The Castle《城堡》（下）

Brunswick came and gave notice, he said quite honestly that he wanted to
set up in business for himself, a shrewd man, he knew how to seize the
right moment; customers came and hunted round father's store-room for
the boots they had left to be repaired, at first father tried to persuade them
to change their minds - and we all backed him up as much as we could -
but later he gave it up, and without saying a word helped them to find
their belongings, line after line in the order-book was cancelled, the
pieces of leather people had left with us were handed 190
back. all debts owing us were paid, everything went smoothly without the
slightest trouble, they asked for nothing better than to break every
connexion with us quickly and completely, even if they lost by it; that
counted for nothing. And finally, as we might have foreseen, Seemann
appeared, the Captain of the Fire Brigade. I can still see the scene before
me, Seemann, tall and stout, but with a slight stoop from weakness in the
lungs, a jerious man who never could laugh, standing in front of my
father whom he admired, whom he had promised in confidence to make a
deputy Captain, and to whom he had now to say that the Brigade required
his services no longer and asked for the return of his diploma. All the
people who happened to be in our house left their business for the
moment and crowded round the two men, Seemann found it difficult to
speak and only kept on tapping father on the shoulder, as if he were trying
to tap out of him the words he ought to say and couldn't find. And he kept
on laughing, probably to cheer himself a little and everybody else, but
since he's incapable of laughing and no one had ever heard him laugh, it
didn't occur to anybody that he was really laughing. But father was too
tired and desperate after the day he'd had to help anybody out, he looked
even too tired to grasp what was happening. We were all in despair, too,
but being young didn't believe in the completeness of our ruin, and kept
on expecting that someone in the long procession of visitors would arrive
and put a stop to it all and make everything swing the other way again. In
our foolishness we thought that Seemann was that very man. We were all
keyed up waiting for his laughter to stop, and for the decisive statement to
come out at last. What could he be laughing at, if not at the stupid
injustice of what had happened to us? Oh, Captain, Captain, tell them
now at last, we thought, and pressed close to him, but that only made him
recoil from us in the most curious way. At length, however, he did begin
to speak, in response not to our secret wishes, but to the encouraging or
angry cries of the crowd. Yet still we had hopes. He began with great
praise for our father. Called him an ornament to the Brigade, an
inimitable model to Posterity, an indispensable member whose removal
must reduce the Brigade almost to ruin. That was all very fine, had he 191
stopped there. But he went on to say that since in spite of that the Brigade
had decided, only as a temporary measure of course, to ask for his
resignation, they would all understand the seriousness of the reason
which forced the Brigade to do so. Perhaps if father had not distinguished
himself so much at the celebration of the previous day it would not have
been necessary to go so far, but his very superiority had drawn official
attention to the Brigade, and brought it into such prominence that the
spotlessness of its reputation was more than ever a matter of honour to it.
And now that a messenger had been insulted, the Brigade couldn't help
itself, and he, Seemann, found himself in the diffi. cult position of having
to convey its decision. He hoped that father would not make it any more
difficult for him. Seemann was glad to have got it out. He was so pleased
with himself that he even forgot his exaggerated tact, and pointed to the
diploma hanging on the wall and made a sign with his finger. Father
nodded and went to fetch it, but his hands trembled so much that he
couldn't get it off the hook. I climbed on a chair and helped him. From
that moment he was done for, he didn't even take the diploma out of its
frame, but handed the whole thing over to Seemann. Then he sat down in
a corner and neither moved nor spoke to anybody, and we had to attend to
the last people there by ourselves as well as we could.' 'And where do you
see in all this the influence of the Castle?' asked K. 'So far it doesn't seem
to have come in. What you've told me about is simply the ordinary
senseless fear of the people, malicious pleasure in hurting a neighbour,
specious friendship, things that can be found anywhere, and, I must say,
on the part of your father - at least, so it seems to me - a certain pettiness,
for what was the diploma? Merely a testimonial to his abilities, these
themselves weren't taken from him, if they made him indispensable so
much the better, and the one way he could have made things difficult for
the Captain would have been by flinging the diploma at his feet before he
had said two words. But the significant thing to me is that you haven't
mentioned Amalia at all; Amalia,who was to blame for everything,
apparently stood quietly in the background and watched the whole house
collapse.' 'No, said Olga, 'nobody ought to be blamed, nobody could have
done 132
anything else, all that was already due to the influence of the 'Influence of
the Castle,' repeated Amalia, who had Hoped in unnoticed from the
courtyard; the old people had been sitting with Castle gossip you're at?
Still sitting with theirheads together? And yet you wanted to go away
immediately you came, K.., and it's nearly ten now. Are you really
interested in that kind of gossip? There are people in the village who live
on it, they stick their heads together just like you two and entertain each
other by the hour. But I didn't think you were one of them.' 'On the
contrary. said K.., 'that's exactly what I am, and moreover people who
don't care for such gossip and leave it all to others don't interest me
particularly.' 'Indeed,' said Amalia, 'well, there are many different kinds of
interest, you know; I heard once of a young man who thought of nothing
but the Castle day and night, he neglected everything else and people
feared for his reason, his mind was so wholly absorbed by the Castle. It
turned out at length, however, that it wasn't really the Castle he was
thinking of, but the daughter of a charwoman in the offices up there, so he
got the girl and was all right again.' 'I think I would like that man,' said K.
'As for your liking the man, I doubt it,' said Amalia, 'it's probably his wife
you would like. Well, don't let me disturb you, I've got to go to bed, and I
must put out the light for the old folks' sake. They're sound asleep now,
but they don't really sleep for more than an hour, and after that the
smallest glimmer disturbs them. Good-night.' And actually the light went
out at once, and Amalia bedded herself somewhere on the floor near her
parents. 'Who's the young man she mentioned?' asked K. 'I don't know,'
said Olga, 'perhaps Brunswick although it doesn't fit him exactly, but it
might have been somebody else. It's not easy to follow her, for often one
can't tell whether she's speaking ironically or in earnest. Mostly she's in
earnest but sounds Conical.' 'Never mind explaining,' said K. 'How have
you come to be so dependent on her? Were things like that before the
catastrophe? Or did it happen later? And do you never feel that you want
to be independent of her? And is there any sense in your dependence?
She's the youngest, and should give way to you. Innocently or not, she
was the person who brought ruin on 193
the family. And instead of begging your pardon for it every day she
carries her head higher than anybody else, bother herself about nothing
except what she chooses to do for your parents, nothing would induce her
to become acquainted with your affairs, to use her own expression, and
then if she docs speak to you at all she's mostly in earnest, but sounds
ironical Does she queen it over you on account of her beauty, which
you've mentioned more than once? Well, you're aM three very like each
other, but Amalia's distinguishing mark is hardly a recommendation, and
repelled me the first time I saw it, I mean her cold hard eye. And although
she's the youngest she doesn't look it, she has the ageless look of women
who seem not to grow any older, but seem never to have been young
either. You see her every day, you don't notice the hardness of her face.
That's why, on reflection, I can't take Sortini's passion for her very
seriously, perhaps he sent the letter simply to punish her, but not to
summon her.' 'I won't argue about Sortini,' said Olga, 'for the Castle
gentlemen everything is possible, let a girl be as pretty or as ugly as you
like. But in all the rest you're utterly mistaken so far as Amalia is
concerned. I have no particular motive for winning you over to Amalia's
side, and if I try to do it it's only for your own sake. Amalia in some way
or other was the cause of our misfortunes, that's true, but not even my
father, who was the hardest hit, and who was never very sparing of his
tongue, particularly at home, not even my father has ever said a word of
reproach to Amalia even in our very worst times. Not because he
approved of her action, he was an admirer of Sortini, and how could he
have approved of it? He couldn't understand it even remotely, for Sortini
he would have been glad to sacrifice himself and all that was his,
although hardly io the way things actually happened, as an outcome
apparendy of Sortini's anger. I say apparently, for we never heard another
word from Sortini; if he was reticent before then, from that day on he
might as well have been dead. Now you should have seen Amalia at that
time. We all knew that no definite punishment would be visited on us. We
were only shunned. By the village and by the Castle. But while we
couldn't help noticing the ostracism of the village, the Castle gave us no
sign. Of course we 194
tad 0 s* ^ feyour from the Castle in the past, so how could ^c notice the
reverse? This blankness was the worst of all. It as far worse than the
withdrawal of the people down here, for .jjey hadn't deserted us out of
conviction, perhaps they had nothing very serious against us, they didn't
despise us then as ^y do to-day, they only did it out of fear, and were
waiting to jge what would happen next And we weren't afraid of being,
stranded, for all our debtors had paid us, the settling-up had keen entirely
in our favour, and any provisions we didn't have were sent us secretly by
relations, it was easy enough for us, it was harvest time - though we had
no fields of pur own and nobody would take us on as workers, so that for
the first time in our lives we were condemned to go nearly idle. So there
we sat all together with the windows shut in the heats of July and August.
Nothing happened. No invitations, no news, no callers, nothing.' 'Well,'
said K., 'since nothing happened and you had no definite punishment
hanging over you, what was there to be afraid of? What people you are!'
'How am I to explain it?' said Olga. 'We weren't afraid of anything in the
future, we were suffering under the immediate present, we were actually
enduring our punishment. The others in the village were only waiting for
us to come to them, for father to open his workshop again, for Amalia,
who could sew the most beautiful clothes, fit for the best families, to
come asking for orders again, they were all sorry to have had to act as
they did; when a respected family is suddenly cut out of village life it
means a loss for everybody, so when they broke with us they thought they
were only doing their duty, in their place we should have done just the
same. They didn't know very clearly what was the matter, except that the
messenger had returned to the Herrenhof with a handful of torn paper.
Frieda had seen him go out and come back, had exchanged a few words
with him, and then spread what she had learned everywhere. But not in
the least from enmity to us, simply from a sense of duty which anybody
would have felt in the same circumstances. And, as I've said, a happy
ending to the whole story would have pleased everybody else. If we had
suddenly put in an appearance with the news that everything was that it
had only been a misunderstanding, say, which 195
was now quite cleared up, or that there had been actually cause for
offence which had now been made good, or else - anj even this would
have satisfied people - that through our fluency in the Castle the affair
had been dropped, we should cer tainly have been received again with
open arms, there Would have been kissings and congratulations, I have
seen that kind of thing happen to others once or twice already. And it
wouldn't have been necessary to say even as much as that; if we had only
come out in the open and shown ourselves, if we had picked up our old
connexions without letting fall a single word about the affair of the letter,
it would have been enough, they would all have been glad to avoid
mentioning the matter; it was the painfulness of the subject as much as
their fear that made them draw away from us, simply to avoid hearing
about it or speaking about it or thinking about it or being affected by it in
any way. When Frieda gave it away it wasn't out of mischief but as a
warning, to let the parish know that something had happened which
everybody should be careful to keep clear of. It wasn't our family that
was taboo, it was the affair, and our family only in so far as we were
mixed up in the affair. So if we had quietly come forward again and let
bygones be bygones and shown by our behaviour that the incident was
closed, no matter in what way, and reassured public opinion that it was
never likely to be mentioned again, whatever its nature had been,
everything would have been made all right in that way, too, we should
have found friends on all sides as before, and even if we hadn't
completely forgotten what had happened people would have understood
and helped us to forget it completely. Instead of that we sat in the house. I
don't know what we were expecting, probably some decision from
Amalia, for on that morning she had taken the lead in the family and she
still maintained it. Without any particular contriving or commanding or
imploring, almost by her silence alone. We others, of course, had plenty
to discuss, there was a steady whispering from morning till evening,
sometimes father would call me to him in sudden panic and 1 would have
to spend half the night on the edge of his bed. Or we would often creep
away together, I and Barnabas, who 196
nothing about it all at first, and was always in a fever for some
gtplanation, always the same, for he realized well enough that the
carefree years that others of his age looked forward to were _0w out of
the question for him, so we used to put our heads together, K., just like
we two now, and forget that it was night, 20d that morning had come
again. Our mother was the feeblest of us all, probably because she had
not only endured our cornmon sorrows but the private sorrow of each of
us, and so we were horrified to see changes in her which, as we guessed,
lay in wait for all of us. Her favourite seat was the corner of the sofa, it's
long since we parted with it, it stands now in Brunswick's big living-room,
well, there she sat and - we couldn't tell exactly what was wrong - used to
doze or carry on long conversations with herself, we guessed it from the
moving of her lips. It was so natural for us to be always discussing the
letter, to be always turning it over in all its known details and unknown
potentialities, and to be always outdoing each other in thinking out plans
for restoring our fortunes; it was natural and unavoidable, but not good,
we only plunged deeper and deeper into what we wanted to escape from.
And what good were these inspirations, however brilliant? None of them
could be acted on without Amalia, they were all tentative, and quite
useless because they stopped short of Amalia, and even if they had been
put to Amalia they would have met with nothing but silence. Well, I'm
glad to say I understand Amalia better now than I did then. She had more
to endure than all of us, it's incomprehensible how she managed to endure
it and still survive. Mother, perhaps, had to endure all our troubles, but
that was because they came pouring in on her; and she didn't hold out for
long; no one could say that she's holding out against them to-day, and
even at that time her mind was beginning to go. But Amalia not only
suffered, she had the understanding to see her suffering clearly, we saw
only the effects, but she knew the cause, we noped for some small relief
or other, she knew that everything was decided, we had to whisper, she
had only to be silent She stood face to face with the truth and went on
living and endured her life then as now. In all our straits we were better
off
than she. Of course, we had to leave our house. Brunswick toot it on, and
we were given this cottage, we brought our things over in several
journeys with a handcart, Barnabas and I pulling father and Amalia
pushing behind, mother was already sitting here on a chest, for we had
brought her here first, and she whimpered softly all the time. Yet I
remember that even during those toilsome journeys - they were painful,
too, for we often met harvest wagons, and the people became silent when
they saw us and turned away their faces - even during those journeys
Barnabas and I couldn't stop discussing our troubles and our plans, so that
we often stood stock still in the middle of pulling and had to be roused by
father's "Hallo" from behind. But all our talking made no difference to
our life after the removal, except that we began gradually to feel the pinch
of poverty as well. Our relatives stopped sending us things, our money
was almost done, and that was the time when people first began to
despise us in the way you can see now. They saw that we hadn't the
strength to shake ourselves clear of the scandal, and they were irritated.
They didn't underestimate our difficulties, although they didn't know
exactly what they were, and they knew that probably they wouldn't have
stood up to them any better themselves, but that made it only all the more
needful to keep clear of us - if we had triumphed they would have
honoured us correspondingly, but since we failed they turned what had
only been a temporary measure into a final resolve, and cut us off from
the community for ever. We were no longer spoken of as ordinary human
beings, our very name was never mentioned, if they had to refer to us
they called us Barnabas's people, for he was the least guilty; even our
cottage gained an evil reputation, and you yourself must admit, if you're
honest, that on your first entry into it you thought it justified its reputation;
later on, when people occasionally visited us again, they used to screw up
their noses at the most trivial things, for instance, because the little
oil-lamp hung over the table. Where should it hang if not over the table?
and yet they found it insupportable. But if we hung the lamp somewhere
else they were still disgusted. Whatever we did, whatever we had, it was
all despicable.' 198
PETITIONS wnat ^ we ^ meanw^c? The worst thing we could uave done,
something much more deserving of contempt than our original
offence-we betrayed Amalia, we shook off her silent restraint, we couldn't
go on living like that, without hope Of any kind we could not live, and we
began each in his or her Ov?n fashion with prayers or blustering to beg
the Castle's forgiveness. We knew, of course, that we weren't in a position
to make anything good, and we knew too that the only likely connexion
we had with the Castle-through Sortini, who had been father's superior
and had approved of him-was destroyed by what had happened, and yet
we buckled down to the job. Father began it, he started making senseless
petitions to the Village Superintendent, to the secretaries, the advocates,
the clerks, usually he wasn't received at all, but if by guile or chance he
managed to get a hearing-and how we used to exult when the news came,
and rub our hands 1 - he was always thrown out immediately and never
admitted again. Besides, it was only too easy to answer him, the Castle
always has the advantage. What was it that hewanted? What had been
done to him? What did he want to be forgiven for? When and by whom
had so much as a finger been raised against him in the Castle? Granted he
had become poor and lost his customers, etc., these were all chances of
everyday life, and happened in all shops and markets; was the Castle to
concern itself about things of that kind? It concerned itself about the
common welfare, of course, but it couldn't simply interfere with the
natural course of events for the sole purpose of serving the interest of one
man. Did he expect officials to be sent out to run after his customers and
force them to come back? But, father would object-we always discussed
the whole interview both before and afterwards, sitting m a corner as if to
avoid Amalia, who knew well enough what we were doing, but paid no
attention-well, father would object, he wasn't complaining about his
poverty, he could easily make up again for all he had lost, that didn't
matter if only he were forgiven. But what was there to forgive? came the
answer; 00 accusation had come in against him, at least there was none
199
in the registers, not in those registers anyhow which were acce$ sible to
the public advocates, consequently, so far as could HC established, there
was neither any accusation standing again him, nor one in process of
being taken up. Could he perhan refer to some official decree that had
been issued against hinl? Father couldn't do that. Well then, if he knew of
nothing and nothing had happened, what did he want? What was there to
forgive him? Nothing but the way he was aimlessly wasting official time,
but that was just the unforgivable sin. Father didn't give in, he was still
very strong in those days, and his enforced leisure gave him plenty of
time. Til restore Amalia's honour, it won't take long now,' he used to say
to Barnabas and me several times a day, but only in a low voice in case
Amalia should hear, and yet he only said it for her benefit, for in reality
he wasn't hoping for the restoration of her honour, but only for
forgiveness. Yet before he could be forgiven he had to prove his guilt, and
that was denied in all the bureaux. He hit upon the idea - and it showed
that his mind was already giving way - that his guilt was being concealed
from him because he didn't pay enough; until then he had paid only the
established taxes, which were at least high enough for means like ours.
But now he believed that he must pay more, which was certainly a
delusion, for, although our officials accept bribes simply to avoid trouble
and discussion, nothing is ever achieved in that way. Still, if father had set
his hopes on that idea, we didn't want them upset. We sold what we had
left to sell - nearly all things we couldn't do without - to get father the
money for his efforts and for a long time every morning brought us the
satisfaction of knowing that when he went on his day's rounds he had at
least a few coins to rattle in his pocket. Of course we simply starved all
day, and the only thing the money really did was to keep father fairly
hopeful and happy. That could hardly be called an advantage, however.
He wore himself out on these rounds of his, and the money only made
them drag on and on instead of coming to a quick and natural end. Since
in reality nothing extra could be done for him in return for those extra
payments, clerks here and there tried to make a pretence ot giving
something in return, promising to look the matter up, 200
-ad hinting that they were on the track of something, and that Orely a* a
favour to father, and not as a duty, they would follow it up-and father,
instead of growing sceptical, only became more and more credulous. He
used to bring home such obviously worthless promises as if they were
great triumphs, and it was a torment to see him behind Amalia's back
twisting his face in a smile and opening his eyes wide as he pointed to her
and made signs to us that her salvation, which would have surprised
nobody so much as herself, was coming nearer and nearer through his
efforts, but that it was still a secret and we mustn't tell. Things would
certainly have gone on like this for a long time if we hadn't finally been
reduced to the position of having oo more money to give him. Barnabas,
indeed, had been taken on meanwhile by Brunswick, after endless
imploring, as an assistant, on condition that he fetched his work in the
dusk of the evening and brought it back again in the dark-it must be
admitted that Brunswick was taking a certain risk in his business for our
sake, but in exchange he paid Barnabas next to nothing, and Barnabas is a
model workman-yet his wages were barely enough to keep us from
downright starvation. Very gently and after much softening of the blow
we told our father that he could have no more money, but he took it very
quietly. He was no longer capable of understanding how hopeless were
his attempts at intervention, but he was wearied out by continual
disappointments. He said, indeed-and he spoke less clearly than before,
he used to speak almost too clearly - that he would have needed only a
very little more money, for to-morrow or that very day he would have
found out everything, and now it had all gone for nothing, ruined simply
for lack of money, and so on, but the tone in which he said it showed that
he didn't believe it all. Besides, he brought out a new plan immediately of
his own accord. Since he had failed in proving his guilt, and consequently
could hope for nothing more through official channels, he would have to
depend on appeals alone, and would to move the officials personally.
There must certainly be among them who had good sympathetic hearts,
which couldn't give way to in their official capacity, but out of 201
office hours, if one caught them at the right time, they surely listen.' Here
K., who had listened with absorption hitherto, i rupted Olga's narrative
with the question: 'And don't you think he was right?' Although his
question would have answered itself in the course of the narrative he
wanted to know at once. 'No,' said Olga, 'there could be no question of
sympathy Or anything of the kind. Young and inexperienced as we were,
we knew that, and father knew it too, of course, but he had forgotten it
like nearly everything else. The plan he had hit on was to plant himself on
the main road near the Castle, where the officials pass in their carriages,
and seize any opportunity of putting up his prayer for forgiveness. To be
honest, it was a wild and senseless plan, even if the impossible should
have happened, and his prayer have really reached an official's ear. For
how could a single official give a pardon? That could only be done at best
by the whole authority, and apparently even the authority can only
condemn and not pardon. And in any case even if an official stepped out
of his carriage and was willing to take up the matter, how could he get
any clear idea of the affair from the mumblings of a poor, tired, ageing
man like father? Officials are highly educated, but one-sided; in his own
department an official can grasp whole trains of thought from a single
word, but let him have something from another department explained to
him by the hour, he may nod politely, but he won't understand a word of it.
That's quite natural, take even the small official affairs that concern the
ordinary person - trifling things that an official disposes of with a shrug -
and try to understand one of them, through and through, and you'll waste
a whole lifetime on it without result. But even if father had chanced on a
responsible official, no official can settle anything without the necessary
documents, and certainly not on the main road; he can't pardon anything,
he can only settle it officially, and he would simply refer to the official
procedure, which had already been a complete failure for father. What a
pass father must have been in to think of insisting on such a plan! If there
were even the faintest possibility of getting pardon202
in that way, that part of the road would be packed with -etitioners; but
since it's sheer impossibility, patent to the oiiflgest schoolboy, the road is
absolutely empty. But maybe Leu that strengthened father in his hopes, he
found food for them everywhere. He had great need to find it, for a sound
wouldn't have had to make such complicated calculations, he would have
realized from external evidence that the thing was impossible. When
officials travel to the village or back to the Castle it's not for pleasure, but
because there's work wailing for them in the village or in the Castle, and
so they travel at a ^eat pace. It's not likely to occur to diem to look out of
the carriage windows in search of petitioners, for the carriages are
crammed with papers which they study on the way.' 'But,' said K., 'I've
seen the inside of an official sledge in which there weren't any papers.'
