by Franz Kafka
That is the reproach that I have to make. It has a sound core, theory supports it. That which really has been spoiled in me, however, I forget for the moment or excuse, and don’t as yet make any fuss about it. On the other hand, I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding into the world beyond. But all this only serves a different purpose. The reproach for having after all spoiled a part of me – for having spoiled a good, beautiful part (in my dreams sometimes it appears to me the way a dead bride appears to others) – this reproach that is forever on the point of becoming a sigh, this reproach should before all else reach there undamaged as an honest reproach, which is what it is, too. Thus it happens that the great reproach, to which nothing can happen, takes the small one by the hand, if the great one walks, the small one hops, but when the small one gets there, it distinguishes itself – which is what we have always expected – and sounds the trumpet for the drummer.
Often I think it over and give my thoughts free rein, without interfering, but I always come to the conclusion that my education has spoiled me more than I can understand. Externally I am a man like others, for my physical education kept as close to the ordinary as my body itself was ordinary, and even if I am pretty short and a little stout, I still please many, even girls. There is nothing to be said about that. Only recently one of them said something very intelligent: ‘Ah, if I could only see you naked once, then you ought to be really pretty and kissable.’ But if I lacked an upper lip here, there an ear, here a rib, there a finger, if I had hairless spots on my head and pockmarks on my face, this would still be no adequate counterpart to my inner imperfection. This imperfection is not congenital and therefore so much the more painful to bear. For like everyone, I too have my centre of gravity inside me from birth, and this not even the most foolish education could displace. This good centre of gravity I still have, but to a certain extent I no longer have the corresponding body. And a centre of gravity that has no work to do becomes lead, and sticks in the body like a musket ball. But this imperfection is not earned either, I have suffered its emergence through no fault of my own. This is why I can find nowhere within myself any repentance, much as I may seek it. For repentance would be good for me, it cries itself out all by itself, it takes the pain to one side and settles everything alone like an affair of honour; we remain upright because it relieves us.
My imperfection is, as I said, not congenital, not earned, nevertheless I bear it better than others, by means of great labour of the imagination and sought-out expedients, bear much smaller misfortunes – a horrible wife, for instance, poverty, a miserable profession – and am at the same time not at all black in the face with despair, but rather white and red.
I would not be so, if my education had penetrated into me as deeply as it wanted to. Perhaps my youth was too short for that, in which case, now in my forties,3 I still rejoice over its shortness with all my heart. That alone made it possible for me to have enough strength left to become conscious of the deprivations of my youth; further, to suffer through these deprivations; further, to reproach the past in all respects; and, finally, to have left a remnant of strength for myself. But all these strengths are, again, only a remnant of those I possessed as a child, which exposed me more than others to the corruptors of youth, yes, a good racing chariot is the first to be pursued and overtaken by dust and wind, and its wheels fly over obstacles so that one might almost believe in love.
What I still am now is revealed most clearly to me by the strength with which the reproaches urge their way out of me. There were times when I had nothing else inside me except reproaches driven by rage, so that, although physically well, I would hold on to strangers in the street because the reproaches inside me tossed from side to side like water in a basin that was being carried rapidly.
Those times are past. The reproaches lie around inside me like strange tools that I hardly have the courage to seize and lift any longer. At the same time the corruption left by my old education seems to begin to affect me again more and more; the passion to remember, perhaps a general characteristic of bachelors of my age, opens my heart again to those people who should be the objects of my reproaches; and an event like that of yesterday, formerly as frequent as eating, is now so rare that I make a note of it.
But even above and beyond that, I myself, I who have just now put down my pen in order to open the window, am perhaps the best aid of my assailants. For I underestimate myself, and that in itself means an overestimation of others; but even aside from that I overestimate them. And aside from that I also do harm to myself directly. If I am overcome by the desire to make reproaches, I look out of the window. could deny that the fishermen sit there in their boats like pupils who have been taken out to the river from school; good, their immobility is often incomprehensible, like that of flies on window-panes. And over the bridge go the trams, naturally as always with a roaring rude as the wind’s, and they sound like spoiled clocks; and the policeman, no doubt, black from head to foot, with the yellow light of the badge on his chest, reminds one of nothing else but hell when now, with thoughts similar to mine, he contemplates a fisherman who suddenly – is he crying, has he seen an apparition, or is his float bobbing? – bends down to the side of his boat. All this is all right, but in its own time; now only my reproaches are right.
