1. Before the law By Franz Kafka https://www.kafka-online.info/before-the-law.html Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way ...

1. 1. Before the law
By Franz Kafka
https://www.kafka-online.info/before-the-law.html
Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a
man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But
the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the
moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be
allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the
gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law
stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so
the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the
inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says:
“If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But
take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly
gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each
more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse
of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such
difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone,
he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in
his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black
Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until
he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a
stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate.
There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be
let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The
gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about
his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent
questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells
him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who
has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends
everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper.
The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this
only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.”

2. During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost
continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one
seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses
the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and
out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He
becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the
gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he
even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally
his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things
are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely
deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an
illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway
to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his
death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire
time up into one question which he has not yet put to the
gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his
stiffening body.
The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great
difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man.
“What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper.
“You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the
man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has
requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already
dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he
shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this
entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.
2. Everything and nothing
By Jorge Luis Borges
There was no one inside him, nothing but a trace of chill, a
dream dreamt by no one else behind the face that looks like no
other face (even in the bad paintings of the period) and the
abundant, whimsical, impassioned words. He started out
assuming that everyone was just like him; the puzzlement of a

3. friend to whom he had confided a little of his emptiness
revealed his error and left him with the lasting impression that
the individual should not diverge from the species. At one time
he thought he could find a cure for his ailment in books and
accordingly learned the "small Latin and less Greek" to which a
contemporary later referred. He next decided that what he was
looking for might be found in the practice of one of humanity's
more elemental rituals: he allowed Anne Hathaway to initiate
him over the course of a long June afternoon. In his twenties he
went to London. He had become instinctively adept at
pretending to be somebody, so that no one would suspect he was
in fact nobody. In London he discovered the profession for
which he was destined, that of the actor who stands on a stage
and pretends to be someone else in front of a group of people
who pretend to take him for that other person. Theatrical work
brought him rare happiness, possibly the first he had ever
known–but when the last line had been applauded and the last
corpse removed from the stage, the odious shadow of unreality
fell over him again: he ceased being Ferrex or Tamburlaine and
went back to being nobody. Hard pressed, he took to making up
other heroes, other tragic tales. While his body fulfilled its
bodily destiny in the taverns and brothels of London, the soul
inside it belonged to Caesar who paid no heed to the oracle's
warnings adn Juliet who hated skylarks and Macbeth in
conversation, on the heath, with witches who were also the
Fates. No one was as many men as this man: like the Egyptian
Proteus, he used up the forms of all creatures. Every now and
then he would tuck a confession into some hidden corner of his
work, certain that no one would spot it. Richard states that he
plays many roles in one, and Iago makes the odd claim: "I am
not what I am." The fundamental identity of existing, dreaming,
and acting inspired him to write famous lines.
For twenty years he kept up this controlled delirium. Then
one morning he was overcome by the tedium and horror of
being all those kings who died by the sword and all those
thwarted lovers who came together and broke apart and

4. melodiously suffered. That very day he decided to sell his
troupe. Before the week was out he had returned to his
hometown: there he reclaimed the trees and the river of his
youth without tying them to the other selves that his muse had
sung, decked out in mythological allusion and latinate words.
He had to be somebody, and so he became a retired impresario
who dabbled in money-lending, lawsuits, and petty usury. It was
as this character that he wrote the rather dry last will and
testament with which we are familiar, having purposefully
expunged from it every trace of emotion and every literary
flourish. When friends visited him from London, he went back
to playing the role of poet for their benefit.
The story goes that shortly before or after his death, when
he found himself in the presence of God, he said: "I who have
been so many men in vain want to be one man only, myself."
The voice of God answered him out of a whirlwind: "Neither am
I what I am. I dreamed the world the way you dreamt your
plays, dear Shakespeare. You are one of the shapes of my
dreams: like me, you are everything and nothing."
3.The suicide by Enrique Anderson Imbert
At the foot of the Bible -where it was indicated with red the
verse that would explain everything- he lined up the letters: to
his wife, to the judge, to the friends. After that he drank the
venom and he laid down.
Nothing. An hour later he woke up and drank another glass. He
laid down again. Another hour. He wasn't dying. So he shot his
hand gun against his temple. What kind of joke was it? Someone
- but who, when? - someone had changed the venom for water,
the bullets for blank cartidges. He shot against his temple
another four bullets. Useless. He closed the Bible, picked up the
letters and left the room just as the owner of the hotel, the
maids and the courious were gathering alarmed because of the
five bangs.
When he got to his house, he found his wife poisoned and his
five children laying on the floor, each of them with a gunshot in

5. their temple.
He took the knife from the kitchen, he uncovered his belly and
started stabing himself. The blade was deppening in the soft
flesh and coming out as clean as it was from water. The flesh
recovered its smoothness as the pond after a fish gets fished.
He poured gasoline all over his clothes and the matches kept
putting out squeaking.
He ran towards the balcony and before he could jump he saw a
pile of men and women spread on the street bleeding to death
through the stabbed guts, among the flames of the burning city.