Conversation With The Worshiper - Franz Kafka
There was a time I went to church day after day because a girl I had fallen in love with would pray there, kneeling for half an hour every evening, when I could watch her in peace and quiet.
Once, when the girl had not come, and I was glaring at the people in prayer, I noticed a young man who had thrown his scrawny figure full length on the floor. From time to time, he would grab his skull with the full force of his body and, moaning, smash it into the palms of his hands, which were resting on the stones.
The only other churchgoers were a few old women, who often turned their kerchiefed heads sideways to peer at the worshiper. This attention seemed to make him happy, for prior to each of his pious outbursts, he would glance about to see whether the onlookers were numerous. Finding his conduct unseemly, I resolved to accost him when he left the church and to question him about why he was praying in this manner. Yes indeed, I was annoyed because my girl had not come.
However, he did not stand up until an hour later, crossing himself very meticulously and trudging unsteadily toward the font. I stationed myself between the font and the door, knowing I would not let him pass without an explanation. I pursed my lips as I always do when I intend to speak firmly. I put my right leg forward and leaned on it, while casually poising my left leg on tiptoe; this too makes me resolute.
Now it was possible that the man eyed me when sprinkling the holy water on his face; or perhaps he had already noticed me earlier, with some anxiety, for now he unexpectedly dashed outside. The glass door slammed shut. And when I promptly went outside, I could no longer see him, for there were several narrow streets, and the area was thronged.
He did not show up again during the next few days, but my girl did come. She was wearing her black dress with the diaphanous lace on the shoulders (the crescent of the chemise neckline showing underneath) and with a nicely cut silk bertha hanging down from the edge of the lace. And since the girl had come, I forgot all about the young man; nor did I concern myself with him even later, when he started coming regularly again and praying in his usual style. However, he always hurried past me, averting his face. Perhaps it was because I could only picture him in motion, so that even when standing still, he appeared to be skulking along.
On evening, I dawdled in my room. But then I went to church after all. I did not find the girl and I was about to go home when I spotted that young man lying there again. The old incident crossed my mind, piquing my curiosity.
I tiptoed over to the doorway, handed a coin to the blind beggar sitting there, and squeezed in next to him behind the open wing of the door; I sat there for an hour, perhaps with a cunning expression. I felt fine and Nevertheless, growing angry, I sat for a third hour, letting the spiders crawl over my clothes, while the last few people, breathing loudly, quit the darkness of the church.
Then he came too. He walked gingerly, his feet cautiously testing the ground before treading.
I stood up, took a large, straight step, and grabbed the young man. "Good evening," I said, clutching his collar and pushing him down the steps to the illuminated square.
When we reached the bottom, he said to me in a completely unhinged voice, "Good evening, my dear, dear sir, do not be angry with me, your humbly devoted servant."
"Well," I said, "I want to ask you some questions, sir. Last time, you escaped; today, you will scarcely succeed."
"You are a compassionate man, sir, and you will allow me to go home. I am to be pitied, that is the truth."
"No," I shouted into the din of a passing trolley, "I won't allow you. This is the sort of encounter I like. You are a lucky catch. I consider myself fortunate."
Then he said; "Oh God, your heart is alive, but your head is a block of wood. You say I'm a lucky catch-how lucky you must be! For my poor luck is one that teeters, it teeters on a thin edge, and if anyone touches my poor luck it will fall on the questioner. Good night, sir."
"Fine," I said, clutching his right hand, "if you won't answer me, then I"ll start yelling here in the street. And all the shopgirls who are now coming out of their shops and all their sweethearts who are looking forward to seeing them will come dashing over here, for they'll think that a cab horse has collapsed or that something similar has happened. Then I'll make a public display of you."
He now tearfully kissed my hands, alternating between them. "I'll tell you what you wish to know, but please, let us go over to that side street." I nodded, and that was where we went.
However, the darkness of the street with its widely separated yellow streetlights was not dark enough for him; instead, he led me into the low hallway of an old house, under a tiny, dripping lamp that hung in front of the wooden stairs.
There he self-importantly pulled out his handkerchief, and spreading it on a step, he said, "Do sit down, my dear sir; this way, you can ask your questions more easily. I'll remain standing, so I can answer more easily. But please don't torment me."
