Collected Stories Page 12

‘The stoker will get what he deserves,’ said the Senator, ‘and what the Captain considers to be right. I think we have had enough and more than enough of the stoker, a view in which every gentleman here will certainly concur.’

  ‘But that’s not the point in a question of justice,’ said Karl. He was standing between his uncle and the Captain, and, perhaps influenced by his position, thought that he was holding the balance between them.

  And yet the stoker seemed to have abandoned hope. His hands were half stuck into the belt of his trousers, which together with a strip of checked shirt had come prominently into view during his excited tirade. That did not worry him in the least; he had displayed the misery of his heart, now they might as well see the rags that covered his body, and then they could thrust him out. He had decided that the attendant and Schubal, as the two least important men in the room, should do him that last kindness. Schubal would have peace then and no longer be driven to desperation, as the Head Purser had put it. The Captain could take on crowds of Roumanians; Roumanian would be spoken all over the ship; and then perhaps things would really be all right. There would be no stoker pestering the head office any more with his ravings, yet his last effort would be held in almost friendly memory, since, as the Senator expressly declared, it had been the direct cause of his recognizing his nephew. The nephew himself had several times tried to help him already and so had more than repaid him beforehand for his services in the recognition scene; it did not even occur to the stoker to ask anything else from him now. Besides, even if he were the nephew of a senator, he was far from being a captain yet, and it was from the mouth of the Captain that the stern verdict would fall. And thinking all this, the stoker did his best not to look at Karl, though unfortunately in that roomful of enemies there was no other resting-place for his eyes.

  ‘Don’t mistake the situation,’ said the Senator to Karl, ‘this may be a question of justice, but at the same time it’s a question of discipline. On this ship both of these, and most especially the latter, are entirely within the discretion of the Captain.’

  ‘That’s right,’ muttered the stoker. Those who heard him and understood smiled uneasily.

  ‘But we have already obstructed the Captain far too long in his official duties, which must be piling up considerably now that he has reached New York, and it’s high time we left the ship, instead of adding to our sins by interfering quite unnecessarily in this petty quarrel between two mechanics and so making it a matter of importance. I understand your attitude perfectly, my dear nephew, but that very fact justifies me in hurrying you away from here immediately.’

  ‘I shall have a boat lowered for you at once,’ said the Captain, without deprecating in the least the Senator’s words, to Karl’s great surprise, since his uncle could be said to have humbled himself. The Head Purser rushed hastily to his desk and telephoned the Captain’s order to the bos’un. ‘There’s hardly any time left,’ Karl told himself, ‘but I can’t do anything without offending everybody. I really can’t desert my uncle now, just when he’s found me. The Captain is certainly polite, but that’s all. In matters of discipline his politeness fades out. And my uncle certainly meant what he said. I don’t want to speak to Schubal; I’m sorry that I even shook hands with him. And the other people here are of no consequence.’

  Thinking these things he slowly went over to the stoker, pulled the man’s right hand out of his belt and held it gently in his.

  ‘Why don’t you say something?’ he asked. ‘Why do you put up with everything?’

  The stoker merely knitted his brows, as if he were seeking some formula for what he had to say. While doing this he looked down at his own hand and Karl’s.

  ‘You’ve been unjustly treated, more than anyone else on this ship; I know that well enough.’ And Karl drew his fingers backward and forward between the stoker’s, while the stoker gazed round him with shining eyes, as if blessed by a great happiness that no one could grudge him.

  ‘Now you must get ready to defend yourself, answer yes and no, or else these people won’t have any idea of the truth. You must promise me to do what I tell you, for I’m afraid, and I’ve good reason for it, that I won’t be able to help you anymore.’ And then Karl burst out crying and kissed the stoker’s hand, taking that seamed, almost nerveless hand and pressing it to his cheek like a treasure which he would soon have to give up. But now his uncle the Senator was at his side and very gently yet firmly led him away.

