed to meet him. But now somehow I’m late, I had some errands to do. And just as I was wondering whether I shouldn’t go to their apartment, I saw you, was at first astonished at the suitcase, and spoke to you. But now the evening’s too far gone for paying calls, it’s fairly impossible to go to Gillemann now.’
‘Of course. And so I shall meet people I know there, after all. Not that I have ever seen Frau Gillemann, though.’
‘And very beautiful she is. She’s fair, and pale now after her illness. She has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.’
‘Do please tell me, what do beautiful eyes look like? Is it the glance? I’ve never found eyes beautiful.’
‘All right, perhaps I was exaggerating slightly. Still, she’s a pretty woman.’
Through the windowpane of a ground-floor café, close to the window, gentlemen could be seen sitting, reading and eating, around a three-sided table; one had lowered a newspaper to the table, held a little cup raised, and was looking into the street out of the corners of his eyes. Beyond these window tables all the furniture and equipment in the large restaurant were hidden by the customers, who sat side by side in little circles. [Two pages missing] … ‘As it happens, however, it’s not such an unpleasant business, is it? Many people would take on such a burden, I think.’
They came into a fairly dark square, which began on their side of the street, for the opposite side extended farther. On the side of the square along which they were walking, there was an uninterrupted row of houses, from the corners of which two – at first widely distant – rows of houses extended into the indiscernible distance in which they seemed to unite. The pavement was narrow by the houses, which were mostly small; there were no shops to be seen, no carriage passed. An iron post near the end of the street out of which they came had several lamps on it, which were fixed in two rings hanging horizontally, one over the other. The trapeze-shaped flame between conjoined sheets of glass burned in this tower-like wide darkness as in a little room, letting darkness assert itself a few steps farther on.
‘But now I am sure it is too late; you have kept it a secret from me, and I shall miss the train. Why?’ [Four pages missing]
… ‘Yes, at most Pirkershofer – well, for what he’s worth.’
‘The name’s mentioned, I think, in Betty’s letters, he’s an assistant railway-clerk, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, an assistant railway-clerk and an unpleasant person. You’ll see I’m right as soon as you’ve got a glimpse of that small thick nose. I tell you, walking through the dreary fields with that fellow.… Anyway, he’s been transferred now and he goes away from there, as I believe and hope, next week.’
‘Wait, you said just now you advised me to stay here tonight. I’ve thought it over; it couldn’t very well be managed. I’ve written to say I’m coming this evening; they’ll be expecting me.’
‘That’s quite easy, send a telegram.’
‘Yes, that could be done – but it wouldn’t be very nice if I didn’t go – and I’m tired, yes, I’ll go all right. If a telegram came, they’d get a fright, into the bargain. – And what for, where would we go, anyway?’
‘Then it’s really better for you to go. I was only thinking.… Anyway I couldn’t go with you today, as I’m sleepy, I forgot to tell you that. And now I shall say goodbye, for I don’t want to go through the wet park with you, as I should like to drop in at Gillemann’s, after all. It’s a quarter to six, so not too late, after all, for paying calls on people you know fairly well. Addio. Well, a good journey, and remember me to everyone!’
Lement turned to the right and held out his right hand to say goodbye, so that for a moment Raban was walking against Lement’s outstretched arm.
‘Adieu,’ Raban said.
From a little distance Lement then called back: ‘I say, Eduard, can you hear me? Do shut your umbrella; it stopped raining ages ago. I didn’t have a chance to tell you.’
Raban did not answer, shut his umbrella, and the sky closed over him in pallid darkness.
‘If at least,’ Raban thought, ‘I were to get into a wrong train. Then it would at any rate seem to me that the whole enterprise had begun, and if later, after the mistake had been cleared up, I were to arrive in this station again on my way back, then I should certainly feel much better. If the scenery does turn out to be boring, as Lement says, that need not be a disadvantage at all. One will spend more time in the rooms and really never know for certain where all the others are, for if there is a ruin in the district, there will probably be a walk all together to that ruin; it will have been agreed upon some time before. Then, however, one must look forward to it; for that very reason one mustn’t miss it. But if there is no such sight to be seen, then there will be no discussion beforehand either, for all will be expected to get together quite easily if suddenly, against all the usual practice, a larger expedition is considered right, for one only has to send the maid into the others’ apartments, where they are sitting over a letter or books and are delighted by this news. Well, it is not difficult to protect oneself against such invitations. And yet I don’t know whether I shall be able to, for it is not so easy as I imagine it now when I am still alone and can still do everything, can still go back if I want to, for I shall have no one there whom I could pay calls on whenever I like, and no one with whom I could make more strenuous expeditions, no one there who could show me how his crops are doing or show me a quarry he is working there. For one isn’t at all sure even of acquaintances of long standing. Wasn’t Lement nice to me today? – he explained some things to me, didn’t he, and described everything as it will appear to me. He came up and spoke to me and then walked with me, in spite of the fact that there was nothing he wanted to find out from me and that he himself still had something else to do. But now all of a sudden he has gone away, and yet I can’t have offended him even with a single word. I did refuse to spend the evening in town, but that was only natural, that can’t have offended him, for he is a sensible person.’
