Appendix: The Unfinished Chapters (Excerpts)
Hasterer invited K. to come back home with him and stay a while. They would then often sit together for an hour over brandy and cigars. Those evenings were so much to Hasterer's taste that he could not bring himself to forego them even when he had a woman called Helen living with him for a few weeks. She was a fat female of uncertain age with yellowish skin and dark curls clustering round her forehead. At first K. never saw her except in bed, shamelessly sprawling, reading a serial novel and paying no heed to their conversation. Only when it was getting late, she would stretch and yawn or even throw one of her serial numbers at Hasterer if she could not attract his attention in any other way. The latter would then get up smiling and K. would take his leave. But later, when Hasterer was beginning to tire of Helen, she became a very disturbing influence. She was now fully clad when they arrived, generally in a dress which she doubtless thought highly becoming and stylish, actually an old ball-dress bedizened with trimmings and draped with several rows of conspicuously unsightly fringes. K. had no idea what this dress really looked like, for he could hardly bring himself to glance at her, and would sit for hours on end with lowered lids whilst she walked up and down the room swaying her hips or sat down near him. Later, as her position became increasingly precarious, she made desperate efforts to arouse Hasterer's jealousy by openly prefer ring K. It was only misery and not malice which made her lean across the table, exposing her bare, fat, rounded back, in order to bring her face into close proximity with K.'s and force him to look at her. All she gained from that was K.'s refusal to go to Hasterer next time he was asked; and when he did return after an interval, Helen had been sent packing for good and all. K. took that as a matter of course. They remained together for an unusually long time that evening and at Hasterer's instigation they drank the pledge of brother hood. Indeed on going home he was next door to being fuddled with all the smoking and drinking.
Although Hasterer, the State Prosecutor, is a close friend of K.'s, – their friendship grows very intimately over the dismissal of Hasterer's long time mistress, Helene –, K. never bothers him with his trial. As the chapter (and the novel) is unfinished, it remains unclear to what extent this friend could or would have intervened on K.'s, his protégé's behalf, if at all. As they share their new brotherhood, going arm in arm through town, the bank director, usually a fatherly figure fond and protective of K., lets his chief clerk know that such public display of (male) friendship in his eyes is truly “extraordinary.” Clearly, Hasterer's getting rid of his mistress on K.'s insisting, their obvious male bonding and unabashed show of affection for each other plays on the homo-erotic theme prominently present in Kafka's writings beginning with his earliest work, DESCRIPTION OF A STRUGGLE (1902-1904). Even more explicit, albeit in more symbolic representation, the homoerotic theme is manifest in the following unfinished chapter, ”The House.”
In moments of absolute exhaus tion, generally in the evening when the day's work was done, K. took comfort from the most trifling incidents, and equivocal ones into the bargain, which the day had brought forth. Lying as a rule full length on the sofa in his office - he could no longer leave his office without resting for an hour on his sofa - he would mentally piece his observations together. He did not restrict himself narrowly to those persons who were connected with the Court; in his half-sleeping state they all mingled together. He then forgot the tremendous tasks which the Court had to fulfill; he thought of himself as the only defendant and of all the others as officials and lawyers thronging the corridors of a law-court; even the tallest walked with bowed heads, pursed lips and the fixed gaze induced by weighty thoughts. In these visions Frau Grubach's lodgers always made their appearance as a closed group. They stood shoulder to shoulder with open mouths, like an accusing chorus. There were many unfamiliar faces among them, for it was long enough since K. had taken the slightest inter est in the affairs of the boarding-house; and because of the many unknown faces he felt uncomfortable when scrutinizing the group. But this had to be done some times when he was searching for Fräulein Bürstner among them. For instance, glancing rapidly along the group he would suddenly encounter a pair of totally (267)
