The Noise in the Burrow: Kafka's Final DilemmaAuthor(s): Britta MachéSource: The German Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Nov., 1982), pp. 526-540Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of GermanStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/404637Accessed: 10/11/2010 03:51

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The Noise in the Burrow: Kafka's Final Dilemma

BRITTA MACHE

1.

A prominent writer's final artistic statements,' conceived and executed with the awareness of impending death, are usually made with such poig- nancy that future generations do not tire of interpreting and reinterpret- ing them. Strangely enough, this has not been the case with Kafka's "Burrow." Even in comparison with the extensive commentary evoked by the short stories published during his lifetime,2 this posthumously printed narrative, written during the last winter of his life (1923/24), has received relatively little attention. And when it has been dealt with as part of comprehensive monographs3 or separate studies,4 the mysterious noises which dominate the animal-narrator's thoughts throughout the second half of the tale and are so crucial to an understanding of the story as a whole, have not been explained satisfactorily. Instead they have been interpreted in an astoundingly contradictory number of ways.' They have been looked upon as the threatening, judging true self, to which the animal does not listen,6 as well as the exact opposite, the inimical force, by which the self is threatened, attacked, and destroyed from within,' or as "the spirit of obsession" by which Kafka was haunted as a writer.8 In addition, they have been characterized as an expression of the ani- mal's fear and anxiety vis-a-vis its existence in the loneliness, emptiness and barrenness of the burrow,9 or even as "hallucinations" that give evi- dence of the narrator's progressing "mental illness."'0

All of these interpretations have two things in common: they rest on too abstract a perception of the burrow itself and consequently on that which can invade and endanger it;" and they neglect or dismiss essential biographical information transmitted to us by Max Brod.'2

As early as 1954, Max Brod had reported that Kafka, in informal con- versation, had identified the enemy as the tubercular cough which tor- mented him during the last months of his life. Although this informa- tion has been available to commentators since that time, it was either overlooked or dismissed;'3 and yet it is exactly this clue which will help the reader to understand better the story in its entirety as well as in one of its essential particulars: the animal's unabated anxiety evoked by the hearing of the noise. If this mysterious noise heard in various parts of

526

Kafka's "Der Bau" 527

the burrow indeed represents the hissing sound accompanying the breath- ing of a person afflicted with tuberculosis of the larynx, then the burrow itself, the place in which this noise is being heard, must logically be seen as Kafka's physique, including his pulmonary tract with lungs, various passageways and the air entrance-exit of the mouth. This perception of the burrow is not to negate the concept of the burrow as the animal's habitation and self-created spiritual domicile within which the creative process in all its phases takes place; rather it is to be seen in simultaneity with it, in the same way in which a cubist portrait may be perceived simultaneously as the profile, the half-profile, and the frontal view of a person's face. Indeed, it is exactly this cubist style of writing which makes "The Burrow" such a fascinating and, at the same time, difficult tract of reading.14

There is another piece of information, reported by Max Brod and ascribed to Dora Diamant, Kafka's close companion during the last eight months of his life, which corroborates Kafka's alleged identification of the haunting noise as his tubercular cough. According to this informa- tion the burrow animal was to be killed by the "Zischer."" Although this information has been dealt with by most of the commentators, none of them has perceived it the way it seems to have been intended. Most of them have considered as either implausible or improbable the burrow animal's death at the hands of an enemy from the outside, because they took the concept of the enemy far too literally as another animal, in- stead of seeing it as a metaphor for that which invades the body of Kafka from the outside: the inimical tubercular bacilli.'6 Only one of the com- mentators contends that at the end of the tale the death of the nocturnal animal seems to be imminent; yet he does not identify "the hisser" as Kafka's tuberculosis, but as death itself.'7

Of course, biographical information of this kind-the identification of the mysterious noise as the sound of his tubercular cough and the even- tual death of the narrator through a final attack of "the hisser"-can be helpful in an interpretation of the story only if the text itself bears out such a reading. This, indeed, seems to be the case, because-as will be shown in the course of this discussion--every statement that Kafka makes pertaining to the noise and the animal's reaction to it (from the vaguely perceived whistling in the beginning, to its ostensible vanishing in the middle, to the almost unbearable resurgence at the end of the story) is applicable to the progression of his fateful disease, from the first warn- ing signals through a number of remissions to the renewed outbreak.'8 Such an interpretation will also explain why the story had to remain open- ended: a person like Kafka-contrary to a widespread notion-was not a pessimist or nihilist at heart, but rather a persistent believer in the (im)possibility of 'grace.''" For this reason he was hoping, almost until the end,2 against all evidence to the contrary, that his condition would improve and he could, at long last, begin a new life at the side of his un- derstanding companion, Dora Diamant.2' Needless to say, such a per- son could not sign his own death warrant-even if only vicariously-by letting his burrow animal die at the fangs of the powerful hisser.22 The

528 BRITTA MACHIE

closest he could come to admitting to the severity of his situation would be through an acknowledgement of continued uncertainty: "Aber alles blieb unvertindert" (p. 388).23

Thus, in its entirety, "The Burrow" becomes one of the most moving short stories Kafka has written, because it reveals his utter determination to deal with his own destiny. In this he goes as far as any human being can go, facing it without extenuation, without making light of a terrible dilemma: that of wanting to experience the joy of completing his life's work, yet realizing that it cannot be done, because the anxiety evoked by the relentlessly progressing tuberculosis of the larynx constantly under- mines the singlemindedness of his pursuit. It is under the impact of this awareness that Kafka-through the imagery of the hisser with his dis- concerting noise-deals with his fateful disease and tries to render an account of how it could have come to this precarious final stage.

2.

