“In a penal colony” you can remember the summary of the story in 7 minutes.
“In a penal colony” summary
The main characters of Kafka's story have no names:
- Traveler
- Officer
- New commandant
- Convicted
- Soldier
The story centers on a Traveler who arrives at a penal colony on a remote island. and sees the cruel machine for the first time. The officer tells him all the information about the execution machine and its purpose.
He is offered to attend the execution of a guilty soldier. A simple, somewhat simple-minded soldier, assigned as a servant and supposedly disobedient to his master, is to be killed by a machine with the words "Honor your superior."
Execution usually involved placing the convicted person in a “special kind of apparatus” for executions. The device works on the following principle: it scratches the commandment that he violated on the person’s body, then turns it over to the other side and scratches the same words again, only deeper, and so on until the offender dies. The criminal dies slowly over 12 hours
The officer is a supporter of the apparatus and considers it necessary. However, since the death of the old commandant, this punishment has found more and more opponents and the new commandant among them.
The officer asks the Traveler to speak with the current Commandant and support him at a meeting of the colony's command, but the Traveler refuses.
Then the officer releases the Convict and gets into the execution machine himself. However, the machine malfunctions and instead of the usual elegant operation, it quickly kills the officer.
After this terrible spectacle of the self-destruction of man and machine, the traveler, accompanied by two soldiers, visits the grave of the old commandant, who invented this execution machine. The tombstone is set very low, and the inscription states that his followers believe that he will one day rise from the dead and take control of the colony again.
The traveler leaves the island.
In Lübeck, Kafka again, it seems, accidentally meets Ernst Weiss and his girlfriend, the actress Rachel Sanzara. The couple takes him to Marielyst, a resort town on the Baltic Sea, where he spends ten days. Ernst Weiss, who has a suspicious character, is prone to jealousy, and quarrels often arise between spouses. The hotel is mediocre, there are no vegetables or fruits on the menu. Kafka is about to leave immediately, but his usual indecision takes over, and he remains without much pleasure. A few days later, recalling his stay in Denmark, he would write in his Diary: “I continue to become increasingly incapable of thinking, observing, noticing, remembering, speaking, taking part, I am turning to stone.”
However, it would be a mistake to think that he fell into despair. On the contrary, the break with Felitsa, most likely final, freed him from his obsession with getting married. From Marielist he writes to Max Brod and Felix Welch, informing them of the events: “I know very well that everything turned out for the best, and in relation to this so obviously necessary matter I do not suffer to such an extent as it might seem.” He also writes to his parents, the breaking of the engagement seems to him a favorable moment for the implementation of a long-standing plan: to end the gloomy life of a functionary, which he leads in Prague, go to Germany and try to earn a living with his pen; he has five thousand crowns in his pocket, which will allow him to last for two years.
On July 26, on his way back, he passes through Berlin, where he meets Erna Bauer. The day after arriving in Prague, he continues to write notes about the trip in his Diary. July 29 writes the first two drafts, which will become the starting point of “The Process.” In the first, Joseph K., the son of a rich merchant, quarrels with his father, who reproaches him for his careless life; he goes to a merchant's club, where the gatekeeper bows before him; this character is present from the very beginning, his significance will be revealed later. In the second draft, a commercial employee is shamefully expelled by his owner, who accuses him of theft: the employee declares his innocence, but he lies, he really stole a five-florin ticket from the cash register without knowing why. It was a petty theft, which, without a doubt, should have, according to the narrator's plan, entailed many consequences.
Kafka did not use this first draft, probably deciding that by leaving his hero guilty, even the most innocuous, he was weakening the motive. It is necessary that Josef K. be innocent in order for the nature or ambiguity of his trial to be fully clarified.
“Devilish in all his innocence” - this is how he wrote about himself in his “Diary”. One can be guilty and, therefore, fairly punished, or one can act unintentionally, that is, yielding to the demands of one’s nature. Guilt and innocence are not in contradiction; they are two inseparable realities, intricately interconnected.
“Although you sat during the trial at the Askanischer Hof as a judge elevated above me /.../,” Kafka writes to Greta Bloch in October 1914, “it only seemed so - in fact, I was sitting in your place and not left him to this day." In the first chapter of The Trial, written shortly after this, where Joseph K. tells Fraulein Bürstner about his arrest, almost the same situation arises. The first chapter, without any doubt, is a romantic transcription of the “Askanischer Hof Tribunal.” When Kafka wrote “The Judgment,” he was surprised to notice that Brandenfeld gave his heroine Frieda the initials Felitza Bauer: this thought came subconsciously. In “The Trial,” he of his own free will, Fraulein Bürstner again uses the same initials for the inhabitant of the boarding house Grubach; this time this is a secret hint intended for him alone. Kafka is not going to talk about his unhappy love, rather, on the contrary, from the very beginning he accepts Felitza’s resignation. Fraulein Bürstner not only was not like her, but, most importantly, she played no role in the life of Josef K. He did not even speak to her before the story began.Some commentators, seeking to find in his story the guilt that made him become a criminal, attributed to him this silence as a crime. And Fraulein Bürstner immediately disappears completely, only to appear again only in the last chapter, at the moment when Joseph K. is led to execution, but he is not even sure whether it is she, even in this pathetic moment she does not play any role. Another chapter, which can undoubtedly be interpreted as a reference to the past, entitled "Fräulein Bürstner's Friend": Josef K. hopes to meet his neighbor, with whom he exchanged a few words on the very evening when he was arrested. But the neighbor has moved, and in her place he finds a certain Fraulein Montag, an old limping and grumpy maiden. It is likely that Kafka wanted to convey here the impression that Greta Bloch made on him during their first meeting, and, perhaps, to extinguish his secret resentment towards her. But this is the only thing that connects him with the past, Felitsa has disappeared, the process is happening without her.
