Kafka's story "In the Correctional Colony" was written in 1914 and, together with two other famous stories ("The Sentence", "The Metamorphosis"), was included in a collection called "Kara".

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) - German-speaking writer, whose work became the brightest phenomenon in the literature of the early XX century. However, his prose is not easy to read - it is unusual, combines features of realism and fantasy, full of absurdity and grotesque.

Personality and destiny

Literary creativity, which was for the writer, as he himself said, "the justification of existence", did not bring him either fame or money during his lifetime. Most of his works were published only after the death of the author.

And the fate of Kafka was not easy - difficult relations with family, work that he hated and which he did well (he was a leading specialist, and his bosses did not even want to fire him due to illness), self-doubt, asceticism and alienation in relationships with others. Several times Kafka was in love, but was never able to start a family. He was haunted by illnesses, which led to an early death.

The writer called himself "an absolutely awkward bird" (after all, kavka in Czech means "jackdaw"). And he continued autocharacteristic:

My wings are dead. And now for me there is neither height nor distance. Confused, I jump among people ... I am gray as ash. Jackdaw eager to hide among the stones.

It is no coincidence that fear has become the common theme of Franz Kafka's books. This is the horror of a person before the cruelty and soullessness of the external world, especially since this world is often represented by some impersonal authoritative forces, bureaucratic machines - mechanisms in their essence. Moreover, the circumstances of the characters' lives and the difficulties that come with it are so incredible and absurd that most often the heroes of Kafka's prose are not able to evoke either sympathy or pity from the reader. A general feeling of alienation, loneliness, vague anxiety, fear - this is what determines the mood of the reader of Kafkaesque prose.

In the article, we will briefly dwell on the analysis of "In the correctional colony" by Kafka, we will give a summary of the plot, we will tell about the characters in the story.

Start

A scientist-traveler comes to a certain correctional colony, to whom the commandant of the colony offered to be present at the execution of one soldier convicted of disobedience to the authorities. This event, in general, is an ordinary one, and no one is particularly interested. And the Traveler himself accepted the invitation more out of politeness than out of curiosity.

The punishment is carried out by a special machine, which was invented by the former old commandant of the colony.

Most of the story is a monologue of the Officer, who explains to the guest the principles of the machine and its structure. The officer, who was once a friend of the former commandant, was so imbued with the construction and debugging of this apparatus that it became a part of his life as well. Now he talks about the mechanism, explaining all the subtleties of its device, with love and knowledge of the matter. This device, even in the eyes of an inexperienced traveler in mechanics, however, is not very difficult:

The sunbed and the scriber were the same area and looked like two dark boxes. The scriber was reinforced two meters higher than the sunbed and was connected to it at the corners by four brass rods, which were just beaming in the sun. A harrow hung between the boxes on a steel cable.

The harrow is, in fact, entrusted with the execution of the sentence.

The machine, lowering, with the help of special teeth scratches the inscription on the body of the convict - this is the commandment, the fulfillment of which he neglected, committing a crime. Then the body is displaced or turned over, and the same procedure is performed in a different place. The torture continues for twelve hours, until the convicted person dies.

In enough detail so that one can imagine how creepy it is, the Officer explains the essence of the work that the mechanism produces:

There is a short one near each long tooth. The long one writes, and the short one releases water to wash away the blood and keep the writing legible. The bloody water is discharged along the grooves and flows into the main gutter, and from there through the drain pipe into the pit.

So she writes deeper and deeper for twelve hours. For the first six hours, the convict lives almost the same as before, he only suffers from pain.

The Officer's speech is calm and business-like - this is how an auto mechanic would talk about the device of a car. Its greatest value is the sheets with drawings of the car, made by the hand of the Former Commandant. He shows them to the Traveler without even handing them over.

Legal proceedings

Further explanations from the Traveler, who at first, due to the scorching sun and the inability to concentrate, listened inattentively, suddenly arouse keen interest.

The words spoken by the Officer about the legal proceedings that are accepted in these places seem incredible.

He reports that, despite his youth, he fulfills the duties of a judge here. Yes, like the former commandant, the officer is now in the colony - a judge, a designer, and a mechanic. And, according to him, when passing the verdict, he adheres to the rule:

Guilt is always undeniable

It seems completely impossible from the point of view of both the Traveler and the reader, the fact that the convicted person does not know either that he is convicted or his sentence. It also lacks the ability to defend itself. The officer explains this quite calmly:

It would be useless to announce the verdict to him. After all, he recognizes with his own body.

That is, by reading the inscription scratched by the machine on your skin.

Batman crime

The fault of the soldier, who now stood nearby, awaiting his punishment, was as follows: serving as the captain's orderly, he had to salute every hour, day and night, in front of this officer's door. But the soldier slept. And when the captain, finding him asleep, hit him in the face with a whip, he

grabbed his master by the legs, began to shake him and shout: "Drop the whip, or I'll kill him!"

The captain appeared before the judge, who was quick to pronounce the verdict. The batman was chained. Now the inscriptions "Honor your boss!" Will appear on his body.

And the investigation, according to the Officer, would inevitably lead to confusion and delays: after all, a careless soldier, if they began to interrogate him, would lie and dodge. And being exposed in a lie, he would invent a new lie in place of the old one.

Execution as a sight

And once, the Officer recalls, each execution was an event in these places. A large society was going to see how the execution is carried out:

Already the day before the execution, the whole valley was filled with people; everyone came for such a spectacle, the commandant with his ladies appeared early in the morning, fanfares woke up the camp, I gave a report that everything was ready, the assembled - none of the high officials had the right to be absent - sat around the car. ... The polished car sparkled ... In full view of hundreds of people, the commandant personally laid the convict under the harrow.

Two hours later, - said the Officer, - rice porridge was put into a bowl at the head of the bed with the criminal. Her

the convicted person can lick his tongue if he wishes. Nobody neglects this opportunity.

But at six o'clock the person being executed usually lost his appetite. It was then, according to the Officer, that he sat down and watched the "insight" come:

But how the criminal calms down at the sixth hour! The enlightenment of thought also occurs in the most dull ones. It starts around the eyes. And from here it spreads. This sight is so tempting that you yourself are ready to lie down next to you under the harrow. In fact, nothing new is happening anymore, the convict simply begins to disassemble the inscription, he concentrates, as if listening.

There were so many who wanted to take a close look at this, according to the Officer's story, that there was no way to satisfy them all. But on how justice triumphs, first of all, by order of the commandant, children were allowed to see.

The delighted words of the Officer about how greedily all the spectators were catching

the expression of enlightenment on the tortured face, as they substituted faces for the radiance of this finally achieved and already disappearing justice,

Exclaiming "Oh, what were those times, buddy!", The heartfelt Officer even hugged the Traveler and laid his head on his shoulder.

