Franz Kafka
A Hunger Artist
(1924)
This translation by Ian Johnston of
Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, has certain copyright
restrictions. For information please use the following link: Copyright.
For comments or question please contact Ian
Johnston. For more links to Kafka e-texts in English click here]
A Hunger Artist
In the last decades
interest in hunger artists has declined considerably. Whereas in earlier days
there was good money to be earned putting on major productions of this sort
under one’s own management, nowadays that is totally impossible. Those were different
times. Back then the hunger artist captured the attention of the entire city.
From day to day while the fasting lasted, participation increased. Everyone
wanted to see the hunger artist at least once a day. During the later days
there were people with subscription tickets who sat all day in front of the
small barred cage. And there were even viewing hours at night, their impact
heightened by torchlight. On fine days the cage was dragged out into the open
air, and then the hunger artist was put on display particularly for the
children. While for grown-ups the hunger artist was often merely a joke,
something they participated in because it was fashionable, the children looked
on amazed, their mouths open, holding each other’s hands for safety, as he sat
there on scattered straw—spurning a chair—in black tights, looking pale, with
his ribs sticking out prominently, sometimes nodding politely, answering
questions with a forced smile, even sticking his arm out through the bars to
let people feel how emaciated he was, but then completely sinking back into
himself, so that he paid no attention to anything, not even to what was so
important to him, the striking of the clock, which was the single furnishing in
the cage, but merely looking out in front of him with his eyes almost shut and
now and then sipping from a tiny glass of water to moisten his lips.
Apart from the
changing groups of spectators there were also constant observers chosen by the
public—strangely enough they were usually butchers—who, always three at a time,
were given the task of observing the hunger artist day and night, so that he
didn’t get anything to eat in some secret manner. It was, however, merely a
formality, introduced to reassure the masses, for those who understood knew
well enough that during the period of fasting the hunger artist would never,
under any circumstances, have eaten the slightest thing, not even if compelled by
force. The honour of his art forbade it. Naturally, none of the watchers
understood that. Sometimes there were nightly groups of watchers who carried
out their vigil very laxly, deliberately sitting together in a distant corner
and putting all their attention into playing cards there, clearly intending to
allow the hunger artist a small refreshment, which, according to their way of
thinking, he could get from some secret supplies. Nothing was more excruciating
to the hunger artist than such watchers. They depressed him. They made his
fasting terribly difficult. Sometimes he overcame his weakness and sang during
the time they were observing, for as long as he could keep it up, to show
people how unjust their suspicions about him were. But that was little help.
For then they just wondered among themselves about his skill at being able to
eat even while singing. He much preferred the observers who sat down right
against the bars and, not satisfied with the dim backlighting of the room,
illuminated him with electric flashlights, which the impresario made available
to them. The glaring light didn’t bother him in the slightest. Generally he
couldn’t sleep at all, and he could always doze off a little under any lighting
and at any hour, even in an overcrowded, noisy auditorium. With such observers,
he was very happily prepared to spend the entire night without sleeping. He was
ready to joke with them, to recount stories from his nomadic life and then, in
turn, to listen to their stories—doing everything just to keep them awake, so
that he could keep showing them once again that he had nothing to eat in his
cage and that he was fasting as none of them could. He was happiest, however,
when morning came and a lavish breakfast was brought for them at his own
expense, on which they hurled themselves with the appetite of healthy men after
a hard night’s work without sleep. True, there were still people who wanted to
see in this breakfast an unfair means of influencing the observers, but that
was going too far, and if they were asked whether they wanted to undertake the
observers’ night shift for its own sake, without the breakfast, they excused
themselves. But nonetheless they stood by their suspicions.
However, it was, in
general, part of fasting that these doubts were inextricably associated with
it. For, in fact, no one was in a position to spend time watching the hunger
artist every day and night without interruption, so no one could know, on the
basis of his own observation, whether this was a case of truly continuous,
flawless fasting. The hunger artist himself was the only one who could know
that and, at the same time, the only spectator capable of being completely
satisfied with his own fasting. But the reason he was never satisfied was
something different. Perhaps it was not fasting at all which made him so very
emaciated that many people, to their own regret, had to stay away from his
performance, because they couldn’t bear to look at him. For he was also so
skeletal out of dissatisfaction with himself, because he alone knew something
that even initiates didn’t know—how easy it was to fast. It was the easiest
thing in the world. About this he did not remain silent, but people did not
believe him. At best they thought he was being modest. Most of them, however,
believed he was a publicity seeker or a total swindler, for whom, at all
events, fasting was easy, because he understood how to make it easy, and then
still had the nerve to half admit it. He had to accept all that. Over the years
he had become accustomed to it. But this dissatisfaction kept gnawing at his
insides all the time and never yet—and this one had to say to his credit—had he
left the cage of his own free will after any period of fasting. The impresario
had set the maximum length of time for the fast at forty days—he would never
allow the fasting go on beyond that point, not even in the cosmopolitan cities.
