The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (10 page)

Georg stood close to his father, whose head, with its fleecy white hair, had sunk onto his chest.

"Georg," his father said softly, without moving.

Georg immediately knelt down by his father, he saw the enormous pupils fixing him from the corners of the eyes in his father's worn face.

"You have no friend in St. Petersburg. You have always been a prankster and you've also never spared me from your pranks. How could you possibly have a friend there! I simply can't believe it."

"Just think back a bit, Father," said Georg, lifting his father out of the chair and slipping off the dressing gown as soon as he rather feebly stood there, "it'll soon be three years since my friend came to visit us. I still remember that you didn't especially like him. At least twice I pretended to you that he wasn't here, even though he was sitting in my room. I could understand your aversion to him perfectly well, my friend has his quirks. But then you got along with him quite well later on. At the time I felt very proud that you were listening to him, nodding and asking him questions. If you think about it, you're bound to remember. He used to tell us the most incredible stories of the Russian Revolution. Like the time he was on a business trip to Kiev, and during a riot he saw a priest on a balcony who had cut a broad bloody cross into his palm and raised it, appealing to the mob. You've even repeated this story once or twice."

Meanwhile Georg had successfully eased his father back into the chair and carefully removed the socks and the long woolen underclothes he wore over his linen underwear. At the sight of these rather soiled undergarments he reproached himself for neglecting his father. It would certainly have been his duty to ensure that his father had clean clothes. So far he had not explicitly discussed his father's future with his fiancée, for they had both tacitly assumed that he would remain on in the old house by himself. But Georg now resolved, with swift and firm determination, to move his father into his new household with him. It almost seemed, on closer inspection, that the care his father would get there might come too late.

He carried his father to bed in his arms. During the few steps to the bed he noticed, with an awful feeling, that his father was playing with his watch chain as he curled against Georg's chest. He could not lay him down right away because he clutched the watch chain so fiercely.

But no sooner was he in bed than all seemed well. He covered himself up and then drew the blankets especially high over his shoulders. He looked up at Georg with a not unfriendly gaze.

"You are beginning to remember him, aren't you?" asked Georg, giving him an encouraging nod.

"Am I well covered now?" his father asked, as if he could not check to see whether his feet were covered or not.

"So you're already quite snug in bed," remarked Georg, and he tucked the blankets more closely around him.

"Am I well covered?" his father repeated, and seemed to be keenly interested in the answer.

"Don't worry, you're all covered up."

"No!" shouted his father, so loudly that the answer slammed back into the question, throwing off the blankets with such force that they unfurled completely for a moment in the air, and then springing to his feet in bed. He had only one hand on the ceiling to steady himself. "You wanted to cover me up, I know it, you little cretin, but I'm not covered up yet. And even if I'm at the end of my strength, it's still enough for you, more than enough for you. Yes, I know your friend. He would have been the son after my own heart. That's why you've been cheating him all these years. Why else? Do you think I haven't wept for him? And that's why you lock yourself up in your office, the chief is busy, mustn't be disturbed—so you can write your deceitful little letters to Russia. But fortunately no one has to teach a father to see through his son. And just when you thought you had him down, all the way down, so far down you can sit your backside on him and he won't move, then my fine son decides to get himself married!"

Georg stared up at the monstrous specter of his father. His friend in St. Petersburg, whom his father suddenly knew so well, wrenched his heart as never before. He imagined him lost in the vastness of Russia. He pictured him standing in the doorway of his empty, plundered warehouse. He could barely stand amid the wreck of his showcases, his ruined wares, and the falling gas brackets. Why did he have to move so far away?

"Now listen to me!" his father cried, and Georg, nearly half frantic, ran to the bed to absorb everything, but stopped midway there.

"Because she lifted her skirts," his father started simpering, "because she pulled up her skirts like this, the nasty little goose," and demonstrated by hiking his shirt high enough to reveal the scar on his thigh from his war days, "because she lifted her skirts like this and like that, you threw yourself on her, and in order to have your way with her undisturbed, you disgraced your mother's memory, betrayed your friend, and shoved your father into bed so that he can't move. But can he move, or can't he?"

