A Hunger Artist - by Franz Kafka (1922)
NB: Franz Kafka's A Hunger Artist was first written in 1922 and published in a collection also
entitled A Hunger Artist. Here is the story, a parable for our times - DS
During these last
decades the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished. It used
to pay very well to stage such great performances under one's own management,
but today that is quite impossible. We live in a different world now. At one
time the whole town took a lively interest in the hunger artist; from day to
day of his fast the excitement mounted; everybody wanted to see him at least
once a day; there were people who bought season tickets for the last few days
and sat from morning till night in front of his small barred cage; even in the
nighttime there were visiting hours, when the whole effect was heightened by
torch flares; on fine days the cage was set out in the open air, and then it
was the children's special treat to see the hunger artist; for their elders he
was often just a joke that happened to be in fashion, but the children stood
open-mouthed, holding each other's hands for greater security, marvelling at him
as he sat there pallid in black tights, with his ribs sticking out so
prominently, not even on a seat but down among straw on the ground, sometimes
giving a courteous nod, answering questions with a constrained smile, or
perhaps stretching an arm through the bars so that one might feel how thin it
was, and then again withdrawing deep into himself, paying no attention to
anyone or anything, not even to the all-important striking of the clock that
was the only piece of furniture in his cage, but merely staring into vacancy
with half-shut eyes, now and then taking a sip from a tiny glass of water to
moisten his lips.
Besides casual
onlookers there were also relays of permanent watchers selected by the public,
ususally butchers, strangely enough, and it was their task to watch the hunger
artist day and night, three of them at a time, in case he should have some
secret recourse to nourishment. This was nothing but a formality, instituted to
reassure the masses, for the initiates knew well enough that during his fast
the artist would never in any circumstances, not even under forcible
compulsion, swallow the smallest morsel of food; the honor of his profession
forbade it. Not every watcher, of course, was capable of understanding this,
there were often groups of night watchers who were very lax in carrying out
their duties and deliberately huddled together in a retired corner to play cards
with great absorption, obviously intending to give the hunger artist the chance
of a little refreshment, which they supposed he could draw from some private
hoard. Nothing annoyed the artist more than such watchers; they made him
miserable; they made his fast seem unendurable; sometimes he mastered his
feebleness sufficiently to sing during their watch for as long as he could keep
going, to show them how unjust their suspicions were.
But that was of little
use; they only wondered at his cleverness in being able to fill his mouth even
while singing. Much more to his taste were the watchers who sat up close to the
bars, who were not content with the dim night lighting of the hall but focused
him in the full glare of the electric pocket torch given them by the
impresario. The harsh light did not trouble him at all, in any case he could
never sleep properly,and he could always drowse a little, even when the hall
was thronged with noisy onlookers. He was quite happy at the prospect of
spending a sleepless night with such watchers; he was ready to exchange jokes
with them, to tell them stories out of his nomadic life, anything at all to
keep them awake and demonstrate to them that he had no eatables in his cage and
that he was fasting as not one of them could fast. But his happiest moment was
when the morning came and an enormous breakfast was brought them, at his
expense, on which they flung themselves wit hthe keen appetite of healthy men
after a weary night of wakefulness. Of course there were people who argued that
this breakfast was an unfair attempt to bribe the watchers, but that was going
rather too far, and when they were invited to take on a night's vigil without a
breakfast, merely for the sake of the cause, they made themselves scarce,
although they stuck stubbornly to their suspicions.
Such suspicions,
anyhow, were a necessary accompaniment to the profession of fasting. No one
could possibly watch the hunger artist continuously, day and night, and so no
one could produce first-hand evidence that the fast had really been rigorous
and continuous; only the artist himself could know that, he was therefore bound
to be the sole completely satisfied spectator of his own fast. Yet for other
reasons he was never satisfied; it was not perhaps mere fasting that had
brought him to such skeleton thinness that many people had regretfully to keep
away from his exhibitions, because the sight of him was too much for them,
perhaps it was dissatisfaction with himself that had worn him down. For he
alone knew, what no other initiate knew, how easy it was to fast. It was the
easiest thing in the world. He made no secret of this, yet people did not
believe him. At the best they set him down as modest, most of them, however,
thought he was out for publicity or else he was some kind of cheat who found it
easy to fast because he had discovered a way of making it easy, and then had
the impudence to admit the fact, more or less.