In the end, after another six hours, the harrow pierced the prisoner completely and threw him into the pit.

Talk

and such a mechanized execution of the sentence, in particular,

nevertheless, he offers the Traveler a plan in order to change the attitude of the new commandant towards him. At a meeting to be held the next day, he asks the guest to speak out in support of both the executions and the infernal machine. In fact, in support of the old commandant.

It is interesting that the Officer does not in the least doubt the consent of the guest, and his refusal sounds to him like a bolt from the blue. Moreover, the Traveler promised to express to the new Commandant his negative attitude towards local legal proceedings.

Interchange

After refusing to help, the Officer does something unexpected: he releases the convict and again pulls out the drawings of the Old Commandant from his pocket. "Be fair!" - written there on one of the sheets. Then he climbs onto the car, puts a sheet with this commandment into the mechanism that produces the inscriptions, undresses, while throwing his uniform with aiguillettes and a dagger into the pit, and lies down on the lounger. The soldier who guarded the convict and the convict himself tie him up.

And then the incomprehensible happens: the machine turns on by itself. The bed starts to vibrate, the harrow rises and falls, the teeth hurt the skin.

The convicted person, who did not understand a word from past conversations (since the Officer communicated with the Traveler in a language that was unfamiliar to him), decides that the forthcoming punishment of the Officer is revenge for him, the convicted, from the Traveler. Therefore, the former batman smiles gleefully at what is happening.

The traveler wanted to drive the soldier and the former convict from the place of the Officer's suicide act, but then the hood of the car opens by itself and gears begin to fall out of it. The harrow stops writing, it only pushes the body deeper onto the tines. This is no longer slow torture, but murder. The body, pierced through, hangs over the pit.

In a coffee shop

The final page of Kafka's story "In the Correctional Colony" describes how the Soldier and the Convict led the Traveler to the place where the Former Commandant was buried. Since the priest refused him a place in the cemetery, he was buried under one of the tables in an old coffee house.

The foreign visitor could even see the tombstone.

It was a simple rock, low enough for the table to hide. An inscription was made on it in very small letters. The traveler had to kneel down to read it. The caption read: “Here lies the old commandant. His supporters, who now cannot give their names, dug this grave for him and put this stone. There is a prediction that after a certain number of years the commandant will resurrect and lead his supporters to reclaim the colony from this house. Believe and wait! "

To those around, this inscription and prediction seem funny.

The traveler goes to the port to take a boat and leave the island where the colony is located. The Soldier and the Condemned would like to sail with him, but they do not have time.

This is the summary of Kafka's "In the Correctional Colony".

Heroes

They do not have common names, since they are extremely functional and are necessary for the author to create a general picture. These characters are the Traveler (he listens), the Officer (gives explanations about the operation of the machine), the Condemned (who will be executed), the Soldier (guarding him). That is, in the story "In a correctional colony" there are only four characters.

It could be added that the Old Commandant of the correctional colony, who was already deceased by the time the events began, is also invisibly present in the narrative.

Interpretation

Franz Kafka's books can hardly be subjected to peremptory interpretation. The same is with this story. For example, let's explain it like this.

The priest, refusing the Former Commandant in a place for burial, expresses a general attitude towards him and his activities. However, executions and tortures continued after the death of this chief. And even the new government, excluding the creation of minor bureaucratic obstacles, can do nothing about it. The order of legal proceedings and punishment seems to have been instituted here once and for all. It is higher than reason and the usual, comprehensible order of things. No one can change it. This is also reported by the inscription on the tombstone.

Thus, the central problem and meaning of "In the penal colony" of Kafka is in the unreasonable, irrational and powerful judicial and legal authorities. Even dying, she reserves the right to resist the new.

Although the brightest in the story is the episode with the self-destruction of the machine. When her owner deliberately went to his death, she began to fall apart too. In the end, she did everything she could for her guardian: instead of suffering, dying for 12 hours, as it always happened before him, the Officer dies quickly.

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Franz Kafka
In a correctional colony

"This is a special kind of apparatus," the officer said to the scientist-traveler, not without admiration looking, of course, at the apparatus he was perfectly familiar with. The traveler, it seemed, only out of politeness, accepted the commandant's invitation to be present at the execution of the sentence passed on one soldier for disobedience and insult to the chief. And in the correctional colony, the impending execution of great interest, apparently, did not arouse. In any case, here, in this small and deep sandy valley, enclosed on all sides by bare slopes, besides the officer and the traveler, there were only two: the condemned - a dull, wide-mouthed fellow with an unkempt head and unshaven face - and a soldier who did not let out of arms of a heavy chain, to which small chains converged, stretching from the ankles and neck of the convict and fastened in addition by connecting chains. Meanwhile, in all the guise of the convict there was such a dog's obedience that it seemed that he could be let go for a walk along the slopes, but one had only to whistle before the start of the execution, and he would appear.

The traveler did not show interest in the apparatus and walked behind the convict, clearly indifferently, while the officer, making final preparations, either climbed under the apparatus, into the pit, or climbed the ladder to inspect the upper parts of the machine. These works could, in fact, be entrusted to some mechanic, but the officer performed them with great diligence - either he was a special adherent of this apparatus, or for some other reason, no one else could be entrusted with this work.

- So that is all! He exclaimed at last and climbed down from the gangplank. He was extremely tired, breathing with his mouth wide open, and two ladies' handkerchiefs were sticking out from under the collar of his uniform.

“These uniforms are perhaps too heavy for the tropics,” said the traveler, instead of inquiring about the apparatus as the officer expected.

“Of course,” said the officer, and began to wash his hands soiled with lubricating oil in a prepared bucket of water, “but this is a sign of our homeland, we do not want to lose our homeland. But look at this apparatus, ”he added immediately, and, wiping his hands with a towel, pointed to the apparatus. - Until now, it was necessary to work manually, but now the apparatus will operate completely independently.

The traveler nodded and looked where the officer was pointing. He wished to insure himself against any accidents and said:

- There are, of course, problems: I hope, it is true, that today things will do without them, but you still need to be ready for them. After all, the device should work for twelve hours without interruption. But if there are any problems, then the most minor, and they will be immediately eliminated ... Would you like to sit down? He asked at last, and, pulling one out of the pile of wicker chairs, offered it to the traveler; he could not refuse.

Now, sitting at the edge of the pit, he glanced in there. The pit was not very deep. On one side of it lay dug earth in a mound, on the other side there was an apparatus.

- I do not know. - said the officer, - has the commandant already explained to you the device of this apparatus?

The traveler waved his hand vaguely; the officer did not need anything else, for now he could begin the explanations himself.

