The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

The Complete Stories

Franz Kafka

Copyright © 1971 by Schocken Books Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Schocken Books Inc., New York.

Distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

The foreword by John Updike was originally published in The New Yorker.

Foreword copyright © 1983 by John Updike.

Collection first published in 1971 by Schocken Books Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924.

The complete stories.

(Kafka Library)

Bibliography: p.

1. Kafka, Franz, 1885-1924 — Translations, English.

I. Glatzer, Nahum Norbet, 1903- . I. Title.

ü. Series.

PT2621.A26A2 1988 833'.912 88-18418

ISBN 0-8052-0873-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Contents

Copyright

Foreword by John Updike

TWO INTRODUCTORY PARABLES

Before the Law*

An Imperial Message*

THE LONGER STORIES

Description of a Struggle

Wedding Preparations in the Country

The Judgment*

The Metamorphosis*

In the Penal Colony*

The Village Schoolmaster [The Giant Mole]

Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor

The Warden of the Tomb

A Country Doctor*

The Hunter Gracchus

The Hunter Gracchus: A Fragment

The Great Wall of China

The News of the Building of the Wall: A Fragment

A Report to an Academy*

A Report to an Academy: Two Fragments

The Refusal

A Hunger Artist*

Investigations of a Dog

A Little Woman*

The Burrow

Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk*

THE SHORTER STORIES

Children on a Country Road*

The Trees*

Clothes*

Excursion into the Mountains*

Rejection*

The Street Window*

The Tradesman*

Absent-minded Window-gazing*

The Way Home*

Passers-by*

On the Tram*

Reflections for Gentlemen-Jockeys*

The Wish to Be a Red Indian*

Unhappiness*

Bachelor's Ill Luck*

Unmasking a Confidence Trickster*

Sudden Walk*

Resolutions*

Dream*

Up in the Gallery*

A Fratricide*

The Next Village*

A Visit to a Mine*

Jackals and Arabs*

The Bridge

The Bucket Rider

The New Advocate*

An Old Manuscript*

The Knock at the Manor Gate

Eleven Sons*

My Neighbor

A Crossbreed [A Sport]

The Cares of a Family Man*

A Common Confusion

The Truth About Sancho Panza

The Silence of the Sirens

Prometheus

The City Coat of Arms

Poseidon

Fellowship

At Night

The Problem of Our Laws

The Conscription of Troops

The Test

The Vulture

The Helmsman

The Top

A Little Fable

Home-Coming

First Sorrow*

The Departure

Advocates

The Married Couple

Give it Up!

On Parables

Postscript

Bibliography

Editors and Translators

On the Material

Chronology

Selected Writings on Kafka

Back Cover

* Published during Kafka's lifetime.

FOREWORD

By John Updike

All that he does seems to him, it is true, extraordinarily new, but also, because of the incredible spate of new things, extraordinarily amateurish, indeed scarcely tolerable, incapable of becoming history, breaking short the chain of the generations, cutting off for the first time at its most profound source the music of the world, which before him could at least be divined. Sometimes in his arrogance he has more anxiety for the world than for himself.

— KAFKA, "He" (Aphorisms)

THE century since Franz Kafka was born has been marked by the idea of "modernism" — a self-consciousness new among centuries, a consciousness of being new. Sixty years after his death, Kafka epitomizes one aspect of this modern mind-set: a sensation of anxiety and shame whose center cannot be located and therefore cannot be placated; a sense of an infinite difficulty within things, impeding every step; a sensitivity acute beyond usefulness, as if the nervous system, flayed of its old hide of social usage and religious belief, must record every touch as pain. In Kafka's peculiar and highly original case this dreadful quality is mixed with immense tenderness, oddly good humor, and a certain severe and reassuring formality. The combination makes him an artist; but rarely can an artist have struggled against greater inner resistance and more sincere diffidence as to the worth of his art.

This volume holds all of the fiction that Kafka committed to publication during his lifetime:* a slender sheaf of mostly very short stories, the longest of them, "The Metamorphosis," a mere fifty pages long, and only a handful of the others as much as five thousand words. He published six slim volumes, four of them single stories, from 1913 to 1919, and was working on the proofs of a seventh in the sanatorium where he died on June 3rd, 1924, of tuberculosis, exactly one month short of his forty-first birthday. Among his papers after his death were found several notes addressed to his closest friend, Max Brod. One of them stated:

Of all my writings the only books that can stand are these: The Judgment, The Stoker, Metamorphosis, Penal Colony, Country Doctor and the short story: Hunger-Artist. . . When I say that those five books and the short story can stand, I do not mean that I wish them to be reprinted and handed down to posterity. On the contrary, should they disappear altogether that would please me best. Only, since they do exist, I do not wish to hinder anyone who may want to, from keeping them.

* The single exception is "The Stoker," published as Der Heizer, Ein Fragment in 1913 but now incorporated, in German and in English, as the first chapter of Kafka's unfinished novel Amerika.

The little canon that Kafka reluctantly granted posterity would, indeed, stand; "The Metamorphosis" alone would assure him a place in world literature, though undoubtedly a less prominent place than he enjoys thanks to the mass of his posthumously published novels, tales, parables, aphorisms, and letters. The letter quoted above went on to direct Brod to burn all of Kafka's manuscripts, "without exception and preferably unread." Another note, written later, reiterated the command even more emphatically; and Dora Dymant, the young woman with whom Kafka shared the last year of his life, obediently did destroy those portions of the Kafka hoard within her keeping. But Brod disobeyed. Predictably: while Kafka was alive Brod had often elicited manuscripts from his excessively scrupulous friend and was instrumental in the publication of some few of them. In Brod's words: "he knew with what fanatical veneration I listened to his every word. . . during the whole twenty-two years of our unclouded friendship, I never once threw away the smallest scrap of paper that came from him, no, not even a post card." In a conversation of 1921 he warned Kafka he would burn nothing. And so with good conscience the reverent executor issued to the world The Trial and The Castle -- both novels unfinished and somewhat problematical in their texts but nevertheless magnificently realized — and a host of lesser but still priceless fragments, painstakingly deciphered and edited. Kafka and Shakespeare have this in common: their reputations rest principally on texts they never approved or proofread.

This volume, then, holds as well many stories in various states of incompletion. Some, like "The Village Schoolmaster" and "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor," seem fatally truncated, their full intentions and final design destined to remain mysterious. In some others, notably "Investigations of a Dog," the author seems to have played out his inspiration without rounding out the story; Kafka's need to explore this conceit of philosophical speculation in a canine world where human beings are somehow unseen ("a sort of canine atheism" one commentator has called the phenomenon) has been happily exhausted before an end is reached. The failure is purely mechanical and we do not feel cheated, since the story's burden of private meaning has been unloaded — there are scarcely any pages in Kafka more sweetly and winningly autobiographical than these. In still other of these uncompleted stories, such as "The Great Wall of China" and "The Burrow," the end is even nearer, and we do not wish for any more. According to Dora Dymant, "The Burrow" had been concluded, in a version she destroyed, with a "scene describing the hero taking up a tense fighting position in expectation of the beast, and the decisive struggle in which the hero succumbs"; though there is poignance in this — "the beast" was Kafka's nickname for his disease, to which he was to succumb within a few months — we are glad to leave the burrowing hero, fussily timorous and blithely carnivorous, where he is, apprehensively poised amid menaces more cosmic and comic than anything his claws could grapple with. "The Burrow" and "The Great Wall of China" belong at the summit of Kafka's oeuvre; their fantastic images are developed with supreme elegance and resonance. The German titles of both contain the word "Bau." Kafka was obsessed with building, with work that is never done, that can never be done, that must always fall short of perfection. His manuscripts show Kafka to have been a fervent worker, "scribbling" (as he called his writing) with a stately steadiness across the page, revising rather little, but ceasing when authenticity no longer seemed to be present, often laying down parallel or even contradictory tracks in search of his prey, and content to leave his works in an "open" state like that of his Great Wall — their segments uncertainly linked, strange gaps left, the ultimate objective shied from as if too blindingly grand. Not to write for money or the coarser forms of glory is common enough among modern avant-gardists; but to abjure aesthetic "finish" itself carries asceticism a step farther, into a realm of protest where such disparate modernists as Eliot and Pound (in the intrinsically fragmentary nature of their poetry) and Rilke and Salinger (in their capacities for silence) keep Kafka company. Incompletion is a quality of his work, a facet of its nobility. His briefest paragraphs and riddles sufficiently possess the adamancy of art.

Hearing Kafka read aloud from his youthful works "Description of a Struggle" and "Wedding Preparations in the Country" instantly convinced Max Brod that his friend was a genius: "I got the impression immediately that here was no ordinary talent speaking, but a genius." You who are picking up this volume in innocence of the author, however, might do well to skip these first two titles and return to them when initiated. Repeated readings of these grouped fragments have left them, for me, not merely opaque but repellent. "Description" was composed no later than 1904-5, when Kafka was in his early twenties. It is full of contortions both psychological ("I had to restrain myself from putting my arm around his shoulders and kissing him on the eyes as a reward for having absolutely no use for me") and physical ("this thought. . . tormented me so much that while walking I bent my back until my hands reached my knees"; "I screwed up my mouth. . . and supported myself by standing on my right leg while resting the left one on its toes"). There is something of adolescent posturing here, or of those rigid bodily states attendent upon epilepsy and demonic possession. The conversation seems hectic, and the hero and his companions pass a mysterious leg injury back and forth like the ancient Graeae sharing one eye. Self-loathing and self-distrust lurk within all this somatic unease; the "supplicant" prays in church at the top of his voice "in order to be looked at and acquire a body." A certain erotic undercurrent is present also, and in "Wedding Preparations" the hero, Eduard Raban, is proceeding toward his wedding in the country. This narrative at least boasts a discernible direction; but we strongly feel that Raban, for all his dutiful determination, will never get there. The typical Kafkaesque process of non-arrival is underway. And in truth Kafka, though heterosexual, charming, and several times engaged, and furthermore professing that "Marrying, founding a family, accepting all the children that come [is] the utmost a human being can succeed in doing at all," never did manage to get married.

The charm that these disquieting, abortive early pieces exerted upon Brod and other auditors (for Kafka used to read his work aloud to friends, sometimes laughing so hard he could not continue reading) must have largely derived from the quality of their German prose. These lucid and fluent translations by the Muirs and the Sterns can capture only a shadow of what seems to have been a stirring purity. "Writing is a form of prayer," Kafka wrote in his diary. Thomas Mann paid tribute to Kafka's "conscientious, curiously explicit, objective, clear, and correct style, [with] its precise, almost official conservatism." Brod likened it to J. P. Hebel's and Kleist's, and claimed that "its unique charm is heightened by the presence of Prague and generally speaking Austrian elements in the run of the sentence." The Jews of Prague generally spoke German, and thus was added to their racial and religious minority-status a certain linguistic isolation as well, for Czech was the language of the countryside and of Bohemian nationalism. It is interesting that of the last two women in Kafka's life — two who abetted the "reaching out" of his later, happier years — Milena Jesenská-Pollak was his Czech translator and helped teach him Czech, and Dora Dymant confirmed him in his exploratory Judaism including the study of Hebrew. He wrote to Brod of the problems of German: "Only the dialects are really alive, and except for them, only the most individual High German, while all the rest, the linguistic middle ground, is nothing but embers which can only be brought to a semblance of life when excessively lively Jewish hands rummage through them." Though fascinated by the liveliness of Yiddish theatre, he opted for what Philip Rahv has called an "ironically conservative" style; what else, indeed, could hold together such leaps of symbolism, such a trembling abundance of feeling and dread?

Kafka dated his own maturity as a writer from the long night of September 22nd-23rd, 1912, in which he wrote "The Judgment" at a single eight-hour sitting. He confided to his diary that morning, "Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul." Yet the story is not quite free of the undeclared neurotic elements that twist the earlier work; the connection between the engagement and the father seems obscure, and the old man's fury illogical. But in staring at, with his hero Georg, "the bogey conjured up by his father," Kafka broke through to a great cavern of stored emotion. He loved this story, and among friends praised — he who deprecated almost everything from his own pen — its Zweifellosigkeit, its "indubitableness." Soon after its composition, he wrote, in a few weeks, "The Metamorphosis," an indubitable masterpiece. It begins with a fantastic premise, whereas in "The Judgment" events become fantastic. This premise — the gigantic insect — established in the first sentence, "The Metamorphosis" unfolds with a beautiful naturalness and a classic economy. It takes place in three acts: three times the metamorphosed Gregor Samsa ventures out of his room, with tumultuous results. The members of his family — rather simpler than Kafka's own, which had three sisters — dispose themselves around the central horror with a touching, as well as an amusing, plausibility. The father's fury, roused in defense of the fragile mother, stems directly from the action and inflicts a psychic wound gruesomely objectified in the rotting apple Gregor carries in his back; the evolutions of the sister, Crete, from shock to distasteful ministration to a certain sulky possessiveness and finally to exasperated indifference are beautifully sketched, with not a stroke too much. The terrible but terribly human tale ends with Crete's own metamorphosis, into a comely young woman. This great story resembles a great story of the nineteenth century, Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"; in both, a hitherto normal man lies hideously, suddenly stricken in the midst of a family whose irritated, banal daily existence flows around him. The abyss within life is revealed, but also life itself.

What kind of insect is Gregor? Popular belief has him a cockroach, which would be appropriate for a city apartment; and the creature's retiring nature and sleazy dietary preferences would seem to conform. But, as Vladimir Nabokov, who knew his entomology, pointed out in his lectures upon "The Metamorphosis" at Cornell University, Gregor is too broad and convex to be a cockroach. The charwoman calls him a "dung beetle" (Mistkäfer) but, Nabokov said, "it is obvious that the good woman is adding the epithet only to be friendly." Kafka's Eduard Raban of "Wedding Preparations" daydreams, walking along, "As I lie in bed I assume the shape of a big beetle, a stag beetle or a cockchafer, I think." Gregor Samsa, awaking, sees "numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk." If "numerous" is more than six, he must be a centipede — not an insect at all. From evidence in the story he is brown in color and about as long as the distance between a doorknob and the floor; he is broader than half a door. He has a voice at first, "but with a persistent horrible twittering squeak behind it like an undertone," which disappears as the story progresses. His jaws don't work as ours do but he has eyelids, nostrils, and a neck. He is, in short, impossible to picture except when the author wants to evoke his appearance, to bump the reader up against some astounding, poignant new aspect of Gregor's embodiment. The strange physical discomfort noted in the earlier work is here given its perfect allegorical envelope. A wonderful moment comes when Gregor, having been painfully striving to achieve human postures, drops to his feet:

Hardly was he down when he experienced for the first time this morning a sense of physical comfort; his legs had firm ground under them; they were completely obedient, as he noted with joy; they even strove to carry him forward in whatever direction he chose; and he was inclined to believe that a final relief from all his sufferings was at hand.

When "The Metamorphosis" was to be published as a book in 1915, Kafka, fearful that the cover illustrator "might want to draw the insect itself," wrote the publisher, "Not that, please not that!. . . The insect itself cannot be depicted. It cannot even be shown from a distance." He suggested instead a scene of the family in the apartment with a locked door, or a door open and giving on darkness. Any theatrical or cinematic version of the story must founder on this point of external representation: a concrete image of the insect would be too distracting and shut off sympathy; such a version would lack the very heart of comedy and pathos which beats in the unsteady area between objective and subjective, where Gregor's insect and human selves swayingly struggle. Still half-asleep, he notes his extraordinary condition yet persists in remembering and trying to fulfill his duties as a travelling salesman and the mainstay of this household. Later, relegated by the family to the shadows of a room turned storage closet, he responds to violin music and creeps forward, covered with dust and trailing remnants of food, to claim his sister's love. Such scenes could not be done except with words. In this age that lives and dies by the visual, "The Metamorphosis" stands as a narrative absolutely literary, able to exist only where language and the mind's hazy wealth of imagery intersect.

"The Metamorphosis" stands also as a gateway to the world Kafka created after it. His themes and manner were now all in place. His mastery of official pomposity — the dialect of documents and men talking business — shows itself here for the first time, in the speeches of the chief clerk. Music will again be felt, by mice and dogs, as an overwhelming emanation in Kafka's later fables — a theme whose other side is the extreme sensitivity to noise, and the longing for unblemished silence, that Kafka shared with his hero in "The Burrow." Gregor's death scene, and Kafka's death wish, return in "A Hunger Artist" — the saddest, I think, of Kafka's stories, written by a dying man who was increasingly less sanguine (his correspondence reveals) about dying. The sweeping nature of the hunger artist's abstention is made plain by the opposing symbol of the panther who replaces him in his cage: "the joy of life streamed with such ardent passion from his throat that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand the shock of it." In 1920 Milena Jesenska wrote to Brod: "Frank cannot live. Frank does not have the capacity for living. . . He is absolutely incapable of living, just as he is incapable of getting drunk. He possesses not the slightest refuge. For that reason he is exposed to all those things against which we are protected. He is like a naked man among a multitude who are dressed." After Gregor Samsa's incarnation, Kafka showed a fondness for naked heroes — animals who have complicated and even pedantic confessions to make but who also are distinguished by some keenly observed bestial traits — the ape of "A Report to an Academy" befouls himself and his fur jumps with fleas; the dog of "Investigations" recalls his young days when, very puppylike, "I believed that great things were going on around me of which I was the leader and to which I must lend my voice, things which must be wretchedly thrown aside if I did not run for them and wag my tail for them"; the mouse folk of "Josephine the Singer" pipe and multiply and are pervaded by an "unexpended, ineradicable childishness"; and the untaxonomic inhabitant of "The Burrow" represents the animal in all of us, his cheerful consumption of "small fry" existentially yoked to a terror of being consumed himself. An uncanny empathy broods above these zoomorphs, and invests them with more of their creator's soul than all but a few human characters receive. So a child, cowed and bored by the world of human adults, makes companions of pets and toy animals.

