by Franz Kafka
What made the dinner go on was the thoroughness with which Mr Green treated each course, although he always seemed ready for another one afterwards, never slackened, and really gave the appearance of wanting to recover from his old housekeeper. Now and again he would praise Miss Klara’s management of the house, which visibly flattered her, while Karl attempted to ward off these compliments as though they were attacks on her. Nor did Mr Green confine his attention to her, he repeatedly, without looking up from his plate, deplored Karl’s striking lack of appetite. Mr Pollunder defended Karl’s appetite, though, as Karl’s host, it should have been his role to encourage him to eat more. Karl felt under considerable strain throughout the meal, and that made him so sensitive that, against his better judgement, he saw Mr Pollunder’s words as hostile to himself. And it was purely on account of this that he suddenly consumed a great quantity of food with prodigious speed, then dropped his knife and fork exhausted and was the most lethargic member of the company, which made things very difficult for the waiter.
‘Tomorrow I will tell the Senator how you offended Miss Klara by not eating,’ said Mr Green and the only clue to his humorous intention was the way he handled his cutlery. ‘Look at the girl, see how sad she looks,’ he went on, and chucked Klara under the chin. She let him do it, and closed her eyes. ‘Little thing you,’ he cried, leaned back in his chair, and laughed red-faced and with the vigour of one who has eaten. Karl couldn’t understand Mr Pollunder’s behaviour at all. There he sat staring at the plate in front of him, as though the important events were all taking place there. He didn’t pull up Karl’s chair, and when he spoke he spoke to the generality, but he had nothing particular to say to Karl. And yet he allowed Green, that old New York bachelor roué, blatantly to fondle Klara, to insult Karl, his guest, or at least to treat him like a child, and Lord knows to what acts he was gearing himself up.
With dinner over – when Green sensed the general mood, he was the first to get up, and as it were pulled all the others up with him – Karl went off by himself to one of the great windows, divided up by little white strips, that looked out on to the terrace, and that turned out, on closer inspection, to be doors. What was left of the revulsion Mr Pollunder and his daughter had initially felt for Green, and which had seemed so incomprehensible to Karl at first? Now there they were standing with Green nodding at him. The smoke from Mr Green’s cigar, a present from Pollunder, of a thickness that his father would occasionally affirm existed, but had probably never witnessed with his own eyes, spread throughout the room, and carried Green’s influence into nooks and corners in which he would personally never set foot. In spite of the distance, Karl felt the smoke tickle his nose, and the behaviour of Mr Green, at whom he cast another quick glance across the room, seemed to him quite dastardly. Now he no longer excluded the possibility that his uncle had only refused to let him make this visit because he knew Mr Pollunder for a weak character, and so foresaw, if not in detail, then at least in general, the possibility of Karl’s being insulted. Nor did he care for the American girl, although her appearance had hardly been a disappointment to him. Since Mr Green had taken up with her he had been surprised by the beauty which her face was capable of, especially by the lustre of her constantly darting eyes. He had never seen a skirt as clinging as the one that clasped her body, little creases in the yellow, delicate, resistant fabric showed the strain. But Karl felt nothing for her, and would happily have declined to go up to her room with her, if instead he could open the door, the knob of which he held in both hands just in case, and climb into the car, or if the chauffeur was asleep already he could have gone to New York on foot by himself. The clear night with the favourable full moon was free for anyone, and to be afraid out in the open seemed idiotic to Karl. He pictured to himself – and for the first time he felt happy in that room – how he would arrive in the morning – he could hardly get there any sooner on foot – and surprise his uncle. He had never seen inside his uncle’s bedroom, in fact he didn’t even know where it was, but he would find out from someone. Then he would knock on the door, and on hearing the formal ‘Enter’ he would run into the room and surprise his dear uncle, whom he had previously only seen buttoned up and fully dressed, sitting up in bed, startled eyes on the door, in his nightshirt. Just by itself that might not be much, but imagine the possible consequences! Perhaps he would have breakfast with his uncle for the first time, his uncle in bed, himself on a chair, the breakfast on a low table between them, then perhaps they would breakfast together regularly, perhaps as a consequence of these breakfasts, it was almost inevitable in fact, they would meet more than the once a day it had been up until now, and then of course they would also be able to talk more openly with one another. It was really only because of the lack of frankness between them that he had shown a little disobedience to his uncle, or rather just stubbornness. And if he had to spend the night here – which unfortunately seemed probable, even though they left him to stand alone by a window and amuse himself – perhaps this unfortunate visit would become the turning point in his relations with his uncle, and perhaps his uncle in his bedroom tonight entertained similar thoughts himself.
