by Franz Kafka
‘Those women are disgusting,’ said Delamarche quietly, but evidently only out of respect for the sleeping Brunelda. ‘I mean to report them to the police soon, and then we’ll have some peace for a couple of years. Don’t look,’ he hissed at Karl, who saw nothing wrong with looking at the women, if they were forced to wait in the corridor for Brunelda to wake up. And he shook his head crossly, as though he didn’t need to take any instructions from Delamarche, and, to make it even clearer, he moved in the direction of the women, but Robinson said: ‘Rossmann, I wouldn’t,’ and held on to his sleeve, and Delamarche, already irritated by Karl, was so furious when the girl laughed aloud, that he rushed up to the women in a whirlwind of arms and legs, at which they disappeared behind their respective doors as though blown away. ‘The corridor needs sweeping from time to time,’ explained Delamarche; then he remembered Karl’s opposition and said: ‘I expect rather different behaviour from you, otherwise you’ll have a hard time of it with me.’
Just then a tired voice in mild and gentle tones inquired from within: ‘Delamarche?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Delamarche, and smiled at the door, ‘may we come in?’ ‘Oh yes,’ came the reply, and after briefly glaring at the other two waiting behind him, Delamarche slowly opened the door.
Inside it was pitch black. The curtain over the balcony door – there were no windows – hung down to the floor and was barely translucent, but in addition the way the room was cluttered with furniture and had clothes hanging everywhere contributed much to its darkening. The air was musty and you could actually smell the dust that had collected in all the corners, where it was obviously safe from any human hand. The first things Karl noticed on entering were three chests set up one just behind the other.
On the sofa lay the woman who had been looking down from the balcony earlier. Her red dress had become a little rucked, and a great twist of it hung down to the floor, you could see her legs almost to the knee, she was wearing thick white woollen stockings and no shoes. ‘It’s so hot, Delamarche,’ she said, turned her face from the wall, dangled her hand casually in the general direction of Delamarche, who took it and kissed it. Karl had eyes only for her double chin, which rolled along with the turn of her head. ‘Should I have the curtain pulled up a little?’ asked Delamarche. ‘Anything but that,’ she said with eyes shut, and as though in despair, ‘that would only make it worse.’ Karl had gone up to the foot of the sofa to have a closer look at the woman, he was astonished by her complaining, because the heat wasn’t that excessive at all. ‘Wait, I’ll make you a bit more comfortable,’ said Delamarche anxiously, undid a couple of buttons, and opened her dress out, so that her throat and some of her bosom were revealed, and the fine yellowish lace trim of her undergarment. ‘Who’s that,’ the woman said suddenly, pointing a finger at Karl, ‘why is he staring at me like that?’ ‘You’d better start making yourself useful soon,’ said Delamarche, and shoved Karl out of the way, while reassuring the woman with the words: ‘He’s just the boy I brought along to attend on you.’ ‘But I don’t want anyone,’ she said, ‘why are you bringing strangers into my apartment?’ ‘But you’ve been wishing you could have an attendant the whole time,’ said Delamarche, falling to his knees; in spite of its great breadth, there was no room left on the sofa at all when Brunelda was on it. ‘Oh Delamarche,’ she said, ‘you don’t understand me, you don’t understand me at all.’ ‘In that case I don’t understand you,’ said Delamarche, taking her face in his hands. ‘But nothing’s settled, if you like, I can throw him out on the spot.’ ‘Oh seeing as he’s here, let him stay,’ she said, and Karl, in his exhaustion, was so grateful for these words, even though they might not have been meant well, that, with the endless stairs that he might have had to go down again now always vaguely at the back of his mind, he stepped over the body of Robinson peacefully asleep in his blanket, and, ignoring Delamarche’s irritated hand-flapping, said: ‘I’d like to thank you for letting me stay here for a little. I haven’t slept for twenty-four hours, but worked hard, and had a lot of other excitements too. I am dreadfully tired. I barely know where I am. But once I’ve had a couple of hours’ sleep, you can send me packing just like that, and I’ll be glad to go.’ ‘It’s all right, you can stay,’ said the woman, and she added, ironically: ‘As you can see, we’ve more than enough room.’ ‘You’d better go then,’ said Delamarche, ‘we’ve no use for you here.’ ‘No, let him stay,’ said the woman, this time seriously. And Delamarche said to Karl, as though enacting her wish: ‘All right, go and lie down somewhere.’ ‘He can lie down on the curtains, but he has to take his boots off first, so he doesn’t make any tears in them.’ Delamarche showed Karl the place she meant. Between the door and the three chests many different sorts of curtains had been thrown on to one great heap. If you had folded them all up properly, put the heavy ones at the bottom and the lighter ones on top, and remembered to pull out all the various wooden planks and curtain-rings that were buried in the pile, then it might have made a passable bed, but as it was, it was just a swaying, sliding mass, on which Karl nevertheless straightaway lay down, because he was far too tired for any preliminaries, and, mindful of his hosts, he had to avoid making any sort of fuss.
