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The Trial

by Franz Kafka · English · Gutenberg #7849 · 469,561 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Trial

Author: Franz Kafka

Translator: David Wyllie


        
Release date: April 1, 2005 [eBook #7849]
                Most recently updated: July 1, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7849


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL ***




THE TRIAL

Franz Kafka


Translation Copyright © by David Wyllie
Translator contact email: dandelion@post.cz




Chapter One

Arrest--Conversation with Mrs. Grubach--Then Miss Bürstner


Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done
nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at eight in
the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach's cook--Mrs.
Grubach was his landlady--but today she didn't come. That had never
happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his pillow at the
old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an
inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and
disconcerted, rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door
and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He
was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting,
with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of
which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it
very clear what they were actually for. "Who are you?" asked K., sitting
half upright in his bed. The man, however, ignored the question as if
his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, "You rang?"
"Anna should have brought me my breakfast," said K. He tried to work
out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through
observation and by thinking about it, but the man didn't stay still to
be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it
slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately
behind it, "He
wants Anna to bring him his breakfast." There was a little laughter in
the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the sound of it whether
there were several people laughing. The strange man could not have
learned anything from it that he hadn't known already, but now he said
to K., as if making his report "It is not possible." "It would be the
first time that's happened," said K., as he jumped out of bed and
quickly pulled on his trousers. "I want to see who that is in the next
room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be disturbed in this
way." It immediately occurred to him that he needn't have said this out
loud, and that he must to some extent have acknowledged their authority
by doing so, but that didn't seem important to him at the time. That, at
least, is how the stranger took it, as he said, "Don't you think you'd
better stay where you are?" "I want neither to stay here nor to be
spoken to by you until you've introduced yourself." "I meant it for your
own good," said the stranger and opened the door, this time without
being asked. The next room, which K. entered more slowly than he had
intended, looked at first glance exactly the same as it had the previous
evening. It was Mrs. Grubach's living room, over-filled with furniture,
tablecloths, porcelain and photographs. Perhaps there was a little more
space in there than usual today, but if so it was not immediately
obvious, especially as the main difference was the presence of a man
sitting by the open window with a book from which he now looked up.
"You should have stayed in your room! Didn't Franz tell you?" "And what
is it you want, then?" said K., looking back and forth between this new
acquaintance and the one named Franz, who had remained in the doorway.
Through the open window he noticed the old woman again, who had come
close to the window opposite so that she could continue to see
everything. She was showing an inquisitiveness that really made it seem
like she was going senile. "I want to see Mrs. Grubach ...," said K.,
making a movement as if tearing himself away from the two men--even
though they were standing well away from him--and wanted to go. "No,"
said the man at the window, who threw his book down on a coffee table
and stood up. "You can't go away when you're under arrest." "That's how
it seems," said K. "And why am I under arrest?" he then asked. "That's
something we're not allowed to tell you. Go into your room and wait
there. Proceedings are underway and you'll learn about everything all in
good time. It's not really part of my job to be friendly towards you
like this, but I hope no-one, apart from Franz, will hear about it, and
he's been more friendly towards you than he should have been, under the
rules, himself. If you carry on having as much good luck as you have
been with your arresting officers then you can reckon on things going
well with you." K. wanted to sit down, but then he saw that, apart from
the chair by the window, there was nowhere anywhere in the room where he
could sit. "You'll get the chance to see for yourself how true all this
is," said Franz and both men then walked up to K. They were
significantly bigger than him, especially the second man, who frequently
slapped him on the shoulder. The two of them felt K.'s nightshirt, and
said he would now have to wear one that was of much lower quality, but
that they would keep the nightshirt along with his other underclothes
and return them to him if his case turned out well. "It's better for you
if you give us the things than if you leave them in the storeroom," they
said. "Things have a tendency to go missing in the storeroom, and after
a certain amount of time they sell things off, whether the case involved
has come to an end or not. And cases like this can last a long time,
especially the ones that have been coming up lately. They'd give you the
money they got for them, but it wouldn't be very much as it's not what
they're offered for them when they sell them that counts, it's how much
they get slipped on the side, and things like that lose their value
anyway when they get passed on from hand to hand, year after year." K.
paid hardly any attention to what they were saying, he did not place
much value on what he may have still possessed or on who decided what
happened to them. It was much more important to him to get a clear
understanding of his position, but he could not think clearly while
these people were here, the second policeman's belly--and they could
only be policemen--looked friendly enough, sticking out towards him, but
when K. looked up and saw his dry, bony face it did not seem to fit
with the body. His strong nose twisted to one side as if ignoring K. and
sharing an understanding with the other policeman. What sort of people
were these? What were they talking about? What office did they belong
to? K. was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace,
all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in
his own home. He was always inclined to take life as lightly as he
could, to cross bridges when he came to them, pay no heed for the
future, even when everything seemed under threat. But here that did not
seem the right thing to do. He could have taken it all as a joke, a big
joke set up by his colleagues at the bank for some unknown reason, or
also perhaps because today was his thirtieth birthday, it was all
possible of course, maybe all he had to do was laugh in the policemen's
face in some way and they would laugh with him, maybe they were
tradesmen from the corner of the street, they looked like they might
be--but he was nonetheless determined, ever since he first caught sight
of the one called Franz, not to lose any slight advantage he might have
had over these people. There was a very slight risk that people would
later say he couldn't understand a joke, but--although he wasn't
normally in the habit of learning from experience--he might also have
had a few unimportant occasions in mind when, unlike his more cautious
friends, he had acted with no thought at all for what might follow and
had been made to suffer for it. He didn't want that to happen again, not
this time at least; if they were play-acting he would act along with
them.

He still had time. "Allow me," he said, and hurried between the two
policemen through into his room. "He seems sensible enough," he heard
them say behind him. Once in his room, he quickly pulled open the drawer
of his writing desk, everything in it was very tidy but in his
agitation he was unable to find the identification documents he was
looking for straight away. He finally found his bicycle permit and was
about to go back to the policemen with it when it seemed to him too
petty, so he carried on searching until he found his birth certificate.
Just as he got back in the adjoining room the door on the other side
opened and Mrs. Grubach was about to enter. He only saw her for an
instant, for as soon as she recognised K. she was clearly embarrassed,
asked for forgiveness and disappeared, closing the door behind her very
carefully. "Do come in," K. could have said just then. But now he stood
in the middle of the room with his papers in his hand and still looking
at the door which did not open again. He stayed like that until he was
startled out of it by the shout of the policeman who sat at the little
table at the open window and, as K. now saw, was eating his breakfast.
"Why didn't she come in?" he asked. "She's not allowed to," said the
big policeman. "You're under arrest, aren't you?" "But how can I be
under arrest? And how come it's like this?" "Now you're starting again,"
said the policeman, dipping a piece of buttered bread in the honeypot.
"We don't answer questions like that." "You will have to answer them,"
said K. "Here are my identification papers, now show me yours and I
certainly want to see the arrest warrant." "Oh, my God!" said the
policeman. "In a position like yours, and you think you can start giving
orders, do you. It won't do you any good to get us on the wrong side,
even if you think it will--we're probably more on your side that anyone
else you know!" "That's true, you know, you'd better believe it," said
Franz, holding a cup of coffee in his hand which he did not lift to his
mouth but looked at K. in a way that was probably meant to be full of
meaning but could not actually be understood. K. found himself, without
intending it, in a mute dialogue with Franz, but then slapped his hand
down on his papers and said, "Here are my identity documents." "And what
do you want us to do about it?" replied the big policeman, loudly. "The
way you're carrying on, it's worse than a child. What is it you want? Do
you want to get this great, bloody trial of yours over with quickly by
talking about ID and arrest warrants with us? We're just coppers, that's
all we are. Junior officers like us hardly know one end of an ID card
from another, all we've got to do with you is keep an eye on you for
ten hours a day and get paid for it. That's all we are. Mind you, what
we can do is make sure that the high officials we work for find out
just what sort of person it is they're going to arrest, and why he
should be arrested, before they issue the warrant. There's no mistake
there. Our authorities as far as I know, and I only know the lowest
grades, don't go out looking for guilt among the public; it's the guilt
that draws them out, like it says in the law, and they have to send us
police officers out. That's the law. Where d'you think there'd be any
mistake there?" "I don't know this law," said K. "So much the worse for
you, then," said the policeman. "It's probably exists only in your
heads," said K., he wanted, in some way, to insinuate his way into the
thoughts of the policemen, to re-shape those thoughts to his benefit or
to make himself at home there. But the policeman just said dismissively,
"You'll find out when it affects you." Franz joined in, and said, "Look
at this, Willem, he admits he doesn't know the law and at the same time
insists he's innocent." "You're quite right, but we can't get him to
understand a thing," said the other. K. stopped talking with them; do I,
he thought to himself, do I really have to carry on getting tangled up
with the chattering of base functionaries like this?--and they admit
themselves that they are of the lowest position. They're talking about
things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway.
It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of
themselves. I just need few words with someone of the same social
standing as myself and everything will be incomparably clearer, much
clearer than a long conversation with these two can make it. He walked
up and down the free space in the room a couple of times, across the
street he could see the old woman who, now, had pulled an old man, much
older than herself, up to the window and had her arms around him. K. had
to put an end to this display, "Take me to your superior," he said. "As
soon as he wants to see you. Not before," said the policeman, the one
called Willem. "And now my advice to you," he added, "is to go into your
room, stay calm, and wait and see what's to be done with you. If you
take our advice, you won't tire yourself out thinking about things to no
purpose, you need to pull yourself together as there's a lot that's
going to required of you. You've not behaved towards us the way we
deserve after being so good to you, you forget that we, whatever we are,
we're still free men and you're not, and that's quite an advantage. But
in spite of all that we're still willing, if you've got the money, to go
and get you some breakfast from the café over the road."

Without giving any answer to this offer, K. stood still for some time.
Perhaps, if he opened the door of the next room or even the front door,
the two of them would not dare to stand in his way, perhaps that would
be the simplest way to settle the whole thing, by bringing it to a head.
But maybe they would grab him, and if he were thrown down on the ground
he would lose all the advantage he, in a certain respect, had over them.
So he decided on the more certain solution, the way things would go in
the natural course of events, and went back in his room without another
word either from him or from the policemen.

He threw himself down on his bed, and from the dressing table he took
the nice apple that he had put there the previous evening for his
breakfast. Now it was all the breakfast he had and anyway, as he
confirmed as soon as he took his first, big bite of it, it was far
better than a breakfast he could have had through the good will of the
policemen from the dirty café. He felt well and confident, he had failed
to go into work at the bank this morning but that could easily be
excused because of the relatively high position he held there. Should he
really send in his explanation? He wondered about it. If nobody believed
him, and in this case that would be understandable, he could bring Mrs.
Grubach in as a witness, or even the old pair from across the street,
who probably even now were on their way over to the window opposite. It
puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemen's
point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him
alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the
same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his
own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two
were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast,
perhaps. It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if
he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. Maybe,
if the policemen had not been so obviously limited in their mental
abilities, it could have been supposed that they had come to the same
conclusion and saw no danger in leaving him alone because of it. They
could watch now, if they wanted, and see how he went over to the
cupboard in the wall where he kept a bottle of good schnapps, how he
first emptied a glass of it in place of his breakfast and how he then
took a second glassful in order to give himself courage, the last one
just as a precaution for the unlikely chance it would be needed.

Then he was so startled by a shout to him from the other room that he
struck his teeth against the glass. "The supervisor wants to see you!" a
voice said. It was only the shout that startled him, this curt, abrupt,
military shout, that he would not have expected from the policeman
called Franz. In itself, he found the order very welcome. "At last!" he
called back, locked the cupboard and, without delay, hurried into the
next room. The two policemen were standing there and chased him back
into his bedroom as if that were a matter of course. "What d'you think
you're doing?" they cried. "Think you're going to see the supervisor
dressed in just your shirt, do you? He'd see to it you got a right
thumping, and us and all!" "Let go of me for God's sake!" called K., who
had already been pushed back as far as his wardrobe, "if you accost me
when I'm still in bed you can't expect to find me in my evening dress."
"That won't help you," said the policemen, who always became very quiet,
almost sad, when K. began to shout, and in that way confused him or, to
some extent, brought him to his senses. "Ridiculous formalities!" he
grumbled, as he lifted his coat from the chair and kept it in both his
hands for a little while, as if holding it out for the policemen's
inspection. They shook their heads. "It's got to be a black coat,"
they said. At that, K. threw the coat to the floor and said--without
knowing even himself what he meant by it--"Well it's not going to be the
main trial, after all." The policemen laughed, but continued to insist,
"It's got to be a black coat." "Well that's alright by me if it makes
things go any faster," said K. He opened the wardrobe himself, spent a
long time searching through all the clothes, and chose his best black
suit which had a short jacket that had greatly surprised those who knew
him, then he also pulled out a fresh shirt and began, carefully, to get
dressed. He secretly told himself that he had succeeded in speeding
things up by letting the policemen forget to make him have a bath. He
watched them to see if they might remember after all, but of course it
never occurred to them, although Willem did not forget to send Franz up
to the supervisor with the message saying that K. was getting dressed.

Once he was properly dressed, K. had to pass by Willem as he went
through the next room into the one beyond, the door of which was already
wide open. K. knew very well that this room had recently been let to a
typist called 'Miss Bürstner'. She was in the habit of going out to work
very early and coming back home very late, and K. had never exchanged
more than a few words of greeting with her. Now, her bedside table had
been pulled into the middle of the room to be used as a desk for these
proceedings, and the supervisor sat behind it. He had his legs crossed,
and had thrown one arm over the backrest of the chair.

In one corner of the room there were three young people looking at the
photographs belonging to Miss Bürstner that had been put into a piece of
fabric on the wall. Hung up on the handle of the open window was a white
blouse. At the window across the street, there was the old pair again,
although now their number had increased, as behind them, and far taller
than they were, stood a man with an open shirt that showed his chest and
a reddish goatee beard which he squeezed and twisted with his fingers.
"Josef K.?" asked the supervisor, perhaps merely to attract K.'s
attention as he looked round the room. K. nodded. "I daresay you were
quite surprised by all that's been taking place this morning," said the
supervisor as, with both hands, he pushed away the few items on the
bedside table--the candle and box of matches, a book and a pin cushion
which lay there as if they were things he would need for his own
business. "Certainly," said K., and he began to feel relaxed now that,
at last, he stood in front of someone with some sense, someone with whom
he would be able to talk about his situation. "Certainly I'm surprised,
but I'm not in any way very surprised." "You're not very surprised?"
asked the supervisor, as he positioned the candle in the middle of the
table and the other things in a group around it. "Perhaps you don't
quite understand me," K. hurriedly pointed out. "What I mean is ..."
here K. broke off what he was saying and looked round for somewhere to
sit. "I may sit down, mayn't I?" he asked. "That's not usual," the
supervisor answered. "What I mean is ...," said K. without delaying a
second time, "that, yes, I am very surprised but when you've been in the
world for thirty years already and had to make your own way through
everything yourself, which has been my lot, then you become hardened to
surprises and don't take them too hard. Especially not what's happened
today." "Why especially not what's happened today?" "I wouldn't want to
say that I see all of this as a joke, you seem to have gone to too much
trouble making all these arrangements for that. Everyone in the house
must be taking part in it as well as all of you, that would be going
beyond what could be a joke. So I don't want to say that this is a
joke." "Quite right," said the supervisor, looking to see how many
matches were left in the box. "But on the other hand," K. went on,
looking round at everyone there and even wishing he could get the
attention of the three who were looking at the photographs, "on the
other hand this really can't be all that important. That follows from
the fact that I've been indicted, but can't think of the slightest
offence for which I could be indicted. But even that is all beside the
point, the main question is: Who is issuing the indictment? What office
is conducting this affair? Are you officials? None of you is wearing a
uniform, unless what you are wearing"--here he turned towards Franz--"is
meant to be a uniform, it's actually more of a travelling suit. I
require a clear answer to all these questions, and I'm quite sure that
once things have been made clear we can take our leave of each other on
the best of terms." The supervisor slammed the box of matches down on
the table. "You're making a big mistake," he said. "These gentlemen and
I have got nothing to do with your business, in fact we know almost
nothing about you. We could be wearing uniforms as proper and exact as
you like and your situation wouldn't be any the worse for it. As to
whether you're on a charge, I can't give you any sort of clear answer to
that, I don't even know whether you are or not. You're under arrest,
you're quite right about that, but I don't know any more than that.
Maybe these officers have been chit-chatting with you, well if they have
that's all it is, chit-chat. I can't give you an answer to your
questions, but I can give you a bit of advice: You'd better think less
about us and what's going to happen to you, and think a bit more about
yourself. And stop making all this fuss about your sense of innocence;
you don't make such a bad impression, but with all this fuss you're
damaging it. And you ought to do a bit less talking, too. Almost
everything you've said so far has been things we could have taken from
your behaviour, even if you'd said no more than a few words. And what
you have said has not exactly been in your favour."

