The People Running By

A Short Story by Franz Kafka
When we stroll through a street at night, and a man, already visible from far away (for the street rises in front of us and there is a full moon), comes running towards us, we will not grab hold of him, even if he is weak and ragged, even if someone is running after him and yelling; we will simply let him run on.
For it is night, and we cannot help it if the street rises in front of us in the full moon, and besides: perhaps these two people are staging the chase for their own amusement, perhaps the two of them are pursuing a third, perhaps the first man is being pursued through no fault of his own, perhaps the second one wants to murder him, and we will be accomplices to the murder, perhaps the two of them know nothing of each other, and each is simply running home to bed on his own account, perhaps they are sleepwalkers, perhaps the first man is armed.
And anyway, don’t we have a right to be tired, haven’t we drunk a lot of wine? We are glad that we no longer see the second one either.