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Franz Kafka
The Great Wall of China
This
translation by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, now Vancouver Island University, has certain copyright restrictions. For information please use the
following link: Copyright.
For comments or question please contact Ian Johnston. This text was last
revised March 2009. For more links to Kafka e-texts in English click here.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China was
finished at its most northerly location. The construction work moved up from the
south-east and south-west and joined at this point. This system of building in
sections was also followed on a small scale within the two great armies of
workers, the eastern and western armies. It was carried out in the following
manner: groups of about twenty workers were formed, each of which had to take
on a section of the wall, about five hundred metres long. A neighbouring group
then built a wall of similar length to meet them. But then afterwards, when the
sections were fully joined, construction was not continued on any further at
the end of this thousand-metre
section. Instead the groups of workers were shipped off again to build the wall
in completely different regions. Naturally, with this method many large gaps
arose, which were filled in only gradually and slowly, many of them not until
after it had already been reported that the building of the wall was complete.
In fact, there are said to be gaps which have never been built in at all,
although that’s merely an assertion which probably belongs among the many
legends which have arisen about the structure and which, for individual people
at least, are impossible to prove with their own eyes and according to their
own standards, because the structure is so immense.
Now, at first one might think
it would have been more advantageous in every way to build in continuous
sections or at least continuously within two main sections. For the wall was
conceived as a protection against the people of the north, as was commonly
announced and universally known. But how can protection be provided by a wall
which is not built continuously? In fact, not only can such a wall not protect,
but the structure itself is in constant danger. Those parts of the wall left
standing abandoned in deserted regions could always be destroyed easily by the
nomads, especially by those back then who, worried about the building of the
wall, changed their place of residence with incredible speed, like
grasshoppers, and thus perhaps had an even better overall view of how the
construction was proceeding than we did, the people who built it. However,
there was really no other way to carry out the construction except the way it
happened. In order to understand this, one must consider the following: the
wall was to become a protection for centuries; thus, the essential
prerequisites for the work were the most careful construction, the use of the
architectural wisdom of all known ages and peoples, and an enduring sense of
personal responsibility in the builders. Of course, for the more humble tasks
one could use ignorant day labourers from the people—the men, women, and
children who offered their services for good money. But the supervision of even
four day labourers required a knowledgeable man, an educated expert in
construction, someone who was capable of feeling sympathy deep in his heart for
what was at stake here. And the higher the challenge, the greater the demands. And such men were in
fact available—if not the crowds of them which this construction could have
used, at least in great numbers.
This work was not undertaken
recklessly. Fifty years before the start of construction it was announced
throughout the whole region of China which was to be enclosed within the wall
that architecture and especially masonry were the most important areas of
knowledge, and everything else was recognized only to the extent that it had
some relationship to those. I still remember very well how as small children
who could hardly walk we stood in our teacher’s little garden and had to
construct a sort of wall out of pebbles, and how the teacher gathered up his
coat and ran against the wall, naturally making everything collapse, and then
scolded us so much for the weakness of our construction that we ran off in all
directions howling to our parents. A tiny incident, but an indication of the spirit of the times.
I was lucky that at twenty
years of age, when I passed the final examination of the lowest school, the
construction of the wall was just starting. I say lucky because many who
earlier had attained the highest limit of education available to them had no
idea for years what to do with their knowledge and wandered around uselessly,
with the most splendid architectural plans in their heads, and a great many of
them just went downhill from there. But the ones who
finally got to work as supervisors on the construction, even if they had the
lowest rank, were really worthy of their position. They were masons who had
given much thought to the construction and never stopped thinking about it, men
who, right from the first stone which they let sink into the ground, had a
sense of themselves as part of the wall. Such masons, of course, were driven
not only by the desire to carry out the work as thoroughly as possible but also
by impatience to see the structure finally standing there in its complete final
perfection. Day labourers do not experience this impatience. They are driven
only by their pay. The higher supervisors and, indeed, even the middle
supervisors, see enough from their various perspectives of the growth of the
wall to keep their spirits energized. But the subordinate supervisors, men who
were mentally far above their outwardly trivial tasks, had to be catered to in
other ways. One could not, for example, let them lay one building block on top
of another in an uninhabited region of the mountains, hundreds of miles from
their homes, for months or even years at a time. The hopelessness of such a
hard task, which could not be completed even in a long human lifetime, would
have caused them distress and, more than anything else, made them worthless for
work. For that reason the system of building in sections was chosen. Five