K. stared at the supervisor. Was this man, probably younger than he was,
lecturing him like a schoolmaster. Was he being punished for his honesty
with a telling off. And was he to learn nothing about the reasons for
his arrest or those who were arresting him. He became somewhat cross and
began to walk up and down. No-one stopped him doing this and he pushed
his sleeves back, felt his chest, straightened his hair, went over to
the three men, said, "It makes no sense," at which these three turned
round to face him and came towards him with serious expressions. He
finally came again to a halt in front of the supervisor's desk. "State
Attorney Hasterer is a good friend of mine," he said, "can I telephone
him?" "Certainly," said the supervisor, "but I don't know what the point
of that will be, I suppose you must have some private matter you want to
discuss with him." "What the point is?" shouted K., more disconcerted
that cross. "Who do you think you are? You want to see some point in it
while you're carrying out something as pointless as it could be. It's
enough to make you cry! These gentlemen first accost me, and now they
sit or stand about in here and let me be hauled up in front of you.
What point there would be, in telephoning a state attorney when I'm
ostensibly under arrest? Very well, I won't make the telephone call."
"You can call him if you want to," said the supervisor, stretching his
hand out towards the outer room where the telephone was, "please, go on,
do make your phone call." "No, I don't want to any more," said K., and
went over to the window. Across the street, the people were still there
at the window, and it was only now that K. had gone up to his window
that they seemed to become uneasy about quietly watching what was going
on. The old couple wanted to get up but the man behind them calmed them
down. "We've got some kind of audience over there," called K. to the
supervisor, quite loudly, as he pointed out with his forefinger. "Go
away," he then called across to them. And the three of them did
immediately retreat a few steps, the old pair even found themselves
behind the man who then concealed them with the breadth of his body and
seemed, going by the movements of his mouth, to be saying something
incomprehensible into the distance. They did not disappear entirely,
though, but seemed to be waiting for the moment when they could come
back to the window without being noticed. "Intrusive, thoughtless
people!" said K. as he turned back into the room. The supervisor may
have agreed with him, at least K. thought that was what he saw from the
corner of his eye. But it was just as possible that he had not even been
listening as he had his hand pressed firmly down on the table and seemed
to be comparing the length of his fingers. The two policemen were
sitting on a chest covered with a coloured blanket, rubbing their knees.
The three young people had put their hands on their hips and were
looking round aimlessly. Everything was still, like in some office that
has been forgotten about. "Now, gentlemen," called out K., and for a
moment it seemed as if he was carrying all of them on his shoulders, "it
looks like your business with me is over with. In my opinion, it's best
now to stop wondering about whether you're proceeding correctly or
incorrectly, and to bring the matter to a peaceful close with a mutual
handshake. If you are of the same opinion, then please...." and he
walked up to the supervisor's desk and held out his hand to him. The
supervisor raised his eyes, bit his lip and looked at K.'s outstretched
hand; K. still believed the supervisor would do as he suggested. But
instead, he stood up, picked up a hard round hat that was laying on
Miss Bürstner's bed and put it carefully onto his head, using both hands
as if trying on a new hat. "Everything seems so simple to you, doesn't
it," he said to K. as he did so, "so you think we should bring the
matter to a peaceful close, do you? No, no, that won't do. Mind you, on
the other hand I certainly wouldn't want you to think there's no hope
for you. No, why should you think that? You're simply under arrest,
nothing more than that. That's what I had to tell you, that's what I've
done and now I've seen how you've taken it. That's enough for one day
and we can take our leave of each other, for the time being at least. I
expect you'll want to go in to the bank now, won't you?" "In to the
bank?" asked K., "I thought I was under arrest." K. said this with a
certain amount of defiance as, although his handshake had not been
accepted, he was feeling more independent of all these people,
especially since the supervisor had stood up. He was playing with them.
If they left, he had decided he would run after them and offer to let
them arrest him. That's why he even repeated, "How can I go in to the
bank when I'm under arrest?" "I see you've misunderstood me," said the
supervisor who was already at the door. "It's true that you're under
arrest, but that shouldn't stop you from carrying out your job. And
there shouldn't be anything to stop you carrying on with your usual
life." "In that case it's not too bad, being under arrest," said K., and
went up close to the supervisor. "I never meant it should be anything
else," he replied. "It hardly seems to have been necessary to notify me
of the arrest in that case," said K., and went even closer. The others
had also come closer. All of them had gathered together into a narrow
space by the door. "That was my duty," said the supervisor. "A silly
duty," said K., unyielding. "Maybe so," replied the supervisor, "only
don't let's waste our time talking on like this. I had assumed you'd be
wanting to go to the bank. As you're paying close attention to every
word I'll add this: I'm not forcing you to go to the bank, I'd just
assumed you wanted to. And to make things easier for you, and to let you
get to the bank with as little fuss as possible I've put these three
gentlemen, colleagues of yours, at your disposal." "What's that?"
exclaimed K., and looked at the three in astonishment. He could only
remember seeing them in their group by the photographs, but these
characterless, anaemic young people were indeed officials from his bank,
not colleagues of his, that was putting it too high and it showed a gap
in the omniscience of the supervisor, but they were nonetheless junior
members of staff at the bank. How could K. have failed to see that? How
occupied he must have been with the supervisor and the policemen not to
have recognised these three! Rabensteiner, with his stiff demeanour and
swinging hands, Kullich, with his blonde hair and deep-set eyes, and
Kaminer, with his involuntary grin caused by chronic muscle spasms.
"Good morning," said K. after a while, extending his hand to the
gentlemen as they bowed correctly to him. "I didn't recognise you at
all. So, we'll go into work now, shall we?" The gentlemen laughed and
nodded enthusiastically, as if that was what they had been waiting for
all the time, except that K. had left his hat in his room so they all
dashed, one after another, into the room to fetch it, which caused a
certain amount of embarrassment. K. stood where he was and watched them
through the open double doorway, the last to go, of course, was the
apathetic Rabensteiner who had broken into no more than an elegant trot.
Kaminer got to the hat and K., as he often had to do at the bank,
forcibly reminded himself that the grin was not deliberate, that he in
fact wasn't able to grin deliberately. At that moment Mrs. Grubach
opened the door from the hallway into the living room where all the
people were. She did not seem to feel guilty about anything at all, and
K., as often before, looked down at the belt of her apron which, for no
reason, cut so deeply into her hefty body. Once downstairs, K., with his
watch in his hand, decided to take a taxi--he had already been delayed
by half an hour and there was no need to make the delay any longer.
Kaminer ran to the corner to summon it, and the two others were making
obvious efforts to keep K. diverted when Kullich pointed to the doorway
of the house on the other side of the street where the large man with
the blonde goatee beard appeared and, a little embarrassed at first at
letting himself be seen in his full height, stepped back to the wall and
leant against it. The old couple were probably still on the stairs. K.
was cross with Kullich for pointing out this man whom he had already
seen himself, in fact whom he had been expecting. "Don't look at him!"
he snapped, without noticing how odd it was to speak to free men in this
way. But there was no explanation needed anyway as just then the taxi
arrived, they sat inside and set off. Inside the taxi, K. remembered
that he had not noticed the supervisor and the policemen leaving--the
supervisor had stopped him noticing the three bank staff and now the
three bank staff had stopped him noticing the supervisor. This showed
that K. was not very attentive, and he resolved to watch himself more
carefully in this respect. Nonetheless, he gave it no thought as he
twisted himself round and leant over onto the rear shelf of the car to
catch sight of the supervisor and the policemen if he could. But he
turned back round straight away and leant comfortably into the corner of
the taxi without even having made the effort to see anyone. Although it
did not seem like it, now was just the time when he needed some
encouragement, but the gentlemen seemed tired just then, Rabensteiner
looked out of the car to the right, Kullich to the left and only Kaminer
was there with his grin at K.'s service. It would have been inhumane to
make fun of that.

That spring, whenever possible, K. usually spent his evenings after
work--he usually stayed in the office until nine o'clock--with a short
walk, either by himself or in the company of some of the bank officials,
and then he would go into a pub where he would sit at the regulars'
table with mostly older men until eleven. There were, however, also
exceptions to this habit, times, for instance, when K. was invited by
the bank's manager (whom he greatly respected for his industry and
trustworthiness) to go with him for a ride in his car or to eat dinner
with him at his large house. K. would also go, once a week, to see a
girl called Elsa who worked as a waitress in a wine bar through the
night until late in the morning. During the daytime she only received
visitors while still in bed.

That evening, though,--the day had passed quickly with a lot of hard
work and many respectful and friendly birthday greetings--K. wanted to
go straight home. Each time he had any small break from the day's work
he considered, without knowing exactly what he had in mind, that Mrs.
Grubach's flat seemed to have been put into great disarray by the events
of that morning, and that it was up to him to put it back into order.
Once order had been restored, every trace of those events would have
been erased and everything would take its previous course once more. In
particular, there was nothing to fear from the three bank officials,
they had immersed themselves back into their paperwork and there was no
alteration to be seen in them. K. had called each of them, separately or
all together, into his office that day for no other reason than to
observe them; he was always satisfied and had always been able to let
them go again.

At half past nine that evening, when he arrived back in front of the
building where he lived, he met a young lad in the doorway who was
standing there, his legs apart and smoking a pipe. "Who are you?"
immediately asked K., bringing his face close to the lad's, as it was
hard to see in the half light of the landing. "I'm the landlord's son,
sir," answered the lad, taking the pipe from his mouth and stepping to
one side. "The landlord's son?" asked K., and impatiently knocked on the
ground with his stick. "Did you want anything, sir? Would you like me
to fetch my father?" "No, no," said K., there was something forgiving
in his voice, as if the boy had harmed him in some way and he was
excusing him. "It's alright," he said then, and went on, but before
going up the stairs he turned round once more.

He could have gone directly to his room, but as he wanted to speak with
Mrs. Grubach he went straight to her door and knocked. She was sat at
the table with a knitted stocking and a pile of old stockings in front
of her. K. apologised, a little embarrassed at coming so late, but Mrs.
Grubach was very friendly and did not want to hear any apology, she was
always ready to speak to him, he knew very well that he was her best and
her favourite tenant. K. looked round the room, it looked exactly as it
usually did, the breakfast dishes, which had been on the table by the
window that morning, had already been cleared away. "A woman's hands
will do many things when no-one's looking," he thought, he might himself
have smashed all the dishes on the spot but certainly would not have
been able to carry it all out. He looked at Mrs. Grubach with some
gratitude. "Why are you working so late?" he asked. They were now both
sitting at the table, and K. now and then sank his hands into the pile
of stockings. "There's a lot of work to do," she said, "during the day I
belong to the tenants; if I'm to sort out my own things there are only
the evenings left to me." "I fear I may have caused you some exceptional
work today." "How do you mean, Mr. K.?" she asked, becoming more
interested and leaving her work in her lap. "I mean the men who were
here this morning." "Oh, I see," she said, and went peacefully back to
what she was doing, "that was no trouble, not especially." K. looked on
in silence as she took up the knitted stocking once more. She seems
surprised at my mentioning it, he thought, she seems to think it's
improper for me to mention it. All the more important for me to do so.
An old woman is the only person I can speak about it with. "But it must
have caused some work for you," he said then, "but it won't happen
again." "No, it can't happen again," she agreed, and smiled at K. in a
way that was almost pained. "Do you mean that seriously?" asked K.
"Yes," she said, more gently, "but the important thing is you mustn't
take it too hard. There are so many awful things happening in the world!
As you're being so honest with me, Mr. K., I can admit to you that I
listened to a little of what was going on from behind the door, and that
those two policemen told me one or two things as well. It's all to do
with your happiness, and that's something that's quite close to my
heart, perhaps more than it should be as I am, after all, only your
landlady. Anyway, so I heard one or two things but I can't really say
that it's about anything very serious. No. You have been arrested, but
it's not in the same way as when they arrest a thief. If you're arrested
in the same way as a thief, then it's bad, but an arrest like this....
It seems to me that it's something very complicated--forgive me if I'm
saying something stupid--something very complicated that I don't
understand, but something that you don't really need to understand
anyway."

"There's nothing stupid about what you've said, Mrs. Grubach, or at
least I partly agree with you, only, the way I judge the whole thing is
harsher than yours, and think it's not only not something complicated
but simply a fuss about nothing. I was just caught unawares, that's what
happened. If I had got up as soon as I was awake without letting myself
get confused because Anna wasn't there, if I'd got up and paid no regard
to anyone who might have been in my way and come straight to you, if I'd
done something like having my breakfast in the kitchen as an exception,
asked you to bring my clothes from my room, in short, if I had behaved
sensibly then nothing more would have happened, everything that was
waiting to happen would have been stifled. People are so often
unprepared. In the bank, for example, I am well prepared, nothing of
this sort could possibly happen to me there, I have my own assistant
there, there are telephones for internal and external calls in front of
me on the desk, I continually receive visits from people,
representatives, officials, but besides that, and most importantly, I'm
always occupied with my work, that's to say I'm always alert, it would
even be a pleasure for me to find myself faced with something of that
sort. But now it's over with, and I didn't really even want to talk
about it any more, only I wanted to hear what you, as a sensible woman,
thought about it all, and I'm very glad to hear that we're in agreement.
But now you must give me your hand, an agreement of this sort needs to
be confirmed with a handshake."

Will she shake hands with me? The supervisor didn't shake hands, he
thought, and looked at the woman differently from before, examining her.
She stood up, as he had also stood up, and was a little self-conscious,
she hadn't been able to understand everything that K. said. As a result
of this self-consciousness she said something that she certainly did
not intend and certainly was not appropriate. "Don't take it so hard,
Mr. K.," she said, with tears in her voice and also, of course,
forgetting the handshake. "I didn't know I was taking it hard," said K.,
feeling suddenly tired and seeing that if this woman did agree with him
it was of very little value.

Before going out the door he asked, "Is Miss Bürstner home?" "No," said
Mrs. Grubach, smiling as she gave this simple piece of information,
saying something sensible at last. "She's at the theatre. Did you want
to see her? Should I give her a message?" "I, er, I just wanted to have
a few words with her." "I'm afraid I don't know when she's coming in;
she usually gets back late when she's been to the theatre." "It really
doesn't matter," said K. his head hanging as he turned to the door to
leave, "I just wanted to give her my apology for taking over her room
today." "There's no need for that, Mr. K., you're too conscientious, the
young lady doesn't know anything about it, she hasn't been home since
early this morning and everything's been tidied up again, you can see
for yourself." And she opened the door to Miss Bürstner's room. "Thank
you, I'll take your word for it," said K., but went nonetheless over to
the open door. The moon shone quietly into the unlit room. As far as
could be seen, everything was indeed in its place, not even the blouse
was hanging on the window handle. The pillows on the bed looked
remarkably plump as they lay half in the moonlight. "Miss Bürstner often
comes home late," said K., looking at Mrs. Grubach as if that were her
responsibility. "That's how young people are!" said Mrs. Grubach to
excuse herself. "Of course, of course," said K., "but it can be taken
too far." "Yes, it can be," said Mrs. Grubach, "you're so right, Mr. K.
Perhaps it is in this case. I certainly wouldn't want to say anything
nasty about Miss Bürstner, she is a good, sweet girl, friendly, tidy,
punctual, works hard, I appreciate all that very much, but one thing is
true, she ought to have more pride, be a bit less forthcoming. Twice
this month already, in the street over the way, I've seen her with a
different gentleman. I really don't like saying this, you're the only
one I've said this to, Mr. K., I swear to God, but I'm going to have no
choice but to have a few words with Miss Bürstner about it myself. And
it's not the only thing about her that I'm worried about." "Mrs.
Grubach, you are on quite the wrong track," said K., so angry that he
was hardly able to hide it, "and you have moreover misunderstood what I
was saying about Miss Bürstner, that is not what I meant. In fact I warn
you quite directly not to say anything to her, you are quite mistaken, I
know Miss Bürstner very well and there is no truth at all in what you
say. And what's more, perhaps I'm going to far, I don't want to get in
your way, say to her whatever you see fit. Good night." "Mr. K.," said
Mrs. Grubach as if asking him for something and hurrying to his door
which he had already opened, "I don't want to speak to Miss Bürstner at
all, not yet, of course I'll continue to keep an eye on her but you're
the only one I've told what I know. And it is, after all something that
everyone who lets rooms has to do if she's to keep the house decent,
that's all I'm trying to do." "Decent!" called out K. through the crack
in the door, "if you want to keep the house decent you'll first have to
give me notice." Then he slammed the door shut, there was a gentle
knocking to which he paid no more attention.

He did not feel at all like going to bed, so he decided to stay up, and
this would also give him the chance to find out when Miss Bürstner would
arrive home. Perhaps it would also still be possible, even if a little
inappropriate, to have a few words with her. As he lay there by the
window, pressing his hands to his tired eyes, he even thought for a
moment that he might punish Mrs. Grubach by persuading Miss Bürstner to
give in her notice at the same time as he would. But he immediately
realised that that would be shockingly excessive, and there would even
be the suspicion that he was moving house because of the incidents of
that morning. Nothing would have been more nonsensical and, above all,
more pointless and contemptible.