In "The Judgment" and in "Metamorphosis" the autobiographical beginning was palpable: in the first - this was a failed betrothal, in the second - the horror of loneliness. The narrator's special psychological situation made itself felt. Here, in “The Trial,” he replaces himself with a hero without a face or a story. Josef K., whose identity and raison d'être are called into question one morning when police inspectors come to arrest him, is not an intellectual; he does not have the habit of asking himself questions about himself and seeing himself living. This is an extremely banal character - some of Kafka's commentators, starting with Max Brod himself, reproached him for this, as if banality were a crime that should be punished. And, despite this, he ceases to feel innocent, he no longer finds meaning in himself or in the world, he lives with despair, which his primitive mind is unable to suppress. He asks questions to those around him, he seeks a helping hand, but nothing stops the progress of his trial until the final execution, more grotesque than tragic, as pitiful as the year of the previous trial.
Kafka had just passed a decisive stage in his work. He talks less about himself, he broadens his view, from now on he reflects and asks, he leaves the anecdote and moves on to some pathetic abstraction, which will now become his manner.
Kafka’s “responsibility” towards Felice was quite definite: for two years he subjected her to needless suffering, he took advantage of his own doubts and even his weakness to mislead his naive partner, who was not able to follow him through all the convolutions of his neurosis. There is nothing like this in The Trial: no one can say about Josef K. that he is “diabolical in his innocence.” There was nothing in his mediocre life that could deceive the devil. And yet, it is against this “innocent” that the process is unfolding. The drawing is simplified as much as possible: the coexistence of innocence and guilt should appear with all clarity. And this “guilt” is no longer an offense that should be prosecuted by a criminal court, nor a deviation in behavior that should be condemned by morality: “guilt” is contained in existence itself, it is like a nausea that makes life uncertain, at the limit of the possible.
In a trial of this kind, the most significant thing would, of course, be the opportunity to obtain the help of a woman, since they have close connections with the judges, who greatly facilitate the situation. But here Josef K. has little chance of success. He pounced on Fraulein Bürstner, kissed her neck “at the very throat,” but he, without a doubt, put more hatred into his desire than love. The bailiff's wife, whom he meets in a deserted waiting room, is tormented by sexual desire, but as soon as her student lover Berthold appears, she rushes into his arms, leaving Josef K. alone. Subsequently, the love desire that relentlessly follows almost all the pages of the novel takes the form of vice: with Leni, the maid of lawyer Gould, the mistress of all the accused, who willingly shows her “little deformity” - a palm with webbed fingers; with precocious street girls besieging the stairs of the artist Titorelli, with whom they apparently spend the night. Josef K., like Kafka, has little hope of help from women.
Then society takes charge of him: his uncle, who cares about the good name of the family, which he does not want to see trampled into the dirt by the dishonor of the trial, takes him to an old lawyer he knows. And this lawyer with the funny name Gould, which means “mercy” in the old sublime language of poetry, promises him to use all his connections to get him out of the process. It does not describe the entire hierarchy of judges, lawyers, and high officials on whom the fate of all the accused depends. Who are they, these powerful people whom you never see, but who appear as vain and vindictive, sensitive to flattery and veneration? Are they people who are persuaded by petitions, or gods who are addressed with prayers? The story does not give a definite answer, since heaven, as Gould and his friends imagine, is created like a society of people, with its endless hierarchy, with the same shortcomings and weaknesses. There are jokes about these all-powerful intercessors: they say that some of them, tired of the annoying requests of lawyers, throw these unfortunates down the stairs. They tell a lot about these characters, in whose existence there is ultimately no certainty, just as there is no certainty that their intervention could change anything. Gould - an old, sick and shabby lawyer - lives in a gloomy shack, dimly lit by a gas lamp. But at the same time, he belongs to the best society of the city, representing order, generally accepted ideas, and social principles. Joseph K., finally tired of Gould's empty promises and delays, decides to do without his services.
He was told about another character who is known as a trickster in settling such processes, his name is Titorelli. This is a hungry artist who lives in an attic in an abandoned quarter. The pictures he paints all depict the same desert landscape. But the sluggish, cynical, vicious Titorelli has only dubious tricks, unreliable compromises that can camouflage processes rather than win them.
Joseph K. cannot make a choice between Gould and Titorelli: the solution he needs is not on one side or the other. Gould is a cold social order, devoid of meaning, Titorelli is disorder, licentiousness, bohemianism. We have already seen Kafka, both in his American novel and in life, oscillating between settledness and adventure, between moral comfort and freedom. A similar conflict is described in “The Trial,” but everything has changed: on both sides he finds only lies and emptiness. Gould and Titorelli are both cheaters, peddlers of false wisdom.
