Kafka on the GateKeepers

[Razer]

On 03/31/2017 06:36 PM, juan wrote:
> 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? 
>
>
>


Google translate shows multiple definitions all having legal implications:

law
Recht, Gesetz, Jura, Rechtsordnung, Rechtswissenschaft, Regel

act
Akt, Gesetz, Handlung, Tat, Urkunde, Aufzug

bill
Rechnung, Gesetz, Gesetzentwurf, Schein, Entwurf

statute
Satzung, Statut, Gesetz





>> 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