Das Urteil, Kafka

“The Sentence” by Franz Kafka

(I made this translation, with much assistance from my highly recommended German tutor, Patricia)

It was on a Sunday morning in the prettiest spring. Georg Bendemann, a young merchant was sitting in his private room on the first floor of one of the short, flimsily-constructed houses which dragged on alongside the river in a long row, differing almost exclusively in height and color. He had just finished a letter to a childhood friend who was living abroad, sealed it in playfull slowness, and then looked, his elbow leaned on the desk, out the window over the river, at the bridge, and the small hill on the other bank with its light greenery.

He thought about how his friend, unhappy with his life at home, had literally escaped to Russia years ago already. Now he was running a shop in Petersburg, that at the beginning had started out very well, but had seemed to have already been stagnating for a long time, as his friend complained during his visits that were becoming less and less. So he was toiling abroad uselessly, his strange looking beard only poorly covered his familiar childhood face, the yellow skin of which seemed to indicate a developing sickness.

As he had told, he did not have a real bond with his countrymen’s community there, but he also almost did not interact with local families, and so he was preparing himself for an eternal bachelorhood.

What were you to write to such a man, who had obviously gotten on the wrong track, whom you felt sorry for but whom you were not able to help. Should you perhaps suggest to him that he come again, transfer his life here, reconnect with his old friends again — for which there was no obstacle — and to trust in the help of his friends for the rest?

But that meant nothing else than telling him at the same time, the softer the more offending, that until now his attempts have failed, that he shall finally desist from them, that he has to return and let the others gape at him with big eyes as someone forever returned, that only his friends are competent and that he is an old child that simply has to obey his successful friends that have stayed at home. And then was it still certain that all the suffering that one would have to cause him would have a point?

Perhaps you would not even manage to bring him home at all — he himself said that he would not understand the affairs of his home anymore — and so, in spite of everything, he would then remain in his foreign land, embittered from the advice, and from his friends a bit more estranged.

But if here really followed the advice and here would — of course not intentionally, but due to the circumstances — be oppressed; he would not understand his friends, and would not understand the world without them; would suffer humiliation; would now really be without homeland and without friends anymore; was it then not better for him that he remain in his foreign land the way he was? Under such circumstances could you then think of this, that he could actually advance his life here? For these reasons you could not really send real messages to him if you wanted to maintain correspondence at all, as you would make them without timidity even to your furthest acquaintance.

His friend had not been in his homeland for over three years already, and he explained this very poorly with the unstable political conditions in Russia, which accordingly would not allow for even the shortest absence of a small businessman, while hundreds of thousands of Russians quietly toured the world. In the course of these last three years much had changed, but especially for George.

Of the death of George’s mother, which occurred about two years before, and since which George lived with his old father in the same household, the friend had yet apparently learned and expressed condolence in a letter with a dryness that could have its explanation only in that in such a far away place the sorrow of such an event was unimaginable.

But now since that time George had, just like everything else, tackled his work as well with more determination. Perhaps his father had hindered him from his own real activity during his mother’s lifetime by accepting only his own opinion; perhaps his father since the death of his mother, though he still worked in the business, had become more reserved; perhaps lucky circumstances played a far more important role — which was actually very probable — but however, the business had in these two years completely unexpectedly developed: you had to double the personnel, the turnover had quintupled, further progress was certainly imminent.

But the friend had no idea about this change.

Previously, perhaps last time in that letter of condolence, he had wanted to persuade George to emigrate to Russia, and expatiated about the possibilities that existed especially for George’s line of business in Petersburg. The numbers were very low compared to the level that George’s business had now reached. But George had not wanted to write to his friend about his success in business, and if he had done it belatedly, it really would have appeared strange. So George confined himself to writing to his friend always only about unimportant occurrences as they build up randomly in memory when one reflects on a quiet Sunday. He wanted nothing else than to disturb the image of the hometown which the friend had probably made in the long meantime, and which he had resigned himself to.

So it happened that George reported the engagement of an indifferent man with an indifferent girl three times to his friend in rather widely spread out letters, until then indeed the friend, completely against George’s intention, began to be interested in this curiosity. But George prefered writing such things to him over admitting that he himself had gotten engaged one month ago to a Miss Frieda Brandenfeld, a girl from a wealthy family. He often spoke with his fiancé about this friend and the special relationship of correspondence that he had with him.

“So he will not come to our wedding at all,” she said, “and I have the right to meet all your friends.”

