Франц Кафка - The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

On his left, at the window, two gentlemen were sitting opposite each other, talking about the price of goods. "They're commercial travelers," Raban thought and, breathing regularly, he gazed at them. "The merchant sends them into the country, they obey, they travel by train, and in every village they go from shop to shop. Sometimes they travel by carriage between the villages. They must not stay long anywhere, for everything must be done fast, and they must always talk only about their goods. With what pleasure, then, one can exert oneself in an occupation that is so agreeable!"

The younger man had jerked a notebook out of the hip pocket of his trousers, rapidly flicked the leaves over with a forefinger moistened on his tongue, and then read through a page, drawing the back of his fingernail down it as he went. He looked at Raban as he glanced up and, indeed, when he now began talking about thread prices, did not turn his face away from Raban, as one gazes steadily at a point in order not to forget anything of what one wants to say. At the same time he drew his brows tightly down over his eyes. He held the half-closed notebook in his left hand, with his thumb on the page he had been reading, in order to be able to refer to it easily if he should need to. And the notebook trembled, for he was not supporting his arm on anything, and the coach, which was now in motion, beat on the rails like a hammer.

The other traveler sat leaning back, listening and nodding at regular intervals. It was evident that he was far from agreeing with everything and later would give his own opinion.

Raban laid his curved hands palm-down on his knees and, leaning forward, between the travelers' heads he saw the window and through the window lights flitting past and others flitting away into the distance. He did not understand anything of what the traveler was talking about, nor would he understand the other's answer. Much preparation would first be required, for here were people who had been concerned with goods since their youth. But if one has held a spool of thread in one's hand so often and handed it to one's customer so often, then one knows the price and can talk about it, while villages come toward us and flash past, while at the same time they turn away into the depths of the country, where for us they must disappear. And yet these villages are inhabited, and there perhaps travelers go from shop to shop.

In a corner at the far end of the coach a tall man stood up, holding playing cards in his hand, and called out:

"I say, Marie, did you pack the zephyr shirts?"

"Of course I did," said the woman, who was sitting opposite Raban. She had been dozing, and now when the question waked her she answered as though she were talking to herself or to Raban. "You're going to market at Jungbunzlau, eh?" the vivacious traveler asked her. "Jungbunzlau, that's right." "It's a big market this time, isn't it?" "A big market, that's right." She was sleepy, she rested her left elbow on a blue bundle, and her head dropped heavily against her hand, which pressed through the flesh of the cheek to the cheekbone. "How young she is," the traveler said.

Raban took the money that he had received from the cashier out of his waistcoat pocket and counted it over. He held up each coin firmly between thumb and forefinger for a long time and also twisted it this way and that on the inner surface of his thumb with the tip of his forefinger. He looked for a long time at the Emperor's image, then he was struck by the laurel wreath and the way it was fastened with knots and bows of ribbon at the back of the head. At last he found the sum was correct and put the money into a big black purse. But now when he was about to say to the traveler: "They're a married couple, don't you think?" the train stopped. The noise of the journey ceased, guards shouted the name of a place, and Raban said nothing.

The train started again so slowly that one could picture the revolutions of the wheels, but a moment later it was racing down a slope, and all unexpectedly the tall railings of a bridge, outside the windows, were torn apart and pressed together, as it seemed.

Raban was now pleased that the train was going so fast, for he would not have wanted to stay in the last place. "When it is dark there, when one knows no one there, when it is such a long way home. But then it must be terrible there by day. And is it different at the next station or at the previous ones or at the later ones or at the village I am going to?"

The traveler was suddenly talking more loudly. "It's a long way yet," Raban thought. "Sir, you know just as well as I do, these manufacturers send their travelers around the most godforsaken little villages, they go crawling to the seediest of little shopkeepers, and do you think they offer them prices different from those they offer us big businessmen? Sir, take it from me; exactly the same prices, only yesterday I saw it black on white. I call it villainy. They're squeezing us out of existence; under current conditions it's simply impossible for us to do business."

Again he looked at Raban; he was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes; he pressed the knuckles of his left hand to his mouth because his lips were quivering. Raban leaned back and tugged faintly at his mustache with his left hand.

The shopwoman opposite woke up and smilingly passed her hands over her forehead. The traveler talked more quietly. Once again the woman shifted as though settling down to sleep, half lying on her bundle, and sighed. The skirt was drawn tight over her right hip.

Behind her sat a gentleman with a traveling cap on his head, reading a large newspaper. The girl opposite him, who was probably a relative of his, urged him — at the same time inclining her head toward her right shoulder — to open the window, because it was so very hot. He said, without looking up, he would do it in a moment, only he must first finish reading an article in the newspaper, and he showed her which article he meant.

The shopwoman could not go to sleep again; she sat upright and looked out of the window; then for a long time she looked at the oil lamp and the flame burning yellow near the ceiling of the carriage. Raban shut his eyes for a little while.

When he glanced up, the shopwoman was just biting into a piece of cake that was spread with brown jam. The bundle next to her was open. The traveler was smoking a cigar in silence and kept on fidgeting as though he were tapping the ash off the end of it. The other was poking about in the works of a pocket watch with the tip of a knife, so that one could hear it scraping. With his eyes almost shut Raban still had time to see, in a blurred way, the gentleman in the traveling cap pulling at the window strap. There came a gust of cool air, and a straw hat fell from a hook. Raban thought he was waking up and that was why his cheeks were so refreshed, or someone was opening the door and drawing him into the room, or he was in some way mistaken about things, and, breathing deeply, he quickly fell asleep.

II

The steps of the coach were still shaking a little when Raban climbed down them. Into his face, coming out of the air of the carriage, the rain beat, and he shut his eyes. It was raining noisily on the corrugated iron roof of the station building, but out in the open country the rain fell in such a way that it sounded like the uninterrupted blowing of the wind. A barefoot boy came running up — Raban did not see from where — and breathlessly asked Raban to let him carry the suitcase, for it was raining; but Raban said: Yes, it was raining, and he would therefore go by omnibus. He did not need him, he said. Thereupon the boy pulled a face as though he thought it grander to walk in the rain and have one's suitcase carried than to go by bus, and instantly turned around and ran away. When Raban wanted to call him, it was already too late.