Franz Kafka passed away from tuberculosis in a sanatorium in 1924, leaving behind a note addressed to his best friend, Max Brod.
Kafka’s “will”, which was found on that note, was unequivocal: Brod was to collect all of his writings and burn them. He was not to leave a trace behind. However, when the moment came, Brod betrayed Kafka. Though Kafka’s suffered from low self-esteem and did not think much of his own writing, Brod recognized Kafka’s genius from the very first time they met as university students. Not only did Brod not burn the manuscripts – he began editing them and preparing them for publication.
One of these was the manuscript that would become the novel The Castle, a story that would change the way we write about and describe modern life. Had it not been for Brod’s intervention, it would have vanished into oblivion.
Just as Brod and Kafka were intertwined in life, so too were their archives – both of them eventually arriving at the National Library of Israel, after a lengthy legal saga. Among the many items now being revealed to the public for the first time in the exhibition “Kafka: Metamorphosis of an Author“, is a rare page containing a scene that was omitted from The Castle, shedding further light on this influential work.
Behind the Castle Walls
The plot of The Castle focuses on K., a land surveyor who is sent to take up a post in a tiny village nestled in a mountainous landscape. The village is located at the foot of a high castle that manages all the bureaucracy of the village and its surroundings but is completely inaccessible to the villagers.
K. tries to figure out who he needs to speak with in order to carry out his duty but finds himself running around between various strange functionaries– from the village council chairman to a clerk named Klamm, and to the other villagers who are all completely disconnected from what goes on in the castle but are eager to offer their own speculative interpretations. K. becomes increasingly convinced that he must approach the castle, but his ideas are not well-received by the villagers, who believe that the people in the castle must be justified in their actions and should not be disturbed with trivial matters. K. continues to try, in vain, to understand what exactly he is expected to do, why he was sent to this village, and who he is supposed to speak with in order to understand these details.
The Wheels of Bureaucracy Grind Slowly
A torn page found in the archives describes a scene that was omitted from the Kafkaesque plot of The Castle. In this scene, K. arrives at the home of the village council chairman, who is there lying in bed because he is ill. The chairman delivers a speech about the importance of bureaucracy, which cannot make mistakes because the entire bureaucratic system is designed to facilitate the best possible decision being taken. And if it does not produce the best decision, the oversight office is there to ensure that the bureaucratic mechanism continues to grind on. Or, in Kafka’s sharp words, the purpose of bureaucracy is to continue striving toward the most correct decision, but never actually reach it:
Then K. said, as he rose and held in his hand the crumpled letter from Klamm: “I wish I had enthusiastic supporters or enthusiastic enemies up in the castle, but unfortunately, there is no one from whom I can hear an unequivocal ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ And even so, I must find such a person. You’ve already given me a few ideas about how I can do so.”
“I had no such intention,” the village chairman said to K. with a laugh, as he shook hands in farewell. “But it was very nice to talk with you. It really eases my conscience. Perhaps we will meet again soon.”
“It’s safe to assume that there will be a need for me to come,” K. said, bending down toward Mitzi the cat. He cautiously reached out to pet her, but Mitzí backed away with a small meow of fear and hid under a pillow.
The chairman petted Mitzi lovingly. “You’re always welcome,” he said, perhaps to help K. cope with Mitzí’s behavior, but then he added, “Especially now, when I am ill. When I recover and can return to my desk, we can assume that my official work will require all my attention.”
“Do you mean to say,” K. asked, “that you weren’t speaking with me officially even today?” The chairman replied, “Of course I wasn’t speaking with you officially. You could call it a semi-official conversation.”
“You don’t appreciate unofficial matters enough, as I’ve already said, but you also underestimate official matters,” the village chairman said. “An official decision is not like this bottle of medicine that sits here on the table. You can’t just take it and get your answer. A true official decision requires countless small considerations, deliberations, and checks. That requires years of work by the very best clerks, even if in some cases, the clerks already know at the start what the final decision will be.
And will there even be a final decision? That’s why there are oversight offices, to prevent the possibility of one appearing.”
“Well, fine,” said K., “everything is exceptionally organized, who could doubt that? You described it in such an enticing manner that now I can’t help but make every effort to learn about it to the finest detail.”
K. left after saying goodbye to the staff, and as he did, a wave of whispers and hushed laughter was heard behind him.
He returned to the inn. In his room, he found a surprise: The room had been thoroughly cleaned. Frieda had worked diligently and greeted him with a kiss on the threshold of the door. The room was well-ventilated, the stove was emanating heat, the floor had been washed, the bed was made, and the servants’ belongings, including their pictures, were gone. A new picture was now hanging on the wall above the bed.
K. approached the new picture hanging on the wall.
“We believe that the person who tore out the page was Max Brod himself,” says Stefan Litt, curator of the Humanities Collection at the National Library of Israel. “Because it was torn out at a very early stage. You can understand why—the scene is a bit subversive and strongly criticizes the bureaucratic apparatus.”
The scene not only describes the futility of the bureaucratic system as a whole but also criticizes the oversight mechanisms that are supposedly there to prevent mistakes but in reality, only feed into the inefficient process that crushes and tramples the average citizen.
“The reason why this scene wasn’t included in the final work,” says Litt, “might be that Brod was trying to ensure the draft remained faithful to the final product, and therefore, this page was torn out of Kafka’s notebook.”
Despite the attempts to erase it, the torn page and the omitted scene were preserved in the archives, and are now being displayed to the public for the first time, as part of the unique exhibition entitled “Kafka: Metamorphosis of an Author” at the National Library. The exhibition showcases rare handwritten items, drafts and letters by Franz Kafka, an author who changed the very face of Western literature.