And, in fact, he had a good reason. Experience had shown that for about forty
days one could increasingly whip up a city’s interest by gradually increasing
advertising, but that then the public turned away—one could demonstrate a significant
decline in popularity. In this respect, there were, of course, small
differences among different towns and among different countries, but as a rule
it was true that forty days was the maximum length of time. So then on the
fortieth day the door of the cage—which was covered with flowers—was opened, an
enthusiastic audience filled the amphitheatre, a military band played, two
doctors entered the cage, in order to take the necessary measurements of the
hunger artist, the results were announced to the auditorium through a
megaphone, and finally two young ladies arrived, happy about the fact that they
were the ones who had just been selected by lot, and sought to lead the hunger
artist down a couple of steps out of the cage, where on a small table a
carefully chosen hospital meal was laid out. And at this moment the hunger
artist always fought back. Of course, he still freely laid his bony arms in the
helpful outstretched hands of the ladies bending over him, but he did not want
to stand up. Why stop right now after forty days? He could have kept going for
even longer, for an unlimited length of time. Why stop right now, when he was
in his best form, indeed, not yet even in his best fasting form? Why did people
want to rob him of the fame of fasting longer, not just so that he could become
the greatest hunger artist of all time, which, in fact, he probably was
already, but also so that he could surpass himself in some unimaginable way,
for he felt there were no limits to his capacity for fasting. Why did this
crowd, which pretended to admire him so much, have so little patience with him?
If he kept going and kept fasting even longer, why would they not tolerate it?
Then, too, he was tired and felt good sitting in the straw. Now he was supposed
to stand up straight and tall and go to eat, something which, when he merely
imagined it, made him feel nauseous right away. With great difficulty he
repressed mentioning this only out of consideration for the women. And he
looked up into the eyes of these women, apparently so friendly but in reality
so cruel, and shook his excessively heavy head on his feeble neck. But then
happened what always happened. The impresario came forward without a word—the
music made talking impossible—raised his arms over the hunger artist, as if
inviting heaven to look upon its work here on the straw, this unfortunate
martyr, something the hunger artist certainly was, only in a completely different
sense, grabbed the hunger artist around his thin waist, in the process wanting
with his exaggerated caution to make people believe that here he had to deal
with something fragile, and handed him over—not without secretly shaking him a
little, so that the hunger artist’s legs and upper body swung back and forth
uncontrollably—to the women, who had in the meantime turned as pale as death.
At this point, the hunger artist endured everything. His head lay on his
chest—it was as if it had inexplicably rolled around and just stopped there—his
body was arched back, his legs, in an impulse of self-preservation, pressed themselves
together at the knees, but scraped the ground, as if they were not really on
the floor but were looking for the real ground, and the entire weight of his
body, admittedly very small, lay against one of the women, who appealed for
help with flustered breath, for she had not imagined her post of honour would
be like this, and then stretched her neck as far as possible, to keep her face
from the least contact with the hunger artist, but then, when she couldn’t
manage this and her more fortunate companion didn’t come to her assistance but
trembled and remained content to hold in front of her the hunger artist’s hand,
that small bundle of knuckles, she broke into tears, to the delighted laughter
of the auditorium, and had to be relieved by an attendant who had been standing
ready for some time. Then came the meal. The impresario put a little food into
the mouth of the hunger artist, now dozing as if he were fainting, and kept up
a cheerful patter designed to divert attention away from the hunger artist’s
condition. Then a toast was proposed to the public, which was supposedly
whispered to the impresario by the hunger artist, the orchestra confirmed everything
with a great fanfare, people dispersed, and no one had the right to be
dissatisfied with the event, no one except the hunger artist—he was always the
only one.
