I have examined my desk and seen
that nothing good can be done on it. It is midnight. The burning electric light, the
silent house, the darkness outside, they give me the right
to write, even if it be only the most miserable stuff. And this right I
use hurriedly. That's the person I am. I feel restless and vicious. I have now a great yearning
to write all my anxiety entirely out of me. I stare rigidly ahead, lest
my eyes lose the imaginary peepholes of the imaginary
kaleidoscope into which I am looking. I invite heaven and earth to
take part in my scheme. And what is my scheme? To observed myself. This inescapable duty to
observe one's self. But most of these observations
are no more than lies. We often ask, who has been
telling lies about us? Who could have said
such things? Someone must have been telling
lies about Josef K, for without having done anything
wrong, he was arrested one fine morning. His landlady's cook, who
always brought him his breakfast at 8 o'clock, failed
to appear on this occasion. That had never happened
before. Who are you? Did you ring? Anna's to bring me
my breakfast. He says Anna is to bring
him his breakfast. I think you'd better
stay here. What are you doing here? Where's Anna? Where's my breakfast? I'm going to see Frau Grubach,
see what she has to say about this. No. You can't go out. You are under arrest. But what for? We're not authorized
to tell you. Proceedings have been instituted
against you. You will be informed of
everything in due course. I'm exceeding my instructions
in speaking freely to you on this. But if you continue to have as
good luck as you've had in the choice of your warders then you
can be confident of the final result. You'll soon discover that we're
telling you the truth. Why didn't she come in? She isn't allowed to since
you are under arrest. But how can I be under arrest,
and particularly in such a ridiculous fashion? I told you, we don't answer
such questions. Yes? Well, you'll have
to answer them. Here are my papers. Now show me yours. Where's your warrant
for arresting me? Your papers to us? You're behaving worse
than a child. Do you think you'll bring this
fine case of yours to a speedier end by wrangling with
us, your warders, over papers and warrants? We are humble subordinates who
have nothing to do with your case except to stand guard over
you for 10 hours a day and draw our pay for it. That's all we are. But we're quite capable of
grasping the fact that the higher authorities we serve,
before they order an such an arrest as this, must be quite
well informed about the reasons for arresting the
person and the prisoner. There can be no mistake
about that. See, our officials are drawn
towards the guilty and send out us warders. That is the law. How could there be a
mistake in that? I don't know this law. All the worse for you. Probably exists only
in your own head. Well, you come up
against it yet? See, Willem, he admits he
doesn't know the law. And yet he claims
he's innocent. You're quite right, but you'll
never make a man like that see reason. The inspector wants you! Josef K., you are presumably
very surprised at the events of this morning. Certainly I am surprised,
but not very surprised. Not very surprised? I mean that when one has lived
in a world for 30 years and had to fight one's way through
it, as I have had to do, one becomes hardened to
surprises, doesn't take them too seriously. Particularly this one. Why particularly this one? Well, I won't say I regard the
whole thing as a joke, for the preparations that have
been made seem too elaborate for that. Quite right. But on the other hand, it can't
be a matter of great importance either. I can't think of one offense
which could be charged against me. But even this is of
minor importance. No, the real question here
is, who accuses me? Are you officers of the law? None of you wears a uniform,
unless your suit is to be regarded as a uniform,
but it's more like a tourist outfit. I demand a clear answer
to these questions. And I feel certain that after
an explanation, we shall be able to part from each other
on the best of terms. How simple it all
seems to you. You want to settle the matter
amicably, do you? No, that really can't be done. On the other hand, I don't
mean to suggest that you should give up hope. Why should you? You are only under arrest,
nothing more. I was requested to inform
you of this. I've done so and now have also
observed your reactions. That's enough for today, and
we can say goodbye, though only for the time being,
naturally. You'll be wanting to go to
work now, I suppose. To work? But I'm under arrest. How can I go to work if
I'm under arrest? Ah, I see. You have misunderstood me. You are under arrest,
certainly. But that need not
hinder you from going about your business. You won't be hampered in
carrying on in the ordinary course of your life. Then being arrested is
not such a bad thing? I never suggested it was. Then there would seem no
particular necessity to tell me about it. It was my duty. We've just seen the opening of
Kafka's novel, The Trial. And this may be the most famous
single moment in all of modern literature, the morning
