Part 22

They walked on in silence for a while, K. keeping close to the clergyman, not knowing in the darkness where he was. The lamp in his hand had long since gone out. Once the silver statue of a saint before him glinted only with the sheen of the silver and then immediately melted back into the gloom. So as not to remain entirely dependent on the clergyman, K. asked him: "Aren't we near the main entrance now?" "No," said the clergyman, "we are far from it. Do you want to leave already?" Although K. had not been thinking of that at just this moment, he said at once: "Certainly, I must go. I am a bank procurist, people are waiting for me, I only came here to show the cathedral to a foreign business friend." "Well," said the clergyman, and offered K. his hand, "then go." "But I can't find my way alone in the dark," said K. "Go left to the wall," said the clergyman, "then along the wall without leaving it and you will find an exit." The clergyman had moved only a few steps away, but K. already called out very loudly: "Please, wait a moment longer." "I am waiting," said the clergyman. "Don't you want something more from me?" asked K. "No," said the clergyman. "You were so kind to me before," said K., "and explained everything to me, but now you dismiss me as if you didn't care about me." "You must go, though," said the clergyman. "Well yes," said K., "see that." "You see first who I am," said the clergyman. "You are the prison chaplain," said K. and went closer to the clergyman, his immediate return to the bank was not as necessary as he had represented it, he could very well remain here a while longer. "So I belong to the Court," said the clergyman. "Why should I want anything from you then. The Court wants nothing from you. It takes you up when you come, and it dismisses you when you go."

TENTH CHAPTER

END

On the eve of his thirty-first birthday — it was about nine o'clock in the evening, the time of stillness in the streets — two gentlemen came into K.'s lodgings. They wore frock coats, were pale and fat, with seemingly immovable top hats. After a small formality at the apartment door concerning who should enter first, the same formality repeated itself on a larger scale before K.'s door. Without his visit having been announced, K. too sat, dressed in black, in an armchair near the door and was slowly pulling on new gloves that stretched tightly over his fingers, in the posture of one expecting guests. He stood up at once and looked at the gentlemen curiously. "So you are meant for me," he asked. The gentlemen nodded, one pointed with the top hat in his hand at the other. K. admitted to himself that he had expected another visitor. He went to the window and looked once more at the dark street. Almost all the windows on the other side of the street were also dark, in many the curtains were drawn. In one lit window of the floor above, small children played behind a grating and, still unable to move from their places, groped with their little hands toward one another. "They send old subordinate actors for me," K. said to himself and looked around to convince himself of it once more. "They want to get done with me cheaply." K. turned suddenly to them and asked: "At which theater do you play?" "Theater?" asked one gentleman, with twitching mouth corners, of the other for advice. The other behaved like a mute struggling with a refractory organism. "You are not prepared to be questioned," K. said to himself and went to fetch his hat.

Already on the stairs the gentlemen wanted to link arms with K., but K. said: "Only in the street, I am not ill." But right before the gate they linked arms with him in a way K. had never walked with any human being. They held their shoulders close behind his, did not bend their arms, but used them to encircle K.'s arms in their full length, below they seized K.'s hands with a schooled, practiced, irresistible grip. K. walked stiffly stretched between them, and now all three formed such a unity that if one of them had been smashed, all would have been smashed. It was a unity such as almost only the lifeless can form.

Under the street lamps K. tried, as difficult as it was to execute within this close press, to see his companions more clearly than had been possible in the dusk of his room. Perhaps they are tenors, he thought at the sight of their heavy double chins. He was disgusted by the cleanliness of their faces. One could almost see the cleansing hand that had gone into the corners of their eyes, rubbed their upper lip, scraped the folds from their chins.

When K. noticed this, he stopped, and consequently the others also stopped; they were at the edge of an open, deserted square adorned with plantings. "Why was it precisely you who were sent!" he cried more than asked. The gentlemen apparently knew no answer, they waited with the free arm hanging, like hospital attendants when the patient wants to rest. "I am not going any farther," said K. experimentally. The gentlemen did not need to answer that, it sufficed that they did not loosen their grip and tried to move K. from the spot, but K. resisted. "I will not need much strength any more, I will now apply all of it," he thought. He thought of the flies that strive away from the flypaper with tearing little legs. "The gentlemen will have hard work."

