7.24 Kafka — «Der Prozess» (chapter 1) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the beginning of Franz Kafka's novel Der Prozess in its first edition of 1925: the morning on which Josef K. is arrested in his lodgings. Understand the famous first sentence and its grammar: Jemand mußte Josef K. verleumdet haben , someone must have slandered Josef K. Follow long sentences with extended attributes and clauses of manner with ohne daß and als + subjunctive. Notice older forms that you will meet in every text before 1950: daß , gehn , the address Ihr , and Rock and Kleid for men's clothes. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Jemand mußte Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne daß er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one morning. Wie kann ich denn verhaftet sein? How can I possibly be under arrest? Das Verfahren ist nun einmal eingeleitet und Sie werden alles zur richtigen Zeit erfahren. The proceedings have been started, and you will learn everything in due course. es konnten ja nur Wächter sein they could only be warders Welcher Behörde gehörten sie an? Which authority did they belong to? K. lebte doch in einem Rechtsstaat, überall herrschte Friede, alle Gesetze bestanden aufrecht, wer wagte ihn in seiner Wohnung zu überfallen? K. lived in a state under the rule of law, there was peace everywhere, all laws were in force; who dared attack him in his own home? Prerequisites : 7.23 — you need the vocabulary of law from 5.14 Vocabulary , the subjunctive from 2.23 Grammar and 2.26 Grammar , extended attributes from 2.28 Grammar , and Kafka's style from 7.16 Reading and 7.17 Reading . About this text Franz Kafka (1883–1924) wrote Der Prozess , The Trial , in 1914 and 1915 and never finished it. Before his death he asked his friend Max Brod to burn his manuscripts. Brod refused, put the chapters in order and published the novel in 1925 with the Berlin publisher Die Schmiede. The text here is the beginning of the first chapter of that edition, its first eight paragraphs and about 3,700 words, from the transcription in German Wikisource, unchanged except that the printed page numbers are left out. It is in the public domain. The novel begins on the morning of Josef K.'s thirtieth birthday. K. is a senior employee of a bank, a correct, ambitious and somewhat arrogant young man who lives in a rented room. Instead of his breakfast, two men in strange black suits appear and tell him that he is under arrest. They will not say why, or on whose orders. Over the following year K. tries to find out what he is accused of and which court is trying him, and he never does. The word kafkaesque in English, and kafkaesk in German, comes largely from this book. This lesson is the first of two. In the excerpt, nothing violent happens: the warders eat K.'s breakfast, give him advice about his laundry, and make him put on a black jacket; the inspector moves a candle and a pincushion around on a bedside table. The menace lies in the politeness. For a learner the German is demanding mainly because the paragraphs are long, sometimes a thousand words without a break, and dialogue runs on inside them. Read with a pencil and mark each new speaker. Grammar in the text The first sentence. Jemand mußte Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne daß er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet. Three structures meet here. First, mußte … verleumdet haben , a modal verb with a perfect infinitive, expresses a conclusion: someone must have slandered him . This subjective use of the modal verbs is the subject of 2.35 Grammar in this phase. Second, ohne daß er etwas Böses getan hätte , without his having done anything wrong , has the subjunctive because the action did not happen. Third, wurde … verhaftet is a passive in the past, he was arrested , with no agent: we never learn by whom. als + subjunctive. Der Mann aber ging über die Frage hinweg, als müsse man seine Erscheinung hinnehmen , as if his appearance had simply to be accepted . The finite verb comes straight after als , as in 7.16 Reading . Kafka uses the construction again and again to describe gestures whose meaning nobody can confirm. Long noun phrases. The descriptions are packed into extended attributes: die alte Frau, die ihn mit einer an ihr ganz ungewöhnlichen Neugierde beobachtete , with a curiosity quite unusual for her ; ein zu diesem dicken Körper gar nicht passendes trockenes, knochiges Gesicht , a dry, bony face that did not fit this fat body at all . Find the article, jump to the noun, then read the middle, as you learned in 2.28 Grammar . The warders change their address. When K. comes out in his nightshirt, the warders shout: Was fällt Euch ein? … im Hemd wollt Ihr vor den Aufseher? They suddenly use Ihr , an old form of polite address with a plural verb, between the familiar du and the formal Sie . It survives only in historical and rural speech. You will learn to read such forms in 2.39 Grammar . Old spelling and short forms. The text uses the spelling of its time: daß for modern dass , mußte for musste , Photographien for Fotografien . Kafka also drops the e of some infinitives, as in speech: gehn , sehn , anziehn . None of these is an error. Men's clothes in 1914. The warders insist Es muß ein schwarzer Rock sein . Here Rock is a man's jacket or frock coat, its old meaning; today the word means a skirt. In the same way Kleid , now a dress, means a man's suit: K. chooses sein bestes schwarzes Kleid . The Kleiderkasten is a wardrobe, with the Austrian Kasten you met in 7.16 Reading . Reading it a second time, section by section The arrest (paragraph 1). The cook does not bring the breakfast. A stranger in a black suit with many pockets and buttons appears, then a second man in the living room, and K. learns that he may not leave: Sie sind ja gefangen. The warders, Franz and Willem, offer to keep his underwear