by Franz Kafka
Could I still endure any other air than prison air? That is the great question, or rather it would be if I still had any prospect of release.
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
An Ancient Sword
I HAD AGREED to go picknicking on Sunday with two friends, but quite unexpectedly slept past the hour when we were to meet. My friends, who knew how punctual I ordinarily am, were surprised, came to the house where I lived, waited outside awhile, then came upstairs and knocked on my door. I was very startled, jumped out of bed, and thought only of getting ready as soon as I could. When I emerged fully dressed from my room, my friends fell back in manifest alarm. ‘What’s that behind your head?’ they cried. Since my awakening I had felt something preventing me from bending back my head, and I now groped for it with my hand. My friends, who had grown somewhat calmer, had just shouted ‘Be careful, don’t hurt yourself!’ when my hand closed behind my head on the hilt of a sword. My friends came closer, examined me, led me back to the mirror in my room, and stripped me to the waist. A large, ancient knight’s sword with a cross-shaped handle was buried to the hilt in my back, but the blade had been driven with such incredible precision between my skin and flesh that it had caused no injury. Nor was there a wound at the spot on my neck where the sword had penetrated; my friends assured me that there was an opening large enough to admit the blade, but dry and showing no trace of blood. And when my friends now stood on chairs and slowly, inch by inch, drew out the sword, I did not bleed, and the opening on my neck closed until no mark was left save a scarcely discernible slit. ‘Here is your sword,’ laughed my friends, and gave it to me. I hefted it in my two hands; it was a splendid weapon, Crusaders might have used it.
Who tolerates this gadding about of ancient knights in dreams, irresponsibly brandishing their swords, stabbing innocent sleepers who are saved from serious injury only because the weapons in all likelihood glance off living bodies, and also because there are faithful friends knocking at the door, prepared to come to their assistance?
Translated by Martin Greenberg and Hannah Arendt
New Lamps
YESTERDAY I was in the directors’ offices for the first time. Our night shift has chosen me as their spokesman, and since the construction and fueling of our lamps is inadequate I was to go along there and press for these defects to be remedied. The appropriate office was pointed out to me; I knocked and went in. A delicate young man, very pale, smiled at me from behind his large desk. He nodded his head a great deal, a great deal too much. I did not know whether I ought to sit down; although there was a chair available I thought perhaps I had better not sit down straightaway on my first visit, and so I told my story standing. But obviously I caused the young man some trouble by this very modesty of mine, for he was obliged to turn his face round and up at me, unless he was prepared to turn his chair round, and that he wasn’t prepared to do. On the other hand, in spite of all his willingness, he could not screw his neck round quite far enough, and so with it halfway round he gazed up askew at the ceiling during my story, and I could not help doing the same. When I had finished he got up slowly, patted me on the back, said: ‘Well, well – well, well,’ and pushed me into the adjoining room, where a gentleman with a great wild growth of beard had evidently been waiting for us, for on his desk there was no trace of any sort of work to be seen, on the contrary, an open glass door led out into a little garden full of flowers and shrubs. A short briefing, consisting of a few words whispered to him by the young man, sufficed for the gentleman to grasp our manifold complaints. He stood up at once and said: ‘Well now, my good –,’ here he paused; I thought he wanted to know my name and so I was just opening my mouth to introduce myself again when he caught me up short: ‘Yes, yes, all right, all right, I know all about you – well now, your request, or that of your workmates and yourself, is certainly justifiable, I myself and the other gentlemen on the board of directors are certainly the last not to recognize that. Believe me, the welfare of our men is something that we have more at heart than the welfare of the concern. And why not? The concern can always be built up all over again, it only costs money, hang the money, but if a human being is destroyed, there you have it, a human being is destroyed and we’re left with the widow, the children. Ah dear me, yes! And so that is why every suggestion for the introduction of new safeguards, new reliefs, new comforts and luxuries, is most welcome to us. Anyone who comes along with such a suggestion is the man for us. So you just leave your proposals here with us, we shall examine them closely, and if it should turn out that any kind of brilliant little novelty can be appended, we shall certainly not suppress it, and as soon as everything is finished you men will get the new lamps. But tell this to your workmates below: we will not rest here until we have turned your shaft into a drawing-room, and we’ll see to it that you meet your end down there in patent-leather shoes, or not at all. And so a very good day to you!’
Translated by Malcolm Pasley
My Neighbor
MY BUSINESS rests entirely on my own shoulders. Two girl clerks with typewriters and ledgers in the anteroom, my own room with writing desk, safe, consulting table, easy chair, and telephone: such is my entire working apparatus. So simple to control, so easy to direct. I’m quite young, and lots of business comes my way. I don’t complain, I don’t complain.