He lived this way,
taking small regular breaks, for many years, apparently in the spotlight, honoured
by the world, but for all that, his mood was usually gloomy, and it kept
growing gloomier all the time, because no one understood how to take it
seriously. But how was he to find consolation? What was there left for him to
wish for? And if a good-natured man who felt sorry for him ever wanted to
explain to him that his sadness probably came from his fasting, then it could
happen, especially at an advanced stage of the fasting, that the hunger artist
responded with an outburst of rage and began to shake the cage like an animal,
frightening everyone. But the impresario had a way of punishing moments like
this, something he was happy to use. He would make an apology for the hunger
artist to the assembled public, conceding that the irritability had been provoked
only by his fasting, which well-fed people did not readily understand and which
was capable of excusing the behaviour of the hunger artist. From there he would
move on to speak about the equally hard to understand claim of the hunger
artist that he could go on fasting for much longer than he was doing. He would
praise the lofty striving, the good will, and the great self-denial no doubt
contained in this claim, but then would try to contradict it simply by
producing photographs, which were also on sale, for in the pictures one could
see the hunger artist on the fortieth day of his fast, in bed, almost dead from
exhaustion. Although the hunger artist was very familiar with this perversion
of the truth, it always strained his nerves again and was too much for him.
What was a result of the premature ending of the fast people were now proposing
as its cause! It was impossible to fight against this lack of understanding,
against this world of misunderstanding. In good faith he always still listened
eagerly to the impresario at the bars of his cage, but each time, once the
photographs came out, he would let go of the bars and, with a sigh, sink back
into the straw, and a reassured public could come up again and view him.
When those who had
witnessed such scenes thought back on them a few years later, often they were
unable to understand themselves. For in the meantime that change mentioned
above had set it. It happened almost immediately. There may have been more
profound reasons for it, but who bothered to discover what they were? At any
rate, one day the pampered hunger artist saw himself abandoned by the crowd of
pleasure seekers, who preferred to stream to other attractions. The impresario
chased around half of Europe one more time with him, to see whether he could
still re-discover the old interest here and there. It was all futile. It was as
if a secret agreement against the fasting performances had really developed
everywhere. Naturally, the truth is that it could not have happened so quickly,
and people later remembered some things which in the days of intoxicating
success they had not paid sufficient attention to, some inadequately suppressed
indications, but now it was too late to do anything to counter them. Of course,
it was certain that the popularity of fasting would return once more someday,
but for those now alive that was no consolation. What was the hunger artist to
do now? The man whom thousands of people had cheered on could not display himself
in show booths at small fun fairs, and the hunger artist was not only too old
to take up a different profession, but was fanatically devoted to fasting more
than anything else. So he said farewell to the impresario, an incomparable
companion on his life’s road, and let himself be hired by a large circus. In
order to spare his own feelings, he didn’t even look at the terms of his contract
at all.
A large circus with
its huge number of men, animals, and gimmicks, which are constantly being let
go and replenished, can use anyone at any time, even a hunger artist, provided,
of course, his demands are modest. Moreover, in this particular case it was not
only the hunger artist himself who was engaged, but also his old and famous
name. In fact, given the characteristic nature of his art, which was not diminished
by his advancing age, one could never claim that a worn-out artist, who no
longer stood at the pinnacle of his ability, wanted to escape to a quiet
position in the circus. On the contrary, the hunger artist declared that he
could fast just as well as in earlier times—something that was entirely
credible. Indeed, he even affirmed that if people would let him do what he
wanted—and he was promised this without further ado—he would really now
legitimately amaze the world for the first time, an assertion which, however,
given the mood of the time, something the hunger artist in his enthusiasm
easily overlooked, only brought smiles from the experts.
However, basically
the hunger artist had also not forgotten his sense of the way things really
were, and he took it as self-evident that people would not set him and his cage
up as some star attraction in the middle of the arena, but would move him
outside in some other readily accessible spot near the animal stalls. Huge
brightly painted signs surrounded the cage and announced what there was to look
at there. During the intervals in the main performance, when the general public
pushed out towards the menagerie in order to see the animals, they could hardly
avoid moving past the hunger artist and stopping there a moment. They would
perhaps have remained with him longer, if those pushing up behind them in the
narrow passageway, who did not understand this pause on the way to the animal
stalls they wanted to see, had not made a longer peaceful observation
impossible. This was also the reason why the hunger artist began to tremble
before these visiting hours, which he naturally used to long for as the main
purpose of his life. In the early days he could hardly wait for the pauses in
the performances. He had looked forward with delight to the crowd pouring
around him, until he became convinced only too quickly—and even the most
stubborn, almost deliberate self-deception could not hold out against the experience—that,
judging by their intentions, most of these people were, time and again without
exception, only visiting the menagerie. And this view from a distance still
remained his most beautiful moment. For when they had come right up to him, he
immediately got an earful from the shouting and cursing of the two steadily increasing
groups, the ones who wanted to take their time looking at the hunger artist,
not with any understanding but on a whim or from mere defiance—for him these
ones were soon the more painful—and a second group of people whose only demand
was to go straight to the animal stalls. Once the large crowds had passed, the
late-comers would arrive, and although there was nothing preventing these
people any more from sticking around for as long as they wanted, they rushed
past with long strides, almost without a sideways glance, to get to the animals
in time. And it was an all-too-rare stroke of luck when the father of a family
came by with his children, pointed his finger at the hunger artist, gave a
detailed explanation about what was going on here, and talked of earlier years,
when he had been present at similar but incomparably more magnificent
performances, and then the children, because they had been inadequately
prepared at school and in life, always stood around still uncomprehendingly.