knock at the door. The morning knock at the door
which begins the process of labyrinthine terror, of haunting
menace, throughout the whole of the novel. Now, that knock at the morning
door can come from the secret police in Russia, South Africa,
Central America. It can also take much less
melodramatic forms. It stands for what lies in
ambush for all of us in our daily, banal, common lives. The wait in the hospital ward,
the mountains of tax forms, the visas, waited for in vain
in the corridor, in the consular office. That bureaucracy of terror, of
grinding banality, which characterizes so much of our
20th century, and which Kafka is precisely the one to have
defined, and for which he has given us the key passwords. The English poet W. H. Orton
said, "Had one to name the author--" the author-- "who comes nearest to bearing
the same kind of relation to our age as Dante, Shakespeare,
and Goethe brought to theirs, Kafka is the first one would
think of." And indeed, in more than 100 languages, we now have
that word Kafkaesque-- the name of Kafka used as an
adjective, including, in fact, in Japanese-- to characterize the dark
world which he created. And yet the man who did this,
who changed the inner landscape of our
self-consciousness, was a fantastically shy, very sick
Jew, living in Prague, who published in his lifetime only
fragments, a very few stories, and one or two chapters from
unpublished, wholly private manuscripts of novels, and
who died young in 1924. When Franz Kafka died at the age
of 41, his work was known only to a tiny handful
of readers in his native city of Prague. He lived there reluctantly for
most of his short life. "Prague does not let go,
either of you or of me. The little mother has
claws," he wrote. "There is nothing for
it but to give in." Few of his novels or stories
ever satisfied him. And he even, famously, requested
that on his death all his work should
be destroyed. Although Kafka rarely mentions
it specifically, the landscape of Prague underlies everything
he wrote. The city is dominated by a
huge castle which, as in Kafka's novel of that name,
rises above a warren of labyrinthine streets. To him, Prague was
an alien place. Yet its world of alleys and
corridors is one he made resonant of our whole century. In the years before the First
World War, it was a dynamic yet provincial city. Prague at that time contained
one of the largest Jewish populations in Central Europe. And it was into this community,
with its rich traditions, that
Kafka was born. Czechoslovakia was part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. And consequently, German
was the official and dominant language. Kafka's family were
German-speaking Jews, successful businessmen who lived
in what is known as the Old Town, the age-old Jewish
quarter of the city. Yet Kafka grew up with little
sense of rootedness. He felt alienated, firstly as
a Jew at a time of rising anti-Semitism and second as
a German speaker in a predominantly Czech nation. For two days, I have noted
an inner coolness and indifference. Yesterday evening, during my
walk, every little street sound, every eye turned towards
me, was more important to me than myself. Many years ago, I went over the
wishes that I wanted to realize in life. I found that the most important
and the most delightful was the wish to
attain a view of life, and to convince others of it in
writing, in which life, while still retaining its full-bodied
rise and fall, would simultaneously be
recognized no less clearly as a nothing, a dream, a dim
hovering, a beautiful wish, perhaps, if I had wished
it rightly. Kafka etches his sentences,
like to the great glass engravers of Prague, with those
diamond-hard points. He writes in a way that seems
to us out of a dream world. We ask, where is it all from? And then we suddenly
realize it is also profoundly realistic. The sleepwalker's world of
terror and bureaucracy, which Kafka describes, can be seen
as a marvelously realistic, almost photographic portrait of
the late Austro-Hungarian empire, the collapse of that
empire, and of mountains, Everests, of paperwork, of
chicanery, of small-time bureaucrats. And at the same time, his most
hallucinatory, his most clairvoyant and prophetic
discoveries, turn out to be the grimmest reportage, but
reportage before the facts. In his famous, famous story,
The Metamorphosis, the man changed into a bug, the name for
vermin, which he chooses from several possible German
words, ungeziefer, was to become the exact name given by
the Nazis to those whom they exterminated 30 years later. In fact, Kafka, whenever he
writes a single word, seems to have borrowed it from a bank,
a bank which charges absolutely exorbitant interest
on every word that the writer borrows. And he hurries away, knowing
that he must try and bring it back intact by nightfall. One morning, while he was
working in the bank, K. was informed by telephone that next
Sunday, a short inquiry into his case would
take place. [RINGING] Sunday had been selected so that
he might not be disturbed in his professional work. It was, of course, understood
that he must appear without fail. He did not need to be
