The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (15 page)

All you patients now be joyful,
The doctor's laid in bed beside you!

I'll never reach home at this rate; my thriving practice is lost; my successor will rob me of it, but in vain, for he cannot replace me; that foul groom is raging through my house; Rosa is his victim; I don't want to think of it anymore. Naked, exposed to the frosts of this most unfortunate era, with my earthly carriage and unearthly horses, old man that I am, I am buffeted about. My fur coat hangs from the back of the trap, but I cannot reach it, and not one of my agile pack of patients lifts a finger. Betrayed! Betrayed! A false ring of the night bell, once answered—it can never be made right.

|
Go to Contents
|

In the Penal Colony

IT'S AN EXCEPTIONAL APPARATUS," the officer said to the world traveler and, with a certain admiration, surveyed the apparatus that was, after all, quite familiar to him. The traveler appeared to have accepted purely out of politeness the commandant's invitation to attend the execution of a soldier, who had been condemned for insubordination and insulting a superior officer. There did not seem to be much interest in the execution throughout the penal colony itself. In any event, the only other persons present besides the officer and the traveler in this small but deep and sandy valley, surrounded by barren slopes on all sides, were the condemned man—a dull, thick-lipped creature with a disheveled appearance—and a soldier, who held the heavy chain that controlled the smaller chains attached to the condemned man's ankles, wrists, and neck, chains that were also linked together. But the condemned man looked so submissively doglike that it seemed as if he might have been allowed to run free on the slopes and would only need to be whistled for when the execution was due to begin.

The traveler was not particularly enthralled by the apparatus and he paced back and forth behind the condemned man with almost visible indifference while the officer made the final preparations, one moment crawling beneath the apparatus that was deeply embedded in the ground, another climbing a ladder to inspect its uppermost parts. These were tasks that could really have been left to a mechanic, but the officer performed them with energetic eagerness, perhaps because he was a devoted admirer of the apparatus or because, for whatever other reasons, the work could be entrusted to no one else. "Now everything's ready!" he called out at last, and climbed down from the ladder. He had worked up a sweat and was breathing with his mouth wide open; he had also tucked two very fine ladies' handkerchiefs under the collar of his uniform. "Surely these uniforms are too heavy for the tropics," said the traveler instead of inquiring, as the officer expected, about the apparatus. "Of course," the officer said, washing the oil and grease from his hands in a nearby bucket of water, "but they represent home for us; we don't want to forget about our homeland—but now just take a look at this machine," he immediately added, drying his hands on a towel and simultaneously indicating the apparatus. "Up to this point I have to do some of the operations by hand, but from now on the apparatus works entirely by itself." The traveler nodded and followed the officer. Then the officer, seeking to prepare himself for all eventualities, said: "Naturally there are sometimes problems; I hope of course there won't be any problems today, but one must allow for the possibility. The apparatus should work continually for twelve hours, but even if anything does go wrong, it will be something minor and easy to repair at once."

"Won't you sit down?" he inquired at last, pulling out a cane chair from a whole heap of them and offering it to the traveler, who was unable to refuse. The traveler was now sitting at the edge of a pit, and he glanced cursorily in its direction. It was not very deep. On one side of the pit, the excavated earth had been piled up to form an embankment, on the other side of the pit stood the apparatus. "I don't know," said the officer, "whether the commandant has already explained the apparatus to you." The traveler made a vague gesture with his hand, and the officer could not have asked for anything better, for now he was free to explain the apparatus himself. "This apparatus," he said, grabbing hold of the crankshaft and leaning against it, "was the invention of our former commandant. I myself was involved in the very first experiments and also shared in the work all the way to its completion, but the credit for the invention belongs to him alone. Have you ever heard of our former commandant? No? Well, it wouldn't be too much to say that the organization of the whole penal colony is his work. We who were his friends knew long before his death that the organization of the colony was so perfectly self-contained that his successor, even if he had a thousand new schemes brewing in his head, would find it impossible to alter a thing from the old system, at least for many years to come. Our prediction has indeed come true, and the new commandant has had to acknowledge as much. It's too bad you never met the old commandant!—but," the officer interrupted himself, "I'm rambling, and here is his apparatus standing right in front of us. It consists, as you can see, of three parts. In the course of time each part has acquired its own nickname. The lower part is called the bed, the upper one is the designer, and this one in the middle here that hovers between them is called the harrow." "The harrow?" asked the traveler. He had not been listening very intently; the sun beat down brutally into the shadeless valley and it was difficult to collect one's thoughts. He had to admire the officer all the more: He wore his snugly fitting dress uniform, hung with braiding weighted with epaulettes; he expounded on his subject with zeal and tightened a few screws here and there with a screwdriver while he spoke. As for the soldier, he seemed to be in much the same condition as the traveler: He had wound the condemned man's chain around both his wrists and propped himself up with one hand on his rifle; his head hung down and he took no notice of anything. The traveler was not surprised by this, as the officer was speaking in French and certainly neither the soldier nor the condemned man understood French. It was therefore that much more remarkable that the condemned man nevertheless strove to follow the officer's explanations. With a drowsy sort of persistence he directed his gaze wherever the officer pointed, and when the traveler broke in with his question, he, like the officer, looked at the traveler.

