The Great Wall of China

by Franz Kafka

  The work had not been undertaken lightly. Fifty years before the building was begun, throughout the whole area of China that was to be walled round, architecture, and masonry in particular, had been declared the most important branch of knowledge, all others being recognized only in so far as they had some connection with it. I can still well remember the occasion when as small children, hardly steady on our legs, we were standing in our teacher’s garden and had to build a sort of wall out of pebbles, how the teacher tucked up his robe, charged at the wall, knocked it all down of course, and reproved us so severely for the feebleness of our construction that we ran off howling to our parents in all directions. A trivial incident, but indicative of the spirit of the time.

  It was my good fortune that the building of the wall was just beginning when, at the age of twenty, I had passed the highest examination of the lowest school. I say good fortune, because many who before that time had reached the highest grade of the training available to them could for years put their knowledge to no purpose; they drifted around uselessly with the most grandiose architectural schemes in their heads and went to the bad in shoals. But those who were finally appointed to the great wall as overseers, even of the lowest grade, were really worthy of it. They were men who had reflected deeply on the wall and continued to reflect upon it, men who with the first stone which they sank in the ground felt themselves to some extent a part of it. But such men of course were not only eager to perform work of the greatest thoroughness, they were also fired with impatience to see the building finally erected in its full perfection. The day labourer knows nothing of this impatience, his wage is his only spur, and again the higher overseers, indeed even the overseers of middle rank, see enough of the manifold growth of the structure for it to keep them strong in spirit. But in order to encourage the men of lower rank, whose mental capacity far outstripped their seemingly petty task, other measures had to be taken. One could not, for instance, make them spend months or even years laying stone upon stone in some uninhabited mountain region hundreds of miles from their homes; the hopelessness of such laborious toil, to which no end could be seen even in the longest lifetime, would have reduced them to despair, and above all diminished their fitness for the work. It was for this reason that the system of piecemeal construction was chosen; five hundred yards could be accomplished in about five years, and indeed by that time the overseers were usually quite exhausted, they had lost faith in themselves, in the wall, in the world; but then, while they were still exalted by the festivities held to mark the uniting of the thousand-yard section, they were sent far away; on their journey they saw completed sections of the wall towering up here and there, they came past the quarters of higher commanders who presented them with decorations, they heard the cheers of new armies of labour streaming up from the depths of the provinces, they saw forests being felled to provide scaffolding for the wall, mountains being hammered into blocks of stone, in the holy places they heard the chants of the faithful praying for the wall’s completion; all this soothed their impatience; the quiet life of their homeland, where they rested for a time, strengthened them; the esteem in which all builders were held, the humble credulity with which their accounts were listened to, the faith which the simple, peaceful citizens placed in the eventual completion of the wall, all this spanned the chords of the soul; like eternally hopeful children they bade farewell to their homeland, the desire to start work again on the great communal task became irresistible; they set off from home sooner than they need have done, half the village came out to keep them company until they were well on their way; on all the roads they were met with cheering, flags, banners; never before had they seen how vast and rich and fair and lovely their country was; each fellow-countryman was a brother, for whom one was building a protecting wall, and who returned his thanks for that throughout his life with all that he had and all that he was; unity! unity!, shoulder to shoulder, a great circle of our people, our blood no longer confined in the narrow round of the body, but sweetly rolling yet ever returning through the endless leagues of China.

  Thus, then, the system of piecemeal construction becomes comprehensible; and yet there were probably other reasons for it as well. There is, by the way, nothing odd in my spending so long on this question; it is a crucial question for the entire building of the wall, however insignificant it may appear at first. If I am to convey an impression of the mental horizon and the experience of those days, and to make them intelligible, I simply cannot delve deeply enough into this particular question.

  First of all one should recognize that the achievements of those days were scarcely inferior to the building of the Tower of Babel, though as far as divine approval goes they represent, at least by human reckoning, the very opposite of that structure. I mention this because in the early stages of work on the wall a scholar wrote a book in which he drew the parallels in great detail. In it he attempted to prove that it was by no means for the reasons generally advanced that the Tower of Babel had failed to reach its objective, or at least that these well-known reasons did not include the most important ones of all. His proofs did not consist merely in written documents and reports; he also claimed to have made investigations on the spot, and to have discovered that the building failed, and was bound to fail, because of the weakness of its foundations. In this respect of course our own age had a great advantage over that long-past one; almost every educated contemporary was a mason by profession and infallible in the matter of laying foundations. But that was not at all what the scholar was driving at; instead he claimed that the Great Wall alone would create, for the first time in the history of mankind, a secure foundation for a new Tower of Babel. First the Wall, therefore, and then the Tower. His book was in everybody’s hands at the time, but I must confess that I do not clearly understand to this day how he conceived the construction of that tower. How was the wall, which did not even form a circle, but only a sort of quarter or half-circle, supposed to provide the foundation for a tower? That could surely only be meant in a spiritual sense. But in that case what was the need for the wall, which was definitely something concrete, the result of the labour and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people? And why were there plans for the tower, admittedly somewhat nebulous plans, sketched in the book, and detailed plans set out for mobilizing the people’s energies to undertake this new project? There was a great deal of confusion in people’s minds at that time – this book is only one example – perhaps just because so many were doing their utmost to combine their forces in a single aim. The nature of man, flighty in its essence, made like the swirling dust, can abide no bondage; if it fetters itself it will soon begin to tear wildly at the fetters, rip all asunder – the wall, the binding chain, and itself – and scatter them to the four quarters of heaven.