My perception of physical disease at the center of the story and, along with it, an interpretation of the burrow as the narrator's body, does not exclude other levels of meaning implicit in the burrow image. There is, first of all, the most obvious one, the burrow as the animal's physical shelter. In addition, there is the burrow as the narrator's spiritual and artistic existence, as the magic sphere into which the outside world does not intrude and where, in solitude, creation takes place in all its phases, from the first dealings with an amorphous mass to the gradual shaping of the material at hand, to the final revisions. Finally, there is the burrow as the narrator's body, as the place in which the animal hears the first dis- tracting whistling sound and perceives the spreading of it into various passageways until, "nur mit dem Ohr des Hausbesitzers horbar" (p. 375), he hears it everywhere. Quite often, in the reader's mind the vari- ous meanings of the burrow image overlap; sometimes, also, one mean- ing is transformed into another, with a transition so imperceptible that one might well wonder whether this is the result of a conscious effort on Kafka's part or the by-product of two overriding concerns which plagued Kafka all his life and which, consequently, were mixed uncon- sciously in his burrow image: the fear of not being able to sustain, far removed from his father, his "self-constructed" artistic existence, his burrow ("Bau"), or his "house," as he called it in a late remark;24 and the fear of having to suffer within his body, his "KOrper-Bau," renewed attacks of tuberculosis. It is this double meaning of burrow as artistic existence, self-constructed mode of life on the one hand, and that of body, personal physique on the other, which seems to have been over- looked by commentators. Yet it is exactly this multi-layered burrow image, especially the aspect connoting Kafka's physique, which con- tains the clue to a coherent biographical interpretation of the story. A few examples may suffice to demonstrate this.

When the narrator begins his reflections by saying: "Ich habe den

Kafka's "Der Bau" 529

Bau eingerichtet und er scheint wohlgelungen" (p. 359), the uninitiated reader believes he hears a statement about the interior arrangements of an animal's place of habitation. The more sophisticated listener, how- ever, knowing that Kafka's primary concern does not rest with empirical reality but with his "traumhaften innern Leben,"25 hears a statement about Kafka's self-created artistic existence. It is this kind of "house," or burrow, which he himself has arranged, disregarding, as we later learn, everything else in the process. Also, when the narrator continues his report by saying: "er (der Bau) ist so gesichert, wie eben tiberhaupt auf der Welt etwas gesichert werden kann" (p. 359), the reader thinks of the "secured" burrow as the animal's habitation and Kafka's life as a writer.26 But as soon as the narrator makes a statement about the zenith of his life, followed by a reference to the vulnerable spot of his burrow, which he then relates to himself personally, the reader recognizes that an unexpected shift in meaning has taken place: "mein Leben hat selbst jetzt auf seinem HOhepunkt kaum eine vollig ruhige Stunde, dort an jener Stelle im dunklen Moos bin ich sterblich" (p. 360). This shift in meaning comes about through an almost unnoticeable grammatical change midway into the sentence. The narrator does not say, as one might logically expect: "At that one point in the dark moss my burrow is vulnerable," a statement which the reader would perceive as a reference to the precariousness of the burrow animal's habitation and, figuratively speaking, to the narrator's creative existence. Instead, the speaker con- cludes his thought by saying: "At that one point in the dark moss I am mortal." Kafka, by replacing the anticipated noun "burrow" with the personal pronoun "I," shifts from the animal's place of habitation, his "Bau," to the narrator's personal physique, his "KOrper-Bau," thus equating burrow and burrow animal. In addition, he uses the adjective "mortal," which can refer only to a living organism, like the burrow animal, and not to an inanimate object, like a place of habitation. Con- sequently, in retrospect, the term "entrance-exit" takes on an added meaning. It does not any longer refer exclusively to the narrator's point of access into and out of his place of habitation and realm of creative activity, but also to Kafka's mouth, the entrance-exit through which air is inhaled and exhaled, and through which also the fatal tubercular bacil- li have access to his lungs and larynx. At this point it becomes evident why the narrator is mortal not at any arbitrary spot in his burrow, but only at this particular one, and why the entrance-exit plays such an im- portant role in the story as a whole.

In light of the preceding discussion, the soliloquies of the burrow ani- mal concerned with the hissing noise should not only be read on the story level, but also understood as the reflections of a severely ill Kafka, deal- ing-albeit in symbolic language-with his as yet undiagnosed tuberculo- sis of the larynx.27 By pondering the present stage of his disease and re- constructing its past, all the while hoping to rid himself of the discon- certing "hisser," Kafka is, in effect, writing his medical case history and dealing, at the same time, with his own death. Thus, on the one hand, "The Burrow" becomes a painstakingly careful reconstruction of the

530 BRITTA MACHiE

different phases of Kafka's illness, and on the other hand a recording of the various stages of dying, as identified by Elisabeth KUbler-Ross in her landmark publication On Death and Dying.28

3.

Before looking at the story as a poetic expression of Kafka's struggle with his impending death, it is essential to comment on the noise as a metaphor of Kafka's tuberculosis. There is, first of all, the unmistak- able reference to the first outbreak of his illness, when the animal-narra- tor-thinking back to the first hearing of the noise and attempting to justify his somewhat nonchalant attitude towards it-remarks: "Da geschah es, da8 ich [. . .] pltzlich ein Gerausch in der Ferne horte. Jung wie ich war, wurde ich dadurch mehr neugierig als Angstlich" (p. 385). Somewhat later, he comments: "Ich war gespannt, aber sonst ktihl und ruhig" (p. 385). Here the reference to Kafka's biography can hardly be missed, for it is well known that Kafka was initially more interested in his disease than fearful of it, more relieved at not having to go through with his engagement to Felice Bauer than perturbed at having con- tracted something potentially dangerous.2"

