Vigny lines:
Dans cette prison nommée la vie, d’où nous partons les uns après les autres pour aller à la mort, il ne faut compter sur aucune promenade, ni aucune fleur. Dès lors, le moindre bouquet, la plus petite feuille, réjouit la vue et le coeur, on en sait gré à la puissance qui a permis qu’elle se rencontrât sous vos pas.
Il est vrai que vous ne savez pas pourquoi vous êtes prisonnier et de quoi puni ; mais vous savez à n’en pas douter quelle sera votre peine : souffrance en prison, mort après.
Ne pensez pas au juge, ni au procès que vous ignorerez toujours, mais seulement à remercier le geôlier inconnu qui vous permet souvent des joies dignes du ciel.
It is curious how Vigny and Kafka, starting from similar premises, come to completely different conclusions. The analogy between life and prison, the absurdity of unjustified punishment, the certainty of condemnation… all of these factors, in both, are like obsessions from which they cannot divert themselves. The recognition of their own conditions seems to them an imposition of conscience. In Kafka’s hands, the plot culminates in despair; in Vigny’s, therein lies a recommendation that would sound strange to many of his critics: “remercier le geôlier inconnu qui vous permet souvent des joies dignes du ciel.” “Joies dignes du ciel”: this, from the pen of the “pessimist” Alfred de Vigny! It is true, it is true: not all critics have ignored this face of him…. But it is possible to go further and say that, perhaps, Kafka himself would be the target of hasty judgments. Would such a look be impossible in Kafka? I mean: the last act of Kafka’s life, his testament, leaves us reticence. But it would not be a bad hypothesis to conjecture Kafka’s astonishing resolution as simple regret of his conclusions or, at least, regret that his work does not leave the outline of a different conclusion…