franz kafka quotes by believing passionately

He beckons the doorkeeper, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. Before he dies, all that he has experienced during the whole time of his sojourn condenses in his mind into one question, which he has never yet put to the doorkeeper. But in the darkness he can now perceive a radiance that streams immortally from the door of the Law. Finally his eyes grow dim and he does not know whether the world is really darkening around him or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. He grows childish, and since in his prolonged watch he has learned to know even the fleas in the doorkeeper's fur collar, he begs the very fleas to help him and to persuade the doorkeeper to change his mind. In the first years he curses his evil fate aloud later, as he grows old, he only mutters to himself. He forgets about the other doorkeepers, and this one seems to him the only barrier between himself and the Law. The doorkeeper accepts it all, saying, however, as he takes each gift: 'I take this only to keep you from feeling that you have left something undone.' During all these long years the man watches the doorkeeper almost incessantly. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, parts with all he has, however valuable, in the hope of bribing the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper often engages him in brief conversation, asking him about his home and about other matters, but the questions are put quite impersonally, as great men put questions, and always conclude with the statement that the man cannot be allowed to enter yet. He makes many attempts to be allowed in and wearies the doorkeeper with his importunity. There he sits waiting for days and years. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at the side of the door. Even the third of these has an aspect that even I cannot bear to look at.' These are difficulties which the man from the country has not expected to meet, the Law, he thinks, should be accessible to every man and at all times, but when he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his furred robe, with his huge pointed nose and long, thin, Tartar beard, he decides that he had better wait until he gets permission to enter.

From hall to hall keepers stand at every door, one more powerful than the other. When the doorkeeper sees that, he laughs and says: 'If you are so strongly tempted, try to get in without my permission. 'It is possible,' answers the doorkeeper, 'but not at this moment.' Since the door leading into the Law stands open as usual and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man bends down to peer through the entrance. The man, on reflection, asks if he will be allowed, then, to enter later. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot admit the man at the moment. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the Law. “Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. It receives you when you came and it dismisses you when you go.” 'So why should I want anything from you? The court wants nothing from you. 'That means I belong to the Court,' said the priest. 'You are the prison chaplain,' said K., groping his way nearer to the priest again his immediate return to the Bank was not so necessary as he had made out, he could quite stay longer. 'Well, yes,' said K., 'you must see that I can't help it.' 'You must first see who I am,' said the priest. 'You were so friendly to me for a time,' said K., 'and explained so much to me, and now you let me go as if you cared nothing about me.' 'But you have to leave now,' said the priest. 'Don't you want anything more form me?' asked K. cried out in a loud voice, 'please wait a moment.' 'I am waiting,' said the priest. 'Turn left to the wall,' said the priest, 'then follow the wall without leaving it and you'll come to a door.' The priest had already taken a step or two away from him, but K. “But I cannot find my way in this darkness,' said K.

Franz kafka quotes by believing passionately