But it must be clarified: Gould, with his petitions and prayers, is an image - or a caricature - of a dead religion, devoid of its content, reduced to practice, the virtue of which is difficult to believe; he is the expression of a worn out, sick world, an unfortunate relic of a living faith in the past; everything in it speaks of decay and death; he himself only slightly comes out of his stupor just to start the process machine, but the machine is broken. Titorelli does not believe in God or the devil, but his spinelessness only causes disgust; in the stuffiness of his attic, Josef K. feels like he is about to lose consciousness.
After Kafka stopped working on The Trial, he began writing In the Penal Colony, the only story of this period that he managed to complete. Using a different medium, it tells essentially the same story. At the center of the story is a terrible torture machine, a relic of bygone times. When the former commandant still ruled on the convict island, the machine, according to the stories of its last adherents, during agony made the light of ecstasy shine on the face of the condemned man. When a traveler who comes to visit this penitentiary is urged to express his opinion on such customs of the past, he expresses only his disapproval. The only difference between “In the Penal Colony” and “The Trial” is that religion here is not worn out and sick, but cruel, inhuman, and unacceptable. No sane witness can any longer defend this code of merciless justice, these morals, these punishments. He cannot blame the new commandant, who has introduced humane practices on the island; they wanted to alleviate the suffering and alleviate the torture of prisoners. But these new morals only led to greed and bestial appetites. It is known what happens to a torture machine: when it is launched, it shatters into pieces; this evidence of the past, at once scandalous and miraculous, disappears forever. The traveler is in a hurry to leave the convict island, such horror was inspired in him by the spectacle he had to attend - the death of an officer, the last adherent of the former severity. But when he wants to get into the boat, the convict and the soldier cling to its sides. For them, this world without faith and law became uninhabitable.
The traveler from the story "In the Penal Colony", located between the old and new commandants, resembles Joseph K. between Gould and Titorelli, filled with a feeling of alienation towards the first and complete disgust and contempt for the second. A new dimension, which should be called religious, penetrated Kafka's work. If you look closely, it declared itself already in the early works: for example, in one of the houses where Karl Rosman from “The Missing” stays, an old chapel was walled up, and a gust of cold wind blew over everyone who passed by it: cold American efficiency could take over only by walling off the spiritual needs of the past. But what was only an incidental theme during the writing of The Trial, “In the Penal Colony” became the main motive. Kafka begins this kind of meditation after he finally manages to free himself from his false love.
If The Trial had contained only the two antagonistic themes of Titorelli and Gould, the novel would have turned into a dark series of grotesques. It was necessary for the gatekeeper, who had been prepared for a long time, to appear. And he appears, as we know, in a parable that the priest tells and comments on Joseph K. in the city cathedral. This chapter confused and spoiled the mood of some readers who did not adapt well to such a sudden invasion of a religious theme; they proposed to depict earlier, and not in the form of a conclusion, these events in the novel, the significance of which they sought to downplay. But Max Brod, when publishing The Trial, did not betray Kafka’s intentions: the chapter with the cathedral is the key arch of the entire structure, from the first page everything flows to it. And not because the parabola about the Door - the only passage from The Trial that Kafka allowed to be published during his lifetime - contains confidence or hope; on the contrary, the parable deepens the shadows even more; Instead of reassuring, as Gould tried to do with his empty promises, it reveals a discouraging truth: the villager remains completely alien to the Law, he spends his life on requests and expectations. Access to the truth that shines on the other side of the door remains closed to him; he is paralyzed by fear; he dare not overcome the silent threat of her guards; he dies without knowing the Law that concerns him and which would give him the meaning of life. Kafka will not stop there in the future: he will depict paths that can, perhaps, give access to the holy of holies. But within the framework of the "Process" the meditation ends; it ends with a statement of powerlessness, the shame of an existence devoid of its meaning.
These religious reflections are, in truth, not surprising. Back in February 1913, they appeared in a letter to Felitsa. “What is the nature of your piety?” he asked. “You go to temple, but obviously you haven’t gone there lately. And what supports you, the idea of Judaism or the idea of God? Do you feel - most importantly - continuous connections between you and a very lofty or very deep authority that inspires confidence because it is distant and perhaps infinite? Anyone who experiences this constantly does not need to rush in all directions like a lost dog and cast pleading but silent glances around him, he does not have desire to descend into the grave as if it were a warm sleeping bag, and life a cold winter's night. And when he climbs the stairs leading to his office, he does not need to see himself rushing down the flight of stairs, like a spot of light at dusk, revolving around his own axis in a downward movement and shaking his head with impatience." Anyone who writes such lines is clearly on the side of the wicked and abandoned dogs. And yet this nostalgia for a faith that at the moment has no content is not so far from the faith in God, of which it can take a semblance.