- This device, - he said and touched the connecting rod, on which he then leaned, - the invention of our former commandant. I helped him from the very first experiments, and participated in all the work until their completion. But the merit of this invention belongs to him alone. Have you heard of our former commandant? No? Well, I’m not exaggerating if I say that the structure of this entire correctional colony is his business. We, his friends, knew already at the hour of his death that the structure of this colony was so integral that his successor, even if he had a thousand new plans in his head, would not be able to change the old order at least for many years. And our prediction came true, the new commandant had to admit it. It is a pity that you did not know our former commandant! .. However, - the officer interrupted himself, - I started chattering, and our apparatus - here it is standing in front of us. It consists, as you can see, of three parts. Gradually, each of these parts received a rather colloquial name. The lower part was called a lounger, the upper part was called a scriber, and this one, middle, hanging, was a harrow.

- Harrow? The traveler asked.

He didn’t listen very attentively, the sun was too hot in this shadowless valley, and it was difficult to concentrate. He was even more surprised by the officer, who, although he was wearing a tight, ceremonial uniform, burdened with epaulettes and hung with aiguillettes, gave explanations so zealously and, besides, continuing to speak, no, no, he tightened the nut here and there with a wrench. The soldier, it seems, was in the same condition as the traveler. Having wound the chain of the condemned man on the wrists of both hands, he leaned one of them on the rifle and stood with his head hanging, with the most indifferent look. This did not surprise the traveler, since the officer spoke French, and neither the soldier nor the convict, of course, understood French. But it was all the more striking that the convict still tried to follow the officer's explanations. With a kind of sleepy stubbornness, he kept directing his gaze to where the officer was pointing at that moment, and now, when the traveler interrupted the officer with his question, the condemned, just like the officer, looked at the traveler.

“Yes, with a harrow,” said the officer. - This name is quite suitable. The tines are arranged like a harrow, and the whole thing works like a harrow, but only in one place and is much more intricate. However, now you will understand this. Here, on the lounger, they put the convict ... I will first describe the apparatus, and only then I will proceed to the procedure itself. This will make it easier for you to follow her. In addition, one of the gears in the scriber has sharply sharpened, it screeches terribly when it rotates, and then it is almost impossible to talk. Unfortunately, spare parts are very difficult to obtain ... So this is, as I said, a sunbed. It is completely covered with a layer of cotton wool, you will soon find out its purpose. On this cotton wool, a convict is placed with his stomach down - of course, naked - here are the belts to tie him: for the arms, for the legs and for the neck. Here, at the head of the lounger, where, as I said, the face of the criminal falls first, there is a small felt peg that can be easily adjusted so that it hits the convict right into the mouth. Thanks to this pin, the convict can neither shout nor bite his tongue. The perpetrator, willy-nilly, takes this felt into his mouth, because otherwise the neck strap will break his vertebrae.

- Is it cotton wool? The traveler asked and leaned forward.

“Yes, of course,” said the officer, smiling. - Feel it yourself. He took the traveler's hand and ran it across the lounger. - This cotton wool is prepared in a special way, so it is so difficult to recognize it; I will tell you about its purpose later.

The traveler was already a little interested in the apparatus; Shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, he looked up at the apparatus. It was a large building. The sunbed and the scriber were the same area and looked like two dark boxes. The scriber was reinforced two meters higher than the sunbed and was connected to it at the corners by four brass rods, which were just beaming in the sun. A harrow hung between the boxes on a steel cable.

The officer almost did not notice the traveler's former indifference, but on the other hand, he responded vividly to the interest that had now awakened in him, he even paused his explanations so that the traveler could consider everything without haste and without hindrances. The convict imitated the traveler; since he could not cover his eyes with his hand, he blinked upward with unprotected eyes.

- So, the condemned is lying, - said the traveler and, lounging in an armchair, crossed his legs.

“Yes,” said the officer and, sliding his cap back a little, ran his hand over his flushed face. - Now listen! Both the sunbed and the scriber have an electric battery, in the sunbed - for the sunbed itself, and in the scriber - for the harrow. As soon as the condemned is tied, the lounger is set in motion. It vibrates lightly and very quickly, both horizontally and vertically. You, of course, have seen similar devices in medical institutions, only in our lounger all movements are precisely calculated: they must be strictly coordinated with the movements of the harrow. After all, the execution of the sentence is actually entrusted to the harrow.

- And what is the verdict? The traveler asked.

- You don't know that either? The officer asked in surprise, biting his lips. - Sorry if my explanations are inconsistent, I beg your pardon. Before, explanations were usually given by the commandant, but the new commandant relieved himself of this honorable duty; but what about such a distinguished guest, - the traveler tried to reject this honor with both hands, but the officer insisted on his expression, - that he does not even acquaint such a distinguished guest with the form of our sentence, this is another innovation that ... - He had a curse on his tongue , but he controlled himself and said: - I was not warned about this, I am not to blame. However, better than anyone else, I can explain the nature of our sentences, because here, ”he patted himself on his breast pocket,“ I carry the corresponding drawings, made by the hand of the former commandant.

- By the commandant's own hand? The traveler asked. - Did he combine everything in himself? Was he a soldier, a judge, a designer, a chemist, and a draftsman?

“That's right,” said the officer, nodding his head.

He glanced at his hands inquisitively; they didn't seem clean enough to touch the blueprints, so he went over to the bucket and washed them thoroughly again.

Then he took out a leather wallet and said:

- Our sentence is not harsh. The harrow writes on the body of the condemned the commandment that he violated. For example, this one, - the officer pointed to the convict, - will have an inscription on his body: "Honor your boss!"

The traveler glanced briefly at the condemned man; when the officer pointed at him, he lowered his head and seemed to straighten his ear to the utmost in order to understand at least something. But the movements of his thick, closed lips clearly showed that he did not understand anything. The traveler wanted to ask a lot, but when he saw the convict he only asked:

- Does he know the verdict?

“No,” said the officer and prepared to continue his explanation, but the traveler interrupted him:

- He does not know the verdict, which was delivered to him?

“No,” the officer said, then hesitated for a moment, as if demanding from the traveler a more detailed justification of his question, and then said: “It would be useless to announce the sentence to him. After all, he recognizes with his own body.

The traveler was about to fall silent, when he suddenly felt that the condemned man was looking at him; he seemed to be asking if the traveler approved of the procedure described. Therefore, the traveler, who was already leaning back in his chair, again bent down and asked:

- But what is he generally condemned - at least he knows?

- No, and he does not know this - said the officer and smiled at the traveler, as if expecting some more strange discoveries from him.

“That's how it is,” said the traveler, and ran his hand over his forehead. - But in that case, he still does not know how they reacted to his attempt to defend himself?

“He didn’t have the opportunity to defend himself,” said the officer, and looked away, as if he were talking to himself and did not want to embarrass the traveler with a statement of these circumstances.

