"Franz Kafka - Josephine The Singer Or The Mouse Folk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kafka Franz)

instance, they would not be capable of laughing at Josephine. It can be admitted: in Josephine there is much to make one laugh; and laughter for its own sake is never far
away from us; in spite of all the misery of our lives quiet laughter is always, so to speak, at our elbows; but we do not laugh at Josephine. Many a time I have had the
impression that our people interpret their relationship to Josephine in this way, that she, this frail creature, needing protection and in some way remarkable, in her own
opinion remarkable for her gift of song, is entrusted to their care and they must look after her; the reason for this is not clear to anyone, only the fact seems to be
established. But what is entrusted to oneТs care one does not laugh at; to laugh would be a breach of duty; the utmost malice which the most malicious of us wreak on
Josephine is to say now and then: "The sight of Josephine is enough to make one stop laughing.Ф


So the people look after Josephine much as a father takes into his care a child whose little handЧone cannot tell whether in appeal or commandЧis stretched out to
him. One might think that our people are not fitted to exercise such paternal duties, but in reality they discharge them, at least in this case, admirably; no single individual
could do what in this respect the people as a whole are capable of doing. To be sure, the difference in strength between the people and the individual is so enormous that
it is enough for the nursling to be drawn into the warmth of their nearness and he is sufficiently protected. To Josephine, certainly, one does not dare mention such ideas.
"Your protection isn't worth an old song," she says then. Sure, sure, old song, we think. And besides her protest is no real contradiction, it is rather a thoroughly childish
way of doing, and childish gratitude, while a father's way of doing is to pay no attention to it.


Yet there is something else behind it which is not so easy to explain by this relationship between the people and Josephine. Josephine, that is to say, thinks just the
opposite, she believes it is she who protects the people. When we are in a bad way politically or economically, her singing is supposed to save us, nothing less than that,
and if it does not drive away the evil, at least gives us the strength to bear it. She does not put it in these words or in any other, she says very little anyhow, she is silent
among the chatterers, but it flashes from her eyes, on her closed lipsЧfew among us can keep their lips closed, but she canЧit is plainly legible. Whenever we get bad
newsЧand on many days bad news comes thick and fast at once, lies and half-truths includedЧshe rises up at once, whereas usually she sits listlessly on the ground,
she rises up and stretches her neck and tries to see over the heads of her flock like a shepherd before a thunderstorm. It is certainly a habit of children, in their wild,
impulsive fashion, to make such claims, but Josephine's are not quite so unfounded as children's. True, she does not save us and she gives us no strength; it is easy to
stage oneself as a savior of our people, inured as they are to suffering, not sparing themselves, swift in decision, well acquainted with death, timorous only to the eye in
the atmosphere of reckless daring which they constantly breathe, and as prolific besides as they are boldЧit is easy, I say, to stage oneself after the event as the savior
of our people, who have always somehow managed to save themselves, although at the cost of sacrifices which make historiansЧgenerally speaking we ignore
historical research entirelyЧquite horror-struck. And yet it is true that just in emergencies we hearken better than at other times to Josephine's voice. The menaces that
loom over us make us quieter, more humble, more submissive to JosephineТs domination; we like to come together, we like to huddle close to each other, especially on an
occasion set apart from the troubles preoccupying us; it is as if we were drinking in all hasteЧyes, haste is necessary, Josephine too often forgets thatЧfrom a cup of
peace in common before the battle. It is not so much a performance of songs as an assembly of the people, and an assembly where except for the small piping voice in
front there is complete stillness; the hour is much too grave for us to waste it in chatter.


A relationship of this kind, of course, would never content Josephine. Despite all the nervous uneasiness that fills Josephine because her position has never been quite
defined, there is still much that she does not see, blinded by her self-conceit, and she can be brought fairly easily to overlook much more, a swarm of flatterers is always
busy about her to this end, thus really doing a public serviceЧand yet to be only an incidental, unnoticed performer in a corner of an assembly of the people, for that,
although in itself it would be no small thing, she would certainly not make us the sacrifice of her singing.


Nor does she need to, for her art does not go unnoticed. Although we are at bottom preoccupied with quite other things and it is by no means only for the sake of her
singing that stillness prevails and many a listener does not even look up but buries his face in his neighbor's fur, so that Josephine up in front seems to be exerting herself
to no purpose, there is yet somethingЧit cannot be deniedЧthat irresistibly makes its way into us from Josephine's piping. This piping, which rises up where everyone
else is pledged to silence, comes almost like a message from the whole people to each individual; Josephine's thin piping amidst grave decisions is almost like our people's
precarious existence amidst the tumult of a hostile world. Josephine exerts herself, a mere nothing in voice, a mere nothing in execution, she asserts herself and gets
across to us; it does us good to think of that. A really trained singer, if ever such a one should be found among us, we could certainly not endure at such a time and we
should unanimously turn away from the senselessness of any such performance. May Josephine be spared from perceiving that the mere fact of our listening to her is
proof that she is no singer. An intuition of it she must have, else why does she so passionately deny that we do listen, only she keeps on singing and piping her intuition
away.