Then before them, from a lower side street up a small flight of steps, Fräulein Bürstner ascended to the square. It was not entirely certain whether it was her, the resemblance was certainly great. But K. also did not care whether it was definitely Fräulein Bürstner, only the worthlessness of his resistance came at once to his consciousness. It was nothing heroic if he resisted, if he now made difficulties for the gentlemen, if he now in defense tried to enjoy the last semblance of life. He set himself in motion, and from the joy he thereby gave the gentlemen something passed over to himself. They now permitted him to determine the direction of the way, and he determined it toward the path the young lady took before them, not at all because he wanted to catch up with her, not at all because he wanted to see her as long as possible, but only so as not to forget the admonition that she meant for him. "The only thing I can do now," he said to himself and the evenness of his steps and the steps of the two others confirmed his thoughts, "the only thing I now do is to keep to the end the calmly ordering understanding. I always wanted to plunge into the world with twenty hands and moreover to an objectionable purpose. That was wrong, am I now to show that not even the one-year trial could instruct me? Am I to depart as a person dull of comprehension? Shall one be allowed to say of me that at the beginning of the trial I wanted to end it and now at its end I want to begin it again. I do not want that said. I am grateful that on this path they have given me these half-mute, incomprehending gentlemen and that they have left it to me to say to myself what is necessary."

The young lady had in the meantime turned into a side street, but K. could already do without her and gave himself over to his companions. All three now moved in full accord across a bridge in the moonlight, to every small movement K. made the gentlemen now readily yielded, when he turned a little toward the railing, they too turned in full front toward there. The water, gleaming and trembling in the moonlight, divided around a small island on which tree and shrub masses were heaped as if crowded together. Below them, now invisible, gravel paths with comfortable benches led, on which K. had stretched and sprawled in many a summer. "I didn't at all want to stop," he said to his companions, ashamed by their readiness. One seemed to make a gentle reproach behind K.'s back to the other for the misunderstood stopping, then they went on.

They came through some rising streets, in which here and there policemen stood or walked; now in the distance, now in closest proximity. One with a bushy mustache, hand on the hilt of his saber, stepped as if intentionally close to the not quite unsuspicious group. The gentlemen faltered, the policeman seemed already to open his mouth, when K. drew the gentlemen forcibly forward. Often he turned cautiously to see whether the policeman followed; but when they had a corner between themselves and the policeman, K. began to run, the gentlemen had to run too despite great breathlessness.

Thus they quickly came out of the city, which in this direction joined the fields almost without transition. A small quarry, abandoned and desolate, lay near a still quite urban house. Here the gentlemen halted, whether this place had been their goal from the very beginning, or whether they were too exhausted to run farther. Now they let K. loose, who waited silently, took off their top hats and, while they looked around the quarry, wiped the sweat from their foreheads with handkerchiefs. Everywhere lay the moonlight with its naturalness and calm, which is given to no other light.

After an exchange of some courtesies regarding who should carry out the next tasks — the gentlemen seemed to have received the orders undivided — one went to K. and pulled off his coat, waistcoat and finally shirt. K. shivered involuntarily, whereupon the gentleman gave him a light reassuring slap on the back. Then he laid the things carefully together, like objects one will still use, if not in the very nearest time. So as not to expose K. without movement to the always rather cool night air, he took him under the arm and walked up and down a little with him, while the other gentleman searched the quarry for some suitable spot. When he had found it, he beckoned and the other gentleman led K. there. It was near the quarry wall, a broken-off stone lay there. The gentlemen set K. down on the ground, leaned him against the stone and laid his head on top. Despite all the effort they gave and despite all the compliance K. showed them, his posture remained a very constrained and implausible one. The one gentleman therefore asked the other to leave him alone for a while with laying K. down, but even thereby it became no better. Finally they left K. in a position that was not even the best of the positions already achieved. Then one gentleman opened his frock coat and took from a sheath hanging on a belt stretched around the waist a long, thin, sharpened-on-both-sides butcher's knife, held it high and tested the edges in the light. Again began the repulsive courtesies, one reached over K. the knife to the other, this one reached it back over K. The one gentleman therefore asked the other to leave him alone for a while with laying K. down, but even thereby it became no better. Finally they left K. in a position that was not even the best of the positions already achieved. Then one gentleman opened his frock coat and took from a sheath hanging on a belt stretched around the waist a long, thin, sharpened-on-both-sides butcher's knife, held it high and tested the edges in the light. Again began the repulsive courtesies, one reached over K. the knife to the other, this one reached it back over K. to the first. K. knew now exactly that it would have been his duty, when the knife hovered from hand to hand above him, to seize it himself and plunge it in. But he did not do it, rather turned the still free neck and looked around. He could not fully prove himself, could not take all the work from the authorities, the responsibility for this last error lay with him who had denied him the rest of the strength needed for it. His glance fell on the top floor of the house adjoining the quarry. Like a light flaring up, the window casements of a window there flew apart, a human, weak and thin in the distance and height, bent far forward with a jerk and stretched the arms still farther out. Who was it? A friend? A good person? One who sympathized? One who wanted to help? Was it a single person? Were they all? Was there still help? Were there objections that one had forgotten? Certainly there were such. Logic is indeed unshakable, but to a human who wants to live it does not resist. Where was the judge whom he had never seen? Where was the high court to which he had never come? He raised the hands and spread all fingers.

