Lovers of Sophia

Home > Other > Lovers of Sophia > Page 35
Lovers of Sophia Page 35

by Jason Reza Jorjani


  underneath which showed a strip of light – “he has turned on his

  light and is amusing himself at our expense.” “I’m just coming,”

  K. said, rushed out, seized her, and kissed her first on the lips,

  then all over the face, like some thirsty animal lapping greedily

  at a spring of long-sought fresh water. Final y he kissed her on

  the neck, right on the throat, and kept his lips there for a long

  time. A slight noise from the Captain’s room made him look up.

  “I’m going now,” he said; he wanted to call Fraulein Burstner by

  her first name, but he did not know what it was. She nodded

  wearily, resigned her hand for him to kiss, half turning away as

  if she were unaware of what she did, and went into her room

  with down-bent head. Shortly afterwards K. was in his bed. He

  fell asleep almost at once, but before doing so he thought for a

  little about his behavior, he was pleased with it, yet surprised that

  he was not still more pleased; he was seriously concerned for

  Fraulein Burstner because of the Captain.119

  119 Ibid., 29-30.

  276

  jason reza jorjani

  One might expect Fraulein Burstner to have slapped Joseph K.,

  or perhaps even cried out for help, upon being assaulted in such a

  manner by a virtual stranger. Yet, she does not do so, and it is far

  from an assault. Her weary nod and offer of her hand to be kissed

  evoke the image of secret lovers hesitantly departing before the light of dawn can reveal their liaison. That she acts “as if she were unaware of what she did”, means that she is acting out of her subconscious

  mind, beyond constraints of conceptual judgment. In fact, her

  profoundly non-judgmental character may have driven Joseph K. to

  make the move to culminate, in such an insane manner, the intimate

  exchange that began in her room.

  Just as he is about to leave he asks her if she is angry with him (for keeping her up at such a late hour with his reenactment of the Court

  proceedings in her room), to which she responds: “No, no, I’m never

  angry with anybody.”120 Such a spiritual liberation from the impulse

  to erect artificial barriers of judgment and be constrained by them,

  is perhaps why K. devours her as an animal would “a spring of long-

  sought fresh water.” The reference to an “animal” is to the aspect of

  Joseph K. that seeks to escape from his own judgmental advantage-

  seeking mentality – a mentality that animals are incapable of by

  nature of their inability to engage in conceptual thought. The

  archetype of Artemis-Hecate, goddess of wild animals and their

  wilderness, is at work here.

  There are verbal suggestions and innuendoes of sexual

  intercourse in this passage, both in the actual exchange, and in the

  exhausted satisfaction of Joseph K. as he returns to his room. He

  intended to visit Elsa, the prostitute, after his meeting with Fraulein Burstner, yet the latter takes Elsa’s place and K. goes straight to bed.

  However, what is significant is that no such intercourse actual y

  takes place. The encounter is one wherein the ever-virgin goddess

  of the wild retains her virginity, while manifesting her unbridled

  wildness. The eroticism here is total y unpredictable, unusual, even

  inhuman. The deepest kiss is on the throat, like that of a vampire

  imbibing a person’s life essence by night. Hecate was a “nightwalker”, 120 Ibid., 29.

  277

  lovers of sophia

  a maiden who was nonetheless a “lover and companion of the night,”

  who stalked graveyards wandering among corpses like a succubus

  thirsting for blood, and striking fear into the heart of mortals with

  her Gorgonic aspect.121 She is also connected to the vampire folklore

  of the Middle Ages through her association with the herb wolfsbane.122

  Medea, who would pray to Hecate while she mixed her poisons, was

  said to be “naked, shrieking, and wild-eyed” when she cut roots for

  herbal magic.123

  Only one thing mars Joseph’s perfect enjoyment of Fraulein

  Burstner. He is concerned that the Captain might have heard their

  exchange and that, believing her to be an ‘easy’ woman, he might

  take advantage of her. It is not unreasonable to assume that this is in fact what motivates his letters of apology and explanation to Fraulein Burstner, and final y his unannounced entry into her room before

  the eyes of the Captain. This may be the real reason why she gives

  him a cold shoulder, and informs K., via her new roommate, that

  an interview of the kind that he wanted would accomplish nothing.

  She does not want him to explain away his actions, and she does not

  want to be controlled by him. Consequently, he forfeits her legal aid.

  In respect to this potential ‘legal advisement’, we should remember

  that she has been seen by Frau Grubach in disreputable “outlying”

  areas of town with different gentlemen. This could be a suggestion

  by Kafka that the Law Offices that she is going to work for are the

  very same ones that are to be found in the attics of impoverished

  outlying suburbs, where K. travels to be prosecuted.

  The dialectic between the desire to possess and an attraction to

  free-spiritedness, reemerges in Joseph’s interactions with two even

  more promiscuous women who have already been initiated into

  the service of the Law: the Usher’s wife and Leni. K. real y meets

  the Usher’s wife when he shows up to Court a week from the first

  interrogation. He recognizes her as the washerwoman in the

  entryway who, he believes, was ‘raped’ in the courtroom while he

  121 D’Este,

  Hekate, 64.