What was fasting to them? But nonetheless the brightness of the look in their
searching eyes revealed something of new and more gracious times coming.
Perhaps, the hunger artist said to himself sometimes, everything would be a
little better if his location were not quite so near the animal stalls. That
way it would be easy for people to make their choice, to say nothing of the
fact that he was very upset and constantly depressed by the stink from the
stalls, the animals’ commotion at night, the pieces of raw meat dragged past him
for the carnivorous beasts, and the roars at feeding time. But he did not dare
to approach the administration about it. In any case, he had the animals to
thank for the crowds of visitors among whom, now and then, there could also be
one destined for him. And who knew where they would hide him if he wished to
remind them of his existence and, along with that, of the fact that, strictly
speaking, he was only an obstacle on the way to the menagerie.
A small obstacle,
at any rate, a constantly diminishing obstacle. People became accustomed to
thinking it strange that in these times they would want to pay attention to a
hunger artist, and with this habitual awareness the judgment on him was pronounced.
He might fast as well as he could—and he did—but nothing could save him any
more. People went straight past him. Try to explain the art of fasting to
anyone! If someone doesn’t feel it, then he cannot be made to understand it.
The beautiful signs became dirty and illegible. People tore them down, and no
one thought of replacing them. The small table with the number of days the
fasting had lasted, which early on had been carefully renewed every day, remained
unchanged for a long time, for after the first weeks the staff grew tired of
even this small task. And so the hunger artist kept fasting on and on, as he
once had dreamed about in earlier times, and he had no difficulty at all
managing to achieve what he had predicted back then, but no one was counting
the days—no one, not even the hunger artist himself, knew how great his
achievement was by this point, and his heart grew heavy. And when once in a
while a person strolling past stood there making fun of the old number and
talking of a swindle, that was in a sense the stupidest lie which indifference
and innate maliciousness could invent, for the hunger artist was not being deceptive—he
was working honestly—but the world was cheating him of his reward.
Many days went by
once more, and this, too, came to an end. Finally the cage caught the attention
of a supervisor, and he asked the attendant why they had left this perfectly
useful cage standing here unused with rotting straw inside. Nobody knew, until
one man, with the help of the table with the number on it, remembered the
hunger artist. They pushed the straw around with poles and found the hunger
artist in there. “Are you still fasting?” the supervisor asked. “When are you
finally going to stop?” “Forgive me everything,” whispered the hunger artist.
Only the supervisor, who was pressing his ear up against the cage, understood
him. “Certainly,” said the supervisor, tapping his forehead with his finger in
order to indicate to the staff the state the hunger artist was in, “we forgive
you.” “I always wanted you to admire my fasting,” said the hunger artist. “But
we do admire it,” said the supervisor obligingly. “But you shouldn’t admire
it,” said the hunger artist. “Well then, we don’t admire it,” said the
supervisor, “but why shouldn’t we admire it?” “Because I had to fast. I can’t
do anything else,” said the hunger artist. “Just look at you,” said the supervisor,
“why can’t you do anything else?” “Because,” said the hunger artist, lifting
his head a little and, with his lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right
into the supervisor’s ear so that he wouldn’t miss anything, “because I
couldn’t find a food which tasted good to me. If had found that, believe me, I
would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart’s
content, like you and everyone else.” Those were his last words, but in his
failing eyes there was still the firm, if no longer proud, conviction that he
was continuing to fast.
“All right, tidy
this up now,” said the supervisor. And they buried the hunger artist along with
the straw. But in his cage they put a young panther. Even for a person with the
dullest mind it was clearly refreshing to see this wild animal prowling around
in this cage, which had been dreary for such a long time. It lacked nothing.
Without thinking about it for any length of time, the guards brought the animal
food whose taste it enjoyed. It never seemed once to miss its freedom. This
noble body, equipped with everything necessary, almost to the point of
bursting, even appeared to carry freedom around with it. That seem to be
located somewhere or other in its teeth, and its joy in living came with such
strong passion from its throat that it was not easy for spectators to keep
watching. But they controlled themselves, kept pressing around the cage, and
had no desire at all to move on.
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