Before the Exit

BEFORE THE EXIT OF THE BAR stands a bouncer on guard. To this bouncer there comes a man from the country who asks to be allowed out of the Bar. But the bouncer says that he cannot let him out at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed out later. “It is possible,” says the bouncer, “but not at the moment.” Since the door stands open, as usual, and the bouncer steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the opening out at the exterior. Observing that, the bouncer laughs and says: “If you are so drawn to it, just try to go out despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the bouncers. From hall to hall there is one bouncer after another, each more powerful than the last. The third bouncer 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 Exit, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the bouncer 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 leave. The bouncer 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 allowed out, and wearies the bouncer by his importunity. The bouncer 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 out yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his adventure, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the bouncer. The bouncer 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 bouncer. He forgets the other bouncers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing him from leaving the Bar. 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 bouncer 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 bouncer’s mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the Bar 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 Exit of the Bar. 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 bouncer. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The bouncer has to bend low towards 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 bouncer; “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives to reach the Exit of the Bar,” says the man, “so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged to get out?” The bouncer 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 let out here, since this door was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.”