Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wakefield, a rather ordinary Englishman given to childish mysteries, a character from a newspaper article, maybe real, left his home one day without cause or purpose, with a vague design to scare his docile wife by a brief absence, a week or so at most, and, unable to return to the place he never really left, or unable to determine this “brief absence” to his satisfaction, remained hidden for twenty years in a house across the street, watching, collecting his wits, hoping, and then returned, opened the door and walked in, perhaps accidentally again, as though he had been away for only a few hours, if not less. Borges quotes Hawthorne’s final words:

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another, and to a whole, that by stepping aside for a moment a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever. Like Wakefield, he may become, as it were, the Outcast of the Universe.[1]

Wakefield’s fate, or even worse, was perhaps shared by many who had never left their homes and wives, and who consequently never had to open any doors in order to walk back in, but who nevertheless could not tell with any degree of certainty whether their next decisive move could, let alone should, be a departure or a return, since they could not be completely sure what would be more appropriate at the time, at any time, given the uncertain status of their decisive moves in the past. A single stray thought, even an inconclusive and vague thought, might prove to be sufficient to erase the fragile boundary between here and there, between exile and homecoming. Such people, perhaps quite ordinary and numerous, would then be barred even from the comparative comforts and advantages of exile, and from the certainty with which they could contemplate their next act, at least in thought, or while daydreaming. The horrible example provided by Wakefield would then appear as a blessing, as a goal that could never be reached, and as a legend of incomparable value to man, however heroic and thus unreal.

Borges observes that, “if Kafka had written that story, Wakefield would never have returned to his home; Hawthorne lets him return, but his return is not less lamentable or less atrocious than his long absence.”[2] It is much more probable, however, that Kafka, had he written that story, would not let Wakefield confront such a simple problem. To start with, Wakefield would have to decide whether he had ever left.

Footnotes

1. Borges, J.L., Other Inquisitions: 1937-1952, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964, p. 56.

2. Op. cit., p. 57.