The Unique Tale

— J. Chr. de Vries

In the ’90s, I would occasionally meet Pascal-Wedt at Paviljoen Richter, a café in the garden of the Hague Municipal Museum. Sometimes we would arrange to meet in the late morning, around eleven o’clock, and we would invariably have Salzburger Kaffee, a coffee cocktail made with Kahlúa and vanilla sugar. But most of the time, we would encounter each other in the late afternoon, with a glass of red port and a selection of savory snacks. Throughout his professional life, Pascal-Wedt has been a linguist, but in his later years, after his retirement, when I got to know him, he immersed himself in the collection of manuscripts. He traveled around the world, scouring antique book markets and visiting numerous auction houses. After returning from one of his ‘raids,’ as he liked to call them, although he always remained law-abiding as far as I know, he would call me early in the morning. “Han-Peeter here!” His voice sounded excited. “I’ve stumbled upon something fantastic! Let’s meet at the pavilion later!” I couldn’t refuse. I actually had a dental appointment, but I’m never unwilling to sidestep a good excuse. That morning, in the late summer of 1992, we sat down for our usual Kaffee. Pascal-Wedt seemed almost bouncing with excitement. He had attended a lecture by Reilort Schtraufer at the Christie’s branch in Zurich. The lecture was about a lost text by Kafka. He had known this Austrian literary researcher for several years, although mainly through correspondence. Schtraufer claimed to have a typed copy of the text in possession. However, the authenticity of that text still needed to be proven.


The story that Pascal-Wedt proceeded to tell me was as complex as it was marvelous, but also unbelievable. However, I wisely kept my reservations to myself; I didn’t want to immediately dismiss his claims. According to him, the text originated from Kafka’s Blue Octavo Notebooks, a loose page added to the third notebook. This page had ended up at a publishing house in Amsterdam through the estate of Kafka’s friend, Max Brod. This publishing house, called Uitgeverij Verlaat Exil, primarily published German-language literature by Jewish writers in the first half of the 20th century. Several of Brod’s manuscripts were translated and published. In the first year of the occupation, the entire archive of the publishing house was plundered by the Nazis and taken to Berlin. After the war, the archive made a journey through cities like Dresden, Moscow, and Potsdam, eventually returning to Amsterdam in 1991. However, that particular page was no longer among the recovered materials.


“So, Schtraufer managed to figure all this out on his own!” Pascal-Wedt’s voice contained a mix of envy and astonishment. “He’s been working on it for years. And now he believes he knows where that missing page is. Finally, he can prove that it’s an authentic Kafka text.” The story was becoming increasingly convoluted. Once it became clear that the sought-after page was not in the returned Brod archive, Schtraufer began delving into the history of the publishing house. He quickly came across the figure of Menkert Hansen, a writer who had led the publishing house in the late 1930s until he was forced to flee to the United States in 1940.


Schtraufer suspected that Hansen had taken the elusive page with him when he fled. He investigated where the writer had lived and discovered that he had spent thirteen years in New York, where he succeeded in obtaining the American citizenship. After his time in New York Hansen had moved back to Europe, specifically to Rome. Sixteen years later, he relocated once again, this time he moved to Switzerland, to a small hamlet near Basel. That is where the elderly man currently resides. Schtraufer visited him there in late 1991, acquiring the copy of the text he had mentioned during his lecture in Zurich. The text is a short story, though it would be more accurate to call it a plot rather than a complete narrative. Its title is ‘A Common Metamorphosis.’ This title is related to one from the Blue Octavo Notebooks dated October 21, 1917: ‘A Common Confusion,’ a similar short story (or plot) about two characters, named A and B, who become entangled in a strange misunderstanding about their encounter in H. The lost page was supposed to be attached to this section, or at least, that was the theory of Schtraufer. The story appeared to be a variation or, more precisely, a cross between a variant of the text from the Blue Octavo Notebooks and the story of ‘The Metamorphosis’ from two years prior. His theory was that Kafka — perhaps only a few days later — had written this variant, but because he had already progressed with his notes, there was no space left on that page in the notebook. Therefore, he had to add a separate page as an annex.