When he had become tired of looking out onto the empty street he
slightly opened the door to the living room so that he could see anyone
who entered the flat from where he was and lay down on the couch. He lay
there, quietly smoking a cigar, until about eleven o'clock. He wasn't
able to hold out longer than that, and went a little way into the
hallway as if in that way he could make Miss Bürstner arrive sooner. He
had no particular desire for her, he could not even remember what she
looked like, but now he wanted to speak to her and it irritated him that
her late arrival home meant this day would be full of unease and
disorder right to its very end. It was also her fault that he had not
had any dinner that evening and that he had been unable to visit Elsa
as he had intended. He could still make up for both of those things,
though, if he went to the wine bar where Elsa worked. He wanted to do so
even later, after the discussion with Miss Bürstner.

It was already gone half past eleven when someone could be heard in the
stairway. K., who had been lost in his thoughts in the hallway, walking
up and down loudly as if it were his own room, fled behind his door.
Miss Bürstner had arrived. Shivering, she pulled a silk shawl over her
slender shoulders as she locked the door. The next moment she would
certainly go into her room, where K. ought not to intrude in the middle
of the night; that meant he would have to speak to her now, but,
unfortunately, he had not put the electric light on in his room so that
when he stepped out of the dark it would give the impression of being an
attack and would certainly, at the very least, have been quite alarming.
There was no time to lose, and in his helplessness he whispered through
the crack of the door, "Miss Bürstner." It sounded like he was pleading
with her, not calling to her. "Is there someone there?" asked Miss
Bürstner, looking round with her eyes wide open. "It's me," said K. and
came out. "Oh, Mr. K.!" said Miss Bürstner with a smile. "Good Evening,"
and offered him her hand. "I wanted to have a word with you, if you
would allow me?" "Now?" asked Miss Bürstner, "does it have to be now? It
is a little odd, isn't it?" "I've been waiting for you since nine
o'clock." "Well, I was at the theatre, I didn't know anything about you
waiting for me." "The reason I need to speak to you only came up
today." "I see, well I don't see why not, I suppose, apart from being
so tired I could drop. Come into my room for a few minutes then. We
certainly can't talk out here, we'd wake everyone up and I think that
would be more unpleasant for us than for them. Wait here till I've put
the light on in my room, and then turn the light down out here." K. did
as he was told, and then even waited until Miss Bürstner came out of her
room and quietly invited him, once more, to come in. "Sit down," she
said, indicating the ottoman, while she herself remained standing by
the bedpost despite the tiredness she had spoken of; she did not even
take off her hat, which was small but decorated with an abundance of
flowers. "What is it you wanted, then? I'm really quite curious." She
gently crossed her legs. "I expect you'll say," K. began, "that the
matter really isn't all that urgent and we don't need to talk about it
right now, but...." "I never listen to introductions," said Miss
Bürstner. "That makes my job so much easier," said K. "This morning, to
some extent through my fault, your room was made a little untidy, this
happened because of people I did not know and against my will but, as I
said, because of my fault; I wanted to apologise for it." "My room?"
asked Miss Bürstner, and instead of looking round the room scrutinised
K. "It is true," said K., and now, for the first time, they looked each
other in the eyes, "there's no point in saying exactly how this came
about." "But that's the interesting thing about it," said Miss Bürstner.
"No," said K. "Well then," said Miss Bürstner, "I don't want to force my
way into any secrets, if you insist that it's of no interest I won't
insist. I'm quite happy to forgive you for it, as you ask, especially as
I can't see anything at all that's been left untidy." With her hand laid
flat on her lower hip, she made a tour around the room. At the mat where
the photographs were she stopped. "Look at this!" she cried. "My
photographs really have been put in the wrong places. Oh, that's
horrible. Someone really has been in my room without permission." K.
nodded, and quietly cursed Kaminer who worked at his bank and who was
always active doing things that had neither use nor purpose. "It is
odd," said Miss Bürstner, "that I'm forced to forbid you to do something
that you ought to have forbidden yourself to do, namely to come into my
room when I'm not here." "But I did explain to you," said K., and went
over to join her by the photographs, "that it wasn't me who interfered
with your photographs; but as you don't believe me I'll have to admit
that the investigating committee brought along three bank employees with
them, one of them must have touched your photographs and as soon as I
get the chance I'll ask to have him dismissed from the bank. Yes, there
was an investigating committee here," added K., as the young lady was
looking at him enquiringly. "Because of you?" she asked. "Yes," answered
K. "No!" the lady cried with a laugh. "Yes, they were," said K., "you
believe that I'm innocent then, do you?" "Well now, innocent ..." said
the lady, "I don't want to start making any pronouncements that might
have serious consequences, I don't really know you after all, it means
they're dealing with a serious criminal if they send an investigating
committee straight out to get him. But you're not in custody now--at
least I take it you've not escaped from prison considering that you seem
quite calm--so you can't have committed any crime of that sort." "Yes,"
said K., "but it might be that the investigating committee could see
that I'm innocent, or not so guilty as had been supposed." "Yes, that's
certainly a possibility," said Miss Bürstner, who seemed very
interested. "Listen," said K., "you don't have much experience in legal
matters." "No, that's true, I don't," said Miss Bürstner, "and I've
often regretted it, as I'd like to know everything and I'm very
interested in legal matters. There's something peculiarly attractive
about the law, isn't there. But I'll certainly be perfecting my
knowledge in this area, as next month I start work in a legal office."
"That's very good," said K., "that means you'll be able to give me some
help with my trial." "That could well be," said Miss Bürstner, "why not?
I like to make use of what I know." "I mean it quite seriously," said
K., "or at least, half seriously, as you do. This affair is too petty to
call in a lawyer, but I could make good use of someone who could give me
advice." "Yes, but if I'm to give you advice I'll have to know what it's
all about," said Miss Bürstner. "That's exactly the problem," said K.,
"I don't know that myself." "So you have been making fun of me, then,"
said Miss Bürstner exceedingly disappointed, "you really ought not to
try something like that on at this time of night." And she stepped away
from the photographs where they had stood so long together. "Miss
Bürstner, no," said K., "I'm not making fun of you. Please believe me!
I've already told you everything I know. More than I know, in fact, as
it actually wasn't even an investigating committee, that's just what I
called them because I don't know what else to call them. There was no
cross questioning at all, I was merely arrested, but by a committee."
Miss Bürstner sat on the ottoman and laughed again. "What was it like
then?" she asked. "It was terrible," said K., although his mind was no
longer on the subject, he had become totally absorbed by Miss Bürstner's
gaze who was supporting her chin on one hand--the elbow rested on the
cushion of the ottoman--and slowly stroking her hip with the other.
"That's too vague," said Miss Bürstner. "What's too vague?" asked K.
Then he remembered himself and asked, "Would you like me to show you
what it was like?" He wanted to move in some way but did not want to
leave. "I'm already tired," said Miss Bürstner. "You arrived back so
late," said K. "Now you've started telling me off. Well I suppose I
deserve it as I shouldn't have let you in here in the first place, and
it turns out there wasn't even any point." "Oh, there was a point,
you'll see now how important a point it was," said K. "May I move this
table away from your bedside and put it here?" "What do you think you're
doing?" said Miss Bürstner. "Of course you can't!" "In that case I
can't show you," said K., quite upset, as if Miss Bürstner had committed
some incomprehensible offence against him. "Alright then, if you need it
to show what you mean, just take the bedside table then," said Miss
Bürstner, and after a short pause added in a weak voice, "I'm so tired
I'm allowing more than I ought to." K. put the little table in the
middle of the room and sat down behind it. "You have to get a proper
idea of where the people were situated, it is very interesting. I'm the
supervisor, sitting over there on the chest are two policemen, standing
next to the photographs there are three young people. Hanging on the
handle of the window is a white blouse--I just mention that by the way.
And now it begins. Ah yes, I'm forgetting myself, the most important
person of all, so I'm standing here in front of the table. The
supervisor is sitting extremely comfortably with his legs crossed and
his arm hanging over the backrest here like some layabout. And now it
really does begin. The supervisor calls out as if he had to wake me up,
in fact he shouts at me, I'm afraid, if I'm to make it clear to you,
I'll have to shout as well, and it's nothing more than my name that he
shouts out." Miss Bürstner, laughing as she listened to him, laid her
forefinger on her mouth so that K. would not shout, but it was too late.
K. was too engrossed in his role and slowly called out, "Josef K.!" It
was not as loud as he had threatened, but nonetheless, once he had
suddenly called it out, the cry seemed gradually to spread itself all
round the room.

There was a series of loud, curt and regular knocks at the door of the
adjoining room. Miss Bürstner went pale and laid her hand on her heart.
K. was especially startled, as for a moment he had been quite unable to
think of anything other than the events of that morning and the girl for
whom he was performing them. He had hardly pulled himself together when
he jumped over to Miss Bürstner and took her hand. "Don't be afraid," he
whispered, "I'll put everything right. But who can it be? It's only the
living room next door, nobody sleeps in there." "Yes they do," whispered
Miss Bürstner into K.'s ear, "a nephew of Mrs. Grubach's, a captain in
the army, has been sleeping there since yesterday. There's no other room
free. I'd forgotten about it too. Why did you have to shout like that?
You've made me quite upset." "There is no reason for it," said K., and,
now as she sank back onto the cushion, kissed her forehead. "Go away, go
away," she said, hurriedly sitting back up, "get out of here, go, what
is it you want, he's listening at the door, he can hear everything.
You're causing me so much trouble!" "I won't go," said K., "until you've
calmed down a bit. Come over into the other corner of the room, he
won't be able to hear us there." She let him lead her there. "Don't
forget," he said, "although this might be unpleasant for you you're not
in any real danger. You know how much esteem Mrs. Grubach has for me,
she's the one who will make all the decisions in this, especially as the
captain is her nephew, but she believes everything I say without
question. What's more, she has borrowed a large sum of money from me and
that makes her dependent on me. I will confirm whatever you say to
explain our being here together, however inappropriate it might be, and
I guarantee to make sure that Mrs. Grubach will not only say she
believes the explanation in public but will believe it truly and
sincerely. You will have no need to consider me in any way. If you wish
to let it be known that I have attacked you then Mrs. Grubach will be
informed of such and she will believe it without even losing her trust
in me, that's how much respect she has for me." Miss Bürstner looked at
the floor in front of her, quiet and a little sunk in on herself. "Why
would Mrs. Grubach not believe that I've attacked you?" added K. He
looked at her hair in front of him, parted, bunched down, reddish and
firmly held in place. He thought she would look up at him, but without
changing her manner she said, "Forgive me, but it was the suddenness of
the knocking that startled me so much, not so much what the consequences
of the captain being here might be. It was all so quiet after you'd
shouted, and then there was the knocking, that's what made me so
shocked, and I was sitting right by the door, the knocking was right
next to me. Thank you for your suggestions, but I won't accept them. I
can bear the responsibility for anything that happens in my room myself,
and I can do so with anyone. I'm surprised you don't realise just how
insulting your suggestions are and what they imply about me, although I
certainly acknowledge your good intentions. But now, please go, leave me
alone, I need you to go now even more than I did earlier. The couple of
minutes you asked for have grown into half an hour, more than half an
hour now." K. took hold of her hand, and then of her wrist, "You're not
cross with me, though?" he said. She pulled her hand away and answered,
"No, no, I'm never cross with anyone." He grasped her wrist once more,
she tolerated it now and, in that way, led him to the door. He had
fully intended to leave. But when he reached the door he came to a halt
as if he hadn't expected to find a door there, Miss Bürstner made use of
that moment to get herself free, open the door, slip out into the
hallway and gently say to K. from there, "Now, come along, please.
Look," she pointed to the captain's door, from under which there was a
light shining, "he's put a light on and he's laughing at us." "Alright,
I'm coming," said K., moved forward, took hold of her, kissed her on
the mouth and then over her whole face like a thirsty animal lapping
with its tongue when it eventually finds water. He finally kissed her on
her neck and her throat and left his lips pressed there for a long time.
He did not look up until there was a noise from the captain's room.
"I'll go now," he said, he wanted to address Miss Bürstner by her
Christian name, but did not know it. She gave him a tired nod, offered
him her hand to kiss as she turned away as if she did not know what she
was doing, and went back into her room with her head bowed. A short
while later, K. was lying in his bed. He very soon went to sleep, but
before he did he thought a little while about his behaviour, he was
satisfied with it but felt some surprise that he was not more satisfied;
he was seriously worried about Miss Bürstner because of the captain.




Chapter Two

First Cross-examination


K. was informed by telephone that there would be a small hearing
concerning his case the following Sunday. He was made aware that these
cross examinations would follow one another regularly, perhaps not every
week but quite frequently. On the one hand it was in everyone's interest
to bring proceedings quickly to their conclusion, but on the other hand
every aspect of the examinations had to be carried out thoroughly
without lasting too long because of the associated stress. For these
reasons, it had been decided to hold a series of brief examinations
following on one after another. Sunday had been chosen as the day for
the hearings so that K. would not be disturbed in his professional work.
It was assumed that he would be in agreement with this, but if he wished
for another date then, as far as possible, he would be accommodated.
Cross-examinations could even be held in the night, for instance, but K.
would probably not be fresh enough at that time. Anyway, as long as K.
made no objection, the hearing would be left on Sundays. It was a matter
of course that he would have to appear without fail, there was probably
no need to point this out to him. He would be given the number of the
building where he was to present himself, which was in a street in a
suburb well away from the city centre which K. had never been to before.

Once he had received this notice, K. hung up the receiver without giving
an answer; he had decided immediately to go there that Sunday, it was
certainly necessary, proceedings had begun and he had to face up to it,
and this first examination would probably also be the last. He was still
standing in thought by the telephone when he heard the voice of the
deputy director behind him--he wanted to use the telephone but K. stood
in his way. "Bad news?" asked the deputy director casually, not in order
to find anything out but just to get K. away from the device. "No, no,"
said K., he stepped to one side but did not go away entirely. The deputy
director picked up the receiver and, as he waited for his connection,
turned away from it and said to K., "One question, Mr. K.: Would you
like to give me the pleasure of joining me on my sailing boat on Sunday
morning? There's quite a few people coming, you're bound to know some
of them. One of them is Hasterer, the state attorney. Would you like to
come along? Do come along!" K. tried to pay attention to what the
deputy director was saying. It was of no small importance for him, as
this invitation from the deputy director, with whom he had never got on
very well, meant that he was trying to improve his relations with him.
It showed how important K. had become in the bank and how its second
most important official seemed to value his friendship, or at least his
impartiality. He was only speaking at the side of the telephone receiver
while he waited for his connection, but in giving this invitation the
deputy director was humbling himself. But K. would have to humiliate him
a second time as a result, he said, "Thank you very much, but I'm afraid
I will have no time on Sunday, I have a previous obligation." "Pity,"
said the deputy director, and turned to the telephone conversation that
had just been connected. It was not a short conversation, but K.
remained standing confused by the instrument all the time it was going
on. It was only when the deputy director hung up that he was shocked
into awareness and said, in order to partially excuse his standing there
for no reason, "I've just received a telephone call, there's somewhere I
need to go, but they forgot to tell me what time." "Ask them then," said
the deputy director. "It's not that important," said K., although in
that way his earlier excuse, already weak enough, was made even weaker.
As he went, the deputy director continued to speak about other things.
K. forced himself to answer, but his thoughts were mainly about that
Sunday, how it would be best to get there for nine o'clock in the
morning as that was the time that courts always start work on weekdays.

The weather was dull on Sunday. K. was very tired, as he had stayed out
drinking until late in the night celebrating with some of the regulars,
and he had almost overslept. He dressed hurriedly, without the time to
think and assemble the various plans he had worked out during the week.
With no breakfast, he rushed to the suburb he had been told about. Oddly
enough, although he had little time to look around him, he came across
the three bank officials involved in his case, Rabensteiner, Kullich and
Kaminer. The first two were travelling in a tram that went across K.'s
route, but Kaminer sat on the terrace of a café and leant curiously
over the wall as K. came over. All of them seemed to be looking at him,
surprised at seeing their superior running; it was a kind of pride that
made K. want to go on foot, this was his affair and the idea of any help
from strangers, however slight, was repulsive to him, he also wanted to
avoid asking for anyone's help because that would initiate them into the
affair even if only slightly. And after all, he had no wish at all to
humiliate himself before the committee by being too punctual. Anyway,
now he was running so that he would get there by nine o'clock if at all
possible, even though he had no appointment for this time.