Olga's story was opening for him such a great and almost incredible
world that he could not help trying to put his own small experiences in
relation to it, as much to convince himself of its reality as of his own
existence. "That's possible,' said Olga, 'but in that case it's even worse, for
that means that the official's business is so important that the papers are
too precious or too numerous to be taken with him, and those officials go
at a gallop. In any case, none of them can spare time for father. And
besides, there are several roads to the Castle. Now one of them is in
fashion, and most carriages go by that, now it's another and everything
drives pell-mell there. And what governs this change of fashion has never
yet been found out At eight o'clock one morning they'll all be on another
road, ten minutes later on a third, and half an hour after that on the first
road again, and then they may stick to that road all day, but every minute
there's the possibility of a change. Of course all the roads join up near the
village, but by that tune all the carriages are racing like mad, while nearer
the Castle the pace isn't quite so fast. And the amount of traffic varies just
as widely and incomprehensibly as the choice of roads. There arc often
days when there's not a carriage to be 8Ccn, and others when they travel
in crowds. Now, just think of all that in relation to father. In his best suit,
which soon becomes his only suit, off he goes every morning from the
house 203
with our best wishes. He takes with him a small Fire badge, which he has
really no business to keep, to stick ia coat once he's out of the village, for
in the village itself he is afraid to let it be seen, although it's so small that
it can hardly be seen two paces away, but father insists that it's just the
thji7 to draw a passing official's attention. Not far from the Cast! entrance
there's a market garden, belonging to a man caiUj Bertuch who sells
vegetables to the Castle, and there on the narrow stone ledge at the foot of
the garden fence father took UD his post. Bertuch made no objection
because he used to be verv friendly with father and had been one of his
most faithful customers-you see, he has a lame foot, and he thought that
nobody but father could make him a boot to fit it Well there sat father day
after day, it was a wet and stormy autumn but the weather meant nothing
to him. In the morning at his regular hour he had his hand on the latch
and waved us goodbye, in the evening he came back soaked to the skin,
every day, it seemed, a little more bent, and flung himself down in a
corner. At first he used to tell us all his little adventures, such as how
Bertuch for sympathy and old friendship's sake had thrown him a blanket
over the fence, or that in one of the passing carriages he thought he had
recognized this or the other official, or that this or the other coachman
had recognized him again and playfully flicked him with his whip. But
later he stopped telling us these things, evidently he had given up all hope
of ever achieving anything there, and looked on it only as his duty, his
dreary job, to go there and spend the whole day. That was when his
rheumatic pains began, winter was coming on, snow fell early, the winter
begins very early here; well, so there he sat sometimes on wet stones and
at other times in the snow. In the night he groaned with pain, and in the
morning he was many a time uncertain whether to go or not, but always
overcame his reluctance and went. Mother clung to him and didn't want
to let him go, so he, apparently grown timid because his limbs wouldn't
obey him, allowed her to go with him, and so mother began to get pains
too. We often went out to them, to take them food, or merely to visit them,
or to try to persuade them to come back home; how often we found them
crouching together 204
against each other on their narrow scat, huddled up jer a thin blanket
which scarcely covered them, and round tjoiit them nothing but the grey
of snow and mist, and far -not a carriage; sight that was, K., a sight to be seen I Until one morning
father couldn't move his stiff legs out of bed at all, he wasn't to LC
comforted, in a slight delirium he thought he could see an official
stopping his carriage beside Bertuch's just at that moment, hunting all
along the fence for him and then climbing angrily into his carriage again
with a shake of his head. At that father shrieked so loudly that it was as if
he wanted to make the official hear him at all that distance, and to explain
how blameless his absence was. And it became a long absence, he never
went back again, and for weeks he never left his bed. Amalia took over
the nursing, the attending, the treatment, did everything he needed, and
with a few intervals has kept it up to this day. She knows healing herbs to
soothe his pain, she needs hardly any sleep, she's never alarmed, never
afraid, never impatient, she does everything for the old folks; while we
were fluttering around uneasily without being able to help in anything she
remained cool and quiet whatever happened. Then when the worst was
past and father was able again to struggle cautiously out of bed with one
of us supporting him on each side, Amalia withdrew into the background
again and left him to us.' OLGA S PLANS 'Now it was necessary again to
find some occupation for father that he was still fit for, something that at
least would make Him believe that he was helping to remove the burden
of guilt from our family. Something of the kind was not hard to find,
anything at all in fact would have been as useful for the purpose as sitting
in Bertuch's garden, but I found something that actually gave me a little
hope. Whenever there had been any talk of our guilt among officials or
clerks or anybody else, it was OQly the insult to Sortini's messenger that
had always been brought up, further than that nobody dared to go. Now, I
said to myself, since public opinion, even if only ostensibly, recognise
205
nothing but the insult to the messenger, then, even if were still only
ostensibly, everything might be put right if 0 U could propitiate the
messenger. No charge had actually kj/ made, we were told, no department
therefore had taken upth affair yet, and so the messenger was at liberty, as
far as he \y C concerned - and there was no question of anything more-in
forgive the offence. All that of course couldn't have any decisiy
importance, was mere semblance and couldn't produce in tun, anything
but semblance, but all the same it would cheer UD my father and might
help to harass the swarm of clerks who had been tormenting him, and that
would be a satisfaction. First of course one had to find the messenger.
When I told father of my plan, at first he was very annoyed, for to tell the
truth he had become terribly self-willed; for one thing he was convinced
-this happened during his illness-that we had always held him back from
final success, first by stopping his allowance and then by keeping him in
his bed; and for another he was no longer capable of completely
understanding any new idea. My plan was turned down even before I had
finished telling him about it, he was convinced that his job was to go on
waiting in Bertuch's garden, and as he was in no state now to go there
every day himself, we should have to push him there in a handbarrow.
But I didn't give in, and gradually he became reconciled to the idea, the
only thing that disturbed him was that in this matter he was quite
dependent on me, for I had been the only one who had seen the
messenger, he did not know him. Actually one messenger is very like
another, and I myself was not quite certain that I wouldknow this one
again. Presently we began to go to the Herrenhof and look around among
the servants. The messenger of course had been in Sortini's service and
Sortini had stopped coming to the "village, but the gentlemen are
continually changing their servants, one might easily find our man among
the servants of another gentleman, and even if he himself was not to be
found, still one might perhaps get news of him from the other servants.
For this purpose it was of course necessary to be in the Herrenhof every
evening, and people weren't very pleased to see us anywhere, far less in a
place like that; and we couldn't appear either as paying 206
stomers. But it turned out that they could put us to some use all the same.
You know what a trial the servants were to Frieda, Bottom they are
mostly quiet people, but pampered and made . y by too little work - "May
you be as well off as a servant" s a favourite toast among the officials-and
really, as far as an easy l*k Soes> *^c servants seem to be the real
masters in the Castle, they know their own dignity too, and in the Castle,
yhere they have to behave in accordance with their regulations, they're
quiet and dignified, several times I've been assured of that, and one can
find even among the servants down here some faint signs of that, but only
faint signs, for usually, seeing that the Castle regulations aren't fully
binding on them in the village, they seem quite changed; a wild
unmanageable lot, ruled by their insatiable impulses instead of by their
regulations. Their scandalous behaviour knows no limits, it's lucky for the
village that they can't leave the Herrcnhof without permission, but in the
Herrenhof itself one must try to get on with them somehow; Frieda, for
instance, felt that very hard to do and so she was very glad to employ me
to quieten the servants. For more than two years, at least twice a week,
I've spent the night with the servants in the stalls. Earlier, when father was
still able to go to the Herrenhof with me, he.slept somewhere in the
taproom, and in that way waited for the news that I would bring in the
morning. There wasn't much to bring. We've never found the messenger
to this day, he must be still with Sortini who values him very highly, and
he must have followed Sortini when Sortini retired to a more remote
bureau. Most of the servants haven't seen him since we saw him last
ourselves, and when one or other claims to have seen him it's probably a
mistake. So my plan might have actually failed, and yet it hasn't failed
completely; it's true we haven't found the messenger, and going to the
Herrenhof and spending the night there - perhaps his pity for me, too, any
pity that he's still capable of-has unfortunately ruined my father, and for
two years now he has ken in the state you've seen him in, and yet things
are perhaps better with him than with my mother, for we're waiting daily
>r her death; it has only been put off thanks to Amalia's superhuman
efforts. But what I've achieved in the Herrcnhof is a 207
certain connexion with the Castle; don't despise me when I that I don't
repent what I've done. What conceivable sort a connexion with the Castle
can this be, you'll no doubt b! thinking; and you're right, it's not much of
a connexion T know a great many of the servants now, of course, almost
all the gentlemen's servants who have come to the village during thlast
two years, and if I should ever get into the Castle, I shan't be a stranger
there. Of course, they're servants only in the villa& in the Castle they're
quite different, and probably wouldn't know me or anybody else there that
they've had dealings with in the village, that's quite certain, even if they
have sworn a hundred times in the stall that they would be delighted to
see me again in the Castle. Besides, I've already had experience of how
little all these promises are worth. But still that's not the really important
thing. It isn't only through the servants themselves that I have a
connexion with the Castle, for apart from that I hope and trust that what
I'm doing is being noticed by someone up there-and the management of
the staff of servants is really an extremely important and laborious official
function - and that finally whoever is noticing me may perhaps arrive at a
more favourable opinion of me than the others, that he may recognize that
I'm fighting for my family and carrying on my father's efforts, no matter
in how poor a way. If he should see it like that, perhaps he'll forgive me
too for accepting money from the servants and using it for our family.
And I've achieved something more yet, which even you, I'm afraid, will
blame me for. I learned a great deal from the servants about the ways in
which one can get into the Castle service without going through the
difficult preliminaries of official appointment lasting sometimes for years;
in that case, it's true, one doesn't become an actual official employee, but
only a private and semi-official one, one has neither rights nor duties-and
the worst is not to have any duties - but one advantage one does have, that
one is on the spot, one can watch for favourable opportunities and take
advantage of them, one may not be an employee, but by good luck some
work may come one's way, perhaps no real employee is handy, there's a
call, one flies to answer it, and one has become the very thing that one
wasn't a minute before. 208
employee. Only, when is one likely to get a chance like that? at once, one
has hardly arrived, one has hardly had to look round before the chance is
there, and many a one hasn't even the presence of mind, being quite new
to the job, seize the opportunity; but in another case one may have to
vraic for even more years than the official employees, and after being a
semi-official servant for so long one can never be lawfully taken on
afterwards as an official employee. So there's enough here to make one
pause, but it sinks to nothing when one takes into account that the test for
the official appointments is very stringent and that a member of any
doubtful family is turned down in advance; let us say someone like that
goes in for the examination, for years he waits in fear and trembling for
the result, from the very first day everybody asks him in amazement how
he could have dared to do anything so wild, but he still goes on hoping
-how else could he keep alive? then after years and years, perhaps as an
old man, he learns that he has been rejected, learns that everything is lost
and that all his life has been in vain. Here, too, of course there are
exceptions, that's how one is so easily tempted. It happens sometimes that
really shady customers are actually appointed, there are officials who,
literally in spite of themselves, are attracted by those outlaws; at the
entrance examinations they can't help sniffing the air, smacking their lips,
and rolling their eyes towards an entrant like that, who seems in some
way to be terribly appetizing to them, and they have to stick close to their
books of regulations so as to withstand him. Sometimes, however, that
doesn't help the entrant to an appointment, but only leads to an endless
postponement of the preliminary proceedings, which are never terminated,
but only broken off by the death of the poor man. So official appointment
no less than the other kind is full of obvious and concealed difficulties,
and before one goes in for everything of the kind it's highly advisable to
weigh everything carefully. Now, we didn't fail to do that, Barnabas and I.
Every time that I came back from the Herrenhof we sat down together
and I told the latest news that I had gathered, for days we talked it over,
and Barnabas's work lay idle for longer spells than was good for it And
here I may be to blame 209
in your opinion. I knew quite well that much reliance was n to be put on
the servants' stories. I knew that they never had much inclination to tell
me things about the Castle, that the always changed the subject, and that
every word had to be dragged out of them, and then, when they were well
started that they let themselves go, talked nonsense, bragged, tried to
surpass one another in inventing improbable lies, so that in the continuous
shouting in the dark stalls, one servant beginning where the other left off,
it was clear that at best only a fcw scanty scraps of truth could be picked
up. But I repeated everything to Barnabas again just as I had heard it,
though he still had no capacity whatever to distinguish between what was
true and what was false, and on account of the family's position was
almost famishing to hear all these things; and he drank in everything and
burned with eagerness for more. And as a matter of fact the cornerstone
of my new plan was Barnabas. Nothing more could be done through the
servants. Sortini's messenger was not to be found and would never be
found, Sortini and his messenger with him seemed to be receding farther
and farther, by many people their appearance and names were already
forgotten, and often I had to describe them at length and in spite of that
learn nothing more than that the servant I was speaking to could
remember them with an effort, but except for that could tell nothing about
them. And as for my conduct with the servants, of course I had no power
to decide how it might be looked on and could only hope that the Castle
would judge it in the spirit I did it in, and that in return a little of the guilt
of our family would be taken away, but I've received no outward sign of
that. Still I stuck to it, for so far as I was concerned I saw no other chance
of getting anything done for us in the Castle. But for Barnabas I saw
another possibility. From the tales of the servants-if I had the inclination,
and I had only too much inclination -1 could draw the conclusion that
anyone who was taken into the Castle service could do a great deal for his
family. But then what was there that was worthy or belief in these tales?
It was impossible to make certain of that, but that there was very little
was clear. For when, say, a servant that I would never see again, or that I
would hardly recognize 210
were I to see him again, solemnly promised me to help to get my brother
a post in the Castle, or at least, if Barnabas should to the Castle on other
business, to support him, or at least to back him up - for according to the
servants' stories it sometimes happens that candidates for posts become
unconscious or deranged during the protracted waiting and then they're
lost if some friend doesn't look after them- when things like that and a
great many more were told to me, they were probably justified as
warnings, but the promises that accompanied them were quite baseless.
But not to Barnabas; it's true I warned him not to believe them, but my
mere telling of them was enough to enlist him for my plan. The reasons I
advanced for it myself impressed him less, the thing that chiefly
influenced him was the servants' stories. And so in reality I was
completely thrown back upon myself. Amalia was the only one who
could make herself understood to my parents, and the more I followed, in
my own way, the original plans of father, the more Amalia shut herself off
from me, before you or anybody else she talks to me, but not when we're
alone; to the servants in the Herrenhof I was a plaything which in their
fury they did their best to wreck, not one intimate word have I spoken
with any of them during those two years, I've had only cunning or lying
or silly words from them, so only Barnabas remained for me, and
Barnabas was still very young. When I saw the light in his eyes as I told
him those things, a light which has remained in them ever since, I felt
terrified and yet I didn't stop, the things at stake seemed too great. I admit
I hadn't my father's great though empty plans. I hadn't the resolution that
men have. I confined myself to making good the insult to the messenger,
and only asked that the actual modesty of my attempt should be put to my
credit. But what I had failed to do by myself I wanted now to achieve in a
different way and with certainty through Barnabas. We had insulted a
messenger and driven him into a more remote bureau; what was more
natural than for us to offer a aew messenger in the person of Barnabas, so
that the other messenger's work might be carried on by him, and the other
messenger might remain quietly in retirement as long as he for as long a
time as he needed to forget the insult? I 211
was quite aware, of course, that in spite of all its modesty ther was a hint
of presumption in my plan, that it might givc ^ * to the impression that
we wanted to dictate to the authoriti how they should decide a personal
question, or that we doubted their ability to make the best arrangements,
which they might have made long before we had struck upon the idea that
something could be done. But then, I thought again that it was in*,
possible that the authorities should misunderstand me so grossly or if they
should, that they should do so intentionally, that uj other words all that I
did should be turned down in advance without further examination. So I
did not give in and Barnabas's ambition kept him from giving in. In this
term of preparation Barnabas became so uppish that he found that
cobbling was far too menial work for him, a future bureau employee, yes,
he even dared to contradict Amalia, and flatly, on the few occasions that
she spoke to him about it. I didn't grudge him this brief happiness, for
with the first day that he went to the Castle his happiness and his
arrogance would be gone, a thing easy enough to foresee. And now began
that parody of service of which I've told you already. It was amazing with
what little difficulty Barnabas got into the Castle that first time, or more
correctly into the bureau which in a manner of speaking has become his
workroom. This success drove me almost frantic at the time, when
Barnabas whispered the news to me in the evening after he came home. I
ran to Amalia, seized her, drew her into a corner, and kissed her so wildly
that she cried with pain and terror. I could explain nothing for excitement,
and then it had been so long since we had spoken to each other, so I put
off telling her until the next day or the day after. For the next few days,
however, there was really nothing more to tell. After the first quick
success nothing more happened. For two long years Barnabas led this
heart-breaking life. The servants failed us completely, I gave Barnabas a
short note to take with him recommending him to their consideration,
reminding them at the same time of their promises, and Barnabas, as
often as he saw a servant, drew out the note and held it up, and even if I
sometimes may have presented it to someone who didn't know me, and
even if those who did know me were irritated by his 213
t holding out the note in silence-for he didn't dare to speak up there-yet all
the same it was a shame that nobody helped him, and it was a
relief-which we could have secured, I must admit, by our own action and
much earlier-when a servant who had probably been pestered several
times already {,y the note, crushed it up and flung it into the wastepaper
basket. Almost as if he had said: "That's just what you yourselves do with
letters", it occurred to me. But barren of results as all this time was in
other ways, it had a good effect on Barnabas, if one can call it a good
thing that he grew prematurely old, became a man before his time, yes,
even in some ways more grave and sensible than most men. Often it
makes me sad to look at him and compare him with the boy that he was
only two years ago. And with it all I'm quite without the comfort and
support that, being a man, he could surely give me. Without me he could
hardly have got into the Castle, but since he is there, he's independent of
me. I'm his only intimate friend, but I'm certain that he only tells me a
small part of what he has on his mind. He tells me a great many things
about the Castle, but from his stories, from the trifling details that he
gives, one can't understand in the least how those things could have
changed him so much. In particular I can't understand how the daring he
had as a boy - it actually caused us anxiety - how he can have lost it so
completely up there now that he's a man. Of course all that useless
standing about and waiting all day, and day after day, and going on and
on without any prospect of a change, must break a man down and make
him unsure of himself and in the end actually incapable of anything-else
but this hopeless standing about. But why didn't he put up a fight even at
the beginning? Especially seeing that he soon recognized that I had been
right and that there was no opportunity there for his ambition, though
there might be some hope perhaps for the betterment of our family's
condition. For up there, in spite of the servants' whims, everything goes
on very soberly, ambition seeks its sole satisfaction in work, and as in this
way the work itself gains the ascendancy, ambition ceases to have any
place at all, for childish desires there's no room up there. Nevertheless
Barnabas fancied, so he has told me, that he could clearly see 213
how great the power and knowledge even of those very tionable officials
were into whose bureau he is allowed. How fast they dictated, with
half-shut eyes and brief gestures, merely by raising a finger quelling the
surly servants, and making thern smile with happiness even when they
were checked; or perhaps rinding an important passage in one of the
books and becoming quite absorbed in it, while the others would crowd
round as near as the cramped space would allow them, and crane their
necks to see it. These things and other things of the same kind gave
Barnabas a great idea of those men, and he had the feeling that if he could
get the length of being noticed by them and could venture to address a
few words to them, not as a stranger, but as a colleague - true a very
subordinate colleague - in the bureau, incalculable things might be
achieved for our family. But things .have never got that length yet, and
Barnabas can't venture to do anything that might help towards it, although
he's well aware that, young as he is, he's been raised to the difficult and
responsible position of chief breadwinner in our family on account of this
wholt unfortunate affair. And now for the final confession: it was a week
after your arrival. I heard somebody mentioning it in the Herrenhof, but
didn't pay much attention; a Land Surveyor had come and I didn't even
know what a Land Surveyor was. But next evening Barnabas - at an
agreed hour I usually set out to go a part of the way to meet him - came
home earlier than usual, saw Amalia in the sittingroom, drew me out into
the street, laid his head on my shoulder, and cried for several minutes. He
was again the little boy he used to be. Something had happened to him
that he hadn't been prepared for. It was as if a whole new world had
suddenly opened to him, and he could not bear the joy and the anxieties
of all this newness. And yet the only thing that had happened was that he
had been given a letter for delivery to you. But it was actually the first
letter, the first commission, that he had ever been given.' Olga stopped.
Everything was still except for the heavy, occasionally disturbed
breathing of the old people. K. merely said casually, as if to round off
Olga's story: 'You've all been playing with me. Barnabas brought me the
letter with the air of an old 214
much occupied messenger, and you as well as Amalia - who ( f that time
must have been in with you - behaved as if carry- messages and the
letter itself were matters of indifference.' 'You must distinguish between
us,' said Olga. 'Barnabas had in made a happy boy again by the letter, in
spite of all the Doubts that he had about his capability. He confined those
doubts to himself and me, but he felt it a point of honour to look Uke a
real messenger, as according to his ideas real messengers looked. So
although his hopes were now rising to an official uniform I had to alter
his trousers, and in two hours, so that they would have some resemblance
at least to the close-fitting trews of the official uniform, and he might
appear in them before you, knowing, of course, that on this point you
could be easily taken in. So much for Barnabas. But Amalia really
despises his work as a messenger, and now that he seemed to have had a
little success - as she could easily guess from Barnabas and myself and
our talking and whispering together - she despised it more than ever. So
she was speaking the truth, don't deceive yourself about that. But if I, K..,
have seemed to slight Barnabas's work, it hasn't been with any intention
to deceive you, but from anxiety. These two letters that have gone
through Barnabas's hands are the first signs of grace, questionable as they
are, that our family has received for three years. This change, if it is a
change and not deception - deceptions are more frequent than changes - is
connected with your arrival here, our fate has become in a certain sense
dependent on you, perhaps these two letters are only a beginning, and
Barnabas's abilities will be used for other things than these two letters
concerning you - we must hope that as long as we can - for the time being,
however, everything centres on you. Now up in the Castle we must rest
content with whatever our lot happens to be, but down here we can, it
may be, do something ourselves, that is, make sure of your goodwill, or at
least save ourselves from your dislike, or, what's more important, protect
you as far as our strength and experience go, so that your connexion with
the Castle - by which we might perhaps be helped too - might not be lost
Now what .was our best way of bringing that about? To prevent you from
having any suspicion of us when we ap- 215
I preached you - for you're a stranger here and because of the certain to be
full of suspicion, full of justifiable suspicion. AnH besides, we're despised
by everybody and you must be influenc"j by the general opinion,
particularly through your fiancee how could we put ourselves forward
without quite unintentionally setting ourselves up against your fiancee,
and so offcn(j ing you? And the messages, which I had read before you
got them - Barnabas didn't read them, as a messenger he couldn't allow
himself to do that - seemed at the first glance obsolete and not of much
importance, yet took on the utmost importance in as much as they
referred you to the Superintendent. Now in these circumstances how were
we to conduct ourselves towards you? If we emphasized the letters'
importance, we laid ourselves under suspicion by overestimating what
was obviously unimportant, and in pluming ourselves as the vehicle of
these messages we should be suspected of seeking our own ends, not
yours; more, in doing that we might depreciate the value of the letter
itself in your eyes and so disappoint you sore against our will. But if we
didn't lay much stress on the letters we should lay ourselves equally under
suspicion, for why in that case should we have taken the trouble of
delivering such an unimportant letter, why should our actions and our
words be in such clear contradiction, why should we in this way
disappoint not only you, the addressee, but also the sender of the letter,
who certainly hadn't handed the letter to us so that we should belittle it to
the addressee by our explanations? And to hold the mean, without
exaggeration on either side, in other words to estimate the just value of
those letters, is impossible, they themselves change in value perpetually,
the reflections they give rise to are endless, and chance determines where
one stops reflecting, and so even our estimate of them is a matter of
chance. And when on the top of that there came anxiety about you,
everything became confused, and you mustn't judge whatever I said too
severely. When, for example - as once happened - Barnabas arrived with
the news that you were dissatisfied with his work, and in his first distress
- his professional vanity was wounded too I must admit - resolved to
retire from the service altogether, then to make good the mistake I was
certainly ready to deceive, to lie, to 216
to do anything, no matter how if it would only . But even then I would
have been doing it, at least in my opinion, as much for your sake as for
ours.' There was a knock. Olga ran to the door and unfastened it. ^ strip of
light from a dark lantern fell across the threshold. questions in a whisper and was answered in ^e same way, but was not
satisfied and tried to force his way j0to the room. Olga found herself
unable to hold him back any longer and called to Amalia, obviously
hoping that to keep the old people from being disturbed in their sleep
Amalia would do anything to eject the visitor. And indeed she hurried
over at once, pushed Olga aside, and stepped into the street and closed the
door behind her. She only remained there for a moment, almost at once
she came back again, so quickly had she achieved what had proved
impossible for Olga. K. then learned from Olga that the visit was intended
for him. It had been one of the assistants, who was looking for him at
Frieda's command. Olga had wanted to shield K. from the assistant; if K.
should confess his visit here to Frieda later, he could, but it must not be
discovered through the assistant; K. agreed. But Olga's invitation to spend
the night there and wait for Barnabas he declined, for himself he might
perhaps have accepted for it was already late in the night and it seemed to
him that now, whether he wanted it or not, he was bound to this family in
such a way that a bed for the night here, though for many reasons painful,
nevertheless, when one considered this common bond, was the most
suitable for him in the village; all the same he declined it, the assistant's
visit had alarmed him, it was incomprehensible to him how Frieda, who
knew his wishes quite well, and the assistants, who had learned to fear
him, had come together again like this, so that Frieda didn't scruple to
send an assistant for him, only one of them, too, while the other had
probably remained to keep her company. He asked Olga whether she had
a whip, she hadn't one, but she had a good hazel switch, and he took it;
then he asked whether were was any other way out of the house, there
was one through the yard, only one had to clamber over the wall of the
neighbouring garden and walk through it before one reached the 217
street. K. decided to do this. While Olga was conducting through the yard,
K. tried hastily to reassure her fears, told Her that he wasn't in the least
angry at the small artifices she had told him about, but understood diem
very well, thanked her for the confidence she had shown in him in telling
him her story and asked her to send Barnabas to the school as soon as he
arrived, even if it were during the night. It was true, the messages which
Barnabas brought were not his only hope, otherwise things would be bad
indeed with him, but he didn't by any means leave them out of account,
he would hold to them and not forget Olga either, for still more important
to him than the messages themselves was Olga, her bravery, her prudence,
if he had to choose between Olga and Amalia it wouldn't cost him much
reflection. And he pressed her hand cordially once more as he swung
himself on to the wall of the neighbouring garden. 16 WHEN he reached
the street he saw indistinctly in the darkness that a little farther along the
assistant was still walking up and down before Barnabas's house;
sometimes he stopped and tried to peep into the room through the drawn
blinds. K. called to him; without appearing visibly startled he gave up his
spying on the house and came towards K. 'Who are you looking for?'
asked K., testing the suppleness of the hazel switch on his leg. 'You,'
replied the assistant as he came nearer. 'But who are you?' asked K.
suddenly, for this did not appear to be the assistant. He seemed older,
wearier, more wrinkled, but fuller in the face, his walk too was quite
different from the brisk walk of the assistants, which gave an impression
as if their joints were charged with electricity; it was slow, a little halting,
elegantly valetudinarian. 'You don't recognize me?' asked the man,
'Jeremiah, your old assistant.' 'I see,' said & tentatively producing the
hazel switch again, which he had concealed behind his back. 'But you
look quite different.' 'It's because I'm by myself,' said Jeremiah. 'When
I'm by myself then all my youthful spirits are gone.' 'But where is Arthur?'
asked 218
tf 'Arthur?' said Jeremiah. The little dear? He has left the service. You
were rather hard and rough on us, you know, and the gentle soul couldn't
stand it. He's gone back to the Castle to put a a complaint.' 'And you?'
asked K. Tin able to stay here,' jaid Jeremiah, 'Arthur is putting in a
complaint for me too/ What have you to complain about, then?* asked K.