The station clock struck, it was a quarter to six. Raban stopped because he had palpitations, then he walked quickly along the park pool, went along a narrow, badly lighted path between large shrubs, rushed into an open place with many empty benches leaning against little trees, then went more slowly through an opening in the railings into the street, crossed it, leapt through the station entrance, after a while found the booking office, and had to knock for a while on the iron shutter. Then the booking clerk looked out, said it was really high time, took the bank note
, and slammed down on the counter the ticket he had been asked for and the change. Now Raban tried to count his change quickly, thinking he ought to be getting more, but a porter who was walking nearby hurried him through a glass door onto the platform. There Raban looked around, while calling out ‘Thank you, thank you!’ to the porter, and since he found no guard, he climbed up the steps of the nearest coach by himself, each time putting the suitcase on the step above and then following himself, supporting himself on his umbrella with one hand, and on the handle of the suitcase with the other. The coach that he entered was brightly illuminated by the great amount of light from the main hall of the station, in which it was standing; in front of many a windowpane – all were shut right up to the top – a hissing arc lamp hung at about eye level, and the many raindrops on the glass were white, often single ones would move. Raban could hear the noise from the platform even when he had shut the carriage door and sat down on the last little free bit of a light-brown wooden seat. He saw many people’s backs, and the backs of their heads, and between them the upturned faces of people on the seat opposite. In some places smoke was curling from pipes and cigars, in one place drifting limply past the face of a girl. Often the passengers would change places, discussing these changes with each other, or they would transfer their luggage, which lay in a narrow blue net over a seat, to another one. If a stick or the metal-covered corner of a suitcase stuck out, then the owner would have his attention drawn to this. He would go over and straighten it. Raban also bethought himself and pushed his suitcase under his seat.
On his left, at the window, two gentlemen were sitting opposite each other, talking about the price of goods. ‘They’re commercial travelers,’ Raban thought and, breathing regularly, he gazed at them. ‘The merchant sends them into the country, they obey, they travel by train, and in every village they go from shop to shop. Sometimes they travel by carriage between the villages. They must not stay long anywhere, for everything must be done fast, and they must always talk only about their goods. With what pleasure, then, one can exert oneself in an occupation that is so agreeable!’
The younger man had jerked a notebook out of the hip pocket of his trousers, rapidly flicked the leaves over with a forefinger moistened on his tongue, and then read through a page, drawing the back of his fingernail down it as he went. He looked at Raban as he glanced up and, indeed, when he now began talking about thread prices, did not turn his face away from Raban, as one gazes steadily at a point in order not to forget anything of what one wants to say. At the same time he drew his brows tightly down over his eyes. He held the half-closed notebook in his left hand, with his thumb on the page he had been reading, in order to be able to refer to it easily if he should need to. And the notebook trembled, for he was not supporting his arm on anything, and the coach, which was now in motion, beat on the rails like a hammer.
The other traveler sat leaning back, listening and nodding at regular intervals. It was evident that he was far from agreeing with everything and later would give his own opinion.
Raban laid his curved hands palm-down on his knees and, leaning forward, between the travelers’ heads he saw the window and through the window lights flitting past and others flitting away into the distance. He did not understand anything of what the traveler was talking about, nor would he understand the other’s answer. Much preparation would first be required, for here were people who had been concerned with goods since their youth. But if one has held a spool of thread in one’s hand so often and handed it to one’s customer so often, then one knows the price and can talk about it, while villages come toward us and flash past, while at the same time they turn away into the depths of the country, where for us they must disappear. And yet these villages are inhabited, and there perhaps travelers go from shop to shop.
In a corner at the far end of the coach a tall man stood up, holding playing cards in his hand, and called out:
‘I say, Marie, did you pack the zephyr shirts?’
‘Of course I did,’ said the woman, who was sitting opposite Raban. She had been dozing, and now when the question waked her she answered as though she were talking to herself or to Raban. ‘You’re going to market at Jungbunzlau, eh?’ the vivacious traveler asked her. ‘Jungbunzlau, that’s right.’ ‘It’s a big market this time, isn’t it?’ ‘A big market, that’s right.’ She was sleepy, she rested her left elbow on a blue bundle, and her head dropped heavily against her hand, which pressed through the flesh of the cheek to the cheekbone. ‘How young she is,’ the traveler said.
