by Franz Kafka
Imagine setting an individual in place of the people: one might suppose that this individual had offered a steady stream of concessions to Josefine, and all the time with the burning desire to put an end to such concessiveness; he had conceded quite inhumanly, in the firm belief that his concessions would nevertheless find their proper limit; yes, he had conceded more than was necessary, merely to expedite matters, merely to spoil Josefine and to provoke her to ever new desires, till she one day came with this final demand; and then, thoroughly prepared, he had swiftly administered the final rejection. Well, I’m sure it’s not like that, the people have no need of such ruses, and besides their admiration for Josefine is honest and tested, and Josefine’s demand is so extravagant that any unbiased child could have predicted the outcome; and yet it is possible that such notions may play their part in the view that Josefine takes of the whole thing, and lend further bitterness to the pain already felt by the rejected woman.
But while she may indeed entertain such notions, they are not sufficient to deter her from the fray. Of late her campaign has even been intensified; while she has thus far conducted it only with words, now she is beginning to have recourse to other means, more effective as she thinks, more dangerous to herself as we see it.
Some people believe Josefine is becoming so importunate because she can feel herself growing old, her voice weakening, and it is high time for her to conduct this last fight for recognition. I don’t believe it. Josefine wouldn’t be Josefine if that were so. For her there is no growing old, and no weakening in her voice. If she makes a demand, then it is not external factors but inner logic that leads her to do so. She reaches for the highest laurel, not because it happens to be hanging a little lower at the moment, but because it is the highest; if it were in her power, she would even hang it a little higher still.
Her disregard for outward difficulties does not prevent her from resorting to the most unworthy methods. That she is right is for her beyond doubt; so how does it matter how she attains her end; especially as in this world, as she sees it, the worthy means are those that are condemned to fail. Perhaps it’s for such reasons that she has shifted the terrain for her struggle from singing to another, less crucial ground for her. Her cabal has circulated pronouncements of hers, according to which she feels herself perfectly able to sing in such a way that it would be a pleasure for people of every stratum, including her most implacable opponents — pleasure not in the sense of the people, who claim anyway always to have taken pleasure in Josefine’s singing, but pleasure as defined by Josefine’s own exalted standards. But, she adds, as she can’t fake the heights and wouldn’t flatter the depths, it would just have to remain the way it was. Very different from her battle to be freed of the obligation to work — in a sense another fight for her singing — where she is working not directly with the precious medium of song, and so any means to which she resorts will do as far as she is concerned.
Thus, for instance, a rumour was put about that Josefine would curtail her coloratura passages, if she were not given her way. I don’t know anything about coloratura, I have never noticed any coloratura in her singing. But now Josefine wants to curtail her coloratura passages, not cut them entirely, but shorten them. Apparently she has already acted on this threat, though to my ears there was never any difference from previous renditions. The people listened as ever, without saying anything about the coloratura passages, and their response to Josefine’s demand remained similarly unchanged. Incidentally, there is something at times very delicate in Josefine’s frame and indisputably also in her thinking. So, following each performance, as if her decision regarding the coloratura passages struck her as being too tough on the people or too abruptly taken, she has announced she would soon sing them again in their entirety. But after the next concert, she thought again, and it really was the end for the great coloratura passages, and they would not be taken up in her repertoire until a decision was passed in her favour. Well, the people disregard all these announcements and decisions and revised decisions, just like an adult disregards the chatter of a child, in a spirit of mingled benevolence and unconcern.
However, Josefine does not give up. Lately, for instance, she claimed she had hurt her foot while working, and this injury made it hard for her to sing while standing up; but as she can only sing while standing, she would now have to shorten her programme. In spite of the way she limped and allowed herself to be supported by her retinue, no one believes she has been hurt. Even admitting the particular frailty of her body, we remain a working people, and Josefine is one of us; if we wanted to limp for every scratch, our whole people would be limping all the time. But let her allow herself to be led onstage like a lame woman, let her show herself more often than not in such a pitiable condition, the people listen to her song gratefully and ravished as ever, and don’t make much fuss over the shortening of the programme.