That you can't understand a joke. What have we done? Jested a little,
laughed a little, teased your fiancee a little. And all according to our
instructions, too. When Galater sent us to you -' 'Galater?' asked K. 'Yes,
Galater,' replied Jeremiah, 'he was deputizing for Klamm himself at the
time. When he sent us to you he said I took a good note of it, for that's
our business: You're to go down there as assistants to the Land Surveyor.
We replied: But we don't know anything about the work. Thereupon he
replied: That's not the main point: if it's necessary, he'll teach you it The
main thing is to cheer him up a little. According to the reports I've
received he takes everything too seriously. He has just got to the village,
and starts off thinking that a great experience, whereas in reality it's
nothing at all. You must make him see that.' 'Well?' said K., 'was Galater
right, and have you carried out your task?' That I don't know,' replied
Jeremiah. 'In such a short time it was hardly possible. I only know that
you were very rough on us, and that's what we're complaining of. I can't
understand how you, an employee yourself and not even a Castle
employee, aren't able to see that a job like that is very hard work, and that
it's very wrong to make the work harder for the poor workers, and
wantonly, almost childishly, as you have done. Your total lack of
consideration in letting us freeze at the railings, and almost felling Arthur
with your fist on the straw sack - Arthur, a man who feels a single cross
word for days - and in chasing me up and down in the snow all afternoon,
so that it was an hour before I could recover from it t And I'm no longer
young 1* 'My dear Jeremiah,' said K., 'you're quite right about all this,
only it's Galater you should complain to. He sent you here of his own
accord, I didn't beg him to send you. And as I hadn't asked you it was at
my discretion to send you back again, and like you, I would much rather
have done it peacefully than with violence, but evidently you wouldn't
219
have it any other way. Besides, why didn't you speak to m when you
came first as frankly as you've done just now?' g^ cause I was in the
service,' said Jeremiah, 'surely that's obvious' 'And now you're in the
service no longer?' asked K. "That's so' said Jeremiah, 'Arthur has given
notice in the Castle that we'^ giving up the job, or at least proceedings
have been set goin& that will finally set us free from it.' 'But you're still
looking 0r me just as if you were in the service,' said K. 'No,' replied
Jercmiah, 'I was only looking for you to reassure Frieda. When you
forsook her for Barnabas's sister she was very unhappy, not so much
because of the loss, as because of your treachery, besides she had seen it
coming for a long time and had suffered a great deal already on that
account. I only went up to the schoolwindow for one more look to see if
you mightn't have become more reasonable. But you weren't there. Frieda
was sitting by herself on a bench crying. So then I went to her and we
came to an agreement. Everything's settled. I'm to be waiter in the
Herrenhof, at least until my business is settled in the Castle, and Frieda is
back in the taproom again. It's better for Frieda. There was no sense in her
becoming your wife. And you haven't known how to value the sacrifice
that she was prepared to make for you either. But the good soul had still
some scruples left, perhaps she was doing you an injustice, she thought,
perhaps you weren't with the Barnabas girl after all. Although of course
there could be no doubt where you were, I went all the same so as to
make sure of it once and for all; for after all this worry Frieda deserved to
sleep peacefully for once, not to mention myself. So I went and not only
found you there, but was able to see incidentally as well that you had the
girls on a string. The black one especially - a real wild-cat - she's set her
cap at you. Well, everyone to his taste. But all the same it wasn't
necessary for you to take the roundabout way through the next-door
garden, I know that way.' So now the thing had come after all which he
had been able to foresee, but not to prevent. Frieda had left him. It could
not be final, it was not so bad as that, Frieda could be won back, it was
easy for any stranger to influence her, even for those assistants who
considered Frieda's position much the same as their 220
I oWn, and now that they had given notice had prompted Frieda jo do the
same, but K. would only have to show himself and remind her of all that
spoke in his favour, and she would rue it ^d come back to him, especially
if he should be in a position to justify his visit to those girls by some
success due entirely to them. Yet in spite of those reflexions, by which he
sought to reassure himself on Frieda's account, he was not reassured.
Only a few minutes ago he had been praising Frieda up to Olga and
calling her his only support; well, that support was not of the firmest, no
intervention of the mighty ones had been needed to rob K. of Frieda -
even this not very savoury assistant had been enough - this puppet which
sometimes gave one the impression of not being properly alive. Jeremiah
had already begun to disappear. K. called him back. 'Jeremiah,' he said, 'I
want to be quite frank with you; answer one question of mine too in the
same spirit We're no longer in the position of master and servant, a matter
of congratulation not only to you but to me too; we have no grounds, then,
for deceiving each other. Here before your eyes I snap this switch which
was intended for you, for it wasn't for fear of you that I chose the back
way out, but so as to surprise you and lay it across your shoulders a few
times. But don't take it badly, all that is over; if you hadn't been forced on
me as a servant by the bureau, but had been simply an acquaintance, we
would certainly have got on splendidly, even if your appearance might
have disturbed me occasionally. And we can make up now for what we
have missed in that way.' 'Do you think so?' asked the assistant, yawning
and closing his eyes wearily. 'I could of course explain the matter more at
length, but I have no time, I must go to Frieda, the poor child is waiting
for me, she hasn't started on her job yet, at my request the landlord has
given her a few hours' grace - she wanted to fling herself into the work at
once probably to help her to forget - and we want to spend that little time
at least together. As for your proposal, I have no cause, certainly, to
deceive you, but I have just as little to confide anything to you. My case,
in other words, is different from yours. So long as my relation to you was
that of a servant, you were naturally a very important person in my eyes,
not because 221
I of your own qualities, but because of my office, and I have done
anything for you that you wanted, but now you're of no importance to me.
Even your breaking the switch doesn't affect me, it only reminds me what
a rough master I had, it* not calculated to prejudice me in your favour.'
'You talk to me said K, 'as if it were quite certain that you'll never have
to feL anything from me again. But that isn't really so. From all an.
pearances you're not free from me, things aren't settled here so quickly as
that -' 'Sometimes even more quickly,' Jeremiah threw in. 'Sometimes,'
said K, "but nothing points to the fact that it's so this time, at least neither
you nor I have anything that we can show in black and white. The
proceedings are only started, it seems, and I haven't used my influence
yet to intervene, but I will. If the affair turns out badly for you, you'll find
that you haven't exactly endeared yourself to your master, and perhaps it
was superfluous after all to break the hazel switch. And then you have
abducted Frieda, and that has given you an inflated notion of yourself, but
with all the respect that I have for your person, even if you have none for
me any longer, a few words from me to Frieda will be enough -1 know it
- to smash up the lies that you've caught her with. And only lies could
have estranged Frieda from me.' 'These threats don't frighten me,' replied
Jeremiah, 'you don't in the least want me as an assistant, you were afraid
of me even as an assistant, you're afraid of assistants in any case, it was
only fear that made you strike poor Arthur.' 'Perhaps,' said K., 'but did it
hurt the less for that? Perhaps I'll be able to show my fear of you in that
way many times yet Once I see that you haven't much joy in an assistant's
work, it'll give me great satisfaction again, in spite of all my fear, to keep
you at it. And moreover I'll do my best next time to see that you come by
yourself, without Arthur, I'll be able then to devote more attention to you.'
'Do you think,' asked Jeremiah, 'that I have even the slightest fear of all
this?' 'I do think so,' said K., 'you're a little afraid, that's certain, and if
you're wise, very much afraid. If that isn't so why didn't you go straight
back to Frieda? Tell me, arc you in love with her, then?' 'In love!' said
Jeremiah. 'She's a nice clever girl, a former sweetheart of Klamm's, so
respectable in any case. And as she kept on uor 222
olofing me to save ncr from you why shouldn't I do her the favour,
particularly as I wasn't doing you any harm, seeing that you've consoled
yourself with these damned Barnabas girls?' (flow I can see how
frightened you are,' said K., 'frightened out Of your wits; you're trying to
catch me with lies. All that Frieda asked for was to be saved from those
filthy swine of assistants, who were getting past bounds, but
unfortunately I hadn't time to fulfil her wish completely, and now this is
the result of my negligence.' 'Land Surveyor, Land Surveyor 1* someone
shouted down the street. It was Barnabas. He came up breathless with
running, but did not forget to greet K. with a bow. 'It's done!' he said.
'What's done?' asked K. 'You've laid my request before Klamm?' 'That
didn't come off,' said Barnabas, 'I did my best, but it was impossible, I
was urgent, stood there all day without being asked and so close to the
desk that once a clerk actually pushed me away, for I was standing in his
light, I reported myself when Klamm looked up - and that's forbidden -
by lifting my hand, I was the last in the bureau, was left alone there with
only the servants, but had the luck all the same to see Klamm coming
back again, but it was not on my account, he only wanted to have another
hasty glance at something in a book and went away immediately; finally,
as I still made no move, the servants almost swept me out of the door
with the broom. I tell you all this so that you need never complain of my
efforts again.' 'What good is all your zeal to me, Barnabas,' said K., 'when
it hasn't the slightest success?' 'But I have had success!' replied Barnabas.
'As I was leaving my bureau-I call it my bureau-I saw a gentleman
coming slowly towards me along one of the passages, which were quite
empty except for him. By that time in fact it was very late. I decided to
wait for him. It was a good pretext to wait longer, indeed I would much
rather have waited in any case, so as not to have to bring you news of
failure. But apart from that it was worth while waiting, for it was Erlanger.
You don't know him? He's one of Klamm's chief secretaries. A weakly
little gentleman, he limps a little. He recognized me at once, he's famous
for his splendid memory and his knowledge of people, he just draws his
brows together and that's 223
I enough for him to recognize anybody, often people even that he' never
seen before, that he's only heard of or read about; for instance, he could
hardly ever have seen me. But although Krecognizes everybody
immediately, he always asks first as if he weren't quite sure. Aren't you
Barnabas? he asked me. And then he went on: You know the Land
Surveyor, don't youp And then he said: That's very lucky. I'm just going to
the Herrenhof. The Land Surveyor is to report to me there. I'll be in room
number 15. But he must come at once. I've only a few things to settle
there and I leave again for the Castle at 5 o'clock in the morning. Tell him
that it's very important that I should speak to him.' Suddenly Jeremiah set
off at a run. In his excitement Barnabas had scarcely noticed his presence
till now and asked: 'Where's Jeremiah going?' 'To forestall me with
Erlanger,' said K., and set off after Jeremiah, caught him up, hung on to
his arm, and said: 'Is it a sudden desire for Frieda that's seized you? I've
got it as well, so we'll go together side by side.' BEFORE the dark
Herrenhof a little group of men were standing, two or three had lanterns
with them, so that a face here and there could be distinguished. K.
recognized only one acquaintance, Gcrstacker the carrier. Gerstacker
greeted him with the inquiry: 'You're still in the village?' 'Yes,' replied K.
'I've come here for good.' 'That doesn't matter to me,' said Gerstacker,
breaking out into a fit of coughing and turning away to the others. It
turned out that they were all waiting for Erlanger. Erlanger had already
arrived, but he was consulting first with Momus before he admitted his
clients. They were all complaining at not being allowed to wait inside and
having to stand out there in the snow. The weather wasn't very cold, but
still it showed a lack of consideration to keep them standing there in front
of the house in the darkness, perhaps for hours. It was certainly not the
fault of Erlanger, who was always very accommodating) 224
T W nothing about it, and would certainly be very annoyed if reported to
him. It was the fault of the Herrenhof landlady, wno m her positively
morbid determination to be refined, Couldn't suffer a lot of people to
come into the Herrenhof at the same time. 'If it absolutely must be and
they must come,' she used to say, 'then in Heaven's name let them come
one at a time.' And she managed to arrange that the clients, who at first
had waited simply in a passage, later on the stairs, then in the hall, and
finally in the taproom, were at last pushed out into the street. But even
that had not satisfied her. It was unendurable for her to be always
'besieged', as she expressed herself, in her own house. It was
incomprehensible to her why there should need to be clients waiting at all.
'To dirty the front-door steps,' an official had once told her, obviously in
annoyance, but to her this pronouncement had seemed very illuminating,
and she was never tired of quoting it. She tried her best-and she had the
approval in this case of the clients too - to get a building set up opposite
the Herrenhof where the clients could wait. She would have liked best of
all if the interviews and examinations could have taken place outside the
Herrenhof altogether, but the officials opposed that, and when the.
officials opposed her seriously the landlady naturally enough was unable
to gainsay them, though in lesser matters she exercised a kind of petty
tyranny, thanks to her indefatigable, yet femininely insinuating zeal. And
the landlady would probably have to endure those interviews and
examinations in the Herrenhof in perpetuity, for the gentlemen from the
Castle refused to budge from the place whenever they had official
business in the village. They were always in a hurry, they came to the
village much against their will, they had not the slightest intention of
prolonging their stay beyond the time absolutely necessary, and so they
could not be asked, simply for the sake of making things more pleasant in
the Herrenhof, to waste time by transferring themselves with all their
papers to some other house. The officials preferred indeed to get through
their business in the taproom or in their rooms, if possible while they
were at their food, or in bed before retiring for the night, or in the
morning when they were too weary to 225
get up and wanted to stretch themselves for a little longer. Yet the
question of the erection of a waiting-room outside seemed to be nearing a
favourable solution; but it was really a sharn blow for the landlady -
people laughed a little over it-that this matter of a waiting-room should
itself make innumerable interviews necessary, so that the lobbies of the
house were hardly ever empty. The waiting group passed the time by
talking in half-whispers about those things. K. was struck by the fact that,
though their discontent was general, nobody saw any objection to
Erlangcr's summoning his clients in the middle of the night. He asked
why this was so and got the answer that they should be only too thankful
to Erlanger. It was only his goodwill and his high conception of his office
that induced him to come to the village at all, he could easily if he wished
- and it would probably be more in accordance with the regulations too-he
could easily send an under-secretary and let him draw up statements. Still,
he usually refused to do this, he wanted to see and hear everything for
himself, but for this purpose he had to sacrifice his nights, for in his
official time-table there was no time allowed for journeys to the village.
K. objected that even Klamm came to the village during the day and even
stayed for several days; was Erlanger, then, a mere secretary, more
indispensable up there? One or two laughed good-humouredly, others
maintained an embarrassed silence, the latter gained the ascendancy, and
K. received hardly any reply. Only one man replied hesitatingly, that of
course Klamm was indispensable, in the Castle as in the village. Then the
front door opened and Momus appeared between two attendants carrying
lamps. 'The first who will be admitted to Hcrr Erlanger,' he said, 'are
Gerstacker and K. Arc these two men here?' They reported themselves,
but before they could step forward Jeremiah slipped in with anTm a
waiter here,'and, greeted by Momus with a smiling slap on the shoulder,
disappeared inside. Til have to keep a sharper eye on Jeremiah,' K. told
himself, though he was quite aware at the same time that Jeremiah was
probably far less dangerous than Arthur who 226
25 working against him in the Castle. Perhaps it would actually have been
wiser to let himself be annoyed by them as assistants, than to have them
prowling about without supervision and allow them to carry on their
intrigues in freedom, jntrigues for which they seemed to have special
facilities. As K. was passing Momus the latter started as if only now did
he recognize in him the Land Surveyor. 'Ah, the Land Surveyor?' he said.
'The man who was so unwilling to be examined and now is in a hurry to
be examined. It would have been simpler to let me do it that time. Well,
really it's difficult to choose the right time for a hearing.' Since at these
words K. made to stop, jvlomus went on: 'Go in, go in I I needed your
answers then, I don't now.' Nevertheless K. replied, provoked by Momus's
tone: 'You only think of yourselves. I would never and will never answer
merely because of someone's office, neither then nor now.' Momus
replied: 'Of whom, then, should we think? Who else is there here? Look
for yourself?' In the hall they were met by an attendant who led them the
old way, already known to K., across the courtyard, then into the entry
and through the low, somewhat downward-sloping passage. The upper
storeys were evidently reserved only for higher officials, the secretaries,
on the other hand, had their rooms in this passage, even Erlanger himself,
although he was one of the highest among them. The servant put out his
lantern, for here it was brilliant with electric light. Everything was on a
small scale, but elegantly finished. The space was utilized to the best
advantage. The passage was just high enough for one to walk without
bending one's head. Along both sides the doors almost touched each other.
The walls did not quite reach to the ceiling, probably for reasons of
ventilation, for here in the low cellar-like passage the tiny rooms could
hardly have windows. The disadvantage of those incomplete walls was
that the passage, and necessarily the rooms as well, were noisy. Many of
the rooms seemed to be occupied, in most the people were still awake,
one could hear voices, hammering, the clink of glasses. But the
impression was not one of particular gaiety. The voices were muffled,
only a word here and there could be indistinctly 227
made out, it did not seem to be conversation either, probably someone
was only dictating something or reading som aloud; and precisely from
the rooms where there was a sound of glasses and plates no word was to
be heard, and the mering reminded K. that he had been told some time or
that certain of the officials occupied themselves occasionally with
carpentry, model engines, and so forth, to recuperate from the continual
strain of mental work. The passage itself was empty except for a pallid,
tall, thin gendleman in a fur coat, under which his night-clothes could be
seen, who was sitting before one of the doors. Probably it had become too
stuffy for him in the room, so he had sat down outside and was reading a
newspaper, but not very carefully; often he yawned and left off reading,
then bent forward and glanced along the passage, perhaps he was waiting
for a client whom he had invited and who had omitted to come. When
they had passed him the servant said to Gerstacker: 'That's Pinzgauer.'
Gerstacker nodded: 'He hasn't been down here for a long time now,' he
said. 'Not for a long time now,' the servant agreed. At last they stopped
before a door which was not in any way different from the others, and yet
behind which, so the servant informed them, was Erlanger. The servant
got K. to lift him on to his shoulders and had a look into the room through
the open slit. 'He's lying down,' said the servant climbing down, 'on the
bed, in his clothes, it's true, but I fancy all the same that he's asleep. Often
he's overcome with weariness like that, here in the village, what with the
change in his habits. We'll have to wait. When he wakes up he'll ring.
Besides, it has happened before this for him to sleep away all his stay in
the village, and then when he woke to have to leave again immediately
for the Castle. It's voluntary, of course, the work he does here.' Then it
would be better if he just slept on,' said Gerstacker, 'for when he has a
little time left for his work after he wakes, he's very vexed at having
fallen asleep, and tries to get everything settled in a hurry, so that one can
hardly get a word in.' 'You've come on account of the contract for the
carting for the new building? asked the servant. Gerstacker nodded, drew
the servant aside 228
talked to him in a low voice, but the servant hardly listened, gazed away
over Gerstacker, whom he overtopped by more than a head, and stroked
his hair slowly and seriously. 18 , as he was looking round aimlessly, K.
saw Frieda far J. away at a turn of the passage; she behaved as if she did
not recognize him and only stared at him expressionlessly; she was
carrying a tray with some empty dishes in her hand. He said to the servant,
who, however, paid no attention whatever to him the more one talked to
the servant the more absent-minded he seemed to become - that he would
be back in a moment, and ran off to Frieda. Reaching her he took her by
the shoulders as if he were seizing his own property again, and asked her
a few unimportant questions with his eyes holding hers. But her rigid
bearing hardly as much as softened, to hide her confusion she tried to
rearrange the dishes on the tray and said: 'What do you want from me?
Go back to the others - oh, you know whom I mean, you've just come
from them, I can see it.' K. changed his tactics immediately; the
explanation mustn't come so suddenly, and mustn't begin with the worst
point, the point most unfavourable to himself. 'I thought you were in the
taproom,' he said. Frieda looked at him in amazement and then softly
passed her free hand over his brow and cheeks. It was as if she had
forgotten what he looked like and were trying to recall it to mind again,
even her eyes had the veiled look of one who was painfully trying to
remember. 'I've been taken on in the taproom again,' she said slowly at
last, as if it did not matter what she said, but as if beneath her words she
were carrying on another conversation with K. which was more important
- 'this work here is not for me, anybody at all could do it; anybody who
can make beds and look good-natured and doesn't mind the advances of
the boarders, but actually likes them; anybody who can do that can be a
chambermaid. But in the taproom, that's quite different. I've been taken
on straight away for the taproom again, in spite of the fact that I didn't
leave it with any great 229
n distinction, but, of course, I had a word put in for me. But landlord was
delighted that I had a word put in for me to it easy for him to take me on
again. It actually ended by the having to press me to take on the post;
when you reflect w the taproom reminds me of you'll understand that.
Finally I cidcd to take it on. I'm only here temporarily. Pepi begged not to
put her to the shame of having to leave the taproom at once, and seeing
that she has been willing and has done every. thing to the best of her
ability, we have given her a twenty-four hours' extension.' That's all very
nicely arranged,' said K., 'but once you left the taproom for my sake, and
now that we're soon to be married are you going back to it again?' 'There
will be no marriage,' said Frieda. 'Because I've been unfaithful to you?'
asked K. Frieda nodded. 'Now, look here, Frieda,' said K. 'we've often
talked already about this alleged unfaithfulness of mine, and every time
you've had to recognize finally that your suspicions were unjust And
since then nothing has changed on my side, all I've done has remained as
innocent as it was at first and as it must always remain. So something
must have changed on your side, through the suggestions of strangers or
in some way or other. You do me an injustice in any case, for just listen to
how I stand with those two girls. The one, the dark one I'm almost
ashamed to defend myself on particular points like this, but you give me
no choice - die dark one, then, is probably just as displeasing to me as to
you; I keep my distance with her in every way I can, and she makes it
easy, too, no one could be more retiring than she is.' 'Yes,' cried Frieda,
the words slipped out as if against her will, K. was delighted to see her
attention diverted, she was not saying what she had intended - 'Yes, you
may look upon her as retiring, you tell me that the most shameless
creature of them all is retiring, and incredible as it is, you mean it
honestly, you're not shamming, I know. The Bridge Inn landlady once
said of you : "I can't abide him, but I can't let him alone, either, one
simply can't control oneself when one sees a child that can hardly walk
trying to go too far for it, one simply has to interfere." ' 'Pay attention to
her advice for this once,' said K. smiling, 'but that girl - whether she's
retiring or shameless doesn't matter - I don't want to hear any more about
230
uer.' 'But why do you call her retiring?' asked Frieda obdurtcly -' K.
considered this interest of hers a favourable sign 'have you found her so,
or are you simply casting a reflexion on joinebody else?' 'Neither the one
nor the other,' said K., 'I call kef that out of gratitude, because she makes
it easy for me to ignore her, and because if she said even a word or two to
me I couldn't bring myself to go back again, which would be a great joss
to me, for I must go there for the sake of both our futures, as you know.
