by Franz Kafka
At that moment the porter leaned forward and whispered something into the Head Waiter’s ear. At first the Head Waiter looked at him in amazement, and then spoke into the telephone at such a rate that to begin with Karl was unable to follow him quite, and advanced a couple of paces on tiptoe.
‘My dear Head Cook,’ he was saying, ‘in all candour I would never have thought you such a poor judge of character. I have just now heard something about your paragon that will completely change your view of him, and I’m sorry to have to be the one who must break it to you. This excellent boy, then, whom you call a model of rectitude, spends every one of his free evenings running off into the city, and never returns till the following morning. Yes, yes, Head Cook, I have it on good authority, yes, quite unimpeachable authority. Now could you tell me perhaps from where he has the money for such pursuits? How he is supposed to remain alert while on duty? And would you perhaps like me to describe to you the kind of things he gets up to in the city? I really can’t get rid of this boy too fast. And I should like you to be warned by his example to be more circumspect about boys who turn up on your doorstep.’
‘But sir, Head Waiter,’ cried Karl, quite relieved by the gross error that had evidently been perpetrated, and that might best lead to an unexpected improvement in his situation, ‘there seems to be some confusion here. I believe the Head Porter told you that I go out every night. That’s not the case at all, I spend every night in the dormitory, as all the boys will confirm. Whenever I’m not asleep, I’m studying business correspondence, but in any case I never set foot outside the dormitory at night. It’s easily proved. The Head Porter is evidently confusing me with someone else, now I understand too why he thinks I don’t greet him.’
‘Will you shut up,’ shouted the Head Porter and waved his fist – where others might have contented themselves with wagging a finger – ‘So I’m confusing you with someone else. If that were so, then I couldn’t go on being Head Porter, if I get people mixed up. Listen, Mr Isbary, I can’t go on being Head Porter, can I, if I get people mixed up. In my thirty years of duty I have never once mixed anyone up, as hundreds of head waiters who’ve been here in that time will be happy to confirm, but now, with you, wretched boy, I’ve suddenly started getting confused. With you, and your strikingly smooth features. How could I possibly be confused, you could have slunk off into the city every night while my back was turned, but I’m telling you that your face is that of a no-good scoundrel.’
‘That’s enough, Feodor!’ said the Head Waiter, whose telephone conversation with the Head Cook seemed to have come to an abrupt end. ‘It’s a very straightforward matter. It’s not primarily a question of his nocturnal amusements. Perhaps before he leaves us he’d like to get some elaborate investigation started into his nocturnal habits. That would just suit him down to the ground. He would have all forty lift-boys summoned to give evidence, and of course all of them would have got him mixed up too, so by and by the entire hotel staff would be subpoenaed, the business of the hotel would grind to a halt for the duration, and at the end of it all when he was finally thrown out, he would have had a good laugh at our expense. So let’s not fall for that. He’s already made a monkey of that good woman, the Head Cook, so let that be enough. I won’t hear any more, you are dismissed with immediate effect for dereliction of duty. I’ll give you a slip for the cashier, so that your wages will be paid up to today. And between you and me, when I think of how you’ve behaved, that’s pure generosity on my part, and I only do it out of regard for the Head Cook.’
The Head Waiter was about to put his name to the slip, when the telephone rang again. ‘The lift-boys are playing up today!’ he exclaimed after hearing a few words. ‘That’s outrageous!’ he called, a while later. And he turned to the hotel porter and said: ‘Feodor, will you keep hold of this fellow for a minute, we need to have further words with him.’ And into the telephone he gave the order. ‘Come up right away!’
Now at least the Head Porter could get something out of his system that his words hadn’t succeeded in doing. He gripped Karl’s upper arm, but not with a steady grip, which could have been borne, but periodically loosening it and then gradually making it tighter and tighter, which, with his great strength, seemed to have no limit, and made Karl see stars. Nor was he content to hold him, but, as though he had been ordered to stretch him at the same time, he lifted him up in the air from time to time and shook him, and half-inquired of the Head Waiter: ‘I’m not mistaking him for someone else now, am I, I’m not mistaking him.’