Since she can’t forever be limping, she comes up with something else, tiredness, dejection, a fit of weakness. Our musical evenings now come with a little drama on top. We see Josefine’s retinue standing behind her, begging and beseeching her to sing. She would like to, but she can’t. She is comforted, flattered, almost carried bodily to the place already selected where she is to sing. Finally, with inscrutable tears, she gives in, but just as she is about to start singing, obviously with the last ounce of her determination, feebly, her arms not spread wide as usual but hanging down lifelessly at her sides, giving one the sense that they are perhaps a little short – just as she is on the point of beginning, well, she can’t, an involuntary jerk of the head shows it, and she collapses in a heap before our eyes. Then she gets a grip on herself, and sings, I believe, not very differently from usual; perhaps if one has an ear for the most delicate nuances, one might be able to detect a marginal increase of emotion, but that can only be to the good. And finally she’s even less tired than she was at the outset, she walks off with a firm stride, as far as her whisking and scurrying can be called that, refuses every offer of help from her escort, and with a cold eye surveys the respectfully retreating crowd.
That’s how it was until recently, but the newest development is that, at a time when she was expected to sing, she didn’t show. It wasn’t only her escort who was looking for her, many others set themselves to look, but in vain; Josefine has vanished, she doesn’t want to sing, she doesn’t even want to be asked to sing, this time she has completely abandoned us.
Strange how she contrives to miscalculate, this clever woman, such a miscalculation that one would think she wasn’t calculating at all, but was merely being driven on by her destiny, which in a world like ours can be a very sad one. She herself renounces her song, she herself destroys the power she has acquired over our hearts. One wonders how she could have acquired such power, seeing how little she understands these hearts. She hides herself away and doesn’t sing, but the people, calm, with no visible disappointment, masterly, a composed mass, which, even when things look to be the opposite, can only ever give presents, never accept them, not even from Josefine, the people go their own way.
But with Josefine things must now go downhill. Soon the time will come when her last whistle sounds and falls silent. She is a little episode in the never-ending story of our people, and the people will get over her loss. It won’t be easy for us; how will our assemblies be possible in complete silence? Then again, were they not silent, even with Josefine there? Was her actual whistling noticeably louder and livelier than in our memory of it? Was it ever more than a memory, even while she was alive? Was it not rather the people in their wisdom valuing Josefine’s song so highly, because in such a way, it was impossible for them ever to lose it?
Perhaps therefore we shall not even miss her, but Josefine, released from the earthly torment that in her opinion is the lot of the chosen ones, will happily lose herself in the numberless crowds of the heroes of our people, before long — as we don’t keep any history — to be accorded the heightened relief of being, like all of her brothers, f
orgotten.
Appendix
These pieces were published in journals (see Note on the Texts) and not collected in Kafka’s lifetime.
Aeroplanes in Brescia
We have arrived. In front of the aerodrome there is a large open space with dubious looking wooden huts on which we would have expected other names than: Garage, Grand International Buffet, and so forth. Vast beggars grown fat on their little go-carts hold their arms out in our way, we are tempted, in our haste, to hurdle them. We overtake a great many people, and are in turn overtaken by a great many others. We look up into the air, which after all is the critical element here. Thank God, no one seems to be flying yet! We don’t move aside for anyone, but still we aren’t run over. Hopping along behind the thousand conveyances and in among them and coming the other way are the Italian cavalry. No chance of an accident, then — or of good order either.