So I sat down and, squinting up at him, I said: "You are an utter lunatic, that's what you are! How can you behave like that in church! It is so annoying and unpleasant for the onlookers! How can people feel devout if they have to look at you."
He was pressing his body against the wall, only his head was moving freely in the air. "Don't be annoyed-why should you be annoyed at things that aren't relevant to you. I'm annoyed at myself when I behave imprudently; but if someone else behaves imprudently, then I'm delighted. So please don't be annoyed if I tell you that the goal of my life is to be looked at by other people."
"What are you saying!?" I cried, much too loudly for the low hallway, but then I was afraid my voice would weaken. "Really now, what have you said!? Why, I can sense-indeed, since I first laid eyes on you, I have sensed what sort of condition you are in. I'm a man of experience, and I'm not joking when I say that your condition is a seasickness on dry land. It is such that you have forgotten the real names of things, and in your great haste you now pour random names upon them. Hurry, hurry! But the moment you run off, you forget your names for them. You called the poplar in the fields the 'Tower of Babel,' for you did not know or did not want to know that it was a poplar, and now it is swaying again without a name, and you would have to call it, 'When Noah Was Drunk.'"
I was a bit stunned when he said, "I'm glad I didn't understand what you said."
Annoyed, I quickly said, "The fact that you are glad shows that you did understand."
"Of course it does, my good sir, but you too spoke in a bizarre way."
I placed my hands on a higher step, leaned back, and in this almost unassailable position, which is a wrestler's last resort, I said, "You have a strange way of wriggling out of a predicament-by assuming that other people suffer from your condition."
These words lent him courage. He folded his hands together in order to make his body compact, then said, a bit reluctantly: "No, I don't act this way with everyone, for instance you, because I can't. But I would be glad if I could, for then I wouldn't need the attention of the people in church. Do you know why I need it?"
This question left me perplexed. I certainly did not know, nor do I believe I wanted to know. After all, I was not the one who wanted to come here, I told myself at this point, this man forced me to listen to him. So all I had to do was shake my head to indicate that I did not know; but I simply could not get my head to move.
The man, standing across from me, smiled. Then he dropped to his knees and talked with a faraway look: "There has never been a time when I could truly convince myself that I was alive. You see, I only have such flimsy notions of the things around me that I always believe they used to be alive but are now fading away. I always, my dear sir, long to see things as they may be before they show themselves to me. In their earlier state, they are probably still beautiful and calm. They must be, for that is how I often hear people describing them."
Since I held my tongue, and only involuntary twitches in my face showed how uneasy I was, he asked, "You do not believe that people talk like that?"
I felt I ought to nod, but was unable to do so.
"Really? You do not believe it? Oh, but listen. One afternoon when I was a child, I opened my eyes after taking a brief nap, and even though I was still half asleep, I heard my mother on the balcony, asking someone below, in a normal tone of voice: 'What are you doing, my dear? It's so hot.' A woman answered from the garden: 'I'm having coffee outdoors.' They were speaking offhandedly and not all too plainly, as if it were a matter of course."
I thought I was being asked a question, so I reached into my back trouser pocket as if looking for something. But I was not looking for anything, I simply wanted to change my position in order to show my interest in the conversation. While so doing, I said that was such a strange incident, and that I simply did not understand it. I added that I did not believe it was true and that it must have been made up for some specific purpose that I could not fathom. Then I shut my eyes for they were aching.
"Oh, but it's good that you agree with me, and it was unselfish of you to stop me and tell me so. Just why should I feel ashamed-or why should we feel ashamed-that I don't walk upright and trudge along, that I don't strike my cane on the pavement or graze the clothes of the people who pass by so noisily. Wouldn't I actually be justified in complaining defiantly that I have to slink along the houses as a shadow with square shoulders, sometimes vanishing in the panes of the shop windows?
"What awful days I'm going through! Why are all our buildings so poorly built that high structures sometimes collapse and no one can find a cogent reason? At such times, I clamber over the rubble heaps, asking anyone I run into: 'How could this happen! In our city-a new building-that's the fifth one today-just imagine!" And no one can give me an answer.