However, not only his "youth" and the welcome release from his bondage to Felice made Kafka take somewhat lightly the first warning signals of his illness,30 but also the fact that-as is not unusual with dis- eases like tuberculosis-a number of remissions occurred.3' Although it is hard to imagine that Kafka ever seriously thought of the possibility of a reversal of his affliction,32 it is conceivable that he hoped for a cure whenever he experienced a longer, uninterrupted period of relative well- being. In this light, the burrow animal's comments concerning the ap- parent disappearance of the "burrower" become meaningful: "auf ein- mal brach er ganz ab, als habe er sich jetzt zu einer vollig entgegengesetz- ten Richtung entschlossen und ruicke geradewegs von mir weg in die Ferne" (p. 386). Just as convincing as Kafka's reference to the remission of his illness is his allusion to the renewed outbreak of it: "der Graber hat neuerlich seine Absicht geandert, er hat kehrt gemacht, er kommt zurOck von seiner Reise, er glaubt, er hatte inzwischen genug Zeit ge- lassen, mich fUr seinen Empfang einzurichten" (p. 386). It is, of course, the return of the "hisser" which prompts the narrator's reflections on the noise, as well as the reconstruction of its genesis. Thus, the reader hears of an initial "kaum hOrbares Zischen" (p. 374) that seemed so slight as to be considered "verhaltnismaBig unschuldig" (p. 375); yet, shortly afterwards, the narrator is quick to point out," [daB] es gewil schon vorhanden war" (p. 375), an allusion, no doubt, to the presence of Kafka's turberculosis of the larynx even before he himself became aware of it. The specific characteristics of the noise are also given by the narra- tor: it sometimes sounds "wie Zischen," at other times "wie Pfeifen" (p. 375). It is significant that Kafka uses the noun "Pfeifen" a compon- ent of the German medical term "Kehlkopfpfeifen" (piping of the

Kafka's "Der Bau" 531

larynx), which refers to a serious disturbance in the breathing process caused by an incurable disease of the larynx."

In addition to Kafka's allusions to the specific type of his disease, there is also his reference to the particular course it has taken, the spread- ing from one part of his body to another: "Nun aber bohren sie auch in den Gangen" (p. 377); and somewhat later: "Ich horche jetzt die Wande des Burgplatzes ab, und wo ich horche, hoch und tief, an den Wanden oder am Boden, an den Eingangen oder im Innern, iiberall, oberall das gleiche Gerausch" (p. 378). It is not difficult to recognize terms like "Eingtnge" (entrances), "Gange" (passageways), "Wande" (walls), and "Boden" (floor) as equivalents of various parts of a person's pulmonary tract. Even more revealing is the fact that the narrator's initial calm and sober tone of reporting becomes quite agitated as soon as he mentions that the noise is no longer localized. Evidently, Kafka understood very well the medical implications of the spreading of tubercular bacteria from the lungs to the larynx via the lymph system and blood vessels.34 It is more than probable that metastasis had already set in at the time he was writing the story, i.e. during the winter of 1923/24, when he was continuously plagued by high fever and cough."3 No wonder then that the narrator's longing for peace and quiet increases; no wonder that stillness in the passageways and creative activity are inextricably linked and that only a decrease in the noise-or its miraculous vanishing- would be able to restore the "architect's" single-minded pursuit. Never- theless, the noise increases and with it the narrator's anxiety and help- lessness vis-A-vis his own destiny. It is not surprising, then, that Kafka, in the guise of his animal-narrator, felt the need to deal with his own impending death.36

4.

In her book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross discusses, on the basis of countless interviews with terminally ill patients, five psychological stages through which almost all human beings have to pass before they can face death peacefully. She calls these stages denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Although these stages are not necessarily experienced in this particular order, and although some patients shift several times from one stage to another, every pa- tient seems to experience each stage in some form. The burrow animal is no exception.

The first stage, denial, usually occurs right after patients have been told about their fatal illness. In order to cushion the shock of such a devastating revelation, they tend to respond with a very strong and di- rect denial by saying something like: "No, not me, it cannot be true.""

We do not know how the narrator of the burrow story reacted to the discovery of his life-threatening invaders, since he is reporting his reac- tions after he has achieved a certain degree of detachment. This may account for his relatively dispassionate comment: "ich [habe] mich durch

532 BRITTA MACHE

eine [.. .] sonderbare Erscheinung um jede Besinnung bringen lassen" (p. 379). As sober a reaction to a life-threatening discovery as that of the burrow animal can, of course, not be sustained, and by the time the story ends, the narrator has gone through a number of denials, the last of which appears to be the most powerful. It occurs soon after he has said: "in Wirklichkeit ertrage ich es hier doch nicht" (p. 386) and then adds that he is now "statt Ruhe mit neuen Sorgen erfuillt" (p. 386). It is at this point that-in full consciousness of his situation-he exclaims: "Ich bin so weit, daB ich Gewi8heit gar nicht haben will" (p. 387). And indeed, he tries to ignore his fateful predicament by creeping-along with a piece of flayed red flesh-into one of the heaps of earth, saying: "dort wird jedenfalls Stille sein" (p. 387). From the reports of Ktibler- Ross it is known that circumstances often do not permit the patient an outright denial, especially not at times when the disease is in rapid progress. The same is true with regard to the burrow animal. Realizing that complete silence cannot be had, it quickly adds to its initial hopeful thought ("dort wird jedenfalls Stille sein") the sobering comment: "soweit es hier tiberhaupt eigentliche Stille noch gibt" (p. 387).