reminded of that. Please go through. Just go right through. I must shut the doors
after you. Nobody else must come in. You should have been here an
hour and five minutes ago. Whether I am late or
not, I am here now. Yes, but I am no longer obliged
to hear you now. Yet I shall make an exception
for once on this occasion. But such a delay must
not occur again. Now step forward. There, then. You are a house painter. No. I'm junior manager
in a large bank. [APPLAUSE] This question of yours, Herr
Examining Magistrate, about my being a house painter-- or rather, not a question, you
simply made a statement-- is typical of the whole
character of this trial which is being foisted on me. [APPLAUSE] What has happened to me is only
a single instance of a misguided policy which is being
directed against many other people as well. All I desire is a public
ventilation of a grievance. Some 10 days ago, I was arrested
in a manner which seems ridiculous to me. I was seized in my bed by two
coarse warders, degenerate ruffians who brazenly ate my
breakfast before my eyes. It was difficult for
me to remain calm. [LAUGHTER] Now, there is no doubt that
behind all the actions of this court of justice, there is a
great organization at work. And the significance of this
great organization, it consists in this. That innocent persons are
accused of guilt. And senseless proceedings put in
motion against them, mostly without effect. It is true as of my case. I have nearly finished. All I would say in conclusion
is this, that you postpone until later any comments you may
wish to exchange on what I have had to say. because I am pressed for time. I must leave you now. I wish you the joy
of your trade. Just one moment. Before you leave-- before you leave, I would just
like to say that today-- you may not yet have become
aware of the fact-- today you have flung away with
your own hand all the advantages which an
interrogation invariably confers on an accused man. How was he to conduct his case
from a bank office while his case was unfolding itself, while
up in the attics, the court clerks were poring
over charge papers? Was he to devote his attention
to the affairs of the bank? Would he ever find the right
path through all these difficulties? What days were lying
in wait for him? By day, like his character,
K., Kafka worked in one of Prague's many offices, the
Workman's Accident Insurance Institute, processing claims
placed by victims of industrial injury. It's easy to see in its
labyrinth of corridors and stairways a model for
the bureaucratic nightmares of his novels. But Kafka did not work to find
source material for his books. To him, it was just another
impediment to his true vocation, the night-time
world of his writing. This back and forth is getting
worse all the time. At the office, I live up to my
outward duties, but not to the inner duties. And those unfulfilled duties
grow into a permanent torment. Those are the seductive
voices of the night. The sirens, too,
sound that way. It would be doing them an
injustice to think that they wanted to seduce. They knew they had claws and
sterile wounds, and they lamented aloud. They could not help it if their laments sounded so beautiful. It is Franz Kafka's supreme
genius to universalize-- that means quite simply to make
compelling, real, utterly obvious to all of us-- circumstances which were, in
actual fact, extremely private, extremely secret
and personal. I'm thinking not only of his
illness, an illness which he cultivated and made the
safeguard of his genius, of his writing, of the
time he needed. I'm thinking not only of the
almost fantastic diffidence he showed in practical life, though
it turns out that he was an extremely honest,
efficient, and conscientious insurance assessor. I think, above all, of the
quarrel which determined the whole of his art and vision of
himself, that with his father. With the looming, mountainous,
elephantine figure of that father who crushes him, who
tears the guts out of him, by saying, an adult man, and
particularly a young Jew, marries, has an honest and
successful career, and founds a family. What kind of a non-entity, of
a coward, of a betrayal of Judaism, and of humanity, is the
bachelor, the vanishing, sick bachelor, the shadow
figure of his son? Now, psychoanalysis has
an enormous lot to tell us about that. It feeds on Kafka. But it feeds very
inadequately. What is at stake is something
much, much older and more powerful and more universal
than the Oedipus Complex. It is the relationship not only
to the father but to God, the Father. In a paternalistic universe,
in a universe of crushing, emasculating power relations,
in which in the eternal, irrevocable battle between
father and son, the son is always guilty. There is only one episode in
the early years of which I have a direct memory. You may remember it too. Once, in the night, I kept
on whimpering for water. After several vigorous threats
had failed to have any effect, he took me out of bed, carried
me to the balcony, and left me there alone for a while
in my nightshirt, outside the shut door. I dare say, I was
quite obedient afterwards at that period. But it did me inner harm. Even years afterwards, I
