The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (23 page)

So, for example, a rumor spread that if her petition were not granted, Josephine intended to shorten her trill notes. I know nothing of trill notes and have never noticed any sign of them in her singing, but Josephine is going to shorten her trill notes; for the time being she is not going to eliminate them, just shorten them. She has purportedly carried out her threat, although I, for one, have perceived no difference in her performance. The people as a whole listened as always without commenting on the trill notes and did not budge an inch in response to her demand. Incidentally, it is undeniable that Josephine's thoughts can sometimes be as pleasing as her figure; for instance, after that performance, as if her decision with regard to the trill notes had been too harsh and too sudden a blow to the people, she announced that the next time she would again sing the trill notes in their complete form. But after the next concert she changed her tune once more: there was definitely to be an end to the elongated trills and they would not recur until a favorable decision on her petition was reached. Well, the people let all these announcements, decisions, and counterdecisions go in one ear and out the other, much like a preoccupied adult with the chattering of a child: well disposed at heart but unmoved.

But Josephine does not give up. She recently claimed, for example, that she injured her foot while working, so that it was difficult to stand and sing, and since she can only sing while standing, her songs would now have to be cut short. Although she limps and leans on her group of supporters, no one believes she is really injured. Even allowing for her exceptionally sensitive constitution, we are a working people and Josephine is one of us; if we were to start limping at every little scratch, the entire population would never stop limping. But although she may permit herself to be led around like a cripple, although she may display herself in this pathetic condition more often than usual, the people still listen gratefully and appreciatively to her singing just as before and don't bother much about the abridgment of the songs.

Since she cannot continue limping forever, she invents something else: She pleads exhaustion, disaffection, faintness. And so now we get a theatrical performance as well as a concert. Behind Josephine we see her supporters entreating and imploring her to sing. She would be happy to oblige, but she cannot. They comfort her and caress her with flattery, they practically carry her to a previously chosen spot where she is supposed to sing. Finally, bursting inexplicably into tears, she relents, but when she prepares to sing, clearly at the end of her tether, drooping, her arms not outspread as usual but hanging limply at her sides, giving the impression that they are perhaps somewhat too short—as she prepares to strike a note, no, it's no use after all; a reluctant shake of the head tells us as much and she swoons before our eyes. Then she does indeed rally again and sings, much the same as ever in my opinion; perhaps a more discerning ear might detect a slight increase in feeling that does, however, heighten the effect. And in the end she is actually less tired than before and departs with a firm tread, if such a term can be used to describe her rapid, mincing steps, refusing all assistance from her supporters, her cold eyes measuring the crowd, who respectfully make way for her.

That was just a few days ago. But the latest news is that she has disappeared, just at a time when she was expected to sing. It is not only her supporters who are looking for her, many others have devoted themselves to the search, but all in vain; Josephine has vanished, she does not wish to sing, she does not wish to be invited to sing; she has deserted us for good this time.

It is curious how seriously she miscalculates, the clever creature, so seriously that one must believe that she did not calculate at all but is only being driven onward by her fate, which can only be a sad one in our world. She abandons her singing of her own accord and of her own accord destroys the power she has gained over our hearts. How could she ever have acquired that power when she knows so little of our hearts? She hides herself away and does not sing. In the meantime our people—calmly, without visible disappointment, a proud, self-sufficient people, who in all truth and despite appearances can only bestow gifts, never receive them, even from Josephine—our people continue on their way.

But Josephine's path can go nowhere except down. Soon the time will come when her last note sounds and fades into silence. She is a small episode in the eternal history of our people, and the people will overcome their loss. This will not be easy for us though; how can we gather together in utter silence? And yet, weren't we silent even when Josephine was present? Was her actual piping significantly louder and more lively than the memory of it will be? Was it ever more than simply a memory, even during her lifetime? Had not the people rather, in their wisdom, so dearly cherished Josephine's song precisely so that in this way it would not be lost?

So perhaps we shall not miss very much after all. While Josephine, delivered from earthly torment—in her opinion the privilege of chosen spirits—will happily lose herself in the countless number of our people's heroes, and soon, since we are not students of history, will be even further delivered by being forgotten like all her brothers.

|
Go to Contents
|

Translator's Afterword

IT WOULD BE IDEAL IF EACH OF US could read all the world's literature in the language in which it was originally written. Since that is not a realistic possibility, every reader, sooner or later, comes to rely on the interpretive skills of a translator.

Being an act of interpretation, a translation is also an act of criticism. At any given point several options are available and critical choices must be made. These choices will obviously reflect the translator's understanding not only of the text but of the author's intentions. What the translator sees or reads into the text—bringing to bear all of his or her knowledge and experience—invariably influences these decisions to some degree. But one hopes that the portion of this understanding that might be called "biases" can be kept to a minimum.

By nature, a translator must be flexible and approach each work as a separate challenge, although there are larger principles that guide translation in general. The foremost of these is to stay true to the text. This entails adhering to the author's intentions, insofar as the translator can discern them, and being able to view the text as a distinct entity while not losing sight of the context in which it was written. The translator must decide how best to serve the not always compatible demands of the author, the reader, and the text. He or she must choose what to stress and what to sacrifice; some authors are noted for their particular use of language—Henry James and Ernest Hemingway come to mind; some are known more for the content of their work, the historical moment that they chronicle—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Harriet Beecher Stowe might be examples; and some, like Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka, for creating a new kind of story altogether—familiar yet strange, rich in its specifics yet timeless in its reach.

