The Castle (Classics of World Literature)

by Franz Kafka

For much Marx-ist orthodoxy, Kafka was a negative exemplar of self-absorbed bourgeois defeatism, burdening posterity with his own neuroses, unproductive and enfeebling.

Many express remoteness, hopelessness, the impossibility of access to sources of authority or certainty, or what in German is termed Ausweglosigkeit – the impossibility of escape or release from a labyrinth of false trails and frustrated hopes.

Barnabas was about as tall as K., and yet he seemed to look down on him; but this was done almost with humility, it was impossible that this man could make anyone feel uncomfortable.

One morning when the square was quiet and empty and flooded with light – when had K. ever seen it like that, before or after? – he managed it with surprising ease; he climbed the wall at his first attempt with a small flag gripped between his teeth. Loose stones were still rolling down beneath him when he reached the top. He rammed the flag in, it unfurled in the wind, he looked down and around and over his shoulder at the crosses half-buried in the ground; here, at this moment, no one was greater than he. Then the teacher happened to come by; his angry look had forced him to come down. As he jumped, K. had injured his knee and reached home only with some difficulty; but he had climbed the wall, and it seemed to him at the time that the sense of this triumph would give him support for the rest of his life – not such a foolish notion, for now after many years it came to his aid that snow-bound night as he grasped Barnabas’ arm.

the gentlemen are extremely sensitive; I am quite sure they cannot tolerate the sight of a stranger,

‘you have your secrets, and you don’t want to tell them to someone you only met half an hour ago, who hasn’t had a chance to tell you anything about himself.’ But this turned out to be an ill-advised remark; it was as if he had roused Frieda from a dream in which she was well-disposed towards him.

Then hours went by, hours of breathing as one, of hearts beating as one, hours in which K. could not rid himself of the feeling that he was lost, or that he had strayed into a foreign country where no one had been before him, a country where even the air was completely foreign to him, so foreign that it might suffocate him, so irrationally alluring that he could only go on and lose himself more deeply in it.

She was searching for something and he was searching for something; furious and grimacing, they each buried their head in the other’s breast, their embraces and their heaving bodies could not make them forget, but reminded them of their duty to search; like dogs frantically scratching at the ground each tore at the other’s body and, helplessly frustrated, hungrily licked the other’s face in an attempt to capture one last ecstasy.

‘you are such an intelligent and admirable woman, but every small thing alarms you.

Of course I am ignorant, that is the truth and it is most unfortunate for me; but it also has the advantage that ignorance makes us bolder, and so in the meantime I will gladly put up with my ignorance, and the unfortunate consequences it must have, as long as I still have the strength to do so.

‘I only find it entertaining,’ said K., ‘because it gives me an insight into the absurd confusion that can sometimes determine a person’s existence.’

‘I want no favours from the Castle, only my rights.’

it seemed to K. as if all contact with him had been broken off, as if he were now indeed freer than ever, as if he could wait here in this otherwise forbidden place as long as he wished; as if he had fought for this freedom as few others could have done, as if no one could touch him or drive him away, or even speak to him, and yet at the same time – and this conviction was at least as strong – as if there were nothing more senseless, more desolate than this freedom, this waiting, this invulnerability.

They didn’t talk about us as human beings any more, they didn’t even mention our name; if they had to talk about us they referred to us as the Barnabas family after Barnabas, who was the most innocent of us. Even our cottage got a bad reputation, and if you’re honest with yourself you’ll admit that when you first came in here, you thought what you saw justified their contempt.

Later, when people started coming to see us again occasionally, they turned their noses up at quite trivial things, for instance that the little oil lamp was hanging over the table there. Where else are we supposed to hang it, if not over the table? – but still they found it intolerable. But if we hung the lamp somewhere else it made no difference, they were still disgusted. Everything we were and everything we possessed met with the same contempt.’

So now it had happened; it was predictable, but inevitable.

she may be young but she knew what life was like, and her unhappiness only confirmed what she knew.

‘Well of course,’ said Pepi, ‘you’re in love with Frieda because she’s left you, it’s not difficult to love her when she’s not there.

Yes, spring does come, and summer too, they come round eventually, I suppose; but looking back now, spring and summer seem so short, as if they didn’t last much more than two days, and even on those days, even on the most beautiful days, snow still falls sometimes.’