And he stood up, independent of any support, and kicked out his legs. He was radiant with insight.

Georg stood in a corner, as far from his father as possible. He had already made up his mind years ago to guard his every move so as to be on the lookout for a surprise attack from above, behind, or below. He recalled this long-forgotten resolve just now and as quickly forgot it, like a short length of thread drawn through the eye of a needle.

"But your friend has not been betrayed after all!" cried his father, punctuating his words with a pointed finger. "I've been representing him locally."

"What a comedian!" burst from Georg, but he realized just as soon the damage that had been done, and only too late bit down—his eyes bulging—so hard on his tongue that he recoiled in pain.

"Yes, I have been acting out a play! A play! Great word! What other comfort was left for an old widowed father? Tell me—and when you answer, still be my living son—what was left for me, in my back room, plagued by a disloyal staff, and old to the very marrow? And my son saunters exultantly through the world, closing deals I had prepared, falling all over himself with joy, and slinking away from his father with the stiff mug of an honorable man! Do you think I didn't love you, I who fathered you?"

"Now he's going to lean forward," thought Georg; "what if he fell and shattered to pieces!" These words buzzed through his brain.

His father did lean forward but did not tumble. Since Georg had not come any nearer, as expected, his father righted himself again.

"Stay where you are, I don't need you! You think you still have the power to come over here and only hold back of your own free will. Don't fool yourself! I am still stronger by far. Alone I may have had to yield, but Mother left her strength to me, your friend has joined me in a splendid alliance, and I have your clientele here in my pocket!"

"He even has pockets in his nightshirt!" Georg said to himself, and believed that this remark could render his father ridiculous before the whole world. But this thought stayed with him only a moment, because he always forgot everything.

"Just bring your fiancée around here on your arm! I'll sweep her from your side, you don't know how quick!"

Georg grimaced in disbelief. His father merely nodded at Georg's corner, assuring the truth of his words.

"How you amused me today, coming to ask me if you should tell your friend about your engagement. He already knows it, you stupid boy, he knows everything! I've been writing because you forgot to take away my writing things. That's why he hasn't come here for years, he knows everything a hundred times better than you; he crumples your unread letters in his left hand while he holds up his right hand to read my letters!"

He flung his arms over his head in his enthusiasm. "He knows everything a thousand times better!" he cried.

"Ten thousand times!" said Georg, to ridicule his father, but the words came out of his mouth deadly earnest.

"For years I've been waiting for you to come to me with this question! Do you think I've been interested in anything else? Do you believe I read newspapers? Look!" and he threw at Georg a sheet of newspaper that had somehow been swept into the bed. It was an old newspaper whose name was entirely unfamiliar to him.

"How long you fought off your adulthood! Your mother had to die, she couldn't witness the joyous day; your friend is rotting in Russia, three years ago he was already yellow enough to toss out, and as for me, you can see how I'm faring. You can see that much!"

"So you've been waiting to pounce on me!" cried Georg.

In a pitying tone, his father casually remarked: "You probably meant to say that earlier. Now it's beside the point."

And then louder: "So now you know what else existed in the world outside of you, before you knew only about yourself! Yes, you were a truly innocent child, but you were even more truly an evil man!—And for that reason, I hereby sentence you to death by drowning!"

Georg felt forcibly driven from the room, the crash of his father falling to the bed still rained down on him as he fled. On the stairs, which he slipped down as he would a hill, he ran into the cleaning woman, who was on her way up to do the morning tidying. "Jesus!" she yelped, and covered her face with her apron, but he was already gone. He leapt from the door and across the road, driven toward the water. Already he clung to the railing like a starving man to food. He swung himself over, like the outstanding gymnast he had been in his youth, the pride of his parents. He was still clinging with a weakening grip when he spied an approaching motor bus through the railings that would easily dampen the sound of his fall; he softly called out: "Dear parents, I have always loved you," and let himself drop.

At that moment an unending stream of traffic crossed over the bridge.

