by Franz Kafka
At that very moment, however, the Captain waved Schubal away, and at once—seeing that his case seemed to be temporarily postponed—he stepped aside and was joined by the attendant, with whom he began a whispered conversation involving many side-glances at the stoker and Karl, as well as all sorts of vigorous gestures. It was as if Schubal were rehearsing his next fine speech.
“Didn’t you want to ask this youngster something, Mr. Jacob?” the Captain said in the general silence to the gentleman with the bamboo cane.
“Indeed I did,” replied the other, with a slight bow in acknowledgment of the Captain’s courtesy. And he asked Karl again, “What is your name?”
Karl, who thought that his main business would be best served by satisfying his stubborn questioner as quickly as possible, replied briefly, without introducing himself by means of his passport, which he would have had to tug out of his pocket: “Karl Rossmann.”
“Well!” said the gentleman who had been addressed as Jacob, taking a step backward, with an almost incredulous smile on his face. Likewise, the Captain, the Head Purser, the ship’s officer, even the attendant, all displayed an excessive astonishment on hearing Karl’s name. Only the harbor officials and Schubal remained indifferent.
“Well!” repeated Mr. Jacob, walking a little stiffly up to Karl, “then I’m your Uncle Jacob and you’re my own dear nephew. I suspected it all the time!” he said to the Captain before embracing and kissing Karl, who silently submitted to everything.
“And what may your name be?” asked Karl when he felt himself released again, very courteously, but quite coolly, trying hard to estimate the consequences which this new development might have for the stoker. At the moment, there was nothing to indicate that Schubal could extract any advantage from it.
“Try to understand your good fortune, young man!” said the Captain, who thought that Mr. Jacob was wounded in his dignity by Karl’s question, for he had retired to the window, obviously to conceal from the others the agitation on his face, which he also kept dabbing with a handkerchief. “It is Senator Edward Jacob who has just revealed himself to be your uncle. You now have a brilliant career before you, against all your previous expectations, I dare say. Try to realize this, as far as you can in the first shock of the moment, and pull yourself together!”
“I certainly have an Uncle Jacob in America,” said Karl, turning to the Captain, “but if I understood correctly, Jacob is the family name of this gentleman.”
“That is so,” said the Captain, expectantly.
“Well, my Uncle Jacob, my mother’s brother, had Jacob for a Christian name, but his family name must of course be the same as my mother’s, and her maiden name was Bendelmayer.”
“Gentlemen!” cried the Senator, coming forward in response to Karl’s explanation, quite cheerful now after his recuperative retreat to the window. Everyone except the harbor officials burst into laughter, some as if really touched, others for no visible reason.
“But what I said wasn’t so ridiculous as all that,” thought Karl.
“Gentlemen,” repeated the Senator, “against my will and against yours you are involved in a little family scene, and so I can’t avoid giving you an explanation, because as far as I know no one but the Captain here”—this reference was followed by a reciprocal bow—“is fully informed of the circumstances.”
“I really have to pay attention to every word now,” Karl told himself, and glancing over his shoulder he was happy to see that life had begun to return to the figure of the stoker.
“During the many years of my sojourn in America—though sojourn is hardly the right word to use for an American citizen, and I am an American citizen with all my heart—for all these many years, then, I have lived completely cut off from my relatives in Europe, for reasons which in the first place do not concern us here, and in the second, would really cause me too much pain to relate. I actually dread the moment when I may be forced to explain them to my dear nephew, for some frank criticism of his parents and their circle will be unavoidable, I’m afraid.”
“It’s my uncle, no doubt about it,” Karl told himself, listening eagerly, “he must have changed his name.”
“Now, my dear nephew was simply thrown out—we may as well call a spade a spade—was simply thrown out by his parents, just as you throw a cat out of the house when it annoys you. I have no intention of glossing over what my nephew did to merit that punishment, yet his transgression was of a kind that merely needs to be mentioned to find indulgence.”
“That’s not too bad,” thought Karl, “but I hope he won’t tell the whole story. Anyhow, he can’t know much about it. Who would tell him?”
“For he was,” Uncle Jacob went on, bracing himself with the bamboo cane and making little bouncing motions that helped to make the situation a good deal less solemn than it would otherwise have been, “for he was seduced by a servant, Johanna Brummer, a person of about thirty-five. It is far from my wish to offend my nephew by using the word ‘seduced,’ but it is difficult to find another equally suitable word.”
Karl, who had moved quite close to his uncle, turned around to read in the gentlemen’s faces the impression the story had made. None of them laughed, all were listening patiently and seriously. After all, one doesn’t laugh at the nephew of a Senator at the first opportunity. It was rather the stoker who now smiled at Karl, though very faintly, but that was, in the first place, a pleasure to see, as a sign of his reviving spirits, and excusable in the second place, since in the stoker’s bunk Karl had tried to make an impenetrable mystery of the very story that was now being made so public.