Denial and partial acceptance are often in close proximity, but to reach an attitude of complete acceptance and also sustain it for any length of time is almost impossible, because, as Ktibler-Ross so con- vincingly states, "in our unconscious mind we are all immortal."''3 Pa- tients have been known to invent all kinds of strategies for the purpose of denying their knowledge of impending death. Some have pretended that their diagnoses were wrong; others that the results of the biopsies were mixed up; and again others that they were healed miraculously.39 The burrow animal never invents such straightforward subterfuges. Instead it expresses an ambivalence towards its fateful situation such as can be exhibited only by someone with as dialectical a mind as that of the narrator. For this reason, the burrow animal, while acknowledging its life-threatening situation, creates for itself a life-affirming activity, that of trying to learn as much about itself and its relationship to the intruder as possible: "Ich werde in der Richtung zum Gerausch hin einen regelrechten grof3en Graben bauen und nicht frtiher zu graben auf-

hOren, bis ich, unabhangig von allen Theorien, die wirkliche Ursache des Gerausches finde" (p. 379). This statement parallels Kafka's eager- ness and determination to find the origin of his own illness. As early as 1917, when tuberculosis was first diagnosed, he wrote to Max Brod: "Immerfort suche ich eine Erklarung der Krankheit, denn selbst erjagt habe ich sie doch nicht." And towards the end of the letter, with refer- ence to his stay in a sanatorium, he adds: "Ich werde aber nattirlich auch hier dartiber nachzudenken nicht aufhOren."40

From the case histories which Ktibler-Ross includes in her book, one gains the impression that terminally ill patients usually respond spon- taneously to their predicament. In contrast, the narrator of the burrow story is almost always very deliberate in his reflections. When, for in- stance, he proposes to himself to listen every few hours to the noise and then patiently register the results, he does not really expect to find any-

Kafka's "Der Bau" 533

thing. Nevertheless, he has to involve himself in this task "um etwas der inneren Unruhe Entsprechendes zu tun" (p. 379). For the moment the patient-narrator becomes his own psychiatrist.

Ki*bler-Ross also reports that for a terminally ill patient it is almost impossible to live without some kind of hope. She found "that even the most accepting, the most realistic patients left the possibility open for some cure, for the discovery of a new drug or the 'last-minute success in a research project.' '"' The sophisticated narrator of the burrow story, too, cannot live without anticipating a brighter future. He has to estab- lish some hope in order to go on living. However, his attempts at dealing with the situation seem to be very controlled. He is fully aware of the fact that once the enemies have invaded the burrow, actually once they have chosen their victim, nothing much can be done: "sie kommen, man hort das Kratzen ihrer Krallen knapp unter sich in der Erde [. ..] und schon ist man verloren" (p. 360). He also realizes that even his exit does not provide a way out from an enemy-infested habitation: "Vor ihnen [den Feinden] rettet mich auch jener Ausweg nicht, wie er mich ja wahr- scheinlich iiberhaupt nicht rettet, sondern verdirbt" (p. 361). Neverthe- less, he consciously transforms his somber deliberations into more en- couraging thoughts by reflecting: "aber eine Hoffnung ist er [der Aus- weg] und ich kann ohne ihn nicht leben" (p. 361). In this way the narra- tor admits that although there is no hope, he has to invent it in order to live. Living without it is impossible.42

This practice of establishing hopelessness in order to transform it into hope is, however, also practiced in reverse. Toward the end of the story, when the animal anticipates its return to the burrow, hope seems to break through for a moment: "Wenn ich zuruickkomme, der Friede wieder verschafft ist, werde ich alles endgtiltig verbessern, im Fluge wird sich dann alles machen lassen" (p. 380). Again, however, a proposition based on disregard of empirical reality cannot be sustained for long by someone with as sober and rational a mind as the narrator. What finally remains of his desire to establish hope is a calm rejection of it. "Ja, im Marchen geht alles im Fluge und zu den Marchen gehOrt auch dieser Trost" (p. 380).

Once more, toward the end of the story, an attempt at establishing hope is made when the animal muses: "Nun scheint das Tier freilich sehr weit entfernt, wenn es sich nur noch ein wenig weiter zurtickziehen wirde, wiirde wohl auch das Gerausch verschwinden, vielleicht kOnnte dann noch alles gut werden wie in den alten Zeiten" (p. 387). Here again, however, assumptions instead of certainties, probabilities instead of facts, and a mere possibility of hope instead of real hope.

According to Ktibler-Ross, the stage of depression, accompanied by severe self-reproaches, is also part of the dying process. The burrow ani- mal, too, expresses its deep-seated sadness, when it says: "Warum wurde ich so lange beschiAtzt, um jetzt so geschreckt zu werden?" (p. 384), or when it admits that it is badly prepared for death: "der grol3e Bau steht da, wehrlos, und ich bin kein kleiner Lehrling mehr, sondern ein alter Baumeister und, was ich an Kraften noch habe, versagt mir, wenn es zur

534 BRITTA MACHt

Entscheidung kommt" (p. 386). As with many a terminally ill patient, the narrator's feelings of de-

pression also turn into bitter self-reproaches. Whereas most patients, however, extend their grievance to areas of interpersonal relationships, mourning missed opportunities with their spouses, children, and col- leagues, the narrator's reproaches are directed almost exclusively toward his neglect of the burrow: "[Es] ereignet sich jetzt doch nur etwas, was ich eigentlich immer zu beftirchten gehabt hatte, etwas, wogegen ich hatte immer Vorbereitungen treffen sollen" (p. 384). And somewhat later: "leichtsinnig wie ein Kind bin ich gewesen, meine Mannesjahre habe ich mit kindlichen Spielen verbracht, selbst mit dem Gedanken an die Gefahren habe ich nur gespielt, an die wirklichen Gefahren wirklich zu denken, habe ich vershtumt. Und an Mahnungen hat es nicht gefehlt" (p. 385). All of these self-reproaches imply the harsh verdict that if only he had acted differently then, all would be fine now; if instead of think- ing only "an [s]eine eigene Verteidigung" (here a reference to his artistic self), he would have thought "an die Verteidigung des Baus" (p. 384) (here an allusion to the shell that holds the self, his body), all would have been all right. He continues by suggesting what should have been done to protect the burrow from further invasions. All of these suggestions un- derscore the fact that Kafka, in the image of the burrow, is talking about his own body, because all of the suggestions can be read as metaphors for medical procedures that would have been helpful-had they existed and had they been applied-to halt Kafka's tubercular cough from spreading. There is, e.g., the suggestion that endangered sections could have been cut off ("getrennt") from the main part of the burrow; or the idea that landslides ("ErdverschiAttungen") could have been initiated which would have functioned as effectual barriers against the enemy and entombed the attacker in the process (pp. 384-85). If one considers the fact that today cancer-infected sections of the body are, indeed, cut off, and that from radiation to chemotherapy many powerful procedures have been devised to halt a disease from spreading, the narrator's sug- gestions as to how his mortal enemy could have been defeated do not appear all that hypothetical.