And it's simply for that reason that I have to talk with the other girl,
whom I respect, I must admit, for her capability, prudence, and
unselfishness, but whom nobody could say was seductive.' 'The servants
are of a different opinion,' said Frieda. 'On that as on lots of other
subjects,' said K. 'Are you going to deduce my unfaithfulness from the
tastes of the servants?' Frieda remained silent and suffered K. to take the
tray from her, set it oh the floor, and put his arm through hers, and walk
her slowly up and down in the corner of the passage. 'You don't know
what fidelity is,' she said, his nearness putting her a little on the defensive,
'what your relations with the girl may be isn't the most important point;
the fact that you go to that house at all and come back with the smell of
their kitchen on your clothes is itself an unendurable humiliation for me.
And then you rush out of the school without saying a word. And stay with
them, too, the half of the night. And when you're asked for, you let those
girls deny that you're there, deny it passionately, especially the
wonderfully retiring one. And creep out of the house by a secret way,
perhaps actually to save the good name of the girls, the good name of
those girls. No, don't let us talk about it any more.' 'Yes, don't let us talk
of this,' said K., 'but of something else, Frieda. Besides, there's nothing
more to be said about it. You know why I have to go there. It isn't easy for
me, but I overcome my feelings. You shouldn't make it any harder for me
than it is. To-night I only thought of dropping in there for a minute to see
whether Barnabas had come at last, for he had an important message
which he should have brought long before. He hadn't come, but he was
bound to come very soon, so I was assured, and it seemed very probable
too. I didn't to let him come after me, for you to be insulted by his 231
I presence. The hours passed and unfortunately he didn't But another
came all right, a man whom I hate. I had no insention of letting myself be
spied on by him, so I left through the neighbour's garden, but I didn't
want to hide from him either and I went up to him frankly when I reached
the street, with a very good and supple hazel switch, I admit. That is all,
SQ there's nothing more to be said about it; but there's plenty to say about
something else. What about the assistants, the very mention of whose
name is as repulsive to me as that family is to youp Compare your
relations with them with my relations with that family. I understand your
antipathy to Barnabas's family and I can share it. It's only for the sake of
my affairs that I go to see them, sometimes it almost seems to me that I'm
abusing and exploiting them. But you and the assistants! You've never
denied that they persecute you, and you've admitted that you're attracted
by them. I wasn't angry with you for that, I recognized that powers were
at work which you weren't equal to, I was glad enough to see that you put
up a resistance at least, I helped to defend you, and just because I left off
for a few hours, trusting in your constancy, trusting also, I must admit, in
the hope that the house was securely locked and the assistants finally put
to flight - I still underestimate them, I'm afraid - just because I left off for
a few hours and this Jeremiah - who is, when you look at him closely, a
rather unhealthy elderly creature had the impudence to go up to the
window; just for this, Frieda, I must lose you and get for a greeting:
"There will be no marriage." Shouldn't I be the one to cast reproaches?
But I don't, I have never done so.' And once more it seemed advisable to
K. to distract Frieda's mind a little, and he begged her to bring him
something to eat, for he had had nothing since midday. Obviously
relieved by the request, Frieda nodded and ran to fetch something, not
farther along the passage, however, where K. conjectured the kitchen was,
but down a few steps to the left. In a little she brought a plate with slices
of meat and a bottle of wine, but they were clearly only the remains of a
meal, the scraps of meat had been hastily ranged out anew so as to hide
the fact, yet whole sausage skins had been overlooked, and the bottle was
three-quarters empty. However, K. said nothing and 232
fell on the food with a good appetite. "You were in the kitchen?' he asked.
'No, in my own room,' she said. 'I have a room down there.' 'You might
surely have taken me with you,' said K. Til go down now, so as to sit
down for a little while I'm eating.' Til bring you a chair,' said Frieda
already making to go. 'Thanks,' replied K. holding her back, Tm neither
going down there, nor hand on her arm defiantly, bowed her head and bit her lip. 'Well, then, he
is down there,' she said, 'did you expect anything else? He's lying on my
bed, he got a cold out there, he's shivering, he's hardly had any food. At
bottom it's all your fault, if you hadn't driven the assistants away and run
after those people, we might be sitting comfortably in the school now/
You alone have destroyed our happiness. Do you think that Jeremiah, so
long as he was in service, would have dared to take me away? Then you
entirely misunderstood the way things are ordered here. He wanted me,
he tormented himself, he lay in watch for me, but that was only a game,
like the play of a hungry dog who nevertheless wouldn't dare to leap up
on the table. And just the same with me. I was drawn to him, he was a
playmate of mine in my childhood - we played together on the slope of
the Castle Hill, a lovely time, you've never asked me anything about my
past - but all that wasn't decisive as long as Jeremiah was held back by his
service, for I knew my duty as your future wife. But then you drove the
assistants away and plumed yourself on it besides, as if you had done
something for me by it; well, in a certain sense it was true. Your plan has
succeeded as far as Arthur is concerned, but only for the moment, he's
delicate, he hasn't Jeremiah's passion that nothing can daunt, besides you
almost shattered his health for him by the buffet you gave him that night -
it was a blow at my happiness as well - he fled to the Castle to complain,
and even if he comes back soon, he's gone now all the same. But
Jeremiah stayed. When he's in service he fears the slightest look of his
master, but when he's not in service there's nothing he's afraid of. He
came and took me; forsaken by you, commanded by him, my old friend, I
couldn't resist. I didn't unlock the school door. He smashed the window
and lifted me out. We flew here, the landlord looks up to him, nothing
could be more welcome to 233
the guests, either, than to have such a waiter, so we were taken on, he isn't
living with me, but we are staying in the sam room.' 'In spite of
everything,' said K., 'I don't regret havin driven the assistants from our
service. If things stood as you say and your faithfulness was only
determined by the assistants being in the position of servants, then it was
a good thing that it came to an end. The happiness of a married life spent
with two beasts of prey, who could only be kept under by the whip
wouldn't have been very great. In that case I'm even thankful to this
family who have unintentionally had some part in separating us.' They
became silent and began to walk backwards and forwards again side by
side, though neither this time could have told who had made the first
move. Close beside him, Frieda seemed annoyed that K. did not take her
arm again. 'And so everything seems in order,' K. went on, 'and we might
as well say good-bye, and you go to your Jeremiah, who must have had
this chill, it seems, ever since I chased him through the garden, and whom
you've already left by himself too long in that case, and I to the empty
school, or, seeing that there's no place for me there without you,
anywhere else where they'll take me in. If I hesitate still in spite of this,
it's because I have still a litde doubt about what you've told me, and with
good reason. I have a different impression of Jeremiah. So long as he was
in service, he was always at your heels and I don't believe that his
position would have held him back permanently from making a serious
attempt on you. But now that he considers that he's absolved from service,
it's a different case. Forgive me if I have to explain myself in this way:
Since you're no longer his master's fiancee, you're by no means such a
temptation for him as you used to be. You may be the friend of his
childhood, but - I only got to know him really from a short talk to-night -
in my opinion he doesn't lay much weight on such sentimental
considerations. I don't know why he should seem a passionate person in
your eyes. His mind seems to me on the contrary to be particularly cold.
He received from Galater certain instructions relating to me, instructions
probably not very much in my favour, he exerted himself to carry them
out, with a certain passion for service, I'll admit - it's not so uncommon
here - one of them was
he should wreck our relationship; probably he tried to do it by several
means, one of them was to tempt you by his evil languishing glances,
another - here the landlady supported him was to invent fables about
my unfaithfulness; his attempt succeeded, some memory or other of
Klamm that clung to him may jjave helped, he has lost his position, it is
true, but probably just at the moment when he no longer needed it, then
he reaped the fruit of his labours and lifted you out through the school
vvindow, with that his task was finished, and his passion for jervice
having left him now, he'll feel bored, he would rather be in Arthur's shoes,
who isn't really complaining up there at all, but earning praise and new
commissions, but someone had to stay behind to follow the further
developments of the affair. It's rather a burdensome task to him to have to
look after you. Of love for you he hasn't a trace, he frankly admitted it to
me; as one of Klamm's sweethearts he of course respects you, and to
insinuate himself into your bedroom and feel himself for once a little
Klamm certainly gives him pleasure, but that is all, you yourself mean
nothing to him now, his finding a place for you here is only a
supplementary part of his main job; so as not to disquieten you he has
remained here himself too, but only for the time being, as long as he
doesn't get further news from the Casde and his cooling feelings towards
you aren't quite cured.' 'How you slander him said Frieda, striking her
little fists together. 'Slander?' said K., 'no, I don't wish to slander him. But
I may quite well perhaps be doing him an injustice, that is certainly
possible. What I've said about him doesn't lie on the surface for anybody
to see, and it may be looked at differently too. But slander? Slander could
only have one object, to combat your love for him. If that were necessary
and if slander were the most fitting means, I wouldn't hesitate to slander
him. Nobody could condemn me for it, his position puts him at such an
advantage as compared with me that, thrown back solely on my own
resources, I could even allow myself a little slander. It would be a
comparatively innocent, but in the last resort a Powerless, means of
defence. So put down your fists.' And K. took Frieda's hand in his; Frieda
tried to draw it away, but smilingly and not with any great earnestness.
'But I don't need
slander,' said K.., 'for you don't love him, you only think v do, and you'll
be thankful to me for ridding you of your illusion. For think, if anybody
wanted to take you away from m without violence, but with the most
careful calculation, he could only do it through the two assistants. In
appearance, go^ childish, merry, irresponsible youths, fallen from the sky,
ro ' the Castle, a dash of childhood's memories with them too; that of
course must have seemed very nice, especially when 1 was the antithesis
of it all, and was always running after affairs moreover which were
scarcely comprehensible, which were exasperating to you, and which
threw me together with people whom you considered deserving of your
hate - something Of which you carried over to me too, in spite of all my
innocence. The whole thing was simply a wicked but very clever
exploitation of the failings in our relationship. Everybody's relations have
their blemishes, even ours, we came together from two very different
worlds, and since we have known each other the life of each of us has had
to be quite different, we still feel insecure, it's all too new. I don't speak of
myself, I don't matter so much, in reality I've been enriched from the very
first moment that you looked on me, and to accustom oneself to one's
riches isn't very difficult But - not to speak of anything else - you were
torn away from Klamm, I can't calculate how much that must have meant,
but a vague idea of it I've managed to arrive at gradually, you stumbled,
you couldn't find yourself, and even if I was always ready to help you,
still I wasn't always there, and when I was there you were held captive by
your dreams or by something more palpable, the landlady, say - in short
there were times when you turned away from me, longed, poor child, for
vague inexpressible things, and at those periods any passable man had
only to come within your range of vision and you lost yourself to him,
succumbing to the illusion that mere fancies of the moment, ghosts, old
memories, things of the past and things receding ever more into the past,
life that had once been lived that all this was your actual present-day life.
A mistake, Frieda, nothing more than the last and, properly regarded,
contemptible difficulties attendant on our final reconciliation. Come to
yourself, gather yourself together; even if you thought that the assis- 236
were sent by Klamm - it's quite untrue, they come from /plater - and even
if they did manage by the help of this illujon to charm you so completely
that even in their disreputable nicks and their lewdness you thought you
found traces of tflainm, just as one fancies one catches a glimpse of some
precious stone that one has lost in a dung heap, while in reality one
Couldn't be able to find it even if it were there - all the same they're only
hobbledehoys like the servants in the stall, except that they're not healthy
like them, and a little fresh air makes them ill and compels them to take to
their beds, which I must say that they know how to snuffle out with a
servant's true cunning.' Frieda had let her head fall on K.'s shoulder; their
arms round each other, they walked silently up and down. 'If we had
only,' said Frieda after a while, slowly, quietly, almost serenely, as if she
knew that only a quite short respite of peace on K.'s shoulder were
reserved for her, and she wanted to enjoy it to the utmost, 'if we had only
gone away somewhere at once that night, we might be in peace now,
always together, your hand always near enough for mine to grasp; oh,
how much I need your companionship, how lost I have felt without it ever
since I've known you, to have your company, believe me, is the only
dream that I've had, that and nothing else.' Then someone called from the
side passage, it was Jeremiah, he was standing there on the lowest step,
he was in his shirt, but had thrown a wrap of Frieda's round him. As' he
stood there, his hair rumpled, his thin beard lank as if dripping with wet,
his eyes painfully beseeching and wide with reproach, his sallow cheeks
flushed, but yet flaccid, his naked legs trembling so violently with cold
that the long fringes of the wrap quivered as well, he was like a patient
who had escaped from hospital, and whose appearance could only
suggest one thought, that of getting him back in bed again. This in fact
was the effect that he had on Frieda, she disengaged herself from K., and
was down beside Jeremiah in a second. Her nearness, the solicitude with
which she drew the wrap closer round him, the haste with which she tried
to force him back into the room, seemed to give him new strength, it was
as if he only recognized K. now. 'Ah, the Land Surveyor!' he said,
stroking Frieda's cheek to 237
propitiate her, for she did not want to let him talk any 'forgive the
interruption. But I'm not at all well, that must my excuse. I think I'm
feverish, I must drink some tea and get a sweat. Those damned railings in
the school garden, they'll give me something to think about yet, and then,
already chillC(j to the bone, I had to run about all night afterwards. One
sacri fices one's health for things not really worth it, without notic ing it at
the time. But you, Land Surveyor, mustn't let yourself be disturbed by me,
come into the room here with us, pay me a sick visit, and at the same time
tell Frieda whatever you have still to say to her. When two who are
accustomed to one another say good-bye, naturally they have a great deal
to say to each other at the last minute which a third party, even if he's
lying in bed waiting for his tea to come, can't possibly understand. But do
come in, I'll be perfectly quiet.' 'That's enough, enough 1' said Frieda
pulling at his arm. 'He's feverish and doesn't know what he's saying. But
you, K., don't you come in here, I beg you not to. It's my room and
Jeremiah's, or rather it's my room and mine alone, I forbid you to come in
with us. You always persecute me; oh, K., why do you always persecute
me? Never, never will I go back to you, I shudder when I think of the
very possibility. Go back to your girls; they sit beside you before the fire
in nothing but their shifts, I've been told, and when anybody comes to
fetch you they spit at him. You must feel at home there, since the place
attracts you so much. I've always tried to keep you from going there, with
little success, but all the same I've tried; all that's past now, you are free.
You've a lovely life in front of you; for the one you'll perhaps have to
squabble a little with the servants, but as for the other, there's nobody in
heaven or earth that will grudge you her. The union is blessed beforehand.
Don't deny it, I know you can disprove anything, but in the end nothing is
disproved. Only think, Jeremiah, he has disproved everything!' They
nodded with a smile of mutual understanding. 'But,' Frieda went on, 'even
everything were disproved, what would be gained by that, what would it
matter to me? What happens in that house is purely their business and his
business, not mine. Mine is to nurse you till you're well again, as you
were at one time, before K. tor- 338
you for my sake/ 'So you're not coming in after all, Surveyor?' asked
Jeremiah, but was now definitely away by Frieda, who did not even turn
to look at K. in. There was a little door down there, still lower than the
joors in the passage - not Jeremiah only, even Frieda had to stoop on
entering - within it seemed to be bright and warm, a few whispers were
audible, probably loving cajolements to get Jeremiah to bed, then the
door was closed. the text of the first German edition of The Castle ends. It
has bee* translated by Willa and Edwin Mttir. What follows is the
continuation of the text together with additional material (different
versions, fragments, passages deleted by the author, etc.) as found among
Kafka's papers after the publication of the first edition and included by
the editor, Max Brod, in the definitive German edition. The translation is
by Eithne Will(ins and Emst Kaiser.
O NLY now did K. notice how quiet it had become in th passage, not only
here in this part of the passage wher he had been with Frieda, and which
seemed to belong to the public rooms of the inn, but also in the long
passage with the rooms that had earlier been so full of bustle. So the
gentlemen had gone to sleep at last after all K. too was very tired, perhaps
it was from fatigue that he had not stood up to Jeremiah as he should have.
It would perhaps have been more prudent to take his cue from Jeremiah,
who was obviously exaggerating how bad his chill was - his woefulness
was not caused by his having a chill, it was congenital and could not be
relieved by any herbal tea - to take his cue entirely from Jeremiah, make a
similar display of his own really great fatigue, sink down here in the
passage, which would in itself afford much relief, sleep a little, and then
perhaps be nursed a little too. Only it would not have worked out as
favourably as with Jeremiah, who would certainly have won this
competition for sympathy, and rightly so, probably, and obviously every
other fight too. K. was so tired that he wondered whether he might not try
to go into one of these rooms, some of which were sure to be empty, and
have a good sleep in a luxurious bed. In his view this might turn out to be
recompense for many things. He also had a night-cap handy. On the tray
that Frieda had left on the floor there had been a small decanter of rum. K,
did not shrink from the exertion of making his way back, and he drained
the little bottle to the dregs. Now he at least felt strong enough to go
before Erlanger. He looked for the door of Erlanger's room, but since the
servant and Gerstacker were no longer to be seen and all the doors looked
alike, he could not find it. Yet he believed he remembered more or less in
what part of the passage the door had been, and decided to open a door
that in his opinion was probably the one he was looking for. The
experiment could not be so very dangerous; if it was Erlanger's room
Erlanger would doubtless receive him, if it was somebody else's room it
would 240
be possible to apologize and go away again, and if the inwas asleep,
which was what was probable, then K.'s visit not be noticed at all; it
could turn out badly only if the was empty, for then K. would scarcely be
able to resist the ^ptation to get into the bed and sleep for ages. He once
more glanced along the passage to right and to left, to see whether Tfter
all there might not be somebody coming who would be able to give him
some information and make the venture unnecessary, but the long passage
was quiet and empty. Then K. listened at the door. Here too was no
inmate. He knocked so quietly that it could not have wakened a sleeper,
and when even now nothing happened he opened the door very cautiously
Indeed. But now he was met with a faint scream. It was a small room,
more than half filled by a wide bed, on the night-table the electric lamp
was burning, beside it was a travelling handbag. In the bed, but
completely hidden under the quilt, someone stirred uneasily and
whispered through a gap between quilt and sheet: 'Who is it?' Now K.
could not withdraw again so easily, discontentedly he surveyed the
voluptuous but unfortunately not empty bed, then remembered the
question and gave his name. This seemed to have a good effect, the man
in the bed pulled the quilt a little off his face, anxiously ready, however,
to cover himself up again completely if something was not quite all right
out there. But then he flung back the quilt without qualms and sat up. It
was certainly not Erlanger. It was a small, well-looking gentleman whose
face had a certain contradictoriness in that the cheeks were chubby as a
child's and the eyes merry as a child's, but that the high forehead, the
pointed nose, the narrow mouth, the lips of which would scarcely remain
closed, the almost vanishing chin, were not like a child's at all, but
revealed superior intellect. It was doubtless his satisfaction with this, his
satisfaction with himself, that had preserved him a marked residue of
something healthily childlike. 'Do you know Friedrich?' he asked. K. said
he did not. But he knows you,' the gentleman said, smiling. K. nodded,
there was no lack of people who knew him, this was indeed one of the
main obstacles in his way. 'I am his secretary,' the gendesaid, 'my name is
Biirgel.' 'Excuse me,' K. said, reaching 241 I
for the door-handle, 'I am sorry, I mistook your door for other. The fact is
I have been summoned to Secretary Erlan^ 'What a pity,' Bxirgel said.
'Not that you are summoned where, but that you made a mistake about
the doors. The fact i once I am wakened I am quite certain not to go to
sleep again Still, that need not sadden you so much, it's my personal mis!
fortune. Why, anyway, can't these doors be locked, eh? There's a reason
for that, of course. Because, according to an old saying the secretaries'
doors should always be open. But that, again' need not be taken quite so
literally.' Biirgel looked querying!* and merrily at K., in contrast to his
lament he seemed thoroughly well rested; Biirgel had doubdess never in
his life been as tired as K. was now. 'Where do you think of going now?'
Burgel asked. 'It's four o'clock. Anyone to whom you might think of
going you would have to wake, not everybody is as used to being
disturbed as I am, not everyone will put up with it as tolerantly, the
secretaries are a nervous species. So stay for a little while. Round about
five o'clock people here begin to get up, then you will be best able to
answer your summons. So please do let go of the door-handle now and sit
down somewhere, granted there isn't overmuch room here, it will be best
if you sit here on the edge of the bed. You are surprised that I should have
neither chair nor table here? Well, I had the choice of getting either a
completely furnished room with a narrow hotel bed, or this big bed and
nothing else except the washstand. I chose the big bed, after all, in a
bedroom the bed is undoubtedly the main thing! Ah, for anyone who
could stretch out and sleep soundly, for a sound sleeper, this bed would
surely be truly delicious. But even for me, perpetually tired as I am
without being able to sleep, it is a blessing, I spend a large part of the day
in it, deal with all my correspondence in it, here conduct all the
interviews with applicants. It works quite well. Of course the applicants
have nowhere to sit, but they get over that, and after all it's more
agreeable for them too if they stand and the recorder is at ease than if they
sit cornfortably and get barked at. So the only place I have to offer is this
here on the edge of the bed, but that is not an official place and is only
intended for nocturnal conversations. But you are 242
quiet, Land Surveyor?' 'I am very tired,' said K., who on receiving the
invitation had instantly, rudely, without respect, sat jown on the bed and
leaned against the post. 'Of course,' Biirgel ^id, laughing, 'everybody is
tired here. The work, for instance, that I got through yesterday and have
already got through even to-day is no small matter. It's completely out of
the question of course that I should go to sleep now, but if this most
utterly ^probable thing should happen after all and I should go to sleep
while you are still here, then please stay quiet and don't open the door,
either. But don't worry, I shall certainly not go to sleep or at best only for
a few minutes. The way it is with me is that probably because I am so
very used to dealing with applicants I do actually find it easiest to go to
sleep when I have company.' 'Do go to sleep, please do, Mr Secretary,' K.
said, pleased at this announcement, 'I shall then, with your permission,
sleep a little too.' 'No, no,' Burgel said, laughing again, 'unfortunately I
can't go to sleep merely on being invited to do so, it's only in the course
of conversation that the opportunity may arise, it's most likely to be a
conversation that puts me to sleep. Yes, one's nerves suffer in our
business. I, for instance, am a liaison secretary. You don't know what that
is? Well, I constitute the strongest liaison' - here he hastily rubbed his
hands in involuntary merriment - 'between Friedrich and the village, I
constitute the liaison between his Castle and village secretaries, am
mostly in the village, but not permanently; at every moment I must be
prepared to drive up to the Castle. You see the travelling-bag - a restless
life, not suitable for everyone. On the other hand it is true that now I
could not do without this kind of work, all other work would seem insipid
to me. And how do things stand with the land-surveying?' 'I am not doing
any such work, I am not being employed as a Land Surveyor,' K. said, he
was not really giving his mind to the matter, actually he was only
yearning for Burgel to fall asleep, but even this was only out of a certain
sense of duty towards himself, in his heart of hearts he was sure that the
moment when Burgel would go to sleep was still infinitely remote. 'That
is amazing,' Biirgel said with a lively jerk of his head, and pulled a
note-pad ut from under the quilt in order to make a note. 'You are a 243
Land Surveyor and have no land-surveying to do.' K. mechanically, he
had stretched out his left arm along the top the bed-post and laid his head
on it, he had already tried vario ways of making himself comfortable, but
this position was th most comfortable of all, and now, too, he could attend
a li^i better to what Biirgel was saying. 'I am prepared,' Biirgel con.
tinued, 'to follow up this matter further. With us here things are quite
certainly not in such a way that an expert employ^ should be left unused.