suffered from the tormenting fancy that a huge man, my
father, the ultimate authority, could come almost for
no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night. Kafka's relationship to his
father is considered by many to be the wellspring of
much of his writing. His father, Hermann, was
contemptuous of his son's literary ambitions and more
importantly represented everything Franz was not. Hermann was strong while his son
was sickly, successful and confident in life, whereas
Franz was shy and gauche, married, while he remained
a sad bachelor. Herman Kafka never hid his
disappointment from his son. And as a consequence, figures
of authority pervade his writing, as do themes
of chastisement. In The Penal Colony, a short
novel, is about a machine that punishes offenders by cutting
the name of their crime into their flesh like a ghastly
parody of the printing press. And in The Trial, one of the
most powerful scenes occurs when, in the bank, K. hears
noises coming from what he'd always taken to be
a lumber room. [GROANING] What are you doing here? Sir, we are to be flogged
because you complained about us to the examining
magistrates. I never complained. I just said what happened
in my rooms. We're only being punished
because you accused us. If you hadn't, nothing would
have happened, even if they had discovered what we did. You call that justice? Is there any way of
getting this-- I'll reward you well
if you let me go. So you want to lay a complaint
against me too and get me a whipping as well? If I had wanted these men
punished, I wouldn't be trying to buy you off now. It's not them that I blame, it's
the organization that's to blame, the high officials. If it was one of the judges
that you were flogging, I would reward you well
to encourage you in your good work. No, I won't be bribed. I need to whip people, and
whip them I shall. I can't wait any longer. It's Only me. Good evening, Herr Assessor. Has anything happened? No. Just a dog howling
in the courtyard. You can go back to work. Sir! Sir! Open the door. I'm a friend of the
Herr Advocate's. The Herr Advocate is ill. Open the door. I must speak to the
Herr Advocate. He's ill. Is it his heart? I think so. But he cannot see anyone. Leni, who is it? He says he's a friend
of yours, a Josef K. Oh, Josef. Let him in. Are you really ill? I can't believe it. It's one of your
heart attacks. It'll pass over like
all the others. Maybe. But it's worse than it's
ever been before. You see that my master is ill. As the trial progresses, Joseph
K., the resolution of his case still no nearer,
attempts to take matters into his own hands. You go now, Leni. The whole of the second half
of the novel consists of various encounters K. has with
people who've some knowledge of the workings of the court. But they do little
to enlighten him. His first step is to consult
an advocate. I want you. Well, I suppose you're
here about your case. Yes. But how did you hear? Oh, nothing stays secret for
long, when one's involved with the courts. But I must warn you, there are
many times when the first plea is not heard by the
court at all. They simply file it. If this happens, we must prepare
a second plea, and so on, until the court agrees
to take up the case. Don't forget, either, that the
proceedings of the court are not public. They could, if the court
considered it necessary, become public. But the law does not prescribe
that they must be made public. Naturally, therefore, the legal
records of the case, and above all, the charge sheets,
are inaccessible to the accused and to his counsel. Consequently, one does not
with any precision what charges are to be met. So the first plea is always
a rather general one. Only later can any genuinely
effective and convincing pleas be drawn out. In these circumstances, the
defense is in a very ticklish and difficult position. And there are differences of
opinion, even on that point. Is Leni pestering you? Pestering me? Yes. I suppose you can't help
noticing that she is pestering you. Oh, don't let it bother you. It's a peculiarity of hers. I have long forgiven her. It doesn't surprise me as much
as it seems to surprise you. If you have the right eye for
these things, you can see that accused men are often
attractive. It's a remarkable phenomenon,
almost a natural law. But those who are experienced in
such matters can pick out, one after another, all
the accused men in the largest of crowds. How do they know them? It can't be a sense of
guilt that makes them attractive, for-- in behooves me to say this,
as an advocate at least-- they can't all be guilty. And it can't be the justice of
the penance laid on them that makes them attractive
in anticipation. For they aren't all going
to be punished. So it must be the mere charge
proffered against them that in some way enhances their
attraction. Of course, some are much more
attractive than others. But they're all attractive,
even the wretched ones. [CRASHING] Well, um, I'll just go and
see what happened. Nothing has happened. I've simply flung a plate
against the wall to bring you out. I was thinking of you. Come this way. In here. I thought you would come. You couldn't keep your