“I do not want to trouble him,” answered George, “understand me correctly, he would probably come, at least I think so, but he would feel forced and damaged, perhaps envious of me and — dissatisfied and unable to ever eliminate this dissatisfaction — he would go back alone. Alone — do you know what that is?”

“Yes, can he not learn of our marriage in another way?”

“That I indeed cannot prevent, but it is unlikely with his way of life.”

“If you have such friends, George, you should not have gotten engaged at all.” 

“Yes, it is both our faults; but I also did not want it any other way.”

And when she, breathing quickly under his kisses, still pleaded, “Still, it actually offends me,” he held it harmless, telling everything to the friend.

“So I was, and so he had to put up with me,” he said, “I cannot cut people out, who perhaps were convenient for friendship, as if I am it.” 

And in fact he reported to his friend in a long letter that he wrote to him on this Sunday morning, that the engagement happened, with the following words: 

“I’ve saved the best news for last. I have engaged a Miss Frieda Brandenfeld, a girl from a wealthy family, who first had settled in here long after your departure, who therefore you could hardly know. There will still be an opportunity to tell you all the details about my bride; today it shall suffice that I am quite happy and that our respective relationship has changed insofar as you will have in me instead of a completely ordinary friend, a happy friend. In addition you receive in my bride, who sends cordial salutations and who will write to you soon herself, a sincere friend, which is not entirely without significance for a bachelor. I know that many reasons keep you from visiting us, but would not my marriage be the right opportunity to throw all your obstacles onto a heap? But however this may be, act without any consideration and only according to your best judgement.”

George was sitting at his desk for a long time with this letter in his hand, his face turned towards the window. He had barely answered an acquaintance, who had greeted him from the alley while he was passing, with a passing smile. Finally he put the letter into his pocket and went out of his room and across a small hallway into his father’s room, in which he had not been for months now.

There was as well no need for it otherwise, because he was always dealing with his father in business, the had lunch together in an eating house, they each ate as they wanted to in the evenings, but most of the time they sat — if George was not, as was most often the case, together with friends or now was visiting his bride — for a little while, each with his newspaper, in the common living room. 

George was astonished at how dark his father’s room was even on this sunny morning. Apparently such a shadow was cast by the high wall that rose at the other side of the small courtyard. The father sat by the window in a corner, which was decorated with various keepsakes of his blessed mother, and was reading the newspaper, which he held laterally in front of his eyes, whereby he seeked to compensate for any ocular deficiencies. On the table was the leftovers of breakfast, of which not much seemed to be consumed.

“Ah, George!” said his father and he went immediately towards him. His heavy nightgown while he was walking, the ends fluttered around him — “my father is still a giant,” said George to himself. 

“It’s unbearably dark here,” he said then.

“Yes, it’s dark indeed,” answered his father.

“You’ve also closed the window?”

“I prefer it that way.” 

“It is very warm outside,” George said, as if lagging to his previous statement, and sat down.

His father cleared the breakfast dishes and put them onto a box.

“I actually only wanted to tell you,” George went on, who was completely lost in following the movements of the old man, “that I have informed Petersburg about my engagement.” He pulled his letter a little out of his pocket and let it slip back in again.

“To Petersburg?” asked his father?

“To my friend of course,” said George and he searched for his father’s eyes. “In business, he is completely different,” he thought, “the way he is sitting here spread out, crossing his arms over his chest.”

“Yes. To your friend,” his father said with emphasis.

“You know father, that initially I wanted to conceal my engagement from him. Out of consideration, for no other reason. You know, he is a difficult person. I said to myself, he can probably learn of my engagement from a third party, even though that is hardly probable with his lonely lifestyle — I cannot prevent that — but from me however, he shall not learn it. 

“And now you have thought otherwise about it?” his father asked, putting his large newspaper on the windowsill and his glasses on the newspaper, which he covered with his hand.

“Yes, I have now thought it over again. If he is my good friend, I said, then my happy engagement is also happiness for him. And therefore, I am no longer hesitating to tell him. But before I have mailed the letter, I wanted to tell you.”

“George,” said his father, and he stretched his toothless mouth wide, “listen! You have come to me because of this thing, to consult with me. This without a doubt dignifies you. But it is nothing, it is worse than nothing if you are not now telling me the whole truth. I do not want to stir anything that does not belong here. Ever since the death of our dearest mother, certain ugly things have happened. Perhaps the time is also coming for them and perhaps it comes earlier than we think. In business many things escape me, they are perhaps not hidden from me — I really don’t want to make the assumption now that they are hidden from me — I’m not strong enough anymore, my memory is fading, I no longer have an eye for all these many things. This is the way of nature, and secondly, the death of our mommy has beat me down much more than you.  But because we are dealing with this thing right now, about this letter, I ask you, George, don’t deceive me. It is a small thing, it is not worthy of breath, so don’t deceive me. Do you really have this friend in Petersburg?”