Raban took the money that he had received from the cashier out of his waistcoat pocket and counted it over. He held up each coin firmly between thumb and forefinger for a long time and also twisted it this way and that on the inner surface of his thumb with the tip of his forefinger. He looked for a long time at the Emperor’s image, then he was struck by the laurel wreath and the way it was fastened with knots and bows of ribbon at the back of the head. At last he found the sum was correct and put the money into a big black purse. But now when he was about to say to the traveler: ‘They’re a married couple, don’t you think?’ the train stopped. The noise of the journey ceased, guards shouted the name of a place, and Raban said nothing.
The train started again so slowly that one could picture the revolutions of the wheels, but a moment later it was racing down a slope, and all unexpectedly the tall railings of a bridge, outside the windows, were torn apart and pressed together, as it seemed.
Raban was now pleased that the train was going so fast, for he would not have wanted to stay in the last place. ‘When it is dark there, when one knows no one there, when it is such a long way home. But then it must be terrible there by day. And is it different at the next station or at the previous ones or at the later ones or at the village I am going to?’
The traveler was suddenly talking more loudly. ‘It’s a long way yet,’ Raban thought. ‘Sir, you know just as well as I do, these manufacturers send their travelers around the most godforsaken little villages, they go crawling to the seediest of little shopkeepers, and do you think they offer them prices different from those they offer us big businessmen? Sir, take it from me; exactly the same prices, only yesterday I saw it black on white. I call it villainy. They’re squeezing us out of existence; under current conditions it’s simply impossible for us to do business.’
Again he looked at Raban; he was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes; he pressed the knuckles of his left hand to his mouth because his lips were quivering. Raban leaned back and tugged faintly at his mustache with his left hand.
The shopwoman opposite woke up and smilingly passed her hands over her forehead. The traveler talked more quietly. Once again the woman shifted as though settling down to sleep, half lying on her bundle, and sighed. The skirt was drawn tight over her right hip.
Behind her sat a gentleman with a traveling cap on his head, reading a large newspaper. The girl opposite him, who was probably a relative of his, urged him – at the same time inclining her head toward her right shoulder – to open the window, because it was so very hot. He said, without looking up, he would do it in a moment, only he must first finish reading an article in the newspaper, and he showed her which article he meant.
The shopwoman could not go to sleep again; she sat upright and looked out of the window; then for a long time she looked at the oil lamp and the flame burning yellow near the ceiling of the carriage. Raban shut his eyes for a little while.
When he glanced up, the shopwoman was just biting into a piece of cake that was spread with brown jam. The bundle next to her was open. The traveler was smoking a cigar in silence and kept on fidgeting as though he were tapping the ash off the end of it. The other was poking about in the works of a pocket watch with the tip of a knife, so that one could hear it scraping.
With his eyes almost shut Raban still had time to see, in a blurred way, the gentleman in the traveling cap pulling at the window strap. There came a gust of cool air, and a straw hat fell from a hook. Rab
an thought he was waking up and that was why his cheeks were so refreshed, or someone was opening the door and drawing him into the room, or he was in some way mistaken about things, and, breathing deeply, he quickly fell asleep.
II
The steps of the coach were still shaking a little when Raban climbed down them. Into his face, coming out of the air of the carriage, the rain beat, and he shut his eyes. It was raining noisily on the corrugated iron roof of the station building, but out in the open country the rain fell in such a way that it sounded like the uninterrupted blowing of the wind. A barefoot boy came running up – Raban did not see from where – and breathlessly asked Raban to let him carry the suitcase, for it was raining; but Raban said: Yes, it was raining, and he would therefore go by omnibus. He did not need him, he said. Thereupon the boy pulled a face as though he thought it grander to walk in the rain and have one’s suitcase carried than to go by bus, and instantly turned around and ran away. When Raban wanted to call him, it was already too late.
There were two lighted lamps, and a station official came out of a door. Without hesitation he walked through the rain to the engine, stood there motionless with his arms folded, and waited until the engine driver leaned over his rail and talked to him. A porter was called, came, and was sent back again. At many of the windows in the train there were passengers standing, and since what they had to look at was an ordinary railway station their gaze was probably dim, the eyelids close together, as though the train were in motion. A girl came hurrying along from the road to the platform under a parasol with a flowered pattern; she set the open parasol on the ground and sat down, pushing her legs apart so that her skirt should dry better, and ran her fingertips over the tight-stretched skirt. There were only two lamps alight; her face was indistinguishable. The porter came past and complained that puddles were forming under the parasol; he held his arms in a semicircle before him in order to demonstrate the size of these puddles, and then moved his hands through the air, one after the other, like fishes sinking into deeper water, in order to make it clear that traffic was also being impeded by this parasol.