At the beginning of the year a young man snapped up the empty premises next to mine, which very foolishly I had hesitated to rent until it was too late. They also consist of a room and an anteroom, with a kitchen, however, thrown in – the room and anteroom, I would certainly have found some use for, my two girl clerks feel somewhat overdriven as it is – but what use would a kitchen have been to me? This petty consideration was solely responsible for my allowing the premises to be snatched from under my nose. Now that young man sits there. Harras, his name is. What he actually does there I have no idea. On the door is a sign: ‘Harras Bureau.’ I have made inquiries and I am told it is a business similar to mine. One can’t exactly warn people against extending the fellow credit, for after all he is a young and pushing man who probably has a future; yet one can’t go so far as to advise it, for by all appearances he has no assets yet. The usual thing said by people who don’t know.
Sometimes I meet Harras on the stairs; he seems always to be in an extraordinary hurry, for he literally shoots past me. I have never got a good look at him yet, for his office key is always in his hand when he passes me. In a trice he has the door open. Like the tail of a rat he has slipped through and I’m left standing again before the sign ‘Harras Bureau,’ which I have read already far oftener than it deserves.
The wretchedly thin walls betray the honorable and capable man, but shield the dishonest. My telephone is fixed to the wall that separates me from my neighbor. But I single that out merely as a particularly ironical circumstance. For even if it hung on the opposite wall, everything could be heard in the next room. I have accustomed myself to refrain from naming the names of my customers when speaking on the telephone to them. But of course it does not need much skill to guess the names from characteristic but unavoidable turns of the conversation. Sometimes I absolutely dance with apprehension around the telephone, the receiver at my ear, and yet can’t help divulging secrets.
Because of all this my business decisions have naturally become unsure, my voice nervous. What is Harras doing while I am telephoning? If I wanted to exaggerate – and one must often do that so as to make things clear in one’s mind – I might assert that Harras does not require a telephone, he uses mine, he pushes his sofa against the wall and listens; while I at the other side must fly to the telephone, listen to all the requests of my customers, come to difficult and grave decisions, carry out long calculations – but worst of all, during all this time, involuntarily give Harras valuable information through the wall.
Perhaps he doesn’t wait even for the end of the conversation, but gets up at the point where the matter has become clear to him, flies through the town with his usua
l haste, and, before I have hung up the receiver, is already at his goal working against me.
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
A Crossbreed [A Sport]
I HAVE a curious animal, half kitten, half lamb. It is a legacy from my father. But it only developed in my time; formerly it was far more lamb than kitten. Now it is both in about equal parts. From the cat it takes its head and claws, from the lamb its size and shape; from both its eyes, which are wild and flickering, its hair, which is soft, lying close to its body, its movements, which partake both of skipping and slinking. Lying on the window sill in the sun it curls up in a ball and purrs; out in the meadow it rushes about like mad and is scarcely to be caught. It flees from cats and makes to attack lambs. On moonlight nights its favorite promenade is along the eaves. It cannot mew and it loathes rats. Beside the hen coop it can lie for hours in ambush, but it has never yet seized an opportunity for murder.
I feed it on milk; that seems to suit it best. In long draughts it sucks the milk in through its fanglike teeth. Naturally it is a great source of entertainment for children. Sunday morning is the visiting hour. I sit with the little beast on my knees, and the children of the whole neighborhood stand around me.
Then the strangest questions are asked, which no human being could answer: Why there is only one such animal, why I rather than anybody else should own it, whether there was ever an animal like it before and what would happen if it died, whether it feels lonely, why it has no children, what it is called, etc.
I never trouble to answer, but confine myself without further explanation to exhibiting my possession. Sometimes the children bring cats with them; once they actually brought two lambs. But against all their hopes there was no scene of recognition. The animals gazed calmly at each other with their animal eyes, and obviously accepted their reciprocal existence as a divine fact.
Sitting on my knees, the beast knows neither fear nor lust of pursuit. Pressed against me it is happiest. It remains faithful to the family that brought it up. In that there is certainly no extraordinary mark of fidelity, but merely the true instinct of an animal which, though it has countless step-relations in the world, has perhaps not a single blood relation, and to which consequently the protection it has found with us is sacred.
Sometimes I cannot help laughing when it sniffs around me and winds itself between my legs and simply will not be parted from me. Not content with being lamb and cat, it almost insists on being a dog as well. Once when, as may happen to anyone, I could see no way out of my business problems and all that they involved, and was ready to let everything go, and in this mood was lying in my rocking chair in my room, the beast on my knees, I happened to glance down and saw tears dropping from its huge whiskers. Were they mine, or were they the animal’s? Had this cat, along with the soul of a lamb, the ambitions of a human being? I did not inherit much from my father, but this legacy is quite remarkable.
It has the restlessness of both beasts, that of the cat and that of the lamb, diverse as they are. For that reason its skin feels too tight for it. Sometimes it jumps up on the armchair beside me, plants its front legs on my shoulder, and put its muzzle to my ear. It is as if it were saying something to me, and as a matter of fact it turns its head afterwards and gazes in my face to see the impression its communication has made. And to oblige it I behave as if I had understood, and nod. Then it jumps to the floor and dances about with joy.