  ‘The stoker seems to have bewitched you,’ he said, exchanging an understanding look with the Captain over Karl’s head. ‘You felt lonely, then you found the stoker, and you’re grateful to him now; that’s all to your credit, I’m sure. But if only for my sake, don’t push things too far, learn to understand your position.’

  Outside the door a hubbub had arisen, shouts could be heard; it sounded even as if someone were being brutally banged against the door. A sailor entered in a somewhat disheveled state with a girl’s apron tied round his waist. ‘There’s a mob outside,’ he cried, thrusting out his elbows as if he were still pushing his way through a crowd. He came to himself with a start and made to salute the Captain, but at that moment he noticed the apron, tore it off, threw it on the floor and shouted: ‘This is a bit too much; they’ve tied a girl’s apron on me.’ Then he clicked his heels together and saluted. Someone began to laugh, but the Captain said severely: ‘This is a fine state of things. Who is outside?’

  ‘It’s my witnesses,’ said Schubal, stepping forward. ‘I humbly beg your pardon, sir, for their bad behavior. The men sometimes go a bit wild when they’ve finished a voyage.’

  ‘Bring them in here at once!’ the Captain ordered, then immediately turning to the Senator said, politely but hastily: ‘Have the goodness now, Mr. Senator, to take your nephew and follow this man, who will conduct you to your boat. I need hardly say what a pleasure and an honor it has been to me to make your personal acquaintance. I only wish, Mr. Senator, that I may have an early opportunity to resume our interrupted talk about the state of the American fleet, and that it may be again interrupted in as pleasant a manner.’

  ‘One nephew is quite enough for me, I assure you,’ said Karl’s uncle, laughing. ‘And now accept my best thanks for your kindness and good-bye. Besides it isn’t altogether impossible that we’ – he put his arm warmly round Karl – ‘might see quite a lot of you on our next voyage to Europe.’

  ‘That would give me great pleasure,’ said the Captain. The two gentlemen shook hands with each other, Karl barely touched the Captain’s hand in silent haste, for the latter’s attention was already engrossed by the fifteen men who were now being shepherded into the room by Schubal, somewhat chastened but still noisy enough. The sailor begged the Senator to let him lead the way and opened a path through the crowd for him and Karl, so that they passed with ease through ranks of bowing men. It seemed that these good-natured fellows regarded the quarrel between Schubal and the stoker as a joke, and not even the Captain’s presence could make them take it seriously. Karl noticed among them the kitchen-maid Lina, who with a sly wink at him was now tying round her waist the apron which the sailor had flung away, for it was hers.

  Still following the sailor, they left the office and turned into a small passage which brought them in a couple of steps to a little door, from which a short ladder led down to the boat that was waiting for them. Their conductor leapt down into the boat with a single bound, and the sailors in the boat rose and saluted. The Senator was just warning Karl to be careful how he came down, when Karl, as he stood on the top rung, burst into violent sobs. The Senator put his right hand under Karl’s chin, drew him close to him and caressed him with his left hand. In this posture they slowly descended step by step and, still clinging together, entered the boat, where the Senator found a comfortable place for Karl, immediately facing him. At a sign from the Senator the sailors pushed off from the ship and at once began rowing at full speed. They were scarcely a few yards from the ship when Karl made the unexpected discov
ery that they were on the side of the ship toward which the windows of the office looked out. All three windows were filled with Schubal’s witnesses, who saluted and waved in the most friendly way; Uncle Jacob actually waved back and one of the sailors showed his skill by flinging a kiss toward the ship without interrupting the regular rhythm of his rowing. It was now as if there were really no stoker at all. Karl took a more careful look at his uncle, whose knees were almost touching his own, and doubts came into his mind whether this man would ever be able to take the stoker’s place. And his uncle evaded his eye and stared at the waves on which their boat was tossing.

  The Metamorphosis (1915)

  The Metamorphosis

  I

  AS GREGOR SAMSA awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.