The narrator's self-reproaches, when looked at critically, are just as ambivalent as were his expressions of denial and hope. Hardly has the burrow animal accused itself of having neglected the defense of its bur- row ("Nicht den kleinsten Anlauf zu etwas derartigem habe ich gemacht, nichts, gar nichts," p. 385), when it finds a reason why such a neglect was plausible, after all: "Etwas, was an das jetzige [the extent of the noise] heranreichen w(irde, ist allerdings nicht geschehen" (p. 385).

There is one more stage of dying: that of bargaining. This is the time when a patient offers all kinds of precious belongings to some supreme being in exchange for life. This stage is also present in the story. It first appears as the burrow animal's readiness to give some of its provisions to the unknown animal: "Wenn es wirklich bis zu mir durchbricht, gebe ich ihm einiges von meinen Vorraten und es wird weiterziehen" (p. 387). However, here too the possibility of such a realization is destroyed as

Kafka's "Der Bau" 535

quickly as it has been expressed: "Wohl, es wird weiterziehen. In meinen Erdhaufen kann ich nattirlich von allem traumen, auch von Verstan- digung, obwohl ich genau weiB, daB es etwas derartiges nicht gibt" (p. 387).

There is one last attempt of the burrow animal at bargaining for life. This occurs toward the end of the tale, when-pondering hard work as an exchange for stillness in the burrow-it muses: "wenn ich Ruhe habe und die Gefahr nicht unmittelbar drangt, bin ich noch zu allerlei ansehn- licher Arbeit sehr wohl fahig" (p. 387). Predictably, here too the possi- bility of such a bargain is rendered ineffectual almost as soon as it has been expressed, because the narrator-so the reader now learns-does not believe in negotiations of this kind. Even at the stage of bargaining he retains the characteristic which has been so apparent in all the other stages of dying: ambivalence. Soon afterwards, the story breaks off with a statement as straightforward in its denotation as it is profound in its im- plications: "Aber alles blieb unverandert" (p. 388). No doubt, it reflects a status quo, in which not only the whistling persists and the inability of the narrator to think and work creatively, but also the fear of an out- right enemy invasion, which would bring final destruction. The protago- nist, then, although he has reflected on all stages of dying in his sober and detached way, is not a step further than he was in the beginning. Indeed, all remains unchanged.

The question whether the burrow animal survives or dies at the end does not seem to be essential. Essential, though is the question whether or not the ending in its present form contributes to the artistic unity of the story as a whole. The answer, I believe, should be given in the affirm- ative. After all, is it not exactly the dilemma of the narrator's situation which makes up the tale? Could one, under these circumstances, think of a better ending than the present one, which condenses in one simple sentence of four words the insight that a dilemma is, after all, a dilemma and defies any solution.

The Kafka who emerges from this penultimate story is not, as has been alleged at times, a neurotic individual or a weak artist, but a human being "in extremis," confronted with the knowledge of impending death, yet struggling as best he can to deal with it. What further emerges is a writer of extraordinary moral courage who will not allow himself to be comforted by false hopes, but is willing to wrestle with the predicament of his own disconcerting situation, in which the desire to continue writ- ing is just as overwhelming as the knowledge that his life-threatening disease is worsening. Seen in this light, the burrow story-transcending the specific story situation and that of its authorial narrator--becomes a comment on the inevitable dilemma that confronts man face to face with death.

Union College, Schenectady, New York

Today, there is no doubt that "The Burrow" was written during the last half year of Kafka's life. See Max Brod, Franz Kafka: A Biography (New York: Schocken, 1960),

536 BRITTA MACHE

p. 198. Malcolm Pasley and Klaus Wagenbach, "Datierung samtlicher Texte Franz Kafkas," Kafka-Symposion (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1965), p. 65, more specifically, place the story's origin in the winter of 1923/24, thus corroborating the testimony of Dora Diamant. See J. P. Hodin, "Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka," Der Monat, I, Nos. 8-9 (1949), p. 92. By their dating of "Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk" as Kafka's last story, Pasley and Wagenbach consider "The Burrow" to be Kafka's penultimate piece of writing.

2 "The Metamorphosis" (1915); "The Judgment" (1916); "A Country Doctor" (1917); "In the Penal Colony" (1919); "A Hunger Artist" (1922). Wilhelm Emrich, Franz Kafka (Frankfurt: Athenaum, 1965), pp. 172-86; Heinz Politzer, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 318-33; Walter Sokel, Franz Kafka-Tragik und fronie: Zur Struktur seiner Kunst (MOnchen und Wien: Albert Langen/Georg MOller, 1964), pp. 371-87.

4 Hans Banziger, "Der Bau," Merkur, 40, No. 1 (1957), pp. 38-49; Hartmut Binder, "Der Bau," Motiv und Gestaltung bei Franz Kafka (Bonn: Bouvier, 1966), pp. 340-46; Heinrich Henel, "Kafka's 'Der Bau,' or How to Escape from a Maze," The Discon- tinuous Tradition: Studies in German Literature in Honor of Ernest Ludwig Stahl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 224-46; Heinrich Henel, "Das Ende von Kafkas 'Der Bau,' GRM, 22 (1972), 3-23; Hermann J. Weigand, "Franz Kafka's 'The Burrow' ('Der Bau'): An Analytical Essay," PMLA, 87 (1972), 152-66; Hans Banziger, "Das namenlose Tier und sein Territorium. Zu Kafkas Dichtung 'Der Bau,'" DVjs, 53 (1979), 300-25; Mark Boulby, "Kafka's End: A Reassessment of 'The Burrow,'" GQ, 55 (1982), 175-85.

