Franz Kafka: Before the Law
Before the Law stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a
man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the
doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man
thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is
possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the
gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the
man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing
that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it,
'just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And
I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one
doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third
doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at
him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not
expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times
and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper
in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar
beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission
to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at
one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many
attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his
importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him,
asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the
questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always
finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who
has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all
he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper
accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it
to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these
many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the
doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems
to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his
bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows
old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in
his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even
the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the flea ' s as well to help him
and to change the doorkeep er's mind. At length his eyesight begins to
fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or
whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now
aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of
the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his
experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one
point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him
nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The
doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height
between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "What do you
want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable."
"Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it
happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged
for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached
his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his
ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was
made only for you. I am now going to shut it."