And it must after all be painful to you too. Doesn't it cause you distress?'
'It causes me distress,' J^ said slowly and smiled to himself, for just now
it was not distressing him in the least Besides, Burgel's offer made little
impression on him. It was utterly dilettante. Without knowing anything of
the circumstances under which K.'s appointment had come about, of the
difficulties that it encountered in the community and at the Castle, of the
complications that had already occurred during K.'s sojourn here or had
been foreshadowed, without knowing anything of all this, indeed without
even showing, what should have been expected of a secretary as a matter
of course, that he had at least an inkling of it all, he offered to settle the
whole affair up there in no time at all with the aid of his little note-pad.
'You seem to have had some disappointments,' Biirgel said, by this
remark showing that he had after all some knowledge of human nature,
and indeed, since entering the room, K. had from time to time reminded
himself not to underestimate Biirgel but in his state it was difficult to
form a fair judgement of anything but his own weariness. 'No,' Biirgel
said, as if he were answering a thought of K.'s and were considerately
trying to save him the effort of formulating it aloud. 'You must not let
yourself be frightened off by disappointments. Much here does seem to
be arranged in such a way as to frighten people off, and when one is
newly arrived here the obstacles do appear to be completely
insurmountable. I don't want to inquire into what all this really amounts
to, perhaps the appearance does really correspond to the reality, in my
position I lack the right detachment to come to a conclusion about that,
but pay attention, there are sometimes after all opportunities that arc
almost not in accord wit" 244
general situation, opportunities in which by means of a , a glance, a sign
of trust, more can be achieved than by ,jjeans of lifelong exhausting
efforts. Indeed, that is how it is. good, then again, of course, these
opportunities are in accord ^jth. the general situation in so far as they are
never made use Of. But why then are they never made use of? I ask time
and again.' K. did not know why; he did certainly realize that what giirgel
was talking about probably concerned him closely, but jjC now felt a
great dislike of everything that concerned him, he shifted his head a little
to one side as though in this manner he were making way for Burgel's
questions and could no longer be touched by them. 'It is,' Biirgel
continued, stretching his arms and yawning, which was in bewildering
contradiction to the gravity of his words, 'it is a constant complaint of the
secretaries that they are compelled to carry out most of the village
interrogations by night. But why do they complain of this? Because it is
too strenuous for them? Because they would rather spend the night
sleeping? No, that is certainly not what they complain of. Among the
secretaries there are of course those who are hardworking and those who
are less hard-working, as everywhere; but none of them complains of
excessive exertion, and least of all in public. That is simply not our way.
In this respect we make no distinction between ordinary time and
working time. Such distinctions are alien to us. But what then have the
secretaries got against the night interrogations? Is it perhaps consideration
for the applicants? No, no, it is not that either. Where the applicants are
concerned the secretaries are ruthless, admittedly not a jot more ruthless
than towards themselves, but merely precisely as ruthless. Actually this
ruthlessness is, when you come to think of it, nothing but a rigid
obedience to and execution of their duty, the greatest consideration that
the applicants can really wish for. And this is at bottom - granted, a
superficial observer does not notice this - completely recognized; indeed,
it is, for instance in this case, precisely the night interrogations that are
welcomed by the applicants, no objections in Principle come in regarding
the night interrogations. Why nevertheless the secretaries' dislike?' This K.
did not know , he knew so little, he could not even distinguish where 245
Burgel was seriously or only apparently expecting an answer you let me
lie down in your bed," he thought, "I shall answ all your questions for you
at noon to-morrow or, better still tomorrow evening." But Burgel did not
seem to be paying attention to him, he was far too much occupied with
the que/ tion that he had put to himself: 'So far as I can see and so ar as
my own experience takes me, the secretaries have the follow ing qualms
regarding the night interrogations: the night is suitable for negotiations
with applicants for the reason that by night it is difficult or positively
impossible completely to preserve the official character of the
negotiations. This is not a matter of externals, the forms can of course, if
desired, be just as strictly observed by night as by day. So it is not that, on
die other hand the official power of judgement suffers at night One tends
in. voluntarily to judge things from a more private point of view at night,
the allegations of the applicants take on more weight than is due to them,
the judgement of the case becomes adulterated with quite irrelevant
considerations of the rest of the applicants' situation, their sufferings and
anxieties, the necessary barrier between the applicants and the officials,
even though externally it may be impeccably maintained, weakens, and
where otherwise, as is proper, only questions and answers are exchanged,
what sometimes seems to take place is an odd, wholly unsuitable
changing of places between the persons. This at least is what the
secretaries say, and they are of course the people who, through their
vocation, are endowed with a quite extraordinary subtlety of feeling in
such matters. But even they - and this has often been discussed hi our
circles - notice little of those unfavourable influences during the night
interrogations; on the contrary, they exert themselves right from the
beginning to counteract them and end up by believing they have achieved
quite particularly good results. If, however, one reads the records through
afterwards one is often amazed at their obvious and glaring weaknesses.
And these are defects, and, what is more, ever and again mean
half-unjustified gains for the applicants, which at least according to our
regulations cannot be repaired by the usual direct method. Quite certainly
they will at some later time be corrected by a control-officer, but this will
246
Ojily profit the law, but will not be able to damage that applicant more.
Are the complaints of the secretaries under such circUmstances not
thoroughly justified?' K. had already spent a jjttle while sunk in half-sleep,
but now he was roused again. "Why all this? Why all this?" he wondered,
and from under lowered eyelids considered Biirgel not like an official
discussing difficult questions with him, but only like something that was
preventing him from sleeping and whose further meaning he could not
discover. But Burgel, wholly abandoned to the pursuit of his thoughts,
smiled, as though he had just succeeded in misleading K. a little. Yet he
was prepared to bring him back on to the right road immediately. 'Well,'
he said, 'on the other hand one cannot simply go and call these complaints
quite justified, either. The night interrogations are, indeed, nowhere
actually prescribed by the regulations, so one is not offending against any
regulation if one tries to avoid them, but conditions, the excess of work,
the way the officials arc occupied in the Castle, how indispensable they
are, the regulation that the interrogation of applicants is to take place only
after the final conclusion of all the rest of the investigation, but then
instantly, all this and much else has after all made the night interrogations
an indispensable necessity. But if now they have become a necessity-this
is what I say-this is nevertheless also, at least indirectly, a result of the
regulations, and to find fault with the nature of the night interrogations
would then almost mean -1 am, of course, exaggerating a litde, and only
since it is an exaggeration can I utter it, as such-would then indeed mean
finding fault with the regulations. 'On the other hand it may be conceded
to the secretaries that they should try as best they can to safeguard
themselves, within the terms of the regulations, against the night
interrogations and their perhaps only apparent disadvantages. This is in
fact what they do, and indeed to the greatest extent. They permit only
subjects of negotiation from which there is in every sense as litde as
possible to be feared, test themselves closely prior to negotiations and, if
the result of the test demands it, even at the very last moment cancel all
examinations, strengthen their hand by summoning an applicant often as
many as ten times 247
before really dealing with him, have a liking for sending a!0 - to deputize
for them colleagues who are not competent to dJj with the given case and
who can, therefore, handle it w:ti greater ease, schedule the negotiations
at least for the beginnin or the end of the night, avoiding the middle hours,
there ar many more such measures, the secretaries are not the people to
let anyone get the better of them so easily, they are almost a resilient as
they are vulnerable.' K. was asleep, it was not real sleep, he could hear
Burgel's words perhaps better than during his former dead-tired state of
waking, word after word struck his ear, but the tiresome consciousness
had gone, he felt free it was no longer Biirgel who held him, only he still
sometimes groped towards Biirgel, he was not yet in the depths of sleep
but immersed in it he certainly was. No one should deprive him of that
now. And it seemed to him as though with this he had achieved a great
victory and already there was a party of people there to celebrate it, and
he or perhaps someone else raised the champagne glass in honour of this
victory. And so that all should know what it was all about the fight and
the victory were repeated once again or perhaps not repeated at all, but
only took place now and had already been celebrated earlier and there
was no leaving off celebrating it, because fortunately the outcome was
certain. A secretary, naked, very like the statue of a Greek god, was hard
pressed by K. in the fight. It was very funny and K. in his sleep smiled
gently about how the secretary was time and again startled out of his
proud attitude by K,'s assaults and would hastily have to use his raised
arm and clenched fist to cover unguarded parts of his body and yet was
always too slow in doing so. The fight did not last long; step for step, and
they were very big steps, K. advanced. Was it a fight at all? There was no
serious obstacle, only now and then a squeak from the secretary. This
Greek god squeaked like a girl being tickled. And finally he was gone, K.
was alone in the large room, ready for battle he turned round, looking for
his opponent; but there was no longer anyone there, the company had also
scattered, only the champagne glass lay broken on the floor. K. trampled
it to smithereens. But the splinters pricked him, with a start he woke once
again, he felt sick, like a small 248
being woken up. Nevertheless, at the sight of BurgeFs chest a thought
that was part of his dream brushed his awareness: Here you have your
Greek god 1 Go on, haul him oUt of bed! 'There is, however,' Biirgel said,
his face thoughtfully tilted towards the ceiling, as though he were
searching his memory for examples, but without being able to find any,
'there js however, nevertheless, in spite of all precautionary measures, a
vvay in which it is possible for the applicants to exploit this nocturnal
weakness of the secretaries - always assuming that it is a weakness - to
their own advantage. Admittedly, a very rare possibility, or, rather, one
that almost never occurs. It consists in the applicant's coming
unannounced in the middle of the night. You marvel, perhaps, that this,
although it seems to be so obvious, should happen so very seldom. Well,
yes, you are not familiar with conditions here. But even you must, I
suppose, have been struck by the foolproofness of the official
organization. Now from this foolproofness it does result that everyone
who has any petition or who must be interrogated in any matter for other
reasons, instantly, without delay, usually indeed even before he has
worked the matter out for himself, more, indeed, even before he himself
knows of it, has already received the summons. He is not yet questioned
this time, usually not yet questioned, the matter has usually not yet
reached that stage, but he has the summons, he can no longer come
unannounced, at best he can come at the wrong time, well, then all that
happens is that his attention is drawn to the date and the hour of the
summons, and if he then comes back at the right time he is as a rule sent
away, that no longer causes any difficulty; having the summons in the
applicant's hand and the case noted in the files are, it is true, not always
adequate, but, nevertheless, powerful defensive weapons for the
secretaries. This refers admittedly only to the secretary in whose
competence the matter happens to lie; it would still, of course, be open to
everyone to approach the others in the night, taking them by surprise. Yet
this is something scarcely anyone will do, it is almost senseless. First of
all it would mean greatly annoying the competent secretary. We
secretaries are, it is true, by no means jealous of each other with regard to
work, as everyone carries far too great a 249
burden of work, a burden that is piled on him truly stint, but in dealing
with the applicants we simply must n tolerate any interference with our
sphere of competence. an a one before now has lost the game because,
thinking he would not be making progress with the competent authority,
he tried to slip through by approaching some other, one not competent
Such attempts must, besides, fail also because of the fact that a
non-competent secretary, even when he is taken unawares at dead of night
and has die best will to help, precisely as a consequence of his
non-competence can scarcely intervene any more effectively than the next
best lawyer, indeed at bottom much less so, for what he lacks, of
course-even if otherwise he could do something, since after all he knows
the secret paths of the law better than all these legal gentry - concerning
things with regard to which he is not competent, what he lacks is quite
simply time, he hasn't a moment to spare for it. So who then, the
prospects being such, would spend his nights playing the non-competent
secretary? Indeed, the applicants are in any case fully occupied if, besides
carrying out their normal duties, they wish to respond to the summonses
and hints from the competent authorities, "fully occupied" that is to say in
the sense in which it concerns the applicants, which is, of course, far from
being the same as "fully occupied" in the sense in which it concerns the
secretaries.' K. nodded, smiling, he believed he now understood
everything perfectly; not because it concerned him, but because he was
now convinced he would fall fast asleep in the next few minutes, this time
without dreaming or being disturbed; between the competent secretaries
on the one hand and the non-competent on the other, and confronted with
the crowd of fully occupied applicants, he would sink into deep sleep and
in this way escape everything. Burgel's quiet, self-satisfied voice, which
was obviously doing its best to put its owner to sleep, was something he
had now become so used to that it would do more to put him to sleep than
to disturb him. "Clatter, mill, clatter on and on," he thought, "you clatter
just for me." 'Where then, now,' Biirgcl said, fidgeting at his underlip with
two fingers, with widened eyes, craning neck, rather as though after a
strenU' ous long walk he were approaching a delightful view, 'where 250
nw is that previously mentioned, rare possibility that never occurs? The
secret lies in the regulations regardjug competence. The fact is things are
not so constituted, and ;0 such a large living organization cannot be so
constituted, that jjjere is only one definite secretary competent to deal
with each case. It is rather that one is competent above all others, but
jpaJiy others are in certain respects, even though to a smaller degree* also
competent. Who, even if he were the hardest of Corkers, could keep
together on his desk, single-handed, all the aspects of even the most
minor incident? Even what I have been saying about the competence
above all others is saying too much. for is not the whole competence
contained even in the smallest? Is not what is decisive here the passion
with which the case is tackled? And is this not always the same, always
present in full intensity? In all things there may be distinctions among the
secretaries, and there are countless such distinctions, but not in the
passion; none of them will be able to restrain himself if it is demanded of
him that he shall concern himself with a case in regard to which he is
competent if only in the smallest degree. Outwardly, indeed, an orderly
mode of negotiation must be established, and so it comes about that a
particular secretary comes into the foreground for each applicant, one
they have, officially, to keep to. This, however, does not even need to be
the one who is in the highest degree competent in regard to the case, what
is decisive here is the organization and its particular needs of the moment.
That is the general situation. And now, Land Surveyor, consider the
possibility that through some circumstances or other, in spite of the
obstacles already described to you, which are in general quite sufficient,
an applicant does nevertheless, in the middle of the night, surprise a
secretary who has a certain degree of competence with regard to the given
case. I dare say you have never thought of such a possibility? I am quite
prepared to believe it. Nor is it at all necessary to think of that for it does,
after all, practically never occur. What sort of and quite specially
constituted, small, skilful grain would *uch an applicant have to be in
order to slip through the incomparable sieve? You think it cannot happen
at all? You are it cannot happen at all. But some night-for who can 251
vouch for everything?-it does happen. Admittedly, I don't know anyone
among my acquaintances to whom it has ever happened, well, it is true
that proves very little, the circle of those acquaintances is restricted in
comparison to the number involved here, and besides it is by no means
certain that a secretary t whom such a thing has happened will admit it,
since it is, after all, a very personal affair and one that in a sense gravely
touches the official sense of shame. Nevertheless my experience does
perhaps prove that what we are concerned with is a matter so rare,
actually only existing by way of rumour, not confirmed by anything else
at all, that there is, therefore, really no need to be afraid of it. Even if it
were really to happen, one can - one would think - positively render it
harmless by proving to it, which is very easy, that there is no room for it
in this world. In any case it is morbid to be so afraid of it that one hides,
say, under the quilt and does not dare to peep out. And even if this perfect
improbability should suddenly have taken on shape, is then everything
lost? On the contrary. That everything should be lost is yet more
improbable than the most improbable thing itself. Granted, if the
applicant is actually in the room things are in a very bad way. It constricts
the heart. "How long will you be able to put up resistance?" one wonders.
But it will be no resistance at all, one knows that. You must only picture
the situation correctly. The never-beheld, always-expected applicant, truly
thirstingly expected and always reasonably regarded as out of reach-there
this applicant sits. By his mute presence, if by nothing else, he constitutes
an invitation to penetrate into his poor life, to look around there as in
one's own property and there to suffer with him under the weight of his
futile demands. This invitation in the silent night is beguiling. One gives
way to it, and now one has actually ceased to function in one's official
capacity. It is a situation in which it very soon becomes impossible to
refuse to do a favour. To put it precisely, one is desperate; to put it still
more precisely, one is very happy. for the defenceless position in which
one sits here waiting for the applicant to utter his plea and knowing that
once it is uttered one must grant it, even if, at least in so far as one has
oneself a general view of the situation, it positively tears 252
the official organization to shreds: this is, I suppose, the worst thing that
can happen to one in the fulfilment of one's duties, /^bove all-apart from
everything else-because it is also a promotion, one surpassing all
conceptions, that one here for the pioment usurps. For it is inherent in our
position that we are 0ot empowered to grant pleas such as that with which
we are here concerned, yet through the proximity of this nocturnal
applicant our official powers do in a manner of speaking grow, v?e pledge
ourselves to do things that are outside our scope; indeed, we shall even
fulfil our pledges. The applicant wrings from us in the night, as the robber
does in the forest, sacrifices of which we should odierwise never be
capable; well, all right, that is the way it is now when the applicant is still
there, strengthening us and compelling us and spurring us on, and while
everything is still half unconsciously under way; but how it will be
afterwards, when it is all over, when, sated and carefree, the applicant
leaves us and there we are, alone, defenceless in the face of our misuse of
official power - that does not bear thinking of 1 Nevertheless, we are
happy. How suicidal happiness can be! We might, of course, exert
ourselves to conceal the true position from the applicant. He himself will
scarcely notice anything of his own accord. He has, after all, in his own
opinion probably only for some indifferent, accidental reasons -being
overtired, disappointed, ruthless and indifferent from over-fatigue and
disappointment - pushed his way into a room other than the one he
wanted to enter, he sits there in ignorance, occupied with his thoughts, if
he is occupied at all, with his mistake or with his fatigue. Could one not
leave him in that situation? One cannot. With the loquacity of those who
are happy one has to explain everything to him. Without being able to
spare oneself in the slightest one must show him in detail what has
happened and for what reasons this has happened, how extraordinarily
rare and how uniquely great the opportunity is, one must show how the
applicant, though he has stumbled into this opportunity in utter
helplessness such as no other being is capable of than precisely an
applicant, can, however, now, if he wants to, Land Surveyor, dominate
everything and to that end has to do nodiing but in some way or other 253
put forward his plea, for which fulfilment is already what which indeed it
is already coming to meet, all this one tn show; it is the official's hour of
travail. But when one has do even that, then, Land Surveyor, all that is
essential has bee done, then one must resign oneself and wait, K. was
asleep, impervious to all that was happening, his head, which had at first
been lying on his left arm on top Of the bedpost, had slid down as he
slept and now hung unsupported, slowly dropping lower; the support of
the arm above was no longer sufficient; involuntarily K. provided himself
with new support by planting his right hand firmly against the foot of the
bed whereby he accidentally took hold of Burgel's foot, which happened
to be sticking up under the quilt. Biirgel looked down and abandoned the
foot to him, tiresome though this might be. Now there came some
vigorous knocking on the partition wall. K. started up and looked at the
wall. 'Isn't the Land Surveyor there?' a voice asked. 'Yes, Biirgel said,
freed his foot from K.'s hold and suddenly stretched wildly and wantonly
like a little boy. 'Then tell him it's high time for him to come over here,'
the voice continued; there was no consideration shown for Biirgel or for
whether he might still require K.'s presence. 'It's Erlanger,' Biirgel said in
a whisper, seeming not at all surprised that Erlanger was in the next room.
'Go to him at once, he's already annoyed, try to conciliate him. He's a
sound sleeper; but still, we have been talking too loudly; one cannot
control oneself and one's voice when one is speaking of certain things.
Well, go along now, you don't seem able to shake yourself out of your
sleep. Go along, what are you still doing here? No, you don't need to
apologize for being sleepy, why should you? One's physical energies last
only to a certain limit. Who can help the fact that precisely this limit is
significant in other ways too? No, nobody can help it That is how the
world itself corrects the deviations in its course and maintains the balance.
This is indeed an excellent, time and again unimaginably excellent
arrangement, even if in other respects dismal and cheerless. Well, go
along, I don't know why you look at me like that. If you delay much
longer Erlanger will be down on roe, and that is something I should very
much like to avoid. GO 254
along now. Who knows what awaits you over there? Everything Lcre is
full of opportunities, after all. Only there are, of course, Opportunities
that are, in a manner of speaking, too great to be ,Bade use of, there are
things that are wrecked on nothing but themselves. Yes, that is
astonishing. For the rest, I hope I shall Oow be able to get to sleep for a
while after all. Of course, it is five o'clock by now and the noise will soon
be beginning. If ou would only go 1' Stunned by suddenly being woken
up out of deep sleep, still boundlessly in need of sleep, his body aching
all over from having been in such an uncomfortable position, K. could for
a long time not bring himself to stand up, but held his forehead and
looked down at his lap. Even Biirgel's continual dismissals would not
have been able to make him go, it was only a sense of the utter
uselessness of staying any longer in this room that slowly brought him to
it. How indescribably dreary this room seemed to him. Whether it had
become so or had been so all the time, he did not know. Here he would
not even succeed in going to sleep again. This conviction was indeed the
decisive factor; smiling a little at this, he rose supporting himself
wherever he found any support, on the bed, on the wall, on the door, and,
as though he had long ago taken leave of Biirgel, left without saying
good-bye. PROBABLY he would have walked past Erlanger's room just
as indifferently if Erlanger had not been standing in the open door,
beckoning to him. One short sign with the forefinger. Erlanger was
already completely dressed to go out, he wore a black fur coat with a tight
collar buttoned up high. A servant was just handing him his gloves and
was still holding a fur cap. 'You should have come long ago,' Erlanger
said. K. tried to apologize. Wearily shutting his eyes, Erlanger indkated
that ne was not interested in hearing apologies. 'The matter is as follows,'
he said. 'Formerly a certain Frieda was employed in toe taproom; I only
know her name, I don't know the girl herself, she is no concern of mine.
This Frieda sometimes served 255
Klamm with beer. Now there seems to be another girl Well, this change is,
of course, probably of no importance anyone, and quite certainly of none
to Klamm. But the bigg*,, a job is, and Klamm's job is, of course, the
biggest, the U strength is left over for protecting oneself against the
extern l world, and as a result any unimportant alteration in the most
unimportant things can be a serious disturbance. The smallest alteration
on the writing-desk, the removal of a duty spot that has been there ever
since anyone can remember, all this can be disturbing, and so, in the same
way, can a new barmaid. Well of course, all of this, even if it would
disturb anyone else and in any given job, does not disturb Klamm; that is
quite out of the question. Nevertheless we are obliged to keep such a
watch over Klamm's comfort that we remove even disturbances that are
not such for him-and probably there are none whatsoever for him-if they
strike us as being possible disturbances. It is not for his sake, it is not for
the sake of his work, that we remove these disturbances, but for our sake,
for the sake of our conscience and our peace of mind. For this reason this
Frieda must at once return to the taproom. Perhaps she will be disturbing
precisely through the fact of her return; well, then we shall send her away
again, but, for the time being, she must return. You are living with her, as
I am told, therefore arrange immediately for her return. In this no
consideration can be given to personal feelings, that goes without saying,
of course, hence I shall not enter into the least further discussion of the
matter. I am already doing much more than is necessary if I mention that
if you show yourself reliable in this trivial affair it may on some occasion
be of use to you in improving your prospects. That is all I have to say to
you.' He gave K. a nod of dismissal, put on the fur cap handed to him by
the servant, and, followed by the servant, went down the passage, rapidly,
but limping a little. Sometimes orders that were given here were very
easy to carry out, but this case did not please K. Not only because the
order affected Frieda and, though intended as an order, sounded to K. like
scornful laughter, but above all because what it confronted K. with was
the futility of all his endeavours 256
orders, the unfavourable and the favourable, disregarded him, and even
the most favourable probably had an ultimate unfavourable core, but in
any case they all disregarded him, and he was in much too lowly a
position to be able to intervene or, far less, to silence them and to gain a
hearing for his own voice. If Erlanger waves you off, what are you going
to do? And if he were not to wave you off, what could you say to him?