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The Stoker: A Fragment

AS SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD KARL ROSSMANN, whose poor parents had sent him off to America because a maid had seduced him and then had his child, sailed into New York harbor on the now slowly moving ship, he saw the Statue of Liberty, which he had already been watching from far off, stand out as if shining in suddenly brighter sunlight. The arm with the sword
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reached up as if freshly thrust out, and the free breezes blew around the figure.

"So high!" he said to himself, and without any thought of disembarking, he was pushed farther and farther along, all the way to the railing, by the constantly swelling throng of porters pressing past him.

On his way by, a young man with whom he had been briefly acquainted during the voyage said to him: "Well, don't you feel like going ashore yet?" "Oh yes, I'm ready," said Karl, laughing, and out of sheer joy and youthful strength, he hoisted his trunk onto his shoulder. But as he looked beyond his acquaintance, who was already moving off and lightly swinging his stick, he remembered with dismay that he had left his own umbrella below deck. He hastily begged his acquaintance, who seemed none too pleased, to be kind enough to watch his trunk a moment; he surveyed his surroundings to regain his bearings and hurried off. Down below he was disappointed to find that a passageway that would have shortened his route considerably was barred now for the first time, probably because of all the disembarking passengers, and he had to arduously make his way through a long series of small rooms, down countless short staircases, one after another, through continually winding corridors, past a room with a deserted desk, until finally, as he had only gone this way once or twice before and always in a large group, he was utterly lost. In his bewilderment he came to a stop by a small door, and because he encountered no one and could hear only the endless trampling of thousands of human feet overhead, and from a distance like a sigh the final whine of the engines shutting down, he began, without consideration, to pound on the door.