hundred metres could be completed in something like five years, by which time
naturally the supervisors were, as a rule, too exhausted and had lost all faith
in themselves,
in the building, and in the world. Thus, while they were still experiencing the
elation of the celebrations for the joining up of a thousand metres of the
wall, they were shipped far, far away. On their journey they saw here and there
finished sections of the wall rising up; they passed through the quarters of
the higher administrators, who gave them gifts as badges of honour, and they
heard the rejoicing of new armies of workers streaming past them out of the
depths of the land, saw forests being laid low, wood designated as scaffolding
for the wall, witnessed mountains being broken up into rocks for the wall, and
heard in the holy places the hymns of the pious praying for the construction to
be finished. All this calmed their impatience. The quiet life of home, where
they spent some time, reinvigorated them. The high regard which all those doing
the building enjoyed, the devout humility with which people listened to their
reports, the trust which simple quiet citizens had that the wall would be
completed someday—all this tuned the strings of their souls. Then, like
eternally hopeful children, they took leave of their home. The enthusiasm for
labouring once again at the people’s work became irresistible. They set out
from their houses earlier than necessary, and half the village accompanied them
for a long way. On all the roads there were groups of people, pennants,
banners—they had never seen how great and rich and beautiful and endearing
their country was. Every countryman was a brother for whom they were building a
protective wall and who would thank him with everything he had and was for all
his life. Unity! Unity! Shoulder to shoulder, a coordinated movement of the
people, their blood no longer confined in the limited circulation of the body
but rolling sweetly and yet still returning through the infinite extent of
China.
In view of all this, the system
of piecemeal building becomes understandable. But there were still other
reasons, too. And there is nothing strange in the fact that I have held off on
this point for so long. It is the central issue in the whole construction of
the wall, no matter how unimportant it appears at first. If I want to convey
the ideas and experiences of that time and make them intelligible, I cannot
probe deeply enough into this particular question.
First, it has to be said that
achievements were brought to fruition at that time which rank slightly behind
the Tower of Babel, although in the pleasure they gave to God, at least by
human reckoning, they made an impression exactly the opposite of that
structure. I mention this because at the time construction was beginning a
scholar wrote a book in which he drew this comparison very precisely. In it he
tried to show that the Tower of Babel had failed to attain its goal not at all
for the reasons commonly asserted, or at least that the most important causes
were not among these well-known ones. He not only based his proofs on texts and
reports, but also claimed to have carried out personal inspections of the
location and thus to have found that the structure collapsed and had to
collapse because of the weakness of its foundation. And it is true that in this
respect our age was far superior to that one long ago. Almost every educated
person in our age was a mason by profession and infallible when it came to the
business of laying foundations. But it was not at all the scholar’s aim to prove this. Instead he claimed that the
great wall alone would for the first time in the age of human beings create a
secure foundation for a new Tower of Babel. So first the wall and then the tower. In those days the book was in everyone’s
hands, but I confess that even today I do not understand exactly how he
imagined this tower. How could the wall, which never once took the form of a
circle but only a sort of quarter or half circle, provide the foundation for a
tower? But it could be meant only in a spiritual sense. But
then why the wall, which was something real, a product of the efforts and lives
of hundreds of thousands of people? And why were there plans in the book—admittedly hazy plans—sketching the tower, as well as
detailed proposals about how the energies of the people could be strictly channelled into the new work in the future.
There was a great deal of
mental confusion at the time—this book is only one example—perhaps for the
simple reason that so many people were trying as hard as they could to join
together for a single purpose. Human nature, which is fundamentally careless and by nature like
the whirling dust, endures no restraint. If it restricts itself,
it will soon begin to shake the restraints madly and tear up walls, chains, and
even itself in every direction.
It is possible that even these
considerations, which argued against building the wall in the first place, were
not ignored by the leadership when they decided on piecemeal construction.
We—and here I’m really speaking on behalf of many—actually first found out
about it by spelling out the orders from the highest levels of management and
learned for ourselves that without the leadership neither our school learning
nor our human understanding would have been adequate for the small position we
had within the enormous totality. In the office of the leadership—where it was
and who sat there no one I asked knows or knew—in this office I imagine that
all human thoughts and wishes revolve in a circle, and all human aims and
fulfillments in a circle going in the opposite direction. But through the
window the reflection of the divine worlds fell onto the hands of the
leadership as they drew up the plans.
And for this reason the
incorruptible observer will reject the notion that if the leadership had
seriously wanted a continuous construction of the wall, they would not have
been able to overcome the difficulties standing in the way. So the only
conclusion left is that the leadership deliberately chose piecemeal
construction. But building in sections was something merely makeshift and
impractical. So the conclusion remains that the leadership wanted something impractical.