Once in Brescia, in the late evening, we are in a hurry to get to a certain street, of which our sense is that it is quite some distance away. A cab-driver demands three lire, our offer is two. The cab-driver loses interest in taking us, but out of the kindness of his heart describes the quite horrifying remoteness of the street. We begin to feel ashamed of our low offer. Very well, three lire it is. We climb up, three turns of the cab down short streets, and we’re there. Otto, more energetic than we two others, declares he has no intention of paying three lire for the drive, which took about a minute. One lire was more than enough. Here, one lira. Night has fallen, the street is deserted, the coachman powerfully built. He is immediately as heated as if we had been arguing for an hour: What? — We were cheating him. — Who did we think we were. — Three lire had been the fare agreed on, three lire would have to be paid, if we didn’t hand over three lire we would be in for a surprise. Otto: ‘The list of fares, or a nightwatchman!’ List of fares? There was no list of fares. — It was a night drive, we had agreed on a price, but if we gave him two lire, he would let us go. Otto, by now alarmingly obdurate: ‘The list of fares or the nightwatchman!’ Some more shouting and hunting around, finally a list of fares is produced, on which we can make out nothing but dirt. We therefore agree on one lira fifty, and the cab-driver carries on down the alleyway, which is too narrow for him to turn in, not just furious, but also as it appears to me, sorrowful. Our comportment has not been correct; one may not behave in such a way when in Italy, elsewhere perhaps, but not here. But who, pressed as we are, takes the time to consider such a question! There is nothing to lament here, only one cannot become an Italian just for this week of aerial spectacles.
But we don’t want remorse to spoil our pleasure in the airfield, that would only produce further remorse, and we proceed to the aerodrome with a skip in our step, in that enthusiasm of all our limbs that suddenly comes over us each in turn, under this sun.
We pass the hangars, standing there with their curtains drawn, like the closed theatres of wandering players. On their pediments we read the names of the aviators whose machines they house, and above them the flags of their respective homelands. We read the names Cobianchi, Cagno, Calderara, Rougier, Curtiss, Moncher (a Tyrolean man from Trento flying under Italian colours, he trusts them, evidently, better than he trusts ours), Anzani, Roman Aviators’ Club. What about Blériot? we ask. Blériot, of whom we were all the time thinking, where is Blériot?
In the little fenced-in area in front of his hangar we come upon Rougier, a little man with a strikingly big nose, running back and forth in his shirtsleeves. He is a picture of extreme, if slightly obscure, activity, he throws out his arms with expansive hand gestures, pats himself all over as he walks, dispatches his mechanics behind the curtain of the hangar, calls them back, goes in himself, driving them all before him, while off to one side his wife, in a tightly fitting white dress, a small black hat apparently glued down into her hair, her legs moderately parted in her short skirt, stares into the empty hot air, a businesswoman with all the corresponding anxieties crowding her small head.
Curtiss sits all alone in front of the next hangar. We can see his plane through the slightly parted curtains; it’s bigger than people have said. As we go by, Curtiss is holding a copy of the New York Herald, and reading a line at the top of the page; half an hour later we come by again, he’s already halfway down the page; another half an hour and he’s finished the page, and on to the next one. Clearly, he won’t be flying today.
We turn and gaze over the wide expanse of the airfield. It’s so big that everything on it looks abandoned: the winning-post near us, the signal mast in the distance, the starting catapult somewhere off to the right, a committee car curving across the field flying a taut yellow flag, stopping in a cloud of its own dust, driving on.
An artificial wasteland has been created here in an almost tropical region, and the crème de la crème of the Italian aristocracy, splendid ladies from Paris and many thousands of others have assembled here to squint into this sunny wasteland for hour upon hour. None of the things that otherwise provide variety on sports grounds is to be found here. Not the pretty obstacles of racetracks, the white lines of tennis courts, the fresh turf of football pitches, not the cambered tarmac of auto racetracks and velodromes. Only two or three times in the course of an afternoon a colourful cavalry column trots across the plain. The feet of the horses are invisible for dust, the even light of the sun is unchanged until nearly 5 o’clock. And — lest there be any disturbance to the concentration on this plain — there is no music either, only the whistling of the crowds in the cheap standing area seeks to address the requirements of the ear and of impatience. Admittedly, from the vantage point of the expensive seats behind us, those masses may similarly disappear into the featureless void ahead of them.