“But, of course, he should have been able to defend himself,” said the traveler and got up from his chair.

The officer was afraid that he would have to interrupt his explanations for a long time; he went up to the traveler and took his arm; Pointing with his other hand to the convict, who now, when they paid so much attention to him - and the soldier pulled on the chain - straightened up, the officer said:

- The situation is as follows. I am performing here, in the colony, the duties of a judge. Despite my youth. I helped the former commandant to administer justice, and I know this apparatus better than anyone else. In passing judgment, I adhere to the rule: "Guilt is always undeniable." Other courts cannot follow this rule, they are collegial and subordinate to higher courts. Everything is different with us, at least under the previous commandant it was different. The new one, it is true, is trying to interfere in my affairs, but so far I have been able to repel these attempts and, I hope, will succeed in the future ... You wanted me to explain this case to you; well, it is as simple as any other. This morning a captain reported that this man, assigned to him by an orderly and obliged to sleep under his door, had slept through the service. The fact is that he is supposed to get up every hour, with the striking of the clock, and salute in front of the captain's door. The duty, of course, is not difficult, but necessary, because the orderly who guards and serves the officer must always be on the alert. Last night the captain wished to check whether the batman was carrying out his duty. At exactly two o'clock he opened the door and saw that he, cringing, was asleep. The captain took the whip and slashed it across the face. Instead of getting up and asking for forgiveness, the orderly grabbed his master by the legs, began to shake him and shout: "Drop the whip, or I'll kill him!" Here's the crux of the matter. An hour ago the captain came to me, I wrote down his testimony and immediately pronounced the verdict. Then I ordered the orderly to be chained. It was all very simple. And if I first summoned the orderly and began to interrogate him, there would only be confusion. He would lie, and if I could refute this lie, he would replace it with a new one, and so on. And now he is in my hands, and I will not let him out ... Well, now everything is clear? Time, however, is running out, it would be time to start the execution, and I have not yet explained to you the structure of the apparatus.

He forced the traveler to sit down in the chair again, walked over to the apparatus and began:

- As you can see, the harrow matches the shape of the human body; here is the torso harrow, and here are the leg harrows. Only this small incisor is intended for the head. Is it clear to you?

He bowed graciously to the traveler, ready for the most detailed explanations.

The Traveler frowned at the harrow. The information about the local legal proceedings did not satisfy him. All the same, he kept repeating to himself that after all, this was a penal colony, that special measures were needed here and that military discipline had to be strictly observed. In addition, he pinned some hopes on the new commandant, who, for all his slowness, clearly intended to introduce new legal proceedings, which this narrow-minded officer could not understand. In the course of his thoughts, the traveler asked;

- Will the commandant be present during the execution?

“It’s not exactly known,” said the officer, hurt by this sudden question, and the friendliness disappeared from his face. “That is why we must hurry. I’m sorry, but I’ll even have to shorten the explanation. However, tomorrow, when the apparatus is cleaned (a lot of pollution is its only drawback), I could explain the rest. So, now I will confine myself to the most necessary ... When the convict lies on the bed, and the bed is set in oscillatory motion, a harrow is lowered onto the body of the convict. It automatically adjusts itself so that its teeth barely touch the body; as soon as the tuning is over, this cable is stretched and becomes unbendable, like a barbell. This is where it begins. The uninitiated sees no external difference in our executions. The harrow seems to work the same way. She, vibrating, pricks her body with her teeth, which in turn vibrates thanks to the lounger. So that anyone could check the execution of the sentence, the harrow was made of glass. The fastening of the teeth caused some technical difficulties, but after many experiments, the teeth were still strengthened. We spared no effort. And now everyone can see through the glass how the inscription is applied to the body. Would you like to come closer and see the teeth?

The traveler slowly got up, walked over to the apparatus and bent over the harrow.

“You see,” the officer said, “there are two types of differently located teeth. There is a short one near each long tooth. The long one writes, and the short one releases water to wash away the blood and keep the writing legible. The bloody water is discharged along the grooves and flows into the main gutter, and from there through the drain pipe into the pit.

The officer pointed out the way the water goes with his finger. When, for greater clarity, he picked up an imaginary stream from the steep drain with both handfuls, the traveler raised his head and, groping his hand behind him, backed away to the chair. Then, to his horror, he saw that the condemned man, like him, had followed the officer's invitation to examine the harrow close up. Dragging the sleepy soldier by the chain, he also bent over the glass. It was evident that he, too, hesitantly searched with his eyes for the object that these gentlemen were now examining, and that without explanation he could not find this object. He leaned both to and fro. Again and again he ran his eyes over the glass. The traveler wanted to drive him away, for what he did was probably punishable. But stopping the traveler with one hand, the officer took a clod of earth from the embankment with the other and threw it at the soldier. The soldier, startled, raised his eyes, saw what the condemned man dared, threw the rifle and, resting his heels on the ground, jerked the condemned back so that he immediately fell, and then the soldier began to look downward as he floundered, clattering his chains.

- Put him on his feet! - shouted the officer, noticing that the convict was distracting the traveler too much. Leaning over the harrow, the traveler did not even look at it, but only waited for what would happen to the condemned man.

- Treat him with care! The officer shouted again. Having run around the apparatus, he himself grabbed the convict under the armpits and, although his legs were parting, he put him upright with the help of the soldier.

"Well, now I already know everything," said the traveler when the officer returned to him.

- Except for the most important thing, - he said and, squeezing the traveler's elbow, pointed up: - There, in the scriber, there is a system of gears that determines the movement of the harrow, and this system is installed according to the drawing provided by the court verdict. I also use the drawings of the former commandant. Here they are. ”He took out several sheets of paper from his wallet. - Unfortunately, I cannot give them to you, it is my greatest value. Sit down, I'll show you them from here, and you will see everything well.

He showed the first sheet. The traveler would have been glad to say something in praise, but in front of him there were only maze-like, repeatedly intersecting lines of such density that it was almost impossible to distinguish gaps on paper.

“Read it,” said the officer.

“I can't,” said the traveler.

“But it’s written legibly,” said the officer.

“It's written very skillfully,” the traveler said evasively, “but I can't make out anything.

- Yes, - said the officer and, grinning, hid his wallet, - this is not a recipe for schoolchildren. You need to read it for a long time. In the end, you would have figured it out too. Of course, these letters cannot be simple; after all, they should not kill immediately, but on average after twelve hours; the turning point by calculation is the sixth. Therefore, the inscription in the proper sense of the word must be decorated with many patterns; the inscription as such encircles the body with only a narrow strip; the rest of the space is for patterns. Now can you evaluate the work of the harrow and the whole apparatus? ... Look!