He was already almost asleep when he heard a loud scream, got up and saw Brunelda sitting up on the sofa, her arms spread to embrace Delamarche who was kneeling in front of her. Embarrassed by the sight, Karl lay back and bedded down on the curtains to go back to sleep. It seemed obvious to him that he would not last so much as two days here, which made it all the more essential that he get some proper sleep, in order to be able to take future decisions quickly, rationally and correctly.
But Brunelda had seen Karl’s staring eyes, which had alarmed her once already, and she cried: ‘Delamarche, I can’t stand this heat, I’m on fire, I must take my clothes off, I must bathe, send those two others away, anywhere you like, the corridor, the balcony, just out of my sight. We’re in our own home, and yet we’re continually being disturbed. If only I could be alone with you, Delamarche. Oh God, there they are still! How that brazen Robinson can stretch out in his underwear in the presence of a lady. And that stranger boy, who looked at me with wild eyes only a moment ago, and has lain down again in an attempt to trick me. Send them packing, Delamarche, they are a burden to me, they weigh on my mind. If I perish now, it will be on account of them.’
‘I’ll have them out right away, you go ahead and undress,’ said Delamarche, and went over to Robinson, set his foot on his chest and shook it. At the same time he called over to Karl: ‘Rossmann, get up! You’re both to go out on the balcony! And woe betide either one of you that tries to come back in before you’re sent for! Get a move on, Robinson’ – and he shook him a bit harder – ‘and you too, Rossmann, unless you want me to pay you a call as well’ – and he clapped his hands loudly twice. ‘It’s taking so long!’ cried Brunelda from the sofa, as she sat, she had her legs wide apart to give her excessive bulk a little more room, only with the utmost effort, with much panting and frequent rests could she bend down to reach the top of her stockings and roll them down a little, she was incapable of taking them off herself, that had to be done by Delamarche, for whom she was impatiently waiting.
Numb with exhaustion, Karl crawled off his pile, and slowly went over to the French window, a bit of curtain material had wrapped itself round his foot, and apathetically he dragged it along with him. In his absent-mindedness he even said: ‘I bid you good night,’ as he passed Brunelda, and then drifted past Delamarche, who was holding the curtain of the French window open a little, and then out on to the balcony. Immediately behind Karl came Robinson, in all probability just as tired, as he was muttering to himself. ‘I’m fed up with the continual maltreatment here! I’m not going out on the balcony unless Brunelda’s coming too.’ But in spite of his protestation, he went out without any resistance at all, and, Karl having already collapsed on to the deck-chair, he curled up on the stone floor.
When Karl awoke it was already evening, the star
s were out in the sky, and the radiance of the rising moon was visible behind the tall buildings opposite. Karl looked around at the unfamiliar sights, breathed in the cool refreshing air for some time before it came to him where he was. How careless he had been, disregarding all the advice of the Head Cook, the warnings of Therese, his own anxieties, now quietly sitting out on Delamarche’s balcony, having slept through half the day here, as though the other side of the curtain there wasn’t his arch-enemy, Delamarche. On the floor that lazy Robinson was just stretching and pulling at Karl’s foot, that must have been what had woken him up, because he said: ‘Rossmann, you sleep like a baby! That’s carefree youth for you. How long are you proposing to sleep for? I could have let you sleep even longer, but in the first place it was getting a bit boring for me down on the floor, and in the second place I’m famished. Will you get up a moment, I’ve kept something to eat in the bottom of the chair, I’d just like to get it out. You can have a bit too.’ And Karl, getting up, watched as Robinson, without getting up, crept over on his belly, and reaching out his hands, from under the chair pulled out a silver-gilt dish of the sort that, say, visiting cards are usually kept in. This dish, however, contained one half of a very black sausage, a few thin cigarettes, an already opened but still rather full sardine tin spilling oil, and a mess of mainly squashed and caked together sweets. Then he produced a large piece of bread and a sort of perfume bottle, which seemed to contain something other than perfume because Robinson pointed it out with particular gusto, and smacked his lips, to Karl. ‘You see, Rossmann,’ said Robinson, consuming one sardine after another, and from time to time wiping his hands on a woollen cloth that must have been left out on the balcony by Brunelda: ‘You see, Rossmann, you need to put some food aside like me, if you’re not to starve. You know, I’m an outcast. And if you’re treated like a dog the whole time, you end up thinking that’s what you are. I’m glad you’re here, Rossmann, at least I’ve someone to talk to now. No one in the building talks to me. We’re pariahs. And all because of Brunelda. Of course she’s a splendid woman. You know’ – and he beckoned Karl down, to whisper in his ear – ‘I once saw her without any clothes on. Oh!’ – and in recollection of his delight, he began to squeeze and pat Karl’s legs, till Karl cried: ‘Robinson, you’re mad,’ took his hands and pushed them away.