Karl was relieved when the head lift-boy, one Bess, a forever panting fat boy, entered and distracted the attention of the Head Porter. Karl was so exhausted that he could barely manage a greeting, when, to his amazement, he saw a ghostly pale Therese slip into the room after the boy, untidily dressed and with loose, piled-up hair. In an instant she was at his side, whispering: ‘Does the Head Cook know?’ ‘The Head Waiter told her on the telephone,’ replied Karl. ‘Then everything’s all right, everything’s all right,’ she said quickly, with shining eyes. ‘No,’ said Karl, ‘you don’t know what it is they are accusing me of. I’ll have to leave, the Head Cook is persuaded of that as well. Please don’t stay here, go back upstairs, I’ll come and say goodbye to you later.’ ‘Rossmann, honestly, what are you saying. You’ll stay here with us as long as you like. The Head Waiter will do anything the Head Cook wants, he’s in love with her, I discovered quite by chance recently. So set your mind at rest.’ ‘Please, Therese, leave me now. I can’t speak so well in my defence when you’re here with me. And I must defend myself carefully, because false accusations are being brought against me. But the more I keep my wits about me and defend myself, the more hope I have of being allowed to stay. So, Therese –’ Unfortunately, in a sudden spasm of pain, he couldn’t stop himself quietly adding: ‘If only the Head Porter would let go of me! I didn’t know he was my enemy. But he keeps squeezing me and lifting me up.’ ‘Why am I saying that!’ he asked himself at the same time, ‘no woman can stand to hear that,’ and indeed Therese turned round and, undeterred by the waving of his free hand, said to the Head Porter: ‘Head Porter, sir, will you please let go of Rossmann. You’re hurting him. The Head Cook will be here any minute, and then we’ll see that he’s been unfairly treated. Let him go, how can you take pleasure in tormenting him.’ And she even reached out for the Head Porter’s hand. ‘Orders, missy, orders,’ said the Head Porter, and with his free hand he pulled Therese affectionately to himself, while with the other he squeezed Karl particularly hard, as though not only intending to cause him pain, but as though he had some design on the arm in his possession which was still far from being achieved.
It took Therese a while to twist away from the embrace of the Head Porter, and she was just about to intervene on Karl’s behalf with the Head Waiter, who was listening to some rather elaborate account of Bess’s, when the Head Cook strode into the room. ‘Thank God,’ cried Therese, and for a moment those were the only words that were heard in the room. Then the Head Waiter leapt up and thrust Bess aside: ‘So you’ve come in person, Madam. Over this trifling business? Following our telephone conversation I guessed it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it. And all the time the situation of your protégé is getting worse and worse. It looks as though I won’t be dismissing him, but will have to have him locked up instead. Hear for yourself!’ And he motioned Bess to come forward. ‘I want to have a few words with Rossmann first,’ said the Head Cook, taking a seat offered by the Head Waiter. ‘Karl, please come closer,’ she said. Karl did so, or rather was dragged there by the Head Porter. ‘Let go of him,’ the Head Cook said crossly, ‘he’s not a murderer.’ The Head Porter released him, but not before giving him one final squeeze, so hard that tears came to his own eyes from the effort.
‘Karl,’ said the Head Cook, folding her hands calmly in her lap, and looking at him with her head slightly tilted – this wasn’t like a cross-examination at all – ‘first of all let me say that I still
have complete trust in you. Also the Head Waiter is a just man, I can vouch for that. Both of us would dearly like to keep you here.’ She glanced across at the Head Waiter, as though begging not to be contradicted. Nor was she – ‘So forget whatever may have been said to you so far. In particular you mustn’t take too hard what the Head Porter may have said to you. He is an excitable man, which is no wonder when you think about his job, but he has a wife and children, and he knows that it’s not necessary to torment a boy who’s all on his own, because the rest of the world will see to that anyway.’
It was very quiet in the room. The Head Porter looked to the Head Waiter for some explanation, but he went on looking at the Head Cook, and shook his head. The lift-boy Bess was grinning fatuously behind the Head Waiter’s back. Therese was sobbing quietly with joy and worry, trying hard to keep the others from noticing.
Karl was looking – although this might be taken to be a bad sign – not at the Head Cook, who was certainly trying to catch his eye, but at the floor in front of him. His arm was throbbing wildly with pain, his sleeve was sticking to it, and he would have liked to take off his jacket and inspect the place. What the Head Cook was saying was of course very well intentioned, but unfortunately it seemed to him that her manner would make it even clearer that he didn’t deserve any such kindness, that he had for the past two months enjoyed quite unmerited benevolence from the Head Cook, and actually the fittest thing for him was to be given into the Head Porter’s hands.
‘I say as much,’ continued the Head Cook, ‘so that you may be quite candid in your replies, which as I know you, you would probably have been anyway.’
‘Can I go and get the doctor, the man might bleed to death in the meantime,’ the lift-boy Bess piped up suddenly, very politely, but also very disruptively.