Kafka, in the long "Letter to His Father," which he poured out in November 1919 but that his mother prudently declined to deliver, left a vivid picture of himself as a child, "a little skeleton," undressing with his father in a bathing hut. "There was I, skinny, weakly, slight; you strong, tall, broad. Even inside the hut I felt a miserable specimen, and what's more, not only in your eyes but in the eyes of the whole world, for you were for me the measure of all things." Hermann Kafka — "the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority" — was a butcher's son from a village in southern Bohemia; he came to Prague and founded a successful business, a clothing warehouse selling wholesale to retailers in country towns. He was physically big, as were all the Kafkas (Franz himself grew to be nearly six feet*), and a photograph of 1910 shows more than a touch of arrogance on his heavy features. No doubt he was sometimes brusque with his sensitive only son, and indifferent to the boy's literary aspirations. But Hermann Kafka cannot be blamed for having become in his son's mind and art a myth, a core of overwhelming vitality and of unappeasable authority in relation to which one is hopelessly and forever in the wrong. It is Franz Kafka's extrapolations from his experience of paternal authority and naysaying, above all in his novels The Trial and The Castle, that define the word "Kafkaesque." Like "Orwellian," the adjective describes not the author but an atmosphere within a portion of his work. Kafka's reputation has been immeasurably enhanced by his seeming prophecy, in works so private and eccentric, of the atrocious regimes of Hitler and Stalin, with their mad assignments of guilt and farcical trials and institutionalized paranoia. But the seeds of such vast evil were present in the world of the Emperor Franz Josef, and Kafka was, we should not forget, a man of the world, for all his debilities. He attended the harsh German schools of Prague; he earned the degree of Doctor of Law; he had experience of merchandising through his father's business. He worked thirteen years for the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia — his speciality was factory safety, and his reports were admired, trusted, and published in professional journals. He retired as Senior Secretary, and a medal of honor "commemorating his contribution to the establishment and management of hospitals and rest homes for mentally ill veterans" was on its way to him as the Hapsburg Empire collapsed in 1918. Out of his experience of paternal tyranny and decadent bureaucracy he projected nightmares that proved prophetic. A youthful disciple. Gustav Janouch, who composed the hagiographic Conversations with Kafka, once raised with him the possibility that his work was "a mirror of tomorrow." Kafka reportedly covered his eyes with his hands and rocked back and forth, saying, "You are right. You are certainly right. Probably that's why I can't finish anything. I am afraid of the truth. . . One must be silent, if one can't give any help. . . For that reason, all my scribbling is to be destroyed."

* His application for employment at the Assicurazioni Generali gives his height as 1.81 meters, or over five foot eleven.

Janouch also says that Kafka, as they were passing the Old Synagogue in Prague (the very synagogue Hitler intended to preserve as a mocking memorial to a vanished people), announced that men "will try to grind the synagogue to dust by destroying the Jews themselves." His ancestors had worn the yellow patch, been forbidden to own land or practice medicine, and suffered onerous residence restrictions under the emperors. Kafka lived and died in a relatively golden interim for European Jewry; but all three of his sisters were to perish in the concentration camps. The Kafka household had been perfunctorily observant; Hermann Kafka had been proud of the degree of assimilation he had achieved, and the Judaism he had brought from his village was, his son accused him, too little; "it all dribbled away while you were passing it on." Kafka's mother, Julie Lowy, came from an orthodox family and remembered her grandfather as "a very pious and learned man, with a long white beard." As if to assert himself against his father, Franz took a decided interest in Jewishness; his diary of 1911 records:

Today, eagerly and happily began to read the History of the Jews by Graetz. Because my desire for it had far outrun the reading, it was at first stranger than I had thought, and I had to stop here and there in order by resting to allow my Jewishness to collect itself.

He taught himself considerable Hebrew and, with Dora Dymant, dreamed of moving to Israel. Yet churches loom larger than synagogues in Kafka's landscapes, and he also read Kierkegaard. His diary of 1913 notes:

Today I got Kierkegaard's Buch des Richters [Book of the Judge, a selection from his diaries]. As I suspected, his case, despite essential differences, is very similar to mine. At least he is on the same side of the world. He bears me out like a friend.

Kierkegaard's lacerating absolutism of faith would seem to lie behind the torture machine of "In the Penal Colony" and the cruel estrangements of The Trial, and to have offered Kafka a certain purchase on his spiritual pain. But in 1917 he wrote Oskar Baum, a fellow writer in Prague, "Kierkegaard is a star, although he shines over territory that is almost inaccessible to me." Kafka came to resign himself to inaccessibility; of his theology it might be said in sum that though he did not find God, he did not blame Him. The authority masked by phenomena remained unindicted. In his shorter tales an affinity may be felt with the parables of Hasidism, that pietist movement within Judaism which emphasized, over against the law of orthodoxy, mystic joy and divine immanence. Certain of the parables share Kafka's relish in the enigmatic:

A man who was afflicted with a terrible disease complained to Rabbi Israel that his suffering interfered with his learning and praying. The rabbi put his hand on his shoulder and said: "How do you know, friend, what is more pleasing to God, your studying or your suffering?"

[Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Vol. ü]

But there is little in the Hasidic literature of Kafka's varied texture, his brightly colored foreign settings and the theatrical comedy that adorns the grimmest circumstances — the comedy, for instance, of the prisoner and his guard in the penal colony, or of the three bearded boarders in "The Metamorphosis." The Samsas, one should notice, are Christian, crossing themselves in moments of crisis and pinning their year to Christmas; Kafka, however unmistakable the ethnic source of his "liveliness" and alienation, avoided Jewish parochialism, and his allegories of pained awareness take upon themselves the entire European — that is to say, predominantly Christian — malaise.

It is the shorter stories, too, that sparkle most with country glimpses, with a savor of folk tale and a still-medieval innocence. They remind us that Kafka wrote in a Europe where islands of urban, wealth, culture, and discontent were surrounded by a countryside still, in its simplicity, apparently in possession of the secret of happiness, of harmony with the powers of earth and sky. Modernity has proceeded far enough, and spread wide enough, to make us doubt that anyone really has this secret. Part of Kafka's strangeness, and part of his enduring appeal, was to suspect that everyone except himself had the secret. He received from his father an impression of helpless singularity, of being a "slave living under laws invented only for him." A shame literally unspeakable attached itself to this impression. Fantasy, for Kafka even more than for most writers of fiction, was the way out of his skin, so he could get back in. He felt, as it were, abashed before the fact of his own existence, "amateurish" in that this had never been quite expressed before. So singular, he spoke for millions in their new unease; a century after his birth he seems the last holy writer, and the supreme fabulist of modern man's cosmic predicament.

Beverly, Massachusetts

1983

TWO INTRODUCTORY PARABLES

Before the Law

BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

An Imperial Message

THE EMPEROR, so a parable runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his deathbed has sent a message to you alone. He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; so much store did he lay on it that he ordered the messenger to whisper it back into his ear again. Then by a nod of the head he has confirmed that it is right. Yes, before the assembled spectators of his death — all the obstructing walls have been broken down, and on the spacious and loftily mounting open staircases stand in a ring the great princes of the Empire — before all these he has delivered his message. The messenger immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man; now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way is made easier for him than it would be for any other man. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate — but never, never can that happen — the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself.

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

THE LONGER STORIES

Description of a Struggle

And people in their Sunday best

Stroll about, swaying over the gravel

Under this enormous sky

Which, from hills in the distance,

Stretches to distant hills.

I

AT ABOUT MIDNIGHT A few people rose, bowed, shook hands, said it had been a pleasant evening, and then passed through the wide doorway into the vestibule, to put on their coats. The hostess stood in the middle of the room and made graceful bowing movements, causing the dainty folds in her skirt to move up and down.

I sat at a tiny table — it had three curved, thin legs — sipping my third glass of benedictine, and while I drank I surveyed my little store of pastry which I myself had picked out and arranged in a pile.

Then I saw my new acquaintance, somewhat dishevelled and out of shape, appear at the doorpost of an adjoining room; but I tried to look away for it was no concern of mine. He, however, came toward me and, smiling absent-mindedly at my occupation, said: "Excuse me for disturbing you, but until this very moment I've been sitting alone with my girl in the room next door. Ever since half-past ten. Lord, what an evening! I know it isn't right for me to be telling you this, for we hardly know one another. We only met on the stairs this evening and exchanged a few words as guests of the same house. And now — but you must forgive me, please — my happiness just cannot be contained, I can't help it. And since I have no other acquaintance here whom I can trust —"

I looked at him sadly — the piece of fruitcake which I had in my mouth did not taste particularly good — and said into his rather flushed face: "I'm glad of course that you consider me trustworthy, but displeased that you have confided in me. And you yourself, if you weren't in such a state, would know how improper it is to talk about an amorous girl to a man sitting alone drinking schnapps."

When I said this, he sat down with a jolt, leaned back in his chair, and let his arms hang down. Then he pressed them back, his elbows pointed, and began talking in rather a loud voice: "Only a little while ago we were alone in that room, Annie and I. And I kissed her, I kissed her — her mouth, her ears, her shoulders. Oh, my Lord and Savior!"

A few guests, suspecting ours to be a rather more animated conversation, approached us closer, yawning. Whereupon I stood up and said so that all could hear: "All right then, if you insist, I'll go with you, but I repeat: it's ridiculous to climb up the Laurenziberg now, in winter and in the middle of the night. Besides, it's freezing, and as it has been snowing the roads out there are like skating rinks. Well, as you like —"

At first he gazed at me in astonishment and parted his wet lips; but then, noticing the guests who had approached quite close, he laughed, stood up, and said: "I think the cold will do us good; our clothes are full of heat and smoke; what's more, I'm slightly tipsy without having drunk very much; yes, let's say goodbye and go."

So we went to the hostess, and as he kissed her hand she said: "I am glad to see you looking so happy today."

Touched by the kindness of these words, he kissed her hand again; whereupon she smiled. I had to drag him away. In the vestibule stood a housemaid, whom we hadn't seen before. She helped us into our coats and then took a small lantern to light us down the stairs. Her neck was bare save for a black velvet ribbon around her throat; her loosely clothed body was stooped and kept stretching as she went down the stairs before us, holding the lantern low. Her cheeks were flushed, for she had drunk some wine, and in the weak lamplight which filled the whole stairwell, I could see her lips trembling.

At the foot of the stairs she put down the lantern, took a step toward my acquaintance, embraced him, kissed him, and remained in the embrace. Only when I pressed a coin into her hand did she drowsily detach her arms from him, slowly open the front door, and let us out into the night.

Over the deserted, evenly lit street stood a large moon in a slightly clouded, and therefore unusually extended, sky. On the frozen snow one had to take short steps.

Hardly were we outside when I evidently began to feel very gay. I raised my legs, let my joints crack, I shouted a name down the street as though a friend of mine had just vanished around the corner; leaping, I threw my hat in the air and caught it boastfully.

My acquaintance, however, walked on beside me, unconcerned. He held his head bent. He didn't even speak.

This surprised me, for I had calculated that he, once I had got him away from the party, would give vent to his joy. Now I too could calm down. No sooner had I given him an encouraging slap on the back than I suddenly no longer understood his mood, and withdrew my hand. Since I had no use for it, I stuck it in the pocket of my coat.

So we walked on in silence. Listening to the sound of our steps, I couldn't understand why I was incapable of keeping step with my acquaintance — especially since the air was clear and I could see his legs quite plainly. Here and there someone leaned out of a window and watched us.

On turning into the Ferdinandstrasse I realized that my acquaintance had begun to hum a melody from the Dollar Princess. It was low, but I could hear it distinctly. What did this mean? Was he trying to insult me? As for me, I was ready to do without not only this music, but the walk as well. Why wasn't he speaking to me, anyway? And if he didn't need me, why hadn't he left me in peace in the warm room with the benedictine and the pastry? It certainly wasn't I who had insisted on this walk. Besides, I could have gone for a walk on my own. I had merely been at a party, had saved an ungrateful young man from disgrace, and was now wandering about in the moonlight. That was all right, too. All day in the office, evenings at a party, at night in the streets, and nothing to excess. A way of life so natural that it borders on the excessive!

Yet my acquaintance was still behind me. Indeed, he even quickened his steps when he realized that he had fallen in the rear. No word was uttered, nor could it be said that we were running. But I wondered if it wouldn't be a good idea to turn down a side street; after all, I wasn't obliged to go on this walk with him. I could go home alone and no one could stop me. Then, secretly, I could watch my acquaintance pass the entrance to my street. Goodbye, dear acquaintance! On reaching my room I'll feel warm, I'll light the lamp in its iron stand on my table, and when I've done that I'll lie back in my armchair which stands on the torn Oriental carpet. Pleasant prospects! Why not? But then? No then. The lamp will shine in the warm room, shine on my chest as I lie in the armchair. Then I'll cool off and spend hours alone between the painted walls and the floor which, reflected in the gilt-framed mirror hanging on the rear wall, appears slanted.

My legs were growing tired and I had already decided to go home and lie down, when I began to wonder if, before going away, I ought to say good night to my acquaintance. But I was too timid to go away without a word and too weak to call to him out loud. So I stood still, leaned against the moonlit wall of a house, and waited.

My acquaintance came sailing along the pavement toward me as fast as though he expected me to catch him. He winked at me, suggesting some agreement which I had apparently forgotten.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," he said. "I only wanted to ask your opinion about that housemaid who kissed me on the staircase. Who is the girl? Have you ever seen her before? No? Nor have I. Was she a housemaid at all? I had meant to ask you this before, while she was walking down the stairs in front of us."

"I saw at once by her red hands that she's a housemaid, and not even the first housemaid, and when I gave her the money I felt her hard skin."

"But that merely proves that she has been some time in service, which no doubt is the case."

"You may be right about that. In that light one couldn't distinguish everything, but her face reminded me of the elder daughter of an officer I happen to know."

"Not me," he said.

"That won't stop me going home; it's late and I have to be in the office early. One sleeps badly there." Whereupon I put out my hand to say goodbye to him.

"Whew, what a cold hand!" he cried. "I wouldn't like to go home with a hand like that. You should have let yourself be kissed, too, my friend. That was an omission. Still, you can make up for it. But sleep? On a night like this? What an idea! Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm."

"I neither smother anything nor warm anything," I said.

"Oh, go on!" he concluded, "you're a humorist!"

At the same time he began walking again and I followed without realizing it, for I was busy thinking of what he had said.

From these words I imagined that my acquaintance suspected in me something which, although it wasn't there, made me nevertheless rise in his estimation by his suspecting it. So it was just as well I hadn't gone home. Who knows, this man — thinking of housemaid affairs while walking beside me, his mouth steaming with cold — might be capable of bestowing on me in the eyes of the world a value without my having to work for it. Let's pray the girls won't spoil him! By all means let them kiss and hug him, that's their duty and his right, but they mustn't carry him off. After all, when they kiss him they also kiss me a little — with the corners of their mouths, so to speak. But if they carry him off, then they steal him from me. And he must always remain with me, always. Who is to protect him, if not I? And he's so stupid. Someone says to him in February: Come up the Laurenziberg — and off he goes. And supposing he falls down now, or catches cold? Suppose some jealous man appears from the Postgasse and attacks him? What will happen to me? Am I to be just kicked out of the world? I'll believe that when I see it! No, he won't get rid of me.

Tomorrow he'll be talking to Fräulein Anna, about ordinary things at first, as is natural, but suddenly he won't be able to keep it from her any longer: Last night, Annie, after the party, you remember, I was with a man the like of whom you've certainly never seen. He looked — how can I describe him to you? — like a stick dangling in the air, he looked, with a black-haired skull on top. His body was clad in a lot of small, dull-yellow patches of cloth which covered him completely because they hung closely about him in the still air of last night. Well, Annie, does that spoil your appetite? It does? In that case it's my fault, then I told the whole thing badly. If only you'd seen him, walking timidly beside me, reading infatuation on my face (which wasn't very difficult), and going a long way ahead of me so as not to disturb me. I think, Annie, you'd have laughed a bit and been a bit afraid; but I was glad of his company. For where were you, Annie? You were in your bed, and your bed was far away — it might just as well have been in Africa. But sometimes I really felt as though the starry sky rose and fell with the gasping of his flat chest. You think I'm exaggerating? No, Annie. Upon my soul, no. Upon my soul which belongs to you, no.

And I didn't spare my acquaintance — we had just reached the first steps of the Franzensquai — the smallest fraction of the humiliation he must have felt at making such a speech. Save that my thoughts grew blurred at this moment, for the Moldau and the quarter of the town on the farther shore lay together in the dark. A number of lights burning there teased the eye.

We crossed the road in order to reach the railing along the river, and there we stood still. I found a tree to lean against. Because of the cold blowing up from the water, I put on my gloves, sighed for no good reason, as one is inclined to do at night beside a river, but then I wanted to walk on. My acquaintance, however, was staring into the water, and didn't budge. Then he moved closer to the railing; his legs were already against the iron bar, he propped his elbows up and laid his forehead in his hands. What next? After all, I was shivering and had to put up the collar of my coat. My acquaintance stretched himself — his back, shoulders, neck — and held the upper half of his body, which rested on his taut arms, bent over the railing.

"Oh well, memories," said I. "Yes, even remembering in itself is sad, yet how much more its object! Don't let yourself in for things like that, it's not for you and not for me. It only weakens one's present position without strengthening the former one — nothing is more obvious — quite apart from the fact that the former one doesn't need strengthening. Do you think I have no memories? Oh, ten for every one of yours. Now, for instance, I could remember sitting on a bench in L. It was in the evening, also near a river. In summer, of course. And on such evenings it's my habit to pull up my legs and put my arms around them. I had leaned my head against the wooden back of the bench, and from there I watched the cloudlike mountains on the other shore. A violin was playing softly in the hotel by the river. Now and again on both shores trains chuffed by amid shining smoke."

Turning suddenly around, my acquaintance interrupted me; he almost looked as though he were surprised to see me still here. "Oh, I could tell you much more," I said, nothing else.

"Just imagine," he began, "and it always happens like this. Today, as I was going downstairs to take a short walk before the evening party, I couldn't help being surprised by the way my hands were dangling about in my cuffs, and they were doing it so gaily. Which promptly made me think: Just wait, something's going to happen today. And it did, too." He said this while turning to go and looked at me smiling out of his big eyes.

So I had already got as far as that. He could tell me things like that and at the same time smile and look at me with big eyes. And I — I had to restrain myself from putting my arm around his shoulders and kissing him on the eyes as a reward for having absolutely no use for me. But the worst was that even that could no longer do any harm because it couldn't change anything, for now I had to go away, away at any price.

While I was still trying urgently to think of some means by which I could stay at least a little while longer with my acquaintance, it occurred to me that perhaps my long body displeased him by making him feel too small. And this thought — although it was late at night and we had hardly met a soul — tormented me so much that while walking I bent my back until my hands reached my knees. But in order to prevent my acquaintance from noticing my intentions I changed my position only very gradually, tried to divert his attention from myself, once even turning him toward the river, pointing out to him with outstretched hands the trees on the Schutzeninsel and the way the bridge lamps were reflected in the river.

