How Franz Kafka Accounted for the IMF (Մաս 2-րդ)

So Finmin went to the Fund which dealt with such matters. "You can have some money, on condition," said the Manager of the Fund.
"On what condition?" asked Finmin.
"On condition that you meet the condition."
"What is that condition?"
"That is for you to decide."
So Finmin went home and wrote down a condition. It said that if he could have the money he would pay it back when he could.
The Manager said: "That is a good condition, but you have not met the condition, so you cannot have the money. You will get the money only on condition."
Finmin went back home again and thought hard. He wrote that if he got the money he would then use it so wisely that he would then be able to pay the money back.
And the Manager said again that that was a good condition but now he would have to meet the condition to make that condition work. "And you will have to declare your intent," said the Manager. "That means not just words but deeds."
And so Finmin went home to see what he could do. He wrote that he would work hard and use the loan well and invest it in making everything better.
But when he saw it, the Manager was very angry, telling him that he could not get the money by making everything better. "Your house is too big and it means you are wasting too much. You must adjust its structure. You must make everything worse."
So Finmin went home again, and made everything worse. He pulled down his beautiful new conservatory, emptied the medicine cabinet, took his children out of school and sold his burglar alarm. He then made his children pay for their food with the money they gained from delivering newspapers to their neighbors. He sold the family silver to the same neighbors and then rented knives and forks from them.
And the Manager said: "You have done very well, so well that you do not need the money. You have met the condition."
Finmin went back home wondering why he did not feel very happy. When he got home he found that his family did not want him any more and told him to go away. He asked the Fund for help, but the Manager said he could not get any help, for the Fund was there to help families and even his family needed no more help now."
Great uncle William said the story ended with Finmin getting a job with the Fund, but we cannot be sure.

Copyright Financial Times Limited 1999. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright (c) 1999 Financial Times Limited

Note: Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a German writer born in Czechoslovakia, who wrote a small number of novels that combine the normal and the fantastic. One of his best known novels is ‘The Trial’, on which this parody is based. In ‘The Trial’ the main protagonist, Joseph K., is a bank official, who is arrested on a charge that is never defined, but from which he seeks acquittal: but because he seeks acquittal from the undefined charge, he is assumed to be guilty …