He jumped onto the ladder, turned some kind of wheel, shouted down: "Attention, step aside!" - and everything was in motion. If one of the wheels didn't clang, that would be great. As if embarrassed by this ill-fated wheel, the officer shook his fist at him, then, as if apologizing to the traveler, threw up his hands and hurriedly went down to observe the operation of the apparatus from below. There was also some kind of malfunction, noticeable only to him; he got up again, climbed into the scriber with both hands, then, for the sake of speed, without using the ladder, slid down the bar and loudly, in order to be heard amid this noise, began to shout in the traveler's ear:

- Do you understand the action of the machine? Harrow starts to write; As soon as she finishes the first tattoo on her back, the layer of cotton wool, rotating, slowly rolls her body on her side to give the harrow a new area. Meanwhile, the places inscribed in blood are laid on cotton wool, which, being prepared in a special way, immediately stops the blood and prepares the body for a new deepening of the inscription. These teeth at the edge of the harrow tear off the cotton wool that has adhered to the wounds as the body rolls further and throw it into the pit, and then the harrow comes into action again. So she writes deeper and deeper for twelve hours. For the first six hours, the convict lives almost the same as before, he only suffers from pain. After two hours, the felt is taken out of the mouth, because the criminal no longer has the strength to scream. Here, in this bowl at the head of the bed - it is warmed by electricity - they put warm rice porridge, which the convict can lick with his tongue if he wishes. Nobody neglects this opportunity. In my memory, there was no such case, but I have a great experience. Only at six o'clock does the convict lose his appetite. Then I usually kneel down here and watch this phenomenon. He rarely swallows the last lump of porridge - he will only turn it a little in his mouth and spit it out into the hole. Then I have to bend over, otherwise he will hit me in the face. But how the criminal calms down at the sixth hour! The enlightenment of thought also occurs in the most dull ones. It starts around the eyes. And from here it spreads. This sight is so tempting that you yourself are ready to lie down next to you under the harrow. In fact, nothing new is happening anymore, the convict simply begins to disassemble the inscription, he concentrates, as if listening. You have seen, it is not easy to make out the inscription with your eyes; and our convict dismantles it with his wounds. Of course, this is a lot of work, and it takes him six hours to complete it. And then the harrow completely pierces him and throws him into a hole, where he flops into bloody water and cotton wool. This is where the trial ends, and we, myself and the soldier, bury the body.

Bowing his ear to the officer and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket, the traveler watched the work of the machine. The convict also followed her, but did not understand anything. He stood, bent over a little, and looked at the oscillating teeth, when the soldier, at the officer's signal, cut his shirt and trousers from behind with a knife, so that they fell to the ground; the convict wanted to grab the falling clothes to cover his nakedness, but the soldier lifted him up and shook off the last rags from him. The officer tuned the car, and in the ensuing silence the convict was put under the harrow. The chains were removed, the belts were fixed in their place; at the first moment it seemed almost a relief for the convict. Then the harrow lowered a little more, because this man was very thin. When the teeth touched the convict, a shiver ran through his skin; while the soldier was busy with his right hand, he stretched out his left, not looking where; but that was exactly the direction the traveler was standing in. The officer all the time looked sideways at the traveler, as if trying to determine by the foreigner's face what impression it made on the execution with which he had now at least superficially introduced him.

The strap for the wrist was torn, probably because the soldier had pulled it too tight. Asking the officer for help, the soldier showed him a piece of the belt that had come off. The officer went up to the soldier and said, turning to face the traveler:

- The car is very complex, something can always break or break, but this should not be confusing in the overall assessment. For a belt, by the way, there is a replacement right away - I will use a chain; however, the vibration of the right hand will no longer be so gentle.

- The funds for the maintenance of the car are now very limited. Under the previous commandant, I could freely dispose of the amount allocated specifically for this purpose. There was a warehouse where all kinds of spare parts were available. To be honest, I wasted them downright - I wasted them, of course, before, and not at all now, as the new commandant claims, who is only looking for a reason to abolish the old order. Now he manages the money allocated for the maintenance of the car, and, sending for a new belt, I have to present a torn one as proof, and a new one will arrive only after ten days and certainly of poor quality, useless. And what is it like for me, meanwhile, to drive the car without a belt - it does not bother anyone.

The traveler thought: decisive interference in other people's affairs is always risky. He was neither a resident of this colony, nor a resident of the country to which it belonged. Had he taken it into his head to condemn, let alone disrupt this execution, they would have told him: you are a foreigner, so keep your mouth shut. To this he could not object, on the contrary, he could only add that in this case he is surprised at himself; after all, he travels only with a cognitive purpose, and not at all in order to change the judicial system in foreign countries. But the surroundings were very tempting. The unfairness of the proceedings and the inhumanity of the punishment were beyond doubt. No one could suspect the traveler of self-interest: the convict was neither his acquaintance, nor his compatriot, and indeed he did not dispose to sympathy. The traveler, on the other hand, had recommendations from high institutions, he was received here extremely courteously, and the fact that he was invited to this execution, it seemed, even meant that they were expecting a review of the local justice from him. This was all the more likely that the current commandant, of which he, the traveler, was now fully convinced, was not a supporter of such legal proceedings and was almost hostile to the officer.

Then the traveler heard the cry of an enraged officer. He finally shoved the felt peg into the convict's mouth with difficulty, when suddenly the convict, unable to overcome his nausea, closed his eyes and shook in vomit. The officer hastily jerked him up from the pin in order to turn his head towards the pit, but it was too late - sewage was already flowing through the car.

- The commandant is to blame for everything! - shouted the officer, shaking the barbells in a frenzy. - They foul the car like a pigsty.

With trembling hands, he showed the traveler what had happened.

- After all, I spent hours trying to explain to the commandant that the day before the execution it was necessary to stop the distribution of food. But the supporters of the new, soft course have a different opinion. Before the convict is taken away, the commandant's ladies stuff him with sweets. All his life he ate rotten fish, and now he has to eat sweets. However, this still all right, I would be reconciled to this, but is it really impossible to get a new felt, about which I have been asking the commandant for three months! Is it possible without disgust to take this felt, sucked and bitten before death by a good hundred people, into your mouth?

The condemned man laid his head down, and he looked the most peaceful; the soldier was cleaning the car with the convict's shirt. The officer approached the traveler, who, guessing something, took a step back, but the officer took his hand and pulled him to the side.

- I want to tell you a few words in confidence, - he said, - will you allow me?

- Of course, - answered the traveler, listening to him with lowered eyes.