“Now this Brummer woman,” Uncle Jacob went on, “had a child by my nephew, a healthy boy who was baptized Jacob, evidently in honor of my unworthy self, since my nephew’s doubtless quite casual references to me must nevertheless have made a deep impression on the woman. Fortunately, let me add. For the boy’s parents, to avoid paying alimony or being personally involved in any further scandal—I must point out that I know nothing about the laws of their state nor anything about their personal circumstances—to avoid the scandal, then, and the payment of alimony, they packed off their son, my dear nephew, to America, shamefully unprovided-for, as you can see, and the poor lad, despite the signs and wonders which still happen in America if nowhere else, would have come to a wretched end in some back alley of New York, being thrown entirely on his own resources, if this servant girl hadn’t written a letter to me, which after long delays reached me the day before yesterday, giving me the whole story, along with a description of my nephew and, very wisely, the name of the ship as well. If I were setting out to entertain you, gentlemen, I could read a few passages to you from this letter”—he pulled out and flourished before them two huge, closely written sheets of letter paper. “You would certainly be impressed, for the letter is written with somewhat simple but well-intended cunning and with much loving concern for the father of the child. But I have no intention either of entertaining you for longer than my explanation needs, or of wounding at the very start the perhaps still sensitive feelings of my nephew, who, if he likes, can read the letter for his own instruction in the seclusion of the room already waiting for him.”
But Karl had no feelings for that girl. Hemmed in by an ever-receding past, she sat in her kitchen beside the counter, resting her elbows on top of it. She looked at him whenever he came to the kitchen to get a glass of water for his father or do some errand for his mother. Sometimes, awkwardly sitting sideways at the counter, she would write a letter, drawing her inspiration from Karl’s face. Sometimes she would sit with one hand over her eyes, impervious to anything that was said to her. Sometimes she would kneel in her tiny room next to the kitchen and pray to a wooden crucifix; then Karl would feel shy if he passed by and caught a glimpse of her through the crack of the slightly open door. Sometimes she would race around the kitchen and jump back, laughing like a witch, if Karl got in her way. Sometimes she would shut the kitchen door after Karl entered and hold it shu
t until he had to beg to be let out. Sometimes she would bring him things he did not even want and press them silently into his hand. And once she called him “Karl” and led him, dumbfounded at this unusual familiarity, into her tiny room, sighing and grimacing, and locked the door. Then she flung her arms around his neck, almost choking him, and while urging him to take off her clothes, she was actually taking off his and laid him on her bed, as if she would never give him up to anyone else and would caress and care for him to the end of time. “Oh Karl, my Karl!” she cried; it was as if her eyes were devouring him, while his eyes saw nothing at all and he felt uncomfortable in all the warm bedclothes which she seemed to have piled up for him alone. Then she lay down by him and wanted some secrets from him, but he could tell her none, and she got angry, either in jest or in earnest, shook him, listened to his heart, offered her breast that he might listen to hers in turn, but could not get him to do it, pressed her naked belly against his body, felt with her hand between his legs, so disgustingly that his head and neck started up from the pillows, then thrust her body several times against him—it felt as if she were a part of himself, and for that reason perhaps he was seized by a terrible feeling of need. With tears running down his cheeks he reached his own bed at last, after many entreaties from her to come again. That was all that had happened, and yet his uncle had managed to make a big issue out of it. And so the cook had also been thinking about him and had informed his uncle of his arrival. That had been very good of her and some day he would repay her for it, if he could.
“And now,” cried the Senator, “I want you to tell me openly whether I am your uncle or not?”
“You are my uncle,” said Karl, kissing his hand and receiving a kiss on the brow. “I’m very glad to have found you, but you’re mistaken if you think my father and mother never speak kindly of you. And besides that, you’ve got some points quite wrong in your speech; what I mean to say is that it didn’t all happen like that in reality. But you can’t really be expected to understand these things at such a distance, and I also think it won’t do any great harm if these gentlemen are somewhat incorrectly informed about the details of something which really can’t be of much interest to them.”
“Well spoken,” said the Senator, leading Karl up to the Captain, who was clearly sympathetic, and asking, “Haven’t I got a splendid nephew?”
“I am delighted,” said the Captain, making the sort of bow which only those trained in the military can carry off, “to have met your nephew, Senator. My ship is honored to have provided the setting for such a reunion. Undoubtedly, the voyage in steerage must have been very unpleasant, but how are we to know who might be traveling with us down below? We do everything possible to make conditions tolerable, far more, for instance, than the American lines do, but to turn such a passage into a pleasure cruise is more than we’ve been able to manage yet.”
“It did me no harm,” said Karl.
“It did him no harm!” repeated the Senator, laughing loudly.
“Except that I’m afraid I’ve lost my …” and with that he remembered all that had happened and all that remained to be done, and he looked around him and saw the others still in their same places, silent with respect and surprise, their eyes fixed upon him. Only the harbor officials, so far as one could tell from their stern and self-satisfied faces, betrayed some regret at having come at such an unpropitious time, and the pocket watch they had laid on the table before them was probably more important to them than everything that had happened or might still happen there in that room.
The first to express his sympathy, after the Captain, was curiously enough the stoker. “I congratulate you heartily,” he said, and shook Karl’s hand in a way that was also meant to express something like gratitude. Yet when he turned to the Senator with the same words the Senator drew back, as if the stoker were exceeding his rights; and the stoker immediately desisted.