eyes off me from the moment you arrived. And yet you leave me to wait. Well, to tell you the truth,
I'm really rather shy. And I didn't think you were
to be had for the first time of asking. You didn't like me. And you probably don't
like me now. Liking is a feeble word. That's probably my judge. I know him. He often comes here. But that picture's
not like him. He's a small man, honest. A dwarf. But he had himself painted
like that. He's madly vain, like
everybody else here. But I'm vain too, and it
upsets me you don't like me in the least. You brood too much
over your case. I probably brood too little. That isn't the mistake
you make. You're too unyielding. That's what I've heard. Who told you that? Don't ask me for names. Take my warning to
heart instead. You can't resist the court. You must admit your fault. Do you have a sweetheart? No. Oh, yes. Just imagine. I told you I didn't have
one, but I have a photograph of her here. In my wallet. She's very tight-laced. You wouldn't miss her very much
if you were to lose her or exchange her for
somebody else. Me, for instance. Does she have a physical
defect? Physical defect? Yes. I have one. Look. One of the great sadnesses of
Kafka's life was his inability to form adult relationships
with women. Although he was always close
to his mother and three sisters, particularly the
youngest, Ottla, he was unable to find the emotional
commitment to marry. He was engaged twice
in his life and had several love affairs. The most important were with
Felice Bauer, who he met in 1912, and eight years later
with Milena Jesenska. With both women, he built up a
massive correspondence but would always break off
a relationship when love came too close. When we tried to get a hold of
a presence of a persona as elusive, as singular as Franz
Kafka's, we've got to be terribly careful. We're almost certainly
going to get it wrong and to make it vulgar. One often forgets that in his
novels and stories, sexuality is extremely powerful-- in fact, sometimes very gross
and almost sadistic. Men and women couple like
hungry animals. The world of the prostitute, the
underworld of the servant girl, at the bidding of money
and power, are tremendously present in Kafka's work. In his own personal life, the
relationship to women was one of endless self-reproach
and agony. To his fiance, Felice Bauer, he
writes, "I very much want to marry you. I'm totally incapable
of doing so. So my desire is itself simply a
proof of my guilt and of how wrong I am to want it." With Milena Jesenska, a woman of
exceptional gifts, perhaps the one radiant present
in his life. When his love comes to near to
him, Kafka himself retreats, runs away, sensing, perhaps
subconsciously, that a life like his own cannot be shared. It is only at the very end of
that life, when he's dying of tuberculosis, when his throat
is, as he tells us, being gnawed, inch by inch, by a
secret little animal from within, it is only then, that
with a young woman, Dora Diamant, who he met through his
interest in Zionism, Kafka seems to find a hint of peace,
a hint of acceptance. And he does so when he's already
very nearly on the other side of death. It seems so dreadful to be a
bachelor, to become an old man, struggling to keep one's
dignity while begging for an invitation whenever
one wants to spend an evening in company. Never being able to run up a
stairway beside one's wife. The farther one moves away from
the living, so much the smallest space is considered
necessary for him. This bachelor, still in the
midst of life, apparently of his own free will, resigns
himself to an ever-smaller space. And when he dies, the coffin
is exactly right for him. [SCREAMING] Ah, these brats. I painted one of them once. And ever since then, they've
all persecuted me. Titorelli, Titorelli,
can I come in now? No! Not even me? Not even you. No. So you want to find out
something about the court. Are you innocent? Yes. I am completely innocent. Well, if you're innocent, then
the matter is quite simple. My innocence doesn't seem to
make the matter any simpler. I still have to fight against
the countless subtleties in which the court is prone
to lose itself. And in the end, out of nothing
at all, an enormous fabric of guilt can be conjured up. Yes, yes, of course. But you're innocent
all the same. Well, that's the main thing. You know the courts much better
than I, I feel certain. But one thing seems
clear to me-- that the courts, once they have
brought a charge against a person, are firmly convinced
of the guilt of the accused and can be dislodged from that
conviction only with the greatest of difficulty. The greatest of difficulty? Never in any case can the court
be dislodged from that conviction. I see. It seems to me that you have a
very little general idea of the court yet. But since you're innocent,
you won't need it anyhow. I shall get you off
all by myself. Well, how can you do that? You told me yourself just a few
minutes ago the court was quite impervious to proof. Impervious only to the
proof which one brings before the court. But it is quite a different
matter in one's efforts behind the scenes, in the consulting