But wheeling suddenly around, he looked at me — I hadn't quite finished yet — and said: "What's this? You're all crooked! What on earth are you up to?"

"Quite right. You're very observant," said I, my head on the seam of his trousers, which was why I couldn't look up properly.

"Enough of that! Stand up straight! What nonsense!"

"No," I said, my face close to the ground, "I'll stay as I am."

"You really can annoy a person, I must say. Such a waste of time! Come on, put an end to it."

"The way you shout! In the quiet of the night!" I said.

"Oh well, just as you like," he added, and after a while: "It's a quarter to one." He had evidently seen the time on the clock of the Mühlenturm.

I promptly stood up straight as though I'd been pulled up by the hair. For a while I kept my mouth open, to let my agitation escape. I understood: he was sending me away. There was no place for me near him, or if there were one, at least it could not be found. Why, by the way, was I so intent on staying with him? No, I ought to go away — and this at once — to my relatives and friends who were waiting for me. But if I didn't have any relatives and friends then I must fend for myself (what was the good of complaining!), but I must leave here no less quickly. For in his eyes nothing could redeem me any longer, neither my length, my appetite, nor my cold hand. But if I were of the opinion that I had to remain with him, it was a dangerous opinion.

"I wasn't in need of your information," I said, which happened to be true.

"Thank God you're standing up straight again. All I said was that it's a quarter to one."

"That's all right," said I, and stuck two fingernails in the gaps between my chattering teeth. "If I didn't need your information, how much less do I need an explanation. The fact is, I need nothing but your mercy. Please, take back what you said just now!"

"That it's a quarter to one? But with pleasure, especially since a quarter to one passed long ago."

He lifted his right arm, flicked his hand, and listened to the castanetlike sound of his cuff links.

Obviously, this is the time for the murder. I'll stay with him and slowly he'll draw the dagger — the handle of which he is already holding in his pocket — along his coat, and then plunge it into me. It's unlikely that he'll be surprised at the simplicity of it all — yet maybe he will, who knows? I won't scream, I'll just stare at him as long as my eyes can stand it.

"Well?" he said.

In front of a distant coffeehouse with black windowpanes a policeman let himself glide over the pavement like a skater. His sword hampering him, he took it in his hand, and now he glided along for quite a while, finally ending up by almost describing a circle. At last he yodeled weakly and, melodies in his head, began once more to skate.

It wasn't until the arrival of this policeman — who, two hundred feet from an imminent murder, saw and heard only himself — that I began to feel a certain fear. I realized that whether I allowed myself to be stabbed or ran away, my end had come. Would it not be better, then, to run away and thus expose myself to a difficult and therefore more painful death? I could not immediately put my finger on the reasons in favor of this form of death, but I couldn't afford to spend my last remaining seconds looking for reasons. There would be time for that later provided I had the determination, and the determination I had.

I had to run away, it would be quite easy. At the turning to the left onto the Karlsbrücke I could jump to the right into the Karlsgasse. It was winding, there were dark doorways, and taverns still open; I didn't need to despair.

As we stepped from under the arch at the end of the quay onto the Kreuzherrenplatz, I ran into that street with my arms raised. But in front of a small door in the Seminarkirche I fell, for there was a step which I had not expected. It made a little noise, the next street lamp was sufficiently far away, I lay in the dark.

From a tavern opposite came a fat woman with a lantern to see what had happened in the street. The piano within continued playing, but fainter, with only one hand, because the pianist had turned toward the door which, until now ajar, had been opened wide by a man in a high-buttoned coat. He spat and then hugged the woman so hard she was obliged to raise the lantern in order to protect it.

"Nothing's happened!" he shouted into the room, whereupon they both turned, went inside, and the door was closed.

When I tried to get up I fell down again. "Sheer ice," I said, and felt a pain in my knee. Yet I was glad that the people in the tavern hadn't seen me and that I could go on lying here peacefully until dawn.

My acquaintance had apparently walked on as far as the bridge without having noticed my disappearance, for it was some time before he joined me. I saw no signs of surprise as he bent down over me — lowering little more than his neck, exactly like a hyena — and stroked me with a soft hand. He passed it up and down my cheekbone and then laid his palm on my forehead. "You've hurt yourself, eh? Well, it's icy and one must be careful — didn't you tell me so yourself? Does your head ache? No? Oh, the knee. H'm. That's bad."

But it didn't occur to him to help me up. I supported my head with my right hand, my elbow on a cobblestone, and said: "Here we are together again." And as my fear was beginning to return, I pressed both hands against his shinbone in order to push him away. "Do go away," I said.

He had his hands in his pockets and looked up the empty street, then at the Seminarkirche, then up at the sky. At last, at the sound of a carriage in one of the nearby streets, he remembered me: "Why don't you say something, my friend? Do you feel sick? Why don't you get up? Shall I look for a cab? If you like, I'll get you some wine from the tavern. In any case, you mustn't lie here in the cold. Besides, we wanted to go up the Laurenziberg."

"Of course," said I, and got up on my own, but with great pain. I began to sway, and had to look severely at the statue of Karl IV to be sure of my position. However, even this would not have helped me had I not remembered that I was loved by a girl with a black velvet ribbon around her neck, if not passionately, at least faithfully. And it really was kind of the moon to shine on me, too, and out of modesty I was about to place myself under the arch of the tower bridge when it occurred to me that the moon, of course, shone on everything. So I happily spread out my arms in order fully to enjoy the moon. And by making swimming movements with my weary arms it was easy for me to advance without pain or difficulty. To think that I had never tried this before! My head lay in the cool air and it was my right knee that flew best; I praised it by patting it. And I remembered that once upon a time I didn't altogether like an acquaintance, who was probably still walking below me, and the only thing that pleased me about the whole business was that my memory was good enough to remember even a thing like that. But I couldn't afford to do much thinking, for I had to go on swimming to prevent myself from sinking too low. However, to avoid being told later that anyone could swim on the pavement and that it wasn't worth mentioning, I raised myself above the railing by increasing my speed and swam in circles around the statue of every saint I encountered. At the fifth — I was holding myself just above the footpath by imperceptible flappings — my acquaintance gripped my hand. There I stood once more on the pavement and felt a pain in my knee.

"I've always admired," said my acquaintance, clutching me with one hand and pointing with the other at the statue of St. Ludmila, "I've always admired the hands of this angel here to the left. Just see how delicate they are! Real angel's hands! Have you ever seen anything like them? You haven't, but I have, for this evening I kissed hands —"

But for me there was now a third possibility of perishing. I didn't have to let myself be stabbed, I didn't have to run away, I could simply throw myself into the air. Let him go up his Laurenziberg, I won't interfere with him, not even by running away will I interfere with him.

And now I shouted: "Out with your stories! I no longer want to hear scraps. Tell me everything, from beginning to end. I won't listen to less, I warn you. But I'm burning to hear the whole thing." When he looked at me I stopped shouting so loud. "And you can count on my discretion! Tell me everything that's on your mind. You've never had so discreet a listener as I."

And rather low, close to his ear, I said: "And you don't need to be afraid of me, that's quite unnecessary."

I heard him laugh.

"Yes, yes," I said. "I believe that. I don't doubt it," and so saying I pinched him in the calves — where they were exposed. But he didn't feel it. Whereupon I said to myself: "Why walk with this man? You don't love him, nor do you hate him, because all he cares about is a girl and it's not even certain that she wears a white dress. So to you this man is indifferent — I repeat: indifferent. But he is also harmless, as has been proved. So walk on with him up the Laurenziberg, for you are already on your way, it's a beautiful night, but let him do the talking and enjoy yourself after your fashion, for this is the very best way (say it in a whisper) to protect yourself."

II

DIVERSIONS or PROOF THAT

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE

i A RIDE

And now — with a flourish, as though it were not the first time — I leapt onto the shoulders of my acquaintance, and by digging my fists into his back I urged him into a trot. But since he stumped forward rather reluctantly and sometimes even stopped, I kicked him in the belly several times with my boots, to make him more lively. It worked and we came fast enough into the interior of a vast but as yet unfinished landscape.

The road on which I was riding was stony and rose considerably, but just this I liked and I let it become still stonier and steeper. As soon as my acquaintance stumbled I pulled him up by the collar and the moment he sighed I boxed his head. In doing so I felt how healthy this ride in the good air was for me, and in order to make him wilder I let a strong wind blow against us in long gusts.

Now I even began to exaggerate my jumping movements on my acquaintance's broad shoulders, and gripping his neck tight with both hands I bent my head far back and contemplated the many and various clouds which, weaker than I, sailed clumsily with the wind. I laughed and trembled with courage. My coat spread out and gave me strength. I pressed my hands hard together and in doing so happened to make my acquaintance choke. Only when the sky became gradually hidden by the branches of the trees, which I let grow along the road, did I come to myself.

"I don't know," I cried without a sound, "I really don't know. If nobody comes, then nobody comes. I have done nobody any harm, nobody has done me any harm, but nobody will help me. A pack of nobodies. But it isn't quite like that. It's just that nobody helps me, otherwise a pack of nobodies would be nice, I would rather like (what do you think?) to go on an excursion with a pack of nobodies. Into the mountains, of course, where else? Just look at these nobodies pushing each other, all these arms stretched across or hooked into one another, these feet separated by tiny steps! Everyone in frock coats, needless to say. We walk along so happily, a fine wind is whistling through the gaps made by us and our limbs. In the mountains our throats become free. It's a wonder we don't break into song."

Then my acquaintance collapsed, and when I examined him I discovered that he was badly wounded in the knee. Since he could no longer be of any use to me, I left him there on the stones without much regret and whistled down a few vultures which, obediently and with serious beaks, settled down on him in order to guard him.

ii A WALK

I walked on, unperturbed. But since, as a pedestrian, I dreaded the effort of climbing the mountainous road, I let it become gradually flatter, let it slope down into a valley in the distance. The stones vanished at my will and the wind disappeared.

I walked at a brisk pace and since I was on my way down I raised my head, stiffened my body, and crossed my arms behind my head. Because I love pinewoods I went through woods of this kind, and since I like gazing silently up at the stars, the stars appeared slowly in the sky, as is their wont. I saw only a few fleecy clouds which a wind, blowing just at their height, pulled through the air, to the astonishment of the pedestrian.

Opposite and at some distance from my road, probably separated from it by a river as well, I caused to rise an enormously high mountain whose plateau, overgrown with brushwood, bordered on the sky. I could see quite clearly the little ramifications of the highest branches and their movements. This sight, ordinary as it may be, made me so happy that I, as a small bird on a twig of those distant scrubby bushes, forgot to let the moon come up. It lay already behind the mountain, no doubt angry at the delay.

But now the cool light that precedes the rising of the moon spread over the mountain and suddenly the moon itself appeared from beyond one of the restless bushes. I on the other hand had meanwhile been gazing in another direction, and when I now looked ahead of me and suddenly saw it glowing in its almost full roundness, I stood still with troubled eyes, for my precipitous road seemed to lead straight into this terrifying moon.

After a while, however, I grew accustomed to it and watched with composure the difficulty it had in rising, until finally, having approached one another a considerable part of the way, I felt overcome by an intense drowsiness caused, I assumed, by the fatigue of the walk, to which I was unaccustomed. I wandered on for a while with closed eyes, keeping myself awake only by a loud and regular clapping of my hands.

But then, as the road threatened to slip away from under my feet and everything, as weary as I myself, began to vanish, I summoned my remaining strength and hastened to scale the slope to the right of the road in order to reach in time the high tangled pinewood where I planned to spend the night that probably lay ahead of us.

The haste was necessary. The stars were already fading and I noticed the moon sink feebly into the sky as though into troubled waters. The mountain already belonged to the darkness, the road crumbled away at the point where I had turned toward the slope, and from the interior of the forest I heard the approaching crashes of collapsing trees. Now I could have thrown myself down on the moss to sleep, but since I feared to sleep on the ground I crept — the trunk sliding quickly down the rings formed by my arms and legs — up a tree which was already reeling without wind. I lay down on a branch and, leaning my head against the trunk, went hastily to sleep while a squirrel of my whim sat stiff-tailed at the trembling end of the branch, and rocked itself.

My sleep was deep and dreamless. Neither the waning moon nor the rising sun awoke me. And even when I was about to wake up, I calmed myself by saying: "You made a great effort yesterday, so spare your sleep," and went to sleep again.

Although I did not dream, my sleep was not free from a continuous slight disturbance. All night long I heard someone talking beside me. The words themselves I could hardly hear — except isolated ones like "bench. . . by the river," "cloudlike mountains," "trains. . . amidst shining smoke"; what I did hear was the special kind of emphasis placed on them; and I remember that even in my sleep I rubbed my hands with pleasure at not being obliged to recognize single words, since I was asleep.

"Your life was monotonous," I said aloud in order to convince myself, "it really was necessary for you to be taken somewhere else. You ought to be content, it's gay here. The sun's shining."

Whereupon the sun shone and the rain clouds grew white and light and small in the blue sky. They sparkled and billowed out. I saw a river in the valley.

"Yes, your life was monotonous, you deserve this diversion," I continued as though compelled, "but was it not also perilous?" At that moment I heard someone sigh terribly near.

I tried to climb down quickly, but since the branch trembled as much as my hand I fell rigid from the top. I did not fall heavily, nor did I feel any pain, but I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one's guard against them. Yet nothing seemed more natural than to lie here on the grass, my arms beside my body, my face hidden. And I tried to persuade myself that I ought to be pleased to be already in this natural position, for otherwise many painful contortions, such as steps or words, would be required to arrive at it.

The river was wide and its noisy little waves reflected the light. On the other shore lay meadows which farther on merged into bushes behind which, at a great distance, one could see bright avenues of fruit trees leading to green hills.

Pleased by this sight, I lay down and, stopping my ears against the dread sound of sobs, I thought: Here I could be content. For here it is secluded and beautiful. It won't take much courage to live here. One will have to struggle here as anywhere else, but at least one won't have to do it with graceful movements. That won't be necessary. For there are only mountains and a wide river and I have sense enough to regard them as inanimate. Yes, when I totter alone up the steep path through the meadows in the evening I will be no more forsaken than the mountains, except that I will feel it. But I think that this, too, will pass.

Thus I toyed with my future life and tried stubbornly to forget. And all the time I blinked at that sky which was of an unusually promising color. It was a long time since I'd seen it like this; I was moved and reminded of certain days when I thought I had seen it in the same way. I took my hands from my ears, spread out my arms, and let them fall in the grass.

I heard someone sob softly from afar. A wind sprang up and a great mass of leaves, which I had not seen before, rose rustling into the air. Unripe fruit thudded senselessly from the trees onto the ground. Ugly clouds rose from behind the mountain. The waves on the river creaked and receded from the wind.

I got up quickly. My heart hurt, for now it seemed impossible to escape from my suffering. I was already about to turn and leave this region and go back to my former way of life when the following idea occurred to me: "How strange it is that even in our time distinguished people are transported across a river in this complicated way. There's no other explanation than that it is an old custom." I shook my head, for I was surprised.

iii THE FAT MAN

a An Address to the Landscape

From the thicket on the opposite bank four naked men strode vehemently forth, carrying on their shoulders a wooden litter. On this litter sat, Oriental fashion, a monstrously fat man. Although carried through the thicket on an untrodden path, he did not push the thorny branches apart but simply let his motionless body thrust through them. His folds of fat were so carefully spread out that although they covered the whole litter and even hung down its side like the hem of a yellowish carpet, they did not hamper him. His hairless skull was small and gleamed yellow. His face bore the artless expression of a man who meditates and makes no effort to conceal it. From time to time he closed his eyes: on opening them again his chin became distorted.

"The landscape disturbs my thought," he said in a low voice. "It makes my reflections sway like suspension bridges in a furious current. It is beautiful and for this reason wants to be looked at."

I close my eyes and say: You green mountain by the river, with your rocks rolling against the water, you are beautiful.

But it is not satisfied; it wants me to open my eyes to it.

Then I might say to it with my eyes closed: "Mountain, I do not love you, for you remind me of the clouds, of the sunset, of the rising sky, and these are things that almost make me cry because one can never reach them while being carried on a small litter. But when showing me this, sly mountain, you block the distant view which gladdens me, for it reveals the attainable at a glance. That's why I do not love you, mountain by the water — no, I do not love you."

But the mountain would be as indifferent to this speech as to my former one so long as I did not talk with my eyes open. This is the only way to please it.

And must we not keep it well disposed toward us in order to keep it up at all — this mountain which has such a capricious fondness for the pulp of our brains? It might cast on me its jagged shadow, it might silently thrust terrible bare walls in front of me and my bearers would stumble over the little pebbles on the road.

But it is not only the mountain that is so vain, so obtrusive and vindictive — everything else is, too. So I must go on repeating with wide-open eyes — oh, how they hurt!:

"Yes, mountain, you are beautiful and the forests on your western slope delight me. — With you, flower, I am also pleased, and your pink gladdens my soul. — You, grass of the meadows, are already high and strong and refreshing. — And you, exotic bushes, you prick so unexpectedly that our thoughts start leaping. — But with you, river, I am so delighted that I will let myself be carried through your supple water."

After he had shouted this paean of praise ten times, accompanied by some humble shifting of his body, he let his head droop and said with closed eyes:

"But now — I implore you — mountain, flowers, grass, bush, and river, give me some room so that I may breathe."

At that moment the surrounding mountains began to shift in hasty obedience, then withdrew behind a curtain of fog. Although the avenues stood firm for a while and guarded the width of the road, they soon merged into one another. In the sky in front of the sun lay a humid cloud with a delicately transparent edge in whose shade the country sank deeper and deeper while everything else lost its lovely outline.

The sound of the bearers' steps reached my side of the river and yet I could not distinguish any details in the dark square of their faces. I only saw them bending their heads sideways and arching their backs, for their burden was excessive. I was worried about them, for I realized that they were tired. So it was in suspense that I watched them step into the rushes, then walk through the wet sand, their strides still regular, until they finally sank into the muddy swamp where the two rear bearers bent even lower so as to keep the litter in its horizontal position. I pressed my hands together. By now they had to raise their feet high at every step until their bodies glistened with sweat in the cool air of this unsettled afternoon.

The fat man sat quiet, hands on his thighs; the long pointed tips of the reeds grazed him as they flipped up in the wake of the bearers in front.

The bearers' movements grew more irregular the nearer they came to the water. At times the litter swayed as though it were already on the waves. Small puddles in the rushes had to be jumped over or walked around, for they might possibly be deep.