True, 1C. remained aware that his weariness had to-day done him more
harm than all the unfavourableness of circumstances, but why could he,
who had believed he could rely on his body and who would never have
started out on his way without that conviction, why could he not endure a
few bad nights and one sleepless night, why did he become so
unmanageably tired precisely here where nobody was tired or, rather,
where everyone was tired all the time, without this, however, doing any
damage to the work, indeed, even seeming to promote it? The conclusion
to be drawn from this was that this was in its way a quite different sort of
fatigue from K.'s. Here it was doubtless fatigue amid happy work,
something that outwardly looked like fatigue and was actually
indestructable repose, indestructable peace. If one is a little tired at noon,
that is part of the happy natural course of the day. 'For the gentlemen here
it is always noon,' K. said to himself. And it was very much in keeping
with this that now, at five o'clock, things were beginning to stir
everywhere on each side of the passage. This babel of voices in the rooms
had something extremely merry about it. Once it sounded like the
jubilation of children getting ready for a picnic, another time like
daybreak in a hen-roost, like the joy of being in complete accord with the
awakening day. Somewhere indeed a gentleman imitated the crowing of a
cock. Though the passage itself was still empty, the doors were already in
motion, time and again one would be opened a little and quickly shut
again, the passage buzzed with this opening and shutting of doors, now
and then, too, in the space above the partition walls, which did not quite
reach to the ceiling, K. saw towsled early-morning heads appear and
instantly vanish again. From far off there slowly came a little barrow
pushed by a servant, containing files. A second
servant walked beside it, with a catalogue in his hand, obviously
comparing the numbers on the doors with those on the file. The little
barrow stopped outside most of the doors, usually then, too, the door
would open and the appropriate riles, sometimes, however, only a small
sheet of paper-in such cases a little conversation came about between the
room and the passage, probably the servant was being reproached - would
be handed into the room. If the door remained shut, the files were
carefully piled up on the threshold. In such cases it seemed to K. as
though the movement of the doors round about did not diminish, even
though there the files had already been distributed, but as though it were
on the contrary increasing. Perhaps the others were yearningly peering
out at the files incomprehensibly left lying on the threshold, they could
not understand how anyone should only need to open the door in order to
gain possession of his files and yet should not do so; perhaps it was even
possible that files that were never picked up at all might later be
distributed among the other gentlemen, who were even now seeking to
make sure, by frequent peering out, whether the files were still lying on
the threshold and whether there was thus still hope for them. Incidentally,
these files that remained lying were for the Tiost part particularly big
bundles; and K. assumed that they had been temporarily left lying out of a
certain desire to boast or out of malice or even out of justifiable pride that
would be stimulating to colleagues. What strengthened him in this
assumption was the fact that sometimes, always when he happened not to
be looking, the bag, having been exposed to view for long enough, was
suddenly and hastily pulled into the room and the door then remained as
motionless as before, the doors round about then also became quiet again,
disappointed or, it might be, content that this object of constant
provocation had at last been removed, but then, however, they gradually
came into motion again. K. considered All this not only with curiosity but
also with sympathy. He almost enjoyed the feeling of being in the midst
of this bustle, looked this way and that, folio wing-even though at an
appropriate distance-the servants, who, admittedly, had already more than
once turned towards him with a severe 258
glance, with lowered head and pursed lips, while he watched their work
of distribution. The further it progressed the less smoothly it went, either
the catalogue was not quite correct, of the files were not always clearly
identifiable for the servants, or the gentlemen were raising objections for
other reasons; at any rate it would happen that some of the distributions
had to be withdrawn, then the little barrow moved back, and through the
chink of the door negotiations were conducted about the return of files.
These negotiations in themselves caused great difficulties, but it
happened frequently enough that if it was a matter of return precisely
those doors that had earlier on been in the most lively motion now
remained inexorably shut, as though they did not wish to know anything
more about the matter at all. Only then did the actual difficulties begin.
He who believed he had a claim to the files became extremely impatient,
made a great din inside his room, clapping his hands, stamping his feet,
ever and again shouting a particular file-number out into the passage
through the chink of the door. Then the little barrow was often left quite
unattended. The one servant was busy trying to appease the impatient
official, the other was outside the shut door battling for the return. Both
had a hard time of it. The impatient official was often made still more
impatient by the attempts to appease him, he could no longer endure
listening to the servant's empty words, he did not want consolation, he
wanted files; such a gentleman once poured the contents of a whole
wash-basin through the gap at the top, on to the servant. But the other
servant, obviously the higher in rank, was having a much harder time of it
If the gentleman concerned at all deigned to enter into negotiations, there
were matter-of-fact discussions during which the servant referred to his
catalogue, the gentleman to his notes and to precisely those files that he
was supposed to return, which for the time being, however, he clutched
tightly in his hand, so that scarcely a corner of them remained visible to
the servant's longing eyes. Then, too, the servant would have to run back
for fresh evidence to the little barrow, which had by itself rolled a little
further along the slightly sloping passage, or he would have to go to the
gentleman claiming the files and there report the objections raised by 259
the gentleman now in possession, receiving in return fresh
counter-objections. Such negotiations lasted a very long time sometimes
agreement was reached, the gentleman would haps hand over part of the
files or get other files as compensation, since all that had happened was
that a mistake had been made; but it also happened sometimes that
someone simply had to abandon all the files demanded, either because he
had been driven into a corner by the servant's evidence or because he was
tired of the prolonged bargaining, but then he did not give the files to the
servant, but with sudden resolution flung them out into the passage, so
that the strings came undone and the papers flew about and the servants
had a great deal of trouble getting everything straight again. But all this
was still relatively simple compared with what happened when the
servant got no answer at all to his pleading for the return of the files.
Then he would stand outside the closed door, begging, imploring, citing
his catalogue, referring to regulations, all in vain, no sound came from
inside the room, and to go in without permission was obviously
something the servant had no right to do. Then even this excellent servant
would sometimes lose his self-control, he would go to his barrow, sit
down on the files, wipe the sweat from his brow, and for a little while do
nothing at all but sit there helplessly swinging his feet. All round there
was very great interest in the affair, everywhere there was whispering
going on, scarcely any door was quiet, and up above at the top of the
partition wall faces queerly masked almost to the eyes with scarves and
kerchiefs, though for the rest never for an instant remaining quiet in one
place, watched all that was going on. In the midst of this unrest K. had
been struck by the fact that Bib-gel's door had remained shut the whole
time and that the servant had already passed along this part of the passage,
but no files had been allotted to Biirgel. Perhaps he was still asleep,
which would indeed, in all this din, have indicated that he was a very
sound sleeper, but why had he not received any files? Only very few
rooms, and these probably unoccupied ones, had been passed over in this
manner. On the other hand there was already a new and particularly
restless occupant of Erlanger's room, Erlanger must positively have been
driven out in the night by 260
him, this was not much in keeping with Erlanger's cool, distant nature,
but the fact that he had had to wait on the threshold for K.. did after all
indicate that it was so. Ever and again K. would then soon return from all
distracting observations to watching the servant; truly, what K. had
otherwise been told about servants in general, about their slackness, their
easy life, their arrogance, did not apply to this servant, there were
doubtless exceptions among the servants too or, what was more probable,
various groups among them, for here, as K.. noticed, there were many
nuances of which he had up to now scarcely had as much as a glimpse.
What he particularly liked was this servant's inexorability. In his struggle
with these stubborn little rooms - to K. it often seemed to be a struggle
with the rooms, since he scarcely ever caught sight of the occupants - the
servant never gave up. His strength did sometimes fail - whose strength
would not have failed? - but he soon recovered, slipped down from the
little barrow and, holding himself straight, clenching his teeth, returned to
the attack against the door diat had to be conquered. And it would
happen'that he would be beaten back twice or three times, and that in a
very simple way, solely by means of that confounded silence, and
nevertheless was still not defeated. Seeing that he could not achieve
anything by frontal assault, he would try another method, for instance, if
K. understood righdy, cunning. He would then seemingly abandon the
door, so to speak allowing it to exhaust its own taciturnity, turned his
attention to other doors, after a while returned, called the other servant,
all this ostentatiously and noisily, and began piling up Hies on the
threshold of the shut door, as though he had changed his mind, and as
though there were no justification for taking anything away from this
gentleman, but, on the contrary, something to be allotted to him. Then he
would walk on, still, however, keeping an eye on the door, and then when
the gentleman, as usually happened, soon cautiously opened the door in
order to pull the files inside, in a few leaps the servant was there, thrust
his foot between the door and the doorpost, so forcing the gentleman at
least to negotiate with him face to face, which then usually led after all to
a more or less satisfactory result. And if this method 261
was not successful or if at one door this seemed to him not the right
approach, he would try another method. He would then transfer his
attention to the gendeman who was claiming the files. Then he pushed
aside the other servant, who worked always only in a mechanical way, a
fairly useless assistant to him, and himself began talking persuasively to
the gentleman, whisperingly, furtively, pushing his head right round the
door, probably making promises to him and assuring him that at the next
distribution the other gentleman would be appropriately punished, at any
rate he would often point towards the opponent's door and laugh, in as far
as his fatigue allowed. Then, however, there were cases, one or two, when
he did abandon all attempts, but even here K. believed that it was only an
apparent abandonment or at least an abandonment for justifiable reasons,
for he quietly walked on, tolerating, without glancing round, the din made
by the wronged gentleman, only an occasional, more prolonged closing of
the eyes indicating that the din was painful to him. Yet then the gentleman
would gradually quieten down, and just as a child's ceaseless crying
gradually passes into ever less frequent single sobs, so it was also with his
outcry; but even after it had become quite quiet there, there would,
nevertheless, sometimes be a single cry or a rapid opening and slamming
of that door. In any case it became apparent that here, too, the servant had
probably acted in exactly the right way. Finally there remained only one
gentleman who would not quieten down, he would be silent for a long
period, but only in order to gather strength, then he would burst out again,
no less furiously than before. It was not quite clear why he shouted and
complained in this way, perhaps it was not about the distribution of files
at all. Meanwhile the servant had finished his work; only one single file,
actually only a little piece of paper, a leaf from a note-pad, was left in the
little barrow, through his helper's fault, and now they did not know whom
to allot it to. "That might very well be my file," it flashed through K.'s
mind. The Mayor had, after all, constantly spoken of this smallest of
small cases. And, arbitrary and ridiculous though he himself at bottom
regarded his assumption as being, K. tried to get closer to the servant,
who was thoughtfully glancing over the little piece of 262
paper; this was not altogether easy, for the servant ill repaid jC.'s
sympathy, even in the midst of his most strenuous work he had always
still found time to look round at K., angrily or impatiently, with nervous
jerks of his head. Only now, after finishing the distribution, did he seem
to have somewhat forgotten K., as indeed he had altogether become more
indifferent, this being understandable as a result of his great exhaustion,
nor did he give himself much trouble with the little piece of paper,
perhaps not even reading it through, only pretending to do so, and
although here in the passage he would probably have delighted any
occupant of a room by allotting this piece of paper to him, he decided
otherwise, he was now sick and tired of distributing things, with his
forefinger on his lips he gave his companion a sign to be silent, tore - K.
was still far from having reached his side - the piece of paper into shreds
and put the pieces into his pocket. It was probably the first irregularity
that K. had seen in the working of the administration here, admittedly it
was possible that he had misunderstood this too. And even if it was an
irregularity, it was pardonable; under the conditions prevailing here the
servant could not work unerringly, some time the accumulated annoyance,
the accumulated uneasiness, must break out, and if it manifested itself
only in the tearing up of a little piece of paper it was still comparatively
innocent. For the yells of the gentleman who could not be quieted by any
method were still resounding through the passage, and his colleagues,
who in other respects did not adopt a very friendly attitude to each other,
seemed to be wholly of one mind with respect to this uproar; it gradually
began to seem as if the gentleman had taken on the task of making a noise
for all those who simply by calling out to him and nodding their heads
encouraged him to keep it up. But now the servant was no longer paying
any further attention to the master, he had finished his job, he pointed to
the handle of the little barrow, indicating that the other servant should
take hold of it, and so they went away again as they had come, only more
contentedly and so quickly that the little barrow bounced along ahead of
them. Only once did they start and glance back again, when the
gentleman who was ceaselessly screaming and shouting, and outside
whose door 263
K. was now hanging about because he would have liked to dis. cover
what it really was that the gentleman wanted, evidentlfound shouting no
longer adequate, probably had discovered the button of an electric bell
and, doubtless enraptured at being re_ lieved in this way, instead of
shouting now began an uninterrupted ringing of the bell. Hereupon a
great muttering began in the other rooms, which seemed to indicate
approval, the gendeman seemed to be doing something that all would
have liked to do long ago and only for some unknown reason had had to
leave undone. Was it perhaps attendance, perhaps Frieda for whom the
gentleman was ringing? If that was so, he could go on ringing for a long
time. For Frieda was busy wrapping Jeremiah up in wet sheets, and even
supposing he were well again by now, she had no time, for then she was
in his arms. But the ringing of the bell did instantly have an effect. Even
now the landlord of the Herrenhof himself came hastening along from far
off, dressed in black and buttoned up as always; but it was as though he
were forgetful of his dignity, he was in such a hurry; his arms were half
outspread, just as if he had been called on account of some great disaster
and were coming in order to take hold of it and instantly smother it
against his chest, and at every little irregularity in the ringing he seemed
briefly to leap into the air and hurry on faster still. Now his wife also
appeared, a considerable distance behind him, she too running with
outspread arms, but her steps were short and affected, and K. thought to
himself that she would come too late, the landlord would in the meantime
have done all that was necessary. And in order to make room for the
landlord as he ran K. stood close back against the wall. But the landlord
stopped straight in front of K., as though K. were his goal, and the next
instant the landlady was there too, and both overwhelmed him with
reproaches, which in the suddenness and surprise of it he did not
understand, especially since the ringing of the gentleman's bell was also
mixed up with it and other bells also began ringing, now no longer
indicating a state of emergency, but only for fun and in excess of delight.
Because he was very much concerned to understand exactly what his
fault was, K. was entirely in agreement with the landlord's taking him by
the arm and walk- 264
away with him out of this uproar, which was continually increasing, for
behind them - K. did not turn round at all, because the landlord, and even
more, on the other side, the landlady, was talking to him urgently - the
doors were now opening wide, the passage was becoming animated,
traffic seemed to be beginning there as in a lively narrow little alley, the
doors ahead Of them were evidently waiting impatiently for K. to go past
them at long last so that they could release the gentlemen, and in the
midst of all this, pressed again and again, the bells kept on ringing as
though celebrating a victory. Now at last - they were by now again in the
quiet white courtyard, where some sledges were waiting - K. gradually
learnt what it was all about. Neither the landlord nor the landlady could
understand how K. could have dared to do such a thing. But what had he
done? K. asked time and again, but for a long time could not get any
answer because his guilt was all too much a matter of course to the two of
them and hence it simply did not occur to them that he asked in good
faith. Only very slowly did K. realize how everything stood. He had had
no right to be in the passage; in general it was at best the taproom, and
this only by way of privilege and subject to revocation, to which he had
entry. If he was summoned by one of the gentlemen, he had, of course, to
appear in the place to which he was summoned, but had to remain always
aware - surely he at least had some ordinary common sense? - that he was
in a place where he actually did not belong, a place whither he had only
been summoned by one of the gentlemen, and that with extreme
reluctance and only because it was necessitated by official business. It
was up to him, therefore, to appear quickly, to submit to the interrogation,
then, however, to disappear again, if possible even more quickly. Had he
then not had any feeling at all of the grave impropriety of being there in
the passage? But if he had had it, how had he brought himself to roam
about there like cattle at pasture? Had He not been summoned to attend a
night interrogation and did He not know why the night interrogations had
been introduced? The night interrogations - and here K. was given a new
explanation of their meaning-had after all only the purpose of examining
applicants the sight of whom by day would be 265
able to the gentlemen, and this quickly, at night k light, with the
possibility of, immediately after 'the unendurable artificial interrogation,
forgetting all the ugliness of it in sleep. K.'s behaviour, however, had been
a mockery of precautionary measures. Even ghosts vanish towards
morning, but K. had remained there, his hands in his pockets, as though
he were expecting that, since he did not take himself off, the whole
passage with all the rooms and gentlemen would take itself off And this -
he could be sure of it - would quite certainly have happened if it had been
in any way possible, for the delicacy Of the gentlemen was limitless.
None of them would drive K. away, or even say, what went after all
without saying, that he should at long last go away; none of them would
do that, although during the period of K.'s presence they were probably
trembling with agitation and the morning, their favourite time, was being
ruined for them. Instead of taking any steps against K., they preferred to
suffer, in which, indeed, a certain part was probably played by the hope
that K. would not be able to help gradually, at long last, coming to realize
what was so glaringly obvious and, in accord with the gentlemen's
anguish, would himself begin to suffer, to the point of unendurability,
from his own standing there in the passage in the morning, visible to all,
in that horribly unfitting manner. A vain hope. They did not know or in
their kindness and condescension did not want to admit there also existed
hearts that were insensitive, hard, and not to be softened by any feeling of
reverence. Does not even the nocturnal moth, the poor creature, when day
comes seek out a quiet cranny, flatten itself out there, only wishing it
could vanish and being unhappy because it cannot? K. on the other hand
planted himself precisely where he was most visible, and if by doing so
he had been able to prevent day from breaking, he would have done so.
He could not prevent it, but, alas, he could delay it and make it more
difficult. Had he not watched the distribution of the files? Something that
nobody was allowed to watch except the people most closely involved.
Something that neither the landlord nor his wife had been allowed to see
in their own house. Something of which they had only heard tell and in
allusions, as for instance to-day from the servants. Had he then 266
not noticed under what difficulties the distribution of files had proceeded,
something in itself incomprehensible, since after all each of the
gentlemen served only the cause, never thinking of his personal
advantage and hence being obliged to exert all his powers to seeing that
the distribution of the files, this important, fundamental, preliminary work,
should proceed quickly and easily and without any mistakes? And had K.
then not been even remotely struck by the notion that the main cause of
all the difficulties was the fact that the distribution had had to be carried
out with the doors almost quite shut, without any chance of direct
dealings between the gentlemen, who among each other naturally could
come to an understanding in a twinkling, while the mediation through the
servants inevitably dragged on almost for hours, never could function
smoothly, and was a lasting torment to the gentlemen and the servants
and would probably have damaging consequences in the later work? And
why could the gentlemen not deal with each other? Well, did K. still not
understand? The like of it had never occurred in the experience of the
landlady - and the landlord for his part confirmed this - and they had,
after all, had to deal with many sorts of difficult people. Things that in
general one would not dare to mention in so many words one had to tell
him frankly, for otherwise he would not understand the most essential
things. Well, then, since it had to be said: it was on his account, solely and
exclusively on his account, that the gentlemen had not been able to come
forth out of their rooms, since in the morning, so soon after having been
asleep, they were too bashful, too vulnerable, to be able to expose
themselves to the gaze of strangers; they literally felt, however
completely dressed they might be, too naked to show themselves. It was
admittedly difficult to say why they felt this shame, perhaps these
everlasting workers felt shame merely because they had been asleep. But
what perhaps made them feel even acuter shame than showing themselves
was seeing strangers; what they had successfully disposed of by means of
the night interrogations, namely the sight of the applicants they found so
hard to endure, they did not want now in the morning to have suddenly,
without warning, in all its truth to nature, obtruding itself upon them all
over again. That was 267
the two gentlemen for the first time and had also had to answer their
questions, into the bargain. Everything, so far as he knew had worked out
pretty well, but then that misfortune had occurred, which, after what had
gone before, he could scarcely be blamed for. Unfortunately only
Erlanger and Burgel had realized what a condition he was in and they
would certainly have looked after him and so prevented all the rest, but
Erlanger had had to go away immediately after the interrogation,
evidently in order to drive up to the Castle, and Burgel, probably himself
tired after that interrogation - and how then should K. have been able to
come out of it with his strength unimpaired? - had gone to sleep and had
indeed slept through the whole distribution of Hies. If K. had had a
similar chance he would have been delighted to take it and would gladly
have done without all the prohibited insight into what was going on there,
and this all the more lightheartedly since in reality he had been quite
incapable of seeing anything, for which reason even the most sensitive
gentlemen could have shown themselves before him without
embarrassment The mention of the two interrogations - particularly of
that with Erlanger - and the respect with which K. spoke of the gentlemen
inclined the landlord favourably towards him. He seemed to be prepared
to grant K.'s request to be allowed to lay a board across the barrels and
sleep there at least till dawn, but the landlady was markedly against it,
twitching ineffectively here and there at her dress, the slovenly state of
which she seemed only now to have noticed, she kept on shaking her
head; a quarrel obviously of long standing with regard to the orderliness
of the house was on the point of breaking out afresh. For K. in his
fatigued state the talk between the couple took on exaggeratedly great
significance. To be driven out from here again seemed to him to be a
misfortune surpassing all that had happened to him hitherto. This must
not be allowed to happen, even if the landlord and the landlady should
unite against him. Crumpled up on the barrel, he looked in eager
expectancy at the two of them until the landlady, with her abnormal
touchiness, which had long ago struck K., suddenly stepped aside and
probably she had by now been discussing other things with the 270
landlord -exclaimed: 'How he stares at me I Do send him away now!' But
K., seizing the opportunity and now utterly, almost to the point of
indifference, convinced that he would stay said: I'm not looking at you,
only at your dress.' 'Why my dress?' the landlady asked agitatedly. K.
shrugged his shoulders. 'Come on!' the landlady said to the landlord.
'Don't you see he's drunk, the lout? Leave him here to sleep it off!' and
she even ordered Pepi, who on being called by her emerged out of the
dark, towsled, tired, idly holding a broom in her hand, to throw K. some
sort of a cushion. 2O WHEN K. woke up he at first thought he had hardly
slept at all; the room was as empty and warm as before, all the walls in
darkness, the one bulb over the beer-taps extinguished, and outside the
windows was the night. But when he stretched, and the cushion fell down
and the bed and the barrels creaked, Pepi instantly appeared, and now he
learnt that it was already evening and that he had slept for well over
twelve hours. The landlady had asked after him several times during the
day, and so had Gcrstacker, who had been waiting here in the dark, by the
beer, while K. had been talking to the landlady in the morning, but then
he had not dared to disturb K., had been here once in the meantime to see
how K. was getting on, and finally, so at least it was alleged, Frieda had
also come and had stood for a moment beside K., yet she had scarcely
come on K.'s account but because she had had various things to make
ready here, for in the evening she was to resume her old duties after all. 'I
suppose she doesn't like you any more?' Pepi asked, bringing coffee and
cakes. But she no longer asked it maliciously, in her old way, but sadly, as
though in the meantime she had come to know the malice of the world,
compared with which all one's own malice fails and becomes senseless;
she spoke to K. as to a fellow sufferer, and when he tasted the coffee and
she thought she saw that it was not sweet enough for him, she ran and
brought him the full sugar-bowl. Her sadness had, indeed, 271
not prevented her from tricking herself out to-day if anything even more
than the last time; she wore an abundance of bows and ribbons plaited
into her hair, along her forehead and on her temples the hair had been
carefully curled with the tongs, and round her neck she had a little chain
that hung down into the low-cut opening of her blouse. When, in his
contentment at having at last slept his fill and now being permitted to
drink a good cup of coffee, K. furtively stretched his hand out towards
one of the bows and tried to untie it, Pcpi said wearily: 'Do leave me
alone,' and sat down beside him on a barrel. And K. did not even need to
ask her what was the matter, she at once began telling the story herself,
rigidly staring into K.'s coffeemug, as though she needed some distraction,
even while she was talking, as though she could not quite abandon herself
to her suffering even when she was discussing it, as that would be beyond
her powers. First of all K. learnt that actually he was to blame for Pepi's
misfortunes, but that she did not bear him any grudge. And she nodded
eagerly as she talked, in order to prevent K. from raising any objection.
First he had taken Frieda away from the taproom and thus made Pepi's
rise possible. There was nothing else that could be imagined that could
have brought Frieda to give up her situation, she sat tight there in the
taproom like a spider in its web, with all the threads under her control,
threads of which no one knew but she; it would have been quite
impossible to winkle her out against her will, only love for some lowly
person, that is to say, something that was not in keeping with her position,
could drive her from her place. And Pepi? Had she ever thought of getting
the situation for herself? She was a chambermaid, she had an insignificant
situation with few prospects, she had dreams of a great future like any
other girl, one can't stop oneself from having dreams, but she had never
seriously thought of getting on in the world, she had resigned herself to
staying in the job she had. And now Frieda suddenly vanished from the
taproom, it had happened so suddenly that the landlord had not had a
suitable substitute on hand at the moment, he had looked round and his
glance had fallen on Pepi, who had, admittedly, pushed herself forward in
such a way as to be noticed. At that time she had loved 272
K. as she had never loved anyone before; month after month she had been
down there in her tiny dark room, prepared to spend years there, or, if the
worst came to the worst, to spend her whole life here, ignored by
everyone, and now suddenly K. had appeared, a hero, a rescuer of
maidens in distress, and had opened up the way upstairs for her.
