"Franz_Kafka_-_Conversation_With_The_Supplicant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kafka Franz)

"conversation with the supplicant" by franz kafka



There was a time when I went every day into a church, since a girl I was in love with knelt there in prayer for half an hour in the evening and I was able
to look at her in peace.

Once when she had not come and I was reluctantly eyeing the other supplicants I noticed a young fellow who had thrown his whole lean length along
the floor. Every now and then he clutched his head as hard as he could and sighing loudly beat it in his upturned palms on the stone flags.

Only a few old women were in the church, and they kept turning their shawled heads sideways to watch the young man at his devotions. Their
awareness of him seemed to please him, for before each of his pious outbursts he cast his eyes around to see whether many of them were looking.
This I found unseemly, and I made up my mind to accost him as he left the church and to ask him why he prayed in such a manner. Yes, I felt irritable
because my girl had not come.

But an hour elapsed before he stood up, crossed himself punctiliously and strode jerkily towards the basin of holy water. I set myself in a direct line
between the basin and the door, knowing that I was not going to let him pass without an explanation. I screwed up my mouth as I always do when I
want to speak decisively, I advanced my right leg and rested all my weight upon it, balancing my left leg carelessly on the points of my toes, that too
gives me a sense of firmness.

Now it is possible that the young man had already caught sight of me when he was sprinkling himself with the holy water, or he might even have
remarked me sooner with some dismay for he made a sudden unexpected dash through the doorway. The glass door band shut. And when I came out
immediately behind him I could not see him anywhere, for there were several narrow streets and plenty of traffic.

He stayed away for the next few days, but my girl was there. She was wearing her black dress with the transparent lace top over the shoulders- the
crescent of her petticoat showed under it- from the lower edge of which the silk hung down in a beautiful cut ruffle. And since she had come I forgot the
young man and did not even concern myself with him when he continued to appear regularly to do his devotions in the usual manner. Yet whenever he
passed me he always seemed in a great hurry and turned his face away. Perhaps it was only that I could not think of him except in motion and so
even when he was standing still he seemed to me to be slithering past.

One evening I stayed too long in my room. All the same, I went along to the church. My girl was not there, and I thought of going home again. But
there was the young fellow lying on the floor. I was reminded of my first encounter with him and my curiosity revived.

I went on tiptoe to the doorway, gave a coin to the blind beggar who sat there and squeezed in beside him behind the open half of the door; and for a
whole hour there I sat, perhaps with a crafty look upon my face. I liked being there and made up my mind to come again often. In the second hour I
began to think it foolish to sit there because of a man at his prayers. Yet for a third hour in growing irritation I let the spiders creep over my clothes
while the last of the people came, drawing deep breaths, out of the darkness of the church.

And then he too came. He was walking cautiously, testing the ground lightly with his feet before setting them down.

I rose up, took a large stride forward and seized him.

"Good evening," I said, and with my hand on his collar pushed him down the steps into the lighted square.

When we were down on the level he said in a fluttering voice "Good evening, my dear, dear sir, don't be angry with me, your most devoted servant."

"Well," said I, "I want to ask you some questions, sit; you slipped through my fingers the other time but you'll hardly do that tonight."

"Sir, you are a compassionate man and you'll let me go home. I'm a poor creature, that's the truth."