"Yes, the harrow," answered the officer, "a perfect name for it. The needles are arranged similarly to the teeth of a harrow and the whole thing works something like a harrow, although it is stationary and performs with much more artistry. You'll soon understand it anyway. The condemned man is laid here on the bed—you see, first I want to explain the apparatus and then start it up, that way you'll be able to follow it better; besides, one of the gears in the designer is badly worn, it makes a horrible screeching noise when it's turning and you can hardly hear yourself speak; unfortunately spare parts are difficult to come by around here—well, so here is the bed, as I said before. It's completely covered with a layer of cotton wool, you'll find out what that's for later. The condemned man is laid facedown on the cotton wool, naked of course; here are straps for the hands, the feet, and here for the neck, in order to hold him down. So, as I was saying, here at the head of the bed, where the condemned man is at first laid facedown, is the little felt gag that can be adjusted easily to fit straight into the man's mouth. It's meant to keep him from screaming or biting his tongue. The man has to take the felt in his mouth since otherwise the neck strap would break his neck." "That's cotton wool?" asked the traveler, leaning forward. "It certainly is," the officer said with a smile, "feel for yourself." He grabbed hold of the traveler's hand and guided it over the bed's surface. "It's specially prepared cotton wool, which is why you don't recognize it; I'll come to its purpose in a minute." The traveler was starting to feel the stirring of interest in the apparatus; he gazed up at it with one arm raised to shield his eyes from the sun. It was a large structure. The bed and the designer were the same size and looked like two dark steamer trunks. The designer hung about two meters above the bed; they were joined at the corners by four brass rods that practically gleamed in the sunlight. The harrow was suspended on a steel band between the two trunks.

The officer had barely noticed the traveler's previous indifference but definitely sensed his burgeoning interest, so he paused in his explanations in order to give the traveler time for undisturbed observation. The condemned man imitated the traveler, but since he could not shield his eyes with a hand, he blinked up into the sun.

"So, the man lies down," said the traveler, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

"Yes," said the officer, pushing his cap back a little and mopping his sweaty face with his hand, "now listen! Both the bed and the designer have their own electric battery; the bed needs one for itself and the designer needs one for the harrow. As soon as the man is strapped in, the bed is set in motion. It quivers with tiny, rapid vibrations, both from side to side and up and down. You will have seen similar contraptions in sanitariums, but for our bed, all the movements are calibrated precisely, for they must correspond to movements of the harrow. But it is the harrow that actually carries out the sentence."

"And just what is the sentence?" inquired the traveler. "You don't know that either?" the officer said in astonishment, and bit his lip. "Excuse me if my explanations seem a bit incoherent, I beg your pardon. The commandant always used to take care of the explanations, but the new commandant seems to scorn this duty; but that such a distinguished visitor"—the traveler attempted to wave this distinction away with both hands, but the officer insisted on the expression—"that such a distinguished visitor should not even be made aware of the form our sentencing takes is a new development, which"—an oath was about to pass his lips but he checked himself and said only: "I was not informed of this, it's not my fault. In any case, I'm certainly the man best equipped to explain our sentencing, since I have here"—he patted his breast pocket—"the relevant drawings made by our former commandant."