  It is possible that these considerations also, which in fact militate against the whole idea of building the wall, were not left out of account by the high command when the system of piecemeal construction was decided on. It was really only in spelling out the decrees of the supreme command that we – here I can probably speak for many – came to understand ourselves, and to discover that without our commanders neither our book learning nor our common sense would have been adequate even for the small task that fell to us within the great design. In the office of the high command – where it was, and who sat there, no one whom I have ever asked could tell me, either then or now – in that office there surely revolved all human thoughts and desires, and counter to them all human goals and achievements, while through the window the reflected glory of divine worlds shone in upon the hands of the commanders as they traced their plans.

  And for that reason no impartial observer can believe that the high command was not also capable of overcoming, if it had seriously wished to, the difficulties that stood in the way of building the wall continuously. One is forced to conclude, therefore, that the command deliberately chose the system of piecemeal construction. But piecemeal construction was only a makeshift and was inexpe
dient. So one is forced to conclude that the command willed something inexpedient. Strange conclusion, indeed; and yet from another point of view there is much justification for it. Today it is perhaps safe to speak of these things. In those days many of our people, and the best among them, had a secret principle which went as follows: Try with all your might to understand the decrees of the high command, but only up to a certain limit; then cease your reflections. A very wise principle, which moreover was further elaborated in a parable that has often been retold since: Cease from further reflection, but not because it might harm you; indeed it is by no means certain that it would harm you. It is not a question here of what is harmful or otherwise. It will happen to you as happens to the river in spring. It rises, it grows mightier, it gives richer nourishment to the land by the long reach of its banks, it retains its own character until it flows into the sea, it becomes ever more worthy of the sea and ever more welcome to it. – Thus far may you reflect on the decrees of the high command. – But then the river overflows its banks, loses outline and shape, slackens its course towards the ocean, tries to defy its destiny by forming little inland seas, damages the farmlands, yet cannot maintain itself at that width for long, but must run back again between its banks, indeed it must even dry up miserably in the hot season that follows. – Thus far do not reflect on the decrees of the high command.

  Now while this parable may have been singularly pertinent during the building of the wall, it has at most only restricted application to my present account. For my own inquiry is a purely historical one; lightning no longer flashes from the thunderclouds that have long since rolled away, so I may venture to seek an explanation of the system of piecemeal construction which goes further than the one that contented people then. The limits which my powers of thought impose on me are narrow enough, but the province to be covered here is infinite.

  Against whom is the Great Wall supposed to protect us? Against the peoples of the north. I come from the south-east of China. No northern tribe can threaten us there. We read about them in the books of the ancients; the cruelties which they commit in accordance with their nature make us heave deep sighs in our peaceful bowers; in the faithful representations of artists we see these faces of the damned, their gaping mouths, their jaws furnished with great pointed teeth, their screwed-up eyes that already seem to be leering at the prey which their fangs will crush and rend to pieces. When our children misbehave we show them these pictures, and at once they fling themselves sobbing into our arms. But that is all that we know of these northerners; we have never set eyes on them, and if we remain in our villages we shall never set eyes on them, even if they should spur their wild horses and keep charging straight towards us; the land is too vast and will never let them through to us, they will ride on until they vanish in the empty air.

  Why then, since that is so, do we leave our native place, with its river and its bridges, our mothers and fathers, our weeping wives, our children who need our guidance, and go off for our training to the distant city, while our thoughts move on still further to the wall in the north? Why? Ask the high command. Our commanders know us. They, who are at grips with immense problems, know about us, know of our simple occupations, they can see us all gathered round in our humble dwellings, and the evening prayer that the father of the house recites in the family circle comes to their ears, to please them or to displease them. And if I may be allowed to express such ideas about the high command, I must say that in my opinion the high command was in existence earlier, and did not just assemble like some group of high mandarins, who at the prompting of a pleasant morning dream hastily summon a meeting, hastily pass resolutions, and drum the people out of their beds the same evening to carry the resolution out, even if it should be a mere matter of staging an illumination in honour of a god, who had smiled on them the previous day, perhaps only to belabour them in some dark corner the day after, almost before the lanterns are extinguished. My belief is rather that the high command has been in existence for ever, and the decision to build the wall likewise.

