7.25 Kafka — «Der Prozess» (the cathedral) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the central scene of Kafka's Der Prozess : Josef K. alone in a dark cathedral, called by name from the pulpit by a prison chaplain. Follow a conversation in du between two strangers, and understand why the priest uses it. Read conditions without wenn in the past, Hätte der Geistliche nochmals gerufen, wäre K. gewiß fortgegangen , and reported speech in Konjunktiv I inside a story. Compare the parable Vor dem Gesetz as Kafka published it in 1915 with the version embedded in the novel. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English die Bearbeitung des Steines war überaus sorgfältig the stone had been worked with the greatest care Als er in das Hauptschiff trat, um seinen Platz zu suchen, auf dem er das Album liegengelassen hatte, bemerkte er an einer Säule fast angrenzend an die Bänke des Altarchors eine kleine Nebenkanzel, ganz einfach, aus kahlem, bleichem Stein. When he stepped into the nave to look for his seat, where he had left the album, he noticed on a pillar, almost next to the benches of the choir, a small side pulpit, quite plain, of bare, pale stone. Sollte jetzt etwa eine Predigt stattfinden? Was there going to be a sermon now? „Du bist angeklagt,“ sagte der Geistliche besonders leise. "You are accused," said the priest, especially quietly. Ich mußte zuerst aus der Entfernung mit dir sprechen. I had to speak to you from a distance first. Er vergißt die andern Türhüter und dieser erste scheint ihm das einzige Hindernis für den Eintritt in das Gesetz. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle to entering the Law. Prerequisites : 7.24 — you need the beginning of the novel from 7.24 Reading , the parable Vor dem Gesetz from 7.17 Reading , conditions without wenn from 2.23 Grammar and 2.24 Grammar , and Konjunktiv I from 2.26 Grammar . About this text This excerpt comes from the ninth of the ten chapters of Der Prozess in Max Brod's edition of 1925, the chapter set in the cathedral. Almost a year has passed since the arrest of 7.24 Reading . K.'s case has gone badly: he has dismissed his lawyer, he has visited a court painter who knows the judges, and he still does not know what he is accused of. One rainy morning his bank sends him to show the cathedral to an Italian business client. The Italian never arrives. K. waits in the empty, darkening church with a guidebook in his hand. The excerpt begins as K. decides to stay out of the rain, and ends with the last sentence of the parable. It is the sixth to the fourteenth paragraph of the chapter, about 3,150 words, from the transcription in German Wikisource, unchanged except that the printed page numbers are left out. It is in the public domain. In the novel, the parable is followed by a long debate between K. and the priest about what it means, and the chapter ends with the priest's words Das Gericht will nichts von dir. Es nimmt dich auf, wenn du kommst, und es entläßt dich, wenn du gehst. The next and last chapter is K.'s execution. The scene is built like a dream. A sexton points in no particular direction; a tiny pulpit seems made to torture the preacher; a lamp is lit for a sermon in an empty church. Then a voice fills the cathedral with K.'s own name. What follows is the only conversation in the novel in which someone from the court speaks to K. with apparent goodwill, and it ends in the parable you read in 7.17 Reading . Grammar in the text du in the cathedral. The priest addresses K. as du from his first sentence: Du bist Josef K. The text never explains this. Between two adult strangers in 1914 it is startling, and it makes the encounter at once intimate and authoritative, like the language of the Bible. K. answers in the same form: Weißt du es? , Komm zu mir herunter. Compare the cold Sie and the strange Ihr of the warders in 7.24 Reading . The change of address marks a different kind of encounter. Conditions without wenn . K.'s decision to turn round is told in the past subjunctive: Hätte der Geistliche nochmals gerufen, wäre K. gewiß fortgegangen , had the priest called again, K. would certainly have left . The verb stands first in the condition, as you learned in 2.23 Grammar . The same structure with wenn : Es wäre ein kindliches Versteckenspiel gewesen, wenn sich jetzt K. nicht vollständig umgedreht hätte. Reported speech in the parable. The parable reports the doorkeeper's words in Konjunktiv I : Aber der Türhüter sagt, daß er ihm jetzt den Eintritt nicht gewähren könne. And the man's question: ob er also später werde eintreten dürfen , with the Konjunktiv I of werden and a double infinitive at the end. Notice too that the parable is told in the present tense, while the novel around it is in the past: it is presented as a text that is always true, quoted from den einleitenden Schriften zum Gesetz , the introductory writings to the Law. The impersonal passive. Konnte denn wirklich gepredigt werden? , could there really be preaching? German can form a passive of an intransitive verb with no subject at all, which English cannot. It is explained in 2.19 Grammar . Two printings of one parable. Kafka published Vor dem Gesetz as a separate story in 1915; the novel appeared ten years later. The two texts are almost identical, but not quite. In the novel the doorkeeper says he cannot bear, vertragen , the sight of the third doorkeeper, where the 1915 text has ertragen ; he asks the man nach seiner Heimat instead of über seine Heimat ; and the man curses his bad luck laut instead of rücksichtslos und laut . The novel also uses the spoken short forms sehn, stehn, hineinzugehn . Put the two texts side by side and look for more. Reading it a second time, section by section The sexton (paragraph 1). K. decides to stay in the cathedral while it rains. He examines the great pulpit. An old sexton, a church servant, watches him and points somewhere, nodding; when K. reaches for his purse, the old ma