He had thought that he would recognise the building from a distance by
some kind of sign, without knowing exactly what the sign would look
like, or from some particular kind of activity outside the entrance. K.
had been told that the building was in Juliusstrasse, but when he stood
at the street's entrance it consisted on each side of almost nothing but
monotonous, grey constructions, tall blocks of flats occupied by poor
people. Now, on a Sunday morning, most of the windows were occupied, men
in their shirtsleeves leant out smoking, or carefully and gently held
small children on the sills. Other windows were piled up with bedding,
above which the dishevelled head of a woman would briefly appear. People
called out to each other across the street, one of the calls provoked a
loud laugh about K. himself. It was a long street, and spaced evenly
along it were small shops below street level, selling various kinds of
foodstuffs, which you reached by going down a few steps. Women went in
and out of them or stood chatting on the steps. A fruitmonger, taking
his goods up to the windows, was just as inattentive as K. and nearly
knocked him down with his cart. Just then, a gramophone, which in better
parts of town would have been seen as worn out, began to play some
murderous tune.

K. went further into the street, slowly, as if he had plenty of time
now, or as if the examining magistrate were looking at him from one of
the windows and therefore knew that K. had found his way there. It was
shortly after nine. The building was quite far down the street, it
covered so much area it was almost extraordinary, and the gateway in
particular was tall and long. It was clearly intended for delivery
wagons belonging to the various warehouses all round the yard which were
now locked up and carried the names of companies some of which K. knew
from his work at the bank. In contrast with his usual habits, he
remained standing a while at the entrance to the yard taking in all
these external details. Near him, there was a bare-footed man sitting on
a crate and reading a newspaper. There were two lads swinging on a hand
cart. In front of a pump stood a weak, young girl in a bedjacket who, as
the water flowed into her can, looked at K. There was a piece of rope
stretched between two windows in a corner of the yard, with some washing
hanging on it to dry. A man stood below it calling out instructions to
direct the work being done.

K. went over to the stairway to get to the room where the hearing was to
take place, but then stood still again as besides these steps he could
see three other stairway entrances, and there also seemed to be a small
passageway at the end of the yard leading into a second yard. It
irritated him that he had not been given more precise directions to the
room, it meant they were either being especially neglectful with him or
especially indifferent, and he decided to make that clear to them very
loudly and very unambiguously. In the end he decided to climb up the
stairs, his thoughts playing on something that he remembered the
policeman, Willem, saying to him; that the court is attracted by the
guilt, from which it followed that the courtroom must be on the stairway
that K. selected by chance.

As he went up he disturbed a large group of children playing on the
stairs who looked at him as he stepped through their rows. "Next time I
come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with me to
make them like me or a stick to hit them with." Just before he reached
the first landing he even had to wait a little while until a ball had
finished its movement, two small lads with sly faces like grown-up
scoundrels held him by his trouser-legs until it had; if he were to
shake them off he would have to hurt them, and he was afraid of what
noise they would make by shouting.

On the first floor, his search began for real. He still felt unable to
ask for the investigating committee, and so he invented a joiner called
Lanz--that name occurred to him because the captain, Mrs. Grubach's
nephew, was called Lanz--so that he could ask at every flat whether Lanz
the joiner lived there and thus obtain a chance to look into the rooms.
It turned out, though, that that was mostly possible without further
ado, as almost all the doors were left open and the children ran in and
out. Most of them were small, one-windowed rooms where they also did the
cooking. Many women held babies in one arm and worked at the stove with
the other. Half grown girls, who seemed to be dressed in just their
pinafores worked hardest running to and fro. In every room, the beds
were still in use by people who were ill, or still asleep, or people
stretched out on them in their clothes. K. knocked at the flats where
the doors were closed and asked whether Lanz the joiner lived there. It
was usually a woman who opened the door, heard the enquiry and turned to
somebody in the room who would raise himself from the bed. "The
gentleman's asking if a joiner called Lanz, lives here." "A joiner,
called Lanz?" he would ask from the bed." "That's right," K. would say,
although it was clear that the investigating committee was not to be
found there, and so his task was at an end. There were many who thought
it must be very important for K. to find Lanz the joiner and thought
long about it, naming a joiner who was not called Lanz or giving a name
that had some vague similarity with Lanz, or they asked neighbours or
accompanied K. to a door a long way away where they thought someone of
that sort might live in the back part of the building or where someone
would be who could advise K. better than they could themselves. K.
eventually had to give up asking if he did not want to be led all round
from floor to floor in this way. He regretted his initial plan, which
had at first seemed so practical to him. As he reached the fifth floor,
he decided to give up the search, took his leave of a friendly, young
worker who wanted to lead him on still further and went down the stairs.
But then the thought of how much time he was wasting made him cross, he
went back again and knocked at the first door on the fifth floor. The
first thing he saw in the small room was a large clock on the wall which
already showed ten o'clock. "Is there a joiner called Lanz who lives
here?" he asked. "Pardon?" said a young woman with black, shining eyes
who was, at that moment, washing children's underclothes in a bucket.
She pointed her wet hand towards the open door of the adjoining room.

K. thought he had stepped into a meeting. A medium sized, two windowed
room was filled with the most diverse crowd of people--nobody paid any
attention to the person who had just entered. Close under its ceiling it
was surrounded by a gallery which was also fully occupied and where the
people could only stand bent down with their heads and their backs
touching the ceiling. K., who found the air too stuffy, stepped out
again and said to the young woman, who had probably misunderstood what
he had said, "I asked for a joiner, someone by the name of Lanz." "Yes,"
said the woman, "please go on in." K. would probably not have followed
her if the woman had not gone up to him, taken hold of the door handle
and said, "I'll have to close the door after you, no-one else will be
allowed in." "Very sensible," said K., "but it's too full already." But
then he went back in anyway. He passed through between two men who were
talking beside the door--one of them held both hands far out in front of
himself making the movements of counting out money, the other looked him
closely in the eyes--and someone took him by the hand. It was a small,
red-faced youth. "Come in, come in," he said. K. let himself be led by
him, and it turned out that there was--surprisingly in a densely packed
crowd of people moving to and fro--a narrow passage which may have been
the division between two factions; this idea was reinforced by the fact
that in the first few rows to the left and the right of him there was
hardly any face looking in his direction, he saw nothing but the backs
of people directing their speech and their movements only towards
members of their own side. Most of them were dressed in black, in old,
long, formal frock coats that hung down loosely around them. These
clothes were the only thing that puzzled K., as he would otherwise have
taken the whole assembly for a local political meeting.

At the other end of the hall where K. had been led there was a little
table set at an angle on a very low podium which was as overcrowded as
everywhere else, and behind the table, near the edge of the podium, sat
a small, fat, wheezing man who was talking with someone behind him. This
second man was standing with his legs crossed and his elbows on the
backrest of the chair, provoking much laughter. From time to time he
threw his arm in the air as if doing a caricature of someone. The youth
who was leading K. had some difficulty in reporting to the man. He had
already tried twice to tell him something, standing on tiptoe, but
without getting the man's attention as he sat there above him. It was
only when one of the people up on the podium drew his attention to the
youth that the man turned to him and leant down to hear what it was he
quietly said. Then he pulled out his watch and quickly looked over at K.
"You should have been here one hour and five minutes ago," he said. K.
was going to give him a reply but had no time to do so, as hardly had
the man spoken than a general muttering arose all over the right hand
side of the hall. "You should have been here one hour and five minutes
ago," the man now repeated, raising his voice this time, and quickly
looked round the hall beneath him. The muttering also became immediately
louder and, as the man said nothing more, died away only gradually. Now
the hall was much quieter than when K. had entered. Only the people up
in the gallery had not stopped passing remarks. As far as could be
distinguished, up in the half-darkness, dust and haze, they seemed to be
less well dressed than those below. Many of them had brought pillows
that they had put between their heads and the ceiling so that they would
not hurt themselves pressed against it.

K. had decided he would do more watching than talking, so he did not
defend himself for supposedly having come late, and simply said, "Well
maybe I have arrived late, I'm here now." There followed loud applause,
once more from the right hand side of the hall. Easy people to get on
your side, thought K., and was bothered only by the quiet from the left
hand side which was directly behind him and from which there was
applause from only a few individuals. He wondered what he could say to
get all of them to support him together or, if that were not possible,
to at least get the support of the others for a while.

"Yes," said the man, "but I'm now no longer under any obligation to hear
your case"--there was once more a muttering, but this time it was
misleading as the man waved the people's objections aside with his hand
and continued--"I will, however, as an exception, continue with it
today. But you should never arrive late like this again. And now, step
forward!" Someone jumped down from the podium so that there would be a
place free for K., and K. stepped up onto it. He stood pressed closely
against the table, the press of the crowd behind him was so great that
he had to press back against it if he did not want to push the judge's
desk down off the podium and perhaps the judge along with it.

The judge, however, paid no attention to that but sat very comfortably
on his chair and, after saying a few words to close his discussion with
the man behind him, reached for a little note book, the only item on his
desk. It was like an old school exercise book and had become quite
misshapen from much thumbing. "Now then," said the judge, thumbing
through the book. He turned to K. with the tone of someone who knows his
facts and said, "you are a house painter?" "No," said K., "I am the
chief clerk in a large bank." This reply was followed by laughter among
the right hand faction down in the hall, it was so hearty that K.
couldn't stop himself joining in with it. The people supported
themselves with their hands on their knees and shook as if suffering a
serious attack of coughing. Even some of those in the gallery were
laughing. The judge had become quite cross but seemed to have no power
over those below him in the hall, he tried to reduce what harm had been
done in the gallery and jumped up threatening them, his eyebrows, until
then hardly remarkable, pushed themselves up and became big, black and
bushy over his eyes.

The left hand side of the hall was still quiet, though, the people stood
there in rows with their faces looking towards the podium listening to
what was being said there, they observed the noise from the other side
of the hall with the same quietness and even allowed some individuals
from their own ranks, here and there, to go forward into the other
faction. The people in the left faction were not only fewer in number
than the right but probably were no more important than them, although
their behaviour was calmer and that made it seem like they were. When K.
now began to speak he was convinced he was doing it in the same way as
them.

"Your question, My Lord, as to whether I am a house painter--in fact
even more than that, you did not ask at all but merely imposed it on
me--is symptomatic of the whole way these proceedings against me are
being carried out. Perhaps you will object that there are no proceedings
against me. You will be quite right, as there are proceedings only if I
acknowledge that there are. But, for the moment, I do acknowledge it,
out of pity for yourselves to a large extent. It's impossible not to
observe all this business without feeling pity. I don't say things are
being done without due care but I would like to make it clear that it is
I who make the acknowledgement."

K. stopped speaking and looked down into the hall. He had spoken
sharply, more sharply than he had intended, but he had been quite right.
It should have been rewarded with some applause here and there but
everything was quiet, they were all clearly waiting for what would
follow, perhaps the quietness was laying the ground for an outbreak of
activity that would bring this whole affair to an end. It was somewhat
disturbing that just then the door at the end of the hall opened, the
young washerwoman, who seemed to have finished her work, came in and,
despite all her caution, attracted the attention of some of the people
there. It was only the judge who gave K. any direct pleasure, as he
seemed to have been immediately struck by K.'s words. Until then, he had
listened to him standing, as K.'s speech had taken him by surprise while
he was directing his attention to the gallery. Now, in the pause, he sat
down very slowly, as if he did not want anyone to notice. He took out
the notebook again, probably so that he could give the impression of
being calmer.

"That won't help you, sir," continued K., "even your little book will
only confirm what I say." K. was satisfied to hear nothing but his own
quiet words in this room full of strangers, and he even dared casually
to pick up the examining judge's notebook and, touching it only with the
tips of his fingers as if it were something revolting, lifted it in the
air, holding it just by one of the middle pages so that the others on
each side of it, closely written, blotted and yellowing, flapped down.
"Those are the official notes of the examining judge," he said, and let
the notebook fall down onto the desk. "You can read in your book as much
as you like, sir, I really don't have anything in this charge book to be
afraid of, even though I don't have access to it as I wouldn't want it
in my hand, I can only touch it with two fingers." The judge grabbed the
notebook from where it had fallen on the desk--which could only have
been a sign of his deep humiliation, or at least that is how it must
have been perceived--tried to tidy it up a little, and held it once more
in front of himself in order to read from it.

The people in the front row looked up at him, showing such tension on
their faces that he looked back down at them for some time. Every one of
them was an old man, some of them with white beards. Could they perhaps
be the crucial group who could turn the whole assembly one way or the
other. They had sunk into a state of motionlessness while K. gave his
oration, and it had not been possible to raise them from this passivity
even when the judge was being humiliated. "What has happened to me,"
continued K., with less of the vigour he had had earlier, he continually
scanned the faces in the first row, and this gave his address a somewhat
nervous and distracted character, "what has happened to me is not just
an isolated case. If it were it would not be of much importance as it's
not of much importance to me, but it is a symptom of proceedings which
are carried out against many. It's on behalf of them that I stand here
now, not for myself alone."

Without having intended it, he had raised his voice. Somewhere in the
hall, someone raised his hands and applauded him shouting, "Bravo! Why
not then? Bravo! Again I say, Bravo!" Some of the men in the first row
groped around in their beards, none of them looked round to see who was
shouting. Not even K. thought him of any importance but it did raise his
spirits; he no longer thought it at all necessary that all of those in
the hall should applaud him, it was enough if the majority of them began
to think about the matter and if only one of them, now and then, was
persuaded.

"I'm not trying to be a successful orator," said K. after this thought,
"that's probably more than I'm capable of anyway. I'm sure the examining
judge can speak far better than I can, it is part of his job after all.
All that I want is a public discussion of a public wrong. Listen: ten
days ago I was placed under arrest, the arrest itself is something I
laugh about but that's beside the point. They came for me in the morning
when I was still in bed. Maybe the order had been given to arrest some
house painter--that seems possible after what the judge has
said--someone who is as innocent as I am, but it was me they chose.
There were two police thugs occupying the next room. They could not have
taken better precautions if I had been a dangerous robber. And these
policemen were unprincipled riff-raff, they talked at me till I was sick
of it, they wanted bribes, they wanted to trick me into giving them my
clothes, they wanted money, supposedly so that they could bring me my
breakfast after they had blatantly eaten my own breakfast in front of my
eyes. And even that was not enough. I was led in front of the supervisor
in another room. This was the room of a lady who I have a lot of respect
for, and I was forced to look on while the supervisor and the policemen
made quite a mess of this room because of me, although not through any
fault of mine. It was not easy to stay calm, but I managed to do so and
was completely calm when I asked the supervisor why it was that I was
under arrest. If he were here he would have to confirm what I say. I can
see him now, sitting on the chair belonging to that lady I mentioned--a
picture of dull-witted arrogance. What do you think he answered? What
he told me, gentlemen, was basically nothing at all; perhaps he really
did know nothing, he had placed me under arrest and was satisfied. In
fact he had done more than that and brought three junior employees from
the bank where I work into the lady's room; they had made themselves
busy interfering with some photographs that belonged to the lady and
causing a mess. There was, of course, another reason for bringing these
employees; they, just like my landlady and her maid, were expected to
spread the news of my arrest and damage my public reputation and in
particular to remove me from my position at the bank. Well they didn't
succeed in any of that, not in the slightest, even my landlady, who is
quite a simple person--and I will give you here her name in full
respect, her name is Mrs. Grubach--even Mrs. Grubach was understanding
enough to see that an arrest like this has no more significance than an
attack carried out on the street by some youths who are not kept under
proper control. I repeat, this whole affair has caused me nothing but
unpleasantness and temporary irritation, but could it not also have had
some far worse consequences?"

K. broke off here and looked at the judge, who said nothing. As he did
so he thought he saw the judge use a movement of his eyes to give a sign
to someone in the crowd. K. smiled and said, "And now the judge, right
next to me, is giving a secret sign to someone among you. There seems to
be someone among you who is taking directions from above. I don't know
whether the sign is meant to produce booing or applause, but I'll resist
trying to guess what its meaning is too soon. It really doesn't matter
to me, and I give his lordship the judge my full and public permission
to stop giving secret signs to his paid subordinate down there and give
his orders in words instead; let him just say 'Boo now!,' and then the
next time 'Clap now!'"

Whether it was embarrassment or impatience, the judge rocked backwards
and forwards on his seat. The man behind him, whom he had been talking
with earlier, leant forward again, either to give him a few general
words of encouragement or some specific piece of advice. Below them in
the hall the people talked to each other quietly but animatedly. The two
factions had earlier seemed to hold views strongly opposed to each other
but now they began to intermingle, a few individuals pointed up at K.,
others pointed at the judge. The air in the room was fuggy and extremely
oppressive, those who were standing furthest away could hardly even be
seen through it. It must have been especially troublesome for those
visitors who were in the gallery, as they were forced to quietly ask
the participants in the assembly what exactly was happening, albeit
with timid glances at the judge. The replies they received were just as
quiet, and given behind the protection of a raised hand.