"Often people collapse on the street and remain lying there dead. Then all the shopkeepers open their doors, which are hung with wares, they step out nimbly, whisk the corpse into a house, then reemerge with smiling lips and eyes, and speak: 'Good day-the sky is pale-I sell lots of kerchiefs-yes, the war.' I slink into the house, and after several anxious attempts at raising my hand while crooking my finger, I finally tap on the janitor's small window.
"'My good fellow,' I say amiably, 'a dead man has been brought here. Please take me to him.'
"And when he shakes his head as if undecided, I say firmly, 'My good fellow. I am from the secret police. Show me the corpse immediately.'
"'A corpse?' he now asks and is almost offended. 'No, we have no corpse here. This is a respectable place.' So I say goodbye and leave.
"But then, when I have to cross a large square, I forget everything. I am confused by the difficulty of this undertaking, and I often think to myself: If people build such huge squares out of sheer exuberance, why don't they also add a stone balustrade leading across the square. Today the wind is blowing form the southwest. The air on the square is stirred up. The spire of the town hall is reeling in small circles. Why dn't they end the commotion? All the windowpanes are banging loudly, and the lampposts are bending like bamboo. The robe of the Virgin Mary on the column is twisting, and the storm wind is tearing away at it. Doesn't anyone see it? The ladies and gentlemen who are supposed to walk on the stones are gliding. When the wind stops to catch its breath, they halt, exchange a few words, and bow as they take their leave; but if the wind starts blasting again, they are unable to resist it, and they all raise their feet in unison. They do have to clutch their hats tightly, but their eyes twinkle cheerfully as if merely a mild breeze were wafting. I am the only one who is afraid."
Abused as I felt, I said, "The story you told me earlier about your mother and the woman in the garden does not sound the least bit strange. Not only have I heard and experienced many such stories, I have even taken part in a few. Why, it's a perfectly normal business. Do you believe I could not have said the same thing if I had been on the balcony, or responded in the same way from the garden? Such an ordinary incident."
When I said that, he seemed very happy. He said that I was dressed nicely and that he liked my necktie very much. And what a fine complexion I had. And that confessions were the most informative when they were rescinded.
Once, when the girl had not come, and I was glaring at the people in prayer, I noticed a young man who had thrown his scrawny figure full length on the floor. From time to time, he would grab his skull with the full force of his body and, moaning, smash it into the palms of his hands, which were resting on the stones.
The only other churchgoers were a few old women, who often turned their kerchiefed heads sideways to peer at the worshiper. This attention seemed to make him happy, for prior to each of his pious outbursts, he would glance about to see whether the onlookers were numerous. Finding his conduct unseemly, I resolved to accost him when he left the church and to question him about why he was praying in this manner. Yes indeed, I was annoyed because my girl had not come.
However, he did not stand up until an hour later, crossing himself very meticulously and trudging unsteadily toward the font. I stationed myself between the font and the door, knowing I would not let him pass without an explanation. I pursed my lips as I always do when I intend to speak firmly. I put my right leg forward and leaned on it, while casually poising my left leg on tiptoe; this too makes me resolute.
Now it was possible that the man eyed me when sprinkling the holy water on his face; or perhaps he had already noticed me earlier, with some anxiety, for now he unexpectedly dashed outside. The glass door slammed shut. And when I promptly went outside, I could no longer see him, for there were several narrow streets, and the area was thronged.
He did not show up again during the next few days, but my girl did come. She was wearing her black dress with the diaphanous lace on the shoulders (the crescent of the chemise neckline showing underneath) and with a nicely cut silk bertha hanging down from the edge of the lace. And since the girl had come, I forgot all about the young man; nor did I concern myself with him even later, when he started coming regularly again and praying in his usual style. However, he always hurried past me, averting his face. Perhaps it was because I could only picture him in motion, so that even when standing still, he appeared to be skulking along.
On evening, I dawdled in my room. But then I went to church after all. I did not find the girl and I was about to go home when I spotted that young man lying there again. The old incident crossed my mind, piquing my curiosity.