An odd conclusion! True enough, and yet from another perspective it had some
inherent justification. Nowadays one can perhaps speak about it without danger.
At that time for many people, even the best, there was a secret principle: Try
with all your powers to understand the orders of the leadership, but only up to
a certain limit—then stop thinking about them. A very reasonable principle,
which incidentally found an even wider interpretation in a later often repeated comparison:
Stop further thinking, not because it could harm you—it is not at all certain
that it will harm you. In this matter one cannot speak in general about harming
or not harming. What will happen to you is like a river in spring. It rises,
grows stronger, eats away more powerfully at the land along its banks, and
still maintains its own course down to the sea and is more welcome as a fitter
partner for the sea. Reflect upon the orders of the leadership as far as that.
But then the river overflows its banks, loses its form and shape, slows down
its forward movement, tries, contrary to its destiny, to form small seas
inland, damages the fields, and yet cannot maintain its expansion long, but
runs back within its banks, in fact, even dries up miserably in the hot time of
year which follows. Do not reflect on the orders of the leadership to that
extent.
Now, this comparison may
perhaps have been extraordinarily apt during the construction of the wall, but
it has at least only a limited relevance to my present report. For my
investigation is merely historical. There is no lightning strike flashing any
more from storm clouds which have long since vanished, and thus I may seek an
explanation for the piecemeal construction which goes further than the one
people were satisfied with back then. The limits which my ability to think sets for me are certainly narrow
enough, but the region one would have to pass through here is endless.
Against whom was the great wall
to provide protection? Against the people of the north. I come from south-east
China. No northern people can threaten us there. We read about them in the
books of the ancients. The atrocities which their nature prompts them to commit
make us heave a sigh on our peaceful porches. In the faithfully accurate pictures
of artists we see these faces of damnation, with their mouths flung open, the
sharp pointed teeth stuck in their jaws, their straining eyes, which seem to be
squinting for someone to seize, someone their jaws will crush and rip to
pieces. When children are naughty, we hold up these pictures in front of them,
and they immediately burst into tears and run into our arms. But we know
nothing else about these northern lands. We have never seen them, and if we
remain in our village, we never will see them, even if they charge straight at
us and hunt us on their wild horses. The land is so huge, it would not permit
them to reach us, and they would lose themselves in the empty air.
So if things are like this, why
do we leave our homeland, the river and bridges, our mothers and fathers, our
crying wives, our children in need of education, and go away to school in the
distant city, with our thoughts on the wall to the north, even further away?
Why? Ask the leadership. They know us. As they mull over their immense concerns,
they know about us, understand our small worries, see us all sitting together
in our humble huts, and approve or disapprove of the prayer which the father of
the house says in the evening in the circle of his family. And if I may be
permitted such ideas about the leadership, then I must say that in my view the
leadership existed even earlier. It did not come together like some high
mandarins quickly summoned to a meeting by a beautiful dream of the future,
something hastily concluded, a meeting which by evening saw to it that the
general population was driven from their beds by a knocking on the door so that
they could carry out the decision, even if it was only to set up a lantern in
honour of a god who had shown favour to the masters the day before, so that he
could thrash them in some dark corner the next day, when the lantern had only
just died out. On the contrary, I imagine the leadership has existed since time
immemorial, along with the decision to construct the wall as well. Innocent
northern people believed they were the cause; the admirable and innocent
emperor believed he had given orders for it. We who were builders of the wall
know otherwise and are silent.
Even back then during the
construction of the wall and afterwards, right up to the present day, I have
devoted myself almost exclusively to the histories of different people. There
are certain questions for which one can, to some extent, get to the heart of
the matter only in this way. Using this method I have found that we Chinese possess
certain popular and state institutions which are uniquely clear and, then
again, others which are uniquely obscure. Tracking down the reasons for these,
especially for the latter phenomena, always appealed to me, and still does, and
the construction of the wall is fundamentally concerned with these issues.
Now, among our most obscure
institutions one can certainly include the empire itself. Of course, in Peking,
right in the court, there is some clarity about it, although even this is more
apparent than real. And the teachers of constitutional law and history in the
high schools give out that they are precisely informed about these things and
that they are able to pass this knowledge on to their students. The deeper one
descends into the lower schools, the more the doubts about the students’ own
knowledge understandably disappear, and a superficial education surges up as
high as a mountain around a few precepts drilled into them for centuries,
sayings which, in fact, have lost nothing of their eternal truth, but which
remain also eternally unrecognized in this mist and fog.