‘Go on,’ said the Head Waiter to Bess, who scurried off. And then, to the Head Cook: ‘The thing is this. The Head Porter hasn’t been detaining the boy for the fun of it. A stranger has been found down in the lift-boys’ dormitory, heavily intoxicated, and carefully wrapped up in one of the beds. He was of course woken up and an attempt was made to remove him. But then the fellow started to make a great racket, and kept shouting that the dormitory belonged to Karl Rossmann, whose guest he was, who had brought him there and would punish anyone who dared to lay a finger on him. He had to wait for Karl Rossmann now because he had promised him money, and had just gone to get it. Mark this, Head Cook: Promised him money and had just gone to get it. You pay attention too, Rossmann,’ said the Head Waiter in an aside to Karl, who had just turned to Therese, who was staring spellbound at the Head Waiter, and kept brushing some hair off her brow, or was at least making as if to do so. ‘But perhaps I can remind you of some further commitments of yours. The man downstairs went on to say that, following your return, the two of you would be going on to pay a night visit to some singer or other, whose name unfortunately no one could make out, as the man would insist on singing it.’
At this point the Head Waiter broke off, because the Head Cook, now visibly pale, had risen from her chair, pushing it back a little. ‘I’ll spare you the rest,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘No, no, please,’ said the Head Cook, taking his hand, ‘go on, I want to hear everything, that’s what I’m here for.’ The Head Porter, who stepped forward, and, in indication of the fact that he had seen it all coming, beat his breast loudly, was simultaneously rebuked and pacified by the Head Waiter’s words: ‘Yes, Feodor, you were absolutely right!’
‘There’s not much more to report,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘The way the lads are, they first laughed at the man, then they got into an argument with him, and, as there are always some good boxers among them, they just punched him out, and I didn’t dare ask how many places he’s bleeding from, because the lads are tremendous boxers, and they would make short work of a drunk.’
‘Well,’ said the Head Cook, holding the back of the chair, and looking at the place where she had been sitting. ‘Well, won’t you say something please, Rossmann!’ she said. Therese had left her original place and run across to the Head Cook, and, something Karl had never seen her do before, linked arms with her. The Head Waiter was standing just behind the Head Cook, and was slowly smoothing down a modest little lace collar of hers that had turned up slightly. The Head Porter, standing next to Karl said: ‘Well get on with it,’ but only to mask a jab in the back he gave him at the same time.
‘It is true’, said Karl, sounding more uncertain than he meant to as a result of the jab, ‘that I brought the man into the dormitory.’
‘That’s all we want to know,’ said the porter in the name of everyone there. The Head Cook turned silently to the Head Waiter and then to Therese.
‘I had no other option,’ Karl went on. ‘The man used to be my companion, he came here after we hadn’t seen each other for two months, to visit me, but he was so drunk he was unable to leave unaided.’
Standing beside the Head Cook, the Head Waiter said softly under his breath: ‘He means to say he visited him, and then got so drunk he couldn’t leave.’ The Head Cook whispered something back over her shoulder to the Head Waiter, who, with a smile on his face that obviously had nothing to do with the present business, seemed to be making some demurral. Therese – Karl was looking now only to her – had seen enough, and pressed her face in complete helplessness against the Head Cook. The only person who was completely satisfied with Karl’s explanation was the Head Porter, who repeated several times: ‘Quite right, you have to help your drinking buddy,’ and sought to impress this explanation on each of those present by looks and gestures.
‘So it’s my fault,’ said Karl, and paused, as though waiting for a kind word from his judges, that might encourage him to further defence, but none came, ‘but I’m only to blame for bringing the man, Robinson is his name, he’s Irish, into the dormitory. Everything else he said because he was drunk, and it isn’t true.’
‘So you didn’t promise him any money?’ asked the Head Waiter.
‘Yes, I did,’ said Karl, and he was sorry he’d forgotten to mention that, and out of thoughtlessness or vagueness he had stated his innocence in too decisive terms. ‘I did promise him money, because he asked me for some. But I wasn’t going to get him any, I was only going to give him whatever tips I’d earned in the night.’ And, as proof, he pulled the money out of his pocket and pointed to a few small coins in the palm of his hand.
‘That’s a tangled web you’re weaving,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘In order to believe anything you say, one would have to forget whatever else you had said before. First of all you took the fellow – I don’t believe he’s called Robinson, no Irishman in that country’s history has ever been called Robinson – first of all, you only took him to the dormitory, which is enough in itself to have you out on your ear – but without promising him money, then another question catches you out, and you say you did promise him money. But this isn’t a question and answer session, we’re here to let you justify yourself. Now first you didn’t want to get the money, but give him your tips, but then it appears that you still have them on your person, so you obviously had need of other money, for which your long absence argues too. For me there’d be nothing out of the ordinary if you’d wanted to get him some money out of your box, but the vehemence with which you deny that is quite extraordinary. As is the way you kept seeking to deny that you made the man drunk here in the hotel, of which there isn’t the slightest doubt, because you yourself conceded that he arrived on his own, but couldn’t leave on his own, and he himself was shouting in the dormitory that he was your guest. So two things remain at issue, which, if you want to simplify matters, you can answer yourself, but which can also be determined without any assistance from you: first, how did you gain access to the storerooms, and second, how did you come by money to give away?’