The Great Wall of China

by Franz Kafka

  In respect of fasting, I take my stand on that well-known dialogue in the course of which one of our sages expressed his intention of prohibiting fasts, whereupon a second advised against it by asking: ‘But who will ever think of fasting?’ and the first sage allowed himself to be persuaded and withheld the prohibition. But now the old question arises: ‘Is not fasting forbidden after all?’ The great majority of commentators deny this and regard fasting as freely permitted; they also agree with the second sage, and thus they fear no ill-effects even if this interpretation should be false. I had naturally assured myself on this point before I began my fast. But now that I was twisted with the pangs of hunger, and already in some confusion of spirit sought relief in my own hind legs, desperately licking them, gnawing them and sucking at them up to my haunches, the generally accepted interpretation of that dialogue seemed to me utterly false; I cursed the commentators’ science, I cursed myself for having been led astray by it; for the dialogue contained, as any hungering child could recognize, obviously more than just the one prohibition of fasting; the first sage wished to forbid fasting, and what a sage wishes is already done, so fasting was forbidden; the second sage not only agreed with the first, but actually held fasting to be impossible, that is, he piled on the first prohibition a second one imposed by the very nature of dogs; the first sage accepted this and withheld his explicit prohibition, in other words he commanded all dogs, in the light of what had been made clear, to use their own discernment and prohibit fasting for themselves. So here was a threefold prohibition instead of the normal single one, and I had violated it.

  Now at this point I might at least have belatedly obeyed and stopped my fast, but through all the pain I felt the temptation to go on hungering, and I followed it greedily as I would follow a strange dog. I could not stop, and anyhow I was perhaps too weak by then to rise and seek my safety in inhabited places. I tossed about on the strewn leaves, I could no longer sleep, I heard noises on every side; the world, which had been asleep during the previous course of my life, seemed to have been awakened by my hungering; I began to imagine that I would never be able to eat again, for by doing so I must reduce the uninhibited clamour of the world to silence once more, and that I should never be capable of doing; but the greatest noise of all I heard from my own belly; I often laid my ear against it and I must have looked horrified, for I could hardly believe what I heard. And now that things were becoming too much to bear, my very nature seemed to be caught up in the frenzy and made the maddest attempts to preserve itself; I began to smell food, choice dishes that I had long since forgotten, the delights of my childhood; yes, I even smelt the scent of my mother’s teats; I forgot my resolve to resist all smells, or rather I did not forget it; when I dragged myself off in all directions, never more than a yard or two away, to do some sniffing, I kept this resolve in mind as if it accorded with what I was doing, as if I were merely seeking the food so as to be on my guard against it. The fact that I found nothing did not disappoint me; the food must be there, only it was always a few steps away, my legs failed me before I could reach it. And yet at the same time I knew that nothing at all was there, and that I made these little excursions simply because I was afraid of total collapse in a place which I should never be able to leave again. My last hopes faded, the last allurements vanished; a miserable end awaited me here; of what use were my researches, those childish attempts of childish happy days? – what faced me here and now was earnest, this was where research could have proved its worth, but where had it gone? Here was only a dog snapping helplessly at the empty air, a dog who indeed still kept watering the ground in convulsive haste without being aware of it, yet who could not recall to mind a single fragment from the whole jumble of magic spells, not even the little rhyme which the new-born puppy recites as it ducks down under its mother. I felt here as if I was not just cut off by the space of a short run from my brothers, but infinitely far removed from everybody, and as if I would die, not really of hunger at all, but because I was so forsaken. For it was evident that no one cared about me, no one beneath the earth, no one upon it, no one above; I was being destroyed by their indifference; their indifference said: ‘He is dying’, and so it would be. And did I not give my assent? Did I not say the same thing? Had I not wished to be thus forsaken? Yes, my brothers, but not so as to perish here like this; it was in order to pass over into the truth, out of this world of falsehood where there is no one from whom truth can be learned, not even myself, for I too am a native citizen of falsehood. Perhaps the truth was no longer so very far off, and I was therefore not so forsaken as I thought; perhaps I was not so much forsaken by the others as by myself, by my own failure and my dying.