At one moment wild ducks rose shrieking, mounting steeply into the rain cloud. It was then that I caught a glimpse of the fat man's face; it looked alarmed. I got up and in hectic leaps I zigzagged over the stony slope separating me from the water. I paid no heed to the danger, was concerned only with helping the fat man should his servants no longer be able to carry him. I ran so recklessly that I couldn't stop, and was forced to dash into the splashing water, coming to a halt only when the water reached my knees.

Meanwhile the servants, with considerable distortions of their bodies, had carried the litter into the river, and holding themselves above the unruly water with one hand, they propped up the litter with four hairy arms, their muscles standing out in relief.

The water lapped against their chins, then rose to their mouths; the bearers bent their heads back and the litter handles fell on their shoulders. The water was already playing around the bridges of their noses, and yet they did not give up, although they had hardly reached the middle of the river. Then a low wave swept over the heads of those in front and the four men drowned in silence, their desperate hands pulling the litter down with them. Water gushed after them.

And now the evening sun's slanting rays broke forth from behind the rims of the great cloud and illuminated the hills and mountains as far as the eye could see, while the river and the region beneath the cloud lay in an uncertain light.

The fat man turned slowly in the direction of the flowing water and was carried down the river like a yellow wooden idol which had become useless and so had been cast into the river. He sailed along on the reflection of the rain cloud. Elongated clouds pulled and small hunched ones pushed him, creating considerable commotion, the effect of which could even be noticed by the lapping of water against my knees and the stones on the shore.

I crept quickly up the slope so as to be able to accompany the fat man on his way, for I truly loved him. And perhaps I could learn something about the dangers of this apparently safe country. So I walked along a strip of sand to the narrowness of which one had to grow accustomed, hands in my pockets and my face turned at right angles to the river so that my chin rested almost on my shoulder.

Swallows sat on the stones by the shore.

The fat man said: "Dear sir on the shore, don't try to rescue me. This is the water's and the wind's revenge; now I am lost. Yes, revenge it is, for how often have we attacked them, I and my friend the supplicant, amidst the singing of our swords, the flash of cymbals, the great splendor of trumpets, and the leaping blaze of drums!"

A tiny mosquito with stretched wings flew straight through his belly without losing its speed. The fat man continued:

b Beginning of a Conversation with the Supplicant

There was a time when I went to a church day after day, for a girl I was in love with used to kneel there in prayer for half an hour every evening, which enabled me to watch her at my leisure.

Once when the girl failed to appear and in dismay I was watching the other people praying, my eye was caught by a young man who had flung his long emaciated figure on the ground. From time to time he clutched his skull with all his strength and, moaning loudly, beat it in the palms of his hands on the stone floor.

In the church there were only a few old women who kept turning their shawled heads sideways to glance at the praying man. This attention seemed to please him, for before each of his pious outbursts he let his eyes rove about to see how many people were watching him. Finding this unseemly, I decided to accost him on his way out of the church and ask him outright why he prayed in this manner. For since my arrival in this town clarity had become more important to me than anything else, even though at this moment I felt only annoyance at my girl's failure to appear.

Yet an hour passed before he stood up, brushed his trousers for such a long time that I felt like shouting: "Enough, enough! We can all see that you have trousers on," crossed himself carefully, and with the lumbering gait of a sailor walked to the font of holy water.

I placed myself between the font and the door, determined not to let him pass without an explanation. I screwed up my mouth, this being the best preparation for resolute speech, and supported myself by standing on my right leg while resting the left one on its toes, for this position as I have often experienced gives me a sense of stability.

Now it is possible that this young man had already caught sight of me while sprinkling his face with holy water; perhaps my stare had alarmed him even earlier, for he now quite unexpectedly rushed to the door and out. I involuntarily jumped to stop him. The glass door slammed. And when I passed through it a moment later I could not find him, for the narrow streets were numerous and the traffic considerable.

During the following days he failed to appear, but the girl came and again prayed in a corner of a side chapel. She wore a black dress with a transparent lace yoke — the crescent of her chemise could be seen through it — from the lower edge of which the silk hung down in a finely cut frill. And now that the girl had returned I was glad to forget about the young man, ignoring him even when he continued to appear regularly and to pray in his usual fashion.

Yet he always passed me by in sudden haste, his face averted. While praying, on the other hand, he kept glancing at me. It almost looked as though he were angry with me for not having accosted him earlier and was thinking that for my first attempt to talk to him I had actually taken upon me the duty to do so. One day as I was following the girl out as usual after a service, I ran into him in the semidarkness and thought I saw him smile.

The duty to talk to him, needless to say, did not exist, nor had I much desire to do so anymore. And even when I hurried up to the church one evening while the clock was striking seven and found, instead of the girl who of course had left long ago, only the young man exerting himself in front of the altar railings, I still hesitated.

At last I tiptoed to the door, slipped a coin to the blind beggar sitting there, and squeezed in beside him behind the open wing. And there for about half an hour I looked forward to the surprise I was planning to spring upon the supplicant. But this feeling did not last. Before long I was morosely watching spiders creeping over my clothes and finding it tiresome to have to bend forward every time someone came breathing loud out of the darkness of the church.

But finally he came. The ringing of the great bells which had started a little while ago did not agree with him, I realized. Each time before taking a step he had to touch the ground lightly with his foot.

I straightened myself, took a long stride forward, and grabbed him. "Good evening," said I, and with my hand on his coat collar I pushed him down the steps onto the lighted square.

When we had reached ground level he turned toward me while I was still holding on to him from behind, so that we stood breast to breast.

"If only you'd let go of me!" he said. "I don't know what you suspect me of, but I'm innocent." Then he repeated once more: "Of course I don't know what you suspect me of."

"There is no question here of suspicion or innocence. I ask you not to mention it again. We are strangers; our acquaintance is no older than the church steps are high. What would happen if we were immediately to start discussing our innocence?"

"Precisely what I think," he said. "As a matter of fact, you said 'our innocence.' Do you mean to suggest that if I had proved my innocence you would have to prove yours, too? Is that what you mean?"

"That or something else," I said. "I accosted you only because I wanted to ask you something, remember that!"

"I'd like to go home," he said, and made an effort to turn.

"I quite believe it. Would I have accosted you otherwise? Don't get the idea that I accosted you on account of your beautiful eyes."

"Aren't you being a little too sincere?"

"Must I repeat that there's no question of such things? What has it to do with sincerity or insincerity? I ask, you answer, and then goodbye. So far as I'm concerned you can even go home, and as fast as you like."

"Would it not be better to meet some other time? At a more suitable hour? Say in a coffeehouse? Besides, your fiancée left only a few minutes ago, you can easily catch her up, she has waited so long for you."

"No!" I shouted into the noise of the passing tram. "You won't escape me. I like you more and more. You're a lucky catch. I congratulate myself."

To which he said: "Oh God, you have a sound heart, as they say, but a head of wood. You call me a lucky catch, how lucky you must be! For my bad luck is precariously balanced and when touched it falls onto the questioner. And so: Good night."

"Fine," said I, surprised him and seized his right hand. "If you don't answer of your own accord, I'll force you. I'll follow you wherever you go, right or left, even up the stairs to your room, and in your room I'll sit down, wherever there's space. Go on then, keep staring at me, I can stand it. But how" — I stepped up close and because he was a head taller I spoke into his throat — "how are you going to summon up the courage to stop me?"

Whereupon, stepping back, he kissed my hands in turn, and wetted them with his tears. "One cannot deny you anything. Just as you knew I want to go home, I knew even earlier that I cannot deny you anything. All I ask is that we go over there into the side street." I nodded and we went over. When a carriage separated us and I was left behind, he beckoned to me with both hands, to make me hurry.

But once there, not satisfied with the darkness of the street where the lamps were widely separated from one another and almost as high as the first floor, he led me into the low hallway of an old house and under a small lamp which hung dripping in front of the wooden stairs.

Spreading his handkerchief over the hollow in a worn step, he invited me to be seated: "It's easier for you to ask questions sitting down. I'll remain standing, it's easier for me to answer. But don't torment me!"

I sat down because he took it all so seriously, but nevertheless felt I had to say: "You've led me to this hole as though we are conspirators, whereas I am bound to you simply by curiosity, you to me by fear. Actually, all I want to ask is why you pray like that in church. The way you carry on there! Like an utter fool! How ridiculous it all is, how unpleasant for the onlookers, how intolerable for the devout!"

He had pressed his body against the wall, only his head moved slowly in space. "You're wrong! The devout consider my behavior natural, the others consider it devout."

"My annoyance proves you're mistaken."

"Your annoyance — assuming it's real — only proves that you belong neither to the devout nor to the others."

"You're right. I was exaggerating when I said your behavior annoyed me; no, it aroused my curiosity as I stated correctly at first. But you, to which group do you belong?"

"Oh, I just get fun out of people watching me, out of occasionally casting a shadow on the altar, so to speak."

"Fun?" I asked, making a face.

"No, if you want to know. Don't be angry with me for expressing it wrongly. It's not fun, for me it's a need; a need to let myself be nailed down for a brief hour by those eyes, while the whole town around me —"

"The things you say!" I cried far too loud for the insignificant remark and the low hallway, but I was afraid of falling silent or of lowering my voice. "Really, the things you say! Now I realize, by God, that I guessed from the very beginning the state you are in. Isn't it something like a fever, a seasickness on land, a kind of leprosy? Don't you feel it's this very feverishness that is preventing you from being properly satisfied with the real names of things, and that now, in your frantic haste, you're just pelting them with any old names? You can't do it fast enough. But hardly have you run away from them when you've forgotten the names you gave them. The poplar in the fields, which you've called the 'Tower of Babel' because you didn't want to know it was a poplar, sways again without a name, so you have to call it 'Noah in his cups.' "

He interrupted me: "I'm glad I haven't understood a word you've been saying."

Irritated, I said quickly: "Your being glad about it proves that you have understood it."

"Didn't I say so before? One cannot deny you anything."

I put my hands on a step above me, leaned back, and in this all but unassailable position, the wrestler's last resort, I asked: "Excuse me, but to throw back at me an explanation which I gave you is insincere."

At this he grew daring. To give his body unity he clasped his hands together and said with some reluctance: "You ruled out quarrels about insincerity from the very beginning. And truly, I'm no longer concerned with anything but to give you a proper explanation for my way of praying. Do you know why I pray like that?"

He was putting me to the test. No, I didn't know, nor did I want to know. I hadn't even wanted to come here, I said to myself, but this creature had practically forced me to listen to him. So all I had to do was to shake my head and everything would be all right, but at the moment this was just what I couldn't do. The creature opposite me smiled. Then he crouched down on his knees and said with a sleepy expression: "Now I can also tell you at last why I let you accost me. Out of curiosity, from hope. Your stare has been comforting me for a long time. And I hope to learn from you how things really are, why it is that around me things sink away like fallen snow, whereas for other people even a little liqueur glass stands on the table steady as a statue."

As I remained silent and only an involuntary twitching passed over my face, he asked: "So you don't believe this happens to other people? You really don't? Just listen, then. When as a child I opened my eyes after a brief afternoon nap, still not quite sure I was alive, I heard my mother up on the balcony asking in a natural tone of voice: 'What are you doing, my dear? Goodness, isn't it hot?' From the garden a woman answered: 'Me, I'm having my tea on the lawn.' They spoke casually and not very distinctly, as though this woman had expected the question, my mother the answer."

Feeling that this required an answer, I put my hand in the hip pocket of my trousers as though I were looking for something. Actually, I wasn't looking for anything, I just wished to change my appearance in order to show interest in the conversation. Finally I said I thought this a most remarkable incident and that I couldn't make head or tail of it. I also added that I didn't believe it was true and that it must have been invented for a special reason whose purpose wasn't clear to me just now. Then I closed my eyes so as to shut out the bad light.

"Well, isn't that encouraging! For once you agree with me, and you accosted me to tell me that out of sheer unselfishness. I lose one hope and acquire another.

"Why, after all, should I feel ashamed of not walking upright and taking normal steps, of not tapping the pavement with my stick, and not touching the clothes of the people who pass noisily by? Am I not rather entitled to complain bitterly at having to skip along the houses like a shadow without a clear outline, sometimes disappearing in the panes of the shopwindows?

"Oh, what dreadful days I have to live through! Why is everything so badly built that high houses collapse every now and again for no apparent reason? On these occasions I clamber over the rubble, asking everyone I meet: 'How could this have happened? In our town — a new house — how many does that make today? — Just think of it!' And no one can give me an answer.

"Frequently people fall in the street and lie there dead. Whereupon all the shop people open their doors laden with wares, hurry busily out, cart the dead into a house, come out again all smiles, then the chatter begins: 'Good morning — it's a dull day — I'm selling any amount of kerchiefs — ah yes, the war.' I rush into the house, and after raising my hand several times timidly with my finger crooked, I finally knock on the janitor's little window: 'Good morning,' I say, 'I understand a dead man was carried in here just now. Would you be kind enough to let me see him?' And when he shakes his head as though unable to make up his mind, I add: 'Take care, I'm a member of the secret police and insist on seeing the dead man at once!' Now he is no longer undecided. 'Out with you!' he shouts. 'This riffraff is getting in the habit of snooping about here every day. There's no dead man here. Maybe next door.' I raise my hat and go.

"But then, on having to cross a large square, I forget everything. If people must build such huge squares from sheer wantonness, why don't they build a balustrade across them as well? Today there's a southwest wind blowing. The spire of the Town Hall is moving in little circles. All the windowpanes are rattling, and the lampposts are bending like bamboos. The Virgin Mary's cloak is coiling around her pillar and the wind is tugging at it. Does no one notice this? The ladies and gentlemen who should be walking on the pavement are floating. When the wind falls they stand still, say a few words, and bow to one another, but when the wind rises again they are helpless, and all their feet leave the ground at the same time. Although obliged to hold on to their hats, their eyes twinkle gaily enough and no one has the slightest fault to find with the weather. I'm the only one who's afraid."

To which I was able to say: "That story you told me earlier about your mother and the woman in the garden I really don't find so remarkable. Not only have I heard and experienced many stories of this kind, I have even taken part in some. The whole thing is perfectly natural. Do you really mean to suggest that had I been on that balcony in the summer, I could not have asked the same question and given the same answer from the garden? Quite an ordinary occurrence!"

After I had said this, he seemed relieved at last. He told me I was well dressed and that he very much liked my tie. And what a fine complexion I had. And that confessions became most comprehensible when they were retracted.

c The Supplicant's Story

Then he sat down beside me, for I had grown timid and, bending my head to one side, had made room for him. Nevertheless, it didn't escape my notice that he too was sitting there rather embarrassed, trying to keep some distance from me and speaking with difficulty:

"Oh, what dreadful days I have to live through! Last night I was at a party. I was just bowing to a young lady in the gaslight and saying: 'I'm so glad winter's approaching' — I was just bowing with these words when to my annoyance I noticed that my right thigh had slipped out of joint. The kneecap had also become a little loose.

"So I sat down, and as I always try to keep control over my sentences, I said: 'for winter's much less of an effort; it's easier to comport oneself, one doesn't have to take so much trouble with one's words. Don't you agree, Fräulein? I do hope I'm right about this.' My right leg was now giving me a lot of trouble. At first it seemed to have fallen apart completely, and only gradually did I manage to get it more or less back into shape by manipulation and careful rearrangement.

"Then I heard the girl, who, out of sympathy, had also sat down, say in a low voice: 'No, you don't impress me at all because —'

" 'Just a moment,' I said, pleased and full of expectation, 'you mustn't waste so much as five minutes talking to me, dear Fräulein. Please eat something while you're talking, I implore you.'

"And stretching out my arm I took a large bunch of grapes hanging heavily from a bowl held up by a bronze winged cupid, dangled it for a moment in the air, and then laid it on a small blue plate which I handed to the girl, not without a certain elegance, I trust.

" 'You don't impress me at all,' she said, 'Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible, but that alone doesn't make it true. What I really think, sir — why do you always call me dear Fräulein? — is that you can't be bothered with the truth simply because it's too tiring.'

"God, how good that made me feel! 'Yes, Fräulein, Fräulein!' I almost shouted, 'how right you are! Dear Fräulein, if you only knew what a wild joy it is to find oneself so well understood — and without having made any effort!'

" 'There's no doubt, sir, that for you the truth is too tiring. Just look at yourself! The entire length of you is cut out of tissue paper, yellow tissue paper, like a silhouette, and when you walk one ought to hear you rustle. So one shouldn't get annoyed at your attitude or opinion, for you can't help bending to whatever draft happens to be in the room.'

"'I don't understand that. True, several people are standing about here in this room. They lay their arms on the backs of chairs or they lean against the piano or they raise a glass tentatively to their mouths or they walk timidly into the next room, and having knocked their right shoulders against a cupboard in the dark, they stand breathing by the open window and think: There's Venus, the evening star. Yet here I am, among them. If there is a connection, I don't understand it. But I don't even know if there is a connection. — And you see, dear Fräulein, of all these people who behave so irresolutely, so absurdly as a result of their confusion, I alone seem worthy of hearing the truth about myself. And to make this truth more palatable you put it in a mocking way so that something concrete remains, like the outer walls of a house whose interior has been gutted. The eye is hardly obstructed; by day the clouds and sky can be seen through the great window holes, and by night the stars. But the clouds are often hewn out of gray stones, and the stars form unnatural constellations. — How would it be if in return I were to tell you that one day everyone wanting to live will look like me — cut out of tissue paper, like silhouettes, as you pointed out — and when they walk they will be heard to rustle? Not that they will be any different from what they are now, but that is what they will look like. Even you, dear Fräulein —'

"Then I noticed that the girl was no longer sitting beside me. She must have left soon after her last words, for now she was standing far away from me by a window, surrounded by three young men who were talking and laughing out of high white collars.

"So I happily drank a glass of wine and walked over to the pianist who, all alone and nodding to himself, happened to be playing something sad. I bent carefully down to his ear so as not to frighten him and whispered into the melody: 'Be so kind, sir, as to let me play now, for I'm just beginning to feel happy.'

"Since he paid no attention to me, I stood there for a while embarrassed, but then, overcoming my timidity, I went from one guest to another, saying casually: 'Today I'm going to play the piano. Yes.'

"Everyone seemed to know I couldn't play, but they smiled in a friendly way, pleased by the welcome interruption of their conversation. They paid proper attention to me only when I said to the pianist in a very loud voice: 'Do me the favor, sir, of letting me play now. After all, I'm just beginning to feel happy. A triumph is at stake.'