rooms, in the lobbies, or for example here in this
very studio. Because they all come
here, you know. Titorelli, Titorelli. [GIGGLING] Every judge insists
on being painted. And nobody can do that but me. Now, what kind of acquittal
do you want? There are three possibilities. There is definite acquittal,
ostensible acquittal, and indefinite postponement. Although I must admit, I've
never encountered one case of definite acquittal. Not one case of definite
acquittal then? Well, that merely confirms
the opinion I formed of this court. It's a senseless institution
from any point of view, a single executioner could
do all that's needed. [GIGGLING] Let us leave definite acquittal
out of the contract. There are the other
possibilities, ostensible acquittal and indefinite
postponement. Titorelli, won't you
be going away soon? Quiet, there. Can't you see that I'm engaged
with this gentleman? Are you going to paint him? Please don't paint such
an ugly man as that. Hey, stop that noise, otherwise
I'll fling you down those stairs. Excuse me. These girls belong
to the court too. What? Oh, you see, everything
belongs to the court. That's something I
hadn't noticed. You don't have any general idea
of the court yet, do you? But, eh, why don't you
take your jacket off? You look very hot. It's unbearable in here. Could you open a window? No, it can't open. Well, that's both uncomfortable
and unhealthy. Not really. No, the air comes in everywhere through the chinks, anyway. Now to get back. First of all, ostensible
acquittal, if you decide on that, I shall write down on a
piece of paper an affidavit of your innocence. Then with this affidavit, I
shall make a round of the judges that I know and explain
your innocence. If a sufficient number of
judges subscribe to the affidavit, I shall then deliver
it to the judge who is actually conducting
your trial. Possibly I may even have secured
his signature, in which case everything will
be settled fairly soon-- sooner than unusual. And then you can walk out
of the court a free man. So then I am free? Ostensibly free. But these judges don't
have the power to grant the final acquittal. No, that power is reserved for
the highest court of all, which is inaccessible to you
or to me or to all of us. Now, would you like
me to explain how postponement works? Well, postponement consists in
preventing the case from ever getting past the first stages. So as a matter of form, from
time to time, various activity has to take place. Certain measures have
to be taken. The accused is questioned,
evidence is collected, and so on, for the case must be kept
going all the time. Both methods have
this in common-- that they save the accused from
coming up for sentencing. But they also prevent
actual acquittal. You address the kernel
of the matter. But don't make up your
mind too soon. You have to weigh everything
out very carefully. On the other hand, you mustn't
take too long about it either. I'll come back again soon. Make sure you keep
to your word. Otherwise I'll have to come to
the bank and make inquiries for myself. Unlock this door. Take the other door out. It's better if you don't want to
be seen by too many people. Yes, you can come this way. Don't be afraid to
step on the bed. Everybody who comes here
has to do that. What's this? What are you surprised at? It's a law court. There are law court offices
in every attic. Why should this be
an exception? The nightmare strangeness and
the surrealistic quality of the events throughout the novel
lie at the heart of Kafka's sense that we
are all on trial. We are all under prosecution. Now, what kind of
a trial is this? The roots of that idea
lie deep in Judaism. There is a judgment, a tribunal,
and the law-- the sacred, the supreme law. And it's catch-22. If we don't know the law,
we're obviously guilty. If we know it and can't observe
its innumerable, tiny, detailed yet ferociously logical
prescriptions, we are guilty also. In fact, for Kafka to be alive
is to be on a kind of probation, on a very direct
probation in front of a tribunal which we can
neither fully understand nor influence. Of all the myth and parables
which he-- and I don't know what word to use-- which he found within the
heart of truth, the most famous is that which he wrote in
1914, published separately in 1916, and then set at the
very center of the novel, The Trial, the parable of
the law, "Before the Law", "Vor dem Gesetz". It's only a page in length,
or a page and a few lines. And yet perfectly seriously,
one can set it next to the immensity of the Book of Job. It shares with the Book of Job
that quality of demanding inexhaustibility. Kafka said that a miss begins
in a place of truth and ends in a place of inexplicability. This is Kafka's exact pass and
the pass of Joseph K. as he approaches a cathedral in which
the unfathomable yet translucent legend of the law
and the doorkeeper is going to be communicated to him. Josef K.? Are you Josef K.? Yes. You are the accused man? So I've been informed. Then you are the man I seek. I am the prison chaplain. Indeed. I had you summoned here to
have a talk with you. Do you know that your