At one point on the wooden balustrade, there are a lot of people crowded together. ‘How tiny!’ a French group seems to sigh. What’s going on? We press a little nearer. And there on the field, very near us, is a small yellow aeroplane, just being made ready to fly. And now too we can make out Blériot’s hangar, and beside it that of his pupil Leblanc; they are both pitched on the airfield itself. Leaning against one of the two wings of his plane, instantly identifiable, is Blériot, watching closely, his shoulders hunched up around his ears, as his mechanics work on his engine.
An assistant grips one end of the propeller to set it going, he tugs at it, and it gives a start, we hear something like the snore of a fat man; but the propeller stops again. Another attempt, another ten attempts, sometimes the propeller seizes up immediately, sometimes it idles for a few turns. Something the matter with the motor. A further round of tinkering begins, the spectators seem more exhausted than the participants. The engine is oiled from every angle; hidden screws are loosened and tightened; a man runs to the hangar, picks up a spare part; that doesn’t fit; he runs back again, and squatting on the floor of the hangar he clamps it between his knees and hits it with a hammer. Blériot changes places with one of his mechanics, the mechanic with Leblanc. Now one man has a go at the propeller, now another. But the engine is implacable, like a pupil being helped all the time, the whole class is whispering the answers to him, but no, he can’t do it, he keeps getting stuck, he keeps getting stuck at the same place, he fails. For a little while Blériot sits quietly in his seat; his six colleagues stand round him motionless; all of them seem to be dreaming.
The spectators get a chance to stretch their legs and look around. Young Madame Blériot comes by, a maternal looking face, two children trailing after her. If her husband cannot fly she is unhappy, and if he can she is frightened; moreover, her beautiful dress is a little heavy for these temperatures.
Once again the propeller is spun round, perhaps better than before, perhaps not; the engine starts up noisily, like a completely different engine; four men hold the plane back, and in the midst of so much torpor the air moved by the propeller pulses through their long overalls. You can’t make out a single word, the noise of the propeller is in command here, eight hands let go of the machine which runs along the earth
for a long time, like a clumsy man on a dance floor.
Many such attempts are made, and they all end in disappointment. Each one brings the spectators to their feet or up on to the straw-bottomed chairs on which they keep their balance with extended arms, simultaneously expressing hope, fear and delight. In the pauses, the representatives of Italian high society drift along the stands. People greet one another, bow, recognize one another, there are embraces, people go up and down the stairs to and from the stands. The Principessa Laetitia Savoia Bonaparte is pointed out, the Principessa Borghese, an elderly lady whose countenance is the colour of muscat grapes, the Contessa Morosini. Marcello Borghese hovers around all the ladies and none of them, his face makes sense at a distance, but from closer to his cheeks seem to cover the corners of his mouth in an eccentric manner. Gabriele d’Annunzio, small and feeble, appears to be dancing in front of the Conte Oldofredi, one of the leading lights of the committee. Up on the tribune it is Puccini’s distinct face that peers down over the railing, with a nose that looks like a drinker’s nose.
But one only sees these persons if one looks for them, otherwise one sees, eclipsing all else, the elongated ladies of the day. These seem to prefer walking to sitting, their clothes don’t do well to sit down in. All the faces, asiatically veiled, are in a light twilight. The rather loose-fitting tops give the whole figure something a little indeterminate, when viewed from behind; a disquieting uncertainty when such ladies are indeterminate! The bodice is low, almost too low to reach, the waist is broader than usual, because everything is trim; these ladies, one would have said, require to be embraced lower down.
So far, only Leblanc’s plane has been in evidence. Now here comes the plane in which Blériot flew across the Channel; no one says it, all know it. A long pause, and Blériot has taken to the air, we see his straight upper body protruding above the wings, his legs are hanging about among the undercarriage somewhere. The sun has moved lower, and under the canopy of the stands it lights the floating wings. All look up at him adoringly, no heart has room for another. He flies a small circuit, and then is almost vertically over our heads. And everyone watches, craning their necks, as the monoplane wobbles, is controlled again by Blériot, and climbs higher. What is going on? Maybe twenty metres above the ground, there is a man in a wooden cage, fighting off an invisible danger, freely engaged with. And we stand down below, penned in and inessential, and watch him.