George stood up, embarrassed. “Let my friends be. A thousand friends do not replace my father. Do you know what I think? You do not rest enough. But age demands its rights. You are indispensable to me in business, you know that very well, but if the business should threaten your health, I will close it tomorrow forever. That is not acceptable. We must pull you into another way of life. From the ground up. You sit here in the dark, and you would have the best light in the living room. You nip from your breakfast instead of properly nourishing yourself. You sit here with a closed window, and the air would do you so good. No, my father! I will call you a doctor and we will follow his instructions. We will swap our rooms, you will move into the front room, I into here. But there is time for all of that, now go lay down in bed for a while, you need rest above all. Come, I will help you undress, you will see, I can do it. Or if you want to go immediately into the front room, then you’ll lay down temporarily in my bed. That would be by the way very reasonable.”

George was standing closely next to his father, who had let his head with its shaggy white hair fall onto his chest.

“George,” said his father quietly, without movement.

George immediately kneeled down next to his father; he saw the pupils of his father’s tired face that were oversized in the corners of his eyes focusing on him. 

“You do not have any friend in Petersburg. You have always been a jokester, and you have not restrained yourself from me. How should you have a friend right there! I really can’t believe that.”

“Think again father,” said George, lifting his father from the armchair and taking off his bathrobe, as he was after all standing rather weakly, “now it will soon be three years since my friend was visiting with us. I remember that you didn’t like him.

“I have disavowed him at least twice before you, despite him sitting right with me in the room. I could of course understand your antipathy towards him fairly well; my friend has his peculiarities. But then again, you have also conversed with him fairly well. I was so proud of you at the time, that you listened to him, nodded and queried (asked questions). If you think about it you must remember. At the time, he was telling unbelievable stories about the Russion Revolution. Like, for example, how on a business trip, during a riot in Kiev, he had seen a cleric on a balcony who had cut a wide cross made of blood into the flat of his hand, raised his hand, and appealed to the crowd. You yourself have retold this story here and there.”

Meanwhile George was managing to sit his father down again and to undress him carefully from his jogging pants, which he wore over his linen slip, as well as from his socks. 

At the sight of not very clean underwear, he reproached himself for having neglected his father. It would surely have been his responsibility to watch over his father’s change of underwear as well.

He had not yet explicitly spoken with his bride about this, how they wanted to arrange the future of his father, for they had silently assumed that his father would remain alone in his old home. Now he decided shortly with full determination to take his father with him into his future household. It seemed almost, if you watched closely, that the care which his father should be afforded there could have come late. 

He carried his father into bed on his arms. He had a horrible feeling when he noticed during the few steps towards the bed that his father would play with his watch chain on his chest. He was not able to lay him quickly into bed, so tightly he held onto his watch chain.

Hardly was he in bed though; everything seemed good. He blanketed himself and then pulled the duvet very far over his shoulder. He looked up at George, not unfriendly. 

“You remember him, no?” George asked and nodded encouragingly to him.

“I am now well covered up?” asked the father, as if he could not check on whether his feet were covered enough. 

“So you like it in bed already?” said George, and he placed the duvet better around him.

“Am I well covered?”, asked his father once again and he seemed to look out for the answer very attentively.

“Don’t worry, you are well covered.”

“No!” cried his father, so that the answer kicked against the question, threw back the blanket with such a strength that it was entirely unfolded for a moment in flight, and stood upright in bed. Only a hand held him lightly onto the ceiling. “You wanted to cover me up, you rascal, I know that, but I have not yet been covered up. And be it as well my last strength, enough for you, too much for you. I know your friend well. He would be a son after my heart. Therefore you have duped him all these years.”

“What else? Do you think I have not wept for him? You are shutting yourself away in your office, the boss is busy, nobody should disturb him, for this: only so that you can write your false letters to Russia. But luckily nobody has to teach the father to see through his son. As you now have believed you would have gotten him so down that you can sit your behind on him and he will not budge, at that moment my dear son had decided to get married!”

George looked at the nightmarish image of his father. His friend from Petersburg, whom his father suddenly knew so well, seized him like never before. He saw him lost in far away Russia. He saw him at the door of his empty, robbed shop. Between the ruins of the shelves, the goods in tatters, the gas lines collapsed, he stood right there. Why did he have to go so far away!