"Although the pianist stopped, he neither left his brown bench nor appeared to understand me. He sighed and covered his face with his long fingers.

"I felt a trifle sorry for him and was about to encourage him to continue playing when the hostess approached with a group of people.

" 'That's a funny coincidence,' they said and laughed aloud as though I were about to do something unnatural.

"The girl also joined them, looked at me contemptuously, and said: 'Please, madame, do let him play. Perhaps he wants to make some contribution to the entertainment. He ought to be encouraged. Please let him.'

"Everyone laughed, obviously thinking, as I did, that it was meant ironically. Only the pianist was silent. Holding his head low, he stroked the wood of the bench with the forefinger of his left hand, as though he were making designs in sand. I began to tremble, and to hide it, thrust my hands into my trouser pockets. Nor could I speak clearly any longer, for my whole face wanted to cry. Thus I had to choose the words in such a way that the thought of my wanting to cry would appear ludicrous to the listeners.

" 'Madame,' I said, 'I must play now because —' As I had forgotten the reason I abruptly sat down at the piano. And then I remembered again. The pianist stood up and stepped tactfully over the bench, for I was blocking his way. 'Please turn out the light, I can only play in the dark.' I straightened myself.

"At that moment two gentlemen seized the bench and, whistling a song and rocking me to and fro, carried me far away from the piano to the dining table.

"Everyone watched with approval and the girl said: 'You see, madame, he played quite well. I knew he would. And you were so worried.'

"I understood and thanked her with a bow, which I carried out well.

"They poured me some lemonade and a girl with red lips held my glass while I drank. The hostess offered me a meringue on a silver salver and a girl in a pure white dress put the meringue in my mouth. Another girl, voluptuous and with a mass of fair hair, held a bunch of grapes over me, and all I had to do was pluck them off with my lips while she gazed into my receding eyes.

"Since everyone was treating me so well I was a little surprised that they were so unanimous in holding me back when I tried to return to the piano.

" 'That's enough now,' said the host, whom I had not noticed before. He went out and promptly returned with an enormous top hat and a copper-brown overcoat with a flowery design. 'Here are your things.'

"They weren't my things, of course, but I didn't want to put him to the trouble of looking again. The host helped me into the overcoat which fitted beautifully, clinging tightly to my thin body. Bending over slowly, a lady with a kind face buttoned the coat all the way down.

" 'Goodbye,' said the hostess, 'and come back soon. You know you're always welcome.' Whereupon everyone bowed as though they thought it necessary. I tried to do likewise, but my coat was too tight. So I took my hat and, no doubt awkwardly, walked out of the room.

"But as I passed through the front door with short steps I was assaulted from the sky by moon and stars and a great vaulted expanse, and from the Ringplatz by the Town Hall, the Virgin's pillar, the church.

"I walked calmly from the shadow into the moonlight, unbuttoned my overcoat, and warmed myself; then I put a stop to the humming of the night by raising my hands, and began to reflect as follows:

" 'What is it that makes you all behave as though you were real? Are you trying to make me believe I'm unreal, standing here absurdly on the green pavement? You, sky, surely it's a long time since you've been real, and as for you, Ringplatz, you never have been real.

"'It's true, you're all still superior to me, but only when I leave you alone.

" 'Thank God, moon, you are no longer moon, but perhaps it's negligent of me to go on calling you so-called moon, moon. Why do your spirits fall when I call you "forgotten paper lantern of a strange color"? And why do you almost withdraw when I call you "the Virgin's pillar"? As for you, pillar of the Virgin Mary, I hardly recognize your threatening attitude when I call you "moon shedding yellow light."

" 'It really seems to me that thinking about you doesn't do you any good; you lose in courage and health.

" 'God, how much more profitable it would be if the Thinker could learn from the Drunk!

" 'Why has everything become so quiet? I think the wind has dropped. And the small houses which often used to roll across the square as though on little wheels are rooted to the spot — calm — calm — one can't even see the thin black line that used to separate them from the ground.'

"And I started to run. I ran unimpeded three times around the great square, and as I didn't meet a drunk I ran on toward the Karlsgasse without slowing down and without any effort. My shadow, often smaller than myself, ran beside me along the wall as though in a gorge between the wall and the street level.

"As I passed the fire station I heard a noise coming from the Kleiner Ring, and as I turned into it I saw a drunk standing by the iron railing of the fountain, his arms held out sideways and his feet in wooden shoes stamping the ground.

"Stopping to get my breath, I went up to him, raised my top hat, and introduced myself:

" 'Good evening, gentle nobleman, I am twenty-three years of age, but as yet I have no name. But you, no doubt, hail from the great city of Paris — bearing extraordinary, well-nigh singable names. You are surrounded by the quite unnatural odor of the dissolute Court of France. No doubt your tinted eyes have beheld those great ladies standing on the high shining terrace, ironically twisting their narrow waists while the ends of their decorated trains, spread over the steps, are still lying on the sand in the garden. — And surely, menservants in daringly cut gray tailcoats and white knee breeches climb tall poles, their legs hugging them but their torsos frequently bent back and to the side, for they have to raise enormous gray linen sheets off the ground with thick ropes and spread them in the air, because the great lady has expressed the wish for a misty morning.'

"When he belched I felt almost frightened. 'Is it really true, sir,' I said, 'that you hail from our Paris, from that tempestuous Paris — ah, from that luxuriant hailstorm?'

"When he belched again, I said with embarrassment: 'I know, a great honor is being bestowed upon me.'

"And with nimble fingers I buttoned up my overcoat; then with ardor and yet timidly I said: 'I know you do not consider me worthy of an answer, but if I did not ask you today my life would be spent in weeping. I ask you, much-bespangled sir, is it true what I have been told? Are there people in Paris who consist only of sumptuous dresses, and are there houses that are only portals, and is it true that on summer days the sky over the city is a fleeting blue embellished only by little white clouds glued onto it, all in the shape of hearts? And have they a highly popular panopticon there containing nothing but trees to which small plaques are fastened bearing the names of the most famous heroes, criminals, and lovers?

" 'And then this other piece of news! This clearly fabricated news! These Paris streets, for instance, they suddenly branch off, don't they? They're turbulent, aren't they? Things are not always as they should be, how could they be, after all? Sometimes there's an accident, people gather together from the side streets with that urban stride that hardly touches the pavement; they are all filled with curiosity, but also with fear of disappointment; they breathe fast and stretch out their little heads. But when they touch one another they bow low and apologize: "I'm awfully sorry — I didn't mean it — there's such a crowd; forgive me, I beg you — it was most clumsy of me, I admit. My name is — my name's Jerome Faroche, I'm a grocer in the rue de Cabotin — allow me to invite you to lunch tomorrow — my wife would also be delighted."

" 'So they go on talking while the street lies numb and the smoke from the chimneys falls between the houses. That's how it is. But it might happen that two carriages stop on a crowded boulevard of a distinguished neighborhood. Serious-looking menservants open the doors. Eight elegant Siberian wolfhounds come prancing out and jump barking across the boulevard. And it's said that they are young Parisian dandies in disguise.'

"His eyes were almost shut. When I fell silent, he stuck both hands in his mouth and tore at his lower jaw. His clothes were covered with dirt. Perhaps he had been thrown out of some tavern and hadn't yet realized it.

"Perhaps it was that short quiet lull between night and day when our heads loll back unexpectedly, when everything stands still without our knowing it, since we are not looking at it, and then disappears; we remain alone, our bodies bent, then look around but no longer see anything, nor even feel any resistance in the air yet inwardly we cling to the memory that at a certain distance from us stand houses with roofs and with fortunately angular chimneys down which the darkness flows through garrets into various rooms. And it is fortunate that tomorrow will be a day on which, unlikely as it may seem, one will be able to see everything.

"Now the drunk jerked up his eyebrows so that a brightness appeared between them and his eyes, and he explained in fits and starts: 'It's like this, you see — I'm sleepy, you see, so that's why I'm going to sleep. — You see, I've a brother-in-law on the Wenzelsplatz — that's where I'm going, for I live there, for that's where I have my bed — so I'll be off —. But I don't know his name, you see, or where he lives — seems I've forgotten — but never mind, for I don't even know if I have a brother-in-law at all. — But I'll be off now, you see —. Do you think I'll find him?'

"To which, without thinking, I said: 'That's certain. But you're coming from abroad and your servants don't happen to be with you. Allow me to show you the way.'

"He didn't answer. So I offered him my arm, to give him some support."

d Continued Conversation Between

the Fat Man and the Supplicant

For some time already I had been trying to cheer myself up. I rubbed my body and said to myself: "It's time you spoke. You're becoming embarrassed. Do you feel oppressed? Just wait! You know these situations. Think it over at your leisure. Even the landscape will wait.

"It's the same as it was at the party last week. Someone is reading aloud from a manuscript. At his request I myself have copied one page. When I see my handwriting among the pages written by him, I take fright. It's without any stability. People are bending over it from three sides of the table. In tears, I swear it's not my handwriting."

"But what is the connection with today? It's entirely up to you to start a sensible conversation. Everything's peaceful. Just make an effort, my friend! — You surely can find an objection. — You can say: 'I'm sleepy. I've a headache. Goodbye.' Quick then, quick! Make yourself conspicuous! — What's that? Again obstacles and more obstacles? What does it remind you of? — I remember a high plateau which rose against the wide sky as a shield to the earth. I saw it from a mountain and prepared myself to wander through it. I began to sing."

My lips were dry and disobedient as I said: "Ought it not to be possible to live differently?"

"No," he said, questioning, smiling.

"But why do you pray in church every evening?" I asked then, while everything between him and me, which until then I had been holding together, as though in my sleep, collapsed.

"Oh, why should we talk about it? People who live alone have no responsibility in the evenings. One fears a number of things — that one's body could vanish, that human beings may really be what they appear to be at twilight, that one might not be allowed to walk without a stick, that it might be a good idea to go to church and pray at the top of one's voice in order to be looked at and acquire a body."

Because he talked like that and then fell silent, I pulled my red handkerchief out of my pocket, bent my head, and wept.

He stood up, kissed me, and said: "What are you crying for? You're tall, I like that; you have long hands which all but obey your will; why aren't you happy about it? Always wear dark cuffs, that's my advice. — No — I flatter you and yet you cry? I think you cope quite sensibly with the difficulty of living."

"We build useless war machines, towers, walls, curtains of silk, and we could marvel at all this a great deal if we had the time. We tremble in the balance, we don't fall, we flutter, even though we may be uglier than bats. And on a beautiful day hardly anyone can prevent us from saying: 'Oh God, today is a beautiful day,' for we are already established on this earth and live by virtue of an agreement.

"For we are like tree trunks in the snow. They lie there apparently flat on the ground and it looks as though one could push them away with a slight kick. But no, one can't, for they are firmly stuck to the ground. So you see even this is only apparent."

The following thought prevented me from sobbing: "It is night and no one will reproach me tomorrow for what I might say now, for it could have been said in my sleep."

Then I said: "Yes, that's it, but what were we talking about? We can't have been talking about the light in the sky because we are standing in the darkness of a hallway. No — we could have talked about it, nevertheless, for are we not free to say what we like in conversation? After all, we're not aiming at any definite purpose or at the truth, but simply at making jokes and having a good time. Even so, couldn't you tell me the story of the woman in the garden once more? How admirable, how clever this woman is! We must follow her example. How fond I am of her! So it's a good thing I met you and waylaid you as I did. It has given me great pleasure to talk to you. I've learned several things that, perhaps intentionally, were hitherto unknown to me. — I'm grateful."

He looked pleased. And although contact with a human body is always repugnant to me, I couldn't help embracing him.

Then we stepped out of the hallway under the sky. My friend blew away a few bruised little clouds, allowing the uninterrupted surface of the stars to emerge. He walked with difficulty.

iv DROWNING OF THE FAT MAN

And now everything was seized by speed and fell into the distance. The water of the river was dragged toward a precipice, tried to resist, whirled about a little at the crumbling edge, but then crashed in foaming smoke.

The fat man could not go on talking, he was forced to turn and disappear in the loud roar of the waterfall.

I, who had experienced so many pleasant diversions, stood on the bank and watched. "What are our lungs supposed to do?" I shouted. Shouted: "If they breathe fast they suffocate themselves from inner poisons; if they breathe slowly they suffocate from unbreathable air, from outraged things. But if they try to search for their own rhythm they perish from the mere search."

Meanwhile the banks of the river stretched beyond all bounds, and yet with the palm of my hand I touched the metal of a signpost which gleamed minutely in the far distance. This I really couldn't quite understand. After all I was small, almost smaller than usual, and a bush of white hips shaking itself very fast towered over me. This I saw, for a moment ago it had been close to me.

Nevertheless I was mistaken, for my arms were as huge as the clouds of a steady country rain, save that they were more hasty. I don't know why they were trying to crush my poor head. It was no larger than an ant's egg, but slightly damaged, and as a result no longer quite round. I made some beseeching, twisting movements with it, for the expression of my eyes could not have noticed, they were so small.

But my legs, my impossible legs lay over the wooded mountains and gave shade to the village-studded valleys. They grew and grew! They already reached into the space that no longer owned any landscape, for some time their length had gone beyond my field of vision.

But no, it isn't like that — after all, I'm small, small for the time being — I'm rolling — I'm rolling — I'm an avalanche in the mountains! Please, passers-by, be so kind as to tell me how tall I am — just measure these arms, these legs.

III

"Let me think," said my acquaintance, who had accompanied me from the party and was walking quietly beside me on a path up the Laurenziberg. "Just stand still a moment so that I can get it clear. — I have something to settle, you know. It's all such a strain — the night is radiant, though rather cold, but this discontented wind, it sometimes even seems to change the position of those acacias."

The moon made the gardener's house cast a shadow over the slightly humped path on which lay scanty patches of snow. When I saw the bench that stood beside the door, I pointed at it with a raised finger, and as I was not brave and expected reproaches I laid my left hand on my chest.

He sat down wearily, disregarding his beautiful clothes, and astonished me by pressing his elbows against his hips and laying his forehead on the tips of his overstretched fingers.

"Yes, now I want to say this. You know, I live a regular life. No fault can be found with it, everything I do is considered correct and generally approved. Misfortune, as it is known in the society I frequent, has not spared me, as my surroundings and I have realized with satisfaction, and even the general good fortune has not failed me and I myself have been able to talk about it in a small circle of friends. True, until now I had never been really in love. I regretted it occasionally, but used the phrase when I needed it. And now I must confess: Yes, I am in love and quite beside myself with excitement. I am an ardent lover, just what the girls dream of. But ought I not to have considered that just this former lack of mine gave an exceptional and gay, an especially gay, twist to my circumstances?"

"Calm yourself," I said without interest, thinking only of myself. "Your loved one is beautiful, as I couldn't help hearing."

"Yes, she is beautiful. While sitting next to her, all I could think was: What an adventure — am I not daring! — there I go embarking on a sea voyage — drinking wine by the gallon. But when she laughs she doesn't show her teeth as one would expect; instead, all one sees is the dark, narrow, curved opening of the mouth. Now this looks sly and senile, even though she throws back her head while laughing."

"I can't deny that," I said, sighing. "I've probably seen it, too, for it must be conspicuous. But it's not only that. It's the beauty of girls altogether. Often when I see dresses with manifold pleats, frills, and flounces smoothly clinging to beautiful bodies, it occurs to me that they will not remain like this for long, that they will get creases that cannot be ironed out, dust will gather in the trimmings too thick to be removed, and that no one will make herself so miserable and ridiculous as every day to put on the same precious dress in the morning and take it off at night. And yet I see girls who are beautiful enough, displaying all kinds of attractive muscles and little bones and smooth skin and masses of fine hair, and who appear every day in the same natural fancy dress, always laying the same face in the same palm and letting it be reflected in the mirror. Only sometimes at night, on returning late from a party, this face stares out at them from the mirror worn out, swollen, already seen by too many people, hardly worth wearing any more."

"I've asked you several times on our walk whether you found my girl beautiful, but you always turned away without answering. Tell me, are you up to some mischief? Why don't you comfort me?"

I dug my feet into the shadow and said kindly: "You don't need to be comforted. After all, you're being loved." To avoid catching cold I held over my mouth a handkerchief with a design of blue grapes.

Now he turned toward me and leaned his fat face against the low back of the bench: "Actually I've still time, you know. I can still end this budding love affair at once, either by committing some misdeed, by unfaithfulness, or by going off to some distant land. For I've grave doubts about whether I should let myself in for all this excitement. Nothing is certain, no one can tell the direction or the duration for sure. If I go into a tavern with the intention of getting drunk, I know I'll be drunk that evening. But in this case! In a week's time we're planning to go on an excursion with some friends. Imagine the storm this will create in the heart for the next fortnight! Last night's kisses make me sleepy and prepare the way for savage dreams. I fight this by going for a walk at night, with the result that I'm in a permanent state of turmoil, my face goes hot and cold as though blown about by the wind, I have to keep fingering a pink ribbon in my pocket all the time, I'm filled with the gravest apprehensions about myself which I cannot follow up, and I can even stand your company, sir, wheareas normally I would never spend so much time talking to you."

I was feeling very cold and the sky was already turning a whitish color. "I'm afraid no misdeed, no unfaithfulness or departure to some distant land will be of any avail. You'll have to kill yourself," I said, adding a smile.

Opposite us on the other side of the avenue stood two bushes and down below these bushes was the town. There were still a few lights on.

"All right," he cried, and hit the bench with his little tight fist which, however, he left lying there. "But you go on living. You don't kill yourself. No one loves you. You don't achieve anything. You can't cope with the next moment. Yet you dare to talk to me like that, you brute. You're incapable of loving, only fear excites you. Just take a look at my chest."

Whereupon he quickly opened his overcoat and waistcoat and his shirt. His chest was indeed broad and beautiful.

"Yes, such obstinate moods come over one sometimes," I began to say. "This summer I was in a village which lay by a river. I remember it well. I frequently sat on a bench by the shore in a twisted position. There was a hotel, and one often heard the sound of violins. Young healthy people sat in the garden at tables with beer and talked of hunting and adventures. And on the other shore were cloudlike mountains."

Then, with a limp, distorted mouth, I got up, stepped onto the lawn behind the bench, broke a few snow-covered twigs, and whispered into my acquaintance's ear: "I'm engaged, I confess it."

My acquaintance wasn't surprised that I had got up. "You're engaged?" He sat there really quite exhausted, supported only by the back of the bench. Then he took off his hat and I saw his hair which, scented and beautifully combed, set off the round head on a fleshy neck in a sharp curving line, as was the fashion that winter.