Perhaps the knife of the butcher would be a release for this animal; but as it is a legacy I must deny it that. So it must wait until the breath voluntarily leaves its body, even though it sometimes gazes at me with a look of human understanding, challenging me to do the thing of which both of us are thinking.
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
A Splendid Beast
I LAY on the ground by a wall, writhing in pain, trying to burrow into the damp earth. The huntsman stood beside me and lightly pressed one foot into the small of my back. ‘A splendid beast,’ he said to the beater, who was cutting open my collar and coat in order to feel my flesh. Already tired of me and eager for fresh action, the hounds were running senselessly against the wall. The coach came, and, bound hand and foot, I was flung in beside the gentleman, over the back seat, so that my head and arms hung down outside the carriage. The journey passed swiftly and smoothly; perishing of thirst, with open mouth, I breathed in the high-whirling dust, and now and then felt the gentleman’s delighted touch on my calves.
Translated by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser
The Watchman
I RAN past the first watchman. Then I was horrified, ran back again and said to the watchman: ‘I ran through here while you were looking the other way.’ The watchman gazed ahead of him and said nothing. ‘I suppose I really oughtn’t to have done it,’ I said. The watchman still said nothing. ‘Does your silence indicate permission to pass?’
Translated by Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser
A Common Confusion
A COMMON EXPERIENCE, resulting in a common confusion. A. has to transact important business with B. in H. He goes to H. for a preliminary interview, accomplishes the journey there in ten minutes, and the journey back in the same time, and on returning boasts to his family of his expedition. Next day he goes again to H., this time to settle his business finally. As that by all appearances will require several hours, A. leaves very early in the morning. But although all the surrounding circumstances, at least in A.’s estimation, are exactly the same as the day before, this time it takes him ten hours to reach H. When he arrives there quite exhausted in the evening he is informed that B., annoyed at his absence, had left half an hour before to go to A.’s village, and that they must have passed each other on the road. A. is advised to wait. But in his anxiety about his business he sets off at once and hurries home.
This time he covers the distance, without paying any particular attention to the fact, practically in an instant. At home he learns that B. had arrived quite early, immediately after A.’s departure, indeed that he had met A. on the threshold and reminded him of his business; but A. had replied that he had no time to spare, he must go at once.
In spite of this incomprehensible behavior of A., however, B. had stayed on to wait for A.’s return. It is true, he had asked several times whether A. was not back yet, but he was still sitting up in A.’s room. Overjoyed at the opportunity of seeing B. at once and explaining everything to him, A. rushes upstairs. He is almost at the top, when he stumbles, twists a sinew, and almost fainting with the pain, incapable even of uttering a cry, only able to moan faintly in the darkness, he hears B. – impossible to tell whether at a great distance or quite near him – stamping down the stairs in a violent rage and vanishing for good.
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
The Truth About Sancho Panza
WITHOUT making any boast of it Sancho Panza succeeded in the course of years, by feeding him a great number of romances of chivalry and adventure in the evening and night hours, in so diverting from himself his demon, whom he later called Don Quixote, that this demon thereupon set out, uninhibited, on the maddest exploits, which, however, for the lack of a preordained object, which should have been Sancho Panza himself, harmed nobody. A free man, Sancho Panza philosophically followed Don Quixote on his crusades, perhaps out of a sense of responsibility, and had of them a great and edifying entertainment to the end of his days.
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
The Silence of the Sirens
PROOF that inadequate, even childish measures may serve to rescue one from peril:
To protect himself from the Sirens Ulysses stopped his ears with wax and had himself bound to the mast of his ship. Naturally any and every traveler before him could have done the same, except those whom the Sirens allured even from a great distance; but it was known to all the world that such things were of no help whatever. The song of the Sirens could pierce through everything, and the longing of those they seduced would have broken far stronger bonds than
chains and masts. But Ulysses did not think of that, although he had probably heard of it. He trusted absolutely to his handful of wax and his fathom of chain, and in innocent elation over his little stratagem sailed out to meet the Sirens.
Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing has never happened, still it is conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never. Against the feeling of having triumphed over them by one’s own strength, and the consequent exaltation that bears down everything before it, no earthly powers can resist.
And when Ulysses approached them the potent songstresses actually did not sing, whether because they thought that this enemy could be vanquished only by their silence, or because the look of bliss on the face of Ulysses, who was thinking of nothing but his wax and his chains, made them forget their singing.
But Ulysses, if one may so express it, did not hear their silence; he thought they were singing and that he alone did not hear them. For a fleeting moment he saw their throats rising and falling, their breasts lifting, their eyes filled with tears, their lips half-parted, but believed that these were accompaniments to the airs which died unheard around him. Soon, however, all this faded from his sight as he fixed his gaze on the distance, the Sirens literally vanished before his resolution, and at the very moment when they were nearest to him he knew of them no longer.