They are directed against a multitude of people; this is really frightening and not only I at the open window but everyone else as well would rather look at the river. There are my parents and relatives. That they have done me harm out of love makes their guilt all the greater, for how much good they could have done me out of love; then friendly families with the evil eye, out of their sense of guilt they make themselves heavy and refuse to rise up into memory; then a crowd of nurses, teachers, and writers and among them a certain particular cook; then, their punishment being that they fade into one another, a family doctor, a hairdresser, a helmsman, a beggarwoman, a newspaper vendor, a park watchman, a swimming teacher, then strange ladies in the city park of whom one would not have expected it at all, natives of summer resorts, an insult to the innocence of nature, and many others; but there were still more, if I could and wanted to name them all; in short, there are so many that one must take care not to name any one of them twice.
I often think it over and give my thoughts free rein without interfering, but I always come to the same conclusion: that my education has spoiled me more than all the people I know and more than I can conceive. Yet only once in a long while can I say this, for if I am asked immediately after, ‘Really? Is that possible? Are you supposed to believe that?’ out of nervous fear I immediately try to restrict it.
Externally I look like everybody else; have legs, body and head, trousers, coat, and hat; they put me through a thorough course of gymnastics and if I have nevertheless remained rather short and weak, that just could not be helped. Besides, I am agreeable to many people, even young girls, and those to whom I am not agreeable still find me bearable.
It is reported, and we are inclined to believe it, that when men are in danger they have no consideration even for beautiful strange women; they shove them against walls, shove them with head and hands, knees and elbows, if these women happen only to be in the way of their flight from the burning theatre. At this point our chattering women fall silent, their endless talking reaches a verb and period, their eyebrows rise out of their resting places, the rhythmic movement of their thighs and hips is interrupted; into their mouths, only loosely closed by fear, more air than usual enters and their cheeks seem a little puffed out.4
‘You,’
I said, and gave him a little shove with my knee (at this sudden utterance some saliva flew from my mouth as an evil omen), ‘don’t fall asleep!’
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‘I’m not falling asleep,’ he answered, and shook his head while opening his eyes. ‘If I were to fall asleep, how could I guard you then? And don’t I have to do that? Isn’t that why you grabbed hold of me then in front of the church? Yes, it was a long time ago, as we know it, just leave your watch in your pocket.’
‘It’s really very late,’ I said. I had to smile a little and in order to conceal it I looked intently into the house.
‘Does it really please you so much? So you would like to go up, very much like to? Then just say so, after all, I won’t bite you. Look, if you think that it will be better for you up there than down here, then just go up there at once without thinking of me. It’s my opinion – therefore the opinion of a casual passer-by – that you will soon come down again and that it would then be very good if somehow someone should be standing here whose face you won’t even look at, but who’ll take you under the arm, strengthen you with wine in a near-by tavern, and then lead you to his room which, miserable as it is, still has a few panes of glass between itself and the night; for the time being you don’t have to give a damn about this opinion. True it is, and I can repeat that in front of anyone you like, that it goes badly with us here below; yes, it’s even a dog’s life, but there’s no help for me now; whether I lie here in the gutter and stow away the rain water or drink champagne with the same lips up there under the chandelier makes no difference to me. Besides, I don’t even have so much as a choice between the two things; indeed, anything that attracts people’s attention never happens to me, and how could it happen within the framework of the ceremonies that are necessary for me, within which indeed I can only crawl on, no better than some sort of vermin. You, to be sure, who know all that may be hidden in yourself, you have courage, at least you think you have. Try it anyhow, what do you have to lose, after all – often you can already recognize yourself, if you pay attention, in the face of the servant at the door.’
‘If I just knew definitely that you were being sincere with me, I should have been up there long ago. But how could I even tell whether you were sincere with me? You’re looking at me now as though I were a little child, that doesn’t help me at all, that indeed makes it even worse. But perhaps you want to make it worse. At the same time I can no longer stand the air in the street, so I already belong with the company up there. When I pay attention there’s a scratching in my throat, there you have it. Besides, I cough. And have you any idea how I’ll get along up there? The foot with which I step into the hall will already be transformed before I can draw the other one after it.’
‘You are right, I am not sincere with you.’