  What has happened to me? he thought. It was no dream. His room, a regular human bedroom, only rather too small, lay quiet between the four familiar walls. Above the table on which a collection of cloth samples was unpacked and spread out – Samsa was a commercial traveler – hung the picture which he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed a lady, with a fur cap on and a fur stole, sitting upright and holding out to the spectator a huge fur muff into which the whole of her forearm had vanished!

  Gregor’s eyes turned next to the window, and the overcast sky – one could hear raindrops beating on the window gutter – made him quite melancholy. What about sleeping a little longer and forgetting all this nonsense, he thought, but it could not be done, for he was accustomed to sleep on his right side and in his present condition he could not turn himself over. However violently he forced himself toward his right side he always rolled onto his back again. He tried it at least a hundred times, shutting his eyes to keep from seeing his struggling legs, and only desisted when he began to feel in his side a faint dull ache he had never experienced before.

  Oh God, he thought, what an exhausting job I’ve picked on! Traveling about day in, day out. It’s much more irritating work than doing the actual business in the office, and on top of that there’s the trouble of constant traveling, of worrying about train connections, the bed and irregular meals, casual acquaintances that are always new and never become intimate friends. The devil take it all! He felt a slight itching up on his belly; slowly pushed himself on his back nearer to the top of the bed so that he could lift his head more easily; identified the itching place which was surrounded by many small white spots the nature of which he could not understand and made to touch it with a leg, but drew the leg back immediately, for the contact made a cold shiver run through him.

  He slid down again into his former position. This getting up early, he thought, makes one quite stupid. A man needs his sleep. Other commercials live like harem women. For instance, when I come back to the hotel of a morning to write up the orders I’ve got, these others are only sitting down to breakfast. Let me just try that with my chief; I’d be sacked on the spot. Anyhow, that might be quite a good thing for me, who can tell? If I didn’t have to hold my hand because of my parents I’d have given notice long ago, I’d have gone to the chief and told him exactly what I think of him. That would knock him endways from his desk! It’s a queer way of doing, too, this sitting on high at a desk and talking down to employees, especially when they have to come quite near because the chief is hard of hearing. Well, there’s still hope; once I’ve saved enough money to pay back my parents’ debts to him – that should take another five or six years – I’ll do it without fail. I’ll cut myself completely loose then. For the moment, though, I’d better get up, since my train goes at five.

  He looked at the alarm clock ticking on the chest. Heavenly Father! he thought. It was half-past six o’clock and the hands were quietly moving on, it was even past the half-hour, it was getting on toward a quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not gone off? From the bed one could see that it had been properly set for four o’clock; of course it must have gone off. Yes, but was it possible to sleep quietly through that ear-splitting noise? Well, he had not slept quietly, yet apparently all the more soundly for that. But what was he to do now? The next train went at seven o’clock; to catch that he would need to hurry like mad and his samples weren’t even packed up, and he himself wasn’t feeling particularly fresh and active. And even if he did catch the train he wouldn’t avoid a row with the chief, since the firm’s porter would have been waiting for the five o’clock train and would have long since reported his failure to turn up. The porter was a creature of the chief’s, spineless and stupid. Well, supposing he were to say he was sick? But that would be most unpleasant and would look suspicious, since during his five years’ employment he had not been ill once. The chief himself would be sure to come with the sick-insurance doctor, would reproach his parents with their son’s laziness, and would cut all excuses short by referring to the insurance doctor, who of course regarded all mankind as perfectly healthy malingerers. And would he be so far wrong on this occasion? Gregor really felt quite well, apart from a drowsiness that was utterly superfluous after such a long sleep, and he was even unusually hungry.

