Dearest Father; stories and other writings by Kafka Franz 1883-1924

Author:Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York, Schocken Books
Published: 1954-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

FRAGMENTS

Scenes from the Defense of a Courtyard

It was a plain wooden fence, without a single gap, not quite so high as a man. Behind it there were standing three men, whose faces could be seen rising up over the top of the fence, the one in the middle was the tallest, the other two, more than a head smaller, were thrusting up against him, it was a unified group. These three men were defending the fence, or rather the whole courtyard that was surrounded by it. There were other men there too, but they were not directly taking part in the defense. One was seated at a little table in the middle of the courtyard; as it was warm, he had taken off his uniform jacket and hung it over the arm of the chair. He had before him some little slips of paper on which he was writing, in a large, broad handwriting that used up a great deal of ink. Now and then he glanced at a little drawing that was fixed to the table, farther away from him, with drawing pins, it was a plan of the courtyard, and this man, who was the commandant, was writing out instructions for the defense on the basis of this plan. Sometimes he would half rise from his chair in order to glance over at the three defenders and across the fence into the open country. Whatever he saw there was also turned to account in his instructions. He worked rapidly, as was necessary in this critical situation. A little barefoot boy who was playing in the sand nearby would deliver the slips whenever they were ready and the commandant called him. Yet the commandant, first of all, always had to clean his hands, which were dirty with damp sand, on his uniform jacket before giving him the slips. The sand was damp from the water that splashed out of a big tub in which a man was washing army underclothes, he had also hung a line from one board in the fence to a weak lime tree

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