‘I want to leave, want to mount the steps, if necessary, by turning somersaults. From that company I promise myself everything that I lack, the organization of my strength, above all, for which the sort of intensification that is the only possibility for this bachelor on the street is insufficient. The latter would be satisfied just to maintain his – really – shabby physique, protect his few meals, avoid the influence of other people, in short, to preserve only as much as is possible in the disintegrating world. But if he loses anything, he seeks to get it back by force, though it be transformed, weakened, yes, even though it be his former property only in seeming (which it is for the most part). His nature is suicidal, therefore, it has teeth only for his own flesh and flesh only for his own teeth. For without a centre, without a profession, a love, a family, an income; i.e. without holding one’s own against the world in the big things – only tentatively, of course – without, therefore, making to a certain extent an imposing impression on it by a great complex of possessions, one cannot protect oneself from losses that momentarily destroy one. This bachelor with his thin clothes, his art of prayer, his enduring legs, his lodgings that he is afraid of, with his otherwise patched-up existence now brought out again after a long period – this bachelor holds all this together with his two arms and can never pick up any unimportant chance object without losing two others of his own. The truth, naturally, lies in this, the truth that is nowhere so clearly to be seen. For whoever appears as a complete citizen, that is, travels over the sea in a ship with foam before him and wake behind, that is, with much effect round about, quite different from the man in the waves on a few planks of wood that even bump against and submerge each other – he, this gentleman and citizen, is in no lesser danger. For he and his property are not one, but two, and whoever destroys the connexion destroys him at the same time. In this respect we and our acquaintances are indeed unknowable, for we are entirely concealed; I, for instance, am now concealed by my profession, by my imagined or actual sufferings, by literary inclinations, etc., etc. But it is just I who feel my depth much too often and much too strongly to be able to be even only half-way satisfied. And this depth I need but feel uninterruptedly for a quarter of an hour and the poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man.
‘There is at the moment scarcely any difference between me and the bachelor, only that I can still think of my youth in the village and perhaps, if I want to, perhaps even if my situation alone demands it, can throw myself back there. The bachelor, however, has nothing before him and therefore nothing behind him. At the moment there is no difference, but the bachelor has only the moment. He went astray at that time – which no one can know today, for nothing can be so annihilated as that time – he went astray at that time when he felt his depth lastingly, the way one suddenly notices an ulcer on one’s body that until this moment was the least thing on one’s body – yes, not even the least, for it appeared not yet to exist and now is more than everything else that we had bodily owned since our birth. If until now our whole person had been oriented upon the work of our hands, upon that which was seen by our eyes, heard by our ears, upon the steps made by our feet, now we suddenly turn ourselves entirely in the opposite direction, like a weather-vane in the mountains.
‘Now, instead of having run away at that moment, even in this latter direction, for only running away could have kept him on the tips of his toes and only the tips of his toes could have kept him on the earth, instead of that he lay down, as children now and then lie down in the snow in winter in order to freeze to death. He and these children, they know of course that it is their fault for having lain down or yielded in some other way, they know that they should not have done it at any cost, but they cannot know that after the transformation that is taking place in them on the fields or in the cities they will forget every former fault and every compulsion and that they will move about in the new element as if it were their first. But forgetting is not the right word here. The memory of this man has suffered as little as his imagination. But they just cannot move mountains; the man stands once and for all outside our people, outside our humanity, he is continually starved, he has only the moment, the everlasting moment of torment which is followed by no glimpse of a moment of recovery, he has only one thing always: his pain; in all the circumference of the world no second thing that could serve as a medicine, he has only as much ground as his two feet take up, only as much of a hold as his two hands encompass, so much the less, therefore, than the trapeze artist in a variety show, who still has a safety net hung up for him below.
‘We others, we, indeed, are held in our past and future. We pass almost all our leisure and how much of our work in letting them bob up and down in the balance. Whatever advantage the future has in size, the past compensates for in weight, and at their end the two are indeed no longer distinguishable, earliest youth later becomes distinct, as the future is, and the end of the future is really already experienced in all our sighs, and thus becomes the past. So this circle along whose rim we move almost closes. Well, this circle indeed belongs to us, but belongs to us only so long as we keep to it, if we move to the side just once, in any chance forgetting of self, in some distraction, some fright, some astonishment, some fatigue, we have already lost it into space, until now we had our noses stuck into the tide of the times, now we step back, former swimmers, p
resent walkers, and are lost. We are outside the law, no one knows it and yet everyone treats us accordingly.’
‘You mustn’t think of me now. And how can you want to compare yourself with me? I have been here in the city for more than twenty years already. Can you even imagine what that means? I have spent each season here twenty times’ – Here he shook his slack fist over our heads – ‘The trees have been growing here for twenty years, how small should a person become under them. And all these nights, you know, in all the houses. Now you lie against this, now against that wall, so that the window keeps moving around you. And these mornings, you look out of the window, move the chair away from the bed and sit down to coffee. And these evenings, you prop up your arm and hold your ear in your hand. Yes, if only that weren’t all! If only you at least acquired a few new habits such as you can see here in the streets every day – Now it perhaps seems to you as though I wanted to complain about it? But no, why complain about it, after all neither the one nor the other is permitted me. I must just take my walks and that must be sufficient, but in compensation there is no place in all the world where I could not take my walks. But now it looks again as though I were being vain of it.’
‘I have it easy, then. I shouldn’t have stopped here in front of the house.’
‘Therefore don’t compare yourself in that with me and don’t let me make you doubtful. You are after all a grown man, are besides, as it seems, fairly forsaken here in the city.’