unfamiliar eyes shining into his own and arresting his attention. Then of course he could not see Fräulein Bürstner; but, in order to make assurance doubly sure, he looked again, and there she was, right in the mid dle, her arms round two men standing beside her. He could hardly have cared less, especially as there was nothing new about the scene, it being merely the indelible impression made upon him by a photograph taken at the seaside which he had once seen in Fräulein Bürstner's room. All the same it had the effect of mak ing him avoid the group; and although he often returned to the place, he now hastened through the building, up and down, with long strides. He knew his way about all the rooms very well; remote passages he could never have seen in his life seemed as familiar to him as if he had always lived there, and details kept on impressing themselves on his mind with painful clarity. For instance there was a foreigner strolling about in the ante-chamber dressed like a bull-fighter, with a wasp's waist and an abbreviated little coat of coarse yellow lace standing out stiffly; this man, without paus ing for a moment in his perambulations, allowed K.'s astonished gaze to follow him unremittingly. Stooping low K. circled round him gaping at him with wide open eyes. He knew all the patterns of the lace, all the torn fringes, all the oscillations of the little coat, and still he couldn't see enough of it. Or rather, he had seen enough of it long ago; or, better still, he had never wanted to look at it at all, and yet he couldn't tear him self away. "What masquerades foreign countries pro vide," he thought, and opened his eyes wider still. And he kept on following this man about until he flung himself round on the sofa and pressed his face into the leather upholstery. (268)
Deleted from here onwards
He lay like this for a long time and really rested now. He still went on thinking, but it was in the dark and undisturbed. Best of all he liked to think of Titorelli. Titorelli was sitting in an arm-chair and K. was kneeling beside him, stroking his arms and cajoling him in every possible way. The painter knew quite well what K. was aiming at, but he pretended not to know and this tormented K. a little. Yet K. for his part knew that he would finally succeed; for Titorelli was a frivolous person and easy to win over, being without a strict sense of duty, so that it was a mystery how the Court had come to have any dealings with a man like that. Here if anywhere, he realized, it would be possible to break through. He was not disconcerted by Titorelli's shameless smile, directed with lifted head into empty space; he persisted in his request and even went so far as to stroke Titorelli's cheeks. He did this slackly, almost sluggishly, taking an inordinate pleasure in pro longing the situation, for he was certain of success. How easy it was to outwit the Court! Finally, as if he were obeying a law of nature, Titorelli bent down towards him and took K.'s hand in a firm clasp, whilst a slow and friendly lowering of his eye-lids showed that he was ready to grant K.'s desire. K. rose to his feet; he naturally felt rather solemn; but Titorelli would have nothing more to do with solemnity. He seized hold of K. and started to run, pulling K. after him. In the twinkling of an eye they were in the law courts and flying along the stairs, upwards and down wards too, without the slightest effort, gliding along as easily as a buoyant craft through water. And at the very moment when K. looked down at his feet and came to the conclusion that this lovely motion had no (269)
connection with the humdrum life he had led until now; - at that very moment over his bent head the transformation occurred. The light which until then had been behind them changed and suddenly flowed in a blinding stream towards them. K. looked up, Titorelli nodded assent and turned him round. He was in the corridor of the law-courts again, but everything was quieter and simpler and there were no conspicuous details. He took it all in at a glance, detached himself from Titorelli and went his way. He was wearing a new long dark suit [“Kleid”, i.e. dress] which comforted him by its warmth and weight. He knew what had happened to him; but he was so happy about it that he could not bring himself to acknowledge it. In the corner of one of the passages he found his other clothes in a heap: the black jacket, the pinstriped trousers, and on the top the shirt stretched out with crumpled sleeves.
This excerpt presents a most revealing sequence: K. feels beleaguered by the other lodgers in Frau Grubach's apartment. They appear, in his state of exhaustion and state of half-sleep, “like an accusing chorus” (267) from which K. escapes in a daydreaming vision of visiting the court and meeting the exotic figure of the bull-fighter, a most peculiar and attractive manifestation of masquerade. K.s encircling vision of this “stranger” who strolls through the court's antechamber is highly cinematic in its zooming in fashion. The bullfighter is like a self-contained, self-absorbed flaneur, strutting around on a promenade that puts him on display. K.'s vision is an interior flanerie or absorbing gaze that usually takes in the spectacle of the visual field with extreme gusto and delightful pleasure. However, K.s reaction to this exhibition and exhibitionist show differs from the carefree look of the traditional flaneur. K's vision that is evidently driven by infatuation and intense absorption is also one of disbelief and, in the final gesture of burying his face in the leather of the sofa, one of exhaustion and despair.