In August 1914, the phase of intense creative activity that is traced in this chapter began. In October, Kafka takes two weeks off to complete the stories he started. He did not succeed, only “In the Penal Colony” can be completed (although Kafka is dissatisfied with the last pages, which several years later, in 1917, he tried, however, unsuccessfully, to change). When you leaf through the diary of 1914, you see that day after day he is overcome by fatigue and doubt. On December 13, he composes an “exegesis of the parable,” that is, a dialogue between the priest and Joseph K. about the parabola with the gatekeeper and notes: “Instead of working, I wrote only one page (interpretation of the legend), re-read the finished chapters and found them partly successful. I am constantly haunted by the thought that the feeling of satisfaction and happiness that, for example, a legend gives me, must be paid for, and - in order to never know a break - it must be paid for right there." December 14: “A pathetic attempt to crawl forward - but this is perhaps the most important place in the work, where one good night would be so necessary.” December 31: “Since August, I have been working, in general, a lot and not bad, but in the first and second respects, not to the full extent of my capabilities, as it should be, especially considering that according to all the signs (insomnia, headache, heart weakness ) my possibilities will soon dry up." January 20, 1915: "End of writing. When will I start writing again?" 29th: “I tried to write again, almost to no avail.” February 7: “Complete stagnation. Endless torment,” 16th: “I can’t find a place for myself. It’s as if everything I owned left me, and if it returned, I would hardly be happy.” Thus begins a new and long period of creative sterility.
However, in counterpoint to his main works, the rather long sketches at the same time develop other themes. One of them talks about a railway line, lost in the Russian steppe: it leads nowhere, serves no purpose, and occasionally a lonely traveler moves along it. An employee of a small station, consumed by loneliness, plunges deeper and deeper into boredom, illness, and sadism every day. And so that there are no misunderstandings related to the meaning of this story, Kafka gives the railway line a name based on his own - the Kalda railway, as useless and as meaningless as himself. Another passage tells the story of a village teacher - this is the title of the story - who found a huge mole in his garden, the largest, as it seems to him, of all known. This discovery is his pride and soon the meaning of his existence. He tries to interest the scientific world, he writes treatise after treatise, but no one pays attention to his writings. Even the friends who most wish him well dissuade him from persisting; in the end, he remains the only one who believes in what he is doing. Kafka touches here not only on his personality and his life, he also ironizes the meaning of his work - who can understand him? who will ever read his works? Is it worth saying what he says? He does one step more than a school teacher: it happens that he absolutely does not believe in literature, which seemed to him intended to compensate for all his failures and weaknesses.
“This is a special kind of apparatus,” the officer said to the scientist-traveler, looking at the apparatus, of course, very familiar to him, not without admiration. The traveler, it seemed, only out of politeness accepted the commandant’s invitation to be present at the execution of the sentence imposed on one soldier for disobedience and insulting his superior. And in the penal colony, the upcoming execution apparently did not arouse much interest. In any case, here, in this small and deep sandy valley, closed on all sides by bare slopes, besides the officer and the traveler, there were only two: the convict - a dull, wide-mouthed fellow with an unkempt head and an unshaven face - and a soldier who did not let out the hands of a heavy chain, to which small chains converged, stretching from the ankles and neck of the condemned man and additionally fastened with connecting chains. Meanwhile, in the whole appearance of the condemned man there was such canine obedience that it seemed that he could be let go for a walk along the slopes, but all you had to do was whistle before the execution began, and he would appear.
The traveler showed no interest in the apparatus and walked behind the convict, clearly indifferent, while the officer, making final preparations, either climbed under the apparatus, into the pit, or climbed the ladder to inspect the upper parts of the machine. These works could, in fact, be entrusted to some mechanic, but the officer performed them with great diligence - either he was a special adherent of this apparatus, or for some other reason no one else could be entrusted with this work.
- OK it's all over Now! – he finally exclaimed and climbed down the ladder. He was extremely tired, he was breathing with his mouth wide open, and two ladies' handkerchiefs were sticking out from under the collar of his uniform.
“These uniforms are perhaps too heavy for the tropics,” said the traveler, instead of inquiring about the apparatus, as the officer expected.
“Of course,” the officer said and began to wash his hands, stained with lubricating oil, in the prepared bucket of water, “but this is a sign of the homeland, we don’t want to lose our homeland.” But look at this apparatus,” he added immediately and, wiping his hands with a towel, pointed to the apparatus. – Until now, it was necessary to work manually, but now the device will operate completely independently.
The traveler nodded and looked where the officer was pointing. He wished to insure himself against any accidents and said:
- Of course, there are problems: I really hope that today things will go without them, but you still need to be prepared for them. After all, the device must work for twelve hours without interruption. But if any problems occur, they will be very minor, and they will be corrected immediately... Would you like to sit down? - he finally asked and, pulling one out of a pile of wicker chairs, offered it to the traveler; he couldn't refuse.
Now, sitting at the edge of the pit, he glanced into it. The pit was not very deep. On one side of it lay a mound of dug up earth, on the other side there was an apparatus.
- Don't know. - said the officer, - has the commandant already explained to you the structure of this apparatus?
The traveler waved his hand vaguely; the officer did not need anything more, because now he could begin the explanation himself.
“This apparatus,” he said and touched the connecting rod, on which he then leaned, “is the invention of our former commandant.
