Read Online Amerika by Franz Kafka - Free Book Online

the stoker.
    Karl could no longer remain idle. So he walked slowly toward the group, considering all the more quickly as he approached how best to tackle the matter. It was truly high time—any moment both could be sent flying from the office. The captain might indeed be a good man and might especially now, Karl thought, have a particular reason for wishing to show himself a just superior, but in the end he was not merely an instrument one could go on playing until it fell apart—and that was precisely how the stoker was treating him, though of course only out of the boundless indignation of his heart.
    So Karl said to the stoker: “You must speak more simply, and more clearly too; the captain cannot understand your story because of the way you’re telling it. Can he really be so utterly familiar with all of the family names, let alone the first names, of the machinists and the messengers that you need only give somebody’s name and he will know at once whom you mean? Organize your complaints, start off with the most important followed by the rest, and then you may never have to mention the greater part of them. After all, you’ve always given me such clear explanations of everything.” If one can steal trunks in America, one can also tell a lie every now and then, he thought to himself by way of excuse.
    If only it had helped! Might it be too late? On hearing that familiar voice, the stoker broke off in spite of the fact that he could hardly even recognize Karl, for his eyes were filled with tears, tears of wounded male honor, of dreadful memories, and of his extreme current distress. But how—the thought occurred to Karl, who had fallen silent, as he stood facing the now equally silent stoker—but how was he all of a sudden supposed to change the way he spoke, especially since he believed he had already brought up everything that needed to be said without obtaining even the slightest acknowledgment, and as if on the other hand he had still not said anything and could hardly expect the gentlemen to listen to everything all over again? And at that very moment along comes Karl.
    â€œIf only I had come sooner instead of gazing out that window,” Karl said to himself, and, lowering his head in front of the stoker, he slapped the seams of his trousers to signal the end of all hope.
    However, possibly sensing that Karl harbored furtive reproaches against him, the stoker misunderstood the gesture and, with the praiseworthy intention of getting Karl to change his mind, crowned his deeds by picking a fight. And did so just now, when the gentlemen at the round table had become annoyed at the useless noise distracting them from their important work, when the chief bursar had finally found the captain’s patience incomprehensible and was tempted to erupt there and then, when the servant, now back in his masters’ sphere, was sizing up the stoker with wild looks, and finally, when the gentleman holding the little bamboo stick—even the captain cast friendly glances at him every now and then—having become completely deadened to the stoker and even disgusted by him, took out a small notebook, and, evidently preoccupied with entirely different matters, let his eyes wander back and forth between his notebook and Karl.
    â€œYes, I know, I know,” said Karl, who had difficulty warding off the torrent of words that the stoker now directed at him; yet amid all the strife he still managed to spare a smile for him. “You’re right, quite right, I never had the slightest doubt about it.” Anxious about blows, Karl would have liked to catch the stoker’s flailing hands or, better still, push him into a corner so as to whisper in his ear a few soft, soothing words, which no one else needed to hear. But the stoker had already gone berserk. Karl even began to draw a certain comfort from the thought that the stoker could in a pinch overpower all seven men in this room