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 doorkeepers. 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 anything." During these many years the man
fixes his attention 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 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 question 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 toward 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."