"It's open," a voice called from inside, and Karl opened the door with a genuine sigh of relief. "Why are you pounding on the door like a madman?" asked a huge man, barely glancing at Karl. Through some kind of overhead hatch murky light, long stale from its use on the decks above, seeped into the miserable cabin, where a bed, a closet, a chair, and the man were crowded together side by side as if stowed there. "I've lost my way," said Karl. "I never really noticed it during the voyage, but this is an awfully large ship." "Yes, you're right about that," the man said with a certain degree of pride but did not stop fiddling with the lock of a small footlocker that he kept pressing shut with both hands to hear the catch snap home. "But come on in!" the man continued. "You don't want to stand around outside!" "Am I intruding?" asked Karl. "No, how would you be intruding!" "Are you German?" Karl tried to reassure himself further because he had heard a lot about the dangers that threatened newcomers to America, from the Irish especially. "That I am, yes indeed," said the man. Karl still hesitated. Then the man unexpectedly seized the door handle and swiftly shut the door, sweeping Karl into the cabin. "I can't stand being peered at from the corridor," he said, fiddling with the chest again; "they all run by and peer in, who can put up with it!" "But the corridor is totally empty now," said Karl, who was pressed uncomfortably against the bedpost. "Yes, now," said the man. "But we're talking about now," thought Karl; "this is a difficult man to talk to." "Why don't you lie down on the bed, you'll have more room," said the man. Karl crawled in as best he could and chuckled loudly at his first unsuccessful attempt to pitch himself across the bed. But as soon as he was in the bed he exclaimed: "Good God, I've completely forgotten my trunk!" "Well, where is it?" "Up on deck, someone I met is watching it. Now what was his name?" And from a secret pocket that his mother had sewn into his jacket lining specially for this voyage, he fished out a visiting card. "Butterbaum, Franz Butterbaum." "Is your trunk really necessary?" "Of course." "Well then, why did you give it to a complete stranger?" "I had forgotten my umbrella down below and ran to get it, but I didn't want to lug my trunk along. And then I got lost too." "Are you alone? No one accompanying you?" "Yes, I'm alone."—"Maybe I should stick with this man," went through Karl's mind, "where could I find a better friend?" "And now you've also lost your trunk. Not to mention the umbrella." And the man sat down on the chair as if he had developed some interest in Karl's problem. "But I don't believe the trunk is really lost yet." "Believe what you want," said the man, vigorously scratching his short, dark thatch of hair, "on a ship the morals change as often as the ports. In Hamburg, your Butterbaum might have guarded your trunk; here there's most likely no trace left of either of them." "Then I must go look for it immediately," said Karl, looking around to see how he could leave. "Stay where you are," the man said, and thrust a hand against Karl's chest, pushing him roughly back onto the bed. "But why?" Karl asked peevishly. "Because it makes no sense," said the man; "in a little while I'm going and then we can go together. Either the trunk is stolen and there's no help for it, or the man has left it there and we'll find it all the more easily when the ship is empty. The same goes for your umbrella." "Do you know your way around the ship?" asked Karl warily, as it seemed to him that there must be some catch in the otherwise convincing notion that his things would be best found on an empty ship. "Well, I'm a stoker," the man said. "You're a stoker!" Karl cried happily, as if this exceeded all expectation and, propping himself up on his elbows, he inspected the man more closely. "Just outside the cabin where I slept with the Slovak there was a porthole through which you could see into the engine room." "Yes, that's where I worked," said the stoker. "I have always been interested in technology," said Karl, pursuing his own train of thought, "and would surely have become an engineer later on if I hadn't had to leave for America." "Why did you have to leave, then?" "Oh, that!" said Karl, waving away the whole business with his hand. At the same time he looked at the stoker with a smile as if asking his indulgence for what he hadn't even admitted. "I'm sure there was some reason," said the stoker, and it was hard to tell whether he was demanding or dismissing the story behind that reason. "Now I could become a stoker too," said Karl, "my parents don't care what becomes of me." "My job will be free," said the stoker, and as a show of this he put his hands in the pockets of his creased and leathery, iron gray trousers and flung his legs across the bed in order to stretch them out. Karl had to move over closer to the wall. "Are you leaving the ship?" "Yes, we're moving out today." "But why? Don't you like it?" "Well, that's the way things go, it's not always a matter of what pleases you or not. But as a matter of fact you're right, I don't like it. You're probably not seriously thinking of becoming a stoker, but that's exactly when it's easiest to become one. So, I strongly advise you against it. If you wanted to study in Europe, why don't you want to study here? The American universities are incomparably better than the European ones." "It's certainly possible," said Karl, "but I have almost no money for a university. I did read about someone who worked all day and studied at night until he got a doctorate and became a mayor, I believe, but that requires a lot of perseverance, doesn't it? I'm afraid that's something I lack. Anyway, I was never a very good student, and leaving school was not particularly hard on me. And perhaps the schools here will be even more stringent. I speak almost no English. And besides, I think people here are prejudiced against foreigners." "So you've found that out already? Well, that's good. Then you're my man. Look, we're on a German ship, it belongs to the Hamburg-America line, so why aren't we all Germans here? Why is the chief engineer a Romanian? His name is Schubal. It's beyond belief. And that villain makes us slave away on a German ship! Don't go thinking"—he was out of breath and flailing his hand—"that I'm complaining just to complain. I know you have no influence and are just a poor young lad yourself. But it's a shame!" And he beat the table repeatedly, his eyes fixed on his fist as he banged. "I've served on so many ships"—and he fired off twenty names as if they were one word, making Karl dizzy—"and I've always excelled, I was praised, the captains always liked my work, I even worked for several years on the same merchant ship"—he stood up as if this had been the high point of his life—"and here on this tub, where everything is done by the book and no brains are required, here I'm no good, here I'm always in Schubal's way, I'm a lazybones who deserves to be thrown out and only get his pay out of mercy. Can you understand that? I can't." "You shouldn't put up with that," said Karl heatedly. He felt so at home here on the stoker's bed that he had almost lost any sense of being on the unsteady ground of a ship off the coast of an unknown continent. "Have you been to see the captain? Have you asked him to see to your rights?" "Oh, go away, just go away. I don't want you here. You don't listen to what I say and then you give me advice. How am I supposed to go to the captain!" And the stoker wearily sat down again and buried his face in both hands.