There is always compromise in translation because every language affords different possibilities and imposes unique limitations. Still other problems arise when dealing with texts that were written long ago or in circumstances alien or unfamiliar to the contemporary reader or translator. If one completely modernizes a text, one risks losing the delicious essentials of time and place; if one adheres strictly to the language and knowledge of an earlier time, one may obscure the reader's access to the timeless appeal of the original work. Although great literature often outlives its author, it is written at a specific time and in a specific place, and this must be taken into consideration when translating.

The stories of Franz Kafka largely address the human condition and are therefore timeless, but Kafka was also a German-speaking Jew in early twentieth-century Prague. One way that I have attempted, in this translation, to make his work accessible to the modern reader is to update his language, particularly in the dialogue, where modern idiom and phrasing have been employed with some regularity. On the other hand I've also maintained some of the vocabulary of the time in which Kafka lived. For example, the furniture, money, and clothing of his time and place are very different from those of ours, as are the words used to signify them. Using the English equivalents for the original European terms for these things, rather than convert them into their modern, American incarnations, helps to establish the actual historical time and setting in which the events take place and thus allows the reader to savor the ambience of the original instead of merely surveying its outlines. In this case it seems to me that this is an aspect of these texts that the reader need not and ought not be excluded from.

This translation attempts to present the stories of Franz Kafka in as readable a version as possible and in much the same way as they would be read and understood by the German reader. The singular situations Kafka's characters find themselves in, the turns these situations take—at times uncanny, at times all too frighteningly routine—the sensation of being pressed to the existential brink without knowing how one got there (or whether one will be permitted to return) all have far more immediate impact than his diction. His language is, in fact, quite simple and straightforward; it is his verbal structure that is often complex. This is due, in part, to the structure of the German language, which builds sentences—often of astounding length—in modular units. Kafka did make diligent and sometimes amusing—and subversive—use of this aspect of his native tongue. But some of the older English translations have become mired in those structural complexities. As a result, the stories have been made less available to the reader than they might otherwise have been.

In an effort to cope with such difficulties, a proclivity has developed in contemporary American translation for rendering the original text as it might have been constructed if written by a contemporary American. Toward that end, modern idioms and rhythms are introduced. Sentence lengths and even paragraphs are restructured to embrace the American ear. Translators who employ this style feel this is the best way to bring the original across and keep it fresh.

For the most part—except where it would interfere with the reader's full understanding of the text—I have maintained Kafka's sentence length and paragraph structure in this translation, as I feel that both are strategic elements of his writing style. At the same time I have tried to alleviate those difficulties within his sentence structure that arise merely because normal German and English word order are substantially different. I didn't find it necessary to sacrifice the rhythm and length of Kafka's sentences for the sake of clarity.

Once the structural dilemmas have been resolved in English, the stories speak for themselves, but when Kafka does use a particular storytelling device I have tried to incorporate it into the English translation. In "The Metamorphosis," for example, Kafka first—and almost continually thereafter—refers to Gregor's parents and sister as "the mother," "the father," and "the sister." Other translators have employed personal pronouns here (i.e., "his mother," etc.), probably because it seemed less formal and awkward in English. But it is awkward in the German text, and meant to be. It is an intentional device, serving to make immediately apparent Gregor's alienation from his family. And it soon comes to seem—under Kafka's skillful guidance—appropriate. At one point later in the story, however, it is "his father" who kicks Gregor into the room; this usage is also intentional and is introduced because Gregor had previously seen his father as pathetic—it was due to his father's business failure that Gregor had to work as a traveling salesman—and his own father is now the very personal cause of his being banished from the family instead of their helping him, something he could not feel impersonal about.

Similarly, it is the abrupt switch to the present tense that catapults the story "A Country Doctor" forward. From the moment when the groom attacks the maid, the doctor is uncontrollably propelled through the story in the present tense, until he attempts to take matters into his own hands and leaves the patient's house, at which point the tense reverts to the past. While my first priority in this translation has been to maintain clarity for the English reader, I felt it was imperative not to lose sight—as many other translators of this story have—of an author's device that is there for the purpose of enhancing the narrative.

There are also moments when Kafka seems so caught up in the narrative drive of a story that some of its continuity gets lost. In "The Stoker," the maid that Karl impregnates is later referred to as the cook. This may have been an oversight that Kafka would have corrected in future revisions (he planned to include "The Stoker" as the first chapter in a novel he did not complete, post-humously published under the title
Amerika
), but this translation remains faithful to the text. I have not corrected these lapses or reconciled such minor inconsistencies, as they may be of interest to the reader. They are, however, footnoted in the text itself.

Despite the common conception of Kafka as a spurt writer periodically driven by the white heat of inspiration—perhaps the result of the well-known anecdote of Kafka's writing his breakthrough story "The Judgment" in one all-night session in 1912—it would seem that he worked and reworked his stories and, in some cases, held a clear picture of what he planned to write well in advance of the first draft. In 1906 he wrote a story about a man who splits into an insect and a man, the insect self going off to work and the man staying home in bed. This precursor to "The Metamorphosis" was never published. He also wrote in a letter to his friend and publisher Kurt Wolff that he wished to include "The Judgment," "The Stoker," and "The Metamorphosis" in one volume under the title
The Sons
. This letter is dated April 4, 1913—well before he had written either "The Stoker" or "The Metamorphosis." For whatever reasons, the stories were never published together under that title while Kafka was alive. Kafka's wish that these three stories be published together has in part formed the basis of this collection. All of the stories included, of course, have become classics, but it has been a special pleasure for me that by including "Josephine the Singer" along with "The Judgment," this collection contains both the last and the first stories that Kafka saw published in his lifetime.