  122 Ibid., 95.

  123 Ibid., 100-101.

  278

  jason reza jorjani

  was giving his speech. At first, K. is most disturbed that she does

  not view the act as a grave violation, even though she is married.

  She replies that she is justified in the eyes of all who know her. She claims that even her husband has been forced to accept the situation,

  since the young man that she was on the floor with during the end

  of Joseph’s speech was a law student training to become a Judge. She

  predicts that he will become an official of great power. However, K.

  starts to be attracted to her when she expresses interest in his desire to reform the court and offers to run away with him. She only asks

  K. to be patient while she momentarily addresses the student, who

  has returned and is watching them:

  The woman bent over K. and whispered: “Don’t be angry with

  me, please don’t think badly of me, I must go to him now, and

  he’s a dreadful-looking creature, just see what bandy legs he has.

  But I’ll come back in a minute and then I’ll go with you if you’ll

  take me with you, I’ll go with you wherever you like, you can do

  with me what you please, I’ll be glad if I can only get out of here

  for a long time, and I wish it could be forever.” She gave K.’s hand

  a last caress, jumped up, and ran to the window. Despite himself

  K.’s hand reached out after hers in the empty air. The woman

  real y attracted him, and after mature reflection he could find

  no valid reason why he should not yield to that
attraction. He

  dismissed without difficulty the fleeting suspicion that she might

  be trying to lay a trap for him on the instructions of the Court.124

  K. does not think of taking the woman away from the student in

  order to restore her to the Usher. He wants to possess her for

  himself. She has told him that now, not only the student, but also the Examining Magistrate has taken an interest in her. K. daydreams that

  “some night the Examining Magistrate…might come to the woman’s

  bed and find it empty…because she had gone off with K…belonged

  to K. and to K. alone.” He does not mind that she commits adultery,

  so long as it is with him, and him alone. He cannot be patient and he begins to storm up and down the room. This elicits the reaction

  124 Ibid., 56.

  279

  lovers of sophia

  of the student: “If you’re so impatient, you can go away…” To which

  K. responds that it is the student who should go away and leave him

  and the Usher’s wife alone. The exchange ultimately ends with K.

  attempting to seize the woman’s hand and the student in response

  carrying her off after he says to K. “no, no, you don’t get her.” K. is angry that she does not protest more violently, but simply shrugs

  her shoulders. Against her explicit request “Don’t be angry with me,

  please don’t think badly of me…I’ll come back in a minute…” K.

  yel s at her “as for you, I never want to see you again.” He is even

  more jealous and enraged at being taken in, when he finds out from

  her husband that she was no victim in the affair, rather “she simply

  flung herself” at the student. Significantly, the student is not carrying her off for his own pleasure this time, but for that of the Examining

  Magistrate.

  This is Kafka’s way of suggesting that because K. could not

  patiently await her return, and above al , because he wants to possess the woman for himself alone, he loses the chance to be with her.

  His interview with her, interrupted by the timed intervention of

  the student, is indeed a kind of test set for him by the Court. Had

  he been patient and willing to share the woman, the student would

  have in all likelihood gone away and allowed the two of them to be

  together. Yet once K. betrays his jealousy and possessiveness, the

  Usher’s wife does not appear to be carried away against her wil . Her

  shrug of the shoulders does not show much protest in it, and she has

  a rather bemused expression.

  We should note that the man carrying her off is referred to as a

  “miserable creature,” the same words that Leni later uses to describe

  the tradesman Block. This would suggest that the Usher’s wife is

  not only in a dominant position over her husband, but even over

  the student who carries her away. She certainly does not want to

  be “rescued” or “set free”, as if she were a helpless dame looking to

  the arrival of some knight in shining armor. She has metaphorical y

  castrated her seethingly jealous husband, and K. is rendered equal y

  impotent. Even the student carries her off not for himself, but for

  the Examining Magistrate’s pleasure, and by the looks of it, her

  280

  jason reza jorjani

  own delight as wel . The emasculation and castration of men is

  a major theme in the cult of Artemis. Some have interpreted the

  many pendulous ‘breasts’ of the statue of Artemis from the temple

  of Ephesus as the testicles of castrated bul s or even of castrated

  men.125 In her conflation with the Mother Goddess Cybele or Rhea, who was worshipped at Ephesus before her, barefaced male devotees

  did indeed have themselves castrated in honor of her and as a way

  to emasculate themselves so as to become fit receptacles of the

  overpowering force of the divine feminine; they also grew their hair

  long.126 This can be traced back to the practices of archaic shamans,

  who wore women’s clothing as part of an effort to attain ‘female’

  spiritual abilities.127

  In the case of Leni we see a more prominent manifestation

  of the emasculation of men who threaten possession. The first

  encounter between Joseph K. and Leni mirrors the encounter with

  Fraulein Burstner in the darkened entryway of the boardinghouse.