I was pleased to have answered him so cleverly. "Just think," I said to myself, "how he moves in society with flexible neck and free-swinging arms. Keeping up an intelligent conversation, he can steer a lady right through a drawing room, and the fact that it's raining outside, that some timid man is standing about or some other wretched thing is happening, does not make him nervous. No, he goes on bowing with the same courtesy to the ladies. And there he sits now."

My acquaintance mopped his brow with a batiste handkerchief. "Please put your hand on my forehead," he said. "I beg you." When I didn't do so at once, he folded his hands.

As though our sorrow had darkened everything, we sat high up on the mountain as in a small room, although a little earlier we had already noticed the light and the wind of the morning. We sat close together in spite of not liking one another at all, but we couldn't move far apart because the walls were firmly and definitely drawn. We could, however, behave absurdly and without human dignity, for we didn't have to be ashamed in the presence of the branches above us and the trees standing opposite us.

Then, without further ado, my acquaintance pulled a knife out of his pocket, opened it thoughtfully, and then, as though he were playing, he plunged it into his left upper arm, and didn't withdraw it. Blood promptly began to flow. His round cheeks grew pale. I pulled out the knife, cut up the sleeve of his overcoat and jacket, tore his shirt sleeve open. Then I ran a little way up and down the road to see if there was anyone who could help. All the branches were almost exaggeratedly visible and motionless. I sucked a little at the deep wound. Then I remembered the gardener's cottage. I ran up the steps leading to the upper lawn on the left side of the house, quickly examined the windows and doors, rang the bell furiously, and stamped my feet, although I knew all the time that the house was uninhabited. Then I looked at the wound which was bleeding in a thin trickle. Having wetted his handkerchief in snow, I tied it clumsily around his arm.

"My dear, dear friend," said I, "you've wounded yourself for my sake. You're in such a good position, you're surrounded by well-meaning friends, you can go for a walk in broad daylight when any number of carefully dressed people can be seen far and near among tables or on mountain paths. Just think, in the spring we'll drive into the orchard — no, not we, that's unfortunately true — but you with your Annie will drive out at a happy trot. Oh yes, believe me, I beg you, and the sun will show you off to everyone at your best. Oh, there'll be music, the sound of horses from afar, no need to worry, there'll be shouting and barrel organs will be playing in the avenues."

"Oh God," he said, stood up, leaned on me and we went on, "oh God, that won't help. That won't make me happy. Excuse me. Is it late? Perhaps I ought to do something in the morning. Oh God."

A lantern was burning close to the wall above; it threw the shadows of the tree trunks across the road and the white snow, while on the slope the shadows of all the branches lay bent, as though broken.

Translated by Tania and James Stern

Wedding Preparations in the Country

I

WHEN Eduard Raban, coming along the passage, walked into the open doorway, he saw that it was raining. It was not raining much.

On the pavement straight in front of him there were many people walking in various rhythms. Every now and again one would step forward and cross the road. A little girl was holding a tired puppy in her outstretched hands. Two gentlemen were exchanging information. The one held his hands palm-upward, raising and lowering them in regular motion, as though he were balancing a load. Then one caught sight of a lady whose hat was heavily laden with ribbons, buckles, and flowers. And hurrying past was a young man with a thin walking stick, his left hand, as though paralyzed, flat on his chest. Now and then there came men who were smoking, bearing small upright elongated clouds along ahead of them. Three gentlemen — two holding lightweight overcoats on their crooked forearms — several times walked forward from the front of the buildings to the edge of the pavement, surveyed what was going on there, and then withdrew again, talking.

Through the gaps between the passers-by one could see the regularly laid stones of the carriageway. There carriages on delicate high wheels were drawn along by horses with arched necks. The people who sat at ease on the upholstered seats gazed silently at the pedestrians, the shops, the balconies, and the sky. If it happened that one carriage overtook another, then the horses would press against each other, and the harness straps hung dangling. The animals tugged at the shafts, the carriage bowled along, swaying as it gathered speed, until the swerve around the carriage ahead was completed and the horses moved apart again, only their narrow quiet heads inclined toward each other.

Some people came quickly toward the front entrance, stopped on the dry mosaic paving, and, turning around slowly, stood gazing out into the rain, which, wedged in by this narrow street, fell confusedly.

Raban felt tired. His lips were as pale as the faded red of his thick tie, which had a Moorish pattern. The lady by the doorsteps over there, who had up to now been contemplating her shoes, which were quite visible under her tightly drawn skirt, now looked at him. She did so indifferently, and she was perhaps, in any case, only looking at the falling rain in front of him or at the small nameplates of firms that were fixed to the door over his head. Raban thought she looked amazed. "Well," he thought, "if I could tell her the whole story, she would cease to be astonished. One works so feverishly at the office that afterwards one is too tired even to enjoy one's holidays properly. But even all that work does not give one a claim to be treated lovingly by everyone; on the contrary, one is alone, a total stranger and only an object of curiosity. And so long as you say 'one' instead of 'I,' there's nothing in it and one can easily tell the story; but as soon as you admit to yourself that it is you yourself, you feel as though transfixed and are horrified."

He put down the suitcase with the checkered cloth cover, bending his knees in doing so. The rain water was already running along the edge of the carriageway in streaks that almost extended to the lower-lying gutters.

"But if I myself distinguish between 'one' and 'I,' how then dare I complain about the others? Probably they're not unjust, but I'm too tired to take it all in. I'm even too tired to walk all the way to the station without an effort, and it's only a short distance. So why don't I remain in town over these short holidays, in order to recuperate? How unreasonable I'm being! — The journey will make me ill, I know that quite well. My room won't be comfortable enough, it can't be otherwise in the country. And we're hardly in the first half of June, the air in the country is often still very cool. Of course, I've taken precautions in my clothing, but I shall have to join with people who go for walks late in the evening. There are ponds there; one will go for a walk the length of those ponds. That is where I'm sure to catch cold. On the other hand, I shall make but little showing in conversation. I shan't be able to compare the pond with other ponds in some remote country, for I've never traveled, and talking about the moon and feeling bliss and rapturously climbing up on heaps of rubble is, after all, something I'm too old to do without being laughed to scorn."

People were going past with slightly bent heads, above which they carried their dark umbrellas in a loose grip. A dray also went by; on the driver's seat, which was stuffed with straw, sat a man whose legs were stretched out so negligently that one foot was almost touching the ground, while the other rested safely on straw and rags. It looked as though he were sitting in a field in fine weather. Yet he was holding the reins attentively so that the dray, on which iron bars were clanging against one another, made its way safely through the dense traffic. On the wet surface of the road one could see the reflection of the iron meanderingly and slowly gliding from one row of cobbles to the next. The little boy beside the lady opposite was dressed like an old vintner. His pleated dress formed a great circle at the hem and was only held in, almost under the very armpits, by a leather strap. His hemispherical cap came down to his eyebrows, and a tassel hung down from the top as far as his left ear. He was pleased by the rain. He ran out of the doorway and looked up wide-eyed into the sky in order to catch more of the rain. Often he jumped high into the air so that the water splashed a great deal and passers-by admonished him severely. Then the lady called him and henceforth held him by the hand; yet he did not cry.

Raban started. Had it not grown late? Since he wore his topcoat and jacket open, he quickly pulled out his watch. It was not going. Irritably he asked a neighbor, who was standing a little farther back in the entrance, what the time was. This man was in conversation, and while still laughing together with his companion, said: "Certainly. Past four o'clock," and turned away.

Raban quickly put up his umbrella and picked up his suitcase. But when he was about to step into the street, his way was blocked by several women in a hurry and these he therefore let pass first. In doing so he looked down on a little girl's hat, which was made of plaited red straw and had a little green wreath on the wavy brim.

He went on remembering this even when he was in the street, which went slightly uphill in the direction he wished to follow. Then he forgot it, for now he had to exert himself a little; his small suitcase was none too light, and the wind was blowing straight against him, making his coat flutter and bending the front spokes of his umbrella.

He had to breathe more deeply. A clock in a nearby square down below struck a quarter to five; under the umbrella he saw the light short steps of the people coming toward him; carriage wheels squeaked with the brakes on, turning more slowly; the horses stretched their thin forelegs, daring as chamois in the mountains.

Then it seemed to Raban that he would get through the long bad time of the next fortnight, too. For it was only a fortnight, that was to say, a limited period, and even if the annoyances grew ever greater, still, the time during which one had to endure them would be growing shorter and shorter. Thus, undoubtedly courage would increase. "All the people who try to torment me, and who have now occupied the entire space around me, will quite gradually be thrust back by the beneficent passage of these days, without my having to help them even in the very least. And, as it will come about quite naturally, I can be weak and quiet and let everything happen to me, and yet everything must turn out well, through the sheer fact of the passing of the days.

"And besides, can't I do it the way I always used to as a child in matters that were dangerous? I don't even need to go to the country myself, it isn't necessary. I'll send my clothed body. If it staggers out of the door of my room, the staggering will indicate not fear but its nothingness. Nor is it a sign of excitement if it stumbles on the stairs, if it travels into the country, sobbing as it goes, and there eats its supper in tears. For I myself am meanwhile lying in my bed, smoothly covered over with the yellow-brown blanket, exposed to the breeze that is wafted through that seldom-aired room. The carriages and people in the street move and walk hesitantly on shining ground, for I am still dreaming. Coachmen and pedestrians are shy, and every step they want to advance they ask as a favor from me, by looking at me. I encourage them and encounter no obstacle.

"As I lie in bed I assume the shape of a big beetle, a stag beetle or a cockchafer, I think."

In front of a shopwindow, in which, behind a wet glass pane, little hats for men were displayed on small pegs, he stopped and looked in, his lips pursed. "Well, my hat will still do for the holidays," he thought and walked on, "and if nobody can stand me because of my hat, then all the better.

"The form of a large beetle, yes. Then I would pretend it was a matter of hibernating, and I would press my little legs to my bulging belly. And I would whisper a few words, instructions to my sad body, which stands close beside me, bent. Soon I shall have done — it bows, it goes swiftly, and it will manage everything efficiently while I rest."

He came to a domed arch at the top of the steep street, leading onto a small square all around which there were many shops, already lit up. In the middle of the square, somewhat obscured by the light around the edge, was a low monument, the seated meditative figure of a man. The people moved across the lights like narrow shutters, and since the puddles spread all the brilliance far and wide, the square seemed ceaselessly changing.

Raban pressed far on into the square, but jerkily, dodging the drifting carriages, jumping from one dry cobble to further dry cobbles, and holding the open umbrella high in his hand in order to see everything all around. Finally, by a lamppost — a place where the electric tram stopped — which was set up on a small square concrete base, he halted.

"But they're expecting me in the country. Won't they be wondering about me by this time? Still, I haven't written to her all the week she's been in the country, until this morning. So they'll end up by imagining that even my appearance is quite different. They may be thinking that I burst forward when I address a person, yet that isn't my way at all, or that I embrace people when I arrive, and that's something I don't do either. I shall make them angry if I try to pacify them. Oh, if I could only make them thoroughly angry in the attempt to pacify them."

At that moment an open carriage drove past, not quickly; behind its two lighted lamps two ladies could be seen sitting on dark leather seats. One was leaning back, her face hidden by a veil and the shadow of her hat. But the other lady was sitting bolt upright; her hat was small, it was edged with thin feathers. Everyone could see her. Her lower lip was drawn slightly into her mouth.

As soon as the carriage had passed Raban, some bar blocked the view of the near horse drawing the carriage; then some coachman — wearing a big top hat — on an unusually high box was moved across in front of the ladies — this was now much farther on — then their carriage drove around the corner of a small house that now became strikingly noticeable, and disappeared from sight.

Raban followed it with his gaze, his head lowered, resting the handle of his umbrella on his shoulder in order to see better. He had put his right thumb into his mouth and was rubbing his teeth on it. His suitcase lay beside him, one of its sides on the ground.

Carriages hastened from street to street across the square, the horses' bodies flew along horizontally as though they were being flung through the air, but the nodding of the head and the neck revealed the rhythm and effort of the movement.

Around about, on the edges of the pavements of all the three streets converging here, there were many idlers standing about, tapping the cobbles with little sticks. Among the groups they formed there were little towers in which girls were pouring out lemonade, then heavy street clocks on thin bars, then men wearing before and behind them big placards announcing entertainments in multicolored letters, then messengers. . . [Two pages missing]. . . a little social gathering. Two elegant private carriages, driving diagonally across the square into the street leading downhill, got in the way of some gentlemen from this party, but after the second carriage — even after the first they had timidly tried to do so — these gentlemen formed into a group again with the others, with whom they then stepped onto the pavement in a long cavalcade and pushed their way through the door of a café, overwhelmed by the light of the incandescent lamps hanging over the entrance.

Electric tramcars moved past, huge and very close; others, vaguely visible, stood motionless far away in the streets.

"How bent she is," Raban thought when he looked at the photograph now. "She's never really upright and perhaps her back is round. I shall have to pay much attention to this. And her mouth is so wide, and here, beyond doubt, the lower lip protrudes, yes, now I remember that too. And what a dress! Of course, I don't know anything about clothes, but these very tight-sewn sleeves are ugly, I am sure, they look like bandages. And the hat, the brim at every point turned up from the face in a different curve. But her eyes are beautiful, they're brown, if I'm not mistaken. Everyone says her eyes are beautiful."

Now an electric tramcar stopped in front of Raban and many people around him pushed toward the steps, with slightly open, pointed umbrellas, which they held upright with their hands pressed to their shoulders. Raban, who was holding his suitcase under his arm, was dragged off the pavement and stepped hard into an unseen puddle. Inside the tram a child knelt on a seat, pressing the tips of all its fingers to its lips as though it were saying goodbye to someone going away. Some passengers got out and had to walk a few paces along the tram in order to work their way out of the crowd. Then a lady climbed onto the first step, her long skirt, which she hitched up with both hands, stretched tightly around her legs. A gentleman held on to a brass rod and, with lifted head, recounted something to the lady. All the people who wanted to get in were impatient. The conductor shouted.

Raban, who now stood on the edge of the waiting group, turned around, for someone had called out his name.

"Ah, Lement," he said slowly and held out to a young man coming toward him the little finger of the hand in which he was holding the umbrella.

"So this is the bridegroom on his way to his bride. He looks frightfully in love," Lement said and then smiled with his mouth shut.

"Yes, you must forgive my going today," Raban said. "I wrote to you this afternoon, anyway. I should, of course, have liked very much to travel with you tomorrow; but tomorrow is Saturday, everything'll be so crowded, it's a long journey."

"Oh, that doesn't matter. You did promise, but when one's in love. . . I shall just have to travel alone." Lement had set one foot on the pavement and the other on the cobbles, supporting his body now on one leg, now on the other. "You were going to get into the tram. There it goes. Come, we'll walk, I'll go with you. There's still plenty of time."

"Isn't it rather late, please tell me?"

"It's no wonder you're nervous, but you really have got plenty of time. I'm not so nervous, and that's why I've missed Gillemann now."

"Gillemann? Won't he be staying out there, too?"

"Yes, with his wife; it's next week they mean to go, and that's just why I promised Gillemann I'd meet him today when he leaves the office. He wanted to give me some instructions regarding the furnishing of their house, that's why I was supposed to meet him. But now somehow I'm late, I had some errands to do. And just as I was wondering whether I shouldn't go to their apartment, I saw you, was at first astonished at the suitcase, and spoke to you. But now the evening's too far gone for paying calls, it's fairly impossible to go to Gillemann now."

"Of course. And so I shall meet people I know there, after all. Not that I have ever seen Frau Gillemann, though."

"And very beautiful she is. She's fair, and pale now after her illness. She has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."

"Do please tell me, what do beautiful eyes look like? Is it the glance? I've never found eyes beautiful."

"All right, perhaps I was exaggerating slightly. Still, she's a pretty woman."

Through the windowpane of a ground-floor café, close to the window, gentlemen could be seen sitting, reading and eating, around a three-sided table; one had lowered a newspaper to the table, held a little cup raised, and was looking into the street out of the corners of his eyes. Beyond these window tables all the furniture and equipment in the large restaurant were hidden by the customers, who sat side by side in little circles. [Two pages missing]. . . "As it happens, however, it's not such an unpleasant business, is it? Many people would take on such a burden, I think."

They came into a fairly dark square, which began on their side of the street, for the opposite side extended farther. On the side of the square along which they were walking, there was an uninterrupted row of houses, from the corners of which two — at first widely distant — rows of houses extended into the indiscernible distance in which they seemed to unite. The pavement was narrow by the houses, which were mostly small; there were no shops to be seen, no carriage passed. An iron post near the end of the street out of which they came had several lamps on it, which were fixed in two rings hanging horizontally, one over the other. The trapeze-shaped flame between conjoined sheets of glass burned in this towerlike wide darkness as in a little room, letting darkness assert itself a few steps farther on.

"But now I am sure it is too late; you have kept it a secret from me, and I shall miss the train. Why?" [Four pages missing]

. . . "Yes, at most Pirkershofer — well, for what he's worth."

"The name's mentioned, I think, in Betty's letters, he's an assistant railway-clerk, isn't he?"

"Yes, an assistant railway-clerk and an unpleasant person. You'll see I'm right as soon as you've got a glimpse of that small thick nose. I tell you, walking through the dreary fields with that fellow. . . Anyway, he's been transferred now and he goes away from there, as I believe and hope, next week."

"Wait, you said just now you advised me to stay here tonight. I've thought it over; it couldn't very well be managed. I've written to say I'm coming this evening; they'll be expecting me."

"That's quite easy, send a telegram."

"Yes, that could be done — but it wouldn't be very nice if I didn't go — and I'm tired, yes, I'll go all right. If a telegram came, they'd get a fright, into the bargain. — And what for, where would we go, anyway?"

"Then it's really better for you to go. I was only thinking. . . Anyway I couldn't go with you today, as I'm sleepy, I forgot to tell you that. And now I shall say goodbye, for I don't want to go through the wet park with you, as I should like to drop in at Gillemann's, after all. It's a quarter to six, so not too late, after all, for paying calls on people you know fairly well. Addio. Well, a good journey, and remember me to everyone!"

Lement turned to the right and held out his right hand to say goodbye, so that for a moment Raban was walking against Lement's outstretched arm.

"Adieu." Raban said.

From a little distance Lement then called back: "I say, Eduard, can you hear me? Do shut your umbrella; it stopped raining ages ago. I didn't have a chance to tell you."