"Drawings by the commandant himself?" the traveler asked. "Was he everything himself? Was he soldier, judge, engineer, chemist, draftsman?"

"Yes sir, he was," the officer answered, nodding his head with a remote, contemplative look. Then he examined his hands closely; they did not seem to be clean enough for him to handle the drawings, so he went over to the bucket and washed them again. Then he drew out a small leather folder and said: "The sentence does not sound severe. Whatever commandment the condemned man has transgressed is engraved on his body by the harrow. This man, for example"-the officer indicated the man—"will have inscribed on his body: 'Honor thy superiors!'"

The traveler briefly looked at the man, who stood, as the officer pointed him out, with bowed head, apparently straining with all his might to catch something of what was said. But the movement of his thick, closed lips clearly showed that he understood nothing. There were a number of questions the traveler wanted to ask, but at the sight of the man he asked only: "Does he know his sentence?" "No," said the officer, eager to continue his explanations, but the traveler interrupted him: "He doesn't know his own sentence?" "No," repeated the officer, and paused for a moment as if he were waiting for the traveler to elaborate on the reason for his question, then said: "It would be pointless to tell him. He'll come to know it on his body." The traveler would not have spoken further, but he felt the condemned man's gaze trained on him; it seemed to be asking if the traveler approved of all this. So after having already leaned back in his chair, he bent forward again and asked another question: "But does he at least know that he's been sentenced?" "No, not that either," the officer replied, smiling at the traveler as if expecting him to make more strange statements. "Well," said the traveler, "then you mean to tell me that the man is also unaware of the results of his defense?" "He has had no opportunity to defend himself," said the officer, looking away as if talking to himself and trying to spare the traveler the embarrassment of having such self-evident matters explained to him. "But he must have had some opportunity to defend himself," the traveler said, and got up from his seat.

The officer realized that his explanations of the apparatus were in danger of being held up for quite some time, so he approached the traveler, put his arm through his, and gestured toward the condemned man, who was standing up straight now that he was so obviously the center of attention—the soldier had also given the chain a jerk—and said: "Here's the situation. I have been appointed judge in this penal colony—despite my youth—as I was the previous commandant's assistant in all penal matters and also know the apparatus better than anyone else. The guiding principle for my decisions is this: Guilt is unquestionable. Other courts cannot follow that principle because they have more than one member and even have courts that are higher than themselves. That is not the case here, or at least it was not so during the time of the former commandant. Although the new one has shown signs of interfering with my judgments, I have succeeded in fending him off so far and shall continue to do so—you wanted to have this case explained; it's quite simple, as they all are. A captain reported to me this morning and charged this man—who is assigned to him as an orderly and sleeps in front of his door—with sleeping on duty. You see, it is his duty to get up every time the hour strikes and salute the captain's door. This is certainly not a tremendously difficult task but a necessary one, as he must be alert both to guard and wait on his master. Last night the captain wanted to find out whether the orderly was performing his duty. When the clock struck two, he opened the door and found the man curled up asleep. He took his horsewhip and lashed him across the face. Now instead of rising and begging for pardon, the man grabbed his master by the legs, shook him, and cried: 'Throw away that whip or I'll swallow you whole'—those are the facts. The captain came to me an hour ago, I wrote down his statement and immediately followed it up with the sentence. Then I had the man put in chains. That was quite simple. If I had called for this man first and interrogated him, it would only have resulted in confusion. He would have lied, and had I been successful in exposing those lies, he would just have replaced them with new ones, and so on. But as it stands now, I have him and I won't let him go—is everything clear now? But time's marching on, the execution ought to be starting and I haven't finished explaining the apparatus yet." He pressed the traveler back into his seat, returned to the apparatus, and began: "As you can see, the shape of the harrow corresponds to the human form; here is the harrow for the upper body, here are the harrows for the legs. For the head there is just this one small spike. Is that clear?" He bent forward toward the traveler amiably, eager to furnish the most comprehensive explanations.