Admittedly he did not know anything about her, he had not done it for her
sake, but that did not diminish her gratitude, in the night preceding her
appointment - the appointment was not yet definite, but still, it was now
very probable - she spent hours talking to him, whispering her thanks in
his ear. And in her eyes it exalted what he had done still more that it
should have been Frieda, of all people, with whom he had burdened
himself; there was something incomprehensibly selfless in his making
Frieda his mistress in order to pave the way for Pepi - Frieda, a plain,
oldish, skinny girl with short, thin hair, a deceitful girl into the bargain,
always having some sort of secret, which was probably connected, after
all, with her appearance; if her wretchedness was glaringly obvious in her
face and figure, she must at least have other secrets that nobody could
inquire into, for instance her alleged affair with Klamm. And even
thoughts like the following had occurred to Pepi at that time: is it possible
that K. really loves Frieda, isn't he deceiving himself or is he perhaps
deceiving only Frieda, and will perhaps the sole outcome of the whole
thing after all be nothing but Pepi's rise in the world, and will K. then
notice the mistake, or not want to cover it up any more, and no longer see
Frieda, but only Pepi, which need not even be a crazy piece of conceit on
Pepi's part, for so far as Frieda was concerned she was a match for her,
one girl against another, which nobody would deny, and it had, after all,
been primarily Frieda's position and the glory that Frieda had been able to
invest it with that had dazzled K. at the moment. And so then Pepi had
dreamed that when she had the position K. would come to her, pleading,
and she would then have the choice of either granting K.'s plea and losing
her situation or of rejecting him and rising further. And she had worked
out for herself that she would renounce everything and lower herself to
him and teach him what true love was, which he would never 273
be able to learn from Frieda and which was independent of jQj positions
of honour in the world. But then everything turned out differently. And
what was to blame for this? Above all, K. and then, of course, Frieda's
artfulness. Above all, K. For what was he after, what sort of strange
person was he? What was he trying to get, what were these important
things that kept him busy and made him forget what was nearest of all,
best of all most beautiful of all? Pepi was the sacrifice and everything
was stupid and everything was lost; and anyone who had the strength to
set fire to the whole Herrenhof and burn it down, burn it to the ground, so
that not a trace of it was left, burn it up like a piece of paper in the stove,
he would to-day be Pepi's chosen love. Well, so Pepi came into the
taproom, four days ago to-day, shortly before lunch-time. The work here
was far from easy, it was almost killingly hard work, but there was a good
deal to be got out of it too. Even previously Pepi had not lived only for
the day, and even if she would never have aspired to this situation even in
her wildest dreams, still, she had made plenty of observations, she knew
what this situation involved, she had not taken on the situation without
being prepared. One could not take it on without being prepared,
otherwise one lost it in the first few hours. Particularly if one were to
behave here the way the chambermaids did 1 As a chambermaid one did
in time come to feel one was quite lost and forgotten; it was like working
down a mine, at least that was the way it was in the secretaries' passage,
for days on end there; except for a few daytime applicants who flitted in
and out without daring to look up one didn't see a soul but two or three
other chambermaids, and they were just as embittered. In the morning
one wasn't allowed to leave the room at all, that was when the secretaries
wished to be alone among themselves, their meals were brought to them
from the kitchen by the men-servants, the chambermaids usually had
nothing to do with that, and during meal-times, too, one was not allowed
to show oneself in the passage. It was only while the gentlemen were
working that the chambermaids were allowed to do the rooms, but
naturally not those that were occupied, only those that happened to be
empty at the time, and the work had to be done quite quietly so that the
gentlemen were
pot disturbed at their work. But how was it possible to do the cleaning
quietly when the gentlemen occupied their rooms for several days on end,
and the men-servants, dirty lot that they were, pottered about there into
the bargain, and when the chambermaid was finally allowed to go into the
room, it was in such a state that not even the Flood could wash it clean?
Truly, they were exalted gentlemen, but one had to make a great effort to
overcome one's disgust so as to be able to clean up after them. It wasn't
that the chambermaids had such a great amount of work, but it was pretty
tough. And never a kind word, never anything but reproaches, in
particular the following, which was the most tormenting and the most
frequent: that files had got lost during the doing of the rooms. In reality
nothing ever got lost, every scrap of paper was handed over to the
landlord, but in fact of course files did get lost, only it happened not to be
the fault of the maids. And then commissions came, and the maids had to
leave their rooms, and the members of the commission rummaged
through the beds, the girls had no possessions, of course, their few things
could be put in a basket, but still, the commission searched for hours all
the same. Naturally they found nothing. How should files come to be
there? What did the maids care about files? But the outcome was always
the same, abuse and threats uttered by the disappointed commission and
passed on by the landlord. And never any peace, neither by day nor by
night, noise going on half through the night and noise again at the crack
of dawn. If at least one didn't have to live in, but one had to, for it was the
chambermaids' job to bring snacks from the kitchen as they might be
ordered, in between times, particularly at night. Always suddenly the first
thumping on the chambermaids' door, the order being dictated, the
running down to the kitchen, shaking the sleeping scullery-lads, the
setting down of the tray with the things ordered outside the
chambermaids' door, from where the men-servants fetched it how sad all
that was. But that was not the worst. The worst was when no order came,
that was to say, when, at dead of night, when everyone ought to be asleep
and most of them really were asleep at last, sometimes a tiptoeing around
began outside the chambermaids' door. Then the girls got out of bed - the
275
bunks were on top of each other, for there was very little space there, the
whole room the maids had being actually nothing more than a large
cupboard with three shelves in it - listened at the door, knelt down, put
their arms round each other in fear And whoever was tiptoeing outside the
door could be heard all the time. They would all be thankful if only he
would come right in and be done with it, but nothing happened, nobody
came in. And at the same time one had to admit to oneself that it need not
necessarily be some danger threatening, perhaps it was only someone
walking up and down outside the door, trying to make up his mind to
order something, and then not being able to bring himself to it after all.
Perhaps that was all it was, but perhaps it was something quite different.
For really one didn't know the gentlemen at all, one had hardly set eyes
on them. Anyway, inside the room the maids were fainting in terror, and
when at last it was quiet again outside they leant against the wall and had
not enough strength left to get back into bed. This was the life that was
waiting for Pepi to return to it, this very evening she was to move back to
her place in the maids' room. And why? Because of K. and Frieda. Back
again into that life she had scarcely escaped from, which she escaped
from, it is true, with K.'s help, but also, of course, through very great
exertions of her own. For in that service there the girls neglected
themselves, even those who were otherwise the most careful and tidy. For
whom should they smarten themselves? Nobody saw them, at best the
staff in die kitchen; anyone for whom that was enough was welcome to
smarten herself. But for the rest they were always in their little room or in
the gentlemen's rooms, which it was madness and a waste so much as to
set foot in with clean clodies on. And always by artificial light and in that
stuffy air - with the heating always on - and actually always tired. The
one free afternoon in the week was best spent sleeping quietly and
without fear in one of the cubby-holes in the kitchen. So what should one
smarten oneself up for? Yes, one scarcely bothered to dress at all. And
now Pepi had suddenly been transferred to the taproom, where, if one
wanted to maintain one's position there, exactly the opposite was
necessary, where one was always in full view of people, and among 276
them very observant gentlemen, used to the best of everything, and where
one therefore always had to look as smart and pleasant as possible. Well,
that was a change. And Pepi could say of herself that she had not failed to
rise to the occasion. Pepi was not worrying about how things would turn
out later. She knew she had the abilities necessary in this situation, she
was quite certain of it, she had this conviction even now and nobody
could take it away from her, not even to-day, on the day of her defeat. The
only difficulty was how she was to stand the test in the very beginning,
because she was, after all, only a poor chambermaid, with nothing to
wear and no jewellery, and because the gentlemen had not the patience to
wait and see how one would develop, but instantly, without transition,
wanted a barmaid of the proper kind, or else they turned away. One
would think they didn't expect so very much since, after all, Frieda could
satisfy them. But that was not right. Pepi had often thought about this, she
had, after all, often been together with Frieda and had for a time even
slept together with her. It wasn't easy to find Frieda out, and anyone who
was not very much on the look-out - and which of the gentlemen was
very much on the look-out, after all? - was at once misled by her. No one
knew better than Frieda herself how miserable her looks were, for
instance when one saw her for the first time with her hair down, one
clasped one's hands in pity, by rights a girl like that shouldn't even be a
chambermaid; and she knew it, too, and many a night she had spent
crying about it, pressing tight against Pepi and laying Pepi's hair round
her own head. But when she was on duty all her doubts vanished, she
thought herself better-looking than anyone, and she had the knack of
getting everyone to think the same. She knew what people were like, and
really that was where her art lay. And she was quick with a lie, and
cheated, so that people didn't have time to get a closer look at her.
Naturally that wouldn't do in the long run, people had eyes in their heads
and sooner or later their eyes would tell them what to think. But the
moment she noticed the danger of that she was ready with another
method, recently, for instance, her affair with Klamm. Her affair with
Klamm I If you don't believe it, you can go and get proof; go to Klamm
and 277
1 ask him. How cunning, how cunning. And if you don't happen to dare to
go to Klamm with an inquiry like that, and perhaps wouldn't be admitted
to him with infinitely more important inquiries, and Klamm is, in fact,
completely inaccessible to you only to you and your sort, for Frieda, for
instance, pops in to see him whenever she likes - if that's how it is, you
can still get proof of the thing, you only need to wait. After all, Klamm
won't be able to tolerate such a false rumour for long, he's certairi to be
very keen to know what stories go round about him in the taproom and in
the public rooms, all this is of the greatest importance to him, and if it's
wrong he will refute it at once. But he doesn't refute it; well, then there is
nothing to be refuted and it is sheer truth. What one sees, indeed, is only
that Frieda takes the beer into Klamm's room and comes out again with
the money; but what one doesn't see Frieda tells one about, and one has to
believe her. And she doesn't even tell it, after all, she's not going to let
such secrets out; no, the secrets let themselves out wherever she goes and,
since they have been let out once and for all, she herself, it is true, no
longer shrinks from talking about them herself, but modestly, without
asserting anything, only referring to what is generally known anyway.
Not to everything. One thing, for instance, she does not speak of, namely
that since she has been in the taproom Klamm drinks less beer than
formerly, not much less, but still perceptibly less beer, and there may
indeed be various reasons for this, it may be that a period has come when
Klamm has less taste for beer or that it is Frieda who causes him to forget
about beer-drinking. Anyway, however amazing it may be, Frieda is
Klamm's mistress. But how should the others not also admire what is
good enough for Klamm? And so, before anyone knows what is
happening, Frieda has turned into a great beauty, a girl of exactly the kind
that the taproom needs; indeed, almost too beautiful, too powerful, even
now the taproom is hardly good enough for her any more. And, in fact, it
does strike people as odd that she is still in the taproom; being a barmaid
is a great deal, and from that point of view the liaison with Klamm seems
very credible, but if the taproom girl has once become Klamm's mistress,
why docs he leave her in the taproom, and so long? Why does he not 178
take her up higher? One can tell people a thousand times that there is no
contradiction here, that Klamm has definite reasons for acting as he does,
or that some day, perhaps even at any moment now, Frieda's elevation
will suddenly come about; all this does not make much impression;
people have definite notions and in the long run will not let themselves be
distracted from them by any talk, however ingenious. Nobody any longer
doubted that Frieda was Klamm's mistress, even those who obviously
knew better were by now too tired to doubt it. "Be Klamm's mistress, and
to hell with it," they thought, "but if you are, we want to see signs of it in
your getting on too." But one saw no signs of it and Frieda stayed in the
taproom as before and secretly was thoroughly glad that things remained
the way they were. But she lost prestige with people, that, of course, she
could not fail to notice, indeed she usually noticed things even before
they existed. A really beautiful, lovable girl, once she has settled down in
the taproom, does not need to display any arts; as long as she is beautiful,
she will remain taproom maid, unless some particularly unfortunate
accident occurs. But a girl like Frieda "must be continually worried about
her situation, naturally she has enough sense not to show it, on the
contrary, she is in the habit of complaining and cursing the situation. But
in secret she keeps a weather-eye open all the time. And so she saw how
people were becoming indifferent, Frieda's appearance on the scene was
no longer anything that made it worth anyone's while even to glance up,
not even the menservants bothered about her any more, they had enough
sense to stick to Olga and girls of that sort, from the landlord's behaviour,
too, she noticed that she was becoming less and less indispensable, one
could not go on for ever inventing new stories about Klamm, everything
has its limits, and so dear Frieda decided to try something new. If anyone
had only been capable of seeing through it immediately! Pepi had sensed
it, but unfortunately she had not seen through it. Frieda decided to cause a
scandal, she, Klamm's mistress, throws herself away on the first comer, if
possible on the lowest of the low. That will make a stir, that will keep
people talking for a long time, and at last, at last, people will remember
what it means to be Klamm's 279
mistress and what it means to throw away this honour in the rapture of a
new love. The only difficulty was to find the suitable man with whom the
clever game could be played. It must not be an acquaintance of Frieda's,
not even one of the men-servants for he would probably have looked at
her askance and have walked on, above all he would not have remained
serious enough about it and for all her ready tongue it would have been
impossible to spread the story that she, Frieda, had been attacked by him,
had not been able to defend herself against him and in an hour when she
did not know what she was doing had submitted to him. And although it
had to be one of the lowest of the low, it nevertheless had to be one of
whom it could be made credible that in spite of his crude, coarse nature
he longed for nobody but Frieda herself and had no loftier desire than
heavens above! - to marry Frieda. But although it had to be a common
man, if possible even lower than a servant, much lower than a servant, yet
it must be one on whose account one would not be laughed to scorn by
every girl, one in whom another girl, a girl of sound judgement, might
also at some time find something attractive. But where does one find such
a man? Another girl would probably have spent her whole life looking for
him. Frieda's luck brought the Land Surveyor into the taproom to her,
perhaps on the very evening when the plan had come into her mind for
the first time. The Land Surveyor 1 Yes, what was K. thinking of? What
special things had he in mind? Was he going to achieve something special?
A good appointment, a distinction? Was he after something of that sort?
Well, then he ought to have set about things differendy from the very
beginning. After all, he was a nonentity, it was heart-rending to see his
situation. He was a Land Surveyor, that was perhaps something, so he had
learnt something, but if one didn't know what to do with it, then again it
was nothing after all. And at the same time he made demands, without
having the slightest backing, made demands not outright, but one noticed
that he was making some sort of demands, and that was, after all,
infuriating. Did he know that even a chambermaid was lowering herself if
she talked to him for any length of time? And with all these special
demands he tumbled headlong into the most 280
obvious trap on the very first evening. Wasn't he ashamed of himself?
What was it about Frieda that he found so alluring? Could she really
appeal to him, that skinny, sallow thing? Ah no, he didn't even look at her,
she only had to tell him she was Klamm's mistress, for him that was still a
novelty, and so he was lost! But now she had to move out, now, of course,
there was no longer any room for her in the Herrenhof. Pepi saw her the
very same morning before she moved out, the staff all came running up,
after all, everyone was curious to see the sight And so great was her
power even then that she was pitied, she was pitied by everyone, even by
her enemies; so correct did her calculations prove to be from the very
start; having thrown herself away on such a man seemed
incomprehensible to everyone and a blow of fate, the little kitchenmaids,
who, of course, admire every barmaid, were inconsolable. Even Pepi was
touched, not even she could remain quite unmoved, even though her
attention was actually focused on something else. She was struck by how
little sad Frieda actually was. After all it was at bottom a dreadful
misfortune that had come upon her, and indeed she was behaving as
though she were very unhappy, but it was not enough, this acting could
not deceive Pepi. So what was it that was keeping her going? Perhaps the
happiness of her new love? Well, this possibility could not be considered.
But what else could it be? What gave her the strength to be as coolly
pleasant as ever even to Pepi, who was already regarded as her successor?
Pepi had not then had the time to think about it, she had had too much to
do getting ready for the new job. She was probably to start on the job in a
few hours and still had not had her hair done nicely, had no smart dress,
no fine underclothes, no decent shoes. All this had to be procured in a few
hours; if one could not equip oneself properly, then it was better to give
up all thought of the situation, for then one was sure of losing it in the
very first half-hour. Well, she succeeded partly. She had a special gift for
hair-dressing, once, indeed, the landlady had sent for her to do her hair, it
was a matter of having a specially light hand, and she had it, of course,
her abundant hair was the sort you could do anything you like with. There
was help forthcoming in the matter of the dress too. Her two colleagues
kept 281
faith with her, it was after all a sort of honour for them, too, if a girl out of
their own group was chosen to be barmaid, and then later on, when she
had come to power, Pepi would have been able to provide them with
many advantages. One of the girls had for a long time been keeping some
expensive material, it was her treasure, she had often let the others admire
it, doubtless dreaming of how some day she would make magnificent use
of it and - this had been really very nice of her - now, when Pepi needed it,
she sacrificed it. And both girls had very willingly helped her with the
sewing, if they had been sewing it for themselves they could not have
been keener. That was indeed a very merry, happy job of work. They sat,
each on her bunk, one over the other, sewing and singing, and handed
each other the finished parts and the accessories, up and down. When
Pepi thought of it, it made her heart ever heavier to think that it was all in
vain and that she was going back to her friends with empty hands 1 What
a misfortune and how frivolously brought about, above all by K. 1 How
pleased they had all been with the dress at that time, it seemed a pledge of
success and when at the last moment it turned out that there was still
room for another ribbon, the last doubt vanished. And was it not really
beautiful, this dress? It was crumpled now and showed some spots, the
fact was, Pepi had no second dress, had to wear this one day and night,
but it could still be seen how beautiful it was, not even that accursed
Barnabas woman could produce a better one. And that one could pull it
tight and loosen it again as one liked, on top and at the bottom, so that
although it was only one dress, it was so changeable - this was a
particular advantage and was actually her invention. Of course it wasn't
so difficult to make clothes for her, Pepi didn't boast of it, there it was -
everything suited young, healthy girls. It was much harder to get hold of
underclothing and boots, and here was where the failure actually began.
Here, too, her girl friends helped out as best they could, but they could
not do much. It was, after all, only coarse underclothing that they got
together and patched up, and instead of high-heeled little boots she had to
make do with slippers, of a kind one would rather hide than show. They
comforted Pepi: after all, Frieda was not dressed so very beautifully either,
and 282
sometimes she went round looking so sluttish that the guests preferred to
be served by the ccllarmen rather than by her. This was in fact so, but
Frieda could afford to do that, she already enjoyed favour and prestige;
when a lady for once makes an appearance looking besmirched and
carelessly dressed, that is all the more alluring - but in the case o a novice
like Pepi? And besides, Frieda could not dress well at all, she was simply
devoid of all taste; if a person happened to have a sallow skin, then, of
course, she must put up with it, but she needn't go around, like Frieda,
wearing a low-cut cream blouse to go with it, so that one's eyes were
dazzled by all that yellow. And even if it hadn't been for that, she was too
mean to dress well; everything she earned, she hung on to, nobody knew
what for. She didn't need any money in her job, she managed by means of
lying and trickery, this was an example Pepi did not want to and could not
imitate, and that was why it was justifiable that she should smarten
herself up like this in order to get herself thoroughly noticed right at the
beginning. Had she only been able to do it by stronger means, she would,
in spite of all Frieda's cunning, in spite of all K.'s foolishness, have been
victorious. After all, it started very well. The few tricks of the trade and
things it was necessary to know she had found out about well beforehand.
She was no sooner in the taproom than she was thoroughly at home there.
Nobody missed Frieda at the job. It was only on the second day that some
guests inquired what had become of Frieda. No mistake was made, the
landlord was satisfied, on the first day he had been so anxious that he
spent all the time in the taproom, later he only came in now and then,
finally, since the money in the till was correct - the takings were on the
average even a little higher than in Frieda's time - he left everything to
Pepi. She introduced innovations. Frieda had even supervised the
men-servants, at least partly, particularly when anyone was looking, and
this not out of keenness for the work, but out of meanness, out of a desire
to dominate, out of fear of letting anyone else invade her rights, Pepi on
the other hand allotted this job entirely to the cellarmen, who, after all,
are much better at it. In this way she had more time left for the private
rooms, the guests got quick service; nevertheless she was able to chat 283
for a moment with everyone, not like Frieda, who allegedly reserved
herself entirely for Klamm and regarded every word every approach, on
the part of anyone else as an insult to Klamm. This was, of course, quite
clever of her, for, if for once she did allow anyone to get near her, it was
an unheard-of favour. Pepi, however, hated such arts, and anyway they
were no use at the beginning. Pepi was kind to everyone and every, one
requited with her kindness. All were visibly glad of the change; when the
gentlemen, tired after their work, were at last free to sit down to their beer
for a little while, one could positively transform them by a word, by a
glance, by a shrug of the shoulders. So eagerly did all hands stroke Pepi's
curls that she had to do her hair again quite ten times a day, no one could
resist the temptation offered by these curls and bows, not even K., who
was otherwise so absent-minded. So exciting days flew past, full of work,
but successful. If only they had not flown past so quickly, if only there
had been a little more of them! Four days were too little even if one
exerted oneself to the point of exhaustion, perhaps the fifth day would
have been enough, but four days were too little. Pepi had, admittedly,
gained wellwishers and friends even in four days, if she had been able to
trust all the glances she caught, when she came along with the beer-mugs,
she positively swam in a sea of friendliness, a clerk by the name of
Bartmeier was crazy about her, gave her this little chain and locket,
putting his picture into the locket, which was, of course, brazen of him;
this and other things had happened, but it had only been four days, in four
days, if Pepi set about it, Frieda could be almost, but still not quite,
forgotten; and yet she would have been forgotten, perhaps even sooner,
had she not seen to it by means of her great scandal that she kept herself
talked about, in this way she had become new to people, they might have
liked to see her again simply for the sake of curiosity; what they had
come to find boring to the point of disgust had, and this was the doing of
the otherwise entirely uninteresting K., come to have charm for them
again) of course they would not have given up Pepi as long as she was
there in front of them and exerting influence by her presence, but they
were mostly elderly gentlemen, slow and heavy in their habits, 284
it took some time for them to get used to a new barmaid, and however
advantageous the exchange might be, it still took a few days, took a few
days against the gentlemen's own will, only five days perhaps, but four
days were not enough, in spite of everything Pepi still counted only as the
temporary barmaid. And then what was perhaps the greatest misfortune:
in these four days, although he had been in the village during the first two,
Klamm did not come down into the saloon. Had he come, that would
have been Pepl's most decisive test, a test, incidentally, that she was least
afraid of, one to which she was more inclined to look forward. She would
- though it is, of course, best not to touch on such things in words at all -
not have become Klamm's mistress, nor would she have promoted herself
to that position by telling lies, but she would have been able to put the
beer-glass on the table at least as nicely as Frieda, have said good-day and
good-bye prettily without Frieda's officiousness, and if Klamm did look
for anything in any girl's eyes at all, he would have found it to his entire
satisfaction in Pepi's eyes. But why did he not come? Was it chance? That
was what Pepi had thought at the time, too. All those two days she had
expected him at any moment, and in the night she waited too. "Now
Klamm is coming," she kept on thinking, and dashed to and fro for no
other reason than the restlessness of expectation and the desire to be the
first to see him, immediately on his entry. This continual disappointment
made her very tired; perhaps that was why she did not get so much as she
could have got done. Whenever she had a little time she crept up into the
passage that the staff was strictly forbidden to enter, there she would
squeeze into a recess and wait. "If only Klamm would come now," she
thought, "if only I could take the gentleman out of his room and carry him
down into the saloon on my arms. I should not collapse under that burden,
however great it might be." But he did not come. In that passage upstairs
it was so quiet that one simply couldn't imagine it if one hadn't been there.