But at K.'s throat laid the hands of one gentleman, while the other thrust the knife into his heart and turned it there twice. With breaking eyes K. still saw how the gentlemen, close before his face, cheek against cheek leaning on one another, observed the decision. "Like a dog!" he said, it was as if the shame were to outlive him.

AFTERWORD

Strange and deep as all manifestations of life of Franz Kafka was also his attitude toward his own work and every publication. The problems that he debated in treating this matter and that therefore must remain the guideline of every publication from his estate can in their seriousness not be overestimated. For their at least approximate assessment the following may serve:

Almost everything Kafka published was wrung from him by me with cunning and persuasion. Not in contradiction with this stands that he often, in long periods of life, on account of his writing (he indeed always spoke only of a "scribbling") felt much happiness. Whoever was permitted to hear him read his own prose in a small circle with ravishing fire, with a rhythm whose liveliness no actor will ever attain, felt also immediately the genuine untamed joy of creation and passion that stood behind this work. That he nevertheless rejected it had its ground first in certain sad experiences that led him to self-sabotage, hence also to nihilism toward his own work; independent of that, however, also in the fact that he applied to this work (indeed without ever expressing this) the highest religious standard, to which it could indeed, wrested from many confusions, not correspond. That his work could nevertheless have become a strong helper to many who strive toward faith, toward nature, toward perfect health of soul, could mean nothing to him, who with the most inexorable seriousness was for himself in search of the right way and first had to give counsel to himself, not to others.

Thus I interpret for my person the negative attitude of Kafka toward his own work. He often spoke of the "false hands that stretch out toward one during writing" — also of the fact that the written and even the published disturbed him in further work. There were many resistances to overcome before a volume of his appeared. Nonetheless he had a real joy at the finished beautiful books and occasionally also at their effects, and there were times when he, like at himself so also at his work, regarded with seemingly more benevolent glances, never quite without irony, yet with friendly irony; with an irony behind which hid the enormous pathos of him who strives uncompromisingly for the highest.

In Franz Kafka's estate no will was found. In his writing desk lay, among much other paper, a folded, ink-written slip with my address. The slip reads as follows:

Dearest Max, my last request: Everything that is found in my estate (thus in the bookcase, linen closet, writing desk, at home and in the office, or wherever else anything may have been carried and catches your eye) in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters, foreign and own, drawings and so on, to burn completely and unread, likewise everything written or drawn that you or others, whom you shall ask in my name, have. Letters that one does not want to hand over to you, they should at least oblige themselves to burn.

Your Franz Kafka.

On closer search there was also found a pencil-written, yellowed, apparently older sheet. It says:

Dear Max, perhaps this time I shall not get up again, the coming of pneumonia after the month of lung fever is probable enough, and not even that I write it down will ward it off, though it has a certain power.

For this case therefore my last will regarding everything written by me:

Of all that I have written, only the books count: Judgment, Stoker, Metamorphosis, Penal Colony, Country Doctor and the story: Hunger Artist. (The few copies of 'Contemplation' may remain, I do not want to give anyone the trouble of pulping, but nothing from it may be printed anew.) If I say that those five books and the story count, I mean thereby not that I wish them to be printed anew and transmitted to future times, on the contrary, should they be entirely lost, this corresponds to my actual wish. Only do I not hinder, since they already exist, anyone from preserving them, if he has the inclination.

Against that, everything else that exists of mine in writing (printed in periodicals, in manuscript or in letters) without exception, insofar as it is obtainable or to be had from the addressees by request (you know most of the addressees, mainly it concerns .........., especially do not forget a couple of notebooks that ..... has) — all this is without exception, preferably unread (yet I do not forbid you to look in, most pleasant to me would be if you did not do it, in any case no other may look in) — all this is without exception to be burned, and to do this as soon as possible I ask you

Franz

If I nevertheless refuse, opposite these so categorically expressed dispositions, to execute the Herostratian deed my friend demanded of me, I have for this the most weighty reasons.

Some of them withdraw from public discussion. Yet also those I can communicate are in my view quite sufficient for the understanding of my decision.