But, in my view, it’s precisely
the empire we should be asking the people about, because in them the empire has
its final support. It’s true that in this matter I can speak once again only
about my own homeland. Other than the agricultural deities and the service to
them, which so beautifully and variously fills up the entire year, our thinking
concerns itself only with the emperor. But not with the present emperor. We would have concerned
ourselves with the present one if we had recognized who he was or had known
anything definite about him. We were naturally always trying—and it’s the
single curiosity which consumed us—to find out something or other about him,
but, no matter how strange this sounds, it was hardly possible to learn
anything, either from pilgrims, even though they wandered through much of our
land, or from the close or remote villages, or from boatmen, although they have
travelled not merely on our little waterways but also on the sacred rivers. Of
course, we heard a great deal, but could gather nothing from the many details.
Our land is so huge, that no
fairy tale can adequately deal with its size. Heaven hardly covers it all. And
Peking is only a point, the imperial palace only a tiny dot. It’s true that, by
contrast, throughout all the different levels of the world the emperor, as
emperor, is great. But the living emperor, a human being like us, lies on a
peaceful bed, just as we do. It is, no doubt, of ample proportions, but it
could be merely narrow and short. Like us, he sometime stretches out his limbs
and, if he is very tired, yawns with his delicately delineated mouth. But how
are we to know about that thousands of miles to the south, where we almost
border on the Tibetan highlands? Besides, any report which might come, even if
it reached us, would get there much too late and would be long out of date.
Around the emperor the glittering and yet murky court throngs—malice and enmity
clothed as servants and friends, the counterbalance to the imperial power, with
their poisoned arrows always trying to shoot the emperor down from his side of
the balance scales. The empire is immortal, but the individual emperor falls
and collapses. Even entire dynasties finally sink down and breathe their one
last death rattle. The people will never know anything about these struggles
and suffering. Like those who have come too late, like strangers to the city,
they stand at the end of the thickly populated side alleyways, quietly living
off the provisions they have brought with them, while far off in the market
place right in the middle foreground the execution of their master is taking
place.
There is a legend which
expresses this relationship well. The Emperor—so they say—has sent a message,
directly from his death bed, to you alone, his pathetic subject, a tiny shadow which has
taken refuge at the furthest distance from the imperial sun. He ordered the
herald to kneel down beside his death bed and whispered the message to him. He
thought it was so important that he had the herald repeat it back to him. He
confirmed the accuracy of the verbal message by nodding his head. And in front
of the entire crowd of those who have come to witness his death—all the
obstructing walls have been broken down and all the great ones of his empire
are standing in a circle on the broad and high soaring flights of stairs—in
front of all of them he dispatched his herald. The messenger started off at
once, a powerful, tireless man. Sticking one arm out and then another, he makes
his way through the crowd. If he runs into resistance, he points to his breast
where there is a sign of the sun. So he moves forward easily, unlike anyone
else. But the crowd is so huge; its dwelling places are infinite. If there were
an open field, how he would fly along, and soon you would hear the marvellous
pounding of his fist on your door. But instead of that, how futile are all his
efforts. He is still forcing his way through the private rooms of the innermost
palace. He will never win his way through. And if he did manage that, nothing
would have been achieved. He would have to fight his way down the steps, and,
if he managed to do that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to
stride through the courtyards, and after the courtyards the second palace
encircling the first, and, then again, stairs and courtyards, and then, once
again, a palace, and so on for thousands of years. And if he finally did burst
through the outermost door—but that can never, never happen—the royal capital
city, the centre of the world, is still there in front of him, piled high and
full of sediment. No one pushes his way through here, certainly not with a
message from a dead man. But you sit at your window and dream to yourself of
that message when evening comes.
That’s exactly how our people
look at the emperor, hopelessly and full of hope. They don’t know which emperor
is on the throne, and there are even doubts about the name of the dynasty. In
the schools they learn a great deal about things like the succession, but the
common uncertainty in this respect is so great that even the best pupils are
drawn into it. In our villages emperors long since dead are set on the throne,
and one of them who still lives on only in songs had one of his announcements
issued a little while ago, which the priest read out from the altar. Battles
from our most ancient history are now fought for the first time, and with a
glowing face your neighbour charges into your house with the report. The
imperial wives, overindulged on silk cushions, alienated from noble customs by
shrewd courtiers, swollen with thirst for power, driven by greed, excessive in
their lust, are always committing their evil acts over again. The further back
they are in time, the more terrible all their colours glow, and with a loud cry
of grief our village eventually gets to learn how an empress thousands of years
ago drank her husband’s blood in lengthy gulps.
