Collected Stories by Franz Kafka

Author:Franz Kafka [Kafka, Franz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-375-71269-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

Stories unpublished in Kafka’s Lifetime

Description of a Struggle

And people in their Sunday best

Stroll about, swaying over the gravel

Under this enormous sky

Which, from hills in the distance,

Stretches to distant hills.

I

AT ABOUT MIDNIGHT a few people rose, bowed, shook hands, said it had been a pleasant evening, and then passed through the wide doorway into the vestibule, to put on their coats. The hostess stood in the middle of the room and made graceful bowing movements, causing the dainty folds in her skirt to move up and down.

I sat at a tiny table – it had three curved, thin legs – sipping my third glass of benedictine, and while I drank I surveyed my little store of pastry which I myself had picked out and arranged in a pile.

Then I saw my new acquaintance, somewhat disheveled and out of shape, appear at the doorpost of an adjoining room; but I tried to look away for it was no concern of mine. He, however, came toward me and, smiling absent-mindedly at my occupation, said: ‘Excuse me for disturbing you, but until this very moment I’ve been sitting alone with my girl in the room next door. Ever since half-past ten. Lord, what an evening! I know it isn’t right for me to be telling you this, for we hardly know one another. We only met on the stairs this evening and exchanged a few words as guests of the same house. And now – but you must forgive me, please – my happiness just cannot be contained, I can’t help it. And since I have no other acquaintance here whom I can trust—’

I looked at him sadly – the piece of fruitcake which I had in my mouth did not taste particularly good – and said into his rather flushed face: ‘I’m glad of course that you consider me trustworthy, but displeased that you have confided in me. And you yourself, if you weren’t in such a state, would know how improper it is to talk about an amorous girl to a man sitting alone drinking schnapps.’

When I said this, he sat down with a jolt, leaned back in his chair, and let his arms hang down. Then he pressed them back, his elbows pointed, and began talking in rather a loud voice: ‘Only a little while ago we were alone in that room, Annie and I. And I kissed her, I kissed her – her mouth, her ears, her shoulders. Oh, my Lord and Savior!’

A few guests, suspecting ours to be a rather more animated conversation, approached us closer, yawning. Whereupon I stood up and said so that all could hear: ‘All right then, if you insist, I’ll go with you, but I repeat: it’s ridiculous to climb up the Laurenziberg now, in winter and in the middle of the night. Besides, it’s freezing, and as it has been snowing the roads out there are like skating rinks. Well, as you like—’

At first he gazed at me in astonishment and parted his

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