The main reason: when in 1921 I changed my profession, I told my friend that I had made my will, in which I asked him to destroy this and that, to look through the other and so on. Thereupon Kafka showed me the ink-written slip that was then found in his writing desk, from the outside, and said: "My will will be quite simple — the request to you to burn everything." I also still remember exactly the answer I gave then: "If you should seriously impose such a thing on me, I tell you already now that I will not fulfill your request." The whole conversation was conducted in that joking tone customary between us, yet with the secret seriousness that we always presupposed in the other. Had he been convinced of the seriousness of my refusal, Franz would have had to appoint another executor, if his own disposition had been of absolute and last seriousness.

I am not grateful to him for plunging me into this heavy conflict of conscience, which he must have foreseen, for he knew the fanatic veneration that I brought to every word of his, and that in the 22 years of our never clouded friendship (among other things) caused me to throw away not the smallest slip, no postcard that came from him. — The "I am not grateful" may by the way not be misunderstood! What does a however so heavy conflict of conscience weigh against the infinite blessing that I owe the friend who was the actual backbone of my whole spiritual existence!

Further reasons: the order of the pencil sheet was not followed by Franz himself, for later he explicitly gave permission that parts of 'Contemplation' be reprinted in a newspaper, and that three further novellas be published, which he himself united with the "Hunger Artist" and handed to the publisher Die Schmiede. Both dispositions moreover stem from a time when the self-critical tendencies of my friend had reached their height. But in his last year of life his whole existence took an unforeseen, new, happy, positive turn that derogates this self-hate and nihilism. — My decision to publish the estate is by the way eased by the memory of all the embittered struggles with which I forced and often enough begged for every single publication of Kafka. And yet he was afterward reconciled with these publications and relatively satisfied. — Finally, with a posthumous publication a series of motives drops away, for example that publication could disturb further work, that it could call up the shadows of personally painful periods of life. How much for Kafka non-publication was bound up with the problem of his conduct of life (a problem that, to our immeasurable pain, now no longer troubles) appears, as from many conversations, from the following letter to me: "... I do not enclose the novels. Why stir up the old exertions? Only because I have not burned them so far? ... When I come next time, it will hopefully happen. Wherein lies the sense of preserving such 'even' artistically failed works? Therein, that one hopes that from these pieces a whole will compose itself, some instance of appeal at whose breast I will be able to beat when in need. I know that this is not possible, that from there no help comes. What then shall I do with the things? Shall those who cannot help me also harm me, as, this knowledge presupposed, must be?"

I feel very well that a remainder remains that would forbid publication to particularly delicate-minded people. But I hold it for my duty to resist this very insinuating temptation of delicacy. Decisive is thereby naturally nothing of what has been brought forward so far, but solely and alone the fact that Kafka's estate contains the most wonderful treasures, measured also against his own work the best he has written. Honestly I must confess that this one fact of literary and ethical value would have sufficed (even if I had no objection at all to the force of Kafka's last will dispositions) — to determine my decision with a precision to which I have nothing to oppose, unambiguously.

Unfortunately Franz Kafka became his own executor of a part of his legacy. I found in his apartment ten large quarto notebooks — only their covers, the content completely destroyed. Further he (according to reliable report) burned several writing pads. In the apartment was found only a convolute (about a hundred aphorisms on religious questions), an autobiographical attempt that remains for the present unpublished, and a heap of unordered papers that I am now sorting. I hope that in these papers many a completed or nearly completed story will be found. Further, an (unfinished) animal novella and a sketchbook were handed to me.

The most precious part of the legacy consists therefore in the works that were timely withdrawn from the wrath of the author and brought to safety. These are three novels. 'The Stoker', the already published story, forms the first chapter of the one novel that plays in America, and of which also the final chapter exists, so that it should show no essential gap. This novel is with a friend of the deceased; the two others — "The Castle" and "The Trial" — I brought to me in 1920 and 1923, which today is a true comfort to me. Only these works will show that the actual significance of Franz Kafka, whom one could hitherto with some right hold for a specialist, a master of the minor art, lies in the great epic form.

With these works, which should fill about four volumes of a posthumous edition, the radiations of Kafka's magical personality are by far not exhausted. Though also for the present no thought can be given to an edition of the letters, each single one of which possesses the same naturalness and intensity as Kafka's literary work, one will yet in a small circle in time set about to collect everything that has remained in memory as expression of this unique human. To cite only one example: how many of the works that now to my bitter disappointment were no longer found in Kafka's apartment had my friend read to me or at least partly read to me, partly told their plan! What unforgettable, quite original, quite deep thoughts he communicated to me! As far as my memory reaches, as far as my powers reach, nothing shall be lost.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”