I helped him from the very first experiments, and participated in all the work until its completion. But the credit for this invention belongs to him alone. Have you heard about our former commandant? No? Well, I won’t exaggerate if I say that the structure of this entire penal colony is his business. We, his friends, knew already at the hour of his death that the structure of this colony was so integral that his successor, even if he had a thousand new plans in his head, would not be able to change the old order, at least for many years. And our prediction came true, the new commandant had to admit it. It’s a pity that you didn’t know our former commandant!.. However,” the officer interrupted himself, “I was chatting, and our apparatus - here it is standing in front of us.” It consists, as you can see, of three parts. Gradually, each of these parts received a rather colloquial name. The lower part was called the lounger, the upper part was called the marker, and this middle, hanging part was called the harrow.
- Harrow? – asked the traveler.
He didn't listen very carefully; the sun was too hot in this shadowless valley, and it was difficult to concentrate. He was all the more surprised by the officer, who, although he was wearing a tight, formal uniform, weighed down with epaulettes and hung with aiguillettes, gave explanations so zealously and, in addition, while continuing to speak, even tightened the nut with a wrench here and there. The soldier seemed to be in the same condition as the traveler. Having wound the condemned man's chain around the wrists of both hands, he leaned one of them on the rifle and stood with his head hanging down, with the most indifferent look. This did not surprise the traveler, since the officer spoke French, and neither the soldier nor the convict, of course, understood French. But it was all the more striking that the convict still tried to follow the officer’s explanations. With some sleepy persistence, he constantly directed his gaze to where the officer was pointing at that moment, and now, when the traveler interrupted the officer with his question, the convict, like the officer, looked at the traveler.
“Yes, with a harrow,” said the officer. – This name is quite suitable. The teeth are arranged like a harrow, and the whole thing works like a harrow, but only in one place and much more intricately. However, now you will understand this. Here, on the sunbed, they place the convict... I will first describe the apparatus, and only then proceed to the procedure itself. This will make it easier for you to keep track of her. In addition, one gear in the marker has been severely ground, it grinds terribly when it rotates, and then it is almost impossible to talk. Unfortunately, replacement parts are very difficult to obtain... So, this is, as I said, a sunbed. It is completely covered with a layer of cotton wool, its purpose you will soon find out. The condemned man is placed on this cotton wool, stomach down - naked, of course - here are the straps to tie him: for the arms, for the legs and for the neck. Here, at the head of the lounger, where, as I said, the criminal’s face first falls, there is a small felt peg that can be easily adjusted so that it falls directly into the convict’s mouth. Thanks to this peg, the convict cannot scream or bite his tongue. The criminal willy-nilly puts this felt in his mouth, because otherwise the neck strap will break his vertebrae.
- Is this cotton wool? – the traveler asked and leaned forward.
“Yes, of course,” the officer said, smiling. - Feel it yourself. “He took the traveler’s hand and ran it along the lounger. – This cotton wool is prepared in a special way, which is why it is so difficult to recognize; I’ll tell you more about its purpose.
The traveler was already a little interested in the apparatus; shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, he looked up at the apparatus. It was a large building. The lounger and the marker had the same area and looked like two dark boxes. The marker was reinforced about two meters above the sunbed and connected to it at the corners with four brass rods that literally shone in the sun. A harrow hung on a steel cable between the boxes.
The officer hardly noticed the traveler’s previous indifference, but he quickly responded to the interest that had now awakened in him; he even suspended his explanations so that the traveler could examine everything slowly and without interference. The condemned man imitated the traveler; Since he could not cover his eyes with his hand, he blinked, looking up with unprotected eyes.
“So, the condemned man lies down,” said the traveler and, lounging in a chair, crossed his legs.
“Yes,” said the officer and, pushing his cap back a little, ran his hand over his heated face. - Now listen! Both the deck chair and the marker have an electric battery, the deck chair has one for the deck chair itself, and the marker has one for the harrow. As soon as the convict is tied, the lounger is set in motion. It vibrates slightly and very quickly, simultaneously in the horizontal and vertical directions. You, of course, have seen similar devices in medical institutions, only with our lounger all movements are precisely calculated: they must be strictly coordinated with the movements of the harrow. After all, the harrow, in fact, is entrusted with the execution of the sentence.
-What is the sentence? – asked the traveler.
-You don’t know that either? – the officer asked in surprise, biting his lips. – Sorry if my explanations are confusing, I beg your pardon. Previously, the commandant usually gave explanations, but the new commandant relieved himself of this honorable duty; but what about such a distinguished guest,” the traveler tried to decline this honor with both hands, but the officer insisted on his expression, “that he does not even acquaint such a distinguished guest with the form of our sentence, this is another innovation that...” A curse was on the tip of his tongue , but he controlled himself and said: “They didn’t warn me about this, it’s not my fault.” However, I can explain the nature of our sentences better than anyone else, because here,” he patted his breast pocket, “I carry the corresponding drawings made by the hand of the former commandant.
- By the hand of the commandant himself? – asked the traveler. - Did he combine everything in himself? Was he a soldier, a judge, a designer, a chemist, and a draftsman?
“That’s right,” the officer said, nodding his head.
He looked meticulously at his hands; they did not seem clean enough to him to touch the drawings, so he went to the tub and washed them thoroughly again.