"I have nearly finished what I have to say," said K., and as there was
no bell available he struck the desk with his fist in a way that
startled the judge and his advisor and made them look up from each
other. "None of this concerns me, and I am therefore able to make a calm
assessment of it, and, assuming that this so-called court is of any real
importance, it will be very much to your advantage to listen to what I
have to say. If you want to discuss what I say, please don't bother to
write it down until later on, I don't have any time to waste and I'll
soon be leaving."

There was immediate silence, which showed how well K. was in control of
the crowd. There were no shouts among them as there had been at the
start, no-one even applauded, but if they weren't already persuaded they
seemed very close to it.

K. was pleased at the tension among all the people there as they
listened to him, a rustling rose from the silence which was more
invigorating than the most ecstatic applause could have been. "There is
no doubt," he said quietly, "that there is some enormous organisation
determining what is said by this court. In my case this includes my
arrest and the examination taking place here today, an organisation that
employs policemen who can be bribed, oafish supervisors and judges of
whom nothing better can be said than that they are not as arrogant as
some others. This organisation even maintains a high-level judiciary
along with its train of countless servants, scribes, policemen and all
the other assistance that it needs, perhaps even executioners and
torturers--I'm not afraid of using those words. And what, gentlemen, is
the purpose of this enormous organisation. Its purpose is to arrest
innocent people and wage pointless prosecutions against them which, as
in my case, lead to no result. How are we to avoid those in office
becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning? That is
impossible, not even the highest judge would be able to achieve that for
himself. That is why policemen try to steal the clothes off the back of
those they arrest, that is why supervisors break into the homes of
people they do not know, that is why innocent people are humiliated in
front of crowds rather than being given a proper trial. The policemen
only talked about the warehouses where they put the property of those
they arrest, I would like to see these warehouses where the hard won
possessions of people under arrest is left to decay, if, that is, it's
not stolen by the thieving hands of the warehouse workers."

K. was interrupted by a screeching from the far end of the hall, he
shaded his eyes to see that far, as the dull light of day made the smoke
whitish and hard to see through. It was the washerwoman whom K. had
recognised as a likely source of disturbance as soon as she had entered.
It was hard to see now whether it was her fault or not. K. could only
see that a man had pulled her into a corner by the door and was pressing
himself against her. But it was not her who was screaming, but the man,
he had opened his mouth wide and looked up at the ceiling. A small
circle had formed around the two of them, the visitors near him in the
gallery seemed delighted that the serious tone K. had introduced into
the gathering had been disturbed in this way. K.'s first thought was to
run over there, and he also thought that everyone would want to bring
things back into order there or at least to make the pair leave the
room, but the first row of people in front of him stayed were they were,
no-one moved and no-one let K. through. On the contrary, they stood in
his way, old men held out their arms in front of him and a hand from
somewhere--he did not have the time to turn round--took hold of his
collar. K., by this time, had forgotten about the pair, it seemed to him
that his freedom was being limited as if his arrest was being taken
seriously, and, without any thought for what he was doing, he jumped
down from the podium. Now he stood face to face with the crowd. Had he
judged the people properly? Had he put too much faith in the effect of
his speech? Had they been putting up a pretence all the time he had
been speaking, and now that he came to the end and to what must follow,
were they tired of pretending? What faces they were, all around him!
Dark, little eyes flickered here and there, cheeks drooped down like on
drunken men, their long beards were thin and stiff, if they took hold of
them it was more like they were making their hands into claws, not as if
they were taking hold of their own beards. But underneath those
beards--and this was the real discovery made by K.--there were badges of
various sizes and colours shining on the collars of their coats. As far
as he could see, every one of them was wearing one of these badges. All
of them belonged to the same group, even though they seemed to be
divided to the right and the left of him, and when he suddenly turned
round he saw the same badge on the collar of the examining judge who
calmly looked down at him with his hands in his lap. "So," called out
K., throwing his arms in the air as if this sudden realisation needed
more room, "all of you are working for this organisation, I see now that
you are all the very bunch of cheats and liars I've just been speaking
about, you've all pressed yourselves in here in order to listen in and
snoop on me, you gave the impression of having formed into factions, one
of you even applauded me to test me out, and you wanted to learn how to
trap an innocent man! Well, I hope you haven't come here for nothing, I
hope you've either had some fun from someone who expected you to defend
his innocence or else--let go of me or I'll hit you," shouted K. to a
quivery old man who had pressed himself especially close to him--"or
else that you've actually learned something. And so I wish you good luck
in your trade." He briskly took his hat from where it lay on the edge of
the table and, surrounded by a silence caused perhaps by the
completeness of their surprise, pushed his way to the exit. However, the
examining judge seems to have moved even more quickly than K., as he was
waiting for him at the doorway. "One moment," he said. K. stood where he
was, but looked at the door with his hand already on its handle rather
than at the judge. "I merely wanted to draw your attention," said the
judge, "to something you seem not yet to be aware of: today, you have
robbed yourself of the advantages that a hearing of this sort always
gives to someone who is under arrest." K. laughed towards the door. "You
bunch of louts," he called, "you can keep all your hearings as a present
from me," then opened the door and hurried down the steps. Behind him,
the noise of the assembly rose as it became lively once more and
probably began to discuss these events as if making a scientific study
of them.




Chapter Three

In the empty Courtroom--The Student--The Offices


Every day over the following week, K. expected another summons to
arrive, he could not believe that his rejection of any more hearings had
been taken literally, and when the expected summons really had not come
by Saturday evening he took it to mean that he was expected, without
being told, to appear at the same place at the same time. So on Sunday,
he set out once more in the same direction, going without hesitation up
the steps and through the corridors; some of the people remembered him
and greeted him from their doorways, but he no longer needed to ask
anyone the way and soon arrived at the right door. It was opened as soon
as he knocked and, paying no attention to the woman he had seen last
time who was standing at the doorway, he was about to go straight into
the adjoining room when she said to him "There's no session today."
"What do you mean; no session?" he asked, unable to believe it. But the
woman persuaded him by opening the door to the next room. It was indeed
empty, and looked even more dismal empty than it had the previous
Sunday. On the podium stood the table exactly as it had been before with
a few books laying on it. "Can I have a look at those books?" asked K.,
not because he was especially curious but so that he would not have come
for nothing. "No," said the woman as she re-closed the door, "that's not
allowed. Those books belong to the examining judge." "I see," said K.,
and nodded, "those books must be law books, and that's how this court
does things, not only to try people who are innocent but even to try
them without letting them know what's going on." "I expect you're
right," said the woman, who had not understood exactly what he meant.
"I'd better go away again, then," said K. "Should I give a message to
the examining judge?" asked the woman. "Do you know him, then?" asked K.
"Of course I know him," said the woman, "my husband is the court usher."
It was only now that K. noticed that the room, which before had held
nothing but a wash-tub, had been fitted out as a living room. The woman
saw how surprised he was and said, "Yes, we're allowed to live here as
we like, only we have to clear the room out when the court's in session.
There's lots of disadvantages to my husband's job." "It's not so much
the room that surprises me," said K., looking at her crossly, "it's your
being married that shocks me." "Are you thinking about what happened
last time the court was in session, when I disturbed what you were
saying?" asked the woman. "Of course," said K., "it's in the past now
and I've nearly forgotten about it, but at the time it made me furious.
And now you tell me yourself that you are a married woman." "It wasn't
any disadvantage for you to have your speech interrupted. The way they
talked about you after you'd gone was really bad." "That could well be,"
said K., turning away, "but it does not excuse you." "There's no-one I
know who'd hold it against me," said the woman. "Him, who put his arms
around me, he's been chasing after me for a long time. I might not be
very attractive for most people, but I am for him. I've got no
protection from him, even my husband has had to get used to it; if he
wants to keep his job he's got to put up with it as that man's a student
and he'll almost certainly be very powerful later on. He's always after
me, he'd only just left when you arrived." "That fits in with everything
else," said K., "I'm not surprised." "Do you want to make things a bit
better here?" the woman asked slowly, watching him as if she were saying
something that could be as dangerous for K. as for herself. "That's what
I thought when I heard you speak, I really liked what you said. Mind
you, I only heard part of it, I missed the beginning of it and at the
end I was lying on the floor with the student--it's so horrible here,"
she said after a pause, and took hold of K.'s hand. "Do you believe you
really will be able to make things better?" K. smiled and twisted his
hand round a little in her soft hands. "It's really not my job to make
things better here, as you put it," he said, "and if you said that to
the examining judge he would laugh at you or punish you for it. I really
would not have become involved in this matter if I could have helped it,
and I would have lost no sleep worrying about how this court needs to be
made better. But because I'm told that I have been arrested--and I am
under arrest--it forces me to take some action, and to do so for my own
sake. However, if I can be of some service to you in the process I will,
of course, be glad to do so. And I will be glad to do so not only for
the sake of charity but also because you can be of some help to me."
"How could I help you, then?" said the woman. "You could, for example,
show me the books on the table there." "Yes, certainly," the woman
cried, and pulled K. along behind her as she rushed to them. The books
were old and well worn, the cover of one of them had nearly broken
through in its middle, and it was held together with a few threads.
"Everything is so dirty here," said K., shaking his head, and before he
could pick the books up the woman wiped some of the dust off with her
apron. K. took hold of the book that lay on top and threw it open, an
indecent picture appeared. A man and a woman sat naked on a sofa, the
base intent of whoever drew it was easy to see but he had been so
grossly lacking in skill that all that anyone could really make out were
the man and the woman who dominated the picture with their bodies,
sitting in overly upright postures that created a false perspective and
made it difficult for them to approach each other. K. didn't thumb
through that book any more, but just threw open the next one at its
title page, it was a novel with the title, What Grete Suffered from her
Husband, Hans. "So this is the sort of law book they study here," said
K., "this is the sort of person sitting in judgement over me." "I can
help you," said the woman, "would you like me to?" "Could you really do
that without placing yourself in danger? You did say earlier on that
your husband is wholly dependent on his superiors." "I still want to
help you," said the woman, "come over here, we've got to talk about it.
Don't say any more about what danger I'm in, I only fear danger where I
want to fear it. Come over here." She pointed to the podium and invited
him to sit down on the step with her. "You've got lovely dark eyes," she
said after they had sat down, looking up into K.'s face, "people say
I've got nice eyes too, but yours are much nicer. It was the first thing
I noticed when you first came here. That's even why I came in here, into
the assembly room, afterwards, I'd never normally do that, I'm not
really even allowed to." So that's what all this is about, thought K.,
she's offering herself to me, she's as degenerate as everything else
around here, she's had enough of the court officials, which is
understandable I suppose, and so she approaches any stranger and makes
compliments about his eyes. With that, K. stood up in silence as if he
had spoken his thoughts out loud and thus explained his action to the
woman. "I don't think you can be of any assistance to me," he said, "to
be of any real assistance you would need to be in contact with high
officials. But I'm sure you only know the lower employees, and there are
crowds of them milling about here. I'm sure you're very familiar with
them and could achieve a great deal through them, I've no doubt of that,
but the most that could be done through them would have no bearing at
all on the final outcome of the trial. You, on the other hand, would
lose some of your friends as a result, and I have no wish of that. Carry
on with these people in the same way as you have been, as it does seem
to me to be something you cannot do without. I have no regrets in saying
this as, in return for your compliment to me, I also find you rather
attractive, especially when you look at me as sadly as you are now,
although you really have no reason to do so. You belong to the people I
have to combat, and you're very comfortable among them, you're even in
love with the student, or if you don't love him you do at least prefer
him to your husband. It's easy to see that from what you've been
saying." "No!" she shouted, remained sitting where she was and grasped
K.'s hand, which he failed to pull away fast enough. "You can't go away
now, you can't go away when you've misjudged me like that! Are you
really capable of going away now? Am I really so worthless that you
won't even do me the favour of staying a little bit longer?" "You
misunderstand me," said K., sitting back down, "if it's really important
to you for me to stay here then I'll be glad to do so, I have plenty of
time, I came here thinking there would be a trial taking place. All I
meant with what I said just now was to ask you not to do anything on my
behalf in the proceedings against me. But even that is nothing for you
to worry about when you consider that there's nothing hanging on the
outcome of this trial, and that, whatever the verdict, I will just laugh
at it. And that's even presupposing it ever even reaches any conclusion,
which I very much doubt. I think it's much more likely that the court
officials will be too lazy, too forgetful, or even too fearful ever to
continue with these proceedings and that they will soon be abandoned if
they haven't been abandoned already. It's even possible that they will
pretend to be carrying on with the trial in the hope of receiving a
large bribe, although I can tell you now that that will be quite in vain
as I pay bribes to no-one. Perhaps one favour you could do me would be
to tell the examining judge, or anyone else who likes to spread
important news, that I will never be induced to pay any sort of bribe
through any stratagem of theirs--and I'm sure they have many stratagems
at their disposal. There is no prospect of that, you can tell them that
quite openly. And what's more, I expect they have already noticed
themselves, or even if they haven't, this affair is really not so
important to me as they think. Those gentlemen would only save some work
for themselves, or at least some unpleasantness for me, which, however,
I am glad to endure if I know that each piece of unpleasantness for me
is a blow against them. And I will make quite sure it is a blow against
them. Do you actually know the judge?" "Course I do," said the woman,
"he was the first one I thought of when I offered to help you. I didn't
know he's only a minor official, but if you say so it must be true. Mind
you, I still think the report he gives to his superiors must have some
influence. And he writes so many reports. You say these officials are
lazy, but they're certainly not all lazy, especially this examining
judge, he writes ever such a lot. Last Sunday, for instance, that
session went on till the evening. Everyone had gone, but the examining
judge, he stayed in the hall, I had to bring him a lamp in, all I had
was a little kitchen lamp but he was very satisfied with it and started
to write straight away. Meantime my husband arrived, he always has the
day off on Sundays, we got the furniture back in and got our room sorted
out and then a few of the neighbours came, we sat and talked for a bit
by a candle, in short, we forgot all about the examining judge and went
to bed. All of a sudden in the night, it must have been quite late in
the night, I wakes up, next to the bed, there's the examining judge
shading the lamp with his hand so that there's no light from it falls on
my husband, he didn't need to be as careful as that, the way my husband
sleeps the light wouldn't have woken him up anyway. I was quite shocked
and nearly screamed, but the judge was very friendly, warned me I should
be careful, he whispered to me he's been writing all this time, and now
he's brought me the lamp back, and he'll never forget how I looked when
he found me there asleep. What I mean, with all this, I just wanted to
tell you how the examining judge really does write lots of reports,
especially about you as questioning you was definitely one of the main
things on the agenda that Sunday. If he writes reports as long as that
they must be of some importance. And besides all that, you can see from
what happened that the examining judge is after me, and it's right now,
when he's first begun to notice me, that I can have a lot of influence
on him. And I've got other proof I mean a lot to him, too. Yesterday, he
sent that student to me, the one he really trusts and who he works with,
he sent him with a present for me, silk stockings. He said it was
because I clear up in the courtroom but that's only a pretence, that
job's no more than what I'm supposed to do, it's what my husband gets
paid for. Nice stockings, they are, look,"--she stretched out her leg,
drew her skirt up to her knee and looked, herself, at the
stocking--"they are nice stockings, but they're too good for me,
really."

