Kafka on the GateKeepers

[juan]

On Fri, 31 Mar 2017 00:24:50 -0400
grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Before the law sits a gatekeeper.


	I wonder what he meant by "law" - actually what's the original
	word in german? 



> To this gatekeeper comes a man from
> the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper
> says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks
> about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later
> on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” The gate to
> the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side,
> so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the
> inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it
> tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But
> take note. I am powerful. And I am only the lowliest gatekeeper. But
> from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the last.
> I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the
> country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be
> accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely
> at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his
> long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better
> to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives
> him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the
> gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be
> let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The
> gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his
> homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions,
> the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more
> that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself
> with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how
> valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as
> he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you
> have failed to do anything.”
> During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost
> continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one
> seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the
> unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud;
> later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes
> childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has
> also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas
> to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak,
> and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or
> whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in
> the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the
> gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his
> death he gathers up in his head all his experiences of the entire time
> into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves
> to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The
> gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the difference between
> them has changed considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do
> you want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.”
> “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in
> these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper
> sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his
> diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can
> gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going
> now to close it.”
> -- Kafka