Then he pulled out a leather wallet and said:
– Our sentence is not harsh. The harrow writes on the body of the condemned the commandment that he violated. For example, this one,” the officer pointed to the convict, “will have the following written on his body: “Honor your superior!”
The traveler glanced at the condemned man; when the officer pointed at him, he lowered his head and seemed to strain his ears to the utmost to understand anything. But the movements of his thick, closed lips clearly showed that he did not understand anything. The traveler wanted to ask a lot, but when he saw the condemned man he only asked:
– Does he know the verdict?
“No,” said the officer and prepared to continue his explanation, but the traveler interrupted him:
– He doesn’t know the sentence that was handed down to him?
“No,” said the officer, then paused for a moment, as if demanding from the traveler a more detailed substantiation of his question, and then said: “It would be useless to pronounce his sentence.” After all, he recognizes him with his own body.
The traveler was about to fall silent when he suddenly felt that the condemned man was looking at him; he seemed to be asking whether the traveler approved of the procedure described. Therefore, the traveler, who had already leaned back in his chair, leaned over again and asked:
– But does he even know that he’s even convicted?
“No, he doesn’t know that either,” the officer said and smiled at the traveler, as if expecting some more strange discoveries from him.
“That’s how it is,” said the traveler and ran his hand over his forehead. - But in this case, he still doesn’t know how they reacted to his attempt to defend himself?
“He had no opportunity to defend himself,” the officer said and looked to the side, as if he was talking to himself and did not want to embarrass the traveler by stating these circumstances.
“But, of course, he should have had the opportunity to defend himself,” said the traveler and rose from his chair.
The officer was afraid that he would have to interrupt his explanations for a long time; he approached the traveler and took him by the arm; pointing with the other hand at the condemned man, who now that attention was so clearly paid to him - and the soldier had pulled the chain - straightened up, the officer said:
– The situation is as follows. I perform the duties of a judge here in the colony. Despite my youth. I also helped the former commandant administer justice and know this apparatus better than anyone else. When passing judgment, I adhere to the rule: “Guilty is always beyond doubt.” Other courts cannot follow this rule; they are collegial and subordinate to higher courts. Everything is different with us, at least under the previous commandant it was different. The new one, however, is trying to interfere in my affairs, but so far I have managed to repel these attempts and, I hope, I will succeed in the future... You wanted me to explain this case to you; well, it's as simple as any other. This morning one captain reported that this man, assigned to him as an orderly and obliged to sleep under his door, slept through the service. The fact is that he is supposed to get up every hour, with the clock striking, and salute in front of the captain's door. The duty, of course, is not difficult, but necessary, because the orderly who guards and serves the officer must always be on alert. Last night the captain wanted to check whether the orderly was fulfilling his duty. At exactly two o'clock he opened the door and saw that he was huddled and sleeping. The captain took the whip and slashed him across the face. Instead of getting up and asking for forgiveness, the orderly grabbed his master by the legs, began to shake him and shout: “Throw away the whip, otherwise I’ll kill you!” Here's the crux of the matter. An hour ago the captain came to me, I wrote down his testimony and immediately passed a verdict. Then I ordered the orderly to be put in chains. It was all very simple. And if I had first called the orderly and began to interrogate him, the result would only have been confusion. He would begin to lie, and if I managed to refute this lie, he would begin to replace it with a new one, and so on. And now he’s in my hands, and I won’t let him go... Well, is everything clear now? Time, however, is running out, it’s time to begin the execution, and I have not yet explained to you the structure of the apparatus.
He forced the traveler to sit back in the chair, walked up to the apparatus and began:
– As you can see, the harrow corresponds to the shape of the human body; here is a harrow for the body, and here are harrows for the legs. Only this small incisor is intended for the head. Do you understand?
He bowed warmly before the traveler, ready for the most detailed explanations.
The traveler frowned and looked at the harrow. Information about the local legal proceedings did not satisfy him. Still, he kept telling himself that this was, after all, a penal colony, that special measures were necessary here, and that military discipline had to be strictly observed. In addition, he placed some hopes on the new commandant, who, for all his slowness, clearly intended to introduce a new legal procedure, which this narrow-minded officer could not understand. As his thoughts progressed, the traveler asked;
– Will the commandant be present at the execution?
“We don’t know for sure,” said the officer, stung by this sudden question, and the friendliness disappeared from his face. “That’s why we have to hurry.” I'm very sorry, but I'll even have to shorten my explanations. However, tomorrow, when the device is cleaned (heavily dirty is its only drawback), I could explain everything else. So, now I will limit myself to the bare necessities... When the convict lies on a sunbed, and the sunbed is set into an oscillating motion, a harrow is lowered onto the body of the convict. It automatically adjusts so that its teeth barely touch the body; as soon as the adjustment is completed, this cable tightens and becomes inflexible, like a barbell. This is where it begins. The uninitiated does not see any external difference in our executions. It seems that the harrow works the same way. Vibrating, it pricks the body with its teeth, which in turn vibrates thanks to the lounger. So that anyone could check the execution of the sentence, the harrow was made of glass. Fastening the teeth caused some technical difficulties, but after many experiments the teeth were finally strengthened. We spared no effort. And now everyone can see through the glass how the inscription is applied to the body. Would you like to come closer and see the teeth?