‘You’re still just a baby, Rossmann,’ said Robinson, pulled out a dagger he wore on a string round his neck, uncapped it and cut up the hard sausage. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn still. You’ve come to the right place for that, though. Sit down. Don’t you want anything to eat? Well, maybe watching me will give you an appetite. Or to drink either? Well, what do you want? You’re not exactly chatty either. But I don’t mind who’s out on the balcony with me, so long as I’ve got someone. I spend a lot of time out here. Brunelda gets a kick out of that. Any excuse is good enough, either she’s cold or she’s hot or she wants to sleep or comb her hair, or she wants to take off her corset or put it on, and each time I get put out on the balcony. Sometimes she does what she says, but usually she just stays lying on the sofa just as before, and doesn’t move a muscle. I used to pull the curtain open a crack and take a peep inside, but ever since Delamarche caught me like that once – I know for a fact he didn’t want to do it, he just did it because Brunelda asked him – and hit me in the face a few times with his whip – do you see the welt? – I haven’t dared do it any more. And so I lie out here on the balcony, and my only pleasure is eating. The day before yesterday as I was lying out here alone of an evening – then I still had my elegant clothes, which I unfortunately lost in your hotel – those bastards! ripping the expensive gear off your back! – so, as I was lying there alone, looking down through the railing, I felt so sad I started to cry. Then, without my noticing it at first, Brunelda came out in her red dress – that’s the one that suits her best if you ask me – watched me a while, and finally said: “Little Robinson, why are you crying?” Then she picked up her skirts and dried my eyes on the hem. Who knows what more she might have done if Delamarche hadn’t shouted for her, and she didn’t have to go back inside at once. Of course I thought it’s my turn now, and I called through the curtain to ask if I could go back in the room. And what do you suppose she said? She said “No!” and “Who do you think you are?”’
‘Why do you stay here then, if you’re treated like that?’ asked Karl.
‘I’m sorry, Rossmann, that’s not a very sensible question,’ replied Robinson. ‘You’ll be staying here yourself, even if you get far worse treatment. Anyway, my treatment’s not as bad as all that.’
‘No,’ said Karl, ‘I’m definitely leaving, tonight if possible. I’m not staying with you.’
‘Now how do you propose going about that, leaving tonight?’ asked Robinson, who had chiselled out the soft part of the bread, and was carefully dunking it in the oil in the sardine can. ‘How are you going to leave, if you’re not even allowed in the room.’
‘Why aren’t we allowed in the room?’
‘As long as they haven’t rung, we aren’t allowed in,’ said Robinson, keeping his mouth as wide open as he could while eating the oily bread, and catching the oil that dripped from the bread in his other hand, and using it as a reservoir, dunked the rest of the bread in it from time to time. ‘Everything’s been tightened up here. At first there was just a thin curtain, you couldn’t quite see through it, but you could at least make out the shadows in the evening. That was disagreeable to Brunelda, and I had to alter one of her old theatre coats into a curtain and hang it up here in place of the old curtain. Now you can’t see anything at all. Then I used to be allowed to ask if I might go back inside yet and they replied “yes” or “no” according to the circumstances, but I expect I took advantage of that and asked once too often. Brunelda couldn’t stand that, in spite of her fatness she has a frail constitution, she often suffers headaches and has gout in her legs the whole time – and so it was decided that I can’t ask any more, but when I can go in, they’ll ring the bell on the table. That has such a loud ring that it even wakes me out of my sleep – I used to keep a cat here for company, and the ringing gave her such a scare that she ran off and never came back. So it hasn’t rung yet today – because if it rings it doesn’t just mean I’m allowed to go in, I have to go in – and if it hasn’t rung for a long time, then it could be a long time yet before it does.’