' It seems that interpretations of Kafka's writings usually fare best when Kafka's inner biography is taken into consideration. Such an approach, needless to say, would not imply a return to positivistic commentaries, but a taking into account of inner (and outer) circumstances, under which a particular narrative was written. The favorable results of such an approach can be seen in: Frederick J. Beharriell, "Kafka, Freud, and 'Das Urteil,' " Texte und Kontexte: Festschrift far Norbert First, ed. M. Durzak, et al., (Bern/Mtinchen: Francke, 1973), pp. 27-49.

6 Emrich (p. 179) not only interprets the noise as "die bedrohliche richtende Stimme des Selbst," but also calls it "diese hochste Instanz" (this highest authority) which- according to Emrich-demands to be listened to. For this reason also, it awakens the animal even from its deepest sleep. Strangely enough, however, Emrich draws an infer- ence from this observation which the text does not bear out: that the animal does not listen to itself ("Aber das Tier hort nicht auf sich selbst"). To the contrary, it is exactly this constant listening which so distracts the animal that it cannot work peacefully any more, much as it yearns to do so.

7 Politzer, p. 330. Even Politzer with his intuitive perception of Kafka's inner dynamics does not seem to recognize the gravity of these threatening noises, when he comments that they are "definitely less threatening than the antagonists of earlier novel fragments" (p. 328); or when he speaks of "the triviality of this disturbance," pointing out that it "has been imagined by the animal rather than experienced in actuality" (p. 328). When Politzer tries to identify the noise, he seems to envelop himself in contradictions. At one point, the burrow is considered the origin of the noise ("the enemy represents the spirit of revenge wrought by the Burrow against its inhabitant, the creation against its creator"), but at another point, it is the animal itself which is seen as the originator of the disturbance, when Politzer identifies the hissing sound as "the spirit of obsession which haunted the writer" (p. 328).

8 To Sokel it does not matter whether the hisser is identified with the father, the absolute, or with God (p. 379). Sokel simply considers the hisser to be the inimical force which at- tacks, threatens, and destroys the self from within. Although Sokel identifies the hisser as "das schlechthin Andere" (p. 381), he also sees it as that which is identical with the burrow animal. The only difference seems to lie in the hisser's greater strength and endurance. And finally, Sokel also identifies the hisser with the true self, when he notes: "Er ist das, was das Ich sein sollte, aber nicht ist" (p. 381). Such contradictory interpretations of the hisser by one and the same commentator make it difficult for the reader to be convinced of the validity of any of them. Besides, it seems unlikely that an author as sensitive toward detail as Kafka, would create a poetic figure repre-

Kafka's "Der Bau" 537

senting the hostile force as such, as well as the true self.

9 Henel, when stating "daB dies Zischen die Angst ausdrockt, die das Tier vor seinem Dasein in der Einsamkeit, Leere und Ode des Baus empfindet" ("Das Ende von Kafkas 'Der Bau,'" p. 7) adds somewhat later: "Meine fruheren Argumente for die Richtigkeit dieser Interpretation werden durch die Beobachtungen iiber das Tempus und die Rede- weise des Tieres vermehrt" (p. 7f.). Enlightening as the insights gained from investiga- tions into Kafka's narrative technique are, e.g., Dorrit Cohn, "Kafka's Eternal Present: Narrative Tense in 'Ein Landarzt' and other First-Person Stories" (PMLA, 83 [1968], 144-50), it is difficult to see in which way they serve in this particular case as a verifica- tion of Henel's previously posed thesis.

10 Weigand (p. 155) is the only commentator who relates the noise to illness; however, he does not identify the noise as a physical, but as a mental illness, and explains the various stages of the narrator's disease as "(1) creeping neurosis, (2) aboulia (paralysis of the will in exile), (3) a psychosis, a haunting hallucination, (4) religion, (5) senile dementia and total enfeeblement of animal energy." Concluding these observations, Weigand states: "I see the most important qualitative escalation of his mental illness in the emergence of the hallucination-the hissing and whistling noise." Here again, as in previous interpre- tations, the noise is perceived as an imagined, not a real phenomenon.

* To Politzer the burrow becomes a representation of "both his [Kafka's] work and his grave" (p. 322); to Henel it is the animal's "Schutzburg" and "Gefangnis"; and to Weigand, who identifies the protagonist as "a hybrid of man and animal" (p. 152), "the burrow comes to assume the status of the self objectified" (p. 153), which would mean a tangible expression of the protagonist's whole being. Although almost every interpreter comments on the oneness of animal and burrow-an observation well sup- ported by the text-nobody seems to explain satisfactorily which aspect of the self is represented by the burrow, and which by the animal or why Kafka handles the divided self in the particular way he does.

12 See Max Brod's Epilogue to: Beschreibung eines Kampfes: Novellen, Skizzen, Aphoris- men aus dem Nachlass (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1954), pp. 349-50.

3 Sokel, Weigand, and Henel do not mention this particular information at all, and Politzer does not take it for anything else but a "playful" and "cunning" self-inter- pretation by which Kafka tried to mystify his friends (p. 331). Only Emrich reflects on this information and connects the hissing to the animal; however, he does not de- velop this thought further, because he cannot reconcile Brod's identification of the enemy as the tubercular cough (thus placing the enemy inside the burrow animal) with Dora Diamant's explanation that the burrow animal was to die at the fangs of an in- truding opponent (which would place the enemy outside the narrator). For this reason Emrich assumes that Dora Diamant must have misunderstood an ambivalent remark made by Kafka (p. 180), an opinion still adhered to by Boulby (p. 179). None of the commentators gives a reason for his skeptical evaluation of Dora Diamant's remarks.

14 Winfried Kudszus' insight, that in Kafka's narratives "nicht nur der Held, sondern verschiedentlich auch ein auktorialer ErzAhler strukturbestimmend ist," seems to point in the same direction. See his "ErzAhlperspektive und ErzAhlgeschehen in Kafkas Prozess," D Vjs, 44 (1970), 306. If Kafka, like many a modern writer, was writing about himself, and himself only, then he had to employ more than one narrative perspective in order to do justice to his divided self.