- This justice and this execution, at which you were lucky to be present, at the present time no longer have open adherents in our colony. I am their only protector and at the same time the only protector of the old commandant. Now I don't even think about the further development of this legal procedure, all my efforts are spent on preserving what is already there. Under the old commandant, the colony was full of his supporters; the power of persuasion that the old commandant possessed, in part I have, but I do not have his power in any way; therefore his supporters hid, there are still many of them, but they are all silent. If you walk into a coffee shop today, on the day of the execution, and listen to the conversations, you will probably hear only ambiguous hints. These are all supporters of the old, but with the current commandant and with his current views, they are of no use, and so I ask you: is it really because of this commandant and his women this is the work of a lifetime, - he pointed to the car, - must perish? Can this be allowed? Even if you are a foreigner and have come to our island for only a few days! And there is no time to waste, something is being done against my judiciary; there are already meetings in the commandant's office, to which I am not invited; even your visit today seems to me indicative of the general situation; they themselves are afraid and first send you, a foreigner ... As it used to be, the execution took place in the old days! Already on the day of the execution, the whole valley was filled with people; everyone came for such a spectacle, the commandant appeared early in the morning with his ladies, fanfares woke up the camp, I gave a report that everything was ready, those gathered - none of the high officials had the right to be absent - were sitting around the car. This pile of wicker chairs is a pitiful remnant from that time. The polished car sparkled, for almost every execution I took new spare parts. In full view of hundreds of people - spectators stood on tiptoe up to those high-rises - the commandant personally laid the convict under the harrow. What a simple soldier does today was then my, the president of the court, an honorable duty. And so the execution began! There have never been any interruptions in the operation of the machine. Some did not even look at the car, but lay with closed eyes on the sand; everyone knew: now justice prevails. In the silence, only the groans of the condemned man were heard, muffled by the felt. Today, the machine no longer manages to squeeze out a moan of such force from a convict that the felt could not drown him, and then the writing teeth released a corrosive liquid, which is now not allowed to be used. Well, then came the sixth hour! It was impossible to satisfy the requests of all who wanted to have a close look. The commandant prudently ordered the children to be admitted first; I, according to my position, of course, always had access to the machine itself; I used to squat over there with a child on each hand. How we caught the expression of enlightenment on our exhausted face, how we exposed our faces to the radiance of this finally achieved and already disappearing justice! What a time it was, buddy!

The officer had clearly forgotten who was standing in front of him; he embraced the traveler and rested his head on his shoulder. The traveler was in great confusion, he looked impatiently past the officer. The soldier finished cleaning the car and dumped some more rice porridge from the tin into the bowl. As soon as the convict, who seemed to have fully recovered, noticed this, he began to reach out with his tongue for the porridge. The soldier kept pushing him away, the porridge was apparently intended for a later time, but, of course, it was also a violation of order that the soldier threw his dirty hands into the porridge and ate it in front of the hungry convict.

"In a correctional colony" you can recall the summary of the story in 7 minutes.

"In the correctional colony" summary

The main characters in Kafka's story do not have names:

• Traveler
• an officer
• New commandant
• Convicted
• Soldier

The story is about a Traveler who arrives at a penal colony on a remote island. and sees a cruel car for the first time. All information about the machine for executions and its purpose is given to him by an officer.

He is offered to attend the execution of the guilty soldier. A simple, somewhat simple-minded soldier, was appointed a servant and was allegedly rebellious for his master, should be killed by a car with the words "Honor your boss."

Execution usually consisted of placing the convicted person in a "special kind of apparatus" for executions. The device works according to the following principle: it scratches out the commandment he has violated on the human body, then turns it over to the other side and scratches out the same words again, only deeper, and so on until the guilty person dies. The culprit dies slowly over 12 hours

The officer is a supporter of the apparatus and considers it necessary. However, since the death of the old commandant, this punishment has found more and more opponents and a new commandant among them.

The Officer asks the Traveler to speak with the current Commandant and support him at the colony command meeting, but the Traveler refuses.

Then the officer frees the Condemned and goes to the execution machine himself. However, the machine is malfunctioning and instead of the usual elegant operation, it quickly kills the officer.

After this grisly spectacle of the self-destruction of a man and a machine, the traveler, accompanied by two soldiers, visits the grave of the old commander, who invented this execution machine. The headstone is set very low, and the inscription states that his followers believe that one day he will rise from the dead and take control of the colony again.

The traveler leaves the island.

Franz Kafka David Claude

X "Trial" and "In a correctional colony"

"Trial" and "In a correctional colony"

In Lubeck, Kafka seems to meet again by chance with Ernst Weiss and his girlfriend, the actress Rachel Sanzara. The couple takes him to Marielist, a resort place on the shores of the Baltic Sea, where he spends ten days. Ernst Weiss, who has a suspicious character, is prone to jealousy, and quarrels often arise between spouses. The hotel is mediocre, there are no vegetables or fruits on the menu. Kafka is about to leave immediately, but his usual indecision prevails, and he is left without much pleasure. A few days later, recalling his stay in Denmark, he will write in his Diary: "I continue to become increasingly unable to think, observe, notice, remember, speak, take part, I am stunned."

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that he fell into despair. On the contrary, the break with Felitsa, most likely final, freed him from the obsession with getting married. From Marielist, he writes to Max Brod and Felix Welch, informing them about the events: "I know perfectly well that everything turned out for the best, and in relation to this so obviously necessary matter, I do not suffer as much as it might seem." He also writes to his parents that the breakup of the engagement seems to him a favorable moment for the implementation of a long-standing plan: to end the gloomy life of a functionary that he leads in Prague, to go to Germany and try to earn his living with his pen; he has five thousand crowns in his pocket, which will allow him to hold out for two years.

On July 26, on the way back, he drives through Berlin, where he meets Erna Bauer. The day after arriving in Prague, he continues to make notes about the trip in the Diary. July 29th writes the first two rough sketches, which will be the starting point of the "Process". In the first, Joseph K., the son of a wealthy merchant, quarrels with his father, who reproaches him for his disorderly life; he goes to the merchants' club, where the gatekeeper bows before him; this character is present from the very beginning, its meaning will be revealed later. In the second draft, a commercial employee is shamefully expelled by the owner, who accuses him of stealing: the employee declares his innocence, but he is lying, he really stole a five-florin ticket from the box office himself, not knowing why. It was a petty theft, which, no doubt, should have, according to the narrator's plan, many consequences.

Kafka did not use this first sketch, probably thinking that by leaving his hero with guilt, even the most harmless, he weakened the motive. Joseph K. needs to be innocent for the nature or ambiguity of his process to be fully clarified.

"Devilish in all innocence" - so he wrote about himself in his "Diary". You can be guilty and, therefore, justly punished, or you can act unintentionally, that is, yielding to the demand of your nature. Guilt and innocence are not in contradiction, they are two inseparable realities, complexly interconnected.