That, then, is how the people
deal with the rulers from the past, but they mix up the present rulers with the
dead ones. If once, once in a person’s lifetime an imperial official travelling
around the province chances to come into our village, sets out some demands or
other in the name of the rulers, checks the tax lists, attends a school class,
interrogates the priest about our comings and goings, and then, before climbing
into his sedan chair, summarizes everything in a long sermon to the assembled
local population, at that point a smile crosses every face, one man looks
furtively at another and bends over his children, so as not to let the official
see him. How, people think, can he speak of a dead man as if he were alive. This emperor already
died a long time ago, the dynasty has been extinguished, the official is having fun
with us. But we’ll act as if we didn’t notice, so that we don’t hurt his
feelings. However, in all seriousness we’ll obey only our present ruler, for
anything else would be a sin. And behind the official’s sedan chair as it
hurries away there arises from the already decomposed urn someone high up who
is arbitrarily endorsed as ruler of the village.
Similarly, with us people are,
as a rule, little affected by political revolutions and contemporary wars. Here
I recall an incident from my youth. In a neighbouring but still very far
distant province a rebellion broke out. I cannot remember the causes any more.
Besides, they are not important here. In that province reasons for rebellion
arise every new day—they are an excitable people. Well, on one occasion a rebel
pamphlet was brought into my father’s house by a beggar who had travelled
through that province. It happened to be a holiday. Our living room was full of
guests. The priest sat in their midst and studied the pamphlet. Suddenly
everyone started laughing, the sheet was torn to pieces in the general
confusion, and the beggar, although he had already been richly rewarded, was
chased out of the room with blows. Everyone scattered and ran out into the
beautiful day. Why? The dialect of the neighbouring province is essentially
different from ours, and these differences manifest themselves also in certain
forms of the written language, which for us have an antiquated character. Well,
the priest had scarcely read two pages like that, and people had already
decided. Old matters heard long ago, and long since got over. And although—as I
recall from my memory—a horrifying way of life seemed to speak irrefutably
through the beggar, people laughed and shook their head and were unwilling to
hear any more. That’s how ready people are among us to obliterate the present.
If one wanted to conclude from
such phenomena that we basically have no emperor at all, one would not be far
from the truth. I need to say it again and again: There is
perhaps no people more
faithful to the emperor than we are in the south, but the emperor derives no
benefits from our loyalty. It’s true that on the way out of our village there
stands on a little pillar the sacred dragon, which, for as long as men can
remember, has paid tribute by blowing its fiery breath straight in the
direction of Peking. But for the people in the village Peking itself is much stranger than
living in the next world. Could there really be a village where houses stand
right beside each other covering the fields and reaching further than the view
from our hills, with men standing shoulder to shoulder between these houses day
and night? Rather than imagining such a city, it’s easier for us to believe
that Peking and its emperor are one, something like a cloud, peacefully moving
along under the sun as the ages pass.
Now, the consequence of such
opinions is a life which is to some extent free and uncontrolled. Not in any
way immoral—purity of morals like those in my homeland I have hardly ever come
across in my travels. But nonetheless a way of life that stands under no
present law and only pays attention to the wisdom and advice which reach across
to us from ancient times.
I guard again generalizations
and do not claim that things like this go on in all ten thousand villages of
our province or, indeed, in all five hundred provinces of China. But on the
basis of the many writings which I have read concerning this subject, as well
as on the basis of my own observations, especially since with the construction
of the wall the human material provided an opportunity for a man of feeling to
travel through the souls of almost all the provinces—on the basis of all this
perhaps I may state that with respect to the emperor the prevailing idea again
and again reveals everywhere a certain essential feature common to the
conception in my homeland. Now, I have no desire at all to let this conception
stand as a virtue—quite the contrary. It’s true that in the main things the
blame rests with the government, which in the oldest empire on earth right up
to the present day has not been able or has, among other things, neglected to
cultivate the institution of empire sufficiently clearly so that it is
immediately and ceaselessly effective right up to the most remote frontiers of
the empire. On the other hand, however, there is in this also a weakness in the
people’s power of imagining or believing, which has not succeeded in pulling
the empire out of its deep contemplative state in Peking and making it
something fully vital and present in the hearts of subjects, who nonetheless
want nothing better than to feel its touch once and then die from the
experience.
So this conception is really
not a virtue. It’s all the more striking that this very weakness appears to be
one of the most important ways of unifying our people. Indeed, if one may go so
far as to use the expression, it is the very ground itself on which we live. To
provide a detailed account of why we have a flaw here would amount not just to
rattling our consciences but, what is much more serious, to making our legs
tremble. And therefore I do not wish to go any further in the investigation of
these questions at the present time.
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