, Max Brod, Beschreibung, p. 350. 16 Politzer (p. 330) rejects the idea on grounds of its ostensible incongruity with another

comment ascribed to Dora Diamant: namely that she, Dora, was the Castle Keep. If, however, we consider the burrow a representation of Kafka's artistic existence as a whole, then it does not seem unfitting at all that Kafka should have considered his devoted companion whom he would have married shortly before his death, had her rabbi consented, the most essential part of his self-constructed existence and thus, in the imagery of the burrow story, the Castle Keep. Henel, on the other hand, could not accept the idea of the burrow animal's death on other counts; firstly, because to him the enemy does not exist ("der Feind im Bau ist nur ein Hirngespinst-eine Ausgeburt seiner Angst" (p. 14), and secondly, because he considers such an ending insufficiently foreshadowed. Weigand rejects the idea of a violent confrontation because to him, too, the enemy does not exist. It is only a "figment of a feverish hallucinating brain"

538 BRITTA MACHt

(p. 164). He also rejects the idea on aesthetic grounds, because Kafka would have been compelled "to introduce the voice of a second speaker" since the burrow animal could not have reported its own death (p. 164). Although Sokel also contends that the enemy only exists in the imagination of the narrator, he believes that the burrow animal could be victorious in the final combat (p. 385).

17 J.M.S. Pasley in his introduction to Franz Kafka, Der Heizer, In der Strafkolonie, Der Bau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 29f.

'B It is interesting that Boulby acknowledges the strongly biographical character of the story ("more, perhaps, than any other work of Kafka's," p. 179) but seems to be at a loss when it comes to the unravelling of some of the essentially biographical imagery (the apparent variety of the enemies, including the "creatures of the inner soil," the "experimental trench," the "old" versus the "young architect," to name just a few). Also his readiness to support the opinion that "The Burrow" is, perhaps, not concerned as much with death as with sexuality would run counter to Kafka's biography of his final months of life, let alone to any serious studies dealing with the concerns of the terminally ill.

9 For a convincing delineation of this view see: Ralf R. Nicolai, Ende ohne Anfang: Zur Einheit der Gegensatze in Kafkas Schlofi (MOnchen: Finck, 1977). Nicolai, by applying Kleist's idea-as expressed in "'Jber das Marionettentheater"-that it is man's loss of grace and innocence that evokes his constant yearning for a return to the Garden of Eden, tries to show that K's struggle in The Castle constitutes such an attempt at re- gaining his original state of grace and harmony.

20 In a letter written as late as May 19, 1924, in which Kafka tries to dissuade his parents from visiting him because of his weakened condition, he is nevertheless able to express a considerable amount of hope: "Alles ist in den besten Anfangen-letztlich konsta- tierte ein Professor eine wesentliche Besserung des Kehlkopfes." After mentioning the great comfort that this comment gave to him, he reiterates: "Alles ist wie gesagt in den besten Anfangen." Franz Kafka, Briefe an Ottla und die Familie, ed. H. Binder und K. Wagenbach (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1974), p. 156. Of course, it is hard to say whether Kafka expressed this kind of optimism only in order not to alarm his parents.

21 Max Brod reports that in May 1924 he learned from Kafka that his attempt to marry Dora Diamant had failed, because the rabbi, whom Dora's father had consulted, had advised him against it. Max Brod, Uber Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie. Franz Kafkas Glauben und Lehre. Verzweiflung und Erlisung im Werk Franz Kafkas (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1976), p. 181. Kafka's intense desire to live is also documented by Dora Diamant's comments during the last weeks of Kafka's life. Brod reports: "Dora

erzthlte mir, dab Franz vor Freude geweint habe, als ihm Professor Tschiassny (schon in seinem letzten Stadium) sagte, im Hals sehe es besser aus. Er habe sie immer wieder umarmt und gesagt, nie habe er so sehr Leben und Gesundheit gewtlnscht wie jetzt." (Ober Franz Kafka, p. 182.)

22 Because there is a considerable amount of suspense in "The Burrow," the reader might expect an eventual relief from it through a decisive solution. The theme of the story (dilemma), however, does not call for it.

23 Page references in the text refer to Franz Kafka, Samtliche Erzdhlungen, ed. Paul Raabe (Frankfurt/M: Fischer, 1979).

24 In this fragment, found among his unpublished writings, Kafka mentions "autobio- graphical investigations" that he has planned: "Nicht Biographie, sondern Unter- suchung und Auffindung moglichst kleiner Bestandteile. Daraus will ich mich dann aufbauen, so wie einer, dessen Haus unsicher ist, daneben ein sicheres aufbauen will, womoglich mit dem Material des alten." Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande und andere Prosa aus dem NachlafJ (New York: Schocken, 1953), p. 388.

25 Franz Kafka, Tagebacher, ed. Max Brod (New York: Schocken, 1948), p. 420. Friedrich Beissner's lecture, Kafkas Darstellung des 'traumhaften innern Lebens' (Bebenhausen: Lothar Rotsch, 1972), should have convinced more commentators to abandon literal interpretations of Kafka's writings.

26 It should be noted here that certain architectural parts of the burrow have also been related to specific Kafka texts, e.g., the "Eingangslabyrinth" to "Description of a Struggle," or the "Burgplatz" to The Castle. For further delineation of this notion of the burrow see Pasley, p. 25.

Kafka's "Der Bau" 539

27 One should not forget that around 1920 tuberculosis was feared as much as is cancer today. It was considered the most dangerous of all infectious diseases. In 1922 about 30% of all diseased persons in Prague had died of tuberculosis. Hartmut Binder, Kafka Handbuch in zwei Banden (Stuttgart: KrOner, 1979), I, 511.