“Although you sat during the proceedings at the Askanisher Hof as a judge ascended over me /… /, - Kafka writes to Grete Bloch in October 1914, - but it only seemed so - in fact, I was sitting in your place and did not leave him still". In the first chapter of The Trial, written shortly thereafter, in which Joseph K. tells Fraulein Burstner about his arrest, almost the same situation arises. The first chapter is without a doubt a romance transcription of the Askanish Hof Tribunal. When Kafka wrote "The Verdict", he was surprised to notice that his heroine Frieda Brandenfeld gave the initials Felitsa Bauer: this thought came subconsciously. In The Trial, on his own free will, he again uses the same initials for the inhabitant of the Grubach boarding house Fraulein Burstner; this time it was a secret allusion meant for him alone. Kafka is not going to talk about his unhappy love; rather, on the contrary, from the very beginning he accepts Felitsa's resignation. Fraulein Burstner not only did not resemble her, but, most importantly, she did not play any role in the life of Joseph K. He did not even speak to her before the beginning of the story. Some commentators, seeking to find in his story the blame for which he became a criminal, attributed this silence to him as a crime. And Fraulein Burstner immediately disappears altogether, only to reappear in the last chapter, at the moment when Joseph K. is being led to execution, but he is not even sure whether it is she, even in this pathetic moment she does not play any role. Another chapter, which can no doubt be interpreted as a reference to the past, entitled "Friend Fraulein Burstner": Joseph K. hopes to meet his neighbor, with whom he exchanged a few words on the very evening he was arrested. But the neighbor has moved, and in her place he finds a certain Fraulein Montag, an old limping and grumpy maiden. It is likely that Kafka wanted to convey here the impression that Greta Bloch made on him during their first meeting, and, perhaps, to extinguish a secret grudge against her. But this is the only thing that connects him with the past, Felitsa has disappeared, the process takes place without her.

In "The Verdict" and in "The Metamorphosis" the autobiographical beginning was palpable: in the first it was a failed betrothal, in the second - the horror of loneliness. The special psychological situation of the narrator made itself felt. Here, in The Trial, he replaces himself with a hero without a face or history. Joseph K., whose identity and raison d'être are questioned one fine morning when the police inspectors come to arrest him, is not an intellectual; he is not in the habit of asking himself questions about himself and seeing himself living. This is a supremely banal character - some of Kafka's commentators, starting with Max Brod himself, reproached him for this, as if banality was a crime that should be punished. And, despite this, he ceases to feel innocent, he no longer finds meaning either in himself or in the world, he lives with despair, which his primitive mind is not able to suppress. He asks questions to others, he looks for a helping hand, but nothing stops the course of the trial up to the final execution, more grotesque than tragic, just as miserable as the year of the previous trial.

Kafka has just passed a decisive stage in his work. He talks less about himself, he broadens his view, from now on he ponders and asks, he leaves the anecdote and moves on to some pathetic abstraction, which will now become his manner.

Kafka's "responsibility" towards Felice was quite definite: for two years he subjected her to useless suffering, he used his own doubts and even his weakness to mislead a naive partner, unable to follow him in all the convolutions of his neurosis. There is nothing of the kind in The Trial: no one can say about Joseph K. that he is “devilish in his innocence”. There was nothing in his mediocre life that could seduce the devil. And yet it is against this "innocent" that the process is unfolding. The drawing is simplified as much as possible: the coexistence of innocence and guilt must be clearly manifested. And this "guilt" is no longer an offense that should have been prosecuted by a criminal court, nor a deviation in behavior that should have been condemned by morality: "guilt" is contained in existence itself, it is like a nausea that makes life uncertain, at the limit of possible.

In a lawsuit of this kind, the most essential would, of course, be the opportunity to get help from a woman, since they have close ties with the judges, which greatly facilitate the situation. But here Joseph K. has little chance of success. He pounced on Fraulein Burstner, kissed her neck “at the very throat,” but he no doubt put more hatred than love into desire. The bailiff's wife, whom he meets in a deserted waiting room, languishes with sexual desire, but as soon as her student lover Berthold appears, she throws herself into his arms, leaving Joseph K. alone. In the future, the desire for love, which relentlessly follows almost all the pages of the novel, takes the form of vice: with Leni, the servant of the lawyer Gould, the mistress of all the accused, who willingly shows her "little ugliness" - a palm with webbed fingers; with mature street girls besieging the stairs of the artist Titorelli, with whom, apparently, they spend their nights. Joseph K., like Kafka, has little hope of help from women.

Then society takes over for him: an uncle who cares about the good name of the family, which he does not want to see trampled into the mud by the dishonor of the process, takes him to an old lawyer he knows. And this lawyer with the funny name Gould, which in the old sublime language of poetry means "mercy", promises to use all his connections to get him out of the process. He does not describe the entire hierarchy of judges, lawyers, high officials, on whom the fate of all the accused depends. Who are they, these powerful people whom you never see, but who appear as vain and vindictive, sensitive to flattery and honor? Are they people who are persuaded with petitions, or are they gods who are addressed with prayers? The story does not give a definite answer, because the sky, as Gould and his friends imagine, is created like a society of people, with its endless hierarchy, with the same shortcomings and weaknesses. There are jokes about these omnipotent intercessors: they say that some of them, tired of the annoying requests of lawyers, throw these unfortunates down the stairs. What is not told about these characters, in whose existence in the end there is no complete certainty, just as there is no certainty that their intervention could change anything. Gould, an old, sick and battered lawyer, lives in a gloomy shack, dimly lit by a gas lamp. But at the same time, he belongs to the best society in the city, representing order, generally accepted ideas, social foundations. Joseph K., finally tired of Gould's empty promises and procrastination, decides to do without his services.

He was told about another character who is reputed to be a trickster in the settlement of such processes, his name is Titorelli. This is a hungry artist who lives in an attic in an abandoned quarter. The pictures he paints all depict the same desert landscape. But the languid, cynical, vicious Titorelli has only dubious tricks, unreliable compromises, capable of camouflaging processes rather than winning them.

Joseph K. cannot make a choice between Gould and Titorelli: the solution he needs is not on either side. Gould is a cold social order devoid of meaning, Titorelli is disorder, licentiousness, bohemia. We have already seen Kafka, both in his American novel and in life, vacillating between settledness and adventure, between moral comfort and freedom. A similar conflict is described in The Trial, but everything has changed: on the one hand, and on the other, he finds only lies and emptiness. Gould and Titorelli are both cheats, traders of false wisdom.

But it is necessary to clarify: Gould, with his petitions and prayers, is an image - or a caricature - of a dead religion devoid of its content, reduced to a practice whose virtue is hard to believe; he is an expression of a worn out, sick world, an unhappy relic of a living faith in the past; everything in him speaks of decay and death; he himself only gets a little bit out of his daze just to start the process machine, but the machine is broken. Titorelli does not believe in God or in devil, but his spinelessness causes only disgust; in the stuffy atmosphere of his attic, Joseph K. feels that he is about to faint.