I tiptoed over to the doorway, handed a coin to the blind beggar sitting there, and squeezed in next to him behind the open wing of the door; I sat there for an hour, perhaps with a cunning expression. I felt fine and Nevertheless, growing angry, I sat for a third hour, letting the spiders crawl over my clothes, while the last few people, breathing loudly, quit the darkness of the church.
Then he came too. He walked gingerly, his feet cautiously testing the ground before treading.
I stood up, took a large, straight step, and grabbed the young man. "Good evening," I said, clutching his collar and pushing him down the steps to the illuminated square.
When we reached the bottom, he said to me in a completely unhinged voice, "Good evening, my dear, dear sir, do not be angry with me, your humbly devoted servant."
"Well," I said, "I want to ask you some questions, sir. Last time, you escaped; today, you will scarcely succeed."
"You are a compassionate man, sir, and you will allow me to go home. I am to be pitied, that is the truth."
"No," I shouted into the din of a passing trolley, "I won't allow you. This is the sort of encounter I like. You are a lucky catch. I consider myself fortunate."
Then he said; "Oh God, your heart is alive, but your head is a block of wood. You say I'm a lucky catch-how lucky you must be! For my poor luck is one that teeters, it teeters on a thin edge, and if anyone touches my poor luck it will fall on the questioner. Good night, sir."
"Fine," I said, clutching his right hand, "if you won't answer me, then I"ll start yelling here in the street. And all the shopgirls who are now coming out of their shops and all their sweethearts who are looking forward to seeing them will come dashing over here, for they'll think that a cab horse has collapsed or that something similar has happened. Then I'll make a public display of you."
He now tearfully kissed my hands, alternating between them. "I'll tell you what you wish to know, but please, let us go over to that side street." I nodded, and that was where we went.
However, the darkness of the street with its widely separated yellow streetlights was not dark enough for him; instead, he led me into the low hallway of an old house, under a tiny, dripping lamp that hung in front of the wooden stairs.
There he self-importantly pulled out his handkerchief, and spreading it on a step, he said, "Do sit down, my dear sir; this way, you can ask your questions more easily. I'll remain standing, so I can answer more easily. But please don't torment me."
So I sat down and, squinting up at him, I said: "You are an utter lunatic, that's what you are! How can you behave like that in church! It is so annoying and unpleasant for the onlookers! How can people feel devout if they have to look at you."
He was pressing his body against the wall, only his head was moving freely in the air. "Don't be annoyed-why should you be annoyed at things that aren't relevant to you. I'm annoyed at myself when I behave imprudently; but if someone else behaves imprudently, then I'm delighted. So please don't be annoyed if I tell you that the goal of my life is to be looked at by other people."
"What are you saying!?" I cried, much too loudly for the low hallway, but then I was afraid my voice would weaken. "Really now, what have you said!? Why, I can sense-indeed, since I first laid eyes on you, I have sensed what sort of condition you are in. I'm a man of experience, and I'm not joking when I say that your condition is a seasickness on dry land. It is such that you have forgotten the real names of things, and in your great haste you now pour random names upon them. Hurry, hurry! But the moment you run off, you forget your names for them. You called the poplar in the fields the 'Tower of Babel,' for you did not know or did not want to know that it was a poplar, and now it is swaying again without a name, and you would have to call it, 'When Noah Was Drunk.'"
I was a bit stunned when he said, "I'm glad I didn't understand what you said."
Annoyed, I quickly said, "The fact that you are glad shows that you did understand."
"Of course it does, my good sir, but you too spoke in a bizarre way."
I placed my hands on a higher step, leaned back, and in this almost unassailable position, which is a wrestler's last resort, I said, "You have a strange way of wriggling out of a predicament-by assuming that other people suffer from your condition."
These words lent him courage. He folded his hands together in order to make his body compact, then said, a bit reluctantly: "No, I don't act this way with everyone, for instance you, because I can't. But I would be glad if I could, for then I wouldn't need the attention of the people in church. Do you know why I need it?"
This question left me perplexed. I certainly did not know, nor do I believe I wanted to know. After all, I was not the one who wanted to come here, I told myself at this point, this man forced me to listen to him. So all I had to do was shake my head to indicate that I did not know; but I simply could not get my head to move.