Raban did not answer, shut his umbrella, and the sky closed over him in pallid darkness.

"If at least," Raban thought, "I were to get into a wrong train. Then it would at any rate seem to me that the whole enterprise had begun, and if later, after the mistake had been cleared up, I were to arrive in this station again on my way back, then I should certainly feel much better. If the scenery does turn out to be boring, as Lement says, that need not be a disadvantage at all. One will spend more time in the rooms and really never know for certain where all the others are, for if there is a ruin in the district, there will probably be a walk all together to that ruin; it will have been agreed upon some time before. Then, however, one must look forward to it; for that very reason one mustn't miss it. But if there is no such sight to be seen, then there will be no discussion beforehand either, for all will be expected to get together quite easily if suddenly, against all the usual practice, a larger expedition is considered right, for one only has to send the maid into the others' apartments, where they are sitting over a letter or books and are delighted by this news. Well, it is not difficult to protect oneself against such invitations. And yet I don't know whether I shall be able to, for it is not so easy as I imagine it now when I am still alone and can still do everything, can still go back if I want to, for I shall have no one there whom I could pay calls on whenever I like, and no one with whom I could make more strenuous expeditions, no one there who could show me how his crops are doing or show me a quarry he is working there. For one isn't at all sure even of acquaintances of long standing. Wasn't Lement nice to me today? — he explained some things to me, didn't he, and described everything as it will appear to me. He came up and spoke to me and then walked with me, in spite of the fact that there was nothing he wanted to find out from me and that he himself still had something else to do. But now all of a sudden he has gone away, and yet I can't have offended him even with a single word. I did refuse to spend the evening in town, but that was only natural, that can't have offended him, for he is a sensible person."

The station clock struck, it was a quarter to six. Raban stopped because he had palpitations, then he walked quickly along the park pool, went along a narrow, badly lighted path between large shrubs, rushed into an open place with many empty benches leaning against little trees, then went more slowly through an opening in the railings into the street, crossed it, leapt through the station entrance, after a while found the booking office, and had to knock for a while on the iron shutter. Then the booking clerk looked out, said it was really high time, took the bank note, and slammed down on the counter the ticket he had been asked for and the change. Now Raban tried to count his change quickly, thinking he ought to be getting more, but a porter who was walking nearby hurried him through a glass door onto the platform. There Raban looked around, while calling out "Thank you, thank you!" to the porter, and since he found no guard, he climbed up the steps of the nearest coach by himself, each time putting the suitcase on the step above and then following himself, supporting himself on his umbrella with one hand, and on the handle of the suitcase with the other. The coach that he entered was brightly illuminated by the great amount of light from the main hall of the station, in which it was standing; in front of many a windowpane — all were shut right up to the top — a hissing arc lamp hung at about eye level, and the many raindrops on the glass were white, often single ones would move. Raban could hear the noise from the platform even when he had shut the carriage door and sat down on the last little free bit of a light-brown wooden seat. He saw many people's backs, and the backs of their heads, and between them the upturned faces of people on the seat opposite. In some places smoke was curling from pipes and cigars, in one place drifting limply past the face of a girl. Often the passengers would change places, discussing these changes with each other, or they would transfer their luggage, which lay in a narrow blue net over a seat, to another one. If a stick or the metal-covered corner of a suitcase stuck out, then the owner would have his attention drawn to this. He would go over and straighten it. Raban also bethought himself and pushed his suitcase under his seat.

On his left, at the window, two gentlemen were sitting opposite each other, talking about the price of goods. "They're commercial travelers," Raban thought and, breathing regularly, he gazed at them. "The merchant sends them into the country, they obey, they travel by train, and in every village they go from shop to shop. Sometimes they travel by carriage between the villages. They must not stay long anywhere, for everything must be done fast, and they must always talk only about their goods. With what pleasure, then, one can exert oneself in an occupation that is so agreeable!"

The younger man had jerked a notebook out of the hip pocket of his trousers, rapidly flicked the leaves over with a forefinger moistened on his tongue, and then read through a page, drawing the back of his fingernail down it as he went. He looked at Raban as he glanced up and, indeed, when he now began talking about thread prices, did not turn his face away from Raban, as one gazes steadily at a point in order not to forget anything of what one wants to say. At the same time he drew his brows tightly down over his eyes. He held the half-closed notebook in his left hand, with his thumb on the page he had been reading, in order to be able to refer to it easily if he should need to. And the notebook trembled, for he was not supporting his arm on anything, and the coach, which was now in motion, beat on the rails like a hammer.

The other traveler sat leaning back, listening and nodding at regular intervals. It was evident that he was far from agreeing with everything and later would give his own opinion.

Raban laid his curved hands palm-down on his knees and, leaning forward, between the travelers' heads he saw the window and through the window lights flitting past and others flitting away into the distance. He did not understand anything of what the traveler was talking about, nor would he understand the other's answer. Much preparation would first be required, for here were people who had been concerned with goods since their youth. But if one has held a spool of thread in one's hand so often and handed it to one's customer so often, then one knows the price and can talk about it, while villages come toward us and flash past, while at the same time they turn away into the depths of the country, where for us they must disappear. And yet these villages are inhabited, and there perhaps travelers go from shop to shop.

In a corner at the far end of the coach a tall man stood up, holding playing cards in his hand, and called out:

"I say, Marie, did you pack the zephyr shirts?"

"Of course I did," said the woman, who was sitting opposite Raban. She had been dozing, and now when the question waked her she answered as though she were talking to herself or to Raban. "You're going to market at Jungbunzlau, eh?" the vivacious traveler asked her. "Jungbunzlau, that's right." "It's a big market this time, isn't it?" "A big market, that's right." She was sleepy, she rested her left elbow on a blue bundle, and her head dropped heavily against her hand, which pressed through the flesh of the cheek to the cheekbone. "How young she is," the traveler said.

Raban took the money that he had received from the cashier out of his waistcoat pocket and counted it over. He held up each coin firmly between thumb and forefinger for a long time and also twisted it this way and that on the inner surface of his thumb with the tip of his forefinger. He looked for a long time at the Emperor's image, then he was struck by the laurel wreath and the way it was fastened with knots and bows of ribbon at the back of the head. At last he found the sum was correct and put the money into a big black purse. But now when he was about to say to the traveler: "They're a married couple, don't you think?" the train stopped. The noise of the journey ceased, guards shouted the name of a place, and Raban said nothing.

The train started again so slowly that one could picture the revolutions of the wheels, but a moment later it was racing down a slope, and all unexpectedly the tall railings of a bridge, outside the windows, were torn apart and pressed together, as it seemed.

Raban was now pleased that the train was going so fast, for he would not have wanted to stay in the last place. "When it is dark there, when one knows no one there, when it is such a long way home. But then it must be terrible there by day. And is it different at the next station or at the previous ones or at the later ones or at the village I am going to?"

The traveler was suddenly talking more loudly. "It's a long way yet," Raban thought. "Sir, you know just as well as I do, these manufacturers send their travelers around the most godforsaken little villages, they go crawling to the seediest of little shopkeepers, and do you think they offer them prices different from those they offer us big businessmen? Sir, take it from me; exactly the same prices, only yesterday I saw it black on white. I call it villainy. They're squeezing us out of existence; under current conditions it's simply impossible for us to do business."

Again he looked at Raban; he was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes; he pressed the knuckles of his left hand to his mouth because his lips were quivering. Raban leaned back and tugged faintly at his mustache with his left hand.

The shopwoman opposite woke up and smilingly passed her hands over her forehead. The traveler talked more quietly. Once again the woman shifted as though settling down to sleep, half lying on her bundle, and sighed. The skirt was drawn tight over her right hip.

Behind her sat a gentleman with a traveling cap on his head, reading a large newspaper. The girl opposite him, who was probably a relative of his, urged him — at the same time inclining her head toward her right shoulder — to open the window, because it was so very hot. He said, without looking up, he would do it in a moment, only he must first finish reading an article in the newspaper, and he showed her which article he meant.

The shopwoman could not go to sleep again; she sat upright and looked out of the window; then for a long time she looked at the oil lamp and the flame burning yellow near the ceiling of the carriage. Raban shut his eyes for a little while.

When he glanced up, the shopwoman was just biting into a piece of cake that was spread with brown jam. The bundle next to her was open. The traveler was smoking a cigar in silence and kept on fidgeting as though he were tapping the ash off the end of it. The other was poking about in the works of a pocket watch with the tip of a knife, so that one could hear it scraping. With his eyes almost shut Raban still had time to see, in a blurred way, the gentleman in the traveling cap pulling at the window strap. There came a gust of cool air, and a straw hat fell from a hook. Raban thought he was waking up and that was why his cheeks were so refreshed, or someone was opening the door and drawing him into the room, or he was in some way mistaken about things, and, breathing deeply, he quickly fell asleep.

II

The steps of the coach were still shaking a little when Raban climbed down them. Into his face, coming out of the air of the carriage, the rain beat, and he shut his eyes. It was raining noisily on the corrugated iron roof of the station building, but out in the open country the rain fell in such a way that it sounded like the uninterrupted blowing of the wind. A barefoot boy came running up — Raban did not see from where — and breathlessly asked Raban to let him carry the suitcase, for it was raining; but Raban said: Yes, it was raining, and he would therefore go by omnibus. He did not need him, he said. Thereupon the boy pulled a face as though he thought it grander to walk in the rain and have one's suitcase carried than to go by bus, and instantly turned around and ran away. When Raban wanted to call him, it was already too late.

There were two lighted lamps, and a station official came out of a door. Without hesitation he walked through the rain to the engine, stood there motionless with his arms folded, and waited until the engine driver leaned over his rail and talked to him. A porter was called, came, and was sent back again. At many of the windows in the train there were passengers standing, and since what they had to look at was an ordinary railway station their gaze was probably dim, the eyelids close together, as though the train were in motion. A girl came hurrying along from the road to the platform under a parasol with a flowered pattern; she set the open parasol on the ground and sat down, pushing her legs apart so that her skirt should dry better, and ran her fingertips over the tight-stretched skirt. There were only two lamps alight; her face was indistinguishable. The porter came past and complained that puddles were forming under the parasol; he held his arms in a semicircle before him in order to demonstrate the size of these puddles, and then moved his hands through the air, one after the other, like fishes sinking into deeper water, in order to make it clear that traffic was also being impeded by this parasol.

The train started, disappeared like a long sliding door, and behind the poplars on the far side of the railway track there was the landscape, so massive that it took away one's breath. Was it a dark view through a gap or was it woods, was it a pool, or a house in which the people were already asleep, was it a church steeple or a ravine between the hills? Nobody must dare to go there, but who could restrain himself?

And when Raban caught sight of the official — he was already at the step up to his office — he ran in front of him and stopped him: "Excuse me, please, is it far to the village? That's where I want to go."

"No, a quarter of an hour, but by bus — as it's raining — you'll be there in five minutes."

"It's raining. It's not a very fine spring," Raban said. The official had put his right hand on his hip, and through the triangle formed by the arm and the body Raban saw the girl, who had now shut the parasol, on the seat where she sat.

"If one is going on one's summer holidays now and is going to stay there, one can't but regret it. Actually I thought I should be met." He glanced around to make it seem plausible.

"You will miss the bus, I'm afraid. It doesn't wait so long. Nothing to thank me for. That's the road, between the hedges." The road outside the railway station was not lighted; only from three ground-floor windows in the building there came a misty glimmer, but it did not extend far. Raban walked on tiptoe through the mud and shouted "Driver!" and "Hello there!" and "Omnibus!" and "Here I am!" many times. But when he landed among scarcely interrupted puddles on the dark side of the road, he had to tramp onwards with his heels down, until suddenly a horse's moist muzzle touched his forehead.

There was the omnibus; he quickly climbed into the empty compartment, sat down by the windowpane behind the driver's box, and hunched his back into the corner, for he had done all that was necessary. For if the driver is asleep, he will wake up toward morning; if he is dead, then a new driver will come, or the innkeeper, and should that not happen either, then passengers will come by the early morning train, people in a hurry, making a noise. In any case one can be quiet, one may even draw the curtains over the windows and wait for the jerk with which the vehicle must start.

"Yes, after all I have already accomplished, it is certain that tomorrow I shall get to Betty and to Mamma; nobody can prevent that. Yet it is true, and was indeed to be foreseen, that my letter will arrive only tomorrow, so that I might very well have remained in town and spent an agreeable night at Elvy's, without having to be afraid of the next day's work, the sort of thing that otherwise ruins every pleasure for me. But look, I've got my feet wet."

He lit a stub of candle that he had taken out of his waistcoat pocket and set it on the seat opposite. It was bright enough, the darkness outside made it appear as though the omnibus had black distempered walls and no glass in the windows. There was no need to think that there were wheels under the floor and in front the horse between the shafts. Raban rubbed his feet thoroughly on the seat, pulled on clean socks, and sat up straight. Then he heard someone from the station shouting: "Hi!" if there was anyone in the bus he might say so. "Yes, yes, and he would like to start now, too," Raban answered, leaning out of the door, which he had opened, holding on to the doorpost with his right hand, the left hand held open, close to his mouth.

The rain gushed down the back of his neck, inside his collar.

Wrapped in the canvas of two sacks that had been cut up, the driver came over, the reflection of his stable lantern jumping through the puddles at his feet. Irritably he began an explanation: listen here, he said, he had been playing cards with Lebeda and they had just been getting on fine when the train came. It would really have been impossible for him to take a look outside then, still, he did not mean to abuse anyone who did not understand that. Apart from that, this place here was a filthy dump, and no half-measures, and it was hard to see what business a gentleman like this could have here, and he would be getting there soon enough anyway, so that he need not go and complain anywhere. Only just now Herr Pirkershofer — if you please, that's the junior assistant clerk — had come in and had said he thought a small fair man had been wanting to go by the omnibus. Well, so he had at once come and asked, or hadn't he at once come and asked?

The lantern was attached to the end of the shaft; the horse, having been shouted at in a muffled voice, began to pull, and the water on top of the bus, now set stirring, dripped slowly through a crack into the carriage.

The road was perhaps hilly; there was surely mud flying up into the spokes; fans of puddle water formed, with a rushing sound, behind the turning wheels; it was for the most part with loose reins that the driver guided the dripping horse. — Could not all this be used as reproaches against Raban? Many puddles were unexpectedly lit up by the lantern trembling on the shaft, and split up, in ripples, under the wheel. This happened solely because Raban was traveling to his fiancée, to Betty, an oldish pretty girl. And who, if one were going to speak of it at all, would appreciate what merits Raban here had, even if it was only that he bore those reproaches, which admittedly nobody could make openly. Of course he was doing it gladly. Betty was his fiancée, he was fond of her, it would be disgusting if she were to thank him for that as well, but all the same —

Without meaning to, he often bumped his head on the panel against which he was leaning, then for a while he looked up at the ceiling. Once his right hand slipped down from his thigh, where he had been resting it. But his elbow remained in the angle between belly and leg.

The omnibus was now traveling between houses; here and there the inside of the coach had a share of the light from a room; there were some steps — to see the first of them Raban would have had to stand up — built up to a church; outside a park gate there was a lamp with a large flame burning in it, but a statue of a saint stood out in black relief only because of the light from a draper's shop, and Raban saw his candle, which had burnt down, the trickle of wax hanging motionless from the seat.

When the bus stopped outside the inn, and the rain could be heard loudly and — probably there was a window open — so could the voices of the guests, Raban wondered which would be better, to get out at once or to wait until the innkeeper came to the coach. What the custom was in this township he did not know, but it was pretty certain that Betty would have spoken of her fiancé, and according to whether his arrival here was magnificent or feeble, so the esteem in which she was held here would increase or diminish, and with that, again, his own, too. But of course he knew neither what people felt about her nor what she had told them about him, and so everything was all the more disagreeable and difficult. Oh, beautiful city and beautiful the way home! If it rains there, one goes home by tram over wet cobbles; here one goes in a cart through mud to an inn. — "The city is far from here, and if I were now in danger of dying of homesickness, nobody could get me back there today. — Well, anyway, I shouldn't die — but there I get the meal expected for that evening, set on the table, on the right behind my plate the newspaper, on the left the lamp, here I shall be given some dreadfully fat dish — they don't know that I have a weak stomach, and even if they did know — an unfamiliar newspaper — many people, whom I can already hear, will be there, and one lamp will be lit for all. What sort of light can it provide? Enough to play cards by — but for reading a newspaper?

"The innkeeper isn't coming, he's not interested in guests, he is probably an unfriendly man. Or does he know that I am Betty's fiancé, and does that give him a reason for not coming to fetch me in? It would be in accord with that that the driver kept me waiting so long at the station. Betty has often told me, after all, how much she has been bothered by lecherous men and how she has had to rebuff their insistence; perhaps it is that here too. . . !" [Text breaks off]

[Second Manuscript]

When Eduard Raban, coming along the passage, walked into the open doorway, he could now see how it was raining. It was not raining much.

On the pavement straight in front of him, not higher, not lower, there were, in spite of the rain, many passers-by. Every now and again one would step forward and cross the road.

A little girl was carrying a gray dog on her outstretched arms. Two gentlemen were exchanging information on some subject, at times turning the whole front of their bodies to each other, and then slowly turning aside themselves again; it was like doors ajar in the wind. The one held his hands palm-upward, raising and lowering them in regular motion, as though he were balancing a load, testing the weight of it. Then one caught sight of a slim lady whose face twitched slightly, like the flickering light of the stars, and whose flat hat was loaded high and to the brim with unrecognizable objects; she appeared to be a stranger to all the passers-by, without intending it, as though by some law. And hurrying past was a young man with a thin walking stick, his left hand, as though paralyzed, lying flat on his chest. Many were out on business; in spite of the fact that they walked fast, one saw them longer than others, now on the pavement, now below; their coats fitted them badly; they did not care how they carried themselves; they let themselves be pushed by the people and they pushed too. Three gentlemen — two holding lightweight overcoats on their crooked forearms — walked from the front of the building to the edge of the pavement, in order to see what was going on in the carriageway and on the farther pavement.

Through the gaps between the passers-by, now fleetingly, then comfortably, one saw the regularly set cobbles in the carriageway, on which carriages, swaying on their wheels, were swiftly drawn by horses with arched necks. The people who sat at ease on the upholstered seats gazed in silence at the pedestrians, the shops, the balconies, and the sky. If it happened that one carriage overtook another, then the horses would press against each other, and the harness straps hung dangling. The animals tugged at the shafts, the carriage bowled along, swaying as it gathered speed, until the swerve around the carriage ahead was completed and the horses moved apart again, still with their narrow heads inclined toward each other.