After Kafka stops working on The Trial, he begins writing In a Correctional Colony, the only short story from this period that he manages to complete. Using a different medium, he tells essentially the same story. At the center of the story is a gruesome torture machine, a relic of times gone by. When the former commandant still ruled on the convict island, the machine, according to the stories of its last adherents, during the agony made the light of ecstasy shine on the face of the condemned man. When a traveler who has come to visit this correctional institution is urged to express his opinion about such customs of the past, he expresses only his disapproval. The only difference between "In a correctional colony" and "Trial" is that religion here is not worn out and sick, but cruel, inhuman, unacceptable. No sane witness can no longer defend this code of ruthless justice, these morals, these punishments. He cannot condemn the new commandant who introduced humane practices on the island; wanted to alleviate the suffering, ease the torture of the prisoners. But these new morals only led to greed, to bestial appetites. It is known what happens to the torture machine: when it is started, it shatters to smithereens; this evidence of the past, both scandalous and miraculous, disappears forever. The traveler is in a hurry to leave the convict island, such horror inspired him by the sight at which he had to be present - the death of an officer, the last adherent of the former severity. But when he wants to get into the boat, the condemned and the soldier cling to its sides. For them, this world without faith and law has become uninhabited.

The traveler from the story "In the Correctional Colony", located between the old and new commandants, reminds of Joseph K. between Gould and Titorelli, filled with a sense of alienation for the former and complete disgust and contempt for the latter. A new dimension, which should be called religious, penetrated into Kafka's work. If you look closely, it already made itself known in early works: for example, in one of the houses where Karl Rosman from The Missing One is staying, an old chapel was walled up, and a gust of cold wind showered everyone who passed it: cold American efficiency has been able to prevail only by walling the spiritual needs of the past. But what was only a random theme at the time of the writing of The Trial, In the Correctional Colony became the main motive. This is the kind of meditation that Kafka embarks on after finally freeing himself from his false love.

If The Trial had only two antagonistic themes Titorelli and Gould, the novel would turn into a dark series of grotesques. The gatekeeper, who had been prepared for a long time, should have appeared. And he appears, as you know, in a parable that the priest tells and comments on to Joseph K. in the city's cathedral. This chapter embarrassed and spoiled the mood of some readers, who did not adapt well to such a sudden intrusion of a religious theme, they proposed to depict earlier, and not in the form of a conclusion, these events in the novel, the significance of which they sought to downplay. But Max Brod did not betray Kafka's intentions when publishing The Process: the chapter with the cathedral is the key vault of the entire structure, from the first page everything flows to it. And not because the Doors parabola - the only passage from The Process that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime - contains confidence or hope; on the contrary, the parable thickens the shadows even more; instead of reassuring, as Gould tried to do with his empty promises, she reveals the discouraging truth: the villager remains completely alien to the Law, he spends his life on requests and expectations. Access to the truth that shines on the other side of the door remains closed to him; he is paralyzed by fear; he dares not overcome the silent threat of her guards; he dies without knowing the Law which concerns him and which would give him the meaning of life. In the future, Kafka will not stop there: he will depict the paths that could, perhaps, give access to the holy of holies. But within the framework of the "Process" meditation is cut short; it ends with a statement of powerlessness, a shame of existence devoid of its meaning.

These religious reflections are, in truth, not surprising. Back in February 1913, they appeared in a letter to Felitz. “What is the nature of your piety? he asked. - You go to the temple, but lately, obviously, you have not gone there. And what supports you, the idea of ​​Judaism or the idea of ​​God? Do you feel - most importantly - a continuous connection between you and a very exalted or very deep instance that inspires confidence, because it is far away and possibly infinite? Anyone who experiences this constantly does not need to rush in all directions, like a lost dog, and throw around asking, but dumb glances, he has no desire to go down to the grave, as if it were a warm sleeping bag, and life is a cold winter night. And when he climbs the stairs leading to his office, he does not need to see himself rushing down the flight of stairs, like a spot of light in the twilight, rotating on its own axis in a movement that carries him down and shaking his head with impatience. " The one who writes such lines is clearly on the side of the wicked and abandoned dogs. And yet this nostalgia for faith, which at the moment has no content, is not so far from faith in God, the likeness of which it can accept.

In August 1914, a phase of intense creative activity began, which can be traced in this chapter. In October, Kafka takes two weeks off to finish the stories he has begun. He did not succeed, only "In a correctional colony" can be completed (although Kafka is dissatisfied with the last pages, which a few years later, in 1917, he will try, however unsuccessfully, to change). When you leaf through the diary of 1914, you see that day after day he is overwhelmed by fatigue and doubts. On December 13, he composes the “exegesis of the parable,” that is, a dialogue between the priest and Joseph K. about the parabola with the gatekeeper, and notes: “Instead of working, I wrote only one page (interpretation of the legend), reread the finished chapters and found them partly successful. I am constantly haunted by the thought that the feeling of satisfaction and happiness that a legend gives me, for example, should be paid for, and - in order to never know a respite - it should be paid right there. " December 14: "A pitiful attempt to crawl forward - and this is perhaps the most important place in the work, where one good night would be so necessary." December 31: “I have worked since August, in general - quite a lot and quite well, but in the first and second respects not at the full extent of my capabilities, as it should be, especially if we consider that by all indications (insomnia, headache, heart weakness ) my possibilities will soon run out. " January 20, 1915: “The end of the scripture. When will I start working on him again? " On the 29th: "I tried to write again, almost to no avail." February 7: “Complete stagnation. Endless torment ", on the 16th:" I can't find a place for myself. It was as if everything I owned had left me, and if it had returned, I would hardly have been happy. " Thus, a new and long period of creative sterility begins.

However, in counterpoint to his main works, rather long sketches develop other themes at the same time. In one of them, we are talking about a railway line lost in the Russian steppe: it does not lead anywhere, does not serve for anything, occasionally a lone traveler moves along it. An employee of a small station, devoured by loneliness, every day sinks deeper into boredom, illness, sadism. And so that there would be no misunderstandings associated with the meaning of this story, Kafka gives the railway line a name that was derived from his own - the Kalda railway, as useless and as meaningless as himself. Another passage tells the story of a village teacher - this is the title of the story - who found in his garden a huge mole, the largest, he thinks, of all known. This discovery is his pride and soon the raison d'être. He tries to interest the scientific world, he writes treatise after treatise, but no one pays attention to his works. Even his friends, who wish him well the most, discourage him from persisting; in the end, he is the only one who believes in what he does. Kafka touches here not only his personality and his life, he is also ironic about the meaning of his work - who can understand him? who will ever read his works? is it worth saying what he says? He takes one step more than a school teacher: it happens that he absolutely does not believe in literature, which seemed to him intended to compensate for all his failures and weaknesses.