23 Elisabeth KUbler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969). 29 Max Brod, Uber Franz Kafka, p. 144. 30 Kafka uses the term "jung" apparently in order to emphasize that at the time of the

first outbreak of his turberculosis in 1917, he was "only" thirty-four, by the time the metastasis had set in (Winter 1923-24), forty years old.

,' This was the case during the summer and fall of 1918; the late spring, summer, and fall of 1919; and during the last half of 1920.

32 During the four years and nine months between the diagnosis of his tuberculosis (Sept. 1917) and the early retirement from his insurance work (June 1922), Kafka was sick or on sick-leave more than half of the time, about 28 months altogether. "Piping" also plays an important part in Kafka's last story, "Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk." Here, however, Kafka is far more direct in the identification of the source of the "piping." He does not any longer locate it in something that appears to be outside the protagonist when, in fact, it is not, but places it directly where it belongs: in the voice box of his protagonist, Josephine. The argument that Josephine's "piping" represents her art does not negate the assertion that it also refers to Kafka's tuberculosis, because it is well known that Kafka considered his illness an integral part of his artistic existence, since it gave him the quasi-moral justification of not having to get married, but rather devote his life to writing. "Eben weil es keine Tuberkulose ist, die man in den Liegestuhl legt und gesund pflegt, sondern eine Waffe, deren Auferste Notwendigkeit bleibt, so- lange ich am Leben bin." Franz Kafka, Briefe an Felice, ed. Erich Heller und JOrgen Born (New York: Schocken, 1967), p. 757.

13 A few weeks after his tuberculosis of the lungs had been diagnosed and the treatment seemed to show beneficial results, Kafka wrote to Max Brod: "[Ich] ftihle die Krankheit in ihrer Anfangserscheinung mehr als Schutzengel denn als Teufel. Aber wahrscheinlich ist gerade die Entwicklung das Teuflische an der Sache und vielleicht erscheint dann im Riickblick das scheinbar Engelhafte als das Schlimmste." Franz Kafka, Briefe 1902-1924 (New York: Schocken, 1958), p. 168.

1" The actual diagnosis of tuberculosis of the larynx was not made until the beginning of April 1924, when Kafka was brought to the University Clinic in Vienna.

'6 Weigand (p. 152) sees an "intimate relation, often amounting to identity, between the author and the persona" of this story. I think one could even speak of an almost complete congruity between narrator and Kafka. The fact that the burrow animal is also endowed with utterly primitive drives only seems to attest to Freud's influence and Kafka's attempt at merciless honesty. To see the protagonist as a "man animal," as Boulby does (p. 175), would not only change the meaning of the story, but also diminish its impact.

7 Ktbler-Ross, p. 38. 38 Ibid., p. 42. " Ibid., p. 60. 40 Franz Kafka, Briefe, pp. 161f. 4

Kulbler-Ross, p. 139. 42 The idea that Kafka could not live without hope runs contrary to popular perceptions

about him. However, one should not forget that this attitude toward hope can be found in quite a number of his writings, particularly convincingly in his short narrative "An Imperial Message" (1917). After the reader learns that the messenger could "niemals, niemals" burst through the outermost gate, let alone reach "de[n] Einzelnen, de[n] jammerlichen Untertanen," the narrator comments: "Du aber sitzt an Deinem Fenster und ertraumst sie Dir, wenn der Abend kommt." Although there is no hope whatso- ever that the lonely subject will ever receive the message, he dreams it to himself. Com- pare also Max Brod, Uber Franz Kafka, p. 182.

3 According to Henel who had access to the manuscript of Kafka's "Burrow" in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the last page is completely filled and does not have any final punctuation marks; instead, the last statement reads: "aber alles blieb unverandert, das." The "das" behind the comma has led commentators to the assumption that some

540 BRITTA MACHEi

pages, and hence the story's final ending might be missing. It seems also plausible, however, that Kafka did attempt another completion of the story, but discarded it in favor of his original ending ("aber alles blieb unverandert"), simply forgetting to omit the "das." Such a practice would not be unusual for an author who attempted seven different versions for the ending of "In the Penal Colony," eventually discarding all of them in favor of the original, by then slightly shortened, one. See: Ingeborg Henel, "Kafkas 'In der Strafkolonie': Form, Sinn und Stellung der Erzahlung im Gesamt- werk," Untersuchungen zur Literatur als Geschichte: Festschrift fur Benno von Wiese (Berlin: Schmidt Verlag, 1937), pp. 494-504.

After a long preparation, Rudolf Schaller's new Shakespeare translation has finally found a worthy West German edition. It was published in ten volumes by the Insel Verlag in Frankfurt am Main in the fall of 1981. Its title reads: "Wil- liam Shakespeare. Die grossen Dramen (Tragodien, Historien und Kombdien) in zehn Banden. Ausgewahlt, nach den Erstdrucken neu ibersetzt und erlautert von Rudolf Schaller." The new edition has been enthusiastically received by reputable critics (e.g., Egon Holthusen) and by the buying public.

Award made, but it comes too late.

Peter Weiss was awarded the 1982 Btichner Prize by the Academy of German Language and Literature, Darmstadt, in recognition of his entire literary output. It was to have been officially announced at the academy's spring meeting in

Lianeburg from May 25-27. Weiss was notified a few days later and had agreed to attend the Laneburg gathering, but died suddenly in Stockholm on May 11.

Something new is delighting train travelers in Austria. For an entrance fee of about a dollar, passengers between Vienna and Innsbruck can while away the journey with Hitchcock's "Psycho" or Walt Disney's cartoon characters. The private company that set up the operation in conjunction with Austria's National Railway plans to extend it to all European routes.

The Paul F. Lazarsfeld Archiv in Vienna is looking for any materials pertaining to the life and work of the great Austrian-born sociologist, such as personal memorabilia, memoranda, tapes, transcripts of speeches and discussions.

A grant from the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research covers the xerox- ing and shipping costs.

Respondents living in the United States and Canada should send materials to the provisional head of the institute, Professor Paul Neurath, 144-16 Jewel Avenue, Flushing, NY 11367.