“But look at me!” cried his father, and George ran, almost distracted, to the bed, to grasp everything, but he stopped in the middle of the way.

“Because she raised her skirts,” his father began to flute, “because she raised her skirts like that, the disgusting goose,” and he lifted, so as to illustrate, his shirt so high that you could see the scar on his thigh from his war years, “because she lifted her skirts so and so and so, you approached her, and so that you could satisfy your desires without being disturbed, you have defiled the memory of our mother, betrayed your friend, and stuck your father in bed, so that he could not move. But he can move, no?”

And he stood completely free and kicked his legs. He radiated from insight.

George was standing in a corner, as far as possible from his father. A long while ago he had firmly decided to observe everything with the utmost attention so that he could not somehow be surprised from behind, from above. Now he again remembered his long-forgotten resolution and forgot it, like you pull a short thread through the eye of a needle. 

“But your friend is now not betrayed!” yelled his father, and his forefinger that was moving back and forth emphasized it. “I was his representative on the spot.”

“Comedian!” George could not keep from saying. He realized the damage at once, and bit his tongue only too late — his eyes frozen — so that he buckled from the pain.

“Yes, of course, I have been playing a comedy! Good word! What other consolation remained for your old widowed father? Say — and for the moment of the answer, still be my living son — what remained for me, in my back room, followed by disloyal personnel, old through the bones? And my son went cheering through the world, closed deals which I had prepared, he bent over backwards, overjoyed, and went away from before his father with the straight face of a gentleman! Do you believe I would not have loved you, I, from whom you are descended?”

“Now he will bend forward,” thought George,” if he would fall and crash!” This word whizzed through his head.

His father leaned forward, but did not fall. Since George did not come closer, as he had expected, he got up again.

“Stay where you are, I don’t need you! You think you still have the strength to come here and you would only back off, because you want it like that. To that you are not mistaken. I am still the much stronger one. Alone, I perhaps would have had to back off, but our mother has given me her strength. I have connected with your friend superbly, I have your clientele here in my pocket!”

“He even has pockets in his shirt!” George said to himself and thought he could ruin his reputation in the whole world with this statement.He thought that for only a moment, because he kept forgetting everything.

“Only link arms with your bride and come towards me! I will sweep her away from your side, you won’t know how!”

George grimaced, as if he would not believe it. His father only nodded into George’s corner, assuring what he said was the truth.

“How you have entertained me today, when you came and asked whether you should write your friend about your engagement. He knows everything, stupid boy, he knows everything! I wrote to him, because you had forgotten to take my writing utensils away from me. Because of this he has not come for years, he already knows everything a hundred times better than you yourself, he crumples your letters unread in his left hand, while he would hold my letters to read in his right!”

He swung his arm with enthusiasm over his head. “He knows everything a thousand times better!” he cried. 

“Ten thousand times!” said George, so as to ridicule his father, but still in his mouth the words received a deadly serious tone. 

“I have already looked out for years that you would come with this question! Do you think anything else matters to me? Do you think I read the newspapers? Here!” and he chucked a page of the news at George, that somehow had been carried into bed. An old newspaper, with a name already entirely unbeknownst to George.

“How long did you hesitate before you became mature! Your mother had to die, she could not experience the day of joy, your friend is going to the dogs in his Russia, already three years ago he was so yellow as to be thrown away, and I, you of course see how things are with me. You have eyes for this!”

“So you have lied in wait for me!” cried George.

As an afterthought, his father said pitifully, “You probably wanted to say that earlier. Now it is really no longer suitable.” 

And louder: “Hence now you know what existed besides you; until now you knew only about you! You were an innocent child actually, but you were actually even more a devilish person — and therefore, for these reasons, know: I now sentence you to death by drowning!”

George felt driven from the room, the blow with which his father fell onto the bed he still carried in his ears. He hurried on the stairs, over the steps like over an inclined surface, he surprised his servant, who intended to go up to tidy the apartment after night. “Jesus!” she cried and hid her face with her apron, but he was already off. He jumped out the gate, it chased him over the road to the water. He was already holding the handrail like a hungry man to food. He swung over like the excellent gymnast he had been in his youth to the pride of his parents. He was still holding on with weakening hands, espied a bus between the handrail which easily would drown out his fall, he cried softly: “Dear Parents, I have always loved you,” and he let himself fall down.

In this moment, an almost endless traffic was going over the bridge.