Responding to the Credibility Crisis

• Author: David M. Paciocco
• Pages: 385-391

CHAPTER

17

Responding

to the

Credibility

Crisis

gation

and

prosecution

that

he

does

not

understand.

He

meets

a

priest

who

belongs

to the

court.

He is the

first

person

from

the

court

that

Joseph

K

trusts.

Hoping

to

unravel some

of the

mysteries being pre-

sented

by the

"system," Joseph

K

asks

the

priest

to

explain

the law to

him.

The

priest

responds

by

telling

him a

story:

[BJefore

the Law

stands

a

door-keeper.

To

this door-keeper comes

a

man

from the

country

who

begs admittance

to the

Law.

But the

door-

keeper

says

that

he

cannot admit

the man at

that moment.

. . .

Since

the

door leading into

the Law

stands open

as

usual

and the

door-

keeper steps

to one

side,

the man

bends down

to

peer through

the

entrance. When

the

door-keeper sees

that,

he

laughs

and

says:

"If you

are

so

strongly tempted,

try to get in

without

my

permission.

But

note

that

I am

powerful

and I am the

lowest door-keeper. From hall

to

hall, keepers stand

at

every door,

one

more powerful than

the

other.

. .

."

These

are

difficulties

which

the man from the

country

has

not

expected

to

meet,

the

Law,

he

thinks, should

be

accessible

to

every

man and at all

times.1

The

priest's story

is

depressing enough

to

have been

one of

Kafka's

own

creations,

but it was no

doubt inspired

by a

passage

in the New

Testament

of

the

Bible,

in

Luke

11:52:

"Woe unto you,

lawyers!

for ye

have taken

away

the key of

knowledge;

ye

entered

not in

yourselves,

and

them that

were

entering

in ye

hindered."

I

have

to say

that,

as a

lawyer,

I do not

like

finding

this passage

in

the

Bible

of all

places.

If I am a

door-keeper,

I

want

it

known that

I am

only

a

lowly one.

And I am

quite certain

that

I do not

hold

the key to

knowledge.

What

I do

have, though,

is

access

to the

law,

and I can

tell

you

this much:

it is

something

to

behold.

The

last thing

I

want

to do is bar the

door

to

those

who

wish

to

enter.

It is

something

I

want

to

share.

It is not

I

n Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, Joseph K is subjected to an investi-