This episode is followed by another daydream: the encounter with the court painter Titorelli. Kafka probably crossed it out after completion because of the explicit physical nature of the meeting of the two men although the symbolic language softens and obfuscates the vivid depiction and renders it more suggestive and dreamlike than graphic or realistic:
K.'s body language suggests a wooing that leads Titorelli to initiate K. to a moving experience (filled with motion and emotion) climaxing in a transformation that gives K. a sense of otherness completely different from his previous “humdrum life.” Again, quite cinematically, K.'s ‘metamorphosis' – in stark contrast to the monstrous change of body Gregor Samsa suffers in THE METAMORPHOSIS – is stunningly encompassing and also ‘superficial' in the sense that his appearance is now totally changed. His new clothes (his old ones, the dapper suit that cause so much sensation for its erotic waistline, are discarded on a heap in a corner) dress a happy man (a most rare situation in any Kafka work). K. dons a dress (not a man's suit! - German “Kleid” is, like dress, used for both men and women) that is “new, long, dark” and also “warm and heavy,” almost exactly the attributes given to the washerwoman's dress K. admired so much. This change of clothes, from male to female dress, signifies a gender change in K., at least in his wishful dream. It is one of Kafka's most playful, artful and imaginary fantasies. K. is dreaming about exiting the struggle with the “accusing chorus” of the others (a sort of people's court) by seeking refuge in a changed identity.
All of Kafka's heroes undergo radical life change; in THE JUGDMENT it is suicide that is supposed to please the tyrannical father figure. In THE METAMORPHOSIS the unhappy son stricken by an inexplicable transformation into a gigantic and monstrous vermin withers away and leaves the disgraced family forever. In Kafka's “Amerika”-novel (“The Man Who Disappeared”), the hero, 17 years old Karl Rossmann, banished from home because the family cook seduced him and carried his child, at the end of his journey in America changes identity as well. He becomes “negro” joining the ethnic other. K.'s life story in THE TRIAL was, from the beginning meant to end in his execution. But Kafka tossed in moments of fantasy where the protagonist escapes the hostile world that puts him to death and where the dream of a redeeming resolution is dreamt. Taking refuge from the world of gender trouble, K. fantasizes about transforming his male identity to escape the pressures heterosexual patriarchy puts on both genders: be proactive and procreate. K. it appears is not the type of family man and not willing to comply; he also is not the marrying kind either.
Anybody familiar with Kafka's life circumstances in 1914 surrounding the writing of THE TRIAL can easily invoke the biographical interpretation (circumvented here to make the novel far more interesting as a work of general interest rather than an elaboration of a personal life crisis). Kafka dissolving his engagement to Felice Bauer, the Berlin lady he had wanted to marry, was torn between his family (and society) imposed obligation to get married and his deep desire to remain single and devote himself completely to his writing. In his diaries and letters Kafka reveals a great sense of guilt he felt because of his failure to achieve the expected. He also reveals his stubborn, adamant disposition to place writing higher than middle class life. It is more than the proverbial Jewish guilt that is manifest here. Kafka's inner conflicts, struggles and hopes transcend ethnic and religious confines and his stories about insecure and ultimately failing (male) protagonists have a more universal appeal than claimants for his minority status allow for. Even for someone totally unfamiliar with the intriguing conflicts and tribulations of Kafka's haunting personal life, the novel, usually thought to be most enigmatic and paradoxical, has a very revealing surface structure with a dense visual representation of major themes, such as the conflicting lifestyle issues in this work.
This presentation following the cinematic aspect suggests reading Kafka's THE TRIAL like a film, from the visual appearance of the depicted world. Using Kafka's frame, beginning and end of the process, the visual surface reveals more than first thought. During an interactive period with the audience, these issues can be pursued at some length on Tuesday, February 22, at 7:00pm. In CCC 1205 ( Cambridge Community Center ).
Looking forward to meeting you there. Peter Beicken and Jennifer Hansen