‘Yes,’ said Karl, ‘but what applies to you doesn’t have to apply to me as well. Besides these sort of things only hold good if you agree to be bound by them.’
‘But’, exclaimed Robinson, ‘why shouldn’t it apply to you too? Of course it applies to you as well. Stay here quietly with me, until it rings. Then you can see if you can get away.’
‘Why don’t you get out of here yourself? Just because Delamarche is your friend, or rather used to be? What kind of life is this? Wouldn’t you be better off in Butterford, where you were headed for originally? Or in California, where you have some friends.’
‘Yes,’ said Robinson, ‘who could have predicted it.’ And before he resumed his tale, he said: ‘Your health, my dear Rossmann,’ and he took a long pull from the perfume bottle. ‘Back then when you ditched us so meanly, we were in a bad way. In the first few days we couldn’t find any work, that is Delamarche didn’t want to work, he would have found something I’m sure, but he just sent me off to look, and I’m unlucky like that. He just hung around, but when it was almost dark he brought back a ladies’ purse, it was very pretty, beads, he’s given it to Brunelda now, but there wasn’t much in it. Then he said we ought to go and beg in people’s apartments, that way we might come across a few useful items, so we went begging, and to make a better impression, I sang on people’s doorsteps. And, Delamarche is such a lucky devil, we were on our second doorstep, a wealthy ground-floor apartment, singing to a cook and a butler, and then who should come up the stairs but the lady the flat belongs to, Brunelda in fact. Maybe her corset was too tight, and she couldn’t manage the few steps. B
ut she was so beautiful, Rossmann! She had a white dress and a red parasol. I could have licked her all over. I could have gobbled her up. God, God she was beautiful. What a woman! No, tell me how can such a woman be allowed to exist? Of course the butler and the girl ran up to her and all but carried her up the stairs. We stood either side of the door and saluted, that’s what they do here. She stopped awhile, she still hadn’t got her breath, and I can’t remember how it happened exactly, maybe I’d had so little to eat that it was starting to affect my judgement, and close up she was still more beautiful and enormous and wide and, because of a special corset she had on, I can show you in the chest, she was so firm all over – well, I just brushed against her behind, you know, ever so gently. Of course that’s not permissible, a beggar touching a rich lady. It almost wasn’t a touch at all, but I suppose in the end it sort of was. Who knows what consequences it might have had, if Delamarche hadn’t slapped me right away, and slapped me so hard that both my hands flew up to my cheek.’
‘Such goings on,’ said Karl, quite captivated by the story, and sat down on the ground. ‘So that was Brunelda?’
‘That’s right,’ said Robinson, ‘that was Brunelda.’
‘Didn’t you once say she was a singer?’ asked Karl.
‘Of course she’s a singer, and a great singer too,’ replied Robinson, revolving a huge mass of sweets on his tongue and now and then pushing a bit that was falling out of his mouth back in with his fingers. ‘But of course we didn’t know that then, we only saw that she was a rich and very distinguished lady. She acted as though nothing had happened, because I really only just tapped her with my fingertips. But she kept staring at Delamarche, who looked her – how does he manage it – straight in the eye. Then she said: “Come in for a bit,” and with her parasol she ushered Delamarche into the apartment ahead of her. Then they both went inside and the servants shut the door after them. They just left me outside, and I thought it won’t take all that long, and I sat down on the steps to wait for Delamarche. Then instead of Delamarche the butler came out and he brought me a whole bowl of soup, “compliments of Delamarche!” I thought to myself. The butler hung around for a while as I ate, and told me a few things about Brunelda, and then I saw what importance the visit to Brunelda could have for us. Because Brunelda was a divorcee, she had a large fortune, and she was completely independent. Her ex-husband, a chocolate manufacturer, still loved her, but she didn’t want anything more to do with him. He visited the apartment frequently, always dressed terribly smartly, as if for a wedding – that’s literally true, I saw him myself – but in spite of all kinds of bribes, the butler didn’t dare ask Brunelda whether she would receive him, because he had already asked a few times, and each time she had thrown in his face whatever she had to hand. Once it was even her large full hot-water bottle, and that knocked out one of his front teeth. Yes, Rossmann, you’re amazed.’