  Leni breaks a plate against the wall so that she can call K. out of

  the meeting between his Uncle, the Lawyer, and the Chief Clerk of

  the Court. She is waiting for him in the darkened hal way, takes his

  hand and shuts the door to the room where the meeting is taking

  place. Thus this third meeting with the third woman associated

  with K., takes place in an entryway or doorway, just as the first two.

  K. encountered Fraulein Burstner in the entryway of the boarding

  house, and the Usher’s wife as the gatekeeper before the doorway to

  the Courtroom. As Propylaia, Hecate was the one before the gate, with statues of her not only at the entrances to cities, temples, and

  sanctuaries to other deities, but also outside the front door to many

  homes, in a protective porch-like shrine known as a hekataion.128 The first thing we learn about Leni is that she is the Lawyer’s “nurse.” At first, K. simply refers to her as “the nurse.” Artemis was the “child’s 125 Wilde,

  The Amazons in Myth and History, 86.

  126 Ibid., 97-98.

  127 Ibid., 98.

  128 D’Este,

  Hekate, 21.

  281

  lovers of sophia

  nurse” ( Kourotrophos) and the “nurse of children” ( Paidotrophos).129

  Hecate was also the nursemaid goddess who presided over

  childbirth.130

  At this point, the ‘nurse’ should be even more of a stranger to K.

  than Fraulein Burstner was when the two of them had their bizarrely

  passionate encounter. Stranger as she might be, there is a similar

  whispering in the dark of a secret mutual recognition, as in the case

  of Fraulein Burstner:

  “Nothing has happened,” she whispered. “I simply flung a plate

  against the wall to bring you out.” K. said in his embarrassment:

  “I was thinking of you too.” “That’s all the better,” said the nurse.

  “Come this way.”131

  The ‘nurse’ of the Lawyer guides K. down the dark passageway to

  the Lawyer’s moonlit office. Again, we see Kafka employing the

  symbolism of Hecate. Her guiding role here cal s to mind Hecate

  as Propolos, or “torch bearer”, in the Eleusinian mysteries – with her priestesses bearing twin torches as they lead the initiate

  through labyrinthine underground passageways symbolizing the

  Underworld.132 Regarding the office being bathed in moonlight, the

  hunting bow of Artemis resembles the new moon; she sometimes

  wore a lunar crescent as her crown (which, put through her hair,

  made her appear to have horns); and she was referred to as

  shooting arrows from her “silver bow.”133 In this connection, she was

  identified with the Greek moon goddess Selene from the second

  century BC onwards,134 and the Roman lunar goddess Diana was in

  turn identified with her. In his second century work Philopseudes, Lucian claims that certain witches and sorcerers were able to “draw

  129 D’Este,

  Artemis, 66.

  130 D’Este,

/>   Hekate, 169.

  131 Kafka,

  The Trial, 106.

  132 D’Este,

  Hekate, 56.

  133 D’Este,

  Artemis, 97.

  134 Ibid., 114.

  282

  jason reza jorjani

  down the Moon, and show you Hecate herself, as large as life.”135

  When “the Moon was brought down,” it “went through a variety

  of transformations.”136 Like Artemis, Hecate was syncretised with

  the lunar goddess Selene.137 Hecate could break open the surface of

  the Earth, opening passageways to the Underworld – including the

  Elysian Fields.138

  The office in which K. and Leni have their first encounter, is

  bathed and il umined by moonlight alone. Here, Leni tel s K. that

  she is annoyed at him for not having come out of the room on his

  own accord. She tel s him that given the way he had been gazing at

  her since his arrival, she was surprised to have been made to wait so

  long for him to come and be with her. K. takes this to mean that she

  is offering herself to him, for sex, and says: “I couldn’t simply walk out and leave them without any excuse, and in the second place I’m

  not in the least a bold young man, but rather shy, to tell the truth,

  and you too, Leni, real y didn’t look as if you were to be had for the asking.”139 Leni’s response begins to draw another key parallel to the exchange with Fraulein Burstner: “It isn’t that,” said Leni, laying her arm along the back of the seat and looking at K. “But you didn’t like

  me at first and you probably don’t like me even now.”140 At the end

  of Leni’s explanation of the Examining Magistrate’s portrait, Kafka

  adds:

  “But I’m a vain person, too, and very much upset that you don’t

  like me in the least.” To this last statement K. replied merely by

  putting his arm around her and drawing her to him; she leaned

  her head against his shoulder in silence…seizing the hand with

  which K. held her [she began] to play with his fingers.141

  135 D’Este,

  Hekate, 147.

  136 Ibid., 148.

  137 Ibid., 175.

  138 Ibid., 151.

  139 Kafka,

  The Trial, 107.

  140 Ibid.

  141 Ibid., 108.

  283

  lovers of sophia

  Whether Joseph K. realizes it or not, what Leni is saying, especial y

  in the first comment beginning with “It isn’t that…” is that she was

 

‹ Prev