He had to put up with all that,
and in the course of time had got used to it, but his inner dissatisfaction
always rankled, and never yet, after any term of fasting--this must be granted
to his credit--had he left the cage of his own free will. The longest period of
fasting was fixed by his impresario at forty days, beyond that term he was not
allowed to go, not even in great cities, and there was good reason for it, too.
Experience had proved that for about forty days the interest of the public
could be stimulated by a steadily increasing pressure of advertisment, but after
that the town began to lose interest, sympathetic support began notably to fall
off, there were of course local variations as between one town and another, but
as a general rule forty days marked the limit.
So on the fortieth day the
flower-bedecked cage was opened, enthusiastic spectators filled the hall, a
military band played, two doctors entered the cage to measure the results of
the fast, which were announced through a megaphone, and finally two young
ladies appeared, blissful at having been selected for the honor, to help the
hunger artist down the few steps leading to a small table on which was spread a
carefully chosen invalid repast. And at this very moment the artist always
turned stubborn. True, he would entrust his bony arms to the outstretched helping
hands of the ladies bending over him, but stand up he would not. Why stop
fasting at this particular moment, after forty days of it? He had held out for
a long time, an illimitably long time; why stop now, when he was in his best
fasting form, or rather, not yet quite in his best fasting form? Why should he
be cheated of the fame he would get for fasting longer, for being not only the
record hunger artist of all time, which presumably he was already, but for
beating his own record by a performance beyond human imagination, since he felt
that there were no limits to his capacity for fasting? His public pretended to
admire him so much, why should it have so little patience with him; if he could
endure fasting longer, why shouldn't the public endure it?
Besides, he was
tired, and now he was supposed to lift himself to his full height and go down
to a meal the very thought of which gave him a nausea that only the presence of
the ladies kept him from betraying, and even that with an effort. And he looked
up into the eyes of the ladies who were apparently so friendly and in reality
so cruel, and shook his head, which felt too heavy on its strengthless neck.
But then there happened yet again what always happened. The impresario came
forward, without a word--for the band made speech impossible--lifted his arms
in the air above the artist, as if inviting Heaven to look down upon its
creature here in the straw, this suffering martyr, which indeed he was,
although in quite another sense; grasped him around the emaciated waist, with
exaggerated caution, so that the frail condition he was in might be
appreciated; and committed him to the care of the blenching ladies, not without
secretly giving him a shaking so that his legs and body tottered and swayed.
The artist now submitted completely; his head lolled on his breast as if it had
landed there by chance; his body was hollowed out; his legs in a spasm of
self-preservation clung to each other at the knees, yet scraped on the ground
as if it were not really solid ground, as if they were only trying to find
solid ground; and the whole weight of his body, a featherweight after all,
relapsed onto one of the ladies, who looking round for help and panting a
little--this post of honor was not at all what she expected it to be--first
stretched her neck as far as she could to keep her face at least free from
contact with the artist, then finding this impossible, and her more fortunate
companion not coming to her aid, but merely holding extended on her own
trembling hand the little bunch of knucklebones that was the artist's, to the
great delight of the spectators burst into tears and had to be replaced by an
attendant who had long been stationed in readiness. Then came the food, a
little of which the impresario managed to get between the artist's lips, while
he sat in a kind of half-fainting trance, to the accompaniment of cheerful
patter designed to distract the public's attention from the artist's condition;
after that, a toast was drunk to the public, supposedly prompted by a whisper
from the artist in the impresario's ear; the band confirmed it with a mighty
flourish, the spectators melted away, and no one had any cause to be
dissatisfied with the proceedings, no one except the hunger artist himself, he
only, as always.
So he lived for many
years, with small regular intervals of recuperation, in visible glory, honored
by all the world, yet in spite of that troubled in spirit, and all the more
troubled because no one would take his trouble seriously. What comfort could he
possibly need? What more could he possibly wish for? And if some good-natured
person, feeling sorry for him, tried to console him by pointing out that his
melancholy was probably caused by fasting, it could happen, especially when he
had been fasting for some time, that he reacted with an outburst of fury and to
the general alarm began to shake the bars of the cage like a wild animal. Yet
the impresario had a way of punishing these outbreaks which he rather enjoyed
putting into operation. He would apologize publicly for the artist's behavior,
which was only to be excused, he admitted, because of the irritability caused
by fasting; a condition hardly to be understood by well-fed people; then by
natural transition he went on to mention the artist's equally incomprehensible
boast that he could fast for much longer than he was doing; he praised the high
ambition, the good will, the great self-denial undoubtedly implicit in such a
statement; and then quite simply countered it by bringing out photographs,
which were also on sale to the public, showing the artist on the fortieth day
of a fast lying in bed almost dead from exhaustion.