But the others now saw what was expected of them and at once pressed in a confused throng around Karl and the Senator. And so it happened that Karl even received Schubal’s congratulations, accepted them and thanked him for them. The last to advance in the ensuing lull were the harbor officials who spoke a few words in English, which made a comical impression.
The Senator was now perfectly in the mood to extract the last ounce of enjoyment from the situation by refreshing his own and the others’ minds with some less important details, and this was not merely tolerated but of course welcomed with interest by everyone. So he told them that he had entered in his notebook, for quick consultation should the occasion arise, his nephew’s most distinctive physical features as enumerated by the cook in her letter. During the stoker’s insufferable rantings, he had pulled out the notebook simply to distract himself, and had begun for his own amusement to compare the cook’s descriptions, which were naturally not those of a professional detective, with Karl’s appearance. “And that’s how to find a nephew!” he concluded proudly, as if he wanted to be congratulated all over again.
“What will happen to the stoker now?” asked Karl, ignoring his uncle’s last remarks. In his new circumstances he thought he was entitled to say whatever came into his mind.
“The stoker will get what he deserves,” said the Senator, “and what the Captain considers to be right. I think we have had enough, more than enough of the stoker, a view in which every gentleman here will certainly concur.”
“But that’s not the point in a question of justice,” said Karl. He was standing between his uncle and the Captain, and, perhaps influenced by his position, thought that he was holding the balance between them.
And yet the stoker seemed to have abandoned hope. He had thrust his hands halfway into the belt of his trousers, which together with a strip of checked shirt had come prominently into view during his excited tirade. That did not worry him in the least; he had displayed the misery of his heart, now they might as well see the rags that covered his body, and then they could drag him away. He had concluded that the attendant and Schubal, as the two least important men in the room, would do him that last kindness. Schubal would have peace then and no longer be driven to desperation, as the Head Purser had put it. The Captain could take on crowds of Rumanians; Rumanian would be spoken all over the ship; and then perhaps things would really improve. There would be no more stoker to pester the head office with his ravings, yet his last outburst would be remembered almost fondly, since, as the Senator expressly declared, it had been the indirect cause of his recognizing his nephew. The nephew himself had several times tried to help him and thus had already more than repaid him for his services in the recognition scene; it did not even occur to the stoker to ask anything more from him now. Besides, even if he were the nephew of a senator, he was far from being a captain yet, and it was from the Captain’s mouth that the dire verdict would fall. And having reached these conclusions, the stoker did his best not to look at Karl, though unfortunately in that roomful of enemies there was no other resting-place for his eyes.
“Don’t misinterpret the situation,” said the Senator to Karl, “this may be a question of justice, but at the same time it’s a question of discipline. On this ship both of these, and most especially the latter, are entirely within the discretion of the Captain.”
“That’s right,” muttered the stoker. Those who heard him and understood smiled uneasily.
“But we have already obstructed the Captain for too long in his official duties, which must be piling up considerably now that he has reached New York, and it’s high time we left the ship, instead of adding to our sins by interfering quite unnecessarily in this petty quarrel between two mechanics and thus making something important of it. I understand your attitude perfectly, my dear nephew, but that very fact justifies me in hurrying you away from here immediately.”
“I shall have a boat lowered for you at once,” said the Captain, without for a moment taking exception to the Senator’s words, which surprised Karl greatly, since his uncle could be said to have humbled himself
. The Head Purser rushed hastily to his desk and telephoned the Captain’s order to the boatswain.
“There’s hardly any time left,” Karl told himself, “but I can’t do anything without offending everybody. I really can’t desert my uncle now, just when he’s found me. The Captain is polite, certainly, but that’s all. When it comes to discipline, his politeness disappears. And my uncle certainly told him what he felt. I don’t want to speak to Schubal; I’m sorry that I even shook hands with him. And all the other people here are of no consequence.”
With these thoughts in mind he slowly went over to the stoker, pulled the man’s right hand out of his belt and held it playfully in his.
“Why don’t you say something, dear friend?” he asked. “Why do you put up with everything?”
The stoker merely knitted his brow, as if he were seeking the right words for what he had to say. While doing this he looked down at his own hand and Karl’s.
“You’ve been treated unjustly, more than anyone else on this ship; I am positive of that.” And as Karl drew his fingers back and forth between the stoker’s, the stoker gazed around with shining eyes, as if blessed by a great happiness that no one could begrudge him.
“Now you must get ready to defend yourself, answer yes and no, or else these people won’t have any idea of the truth. You must promise me to do what I tell you, for I’m afraid, and with good reason, that I won’t be able to help you anymore.” And then Karl burst out crying and kissed the stoker’s hand, taking that rough and almost lifeless hand and pressing it to his cheek like a treasure that he would soon have to give up.—But now his uncle the Senator was at his side and gently yet firmly led him away.
“The stoker seems to have bewitched you,” he said, giving the Captain a knowing look over Karl’s head. “You felt lonely, then you found the stoker, and you’re grateful to him now; that’s all to your credit, I’m sure. But if only for my sake, don’t push things too far, learn to understand your position.”