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Franz Kafka
"Before the Law"
Before the law stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the
country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant
admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in
later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment."
Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops
to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and
says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I
am powerful. And I am only the least of the door-keepers. From hall to hall there is one
doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is
already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties
the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible
at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his
fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it
is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and
lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many
attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper
frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many
other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always
finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself
with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the
doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only
taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted any- thing." During these many
years the man fixes his at-tention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the
other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to
the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly, later, as he grows
old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong
contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he
begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind. At length his
eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or
whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware t of a
radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very
long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in
his head to one point, a ques-tion he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him
nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low
towards him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's
disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are
insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so
how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for
admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let
his failing senses catch the words roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be
admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."