It was so quiet that one couldn't stand being there for very long, the
quietness drove one away. But over and over again: driven away ten
times, ten times again Pepi went up there. It was senseless, of course. If
Klamm wanted to come, he
would come, but if he did not want to come, Pepi would not lure him out,
even if the beating of her heart half suffocated her there in the recess. It
was senseless, but if he did not come, almost everything was senseless.
And he did not come. To-day Pepi knew why Klamm did not come.
Frieda would have found it wonderfully amusing if she had been able to
see Pepi up there in the passage, in the recess, both hands on her heart.
Klamm did not come down because Frieda did not allow it. It was not by
means of her pleading that she brought this about, her pleading did not
penetrate to Klamm. But - spider that she was - she had connexions of
which nobody knew. If Pepi said something to a guest, she said it openly,
the next table could hear it too. Frieda had nothing to say, she put the beer
on the table and went; there was only the rustling of her silk petticoat, the
only thing on which she spent money. But if she did for once say
something, then not openly, then she whispered it to the guest, bending
low so that people at the next table pricked up their ears. What she said
was probably quite trivial, but still, not always, she had connexions, she
supported the ones by means of the others, and if most of them foiled -
who would keep on bothering about Frieda? - still, here and there one did
hold firm. These connexions she now began to exploit. K. gave her the
chance to do this; instead of sitting with her and keeping a watch on her,
he hardly stayed at home at all, wandering, having discussions here and
there, paying attention to everything, only not to Frieda, and finally, in
order to give her still more freedom, he moved out of the Bridge Inn into
the empty school. A very nice beginning for a honeymoon all this was.
Well, Pepi was certainly the last person to reproach K. for not having
been able to stand living with Frieda; nobody could stand living with her.
But why then did he not leave her entirely, why did he time and again
return to her, why did he cause the impression, by his roaming about, that
he was fighting for her cause? It really looked as though it were only
through his contact with Frieda that he had discovered what a nonentity
he in fact was, that he wished to make himself worthy of Frieda, wished
to make his way up somehow, and for that reason was for the time being
sacrificing her company in order to be able later to corn- 286
perisate himself at leisure for these hardships. Meanwhile Frieda was not
wasting her time, she sat tight in the school, where she had probably led
K., and kept the Herrcnhof and K. under observation. She had excellent
messengers at her disposal: K.'s assistants, whom - one couldn't
understand it, even if one knew K. one couldn't understand it - K. left
entirely to her. She sent them to her old friends, reminded people of her
existence, cornplained that she was kept a prisoner by a man like K.,
incited people against Pepi, announced her imminent arrival, begged for
help, implored them to betray nothing to Klamm, behaved as if Klamm's
feelings had to be spared and as if for this reason he must on no account
be allowed to come down into the taproom. What she represented to one
as a way of sparing Klamm's feelings she successfully turned to account
where the landlord was concerned, drawing attention to the fact that
Klamm did not come any more. How could he come when downstairs
there was only a Pepi serving? True, it wasn't the landlord's fault, this
Pepi was after all the best substitute that could be found, only the
substitute wasn't good enough, not even for a few days. All this activity of
Frieda's was something of which K. knew nothing, when he was not
roaming about he was lying at her feet, without an inkling of it, while she
counted the hours still keeping her from the taproom. But this running of
errands was not the only thing the assistants did, they also served to make
K. jealous, to keep him interested in Frieda had known the assistants
since her childhood, they certainly had no secrets from each other now,
but in K.'s honour they were beginning to have a yearning for each other,
and for K. there arose the danger that it would turn out to be a great love.
And K. did everything Frieda wanted, even what was contradictory and
senseless, he let himself be made jealous by the assistants, at the same
time allowing all three to remain together while he went on his
wanderings alone. It was almost as though he were Frieda's third assistant.
And so, on the basis of her observations, Frieda at last decided to make
her great coup: she made up her mind to return. And it was really high
time, it was admirable how Frieda, the cunning creature, recognized and
exploited this fact; this power of observation and this power of 287
decision were Frieda's inimitable art; if Pepi had it, how different the
course of her life would be. If Frieda had stayed one or two days longer in
the school, it would no longer be possible to drive Pepi out, she would be
barmaid once and for all, loved and supported by all, having earned
enough money to replenish her scanty wardrobe in the most dazzling
style, only one or two more days and Klamm could not be kept out of the
saloon by any intrigues any longer, would come, drink, feel comfortable
and, if he noticed Frieda's absence at all, would be highly satisfied with
the change, only one or two more days and Frieda, with her scandal, with
her connexions, with the assistants, with everything, would be utterly and
completely forgotten, never would she come out into the open again.
Then perhaps she would be able to cling all the more tightly to K. and,
assuming that she were capable of it, would really learn to love him? No,
not that either. For it didn't take even K. more than one day to get tired of
her, to recognize how infamously she was deceiving him, with everything,
with her alleged beauty, her alleged constancy, and most of all with
Klamm's alleged love, it would only take him one day more, and no
longer, to chase her out of the house, and together with her the whole
dirty setup with the assistants; just think, it wouldn't take even K. any
longer than that. And now, between these two dangers, when the grave
was positively beginning to close over her - K. in his simplicity was still
keeping the last narrow road open for her - she suddenly bolted. Suddenly
- hardly anyone expected such a thing, it was against nature-suddenly it
was she who drove away K., the man who still loved her and kept on
pursuing her, and, aided by the pressure of her friends and'the assistants,
appeared to the landlord as the rescuer, as a result of the scandal
associated with her much more alluring than formerly, demonstrably
desired by the lowest as by the highest, yet having fallen a prey to the
lowest only for a moment, soon rejecting him as was proper, and again
inaccessible to him and to all others, as formerly; only that formerly all
this was quite properly doubted, whereas now everyone was again
convinced. So she came back, the landlord, with a sidelong glance at Pepi,
hesitated-should he sacrifice her, after she had proved her worth so well?
-but 288
he was soon talked over, there was too much to be said for Frieda, and
above all, of course, she would bring Klamm back to the saloon again.
That is where we stand, this evening. Pepi is not going to wait till Frieda
comes and makes a triumph out of taking over the job. She has already
handed over the till to the landlady, she can go now. The bunk downstairs
in the maids' room is waiting for her, she will come in, welcomed by the
weeping girls, her friends, will tear the dress from her body, the ribbons
from her hair, and stuff it all into a corner where it will be thoroughly
hidden and won't be an unnecessary reminder of times better forgotten.
Then she will take the big pail and the broom, clench her teeth, and set to
work. In the meantime, however, she had to tell K. everything so that he,
who would not have realized this even now without help, might for once
see clearly how horridly he had treated Pepi and how unhappy he had
made her. Admittedly, he, too, had only been made use of and misused in
all this. Pepi had finished. Taking a long breath, she wiped a few tears
from her eyes and cheeks and then looked at K., nodding, as if meaning
to say that at bottom what mattered was not her misfortune at all, she
would bear it all right, for that she needed neither help nor comfort from
anyone at all, least of all from K., even though she was so young she
knew something about life, and her misfortune was only a confirmation
of what she knew already, but what mattered was K., she had wanted to
show him what he himself was like, even after the collapse of all her
hopes she had thought it necessary to do that. 'What a wild imagination
you have, Pepi,' K. said. 'For it isn't true at all that you have discovered
all these things only now; all this is, of course, nothing but dreams out of
that dark, narrow room you chambermaids have downstairs, dreams that
are in their place there, but which look odd here in the freedom of the
taproom. You couldn't maintain your position here with such ideas, that
goes without saying. Even your dress and your way of doing your hair,
which you make such a boast of, are only freaks born of that darkness and
those bunks in your room, there they arc very beautiful, I am sure, but
here everyone laughs at them, secretly or openly. And the rest of your
story? So I 289
have been misused and deceived, have I? No, my dear Pep}, j have nor
been misused and deceived any more than you have. It is true, Frieda has
left me for the present or has, as you put it, run away with one of the
assistants, you do see a glimmer of the truth, and it is really very
improbable that she will ever become my wife, but it is utterly and
completely untrue that I have grown tired of her and still less that I drove
her out the very next day or that she deceived me, as other women
perhaps deceive a man. You chambermaids are used to spying through
keyholes, and from that you get this way of thinking, of drawing
conclusions, as grand as they are false, about the whole situation from
some little thing you really see. The consequence of this is that I, for
instance, in this case know much less than you. I cannot explain by any
means as exactly as you can why Frieda left me. The most probable
explanation seems to me to be that you have touched on but not
elaborated, which is that I neglected her. That is unfortunately true, I did
neglect her, but there were special reasons for that, which have nothing to
do with this discussion; I should be happy if she were to come back to me,
but I should at once begin to neglect her all over again. This is how it is.
While she was with me I was continually out on those wanderings that
you make such a mock of; now that she is gone I am almost unemployed,
am tired, have a yearning for a state of even more complete
unemployment. Have you no advice to give me, Pepi?' 'Oh yes, I have,'
Pepi said, suddenly becoming animated and seizing K. by the shoulders,
'we have both been deceived, let us stick together. Come downstairs with
me to the maids 1' 'So long as you complain about being deceived,' K.
said, 'I cannot come to an understanding with you. You are always
claiming to have been deceived because you find it flattering and
touching. But the truth is that you are not fitted for this job. How obvious
your unfittedness must be when even I, who in your view know less about
things than anyone,-can see that. You are a good girl, Pepi; but it is not
altogether easy to realize that, I for instance at first took you to be cruel
and haughty, but you are not so, it is only this job that confuses you
because you are not fitted for it, I am not going to say that the job is too
grand for you; k is, after all} 290
not a very splendid job, perhaps, if one regards it closely, it is somewhat
more honourable than your previous job, on the whole, however, the
difference is not great, both are indeed so similar one can hardly
distinguish between them; indeed, one might almost assert that being a
chambermaid is preferable to the taproom, for there one is always among
secretaries, here, on the other hand, even though one is allowed to serve
the secretaries' chiefs in the private rooms, still, one also has to have a lot
to do with quite common people, for instance with me; actually I am not
really supposed to sit about anywhere but right here in the taproom-and is
it such a great and glorious honour to associate with me? Well, it seems
so to you, and perhaps you have your reasons for thinking so. But
precisely that makes you unfitted. It is a job like any other, but for you it
is heaven, consequently you set about everything with exaggerated
eagerness, trick yourself out as in your opinion the angels are tricked
out-but in reality they are different - tremble for the job, feel you are
constantly being persecuted, try by means of being excessively pleasant
to win over everyone who in your opinion might be a support to you, but
in this way bother them and repel them, for what they want at the inn is
peace and quiet and not the barmaid's worries on top of their own. It is
just possible that after Frieda left none of the exalted guests really noticed
the occurrence, but to-day they know of it and are really longing for
Frieda, for Frieda doubtless did manage everything quite differently.
Whatever she may be like otherwise and however much she valued her
job, in her work she was greatly experienced, cool, and composed, you
yourself stress that, though admittedly without learning anything from it.
Did you ever notice the way she looked at things? That was not merely a
barmaid's way of looking at things, it was almost the way a landlady
looks around. She saw everything, and every individual person into the
bargain, and the glance that was left for each individual person was still
intense enough to subdue him. What did it matter that she was perhaps a
little skinny, a little oldish, that one could imagine cleaner hair? -those are
trifles compared with what she really had, and anyone whom these
deficiencies disturbed would only have shown that he 291
lacked any appreciation of greater things. One can certainly not charge
Klamm with that, and it is only the wrong point of view of a young,
inexperienced girl that makes you unable to believe in Klamm's love for
Frieda. Klamm seems to you-and this rightly - to be out of reach, and that
is why you believe Frieda could not have got near to him either. You are
wrong. I should take Frieda's own word for this, even if I had not
infallible evidence for it. However incredible it seems to you and
however little you can reconcile it with your notions of the world and
officialdom and gentility and the effect a woman's beauty has, still, it is
true, just as we are sitting here beside each other and I take your hand
between my hands, so too, I dare say, and as though it were the most
natural thing in the world, did Klamm and Frieda sit beside each other,
and he came down of his own free will, indeed he came hurrying down,
nobody was lurking in the passage waiting for him and neglecting the rest
of the work, Klamm had to bestir himself and come downstairs, and the
faults in Frieda's way of dressing, which would have horrified you, did
not disturb him at all. You won't believe her! And you don't know how
you give yourself away by this, how precisely in this you show your lack
of experience! Even someone who knew nothing at all about the affair
with Klamm could not fail to see from her bearing that someone had
moulded her, someone who was more than you and I and all the people in
the village and that their conversations went beyond the jokes that are
usual between customers and waitresses and which seem to be your aim
in life. But I am doing you an injustice. You can see Frieda's merits very
well for yourself, you notice her power of observation, her resolution, her
influence on people, only you do, of course, interpret it all wrongly,
believing she turns everything self-seekingly to account only for her own
benefit and for evil purposes, or even as a weapon against you. No, Pepi,
even if she had such arrows, she could not shoot them at such short range.
And self-seeking? One might rather say that by sacrificing what she had
and what she was entitled to expect she has given us both the opportunity
to prove our worth in higher positions, but that we have both disappointed
her and are positively forcing her to return here. I do not know whether it
is like this, 292
and my own guilt is by no means clear to me, only when I compare
myself with you something of this kind dawns on me: it is as if we had
both striven too intensely, too noisily, too childishly, with too little
experience, to get something that for instance with Frieda's calm and
Frieda's matter-of-factness can be got easily and without much ado. We
have tried to get it by crying, by scratching, by tugging-just as a child
tugs at the tablecloth, gaining nothing, but only bringing all the splendid
things down on the floor and putting them out of its reach for ever. I don't
know whether it is like that, but what I am sure of is that it is more likely
to be so than the way you describe it as being.' 'Oh well,' Pepi said, 'you
are in love with Frieda because she's run away from you, it isn't hard to
be in love with her when she's not there. But let it be as you like, and
even if you are right in everything, even in making me ridiculous, what
are you going to do now? Frieda has left you, neither according to my
explanation nor according to your own have you any hope of her coming
back to you, and even if she were to come back, you have to stay
somewhere in the meantime, it is cold, and you have neither work nor a
bed, come to us, you will like my girl friends, we shall make you
comfortable, you will help us with our work, which is really too hard for
girls to do all by themselves, we girls will not have to rely only on
ourselves and won't be frightened any more in the night 1 Come to us!
My girl friends also know Frieda, we shall tell you stories about her till
you are sick and tired of it. Do come I We have pictures of Frieda too and
we'll show them to you. At that time Frieda was more modest than she is
to-day, you will scarcely recognize her, only perhaps by her eyes, which
even then had a suspicious, watchful expression. Well now, arc you
coming?' 'But is it permitted? Only yesterday there was that great scandal
because I was caught in your passage.' 'Because you were caught, but
when you are with us you won't be caught. Nobody will know about you,
only the three of us. Oh, it will be jolly. Even now life there seems much
more bearable to me than only a little while ago. Perhaps now I shall not
lose so very much by having to go away from here. Listen, even with
only the three of us we were not bored, one has to sweeten the bitterness
of one's 293
life, it's made bitter for us when we're still young, well, the three of us
stick together, we live as nicely as is possible there, you'll like Henriette
particularly, but you'll like Emilie too, I've told them about you, there one
listens to such tales without believing them, as though outside the room
nothing could really happen, it's warm and snug and tight there, and we
press together still more tightly; no, although we have only each other to
rely on, we have not become tired of each other; on the contrary, when I
think of my girl friends, I am almost glad that I am going back. Why
should I get on better than they do? For that was just what held us
together, the fact that the future was barred to all three of us in the same
way, and now I have broken through after all and was separated from
them. Of course I have not forgotten them, and my first concern was how
I could do something for them; my own position was still insecure - how
insecure it was, I did not even realize - and I was already talking to the
landlord about Henriette and Emilie. So far as Henriette was concerned
the landlord was not quite unrelenting, but for Emilie, it must be
confessed, who is much older than we are, she's about as old as Frieda,,
he gave me no hope. But only think, they don't want to go away, they
know it's a miserable life they lead there, but they have resigned
themselves to it, good souls, I think their tears as we said goodbye were
mostly because they were sad about my having to leave our common
room, going out into the cold - to us there everything seems cold that is
outside the room - and having to make my way in the big strange rooms
with big strange people, for no other purpose than to earn a living, which
after all I had managed to do up to now in the life we led together. They
probably won't be at all surprised when now I come back, and only in
order to indulge me will they weep a little and bemoan my fate. But then
they will see you and notice that it was a good thing after all that I went
away. It will make them happy that now we have a man as a helper and
protector, and they will be absolutely delighted that it must all be kept a
secret and that through this secret we shall be still more tightly linked
with each other than before. Come, oh please come to us I No obligation
will arise so far as you are concerned, you will not be 294
bound to our room for ever, as we arc. When the spring comes and you
find a lodging somewhere else and if you don't like being with us any
more, then you can go if you want to; only, of course, you must keep the
secret even then and not go and betray us, for that would mean our last
hour in the Herrcnhof had come, and in other respects too, naturally, you
must be careful when you are with us, not showing yourself anywhere
unless we regard it as safe, and altogether take our advice; that is the only
thing that ties you, and this must count just as much with you as with us,
but otherwise you are completely free, the work we shall share out to you
will not be too hard, you needn't be afraid of that. Well then, are you
coming?' 'How much longer is it till spring?' K. asked. 'Till spring?' Pepi
repeated. 'Winter is long here, a very long winter, and monotonous. But
we don't complain about that down there, we are safe from the winter.
Well yes, some day spring comes too, and summer, and there's a time for
that too, I suppose; but in memory, now, spring and summer seem as short
as though they didn't last much longer than two days, and even on those
days, even during the most beautiful day, even then sometimes snow
falls.' At this moment the door opened. Pepi started, in her thoughts she
had gone too far away from the taproom, but it was not Frieda, it was the
landlady. She pretended to be amazed at finding K. still here. K. excused
himself by saying that he had been waiting for her, and at the same time
he expressed his thanks for having been allowed to stay here overnight.
The landlady could not understand why K. had been waiting for her. K.
said he had had the impression that she wanted to speak to him again, he
apologized if that had been a mistake, and for the rest he must go now
anyway, he had left the school, where he was a caretaker, to itself much,
too long, yesterday's summons was to blame for everything, he still had
too little experience of these matters, it would certainly not happen again
that he would cause the landlady such inconvenience and bother as
yesterday. And he bowed, on the point of going. The landlady looked at
him as though she were dreaming. This gaze kept K. longer than was his
intention. Now she smiled a little, and it was only the amazement on K.'s
face that, as it were, woke her up; it 295
I was as though she had been expecting an answer to her smile and only
now, since none came, did she wake up. 'Yesterday, I think, you had the
impudence to say something about my dress.' K. could not remember.
'You can't remember? Then it's not only impudence, but afterwards
cowardice into the bargain.' By way of excuse K. spoke of his fatigue of
the previous day, saying it was quite possible that he had talked some
nonsense, in any case he could not remember now. And what could he
have said about the landlady's clothes? That they were more beautiful
than any he had ever seen in his life. At least he had never seen any
landlady at her work in such clothes. 'That's enough of these remarks!' the
landlady said swiftly. 'I don't want to hear another word from you about
my clothes. My clothes are none of your business. Once and for all, I
forbid you to talk about them.' K. bowed again and Went to the door.
'What do you mean,' the landlady shouted after him, *by saying you've
never before seen any landlady at work in such clothes? What do you
mean by making such senseless remarks? It's simply quite senseless.
What do you mean by it?' K. turned round and begged the landlady not to
get excited. Of course the remark was senseless. After all, he knew
nothing at all about clothes. In his situation any dress that happened to be
clean and not patched seemed luxurious. He had only been amazed at the
landlady's appearing there, in the passage, at night, among all those
scantily dressed men, in such a beautiful evening-dress, that was all. 'Well
now,' the landlady said, 'at last you seem to have remembered the remark
you made yesterday, after all. And you put the finishing touch to it by
some more nonsense. It's quite true you don't know anything about
clothes. But then kindly refrain-this is a serious request I make to
you-from setting yourself up as a judge of what are luxurious dresses or
unsuitable evening-dresses, and the like ... And let me tell you' -here it
seemed as if a cold shudder went through her-'you've no business to
interfere with my clothes in any way at all, do you hear?' And as K. was
about to turn away again in silence, she asked: 'Where did you get your
knowledge of clothes, anyway?' K. shrugged his shoulders, saying he had
no knowledge. 'You have none,' the landlady said. 'Very well then, 296
don't set up to have any, either. Come over to the office, I'll show you
something, then I hope you'll stop your impudent remarks for good.' She
went through the door ahead of him; Pepi rushed forward to K., on the
pretext of settling the bill: they quickly made their plans, it was very easy,
since K. knew the courtyard with the gate opening into the side-street,
beside the gate there was a little door behind which Pepi would stand in
about an hour and open it on hearing a threefold knock. The private office
was opposite the taproom, they only had to cross the hall, the landlady
was already standing in the lighted office and impatiently looking
towards K. But there was yet another disturbance. Gerstacker had been
waiting in the hall and wanted to talk to K. It was not easy to shake him
off, the landlady also joined in and rebuked Gerstacker for his
intrusiveness. 'Where are you going? Where are you going?' Gerstacker
could still be heard calling out even after the door was shut, and the
words were unpleasantly interspersed with sighs and coughs. It was a
small, over-heated room. Against the end-walls were a standing-desk and
an iron safe, against the side-walls were a wardrobe and an ottoman. It
was the wardrobe that took up most room; not only did it occupy the
whole of the longer wall, its depth also made the room very narrow, it had
three slidingdoors by which it could be opened completely. The landlady
pointed to the ottoman, indicating that K. should sit down, she herself sat
down on the revolving chair at the desk. 'Didn't you once learn tailoring?'
the landlady asked. 'No, never,' K. said. 'What actually is it you are?'
'Land Surveyor.' 'What is that?' K. explained, the explanation made her
yawn. 'You're not telling the truth. Why won't you tell the truth?' 'You
don't tell the truth either.' 'I? So now you're beginning your impudent
remarks again? And if I didn't tell the truth-do I have to answer for it to
you? And in what way don't I tell the truth then?' 'You are not only a
landlady, as you pretend.' 'Just listen to that I All the things you discover!
What else am I then? But I must say, your impudence is getting
thoroughly out of hand.* 'I don't know what else you are. I only see that
you are a landlady and also wear clothes that are not suitable for a
landlady 297
and of a kind that to the best of my knowledge nobody else wears here in
the village.' 'Well, now we're getting to the point The fact is you can't
keep it to yourself, perhaps you aren't impudent at all, you're only like a
child that knows some silly thing or other and which simply can't, by any
means, be made to keep it to itself. Well, speak up! What is so special
about these clothes?' 'You'll be angry if I say.' 'No, I shall laugh about it,
it'll be some childish chatter. What sort of clothes are they then?' 'You
insist on hearing. Well, they're made of good material, pretty expensive,
but they are old-fashioned, fussy, often renovated, worn, and not suitable
either for your age or for your figure or for your position. I was struck by
them the very first time I saw you, it was about a week ago, here in the
hall.' 'So there now we have itl They are old-fashioned, fussy, and what
else did you say? And what enables you to judge all this?' 'I can see for
myself, one doesn't need any training for that.' 'You can see it without
more ado. You don't have to inquire anywhere, you know at once what is
required by fashion. So you're going to be quite indispensable to me, for I
must admit I have a weakness for beautiful clothes. And what will you
say when I tell you that this wardrobe is full of dresses?' She pushed the
sliding doors open, one dress could be seen tightly packed against the
next, filling up the whole length and breadth of the wardrobe, they were
mostly dark, grey, brown, black dresses, all carefully hung up and spread
out. 'These are my dresses, all old-fashioned, fussy, as you think. But they
are only the dresses for which I have no room upstairs in my room, there I
have two more wardrobes full, two wardrobes, each of them almost as big
as this one. Are you amazed?' 'No. I was expecting something of the sort;
didn't I say you're not only a landlady, you're aiming at something else.' 'I
am only aiming at dressing beautifully, and you are either a fool or a child
or a very wicked, dangerous person. Go, go away now!' K. was already in
the hall and Gerstacker was clutching at his sleeve again, when the
landlady shouted after him: 'I am getting a new dress to-morrow, perhaps
I shall send for you.'