case is going badly? I had that idea myself, yes. How do you think it will end? I do not know how it will end. Do you? No. But I fear it will end badly. You are held to be guilty. Your case may never perhaps
get beyond a lower court. But I am not guilty. It's a misunderstanding. And if it comes to that, how can
any man be called guilty? We're all simply men here,
one as much as the other. That is true. But that is how all
guilty men talk. What is the next step you
propose to take in the matter? I'm going to seek
some more help. There are several possibilities
I haven't investigated yet. You've cast about too much
for outside help. Have you a little time for me? As much time as you need. You are the exception to those
who belong to the court. I have more trust in you than
any of the others, though I know many of them. I feel I can speak
openly to you. Don't be deluded. How am I being deluded? You are deluding yourself
about the court. In the scriptures that preface
the law, that particular delusion is described thus. Before the law stands a
doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper comes a man
from the country who begs admittance to the law. But the doorkeeper says
that he cannot admit the man at the moment. The man, on reflection, asks if
he'll be allowed, then, to enter later. It is possible, answers
the doorkeeper, but not at this moment. The doorkeeper gives him a stool
and let's him sit down at the side of the door. There he sits waiting
for days and years. WEBVTT In the first years, he curses
his evil fate aloud. Later, as he grows older, he
only mutters to himself. He grows old. Now his life is drawing
to a close. Before he dies, all that he's
experienced during the whole time of his sojourn condenses in
his mind into one question which he has never yet put
to the doorkeeper. He beckons the doorkeeper, since
he can no longer raise his stiffening body. What is it you want to know
now, asks the doorkeeper. Everyone strives to attain
the law, says the man. How is it then that in all these
years, no one has come seeking admission but me? The doorkeeper sees the man is
at the end of his strength and his hearing is failing. So he bellows in his ear. No one but you could gain
admittance through this door since this door was intended
for no one but you. I am now going to shut it. That is the story and the very
words of the scriptures. The court makes no
claims on you. It receives you when you come,
and it relinquishes you when you go. This story I wrote in one
sitting, from 10 o'clock at night to 6:00 in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my
legs out from under the desk, they had got so stiff
from sitting. Several times during the night,
I heaved my own weight upon my back. How everything can be said. How for the strangest fancies,
there awaits a great fire in which they perish and
rise up again. How it turned blue outside
the window. On the evening before
K.'s 31st birthday-- it was about 9 o'clock,
the time when a hush falls on the streets-- two men came to his lodgings. [KNOCKING] Come in. So you are appointed for me? Tenth-rate actors,
they send for me. I'm ready. Let us go. K. now perceived clearly that
he was supposed to seize the knife himself and plunge
it into his breast. But he did not do so. He merely gazed around him. His glance fell on the top
story of the house, which adjoins the quarry. Who was it? A friend? Someone who wanted to help? Where was the judge whom
he had never seen? Where was the high court which
he had never penetrated? He raised his hand and spread
out all his fingers. But the hands of one of
the partners were already at K.'s throat. With failing eyes, he could
still see the two of them, watching the final act. Like a dog, he said. It was as if he meant the shame
of it to outlive him. The last word is shame, but it
is not that shame which has outlived Franz Kafka. On the contrary, it has been the
dark radiance of his work. And I'd like to go further
than that, the almost impenetrable purity of
the man's presence. He has made it just that little
bit harder for every one of us to write, even
to speak after him. And those writings which he
instructed his intimate friend, Max Brod, to destroy
at his death now fill the imaginations of the
civilized world. They were banned and
incinerated by the Nazis in 1933. And Kafka's sisters and
his beloved Milena were to die in Auschwitz. And Kafka's books, however,
have survived and are now fully alive in every
part of the globe. Oh yes, they're unavailable
in Prague. There Kafka is a kind of
embarrassing spectre. This wouldn't have surprised
him one bit. In fact, it's what
Kafka is about. It's fully inherent in his
vision of man without justice, without a roof on this earth. In a very brief moment
of self confidence-- god knows he didn't
have many-- Kafka said that once-- I think it was on a hotel
ledger or his diary-- he took his pen and wrote the
letter K. K. And he said, perhaps this letter
will belong to me. In fact, it does. For almost all of us
today, K is Kafka. As for example, S is
not Shakespeare. And I can think of no other
figure in the history of literature or thought who
has made his own a