He felt slightly comforted and turned round. Klara was standing in front of him, saying: ‘Do you really not like it here with us at all? couldn’t you feel a little more at home? Come with me, I’ll make one final effort.’ She led him across the room to the door. The two men were sitting at a side table with tall glasses full of gently effervescent drinks, which were unfamiliar to Karl and which he would have liked to try. Mr Green had his elbow on the table, and the whole of his face as close as possible to Mr Pollunder; if one didn’t know Mr Pollunder, one might easily have supposed that what these two were talking about was not business at all, but something of a criminal nature. Whereas Mr Pollunder’s eyes followed Karl tenderly as he went to the door, Green didn’t make the slightest move to look at Karl – even though one quite involuntarily tends to follow where one’s partner is looking. Karl saw in this behaviour the expression of a creed of Green’s that everyone should try to get by on his own abilities, Karl for himself and Green for himself, the necessary social connection between them would be established in time by the victory or destruction of one or other of them. ‘If he thinks that,’ Karl said to himself, ‘then he’s a fool. I want nothing to do with him, and I wish he would leave me in peace.’ No sooner had he emerged into the corridor than he thought he had probably behaved badly, because he had had his eyes glued to Green and had made Klara practically drag him out of the room. To make amends, he walked eagerly beside her now. Walking down the corridor, he at first didn’t believe his eyes when he saw at every twenty paces a richly liveried servant standing with a candelabra, holding its thick stem in both hands. ‘Electric power has so far only been connected to the dining-room,’ explained Klara. ‘We only recently bought the house, and had it completely converted, inasmuch as you can convert such an old and idiosyn-cratically constructed house like this.’ ‘So there are some old houses in America,’ said Karl. ‘Of course,’ said Klara laughing, and pulling him on. ‘You’ve got some strange ideas about America.’ ‘You’re not to laugh at me,’ he said crossly. After all, he knew both Europe and America, whereas she only knew America.
Klara put out her hand to push open a door in passing, and said: ‘This is where you’ll be sleeping.’ Of course Karl wanted to take a look at the room right away, but Klara explained, almost shouting with impatience, that that could wait, and he was to come along now. They had a little tug of war in the corridor, finally Karl thought he mustn’t just do whatever Klara said, and he broke loose and ran into the room. It was surprisingly dark outside, because just beyond the window was a treetop which was swaying to and fro. There was birdsong. In the room itself, which the moonlight hadn’t penetrated, one could make out very little. Karl was sorry he hadn’t brought along the electric torch his uncle had given him. Torches were essential in a house like this, if they had a few torches all the servants could be p
acked off to bed. He sat down on the window-seat and looked and listened. A frightened bird seemed to drill its way through the foliage of the old tree. The whistle of a New York suburban train sounded somewhere out in the distance. Apart from that all was quiet.
But not for long, because Klara ran in. Clearly angry, she cried: ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ and smacked at her skirt Karl wasn’t going to answer until she changed her tone. But she strode up to him and cried: ‘Well, are you coming or not?’ and either intentionally or in her excitement, she shoved him in the chest, so that he would have fallen out of the window, if his feet hadn’t gripped the floor at the last moment as he slipped backwards off the window-seat. I almost fell out of the window just now,’ he said, reprovingly. ‘Well, I wish you had. Why are you so naughty. I’m going to push you down again.’ And she put her arms round him, he was so surprised he forgot to make himself heavy, and with her sport-toughened body she carried him almost as far as the window. Then he came to his senses, freed himself with a twist of his hips, and then grabbed her. ‘Oh stop it, you’re hurting me!’ she said right away. But this time Karl thought he’d better not let her go. He allowed her to move her feet and take steps, but he went with her and didn’t let go. It was so easy to hold on to her in her tight dress. ‘Let me go,’ she whispered, her flushed face just by his, he had to strain to see her, she was so close, ‘Let me go, and I’ll give you a present.’ ‘Why is she sighing like that,’ thought Karl, ‘it can’t be hurting her, I’m not pressing at all,’ and he didn’t let go. But suddenly after a moment of careless silent standing, his body felt her strength returning and she slipped free, and held his upper body in a practised grip, warding off his legs with foot movements of some exotic fighting style, and panting for air with wonderful regularity, she drove him back towards the wall. There was a sofa there, on which she laid Karl, and said to him, ‘Now try and escape.’ ‘You cat, you wildcat,’ Karl cried in a bewilderment of shame and rage. ‘You wildcat, you’re mad.’ ‘Watch your words,’ she said, and one of her hands slipped round his throat and began choking him so hard that Karl was reduced to gulping for air, while with the other hand she touched his cheek as though to try it out, and then withdrew it far enough for her to slap him at any moment. ‘How would you like it,’ she said, ‘if for your behaviour towards a lady I were to send you home with a good slap for punishment. Perhaps it would be a useful lesson for future reference, though it wouldn’t be a pleasant memory. I’m sorry for you, you’re quite a good-looking boy really, and if you’d learned ju-jitsu, you would probably have given me a thrashing. Even so, even so – seeing you lying there, I feel an enormous urge to smack your face. I’ll probably regret it, but if I do it, I want you to know that it will almost have been in spite of myself. And of course I wouldn’t content myself with just one slap then, but hit you left and right till your cheeks are swollen. Maybe you’re a man of honour – I almost think you are – and you won’t be able to go on living after you’ve been slapped, and you’ll have to do away with yourself. But why did you have to treat me like that? Don’t you like me? Didn’t you want to come up to my room with me? Woops! I almost slapped you by accident. But if I let you off for now, you’d better behave in future. I’m not your uncle whom you can defy with impunity. Lastly I want to point out to you that if I let you go without slapping you, you’re not to think that in point of honour you might as well have been slapped, because if you were to think that, I’d prefer actually to slap you. I wonder what Mack will say when I tell him all this.’ At the name of Mack she let go of Karl, to whose confused mind Mack seemed like a saviour. He could still feel Klarl’s hand round his throat, so he went on writhing for a while and then lay still.
She told him to get up, but he didn’t move or reply. Somewhere she lit a candle, and the room grew light, a blue zigzag pattern appeared on the ceiling, but Karl lay there, his head on the sofa cushion, just as Klara had left it, and didn’t move it an inch. Klara walked about the room, her skirt swishing against her legs, then she stopped for a long time, probably by the window, he guessed. ‘Snapped out of it?’ she could be heard to ask. It was a heavy blow to Karl that in this room, where Mr Pollunder had put him for the night, he could get no rest. This girl was walking about in it, then she would stop and talk, it was all so inexpressibly tedious. He wanted to get to sleep quickly, and then get out of here, nothing more. He didn’t even want to go to bed, just stay where he was on the sofa. He was just lying there, waiting for her to leave, then he would leap across to the door, bolt it, and fling himself back on the sofa. He had such a need to stretch and yawn, but he didn’t want to do that in front of Klara. And so he lay there, staring up, feeling his face becoming ever more rigid, sensing a fly buzzing in front of his eyes, without really knowing what it was.
Klara went over to him again, leaned across to see where he was looking, and if he hadn’t disciplined himself, he would have had to look at her. ‘I’m going now,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’ll feel like seeing me later. The door to my rooms is the fourth one along on this side of the corridor. So you pass three doors, and the next one is mine. I won’t be going down to the salon again, I’m staying up in my room. You’ve really taken it out of me. I won’t exactly be waiting for you, but if you want to, then come. Remember, you promised to play the piano for me. But maybe you’re fed up with me, and you can’t move any more, then stay here and sleep. For the moment I’m not going to tell my father about our fight; I’m just saying that in case you’re worried.’ Then, in spite of her alleged tiredness, she was out of the room in two bounds.
Straightaway Karl sat up, lying had become impossible for him. For a little exercise he went to the door and looked out into the passage. It was pitch-black out there! He felt relieved when he had shut the door and bolted it, and was back by his table in the candlelight. He had decided not to stay in the house any longer, but to go downstairs to Mr Pollunder, to tell him quite openly how Klara had treated him – he didn’t mind admitting his defeat – and with probably sufficient justification, ask for permission to drive or walk home. If Mr Pollunder should have any objection to his immediate return, then Karl would ask to be shown to the nearest hotel by a servant. This wasn’t how one normally behaved to a friendly host, but it was still more unusual for a guest to be treated as he had been by Klara. She had even thought her promise not to mention the fight to Mr Pollunder was doing him a favour, and that was shocking enough. Was it some kind of wrestling bout to which Karl had been invited, so that it would have been embarrassing for him to have been thrown by a girl who probably spent most of her waking hours learning wrestling holds? She had probably received tuition from Mack. Let her tell him everything, he would understand, Karl was sure of that, even though he’d not yet had an opportunity to try him. But Karl also knew that if Mack had given him coaching, he would have been a far better pupil than Klara; and one day he would come back here, most probably uninvited, he would first reconnoitre the area, local knowledge was a prime advantage of Klarl’s, and then he would grab that selfsame Klara, and dust that same sofa with her which she had laid him on today.