An Objective to Subjective Reality Switch Builds Connection
From “A Country Doctor,” by Franz Kafka (from a collection of translations by Willa and Edwin Muir):
“Of course,” said he, “I’m not coming with you anyway, I’m staying with Rose.” “No,” shrieked Rose, fleeing into the house with a justified presentiment that her fate was inescapable; I heard the door chain rattle as she put it up; I heard the key turn in the lock; I could see, moreover, how she put out the lights in the entrance hall and in further flight all through the rooms to keep herself from being discovered. “You’re coming with me,” I said to the groom, “or I won’t go, urgent as my journey is. I’m not thinking of paying for it by handing the girl over to you.” “Gee up!” he said; clapped his hands; the gig whirled off like a log in a freshet; I could just hear the door of my house splitting and bursting as the groom charged at it and then I was deafened and blinded by a storming rush that steadily buffeted all my senses. But this only for a moment, since, as if my patient’s farmyard had opened out just before my courtyard gate, I was already there; the horses had come quietly to a standstill; the blizzard had stopped; moonlight all around; my patient’s parents hurried out of the house, his sister behind them; I was almost lifted out of the gig; from their confused ejaculations I gathered not a word; in the sickroom the air was almost unbreathable; the neglected stove was smoking; I wanted to push open a window; but first I had to look at my patient. Gaunt, without any fever, not cold, not warm, with vacant eyes, without a shirt, the youngster heaved himself up from under the feather bedding, threw his arms round my neck, and whispered in my ear: “Doctor, let me die.”
The middle part of this passage from Franz Kafka’s “A Country Doctor” makes me think about how my mind processes time and space during periods of intense hardship.
In a way that I’m sure many of us have experienced, compression and expansion of our senses can occur when pressure is applied to life. As an example from my own life, I once had to rush to the scene of a friend’s car crash. I was made aware of her crash while I too was driving. All I can recall is my immediate turnaround on the interstate and my arrival at the crash scene only “a few minutes later.” How long did it actually take? In between the turnaround and destination, there was nothing in my mind but purpose, which erased or blocked my exposure to that interim period of my life. The distance I traveled and time I spent were real but unreal at the same time.
The laws of nature say that I did travel X miles and pass through Y amount of time. My subjective experience, like the doctor’s, says those variables were molded to fit the need of my hurry. My sense of time compressed. My ability to deal with the emotional discomfort expanded. I had no choice but to adequately handle those parts of my experience so I could come to the aid of my friend.
For this story, Kafka is the one who does the molding. I think he plays the scene this way for at least two purposes.
The first is superficial but nevertheless exciting: the rush of the moment. As the doctor’s sends off into the storm, you fear and hope for him. Will he survive? Will his gig make the journey? It’s thrilling as a read because you’re unsure what will happen. And because the doctor’s life at that time is sandwiched between two crises (the safety of his servant girl and the survival of the sick boy), you feel a pull from both ends. It makes you wish for a few more minutes at the doctor’s home; it makes you wish for fewer miles between his home and the boy.
It’s good storytelling. You have many characters to relate to. You’re drawn to many emotions surrounding those people and the places they inhabit. Many writers would be happy to have produced something as feature-packed as this moment. Kafka goes further.
The second purpose of this scene lies beneath the surface: it’s a reflection on the subjective nature of time and space. My drive to the car crash; your own example of hardship; the doctor’s instantaneous passage through the storm. These are one in the same. Kafka draws on the universal human experience of time to establish the expectation that the doctor will travel to the farmhouse in real seconds, minutes, hours. Then he switches from that universal reality to the doctor’s individual, subjective processing of the time and space of his journey.
It seems magical that the doctor could have achieved so much. He travels 10 miles, settles his horses, admires the clear sky and stoppage of the storm, exits his gig, meets the family outside the farmhouse, and examines the child. All this happens in a written space where you were expecting to still see him struggle through the blizzard. It’s hardly a paragraph in length.
Yet the subjective nature of the journey keeps everything plausible. As you consider the scene, it matters less that the real seconds, minutes, and hours were the anchors for the moment. Kafka switches you from an attachment to reality toward an attachment to interpersonal relation.
From your own life, you can’t help but consider an event where time slowed or increased beyond what you expected. Now you’re with the doctor and asked to relate to his similar situation. You both know hardship; you both know time, and the feel of your surroundings. You can both recall the sensations and consequences of their shifts to something otherworldly, so you can both stand in each other’s shoes.