She suddenly interrupted herself and lay her hand on K.'s as if she
wanted to calm him down, and whispered, "Be quiet, Berthold is watching
us." K. slowly looked up. In the doorway to the courtroom stood a young
man, he was short, his legs were not quite straight, and he continually
moved his finger round in a short, thin, red beard with which he hoped
to make himself look dignified. K. looked at him with some curiosity, he
was the first student he had ever met of the unfamiliar discipline of
jurisprudence, face to face at least, a man who would even most likely
attain high office one day. The student, in contrast, seemed to take no
notice of K. at all, he merely withdrew his finger from his beard long
enough to beckon to the woman and went over to the window, the woman
leant over to K. and whispered, "Don't be cross with me, please don't,
and please don't think ill of me either, I've got to go to him now, to
this horrible man, just look at his bent legs. But I'll come straight
back and then I'll go with you if you'll take me, I'll go wherever you
want, you can do whatever you like with me, I'll be happy if I can be
away from here for as long as possible, it'd be best if I could get away
from here for good." She stroked K.'s hand once more, jumped up and ran
over to the window. Before he realised it, K. grasped for her hand but
failed to catch it. He really was attracted to the woman, and even after
thinking hard about it could find no good reason why he should not give
in to her allure. It briefly crossed his mind that the woman meant to
entrap him on behalf of the court, but that was an objection he had no
difficulty in fending off. In what way could she entrap him? Was he not
still free, so free that he could crush the entire court whenever he
wanted, at least where it concerned him? Could he not have that much
confidence in himself? And her offer of help sounded sincere, and maybe
it wasn't quite worthless. And maybe there was no better revenge against
the examining judge and his cronies than to take this woman from him and
have her for himself. Maybe then, after much hard work writing dishonest
reports about K., the judge would go to the woman's bed late one night
and find it empty. And it would be empty because she belonged to K.,
because this woman at the window, this lush, supple, warm body in its
sombre clothes of rough, heavy material belonged to him, totally to him
and to him alone. Once he had settled his thoughts towards the woman in
this way, he began to find the quiet conversation at the window was
taking too long, he rapped on the podium with his knuckles, and then
even with his fist. The student briefly looked away from the woman to
glance at K. over his shoulder but did allow himself to be disturbed, in
fact he even pressed himself close to the woman and put his arms around
her. She dropped her head down low as if listening to him carefully, as
she did so he kissed her right on the neck, hardly even interrupting
what he was saying. K. saw this as confirmation of the tyranny the
student held over the woman and which she had already complained about,
he stood up and walked up and down the room. Glancing sideways at the
student, he wondered what would be the quickest possible way to get rid
of him, and so it was not unwelcome to him when the student, clearly
disturbed by K.'s to-ing and fro-ing which K. had now developed into a
stamping up and down, said to him, "You don't have to stay here, you
know, if you're getting impatient. You could have gone earlier, no-one
would have missed you. In fact you should have gone, you should have
left as quickly as possible as soon as I got here." This comment could
have caused all possible rage to break out between them, but K. also
bore in mind that this was a prospective court official speaking to a
disfavoured defendant, and he might well have been taking pride in
speaking in this way. K. remained standing quite close to him and said
with a smile, "You're quite right, I am impatient, but the easiest way
to settle this impatience would be if you left us. On the other hand,
if you've come here to study--you are a student, I hear--I'll be quite
happy to leave the room to you and go away with the woman. I'm sure
you'll still have a lot of study to do before you're made into a judge.
It's true that I'm still not all that familiar with your branch of
jurisprudence but I take it it involves a lot more than speaking
roughly--and I see you have no shame in doing that extremely well." "He
shouldn't have been allowed to move about so freely," said the student,
as if he wanted to give the woman an explanation for K.'s insults, "that
was a mistake. I've told the examining judge so. He should at least have
been detained in his room between hearings. Sometimes it's impossible to
understand what the judge thinks he's doing." "You're wasting your
breath," said K., then he reached his hand out towards the woman and
said, "come with me." "So that's it," said the student, "oh no, you're
not going to get her," and with a strength you would not have expected
from him, he glanced tenderly at her, lifted her up on one arm and, his
back bent under the weight, ran with her to the door. In this way he
showed, unmistakably, that he was to some extent afraid of K., but he
nonetheless dared to provoke him still further by stroking and squeezing
the woman's arm with his free hand. K. ran the few steps up to him, but
when he had reached him and was about to take hold of him and, if
necessary, throttle him, the woman said, "It's no good, it's the
examining judge who's sent for me, I daren't go with you, this little
bastard ..." and here she ran her hand over the student's face, "this
little bastard won't let me." "And you don't want to be set free!"
shouted K., laying his hand on the student's shoulder, who then snapped
at it with his teeth. "No!" shouted the woman, pushing K. away with both
hands, "no, no don't do that, what d'you think you're doing? That'd be
the end of me. Let go of him, please just let go of him. He's only
carrying out the judge's orders, he's carrying me to him." "Let him take
you then, and I want to see nothing more of you," said K., enraged by
his disappointment and giving the student a thump in the back so that he
briefly stumbled and then, glad that he had not fallen, immediately
jumped up all the higher with his burden. K. followed them slowly. He
realised that this was the first unambiguous setback he had suffered
from these people. It was of course nothing to worry about, he accepted
the setback only because he was looking for a fight. If he stayed at
home and carried on with his normal life he would be a thousand times
superior to these people and could get any of them out of his way just
with a kick. And he imagined the most laughable scene possible as an
example of this, if this contemptible student, this inflated child, this
knock-kneed redbeard, if he were kneeling at Elsa's bed wringing his
hands and begging for forgiveness. K. so enjoyed imagining this scene
that he decided to take the student along to Elsa with him if ever he
should get the opportunity.

K. was curious to see where the woman would be taken and he hurried over
to the door, the student was not likely to carry her through the streets
on his arm. It turned out that the journey was far shorter. Directly
opposite the flat there was a narrow flight of wooden steps which
probably led up to the attic, they turned as they went so that it was
not possible to see where they ended. The student carried the woman up
these steps, and after the exertions of running with her he was soon
groaning and moving very slowly. The woman waved down at K. and by
raising and lowering her shoulders she tried to show that she was an
innocent party in this abduction, although the gesture did not show a
lot of regret. K. watched her without expression like a stranger, he
wanted to show neither that he was disappointed nor that he would easily
get over his disappointment.

The two of them had disappeared, but K. remained standing in the
doorway. He had to accept that the woman had not only cheated him but
that she had also lied to him when she said she was being taken to the
examining judge. The examining judge certainly wouldn't be sitting and
waiting in the attic. The wooden stairs would explain nothing to him
however long he stared at them. Then K. noticed a small piece of paper
next to them, went across to it and read, in a childish and unpractised
hand, "Entrance to the Court Offices". Were the court offices here, in
the attic of this tenement, then? If that was how they were
accommodated it did not attract much respect, and it was some comfort
for the accused to realise how little money this court had at its
disposal if it had to locate its offices in a place where the tenants of
the building, who were themselves among the poorest of people, would
throw their unneeded junk. On the other hand, it was possible that the
officials had enough money but that they squandered it on themselves
rather than use it for the court's purposes. Going by K.'s experience of
them so far, that even seemed probable, except that if the court were
allowed to decay in that way it would not just humiliate the accused but
also give him more encouragement than if the court were simply in a
state of poverty. K. also now understood that the court was ashamed to
summon those it accused to the attic of this building for the initial
hearing, and why it preferred to impose upon them in their own homes.
What a position it was that K. found himself in, compared with the judge
sitting up in the attic! K., at the bank, had a big office with an
ante-room, and had an enormous window through which he could look down
at the activity in the square. It was true, though, that he had no
secondary income from bribes and fraud, and he couldn't tell a servant
to bring him a woman up to the office on his arm. K., however, was quite
willing to do without such things, in this life at least. K. was still
looking at the notice when a man came up the stairs, looked through the
open door into the living room where it was also possible to see the
courtroom, and finally asked K. whether he had just seen a woman there.
"You're the court usher, aren't you?" asked K. "That's right," said the
man, "oh, yes, you're defendant K., I recognise you now as well. Nice to
see you here." And he offered K. his hand, which was far from what K.
had expected. And when K. said nothing, he added, "There's no court
session planned for today, though." "I know that," said K. as he looked
at the usher's civilian coat which, beside its ordinary buttons,
displayed two gilded ones as the only sign of his office and seemed to
have been taken from an old army officer's coat. "I was speaking with
your wife a little while ago. She is no longer here. The student has
carried her off to the examining judge." "Listen to this," said the
usher, "they're always carrying her away from me. It's Sunday today, and
it's not part of my job to do any work today, but they send me off with
some message which isn't even necessary just to get me away from here.
What they do is they send me off not too far away so that I can still
hope to get back on time if I really hurry. So off I go running as fast
as I can, shout the message through the crack in the door of the office
I've been sent to, so out of breath they'll hardly be able to understand
it, run back here again, but the student's been even faster than I
have--well he's got less far to go, he's only got to run down the steps.
If I wasn't so dependent on them I'd have squashed the student against
the wall here a long time ago. Right here, next to the sign. I'm always
dreaming of doing that. Just here, just above the floor, that's where
he's crushed onto the wall, his arms stretched out, his fingers spread
apart, his crooked legs twisted round into a circle and blood squirted
out all around him. It's only ever been a dream so far, though." "Is
there nothing else you do?" asked K. with a smile. "Nothing that I know
of," said the usher. "And it's going to get even worse now, up till now
he's only been carrying her off for himself, now he's started carrying
her off for the judge and all, just like I'd always said he would."
"Does your wife, then, not share some of the responsibility?" asked K.
He had to force himself as he asked this question, as he, too, felt so
jealous now. "Course she does," said the usher, "it's more her fault
than theirs. It was her who attached herself to him. All he did, he just
chases after any woman. There's five flats in this block alone where
he's been thrown out after working his way in there. And my wife is the
best looking woman in the whole building, but it's me who's not even
allowed to defend himself." "If that's how things are, then there's
nothing that can be done," said K. "Well why not?" asked the usher.
"He's a coward that student, if he wants to lay a finger on my wife all
you'd have to do is give him such a good hiding he'd never dare do it
again. But I'm not allowed to do that, and nobody else is going to do me
the favour as they're all afraid of his power. The only one who could do
it is a man like you." "What, how could I do it?" asked K. in
astonishment. "Well you're facing a charge, aren't you," said the usher.
"Yes, but that's all the more reason for me to be afraid. Even if he has
no influence on the outcome of the trial he probably has some on the
initial examination." "Yes, exactly," said the usher, as if K.'s view
had been just as correct as his own. "Only we don't usually get any
trials heard here with no hope at all." "I am not of the same opinion,"
said K., "although that ought not to prevent me from dealing with the
student if the opportunity arises." "I would be very grateful to you,"
said the usher of the court, somewhat formally, not really seeming to
believe that his highest wish could be fulfilled. "Perhaps," continued
K., "perhaps there are some other officials of yours here, perhaps all
of them, who would deserve the same." "Oh yes, yes," said the usher, as
if this was a matter of course. Then he looked at K. trustingly which,
despite all his friendliness, he had not done until then, and added,
"they're always rebelling." But the conversation seemed to have become a
little uncomfortable for him, as he broke it off by saying, "now I have
to report to the office. Would you like to come with me?" "There's
nothing for me to do there," said K. "You'd be able to have a look at
it. No-one will take any notice of you." "Is it worth seeing then?"
asked K. hesitatingly, although he felt very keen to go with him.
"Well," said the usher, "I thought you'd be interested in it." "Alright
then," said K. finally, "I'll come with you." And, quicker than the
usher himself, he ran up the steps.

At the entrance he nearly fell over, as behind the door there was
another step. "They don't show much concern for the public," he said.
"They don't show any concern at all," said the usher, "just look at the
waiting room here." It consisted of a long corridor from which roughly
made doors led out to the separate departments of the attic. There was
no direct source of light but it was not entirely dark as many of the
departments, instead of solid walls, had just wooden bars reaching up to
the ceiling to separate them from the corridor. The light made its way
in through them, and it was also possible to see individual officials
through them as they sat writing at their desks or stood up at the
wooden frameworks and watched the people on the corridor through the
gaps. There were only a few people in the corridor, probably because it
was Sunday. They were not very impressive. They sat, equally spaced, on
two rows of long wooden benches which had been placed along both sides
of the corridor. All of them were carelessly dressed although the
expressions on their faces, their bearing, the style of their beards and
many details which were hard to identify showed that they belonged to
the upper classes. There were no coat hooks for them to use, and so they
had placed their hats under the bench, each probably having followed the
example of the others. When those who were sitting nearest the door saw
K. and the usher of the court they stood up to greet them, and when the
others saw that, they also thought they had to greet them, so that as
the two of them went by all the people there stood up. None of them
stood properly upright, their backs were bowed, their knees bent, they
stood like beggars on the street. K. waited for the usher, who was
following just behind him. "They must all be very dispirited," he said.
"Yes," said the usher, "they are the accused, everyone you see here has
been accused." "Really!" said K. "They're colleagues of mine then." And
he turned to the nearest one, a tall, thin man with hair that was nearly
grey. "What is it you are waiting for here?" asked K., politely, but the
man was startled at being spoken to unexpectedly, which was all the more
pitiful to see because the man clearly had some experience of the world
and elsewhere would certainly have been able to show his superiority and
would not have easily given up the advantage he had acquired. Here,
though, he did not know what answer to give to such a simple question
and looked round at the others as if they were under some obligation to
help him, and as if no-one could expect any answer from him without this
help. Then the usher of the court stepped forward to him and, in order
to calm him down and raise his spirits, said, "The gentleman here's only
asking what it is you're waiting for. You can give him an answer." The
voice of the usher was probably familiar to him, and had a better effect
than K.'s. "I'm ... I'm waiting...." he began, and then came to a halt.
He had clearly chosen this beginning so that he could give a precise
answer to the question, but now he didn't know how to continue. Some of
the others waiting had come closer and stood round the group, the usher
of the court said to them, "Get out the way, keep the gangway free."
They moved back slightly, but not as far as where they had been sitting
before. In the meantime, the man whom K. had first approached had pulled
himself together and even answered him with a smile. "A month ago I made
some applications for evidence to be heard in my case, and I'm waiting
for it to be settled." "You certainly seem to be going to a lot of
effort," said K. "Yes," said the man, "it is my affair after all." "Not
everyone thinks the same way as you do," said K. "I've been indicted as
well but I swear on my soul that I've neither submitted evidence nor
done anything else of the sort. Do you really think that's necessary?"
"I don't really know, exactly," said the man, once more totally unsure
of himself; he clearly thought K. was joking with him and therefore
probably thought it best to repeat his earlier answer in order to avoid
making any new mistakes. With K. looking at him impatiently, he just
said, "as far as I'm concerned, I've applied to have this evidence
heard." "Perhaps you don't believe I've been indicted?" asked K. "Oh,
please, I certainly do," said the man, stepping slightly to one side,
but there was more anxiety in his answer than belief. "You don't believe
me then?" asked K., and took hold of his arm, unconsciously prompted by
the man's humble demeanour, and as if he wanted to force him to believe
him. But he did not want to hurt the man and had only taken hold of him
very lightly. Nonetheless, the man cried out as if K. had grasped him
not with two fingers but with red hot tongs. Shouting in this ridiculous
way finally made K. tired of him, if he didn't believe he was indicted
then so much the better; maybe he even thought K. was a judge. And
before leaving, he held him a lot harder, shoved him back onto the bench
and walked on. "These defendants are so sensitive, most of them," said
the usher of the court. Almost all of those who had been waiting had now
assembled around the man who, by now, had stopped shouting and they
seemed to be asking him lots of precise questions about the incident. K.
was approached by a security guard, identifiable mainly by his sword, of
which the scabbard seemed to be made of aluminium. This greatly
surprised K., and he reached out for it with his hand. The guard had
come because of the shouting and asked what had been happening. The
usher of the court said a few words to try and calm him down but the
guard explained that he had to look into it himself, saluted, and
hurried on, walking with very short steps, probably because of gout.

K. didn't concern himself long with the guard or these people,
especially as he saw a turning off the corridor, about half way along
it on the right hand side, where there was no door to stop him going
that way. He asked the usher whether that was the right way to go, the
usher nodded, and that is the way that K. went. The usher remained
always one or two steps behind K., which he found irritating as in a
place like this it could give the impression that he was being driven
along by someone who had arrested him, so he frequently waited for the
usher to catch up, but the usher always remained behind him. In order to
put an end to his discomfort, K. finally said, "Now that I've seen what
it looks like here, I'd like to go." "You haven't seen everything yet,"
said the usher ingenuously. "I don't want to see everything," said K.,
who was also feeling very tired, "I want to go, what is the way to the
exit?" "You haven't got lost, have you?" asked the usher in amazement,
"you go down this way to the corner, then right down the corridor
straight ahead as far as the door." "Come with me," said K., "show me
the way, I'll miss it, there are so many different ways here." "It's the
only way there is," said the usher, who had now started to sound quite
reproachful, "I can't go back with you again, I've got to hand in my
report, and I've already lost a lot of time because of you as it is."
"Come with me!" K. repeated, now somewhat sharper as if he had finally
caught the usher out in a lie. "Don't shout like that," whispered the
usher, "there's offices all round us here. If you don't want to go back
by yourself come on a bit further with me or else wait here till I've
sorted out my report, then I'll be glad to go back with you again." "No,
no," said K., "I will not wait and you must come with me now." K. had
still not looked round at anything at all in the room where he found
himself, and it was only when one of the many wooden doors all around
him opened that he noticed it. A young woman, probably summoned by the
loudness of K.'s voice, entered and asked, "What is it the gentleman
wants?" In the darkness behind her there was also a man approaching. K.
looked at the usher. He had, after all, said that no-one would take any
notice of K., and now there were two people coming, it only needed a few
and everyone in the office would become aware of him and asking for
explanations as to why he was there. The only understandable and
acceptable thing to say was that he was accused of something and wanted
to know the date of his next hearing, but this was an explanation he did
not want to give, especially as it was not true--he had only come out of
curiosity. Or else, an explanation even less usable, he could say that
he wanted to ascertain that the court was as revolting on the inside as
it was on the outside. And it did seem that he had been quite right in
this supposition, he had no wish to intrude any deeper, he was disturbed
enough by what he had seen already, he was not in the right frame of
mind just then to face a high official such as might appear from behind
any door, and he wanted to go, either with the usher of the court or, if
needs be, alone.