  As all this was running through his mind at top speed without his being able to decide to leave his bed – the alarm clock had just struck a quarter to seven – there came a cautious tap at the door behind the head of his bed. ‘Gregor,’ said a voice – it was his mother’s – ‘it’s a quarter to seven. Hadn’t you a train to catch?’ That gentle voice! Gregor had a shock as he heard his own voice answering hers, unmistakably his own voice, it was true, but with a persistent horrible twittering squeak behind it like an undertone, which left the words in their clear shape only for the first moment and then rose up reverberating around them to destroy their sense, so that one could not be sure one had heard them rightly. Gregor wanted to answer at length and explain everything, but in the circumstances he confined himself to saying: ‘Yes, yes, thank you, Mother, I’m getting up now.’ The wooden door between them must have kept the change in his voice from being noticeable outside, for his mother contented herself with this statement and shuffled away. Yet this brief exchange of words had made the other members of the family aware that Gregor was still in the house, as they had not expected, and at one of the side doors his father was already knocking, gently, yet with his fist. ‘Gregor, Gregor,’ he called, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ And after a little while he called again in a deeper voice: ‘Gregor! Gregor!’ At the other side door his sister was saying in a low, plaintive tone: ‘Gregor? Aren’t you well? Are you needing anything?’ He answered them both at once: ‘I’m just ready,’ and did his best to make his voice sound as normal as possible by enunciating the words very clearly and leaving long pauses between them. So his father went back to his breakfast, but his sister whispered: ‘Gregor, open the door, do.’ However, he was not thinking of opening the door, and felt thankful for the prudent habit he had acquired in traveling of locking all doors during the night, even at home.

  His immediate intention was to get up quietly without being disturbed, to put on his clothes and above all eat his breakfast, and only then consider what else was to be done, since in bed, he was well aware, his meditations would come to no sensible conclusion. He remembered that often enough in bed he had felt small aches and pains, probably caused by awkward postures, which had proved purely imaginary once he got up, and he looked forward eagerly to seeing this morning’s delusions gradually fall away. That the change in his voice was nothing but the precursor of a severe chill, a standing ailment of commercial travelers, he had not the least possible doubt.

  To get rid of the quilt was quite easy
; he had only to inflate himself a little and it fell off by itself. But the next move was difficult, especially because he was so uncommonly broad. He would have needed arms and hands to hoist himself up; instead he had only the numerous little legs which never stopped waving in all directions and which he could not control in the least. When he tried to bend one of them it was the first to stretch itself straight; and did he succeed at last in making it do what he wanted, all the other legs meanwhile waved the more wildly in a high degree of unpleasant agitation. ‘But what’s the use of lying idle in bed,’ said Gregor to himself.

  He thought that he might get out of bed with the lower part of his body first, but this lower part, which he had not yet seen and of which he could form no clear conception, proved too difficult to move; it shifted so slowly; and when finally, almost wild with annoyance, he gathered his forces together and thrust out recklessly, he had miscalculated the direction and bumped heavily against the lower end of the bed, and the stinging pain he felt informed him that precisely this lower part of his body was at the moment probably the most sensitive.

  So he tried to get the top part of himself out first, and cautiously moved his head toward the edge of the bed. That proved easy enough, and despite its breadth and mass the bulk of his body at last slowly followed the movement of his head. Still, when he finally got his head free over the edge of the bed he felt too scared to go on advancing, for after all if he let himself fall in this way it would take a miracle to keep his head from being injured. And at all costs he must not lose consciousness now, precisely now; he would rather stay in bed.

  But when after a repetition of the same efforts he lay in his former position again, sighing, and watched his little legs struggling against each other more wildly than ever, if that were possible, and saw no way of bringing any order into this arbitrary confusion, he told himself again that it was impossible to stay in bed and that the most sensible course was to risk everything for the smallest hope of getting away from it. At the same time he did not forget to remind himself occasionally that cool reflection, the coolest possible, was much better than desperate resolves. In such moments he focused his eyes as sharply as possible on the window, but, unfortunately, the prospect of the morning fog, which muffled even the other side of the narrow street, brought him little encouragement and comfort. ‘Seven o’clock already,’ he said to himself when the alarm clock chimed again, ‘seven o’clock already and still such a thick fog.’ And for a little while he lay quiet, breathing lightly, as if perhaps expecting such complete repose to restore all things to their real and normal condition.