  But one does not die so easily as a nervous dog imagines. I merely fainted, and when I came to and raised my eyes a strange hound was standing before me. I felt no hunger, I was full of strength, my limbs were in my opinion quite springy, although I made no attempt to test this by getting to my feet. I was not really capable of seeing more than usual; I could see that a handsome but not very extraordinary dog stood before me, that was all I saw, and yet I seemed to perceive something more in him. Beneath me lay some blood, which for a moment I thought was food, but then I recognized it at once as blood that I had brought up. I turned away from it and looked at the strange hound. He was lean, long-legged, brown with a patch of white here and there, and had a fine, strong, piercing glance. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘You must go away from here.’ ‘I can’t go away now,’ I said without further explanation, for how could I explain it all to him, and he seemed to be in a hurry anyway. ‘Please, go away,’ he said, lifting one leg after the other in a restless manner. ‘Leave me alone,’ I said, ‘go off and don’t worry about me, the others don’t worry about me either.’ ‘I am asking you for your own sake,’ he said. ‘Ask me for any reason you like,’ I said, ‘I can’t go even if I wanted to.’ ‘There’s no fear of that,’ he said with a smile, ‘you can go all right. It is just because you seem to be weak that I beg you to go off slowly now; if you linger now, a bit later you will have to run.’ ‘That’s my affair,’ I said. ‘It’s mine too,’ said he, saddened by my stubbornness, and now it was obvious that he was prepared to let me be for the time being but that he wanted to take the opportunity of making friendly approaches. At any other time I would have accepted this from such a handsome hound, but at that moment, I know not why, the idea filled me with terror; ‘be off!’ I screamed, all the louder since I had no other means of protection. ‘All right, I’ll leave you,’ he said, slowly retreating. ‘You’re a strange dog. Don’t you like me then?’ ‘I shall like you if you go away and leave me in peace,’ I said, but I was no longer so sure of myself as I wanted to make him think. There was something about him that my senses, sharpened by fasting, seemed to see or hear; it was just beginning, it grew, it came closer, and then I knew: this hound really does have the power to drive you away, even if you cannot imagine how you will ever be able to get to your feet.

  And I gazed at him – he had merely shaken his head gently at my rough answer – with ever-mounting desire. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘I’m a hunter,’ he said. ‘And why won’t you let me stay here?’ I asked. ‘You disturb me,’ he said, ‘I can’t hunt while you’re here.’ ‘Try,’ I said, ‘perhaps you’ll still be able to hunt.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, but you must go.’ ‘Leave your hunting just for today,’ I begged. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I must hunt.’ ‘I must go off, you must hunt,’ I said, ‘nothing but musts. Do you understand why we must?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘but there is nothing to understand about it, these are self-evident, natural things.’ ‘But no,’ I said, ‘you are sorry that you must drive me away, and yet you do it.’ ‘That’s so,’ he said. ‘That’s so,’ I repeated crossly, ‘that is no answer. Which would you find easier to renounce, to renounce hunting or to renounce driving me away?’ ‘To renounce hunting,’ he said unhesitatingly. ‘Well then,’ I said, ‘there’s a contradiction here.’ ‘What sort of con
tradiction is that?’ he said. ‘My dear little dog, do you really not understand that I must? Don’t you understand what is self-evident?’ I made no more reply, for I observed – and new life pulsed through me, the sort of life terror generates – I observed from indefinable details, which perhaps no one but me could have noticed, that the hound was about to strike up a deep-throated song. ‘You are going to sing,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said he gravely, ‘I’m going to sing; soon, but not yet.’ ‘You’re beginning it already, although you deny it,’ I said trembling. He said no more. And it was then that I thought I detected something such as no dog before me has ever encountered, at least there is not the slightest hint of it in our tradition, and in infinite fear and shame I hastily bowed my head in the pool of blood before me. What I seemed to detect was that the hound was already singing without being aware of it, nay more, that the melody, separated from him, was floating through the air in obedience to its own laws, and, as though he had no part in it, was aiming at me, at me alone.