The story or plot text reads as follows (Pascal-Wedt gave me a photocopy of the page that, as he suspected, had been typed out by Hansen):

A Common Metamorphosis
Franz K., a lawyer working at the Austrian imperial court, was traveling on a business trip from the city of B. to the H. Castle in A. The journey took around twenty hours. After a surprisingly refreshing sleep, he was awakened at 7 a.m. by a footman, who said, “Herr Kaiser, the carriage is ready to take you to B.” During the ride, K. must have fallen asleep, but not for long, as he believed, because before noon, he had already arrived in the city of B. The next morning, after being awakened again by a footman with the words, “Herr Käfer, the carriage is ready to take you to the H. Castle in A.,” he suddenly remembered that he was not the lawyer Franz Kaiser, but the writer Jozef Käfer. After enjoying a pleasant night’s sleep for the third consecutive night, he woke up on his own. He got up, walked to the window, gazed over the city of W. for a few moments, and then went to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and said in a soft but decisive tone, ‘Aha, I thought so, Ich bin der Kaiser Franz Jozef K.’.

“The references are quite clear, aren’t they?” Pascal-Wedt stated. “The names, the plot, and the abbreviations…” He looked at me intensely, apparently expecting a comment.

“Perhaps a bit too much…?” I suggested with some hesitation.

“Exactly!” Pascal-Wedt pointed his finger in the air.

He didn’t want to disclose too much about it, only that there was a strange scent to this story. He mentioned that he would be traveling again the next day. He looked at me with a mysterious smile but didn’t say anything further. A week later, he called me late in the evening.
 “Ha!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “I got him! Let’s meet tomorrow at that bistro on Korte Voorhout.” He was referring to De Posthoorn, more of a cafe than a restaurant, but you could indeed have a bite to eat there. We agreed to meet at 7 p.m. That’ll be a chicken satay, I thought without much enthusiasm, but I was curious about his adventures.


“I payed Hansen a visit!” He looked at me in an expectant way. I nodded with an encouraging smile. He enthusiastically began, while I started chewing on a piece of chicken satay. “To my surprise, when I told Hansen about my encounter with Schtraufer, and mentioned the copy of that Kafka story he had received from him, and how regrettable it was that he no longer had access to that missing page from the Blue Octavo Notebooks… ‘Doch!’ Hansen exclaimed indignantly,” here Pascal-Wedt paused a moment, “we were speaking in German, you see…” after my impatient gesture, he quickly continued, “So, what does he say? That he did indeed have that manuscript in his possession and that he had given it to Schtraufer!” Pascal-Wedt looked at me with a gaze filled with astonishment and anger. “Hansen is an old man, almost senile, and he handed over that manuscript to that swindler Schtraufer without hesitation!”

“I cannot believe what I am hearing!” was all I could utter, like in a slow motion. 

“No, indeed, neither did I!” He had spilled some spots of peanut sauce on his shirt, but he was oblivious to it as he continued his narrative.
“On the day of that lecture, when he said the manuscript was missing, he already had it in his possession!”

“Why didn’t he just say so?” I was bewildered as well. 

“I’ll explain it to you in a minute.” He looked at me triumphantly, like Sherlock Holmes explaining to his sidekick how the pieces fit together.
“It has to do with that manuscript. Hansen showed me a copy of it. He was still lucid enough to make a photocopy of it before he handed it over to that swindler. Therefore he could make another copy for me, it’s a copy of a copy, but that doesn’t matter for understanding all of this.” He took out a sheet of paper from the briefcase he had been carrying with him. I had been wondering why he had brought it along. “Alright,” he said, looking at me intently — he wiped the table clean in one stroke, took out a paper from a folder, and placed it before me with a dramatic gesture, “behold!” 


I stared in bewilderment at the sheet of paper for a few seconds, my mouth apparently agape because he remarked, ‘You’re not at the dentist!’ And only then did I realize what I was looking at: a blank sheet of paper. “This is a blank sheet of paper!” I stated the obvious.
 “Close, but take another look,” he said. 