An elderly gentleman came quickly toward the front entrance, stopped on the dry mosaic paving, turned around. And he then gazed into the rain, which, wedged in by the narrow street, fell confusedly.

Raban put down the suitcase with the black cloth cover, bending his right knee a little in doing so. The rain water was already running along the edge of the carriageway in streaks that almost extended to the lower-lying gutters.

The elderly gentleman stood upright near Raban, who was supporting himself by leaning slightly against the wooden doorpost; from time to rime he glanced toward Raban, even though to do so he had to twist his neck sharply. Yet he did this only out of the natural desire, now that he happened to be unoccupied, to observe everything exactly, at least in his vicinity. The result of this aimless glancing hither and thither was that there was a great deal he did not notice. So, for instance, it escaped him that Raban's lips were very pale, not much less so than the very faded red of his tie, which had a once striking Moorish pattern. Now, had he noticed this, he would certainly have made a fuss about it, at least inwardly, which, again, would not have been the right thing, for Raban was always pale, even if, it was a fact, various things might have been making him especially tired just recently.

"What weather!" the gentleman said in a low voice, shaking his head, consciously, it was true, but still in a slightly senile way.

"Yes, indeed, and when one's supposed to be starting on a journey, too," Raban said, quickly straightening up.

"And it isn't the kind of weather that will improve," the gentleman said and, in order to make sure of it once more for the last time, bent forward to glance in scrutiny up the street, then down, and then at the sky. "It may last for days, even for weeks. So far as I recall, nothing better is forecast for June and the beginning of July, either. Well, it's no pleasure to anyone; I for instance shall have to do without my walks, which are extremely important to my health."

Hereupon he yawned and seemed to become exhausted, since he had now heard Raban's voice and, occupied with this conversation, no longer took any interest in anything, not even in the conversation.

This made quite an impression on Raban, since after all the gentleman had addressed him first, and he therefore tried to show off a little, although it might not even be noticed. "True," he said, "in town one can very easily manage to go without what isn't good for one. If one does not do without it, then one has only oneself to blame for the bad consequences. One will be sorry and in this way come to see for the first time really clearly how to manage the next time. And even if in matters of detail. . . [Two pages missing]. . . "I don't mean anything by it. I don't mean anything at all," Raban hastened to say, prepared to excuse the gentleman's absent-mindedness in any way possible, since after all he wanted to show off a little more. "It's all just out of the book previously mentioned, which I, like other people, happen to have been reading in the evening recently. I have been mostly alone. Owing to family circumstances, you see. But apart from anything else, a good book is what I like best after supper. Always has been. Just recently I read in a prospectus a quotation from some writer or other. 'A good book is the best friend there is,' and that's really true, it is so, a good book is the best friend there is."

"Yes, when one is young —" the gentleman said, meaning nothing in particular by this, merely wanting to indicate how it was raining, that the rain was heavier again, and that now it was not going to stop at all; but to Raban it sounded as though at sixty the gentleman still thought of himself as young and energetic and considered Raban's thirty years nothing in comparison, and as though he meant to say besides, insofar as it was permissible, that at the age of thirty he had, of course, been more sensible than Raban. And that he believed even if one had nothing else to do, like himself, for instance, an old man, yet it was really wasting one's time to stand about here in this hall, looking at the rain, but if one spent the time, besides, in chatter, one was wasting it doubly.

Now Raban had believed for some time that nothing other people said about his capabilities or opinions had been able to affect him, on the contrary, that he had positively abandoned the position where he had listened, all submissively, to everything that was said, so that people were now simply wasting their breath whether they happened to be against him or for him. And so he said: "We are talking about different things, since you did not wait to hear what I was going to say."

"Please go on, please go on," the gentleman said.

"Well, it isn't so important," Raban said. "I was only going to say books are useful in every sense and quite especially in respects in which one would not expect it. For when one is about to embark on some enterprise, it is precisely the books whose contents have nothing at all in common with the enterprise that are the most useful. For the reader who does after all intend to embark on that enterprise, that is to say, who has somehow become enthusiastic (and even if, as it were, the effect of the book can penetrate only so far as that enthusiasm), will be stimulated by the book to all kinds of thoughts concerning his enterprise. Now, however, since the contents of the book are precisely something of utter indifference, the reader is not at all impeded in those thoughts, and he passes through the midst of the book with them, as once the Jews passed through the Red Sea, that's how I should like to put it."

For Raban the whole person of the old gentleman now assumed an unpleasant expression. It seemed to him as though he had drawn particularly close to him — but it was merely trifling. . . [Two pages missing]. . . "The newspaper, too. — But I was about to say, I am only going into the country, that's all, only for a fortnight; I am taking a holiday for the first time for quite a long period, and it's necessary for other reasons too, and yet for instance a book that I was, as I have mentioned, reading recently taught me more about my little journey than you could imagine."

"I am listening," the gentleman said.

Raban was silent and, standing there so straight, put his hands into his overcoat pockets, which were rather too high. Only after a while did the old gentleman say: "This journey seems to be of some special importance to you."

"Well, you see, you see," Raban said, once more supporting himself against the doorpost. Only now did he see how the passage had filled up with people. They were standing even around the foot of the staircase, and an official, who had rented a room in the apartment of the same woman as Raban had, when he came down the stairs had to ask the people to make way for him. To Raban, who only pointed at the rain, he called out over several heads, which now all turned to Raban, "Have a good journey" and reiterated a promise, obviously given earlier, definitely to visit Raban the next Sunday.

[Two pages missing]. . . has a pleasant job, with which he is indeed satisfied and which has always been kept open for him. He has such powers of endurance and is inwardly so gay that he does not need anyone to keep him entertained, but everyone needs him. He has always been healthy. Oh, don't try to tell me.

"I am not going to argue," the gentleman said.

"You won't argue, but you won't admit your mistake either. Why do you stick to it so? And however sharply you may recollect now, you would, I dare wager, forget everything if you were to talk to him. You would reproach me for not having refuted you more effectively now. If he so much as talks about a book. He's instantly ecstatic about everything beautiful. . ."

Translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins

The Judgment

IT WAS a Sunday morning in the very height of spring. Georg Bendemann, a young merchant, was sitting in his own room on the first floor of one of a long row of small, ramshackle houses stretching beside the river which were scarcely distinguishable from each other in height and coloring. He had just finished a letter to an old friend of his who was now living abroad, had put it into its envelope in a slow and dreamy fashion, and with his elbows propped on the writing table was gazing out of the window at the river, the bridge, and the hills on the farther bank with their tender green.

He was thinking about his friend, who had actually run away to Russia some years before, being dissatisfied with his prospects at home. Now he was carrying on a business in St. Petersburg, which had flourished to begin with but had long been going downhill, as he always complained on his increasingly rare visits. So he was wearing himself out to no purpose in a foreign country, the unfamiliar full beard he wore did not quite conceal the face Georg had known so well since childhood, and his skin was growing so yellow as to indicate some latent disease. By his own account he had no regular connection with the colony of his fellow countrymen out there and almost no social intercourse with Russian families, so that he was resigning himself to becoming a permanent bachelor.

What could one write to such a man, who had obviously run off the rails, a man one could be sorry for but could not help. Should one advise him to come home, to transplant himself and take up his old friendships again — there was nothing to hinder him — and in general to rely on the help of his friends? But that was as good as telling him, and the more kindly the more offensively, that all his efforts hitherto had miscarried, that he should finally give up, come back home, and be gaped at by everyone as a returned prodigal, that only his friends knew what was what and that he himself was just a big child who should do what his successful and home-keeping friends prescribed. And was it certain, besides, that all the pain one would have to inflict on him would achieve its object? Perhaps it would not even be possible to get him to come home at all — he said himself that he was now out of touch with commerce in his native country — and then he would still be left an alien in a foreign land embittered by his friends' advice and more than ever estranged from them. But if he did follow their advice and then didn't fit in at home — not out of malice, of course, but through force of circumstances — couldn't get on with his friends or without them, felt humiliated, couldn't be said to have either friends or a country of his own any longer, wouldn't it have been better for him to stay abroad just as he was? Taking all this into account, how could one be sure that he would make a success of life at home?

For such reasons, supposing one wanted to keep up correspondence with him, one could not send him any real news such as could frankly be told to the most distant acquaintance. It was more than three years since his last visit, and for this he offered the lame excuse that the political situation in Russia was too uncertain, which apparently would not permit even the briefest absence of a small businessman while it allowed hundreds of thousands of Russians to travel peacefully abroad. But during these three years Georg's own position in life had changed a lot. TWO years ago his mother had died, since when he and his father had shared the household together, and his friend had of course been informed of that and had expressed his sympathy in a letter phrased so dryly that the grief caused by such an event, one had to conclude, could not be realized in a distant country. Since that time, however, Georg had applied himself with greater determination to the business as well as to everything else.

Perhaps during his mother's lifetime his father's insistence on having everything his own way in the business had hindered him from developing any real activity of his own, perhaps since her death his father had become less aggressive, although he was still active in the business, perhaps it was mostly due to an accidental run of good fortune — which was very probable indeed — but at any rate during those two years the business had developed in a most unexpected way, the staff had had to be doubled, the turnover was five times as great; no doubt about it, further progress lay just ahead.

But Georg's friend had no inkling of this improvement. In earlier years, perhaps for the last time in that letter of condolence, he had tried to persuade Georg to emigrate to Russia and had enlarged upon the prospects of success for precisely Georg's branch of trade. The figures quoted were microscopic by comparison with the range of Georg's present operations. Yet he shrank from letting his friend know about his business success, and if he were to do it now retrospectively that certainly would look peculiar.

So Georg confined himself to giving his friend unimportant items of gossip such as rise at random in the memory when one is idly thinking things over on a quiet Sunday. All he desired was to leave undisturbed the idea of the home town which his friend must have built up to his own content during the long interval. And so it happened to Georg that three times in three fairly widely separated letters he had told his friend about the engagement of an unimportant man to an equally unimportant girl, until indeed, quite contrary to his intentions, his friend began to show some interest in this notable event.

Yet Georg preferred to write about things like these rather than to confess that he himself had got engaged a month ago to a Fräulein Frieda Brandenfeld, a girl from a well-to-do family. He often discussed this friend of his with his fiancée and the peculiar relationship that had developed between them in their correspondence. "So he won't be coming to our wedding," said she, "and yet I have a right to get to know all your friends." "I don't want to trouble him," answered Georg, "don't misunderstand me, he would probably come, at least I think so, but he would feel that his hand had been forced and he would be hurt, perhaps he would envy me and certainly he'd be discontented and without being able to do anything about his discontent he'd have to go away again alone. Alone — do you know what that means?" "Yes, but may he not hear about our wedding in some other fashion?" "I can't prevent that, of course, but it's unlikely, considering the way he lives." "Since your friends are like that, Georg, you shouldn't ever have got engaged at all." "Well, we're both to blame for that; but I wouldn't have it any other way now." And when, breathing quickly under his kisses, she still brought out: "All the same, I do feel upset," he thought it could not really involve him in trouble were he to send the news to his friend. "That's the kind of man I am and he'll just have to take me as I am," he said to himself, "I can't cut myself to another pattern that might make a more suitable friend for him."

And in fact he did inform his friend, in the long letter he had been writing that Sunday morning, about his engagement, with these words: "I have saved my best news to the end. I have got engaged to a Fräulein Frieda Brandenfeld, a girl from a well-to-do family, who only came to live here a long time after you went away, so that you're hardly likely to know her. There will be time to tell you more about her later, for today let me just say that I am very happy and as between you and me the only difference in our relationship is that instead of a quite ordinary kind of friend you will now have in me a happy friend. Besides that, you will acquire in my fiancée, who sends her warm greetings and will soon write you herself, a genuine friend of the opposite sex, which is not without importance to a bachelor. I know that there are many reasons why you can't come to see us, but would not my wedding be precisely the right occasion for giving all obstacles the go-by? Still, however that may be, do just as seems good to you without regarding any interests but your own."

With this letter in his hand Georg had been sitting a long time at the writing table, his face turned toward the window. He had barely acknowledged, with an absent smile, a greeting waved to him from the street by a passing acquaintance.

At last he put the letter in his pocket and went out of his room across a small lobby into his father's room, which he had not entered for months. There was in fact no need for him to enter it, since he saw his father daily at business and they took their mid-day meal together at an eating house; in the evening, it was true, each did as he pleased, yet even then, unless Georg — as mostly happened — went out with friends or, more recently, visited his fiancée, they always sat for a while, each with his newspaper, in their common sitting room.

It surprised Georg how dark his father's room was even on this sunny morning. So it was overshadowed as much as that by the high wall on the other side of the narrow courtyard. His father was sitting by the window in a corner hung with various mementoes of Georg's dead mother, reading a newspaper which he held to one side before his eyes in an attempt to overcome a defect of vision. On the table stood the remains of his breakfast, not much of which seemed to have been eaten.

"Ah, Georg," said his father, rising at once to meet him. His heavy dressing gown swung open as he walked and the skirts of it fluttered around him. — "My father is still a giant of a man," said Georg to himself.

"It's unbearably dark here," he said aloud.

"Yes, it's dark enough," answered his father.

"And you've shut the window, too?"

"I prefer it like that."

"Well, it's quite warm outside," said Georg, as if continuing his previous remark, and sat down.

His father cleared away the breakfast dishes and set them on a chest.

"I really only wanted to tell you," went on Georg, who had been vacantly following the old man's movements, "that I am now sending the news of my engagement to St. Petersburg." He drew the letter a little way from his pocket and let it drop back again.

"To St. Petersburg?" asked his father.

"To my friend there," said Georg, trying to meet his father's eye. — In business hours he's quite different, he was thinking, how solidly he sits here with his arms crossed.

"Oh yes. To your friend," said his father, with peculiar emphasis.

"Well, you know, Father, that I wanted not to tell him about my engagement at first. Out of consideration for him, that was the only reason. You know yourself he's a difficult man. I said to myself that someone else might tell him about my engagement, although he's such a solitary creature that that was hardly likely — I couldn't prevent that — but I wasn't ever going to tell him myself."

"And now you've changed your mind?" asked his father, laying his enormous newspaper on the window sill and on top of it his spectacles, which he covered with one hand.

"Yes, I've been thinking it over. If he's a good friend of mine, I said to myself, my being happily engaged should make him happy too. And so I wouldn't put off telling him any longer. But before I posted the letter I wanted to let you know."

"Georg," said his father, lengthening his toothless mouth, "listen to me! You've come to me about this business, to talk it over with me. No doubt that does you honor. But it's nothing, it's worse than nothing, if you don't tell me the whole truth. I don't want to stir up matters that shouldn't be mentioned here. Since the death of our dear mother certain things have been done that aren't right. Maybe the time will come for mentioning them, and maybe sooner than we think. There's many a thing in the business I'm not aware of, maybe it's not done behind my back — I'm not going to say that it's done behind my back — I'm not equal to things any longer, my memory's failing, I haven't an eye for so many things any longer. That's the course of nature in the first place, and in the second place the death of our dear mother hit me harder than it did you. — But since we're talking about it, about this letter, I beg you, Georg, don't deceive me. It's a trivial affair, it's hardly worth mentioning, so don't deceive me. Do you really have this friend in St. Petersburg?"

Georg rose in embarrassment. "Never mind my friends. A thousand friends wouldn't make up to me for my father. Do you know what I think? You're not taking enough care of yourself. But old age must be taken care of. I can't do without you in the business, you know that very well, but if the business is going to undermine your health, I'm ready to close it down tomorrow forever. And that won't do. We'll have to make a change in your way of living. But a radical change. You sit here in the dark, and in the sitting room you would have plenty of light. You just take a bite of breakfast instead of properly keeping up your strength. You sit by a closed window, and the air would be so good for you. No, Father! I'll get the doctor to come, and we'll follow his orders. We'll change your room, you can move into the front room and I'll move in here. You won't notice the change, all your things will be moved with you. But there's time for all that later, I'll put you to bed now for a little, I'm sure you need to rest. Come, I'll help you to take off your things, you'll see I can do it. Or if you would rather go into the front room at once, you can lie down in my bed for the present. That would be the most sensible thing."

Georg stood close beside his father, who had let his head with its unkempt white hair sink on his chest.

"Georg," said his father in a low voice, without moving.

Georg knelt down at once beside his father, in the old man's weary face he saw the pupils, overlarge, fixedly looking at him from the corners of the eyes.

"You have no friend in St. Petersburg. You've always been a leg-puller and you haven't even shrunk from pulling my leg. How could you have a friend out there! I can't believe it."

"Just think back a bit, Father," said Georg, lifting his father from the chair and slipping off his dressing gown as he stood feebly enough, "it'll soon be three years since my friend came to see us last. I remember that you used not to like him very much. At least twice I kept you from seeing him, although he was actually sitting with me in my room. I could quite well understand your dislike of him, my friend has his peculiarities. But then, later, you got on with him very well. I was proud because you listened to him and nodded and asked him questions. If you think back you're bound to remember. He used to tell us the most incredible stories of the Russian Revolution. For instance, when he was on a business trip to Kiev and ran into a riot, and saw a priest on a balcony who cut a broad cross in blood on the palm of his hand and held the hand up and appealed to the mob. You've told that story yourself once or twice since."

Meanwhile Georg had succeeded in lowering his father down again and carefully taking off the woolen drawers he wore over his linen underpants and his socks. The not particularly clean appearance of his underwear made him reproach himself for having been neglectful. It should have certainly been his duty to see that his father had clean changes of underwear. He had not yet explicitly discussed with his bride-to-be what arrangements should be made for his father in the future, for they had both of them silently taken it for granted that the old man would go on living alone in the old house. But now he made a quick, firm decision to take him into his own future establishment. It almost looked, on closer inspection, as if the care he meant to lavish there on his father might come too late.

He carried his father to bed in his arms. It gave him a dreadful feeling to notice that while he took the few steps toward the bed the old man on his breast was playing with his watch chain. He could not lay him down on the bed for a moment, so firmly did he hang on to the watch chain.

But as soon as he was laid in bed, all seemed well. He covered himself up and even drew the blankets farther than usual over his shoulders. He looked up at Georg with a not unfriendly eye.

"You begin to remember my friend, don't you?" asked Georg, giving him an encouraging nod.

"Am I well covered up now?" asked his father, as if he were not able to see whether his feet were properly tucked in or not.