  Today, of course, I deny all such perceptions, and ascribe them to my overwrought state at that time, but even if the whole thing was an error it was not without a certain grandeur; it remains the sole reality, if only an apparent reality, that I have carried over into this world from my time of fasting, and shows at least how far we can go when we are in a state of being wholly beside ourselves. For I really was wholly beside myself. In ordinary circumstances I would have been very ill, incapable of moving, but the melody, which now the hound soon seemed to take over as his own, was quite irresistible. It grew ever stronger; its waxing power seemed to have no limits, and already it almost burst my eardrums. But the worst was that it seemed to exist solely for my sake, this voice before whose sublimity the woods fell silent, for my sake alone; who was I, that I dared still remain here, spreading myself out in my own blood and filth? With shaking limbs I rose and looked down at me; this body will never run, I was just thinking, when all at once I went bounding off in the mightiest of leaps with the melody at my heels. To my friends I said nothing; on my first arrival among them I should probably have told all, but I was too weak to do so, and then later it seemed impossible to communicate it. Certain hints which I could not restrain myself from dropping were lost without trace in the general talk. Physically, by the way, I recovered in a few hours; spiritually the effects are still with me today.

  But I now extended my researches into the field of dog music. Science had of course not been idle in this field either; if I am correctly informed, the science of music is possibly even more comprehensive than the science of nourishment and certainly more firmly based. This may be explained by the fact that it is possible to work more dispassionately in the former field than in the latter, and that while in the field of music it is simply a matter of observation and systematization, in the field of nourishment the main object is to reach practical conclusions. Related to that is the fact that the science of music enjoys greater respect than the science of nourishment, but has never been able to penetrate so deeply into the life of the people. And I, too, found the science of music more foreign to me than any other branch of science, until the time that I heard that voice in the woods. It is true that my experience with the dog musicians had drawn my attention to it, but I was still too young then; nor is it by any means easy even to approach that field of study; it is regarded as especially difficult and with a superior air it holds itself aloof from the crowd. Besides, although it was initially the music that had seemed the most striking thing about those dogs, I found their music less significant than their taciturn nature; I could find, I suppose, no counterpart whatever to their terrible music and so felt justified in neglecting it, but from that time on I kept discovering their taciturn nature in all dogs everywhere. However, in order to penetrate into the true nature of dogs nourishment research seemed to me the most suitable, and likely to lead by a direct path to the goal. Possibly I was wrong there. Certainly there was a border region between the two sciences which already at that time aroused my suspicions. I refer to the doctrine of song calling down nourishment from above. Here again I am at the great disadvantage of never having seriously come to grips with musical science, so in this respect I am far from being able to consider myself even one of those semi-educated persons whom scientists always particularly despise. This must ever be very much in my mind. Faced by a learned scientist I should fare very badly even in the simplest academic test, as I have regrettable evidence to show. The reasons for that, apart from the above-mentioned circumstances of my life, lie of course primarily in my scientific incapacity, my limited powers of thought, my bad memory, and above all in my inability to keep the scientific aim continuously in view. All this I am prepared to admit to myself, even with a certain pleasure. Because the deeper reason for my scientific incapacity seems to me to be an instinct, and indeed by no means a bad instinct. If I wanted to brag I might say that it was precisely this instinct that had destroyed my scientific capacities, for it would certainly be a very peculiar thing if I, as a person who shows a tolerable degree of intelligence in the ordinary matters of life, which are unquestionably not all that simple, and above all as a person who has – as my results can testify – at least a very good understanding of scientists, if not of science, should have been incapable from the outset of raising his paw even to the first rung of scientific knowledge. The instinct I speak of was the instinct that impelled me – perhaps for the very sake of science, though of another science than the one practised today, for the sake of a most ultimate science – to prize freedom higher than anything else. Freedom! Such freedom as is possible today, I freely admit it, is a poor and stunted growth. But it is freedom none the less, it is a possession none the less.

  THE MARRIED COUPLE

  BUSINESS in general is so bad that sometimes when I have time to spare in the office I pick up the case of samples myself and call on my customers personally. Among other things I had long since intended to pay a visit to K.; we used to have a regular business relationship, but for some unknown reason it has almost completely lapsed during the past year. There need in fact be no genuine reasons for this kind of breakdown; in the present unstable conditions a mere nothing, a change of mood, can be decisive, and equally a mere nothing, a word, can put the whole thing right again. But it is a little complicated to get access to K.; he is an old man, in very poor health of late, and though he still keeps the reins of his business in his own hands he hardly ever goes to the office nowadays; if you want to speak to him you have to go to his house, and one is only too glad to postpone a business call of that kind.