The traveler slowly stood up, walked over to the apparatus and leaned over the harrow.
“You see,” said the officer, “two types of teeth arranged in various ways.” Near each long tooth there is a short one. The long one writes, and the short one releases water to wash away the blood and preserve the legibility of the inscription. The bloody water is drained through the gutters and flows into the main gutter, and from there through the sewer pipe into the pit.
The officer pointed with his finger the way the water flowed. When, for greater clarity, he grabbed an imaginary stream from a steep drain with both handfuls, the traveler raised his head and, groping with his hand behind his back, started to back away to the chair. Then, to his horror, he saw that the convict, like him, had followed the officer’s invitation to inspect the harrow up close. Dragging the sleepy soldier by the chain, he also bent over the glass. It was clear that he, too, was hesitantly searching with his eyes for the object that these gentlemen were now examining, and that without explanation he could not find this object. He leaned this way and that way. Again and again he ran his eyes over the glass. The traveler wanted to drive him away, because what he was doing was probably punishable. But holding the traveler with one hand, the officer with the other took a clod of earth from the embankment and threw it at the soldier. The soldier, startled, raised his eyes, saw what the condemned man had dared to do, threw the rifle and, pressing his heels into the ground, pulled the condemned man back so hard that he immediately fell, and then the soldier began to look down on him as he floundered, rattling his chains.
- Put him on his feet! - the officer shouted, noticing that the convict was distracting the traveler too much. Leaning over the harrow, the traveler did not even look at it, but only waited to see what would happen to the condemned man.
– Handle him with care! – the officer shouted again. Having run around the apparatus, he himself picked up the convict under the arms and, although his legs were moving apart, he stood him upright with the help of a soldier.
“Well, now I already know everything,” said the traveler when the officer returned to him.
“Besides the most important thing,” he said and, squeezing the traveler’s elbow, pointed upward: “There, in the marker, there is a gear system that determines the movement of the harrow, and this system is installed according to the drawing provided for by the court verdict.” I also use the drawings of the former commandant. Here they are,” he took out several sheets of paper from his wallet. – Unfortunately, I cannot give them to you, this is my greatest value. Sit down, I will show them to you from here, and you will have a clear view of everything.
He showed the first piece of paper. The traveler would have been glad to say something in praise, but in front of him there were only maze-like, repeatedly intersecting lines of such density that it was almost impossible to distinguish the gaps on paper.
“Read,” said the officer.
“I can’t,” said the traveler.
“But it’s written legibly,” said the officer.
“It’s written very skillfully,” the traveler said evasively, “but I can’t make out anything.”
“Yes,” said the officer and, grinning, hid his wallet, “this is not a copybook for schoolchildren.” It takes a long time to read. Eventually you would figure it out too. Of course, these letters cannot be simple; after all, they should not kill immediately, but on average after twelve hours; The turning point according to calculations is the sixth. Therefore, the inscription in the proper sense of the word must be decorated with many patterns; the inscription as such encircles the body only in a narrow stripe; the rest of the space is for patterns. Now can you evaluate the work of the harrow and the entire apparatus?... Look!
He jumped onto the ramp, turned a wheel, and shouted down: “Attention, step aside!” – and everything started to move. If one of the wheels didn't clunk, it would be great. As if embarrassed by this unfortunate wheel, the officer shook his fist at him, then, as if apologizing to the traveler, spread his arms and hastily descended to observe the operation of the apparatus from below. There was still some problem, noticeable only to him; he stood up again, climbed inside the marker with both hands, then, for the sake of speed, without using the ladder, he slid down the bar and at the top of his voice, in order to be heard among this noise, began shouting in the traveler’s ear:
– Do you understand the operation of the machine? Harrow begins to write; As soon as she finishes the first tattoo on her back, a layer of cotton wool, rotating, slowly rolls her body onto her side to give the harrow a new area. Meanwhile, the places covered in blood are placed on cotton wool, which, being prepared in a special way, immediately stops the bleeding and prepares the body for a new deepening of the inscription. These teeth at the edge of the harrow tear off the cotton wool adhering to the wounds as the body continues to roll and throw it into the hole, and then the harrow comes into action again. So she writes deeper and deeper for twelve hours. For the first six hours, the convict lives almost the same as before, he only suffers from pain. After two hours, the felt is removed from the mouth, because the criminal no longer has the strength to scream. Here, in this bowl at the head - it is heated by electricity - they put warm rice porridge, which the convict can lick with his tongue if he wishes. No one neglects this opportunity. In my memory there has never been such a case, but I have a lot of experience. Only at the sixth hour does the convict lose his appetite. Then I usually kneel here and watch this phenomenon. He rarely swallows the last lump of porridge - he will only swirl it around in his mouth a little and spit it out into the pit. Then I have to bend over, otherwise he will hit me in the face. But how the criminal calms down at the sixth hour! Enlightenment of thought occurs even in the most stupid. It starts around the eyes. And it spreads from here. This sight is so seductive that you are ready to lie down next to the harrow. In fact, nothing new happens anymore, the convict just begins to make out the inscription, he concentrates, as if listening. You saw that it is not easy to make out the inscription with your eyes; and our convict dismantles it with his wounds. Of course, this is a lot of work and it takes him six hours to complete it. And then the harrow pierces him entirely and throws him into a hole, where he flops into bloody water and cotton wool. This ends the trial, and we, the soldier and I, bury the body.