But he must have seemed very odd standing there in silence, and the
young woman and the usher were indeed looking at him as if they thought
he would go through some major metamorphosis any second which they
didn't want to miss seeing. And in the doorway stood the man whom K. had
noticed in the background earlier, he held firmly on to the beam above
the low door swinging a little on the tips of his feet as if becoming
impatient as he watched. But the young woman was the first to recognise
that K.'s behaviour was caused by his feeling slightly unwell, she
brought a chair and asked, "Would you not like to sit down?" K. sat down
immediately and, in order to keep his place better, put his elbows on
the armrests. "You're a little bit dizzy, aren't you?" she asked him.
Her face was now close in front of him, it bore the severe expression
that many young women have just when they're in the bloom of their
youth. "It's nothing for you to worry about," she said, "that's nothing
unusual here, almost everyone gets an attack like that the first time
they come here. This is your first time is it. Yes, it's nothing unusual
then. The sun burns down on the roof and the hot wood makes the air so
thick and heavy. It makes this place rather unsuitable for offices,
whatever other advantages it might offer. But the air is almost
impossible to breathe on days when there's a lot of business, and that's
almost every day. And when you think that there's a lot of washing put
out to dry here as well--and we can't stop the tenants doing that--it's
not surprising you started to feel unwell. But you get used to the air
alright in the end. When you're here for the second or third time you'll
hardly notice how oppressive the air is. Are you feeling any better
now?" K. made no answer, he felt too embarrassed at being put at the
mercy of these people by his sudden weakness, and learning the reason
for feeling ill made him feel not better but a little worse. The girl
noticed it straight away, and to make the air fresher for K., she took a
window pole that was leaning against the wall and pushed open a small
hatch directly above K.'s head that led to the outside. But so much soot
fell in that the girl had to immediately close the hatch again and clean
the soot off K.'s hands with her handkerchief, as K. was too tired to do
that for himself. He would have liked just to sit quietly where he was
until he had enough strength to leave, and the less fuss people made
about him the sooner that would be. But then the girl said, "You can't
stay here, we're in people's way here...." K. looked at her as if to ask
whose way they were impeding. "If you like, I can take you to the sick
room," and turning to the man in the doorway said, "please help me." The
man immediately came over to them, but K. did not want to go to the sick
room, that was just what he wanted to avoid, being led further from
place to place, the further he went the more difficult it must become.
So he said, "I am able to walk now," and stood up, shaking after
becoming used to sitting so comfortably. But then he was unable to stay
upright. "I can't manage it," he said shaking his head, and sat down
again with a sigh. He remembered the usher who, despite everything,
would have been able to lead him out of there but who seemed to have
gone long before. K. looked out between the man and the young woman who
were standing in front of him but was unable to find the usher. "I
think," said the man, who was elegantly dressed and whose appearance was
made especially impressive with a grey waistcoat that had two long,
sharply tailored points, "the gentleman is feeling unwell because of the
atmosphere here, so the best thing, and what he would most prefer, would
be not to take him to the sick room but get him out of the offices
altogether." "That's right," exclaimed K., with such joy that he nearly
interrupted what the man was saying, "I'm sure that'll make me feel
better straight away, I'm really not that weak, all I need is a little
support under my arms, I won't cause you much trouble, it's not such a
long way anyway, lead me to the door and then I'll sit on the stairs for
a while and soon recover, as I don't suffer from attacks like this at
all, I'm surprised at it myself. I also work in an office and I'm quite
used to office air, but here it seems to be too strong, you've said so
yourselves. So please, be so kind as to help me on my way a little, I'm
feeling dizzy, you see, and it'll make me ill if I stand up by myself."
And with that he raised his shoulders to make it easier for the two of
them to take him by the arms.

The man, however, didn't follow this suggestion but just stood there
with his hands in his trouser pockets and laughed out loud. "There, you
see," he said to the girl, "I was quite right. The gentleman is only
unwell here, and not in general." The young woman smiled too, but
lightly tapped the man's arm with the tips of her fingers as if he had
allowed himself too much fun with K. "So what do you think, then?" said
the man, still laughing, "I really do want to lead the gentleman out of
here." "That's alright, then," said the girl, briefly inclining her
charming head. "Don't worry too much about him laughing," said the girl
to K., who had become unhappy once more and stared quietly in front of
himself as if needing no further explanation. "This gentleman--may I
introduce you?"--(the man gave his permission with a wave of the
hand)--"so, this gentleman's job is to give out information. He gives
all the information they need to people who are waiting, as our court
and its offices are not very well known among the public he gets asked
for quite a lot. He has an answer for every question, you can try him
out if you feel like it. But that's not his only distinction, his other
distinction is his elegance of dress. We, that's to say all of us who
work in the offices here, we decided that the information-giver would
have to be elegantly dressed as he continually has to deal with the
litigants and he's the first one they meet, so he needs to give a
dignified first impression. The rest of us I'm afraid, as you can see
just by looking at me, dress very badly and old-fashioned; and there's
not much point in spending much on clothes anyway, as we hardly ever
leave the offices, we even sleep here. But, as I said, we decided that
the information-giver would have to have nice clothes. As the management
here is rather peculiar in this respect, and they would get them for us,
we had a collection--some of the litigants contributed too--and bought
him these lovely clothes and some others besides. So everything would be
ready for him to give a good impression, except that he spoils it again
by laughing and frightening people." "That's how it is," said the man,
mocking her, "but I don't understand why it is that you're explaining
all our intimate facts to the gentleman, or rather why it is that you're
pressing them on him, as I'm sure he's not all interested. Just look at
him sitting there, it's clear he's occupied with his own affairs." K.
just did not feel like contradicting him. The girl's intention may have
been good, perhaps she was under instructions to distract him or to give
him the chance to collect himself, but the attempt had not worked. "I
had to explain to him why you were laughing," said the girl. "I suppose
it was insulting." "I think he would forgive even worse insults if I
finally took him outside." K. said nothing, did not even look up, he
tolerated the two of them negotiating over him like an object, that was
even what suited him best. But suddenly he felt the information-giver's
hand on one arm and the young woman's hand on the other. "Up you get
then, weakling," said the information-giver. "Thank you both very much,"
said K., pleasantly surprised, as he slowly rose and personally guided
these unfamiliar hands to the places where he most needed support. As
they approached the corridor, the girl said quietly into K.'s ear, "I
must seem to think it's very important to show the information-giver in
a good light, but you shouldn't doubt what I say, I just want to say the
truth. He isn't hard-hearted. It's not really his job to help litigants
outside if they're unwell but he's doing it anyway, as you can see. I
don't suppose any of us is hard-hearted, perhaps we'd all like to be
helpful, but working for the court offices it's easy for us to give the
impression we are hard-hearted and don't want to help anyone. It makes
me quite sad." "Would you not like to sit down here a while?" asked the
information-giver, there were already in the corridor and just in front
of the defendant whom K. had spoken to earlier. K. felt almost ashamed
to be seen by him, earlier he had stood so upright in front of him and
now he had to be supported by two others, his hat was held up by the
information-giver balanced on outstretched fingers, his hair was
dishevelled and hung down onto the sweat on his forehead. But the
defendant seemed to notice nothing of what was going on and just stood
there humbly, as if wanting to apologise to the information-giver for
being there. The information-giver looked past him. "I know," he said,
"that my case can't be settled today, not yet, but I've come in anyway,
I thought, I thought I could wait here anyway, it's Sunday today, I've
got plenty of time, and I'm not disturbing anyone here." "There's no
need to be so apologetic," said the information-giver, "it's very
commendable for you to be so attentive. You are taking up space here
when you don't need to but as long as you don't get in my way I will do
nothing to stop you following the progress of your case as closely as
you like. When one has seen so many people who shamefully neglect their
cases one learns to show patience with people like you. Do sit down."
"He's very good with the litigants," whispered the girl. K. nodded, but
started to move off again when the information-giver repeated, "Would
you not like to sit down here a while?" "No," said K., "I don't want to
rest." He had said that as decisively as he could, but in fact it would
have done him a lot of good to sit down. It was as if he were suffering
sea-sickness. He felt as if he were on a ship in a rough sea, as if the
water were hitting against the wooden walls, a thundering from the
depths of the corridor as if the torrent were crashing over it, as if
the corridor were swaying and the waiting litigants on each side of it
rising and sinking. It made the calmness of the girl and the man leading
him all the more incomprehensible. He was at their mercy, if they let go
of him he would fall like a board. Their little eyes glanced here and
there, K. could feel the evenness of their steps but could not do the
same, as from step to step he was virtually being carried. He finally
noticed they were speaking to him but he did not understand them, all he
heard was a noise that filled all the space and through which there
seemed to be an unchanging higher note sounding, like a siren. "Louder,"
he whispered with his head sunk low, ashamed at having to ask them to
speak louder when he knew they had spoken loudly enough, even if it had
been, for him, incomprehensible. At last, a draught of cool air blew in
his face as if a gap had been torn out in the wall in front of him, and
next to him he heard someone say, "First he says he wants to go, and
then you can tell him a hundred times that this is the way out and he
doesn't move." K. became aware that he was standing in front of the way
out, and that the young woman had opened the door. It seemed to him that
all his strength returned to him at once, and to get a foretaste of
freedom he stepped straight on to one of the stairs and took his leave
there of his companions, who bowed to him. "Thank you very much," he
repeated, shook their hands once more and did not let go until he
thought he saw that they found it hard to bear the comparatively fresh
air from the stairway after being so long used to the air in the
offices. They were hardly able to reply, and the young woman might even
have fallen over if K. had not shut the door extremely fast. K. then
stood still for a while, combed his hair with the help of a pocket
mirror, picked up his hat from the next stair--the information-giver
must have thrown it down there--and then he ran down the steps so fresh
and in such long leaps that the contrast with his previous state nearly
frightened him. His normally sturdy state of health had never prepared
him for surprises such as this. Did his body want to revolt and cause
him a new trial as he was bearing the old one with such little effort?
He did not quite reject the idea that he should see a doctor the next
time he had the chance, but whatever he did--and this was something on
which he could advise himself--he wanted to spend all Sunday mornings in
future better than he had spent this one.




Chapter Four

Miss Bürstner's Friend


For some time after this, K. found it impossible to exchange even just a
few words with Miss Bürstner. He tried to reach her in many and various
ways but she always found a way to avoid it. He would come straight home
from the office, remain in her room without the light on, and sit on the
sofa with nothing more to distract him than keeping watch on the empty
hallway. If the maid went by and closed the door of the apparently empty
room he would get up after a while and open it again. He got up an hour
earlier than usual in the morning so that he might perhaps find Miss
Bürstner alone as she went to the office. But none of these efforts
brought any success. Then he wrote her a letter, both to the office and
the flat, attempting once more to justify his behaviour, offered to make
whatever amends he could, promised never to cross whatever boundary she
might set him and begged merely to have the chance to speak to her some
time, especially as he was unable to do anything with Mrs. Grubach
either until he had spoken with Miss Bürstner, he finally informed her
that the following Sunday he would stay in his room all day waiting for
a sign from her that there was some hope of his request being fulfilled,
or at least that she would explain to him why she could not fulfil it
even though he had promised to observe whatever stipulations she might
make. The letters were not returned, but there was no answer either.
However, on the following Sunday there was a sign that seemed clear
enough. It was still early when K. noticed, through the keyhole, that
there was an unusual level of activity in the hallway which soon abated.
A French teacher, although she was German and called Montag, a pale and
febrile girl with a slight limp who had previously occupied a room of
her own, was moving into Miss Bürstner's room. She could be seen
shuffling through the hallway for several hours, there was always
another piece of clothing or a blanket or a book that she had forgotten
and had to be fetched specially and brought into the new home.

When Mrs. Grubach brought K. his breakfast--ever since the time when she
had made K. so cross she didn't trust the maid to do the slightest
job--he had no choice but to speak to her, for the first time in five
days. "Why is there so much noise in the hallway today?" he asked as she
poured his coffee out, "Can't something be done about it? Does this
clearing out have to be done on a Sunday?" K. did not look up at Mrs.
Grubach, but he saw nonetheless that she seemed to feel some relief as
she breathed in. Even sharp questions like this from Mr. K. she
perceived as forgiveness, or as the beginning of forgiveness. "We're not
clearing anything out, Mr. K.," she said, "it's just that Miss Montag is
moving in with Miss Bürstner and is moving her things across." She said
nothing more, but just waited to see how K. would take it and whether he
would allow her to carry on speaking. But K. kept her in uncertainty,
took the spoon and pensively stirred his coffee while he remained
silent. Then he looked up at her and said, "What about the suspicions
you had earlier about Miss Bürstner, have you given them up?" "Mr. K.,"
called Mrs. Grubach, who had been waiting for this very question, as she
put her hands together and held them out towards him. "I just made a
chance remark and you took it so badly. I didn't have the slightest
intention of offending anyone, not you or anyone else. You've known me
for long enough, Mr. K., I'm sure you're convinced of that. You don't
know how I've been suffering for the past few days! That I should tell
lies about my tenants! And you, Mr. K., you believed it! And said I
should give you notice! Give you notice!" At this last outcry, Mrs.
Grubach was already choking back her tears, she raised her apron to her
face and blubbered out loud.

"Oh, don't cry Mrs. Grubach," said K., looking out the window, he was
thinking only of Miss Bürstner and how she was accepting an unknown girl
into her room. "Now don't cry," he said again as he turned his look back
into the room where Mrs. Grubach was still crying. "I meant no harm
either when I said that. It was simply a misunderstanding between us.
That can happen even between old friends sometimes." Mrs. Grubach pulled
her apron down to below her eyes to see whether K. really was attempting
a reconciliation. "Well, yes, that's how it is," said K., and as Mrs.
Grubach's behaviour indicated that the captain had said nothing he dared
to add, "Do you really think, then, that I'd want to make an enemy of
you for the sake of a girl we hardly know?" "Yes, you're quite right,
Mr. K.," said Mrs. Grubach, and then, to her misfortune, as soon as she
felt just a little freer to speak, she added something rather inept. "I
kept asking myself why it was that Mr. K. took such an interest in Miss
Bürstner. Why does he quarrel with me over her when he knows that any
cross word from him and I can't sleep that night? And I didn't say
anything about Miss Bürstner that I hadn't seen with my own eyes." K.
said nothing in reply, he should have chased her from the room as soon
as she had opened her mouth, and he didn't want to do that. He contented
himself with merely drinking his coffee and letting Mrs. Grubach feel
that she was superfluous. Outside, the dragging steps of Miss Montag
could still be heard as she went from one side of the hallway to the
other. "Do you hear that?" asked K. pointing his hand at the door.
"Yes," said Mrs. Grubach with a sigh, "I wanted to give her some help
and I wanted the maid to help her too but she's stubborn, she wants to
move everything in herself. I wonder at Miss Bürstner. I often feel it's
a burden for me to have Miss Montag as a tenant but Miss Bürstner
accepts her into her room with herself." "There's nothing there for you
to worry about," said K., crushing the remains of a sugar lump in his
cup. "Does she cause you any trouble?" "No," said Mrs. Grubach, "in
itself it's very good to have her there, it makes another room free for
me and I can let my nephew, the captain, occupy it. I began to worry he
might be disturbing you when I had to let him live in the living room
next to you over the last few days. He's not very considerate." "What an
idea!" said K. standing up, "there's no question of that. You seem to
think that because I can't stand this to-ing and fro-ing of Miss Montag
that I'm over-sensitive--and there she goes back again." Mrs. Grubach
appeared quite powerless. "Should I tell her to leave moving the rest of
her things over till later, then, Mr. K.? If that's what you want I'll
do it immediately." "But she has to move in with Miss Bürstner!" said K.
"Yes," said Mrs. Grubach, without quite understanding what K. meant. "So
she has to take her things over there." Mrs. Grubach just nodded. K. was
irritated all the more by this dumb helplessness which, seen from the
outside, could have seemed like a kind of defiance on her part. He began
to walk up and down the room between the window and the door, thus
depriving Mrs. Grubach of the chance to leave, which she otherwise
probably would have done.

Just as K. once more reached the door, someone knocked at it. It was the
maid, to say that Miss Montag would like to have a few words with Mr.
K., and therefore requested that he come to the dining room where she
was waiting for him. K. heard the maid out thoughtfully, and then looked
back at the shocked Mrs. Grubach in a way that was almost contemptuous.
His look seemed to be saying that K. had been expecting this invitation
for Miss Montag for a long time, and that it was confirmation of the
suffering he had been made to endure that Sunday morning from Mrs.
Grubach's tenants. He sent the maid back with the reply that he was on
his way, then he went to the wardrobe to change his coat, and in answer
to Mrs. Grubach's gentle whining about the nuisance Miss Montag was
causing merely asked her to clear away the breakfast things. "But you've
hardly touched it," said Mrs. Grubach. "Oh just take it away!" shouted
K. It seemed to him that Miss Montag was mixed up in everything and made
it repulsive to him.

As he went through the hallway he looked at the closed door of Miss
Bürstner's room. But it wasn't there that he was invited, but the dining
room, to which he yanked the door open without knocking.