  Nevertheless, yesterday evening after six o’clock I did set out; it was certainly too late for paying calls, but after all it was not a matter of social considerations, but a matter of business. I was in luck, K. was in; he had just come back from a walk with his wife, so I was told in the hall, and was now in his son’s bedroom, who was unwell and confined to bed. I was invited to join them; at first I hesitated, but then my desire to get this disagreeable visit over as quickly as possible got the upper hand, and just as I was, in my overcoat and with my hat and case of samples in my hand, I allowed myself to be conducted through a dark room into a faintly lit one, where a small company was assembled.

  My first glance fell, probably by instinct, on a commercial agent only too well known to me, who is to some extent my competitor. So he had managed to sneak up in front of me. He was sitting at his ease, close by the invalid’s bed, as if he were the doctor; with his fine overcoat unbuttoned and ballooning out round him, he sat there powerfully enthroned; his effrontery is unequalled; the invalid may have been thinking something of the same kind too, as he lay there, cheeks faintly flushed with fever, and gave him an occasional glance. He is no longer young either, K.’s son, a man of my own age with a short beard, somewhat unkempt on account of his illness. Old K., a tall, broad-shouldered man, but to my astonishment now quite wasted, bent and shaky as a result of his lingering disease, was still standing there in his fur coat
just as he had come, mumbling something to his son. His wife, small and frail, but exceedingly lively, if only as far as her husband was concerned – us others she hardly noticed – was busy helping him off with his coat, which was a matter of some difficulty owing to their great difference in height, but she succeeded at last. Perhaps, indeed, the real difficulty was caused by K.’s impatience, for with restless hands he kept groping for the easy chair, which his wife, once the overcoat was off, quickly pushed forward for him. She herself took up the fur coat, beneath which she almost vanished, and carried it out.

  Now, it seemed to me, my moment had come at last, or rather it had not come and in these circumstances it probably never would come, but if I was to attempt anything further at all it must be done at once, for I felt that the conditions for a business interview here could only become increasingly unfavourable; and to take root on this spot for all eternity, as the agent apparently intended to do, was not my way; besides I was not going to pay him the slightest consideration. So without further ceremony, even though I noticed that K. was just inclined to have a little chat with his son, I started to state my business. Unfortunately I have the habit, when I have talked myself into a state of some excitement – which happens very quickly, and in this sick-room it happened even more quickly than usual – of getting up and walking about as I talk. Though a good enough arrangement in one’s own office, in a strange house it may be somewhat burdensome. But I could not restrain myself, particularly as I was feeling the lack of my usual cigarette. Well, every man has his bad habits, and I can even congratulate myself on mine when I think of the agent’s. What should one say to this, for instance: he holds his hat on his knee, shoving it slowly to and fro there, and every now and then he suddenly, quite unexpectedly, claps it on his head; admittedly he takes it off again at once, as if it had been a mistake, but all the same he has had it on his head for a second or two, and he keeps repeating this performance from time to time. Surely such conduct must be called unpardonable. I am not disturbed by it, however; I walk up and down, completely absorbed in my proposals, and ignore him; but there are people whom that trick with the hat might put off completely. However when I am thoroughly worked up I disregard not only such annoyances as these, but absolutely everybody; I see, it is true, all that goes on, but do not admit it, so to speak, to my consciousness until I have finished, or until I actually hear some objection raised. Thus I noticed quite well, for instance, that K. was by no means in a receptive state; holding on to the arms of his chair, he twisted about uncomfortably, never even glanced up at me, but gazed blankly, as if searching for something, into space, and his face seemed so impassive that one might have thought that no syllable of what I was saying, indeed no awareness of my presence, had penetrated to him. All this pathological behaviour, rather unpromising from my point of view, I took in perfectly well, but I talked on just the same, as if by my words, by my advantageous offers – I was myself alarmed at the concessions I was granting, concessions that nobody asked for – I still had some prospect of getting everything back on to an even keel again. It also gave me a certain satisfaction that the agent, as I casually observed, had at last left his hat in peace and folded his arms across his chest; my discourse, which I must confess was partly designed for him, seemed to have dealt a severe blow to his plans. And in the elation which this gave me I might perhaps have talked on for a long time yet, if the son, whom I had hitherto regarded as a negligible figure for my purposes, had not raised himself in his bed and brought me to a full stop by shaking his fist. Obviously he wanted to say something, to point something out, but he had not the strength for it. At first I put it all down to delirium, but when I then glanced involuntarily at old K. I understood better.