Here is an introductory fragment of the book.
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"In the penal colony"- a story by Austrian writer Franz Kafka.
Plot
A nameless traveler arrives at a penal colony on a remote island. He is offered to attend the execution of a guilty soldier. Execution involved placing the convict in a “special kind of apparatus” for executions. The device worked on the following principle: it scratched the commandment he had broken on the person’s body, then turned it over to the other side and again scratched out the same words, only deeper, and so on until the offender died. The officer who was in charge of it really liked this device. But the new commandant of the colony wanted to abandon such an execution, which was opposed by the officer, who considered this apparatus very necessary. The officer asks the Traveler to support him at a meeting of the colony's command, but the Traveler refuses. Then the officer himself lies down in this apparatus and executes himself.
Characters
- Traveler
- Officer
- New commandant
- Convicted
- Soldier
The characters of this short story (or rather their names) are very typical of the work of Franz Kafka, since they do not have names.
Significance
Thanks to this work, Kafka began to be considered the “prophet of the twentieth century,” since this short story described the brutal abuses (or rather, executions) of people in German death camps during the Second World War.
We do not know either the exact time or the exact place where the author placed his heroes. Besides the fact that this is some kind of tropical island for convicts, where the authorities speak French. The enclosed space of the island is an ideal place for a literary experiment on any topic, especially social. The fact that the traveler, at least, is a contemporary of the author, is indicated by the mention in the text of an electric battery as one of the components of the infernal machine.
The story is such that it may well have several interpretations and can safely be considered a parable or allegory. I still have doubts that my version is amateurish, but let me present it to you anyway.
The state apparatus, the mechanism of the state, the system of government bodies... The apparatus, mechanism, system and other technical terms simply scream that the state is a machine and it is opposed to man as an individual. The state is a soulless and faceless machine, and everyone who serves it is nothing more than cogs. A machine is not only an apparatus for executions. In the story, the machine personifies the system of power; it is a metaphor for a soulless and mechanical bureaucracy. In this context, power is certainly the embodiment of evil and absurdity, and is intended to suppress and destroy the individual. This story is, in fact, a paraphrase of the novel “The Trial”, in which the author briefly reflected on the problem of power and violence against the individual, i.e. everything that will later unfold in the misadventures of Josef K.
Just a few decades after the story was written, the largest and most powerful totalitarian systems in the history of mankind will appear on the world stage, destined to grind millions of human destinies in their millstones. But Kafka saw all this already in 1914. A good writer must be a bit of a prophet.
The most terrible fragment of the story is the one that describes the breakdown of the human personality. The executor believes that this moment begins with the appearance of " ... enlightenment on the exhausted face..." Sadism in its purest form, but the system can break a person not only through pain. " Enlightenment of thought occurs even in the most stupid. It starts around the eyes. And it spreads from here. This sight is so seductive that you are ready to lie down next to the harrow. In fact, nothing new happens anymore, the convict just begins to make out the inscription, he concentrates, as if listening. You saw that it is not easy to make out the inscription with your eyes; and our convict dismantles it with his wounds».
An officer who performs his duty as he understands it is terrible. After all, not everyone was forced into Einsatzgruppen; many joined them at the behest of their hearts.
When describing the commandant, the characters that first come to mind are the novels of Joseph Conrad “Hearts of Darkness” and Blaise Cendrars “The Ripper Prince, or Women’s Man.” Commandant " there was a soldier, a judge, a designer, a chemist, and a draftsman" He is the creator of the infernal machine and is certainly an extraordinary person, who has his own obvious or secret followers. " his supporters are hiding, there are still many of them, but everyone is silent». « ... there is a prediction that after a certain number of years the commandant will rise again and lead his followers to retake the colony..." His ideas are popular, and their seeds will lie in fertile soil for a long time. " the structure of this colony is so integral that his successor, even if he had at least a thousand new plans in his head, would not be able to change the old order, at least for many years" And this once again proves that the power of the system is absolute, it seems that formally it no longer exists, but it still sits in our heads.
The story leaves many questions mainly with its ending. Why doesn’t a representative of an enlightened society, such as a scientist-traveler, want to sail in the same boat with people who have just gotten rid of the old order and law? After all, it seems to be a well-known fact that against all kinds of “isms” (fascism, Nicism, Stalinism, etc.) there is only one cure - education. This can still be somehow understood by attributing it to the eternal half-heartedness of the actions of humanists of all stripes, but why did the executioner become the victim? What kind of strange suicide is this? This is what I can't understand.
Regarding other interpretations, I would like to say the following. The religious interpretation, to which there are several references in the text, was not further developed by me, but I thought about it. " Barona writes on the body of the condemned the commandment that he violated" This version is just a special case of the system, when the institution of the church plays its role. But it is no longer the “guilt-suffering-enlightenment (suppression)” mechanism that works in it, but “sin-suffering-redemption.” The car is Moloch. Moreover, if in the first case, as the officer claims, “ Guilt is always certain“, then in the second, sinfulness is also given to humanity a priori.