This perversion of the
truth, familiar to the artist though it was, always unnerved him afresh and
proved too much for him. What was a consequence of the premature ending of his
fast was here presented as the cause of it! To fight against this lack of
understanding, against a whole world of non-understanding, was impossible. Time
and time again in good faith he stood by the bars listening to the impresario,
but as soon as the photographs appeared he always let go and sank with a groan
back on to his straw, and the reassured public could once more come close and
gaze at him.
A few years later when
the witnesses of such scenes called them to mind, they often failed to
understand themselves at all. For meanwhile the aforementioned chance in public
interest had set in; it seemed to happen almost overnight; there may have been
profound causes for it, but who was going to bother about that; at any rate the
pampered hunger artist suddenly found himself deserted one fine day by the
amusement seekers, who went streaming past him to other more favored
attractions. For the last time the impresario hurried him over half Europe to
discover whether the old interest might still survive here and there; all in
vain; everywhere, as if by secret agreement, a positive revulsion from
professional fasting was in evidence. Of course it could not really have sprung
up so suddenly as all that, and many premonitory symptoms which had not been
sufficiently remarked or suppressed during the rush and glitter of success now
came retrospectively to mind, but it was now too late to take any
countermeasures. Fasting would surely come into fashion again at some future
date, yet that was no comfort for those living in the present. What, then, was
the hunger artist to do? He had been applauded by thousands in his time and
could hardly come down to showing himself in a street booth at village fairs,
and as for adopting another profession, he was not only too old for that but
too fanatically devoted to fasting. So he took leave of the impresario, his
partner in an unparalleled career, and hired himself to a large circus; in
order to spare his own feelings he avoided reading the conditions of his
contract.
A large circus with
its enormous traffic in replacing and recruiting men, animals and apparatus can
always find a use for people at any time, even for a hunger artist, provided of
course that he does not ask too much., and in this particular case anyhow it
was not only the artist who was taken on but his famous and long-known name as
well, indeed considering the peculiar nature of his performance, which was not
impaired by advancing age, it could not be objected that here was an artist
past his prime, no longer at the height of his professional skill, seeking a
refuge in some quiet corner of a circus, on the contrary, the hunger artist
averred that he could fast as well as ever, which was entirely credible, he
even alleged that if he were allowed to fast as he liked, and this was at once
promised him without more ado, he could astound the world by establishing a
record never yet achieved, a statement which certainly provoked a smile among
the other professionals, since it was left out of account the change in public
opinion, which the hunger artist in his zeal conveniently forgot.
He had not, however,
actually lost his sense of the real situation and took it as a matter of course
that he and his cage should be stationed, not in the middle of the ring as a
main attraction, but outside, near the animal cages, on a site that was after
all easily accessible. Large and gaily painted placards made a frame for the
cage and announced what was to be seen inside it. When the public came
thronging out in the intervals to see the animals, they could hardly avoid
passing the hunger artist's cage and stopping there a moment, perhaps they
might even have stayed longer had not those pressing behind them in the narrow
gangway, who did not understand why they should be held up on their way towards
the excitements of the menagerie, made it impossible for anyone to stand gazing
quietly for any length of time.
And that was the reason why the hunger artist,
who had of course been looking forward to these visiting hours as the main
achievement of his life, began instead to shrink from them. At first he could
hardly wait for the intervals; it was exhilarating to watch the crowds come
streaming his way, until only too soon--not even the most obstinate
self-deception, clung to almost consciously, could hold out against the
fact--the conviction was borne in upon him that these people, most of them, to
judge from their actions, again and again, without exception, were all on their
way to the menagerie. And the first sight of them from the distance remained
the best. For when they reached his cage he was at once deafened by the storm
of shouting and abuse that arose from the two contending factions, which
renewed themselves continuously, of those who wanted to stop and stare at him - he
soon began to dislike them more than the others--not out of real interest but
only out of obstinate self-assertiveness, and those who wanted to go straight
on to the animals. When the first great rush was past, the stragglers came
along, and these, whom nothing could have prevented from stopping to look at
him as long as they had breath, raced past with long strides, hardly even
glancing at him, in their haste to get to the menagerie in time.
