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

window, and the air would be so good for you. No, Father! I'll get the doctor to come, and we'll follow his orders. We'll change rooms, you can move into the front
room, and I'll move in here. You won't notice the change, all your things will be moved across the hall with you. But there's time for all that later, go to bed now for a
little, you must have some rest. Come, I'll help uou to take off your things, you'll see I can do it. Or if you would rather go into the front room at once, you can lie down
in my bed for the present. That would actually be the most sensible thing."
Georg stood close behind his father, who had let his head with its shaggy white hair sink to his chest.
"Georg," said his father in a low voice, without moving.
Georg knelt down at once beside his father. In the old man's weary face he saw the abnormally large pupils staring at him fixedly from the corners of the eyes.
"You have no friend in St. Petersburg. You've always been one for pulling people's legs and you haven't hesitated even when it comes to me. How could you
have a friend there, of all places! I can't believe it."
"Just think back a bit, Father," said Georg, lifting his father from the chair and slipping off his dressing gown as he stood there, quite feebly, "soon it'll be three
years since my friend came to see us last. I remember you didn't like him very much. At least twice I even told you he wasn't there when he was acually sitting with
me in my room. I could quite well understand your dislike of him, my friend does have his peculiarities. But then later you had a good talk with him after all. I was so
proud because you listened to him and nodded and asked him questions. If you think back you're bound to remember. He told us the most incredible stories of the
Russian Revolution. For instance, the time he was on a business trip to Kiev and ran into a riot, and saw a priest on a balcony who cut a broad cross in blood into the
palm of his hand and held the hand up and appealed to the crowd. You've told that very story yourself once or twice since."
Meanwhile Georg had succeeded in lowering his father into the chair again and carefully taking off the knitted drawers he wore over his linen undershorts and his
socks. The not particularly clean appearance of his underwear made Georg reproach himself for having been so neglectful. It should certainly have been his duty to see
that his father had clean changes of underwear. He had not yet explicitly discussed with his fiancee what arrangements should be made for his father in the future, for
they had both silently taken it for granted that he would remain alone in the old apartment. But now he made a quick,firm decision to take him into his own future home.
It almost looked, on further inspection, as if the care he meant to devote to his father there might come too late.
He carried his father over to the bed in his arms. It gave him a dreadful feeling to observe that while he was taking the few steps toward the bed, the old man
cradled against his chest was playing with his watch chain. For a moment he could not put him down on the bed, so firmly did he hang on to the watch chain.
But as soon as he was laid in bed, all seemed well. He covered himself up and even drew the blanket higher than usual over his shoulders. He looked up at
Georg with a not unfriendly expression.
"You're beginning to remember my friend, aren't you?" asked Georg, giving him an encouraging nod.
"Am I well covered up now?" asked his father, as if he couldn't see whether his feet were properly tucked in or not.
"So you like it in bed, don't you?" said Georg, and tucked the blanket more closely around him.
"Am I well covered up?" the father asked once more, seeming to be peculiarly intent upon the answer.
"Don't worry, you're well covered up."
"No!" cried his father, so that the answer collided with the question, and flinging the blanket back so violently that for a moment it hovered unfolded in the air, he
stood upright in bed. With one hand he lightly touched the ceiling to steady himself. "You wanted to cover me up, I know, my little puppy, but I'm far from being
covered up yet. And even if this is the last bit of strength I have, it's enough for you, more than enough. Of course I know your friend. He would have been a son after
my own heart. That's why you've been betraying him all these years. Why else? Do you think I haven't wept for him? And that's why you've had to lock yourself up
in the office--the boss is busy, mustn't be disturbed--just so that you could write your lying little letters to Russia. But fortunately a father doesn't need to be taught how
to see through his own son. And now that you thought you'd pinned him down, so far down that you could plant your rear end on him so he couldn't move, then my fine
son decides to up and get married!"
Georg looked up at the terrifying image of his father. His friend in St. Petersburg, whom his father suddenly knew so well, seized hold of his imagination as never
before. He saw him lost in the vastness of Russia; at the door of his empty, plundered warehouse he saw him. Amid the wreckage of his storage shelves, the slashed
remnants of his wares, the falling gas brackets, he barely stood upright. Why did he have to go so far away!
"Pay attention to me!" cried his father, and Georg, almost absentmindedly, ran toward the bed to take everything in, but froze halfway there.
"Because she lifted up her skirts," his father began to flute, "because she lifted up her skirts like this, the revolting creature"--and mimicking her, he lifted his shirt
so high that one could see the scar on his thigh from his war wound--"because she lifted her skirts like this and this and this you went after her, and in order to have your
way with her undisturbed you have disgraced our mother's memory, betrayed your friend, and stuck your father into bed so that he can't move. But can he move, or
can't he?"
And he stood up quite unsupported and kicked his legs about. He shone with insight.
Georg shrank into a corner, as far away from his father as possible. A long time ago he had firmly made up his mind to watch everything with the greatest
attention so that he would not be surprised by any indirect attack, a pounce from behind or above. At this moment he recalled this long-forgotten resolve and then forgot
it again, like someone drawing a short thread through the eye of a needle.
"But your friend hasn't been betrayed after all!" cried his father, emphasizing the point with stabs of his forefinger. "I've been representing him here on the spot."
"You comedian!" Georg could not resist shouting, realized at once the harm done, and his eyes bulging in his head, bit his tongue--though too late--until the pain