  Already to some extent while the wall was being built, and almost exclusively ever since, I have occupied myself with the comparative history of peoples – there are certain questions whose most sensitive spot, so to speak, can only be reached by this method – and in the course of my studies I have discovered that we Chinese possess certain social and political institutions that are unique in their clarity, and again others that are unique in their obscurity. To explore the reasons for this, and particularly for the latter phenomenon, has always attracted me and still attracts me today, and these questions have a most important bearing on the building of the wall.

  Now one of our most obscure institutions of all is unquestionably that of the empire itself. In Peking of course, especially in court circles, there does exist some clarity on the subject, though even that is more apparent than real; also the teachers of political law and history in the high schools claim to be exactly informed about these matters, and to be able to pass this knowledge on to their students; and the further down the ladder of the schools one goes, the more one finds, understandably enough, people’s doubts of their own knowledge vanishing and a sea of semi-education rising mountain-high round a few precepts that have been rammed home for centuries – precepts which have indeed lost nothing of their eternal truth, but which also remain eternally unrecognized amid all the fog and vapour.

  But on this question of the empire one should, in my opinion, turn first of all to the common people, since that is after all where the empire has its final support. Here I can admittedly only speak for my own home region. Apart from the nature gods and their ritual, which occupies the whole year in such variety and beauty, all our thoughts were turned solely to the emperor. But not to the current one; or rather they would have turned to the current one if we had known who he was, or anything definite about him. We too were of course always trying – it was the only curiosity that possessed us – to discover some information of this kind. But – strange as it may sound – it was scarcely possible to discover anything; not from the pilgrims, though they cover so much country, not from near nor from distant villages, not from the sailors, though they sail on the great sacred rivers as well as on our little stream. One certainly heard plenty, but from all that plenty nothing could be made out.

  Our land is so vast, no fairy tale can give an inkling of its size, the heavens can scarcely span it. And Peking is only a dot, and the imperial palace less than a dot. But again the emperor, as such, is indeed mighty through all the many levels of the world. Yet the living emperor, a man like us, lies much as we do on a couch, which for all its generous proportions is still comparatively narrow and short. Like us he sometimes stretches his limbs, and when he is very tired, he yawns with his delicately cut mouth. How should we discover anything about that, thousands of miles away in the south, we who are almost on the borders of the Tibetan highlands? And besides, if any news should reach us it would come far too late, it would be long since out of date. Round the emperor there always presses the brilliant yet sinister throng of his courtiers, the counterweight to the imperial power, eternally striving to topple the emperor from his balance with their poisoned arrows. The empire is immortal, but the individual emperor falls and plunges down from the heights; even whole dynasties sink in the end, and breathe their last in a single death-rattle. Of these struggles and sufferings the people will never know; like latecomers, like strangers in a city, they stand at the far end of some densely packed side-street peacefully consuming the provisions they have brought with them, while far out in front of them, in the market square in the middle of the city, the execution of their ruler is proceeding.

  There is a parable which expresses this relationship well. The emperor – so it is told – has sent to you, his solitary wretch of a subject, the minute shadow that has fled from the imperial sun into the furthermost distance, expressly to you has the emperor sent a message from his death-bed. He made the messenger kneel by his bedside
and whispered the message to him; so much store did he set by it that he made him repeat it in his ear. With a nod of his head he confirmed the accuracy of the words. And before all the spectators of his death – every obstructing wall has been knocked away and on the towering open stairways there stand round him in a ring all the dignitaries of the empire – before all these has he dispatched his messenger. At once the messenger set out on his way; a strong, an indefatigable man, a swimmer without equal; striking out now with one arm, now the other, he cleaves a path through the throng; if he meets with resistance he points to his breast, which bears the sign of the sun, and he forges ahead with an ease that none could match. But the throng is so vast, there is no end to their dwellings; if he could reach open country how fast would he fly, and soon you would surely hear the majestic pounding of his fists on your door. But instead of that, how vain are his efforts; he is still only forcing 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; down the stairs he would have to fight his way; and if he succeeded in that, nothing would be gained; the courtyards would have to be traversed, and after the courtyards the second, outer palace; and again stairs and courtyards; and again a 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 royal capital would still lie before him, the centre of the world, piled high with all its dregs. No one can force his way through here, least of all with a message from a dead man to a shadow. But you sit at your window and dream up that message when evening falls.