And all too
rarely did it happen that he had a stroke of luck, when some father of a family
fetched up before him with his children, pointed a finger at the hunger artist
and explained at length what the phenomenon meant, telling storied of earlier
years when he himself had watched similar but much more thrilling performances,
and the children, still rather uncomprehending, since neither inside nor
outside school had they been sufficiently prepared for this lesson--what did
they care about fasting?--yet showed by the brightness of their intent eyes that
new and better times might be coming. Perhaps, said the hunger artist to
himself many a time, things could be a little better if his cage were set not
quite so near the menagerie. That made it too easy for people to make their
choice, to say nothing of what he suffered from the stench of the menagerie,
the animals' restlessness by night, the carrying past of raw lumps of flesh for
the beasts of prey, the roaring at feeding times, which depressed him
continuously. But he did not dare to lodge a complaint with the management;
after all, he had the animals to thank for the troops of people who passed his
cage, among whom there might always be one here and there to take an interest
in him, and who could tell where they might seclude him if he called attention
to his existence and thereby to the fact that, strictly speaking, he was only
an impediment on the wat to the menagerie.
A small impediment, to
be sure, one that grew steadily less. People grew familiar with the strange
idea that they could be expected, in times like these, to take an interest in a
hunger artist, and with this familiarity the verdict went out against him. He
might fast as much as he could, and he did so; but nothing could save him now,
people passed him by. Just try to explain to anyone the art of fasting! Anyone
who has no feeling for it cannot be made to understand it. The fine placards
grew dirty and illegible, they were torn down; the little notice board telling
the number of fast days achieved, which at first was changed carefully every
day, had long stayed at the same figure, for after the first few weeks even
this small task seemed pointless to the staff; and so the artist simply fasted
on and on, as he had once dreamed of doing, and it was no trouble to him, just
as he had always foretold, but no one counted the days, not one, not even the
artist himself, knew what records he was already breaking, and his heart grew
heavy.
And when once in a time some leisurely passer-by stopped, made merry
over the old figure on the board and spoke of swindling, that was in its way
the stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice, since it was
not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was working honestly, but the world
who was cheating him of his reward.
Many more days went
by, however, and that too came to an end. An overseer's eye fell on the cage
one day and he asked the attendants why this perfectly good cage should be left
standing there unused with dirty straw inside it; nobody knew, until one man,
helped out by the notice board, remembered about the hunger artist. They poked
into the straw with sticks and found him in it. "Are you still
fasting?" asked the overseer, "when on earth do you mean to
stop?" "Forgive me, everybody," whispered the hunger artist, only
the overseer, who had his ear to the bars, understood him. "Of
course," said the overseer, and tapped his forehead with a finger to let
the attendants know what state the man was in, "we forgive you."
"I always wanted you to admire my fasting," said the hunger artist.
"We do admire it," said the overseer, affably. "But you
shouldn't admire it," said the hunger artist. "Well then we don't
admire it," said the overseer, "but why shouldn't we admire it?"
"Because I have to fast, I can't help it," said the hunger artist.
"What a fellow you are," said the overseer, "and why can't you
help it?" "Because," said the hunger artist, lifting his head a
little and speaking, with his lips pursed, as if for a kiss, right into the
overseer's ear, so that no syllable might be lost, "because I couldn't find
the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss and
stuffed myself like you or anyone else." These were his last words, but in
his dimming eyes remained the firm though no longer proud persuasion that he
was continuing to fast.
"Well, clear this
out now!" said the overseer, and they buried the hunger artist, straw and
all. Into the cage they put a young panther. Even the most insensitive felt it
refreshing to see this wild creature leaping around the cage that had so long
been dreary. The panther was all right. The food he liked was brought him
without hesitation by the attendants; he seemed not even to miss his freedom;
his noble body, furnished almost to the bursting point with all that it needed,
seemed to carry freedom around with it too; somewhere in his jaws it seemed to
lurk; and the joy of life streamed with such ardent passion from his throat
that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand the shock of it. But they
braced themselves, crowded round the cage, and did not want ever to move away.
Also read A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka
Esteemed Gentlemen of the Academy! I feel honored by your invitation to present the academy with a report on my former life as an ape...