I picked up the sheet of paper and examined it closely. Only now did I see it: there had originally been a text, a handwritten text, but it had been almost completely erased. It was likely written in pencil and then wiped out with an eraser, but I couldn’t tell for certain, since the paper was essentially a copy of a copy. If the text had been written in ink, an eraser wouldn’t have worked, instead it would have been scratched off. But then you would expect to see traces, perhaps even damage, on the paper.

“I can’t tell if the erased text was written in pencil or ink,” I said as I handed him back the sheet. 
 “Hansen told me that the text was written in ink and later treated with a chemical substance, rendering it illegible. The only thing that is somewhat legible is the title, probably because it was written with a thicker pen.” 

“But why did Schtraufer keep that manuscript hidden? I assume he wanted to auction it, so announcing its existence could have created quite a spectacle and fetched a substantial opening bid.” 

“Yes, except there was a problem. Hansen told me that the text on the manuscript must have been considerably shorter than the typed version. Further investigation was needed: fingerprints, DNA, and so on.” 

“And what now?” I asked. 

“I called Schtraufer yesterday. He said there will be news in about a week or two. We’ll have to wait for that. He wasn’t pleased with my visit to Hansen.” 
 We speculated on this peculiar matter for a while longer, but we had to exercise some patience.

Later, it turned out that Pascal-Wedt hadn’t told me the whole story. It became clear that some discord between him and Schtraufer had come up. Apparently, he wanted to first ascertain whether his reservations about Schtraufer’s theory were well-founded before discussing them with me.


Three weeks later, Pascal-Wedt called me again. We arranged to meet the next afternoon at Richter. The issue had been resolved, he told me, as I cautiously took a bite of a bitterball. It was still way too hot, so I quickly put the bitten ball back on the plate. Fingerprints and DNA material had been found on the manuscript, mainly belonging to Brod, but there was also one print highly likely to be Kafka’s. The handwriting on the manuscript, to the extent it could be analyzed, indeed appeared to be his. The conclusion now was that, with a high degree of certainty, Kafka had written something on paper but never further developed it.


“And this is where my contribution comes into play,” he said with barely concealed pride. “I had noticed something in the text, a detail that might seem insignificant at first glance, but it had far-reaching consequences. Schtraufer didn’t appreciate them at all when I confronted him, and he held it against me. I didn’t want to discuss it with you last time because I wanted to investigate it thoroughly first.” He paused to enhance the dramatic effect of his story. “Because of his hostile reaction, I became suspicious. I contacted Christie’s and shared with them my reservations about Schtraufer’s theory. They were so interested that they invited me for a discussion.”


He made another unsuccessful attempt to consume a hot bitterball, and he emptied his glass. “I traveled to Zurich, where Christie’s had reserved a luxurious hotel suite for me. When I told them the next day about what I had noticed in the typed text, their eyes grew wide open. As you may remember, everything in that text deals with the characters Franz K. and Josef K. And although the surnames are mentioned in full in that text, the references to Kafka himself are plausible, but those to Josef K. are completely implausible. The protagonist of ‘The Trial’ did not yet exist in 1917; the book was published in 1925. This was the ultimate proof that Brod had written the text.”


Whether Kafka had kept the particular sheet in his Blue Octavo Notebooks would never be clarified; it could also be the work of Brod. The elaborated version, of which only a brief plot likely existed in the manuscript, was Brod’s work. Both the typed version and the manuscript were to be auctioned. “And now comes the beauty,” said Pascal-Wedt after washing down another slightly too hot bitterball with a firm sip of port. “The opening bid for the auction of the manuscript is ten times higher than that of the typed version. And it has now become clear that the typed version was not typed by Hansen, as we initially assumed, but by Brod himself.” He paused to let this sink in. I cautiously tasted a new bitterball. “It’s truly remarkable,” he concluded his story, “that an empty sheet of paper is worth so much more than its typed out version.”

— Den Haag, November 11, 1995