The man, standing across from me, smiled. Then he dropped to his knees and talked with a faraway look: "There has never been a time when I could truly convince myself that I was alive. You see, I only have such flimsy notions of the things around me that I always believe they used to be alive but are now fading away. I always, my dear sir, long to see things as they may be before they show themselves to me. In their earlier state, they are probably still beautiful and calm. They must be, for that is how I often hear people describing them."
Since I held my tongue, and only involuntary twitches in my face showed how uneasy I was, he asked, "You do not believe that people talk like that?"
I felt I ought to nod, but was unable to do so.
"Really? You do not believe it? Oh, but listen. One afternoon when I was a child, I opened my eyes after taking a brief nap, and even though I was still half asleep, I heard my mother on the balcony, asking someone below, in a normal tone of voice: 'What are you doing, my dear? It's so hot.' A woman answered from the garden: 'I'm having coffee outdoors.' They were speaking offhandedly and not all too plainly, as if it were a matter of course."
I thought I was being asked a question, so I reached into my back trouser pocket as if looking for something. But I was not looking for anything, I simply wanted to change my position in order to show my interest in the conversation. While so doing, I said that was such a strange incident, and that I simply did not understand it. I added that I did not believe it was true and that it must have been made up for some specific purpose that I could not fathom. Then I shut my eyes for they were aching.
"Oh, but it's good that you agree with me, and it was unselfish of you to stop me and tell me so. Just why should I feel ashamed-or why should we feel ashamed-that I don't walk upright and trudge along, that I don't strike my cane on the pavement or graze the clothes of the people who pass by so noisily. Wouldn't I actually be justified in complaining defiantly that I have to slink along the houses as a shadow with square shoulders, sometimes vanishing in the panes of the shop windows?
"What awful days I'm going through! Why are all our buildings so poorly built that high structures sometimes collapse and no one can find a cogent reason? At such times, I clamber over the rubble heaps, asking anyone I run into: 'How could this happen! In our city-a new building-that's the fifth one today-just imagine!" And no one can give me an answer.
"Often people collapse on the street and remain lying there dead. Then all the shopkeepers open their doors, which are hung with wares, they step out nimbly, whisk the corpse into a house, then reemerge with smiling lips and eyes, and speak: 'Good day-the sky is pale-I sell lots of kerchiefs-yes, the war.' I slink into the house, and after several anxious attempts at raising my hand while crooking my finger, I finally tap on the janitor's small window.
"'My good fellow,' I say amiably, 'a dead man has been brought here. Please take me to him.'
"And when he shakes his head as if undecided, I say firmly, 'My good fellow. I am from the secret police. Show me the corpse immediately.'
"'A corpse?' he now asks and is almost offended. 'No, we have no corpse here. This is a respectable place.' So I say goodbye and leave.
"But then, when I have to cross a large square, I forget everything. I am confused by the difficulty of this undertaking, and I often think to myself: If people build such huge squares out of sheer exuberance, why don't they also add a stone balustrade leading across the square. Today the wind is blowing form the southwest. The air on the square is stirred up. The spire of the town hall is reeling in small circles. Why dn't they end the commotion? All the windowpanes are banging loudly, and the lampposts are bending like bamboo. The robe of the Virgin Mary on the column is twisting, and the storm wind is tearing away at it. Doesn't anyone see it? The ladies and gentlemen who are supposed to walk on the stones are gliding. When the wind stops to catch its breath, they halt, exchange a few words, and bow as they take their leave; but if the wind starts blasting again, they are unable to resist it, and they all raise their feet in unison. They do have to clutch their hats tightly, but their eyes twinkle cheerfully as if merely a mild breeze were wafting. I am the only one who is afraid."
Abused as I felt, I said, "The story you told me earlier about your mother and the woman in the garden does not sound the least bit strange. Not only have I heard and experienced many such stories, I have even taken part in a few. Why, it's a perfectly normal business. Do you believe I could not have said the same thing if I had been on the balcony, or responded in the same way from the garden? Such an ordinary incident."
When I said that, he seemed very happy. He said that I was dressed nicely and that he liked my necktie very much. And what a fine complexion I had. And that confessions were the most informative when they were rescinded.