The room was long but narrow with one window. There was only enough
space available to put two cupboards at an angle in the corner by the
door, and the rest of the room was entirely taken up with the long
dining table which started by the door and reached all the way to the
great window, which was thus made almost inaccessible. The table was
already laid for a large number of people, as on Sundays almost all the
tenants ate their dinner here at midday.

When K. entered, Miss Montag came towards him from the window along one
side of the table. They greeted each other in silence. Then Miss Montag,
her head unusually erect as always, said, "I'm not sure whether you know
me." K. looked at her with a frown. "Of course I do," he said, "you've
been living here with Mrs. Grubach for quite some time now." "But I get
the impression you don't pay much attention to what's going on in the
lodging house," said Miss Montag. "No," said K. "Would you not like to
sit down?" said Miss Montag. In silence, the two of them drew chairs out
from the farthest end of the table and sat down facing each other. But
Miss Montag stood straight up again as she had left her handbag on the
window sill and went to fetch it; she shuffled down the whole length of
the room. When she came back, the handbag lightly swinging, she said,
"I'd like just to have a few words with you on behalf of my friend. She
would have come herself, but she's feeling a little unwell today.
Perhaps you'll be kind enough to forgive her and listen to me instead.
There's anyway nothing that she could have said that I won't. On the
contrary, in fact, I think I can say even more than her because I'm
relatively impartial. Would you not agree?" "What is there to say,
then?" answered K., who was tired of Miss Montag continuously watching
his lips. In that way she took control of what he wanted to say before
he said it. "Miss Bürstner clearly refuses to grant me the personal
meeting that I asked her for." "That's how it is," said Miss Montag, "or
rather, that's not at all how it is, the way you put it is remarkably
severe. Generally speaking, meetings are neither granted nor the
opposite. But it can be that meetings are considered unnecessary, and
that's how it is here. Now, after your comment, I can speak openly. You
asked my friend, verbally or in writing, for the chance to speak with
her. Now my friend is aware of your reasons for asking for this
meeting--or at least I suppose she is--and so, for reasons I know
nothing about, she is quite sure that it would be of no benefit to
anyone if this meeting actually took place. Moreover, it was only
yesterday, and only very briefly, that she made it clear to me that such
a meeting could be of no benefit for yourself either, she feels that it
can only have been a matter of chance that such an idea came to you, and
that even without any explanations from her, you will very soon come to
realise yourself, if you have not done so already, the futility of your
idea. My answer to that is that although it may be quite right, I
consider it advantageous, if the matter is to be made perfectly clear,
to give you an explicit answer. I offered my services in taking on the
task, and after some hesitation my friend conceded. I hope, however,
also to have acted in your interests, as even the slightest uncertainty
in the least significant of matters will always remain a cause of
suffering and if, as in this case, it can be removed without substantial
effort, then it is better if that is done without delay." "I thank you,"
said K. as soon as Miss Montag had finished. He stood slowly up, looked
at her, then across the table, then out the window--the house opposite
stood there in the sun--and went to the door. Miss Montag followed him a
few paces, as if she did not quite trust him. At the door, however, both
of them had to step back as it opened and Captain Lanz entered. This was
the first time that K. had seen him close up. He was a large man of
about forty with a tanned, fleshy face. He bowed slightly, intending it
also for K., and then went over to Miss Montag and deferentially kissed
her hand. He was very elegant in the way he moved. The courtesy he
showed towards Miss Montag made a striking contrast with the way she had
been treated by K. Nonetheless, Miss Montag did not seem to be cross
with K. as it even seemed to him that she wanted to introduce the
captain. K. however, did not want to be introduced, he would not have
been able to show any sort of friendliness either to Miss Montag or to
the captain, the kiss on the hand had, for K., bound them into a group
which would keep him at a distance from Miss Bürstner whilst at the same
time seeming to be totally harmless and unselfish. K. thought, however,
that he saw more than that, he thought he also saw that Miss Montag had
chosen a means of doing it that was good, but two-edged. She exaggerated
the importance of the relationship between K. and Miss Bürstner, and
above all she exaggerated the importance of asking to speak with her and
she tried at the same time to make out that K. was exaggerating
everything. She would be disappointed, K. did not want to exaggerate
anything, he was aware that Miss Bürstner was a little typist who would
not offer him much resistance for long. In doing so he deliberately took
no account of what Mrs. Grubach had told him about Miss Bürstner. All
these things were going through his mind as he left the room with hardly
a polite word. He wanted to go straight to his room, but a little laugh
from Miss Montag that he heard from the dining room behind him brought
him to the idea that he might prepare a surprise for the two of them,
the captain and Miss Montag. He looked round and listened to find out if
there might be any disturbance from any of the surrounding rooms,
everywhere was quiet, the only thing to be heard was the conversation
from the dining room and Mrs. Grubach's voice from the passage leading
to the kitchen. This seemed an opportune time, K. went to Miss
Bürstner's room and knocked gently. There was no sound so he knocked
again but there was still no answer in reply. Was she asleep? Or was
she really unwell? Or was she just pretending as she realised it could
only be K. knocking so gently? K. assumed she was pretending and
knocked harder, eventually, when the knocking brought no result, he
carefully opened the door with the sense of doing something that was not
only improper but also pointless. In the room there was no-one. What's
more, it looked hardly at all like the room K. had known before. Against
the wall there were now two beds behind one another, there were clothes
piled up on three chairs near the door, a wardrobe stood open. Miss
Bürstner must have gone out while Miss Montag was speaking to him in the
dining room. K. was not greatly bothered by this, he had hardly expected
to be able to find Miss Bürstner so easily and had made this attempt for
little more reason than to spite Miss Montag. But that made it all the
more embarrassing for him when, as he was closing the door again, he saw
Miss Montag and the captain talking in the open doorway of the dining
room. They had probably been standing there ever since K. had opened the
door, they avoided seeming to observe K. but chatted lightly and
followed his movements with glances, the absent minded glances to the
side such as you make during a conversation. But these glances were
heavy for K., and he rushed alongside the wall back into his own room.




Chapter Five

The whip-man


One evening, a few days later, K. was walking along one of the corridors
that separated his office from the main stairway--he was nearly the last
one to leave for home that evening, there remained only a couple of
workers in the light of a single bulb in the dispatch department--when
he heard a sigh from behind a door which he had himself never opened but
which he had always thought just led into a junk room. He stood in
amazement and listened again to establish whether he might not be
mistaken. For a while there was silence, but then came some more sighs.
His first thought was to fetch one of the servitors, it might well have
been worth having a witness present, but then he was taken by an
uncontrollable curiosity that make him simply yank the door open. It
was, as he had thought, a junk room. Old, unusable forms, empty stone
ink-bottles lay scattered behind the entrance. But in the cupboard-like
room itself stood three men, crouching under the low ceiling. A candle
fixed on a shelf gave them light. "What are you doing here?" asked K.
quietly, but crossly and without thinking. One of the men was clearly in
charge, and attracted attention by being dressed in a kind of dark
leather costume which left his neck and chest and his arms exposed. He
did not answer. But the other two called out, "Mr. K.! We're to be
beaten because you made a complaint about us to the examining judge."
And now, K. finally realised that it was actually the two policemen,
Franz and Willem, and that the third man held a cane in his hand with
which to beat them. "Well," said K., staring at them, "I didn't make any
complaint, I only said what took place in my home. And your behaviour
was not entirely unobjectionable, after all." "Mr. K.," said Willem,
while Franz clearly tried to shelter behind him as protection from the
third man, "if you knew how badly we get paid you wouldn't think so
badly of us. I've got a family to feed, and Franz here wanted to get
married, you just have to get more money where you can, you can't do it
just by working hard, not however hard you try. I was sorely tempted by
your fine clothes, policemen aren't allowed to do that sort of thing,
course they aren't, and it wasn't right of us, but it's tradition that
the clothes go to the officers, that's how it's always been, believe me;
and it's understandable too, isn't it, what can things like that mean
for anyone unlucky enough to be arrested. But if he starts talking about
it openly then the punishment has to follow." "I didn't know about any
of this that you've been telling me, and I made no sort of request that
you be punished, I was simply acting on principle." "Franz," said
Willem, turning to the other policeman, "didn't I tell you that the
gentleman didn't say he wanted us to be punished. Now you can hear for
yourself, he didn't even know we'd have to be punished." "Don't you let
them persuade you, talking like that," said the third man to K., "this
punishment is both just and unavoidable." "Don't listen to him," said
Willem, interrupting himself only to quickly bring his hand to his mouth
when it had received a stroke of the cane, "we're only being punished
because you made a complaint against us. Nothing would have happened to
us otherwise, not even if they'd found out what we'd done. Can you call
that justice? Both of us, me especially, we'd proved our worth as good
police officers over a long period--you've got to admit yourself that as
far as official work was concerned we did the job well--things looked
good for us, we had prospects, it's quite certain that we would've been
made whip-men too, like this one, only he had the luck not to have
anyone make a complaint about him, as you really don't get many
complaints like that. Only that's all finished now, Mr. K., our careers
are at an end, we're going to have to do work now that's far inferior to
police work and besides all this we're going to get this terrible,
painful beating." "Can the cane really cause so much pain, then?" asked
K., testing the cane that the whip-man swang in front of him. "We're
going to have to strip off totally naked," said Willem. "Oh, I see,"
said K., looking straight at the whip-man, his skin was burned brown
like a sailor's, and his face showed health and vigour. "Is there then
no possibility of sparing these two their beating?" he asked him. "No,"
said the whip-man, shaking his head with a laugh. "Get undressed!" he
ordered the policemen. And to K. he said, "You shouldn't believe
everything they tell you, it's the fear of being beaten, it's already
made them a bit weak in the head. This one here, for instance," he
pointed at Willem, "all that he told you about his career prospects,
it's just ridiculous. Look at him, look how fat he is--the first strokes
of the cane will just get lost in all that fat. Do you know what it is
that's made him so fat. He's in the habit of, everyone that gets
arrested by him, he eats their breakfast. Didn't he eat up your
breakfast? Yeah, I thought as much. But a man with a belly like that
can't be made into a whip-man and never will be, that is quite out of
the question." "There are whip-men like that," Willem insisted, who had
just released the belt of this trousers. "No," said the whip-man,
striking him such a blow with the cane on his neck that it made him
wince, "you shouldn't be listening to this, just get undressed." "I
would make it well worth your while if you would let them go," said K.,
and without looking at the whip-man again--as such matters are best
carried on with both pairs of eyes turned down--he pulled out his
wallet. "And then you'd try and put in a complaint against me, too,"
said the whip-man, "and get me flogged. No, no!" "Now, do be
reasonable," said K., "if I had wanted to get these two punished I would
not now be trying to buy their freedom, would I? I could simply close
the door here behind me, go home and see or hear nothing more of it. But
that's not what I'm doing, it really is of much more importance to me to
let them go free; if I had realised they would be punished, or even that
they might be punished, I would never have named them in the first place
as they are not the ones I hold responsible. It's the organisation
that's to blame, the high officials are the ones to blame." "That's how
it is!" shouted the policemen, who then immediately received another
blow on their backs, which were by now exposed. "If you had a senior
judge here beneath your stick," said K., pressing down the cane as he
spoke to stop it being raised once more, "I really would do nothing to
stop you, on the contrary, I would even pay you money to give you all
the more strength." "Yeah, that's all very plausible, what you're saying
there," said the whip-man, "only I'm not the sort of person you can
bribe. It's my job to flog people, so I flog them." Franz, the
policeman, had been fairly quiet so far, probably in expectation of a
good result from K.'s intervention, but now he stepped forward to the
door wearing just his trousers, knelt down hanging on to K.'s arm and
whispered, "Even if you can't get mercy shown for both of us, at least
try and get me set free. Willem is older than me, he's less sensitive
than me in every way, he even got a light beating a couple of years
ago, but my record's still clean, I only did things the way I did
because Willem led me on to it, he's been my teacher both for good and
bad. Down in front of the bank my poor bride is waiting for me at the
entrance, I'm so ashamed of myself, it's pitiful." His face was flowing
over with tears, and he wiped it dry on K.'s coat. "I'm not going to
wait any longer," said the whip-man, taking hold of the cane in both
hands and laying in to Franz while Willem cowered back in a corner and
looked on secretly, not even daring to turn his head. Then, the sudden
scream that shot out from Franz was long and irrevocable, it seemed to
come not from a human being but from an instrument that was being
tortured, the whole corridor rang with it, it must have been heard by
everyone in the building. "Don't shout like that!", called out K.,
unable to prevent himself, and, as he looked anxiously in the direction
from which the servitor would come, he gave Franz a shove, not hard, but
hard enough for him to fall down unconscious, clawing at the ground with
his hands by reflex; he still did not avoid being hit; the rod still
found him on the floor; the tip of the rod swang regularly up and down
while he rolled to and fro under its blows. And now one of the servitors
appeared in the distance, with another a few steps behind him. K. had
quickly thrown the door shut, gone over to one of the windows
overlooking the yard and opened it. The screams had completely stopped.
So that the servitor wouldn't come in, he called out, "It's only me!"
"Good evening, chief clerk," somebody called back. "Is there anything
wrong?" "No, no," answered K., "it's only a dog yelping in the yard."
There was no sound from the servitors so he added, "You can go back to
what you were doing." He did not want to become involved with a
conversation with them, and so he leant out of the window. A little
while later, when he looked out in the corridor, they had already gone.
Now, K. remained at the window, he did not dare go back into the junk
room, and he did not want to go home either. The yard he looked down
into was small and rectangular, all around it were offices, all the
windows were now dark and only those at the very top caught a reflection
of the moon. K. tried hard to see into the darkness of one corner of the
yard, where a few handcarts had been left behind one another. He felt
anguish at not having been able to prevent the flogging, but that was
not his fault, if Franz had not screamed like that--clearly it must have
caused a great deal of pain but it's important to maintain control of
oneself at important moments--if Franz had not screamed then it was at
least highly probable that K. would have been able to dissuade the
whip-man. If all the junior officers were contemptible why would the
whip-man, whose position was the most inhumane of all, be any exception,
and K. had noticed very clearly how his eyes had lit up when he saw the
banknotes, he had obviously only seemed serious about the flogging to
raise the level of the bribe a little. And K. had not been ungenerous,
he really had wanted to get the policemen freed; if he really had now
begun to do something against the degeneracy of the court then it was a
matter of course that he would have to do something here as well. But of
course, it became impossible for him to do anything as soon as Franz
started screaming. K. could not possibly have let the junior bank staff,
and perhaps even all sorts of other people, come along and catch him by
surprise as he haggled with those people in the junk room. Nobody could
really expect that sort of sacrifice of him. If that had been his
intention then it would almost have been easier, K. would have taken
his own clothes off and offered himself to the whip-man in the
policemen's place. The whip-man would certainly not have accepted this
substitution anyway, as in that way he would have seriously violated his
duty without gaining any benefit. He would most likely have violated his
duty twice over, as court employees were probably under orders not to
cause any harm to K. while he was facing charges, although there may
have been special conditions in force here. However things stood, K. was
able to do no more than throw the door shut, even though that would
still do nothing to remove all the dangers he faced. It was regrettable
that he had given Franz a shove, and it could only be excused by the
heat of the moment.

In the distance, he heard the steps of the servitors; he did not want
them to be too aware of his presence, so he closed the window and
walked towards the main staircase. At the door of the junk room he
stopped and listened for a little while. All was silent. The two
policemen were entirely at the whip-man's mercy; he could have beaten
them to death. K. reached his hand out for the door handle but drew it
suddenly back. He was no longer in any position to help anyone, and the
servitors would soon be back; he did, though, promise himself that he
would raise the matter again with somebody and see that, as far as it
was in his power, those who really were guilty, the high officials whom
nobody had so far dared point out to him, received their due punishment.
As he went down the main stairway at the front of the bank, he looked
carefully round at everyone who was passing, but there was no girl to be
seen who might have been waiting for somebody, not even within some
distance from the bank. Franz's claim that his bride was waiting for him
was thus shown to be a lie, albeit one that was forgivable and intended
only to elicit more sympathy.

The policemen were still on K.'s mind all through the following day; he
was unable to concentrate on his work and had to stay in his office a
little longer than the previous day so that he could finish it. On the
way home, as he passed by the junk room again, he opened its door as if
that had been his habit. Instead of the darkness he expected, he saw
everything unchanged from the previous evening, and did not know how he
should respond. Everything was exactly the same as he had seen it when
he had opened the door the previous evening. The forms and bottles of
ink just inside the doorway, the whip-man with his cane, the two
policemen, still undressed, the candle on the shelf, and the two
policemen began to wail and call out "Mr. K.!" K. slammed the door
immediately shut, and even thumped on it with his fists as if that
would shut it all the firmer. Almost in tears, he ran to the servitors
working quietly at the copying machine. "Go and get that junk room
cleared out!" he shouted, and, in amazement, they stopped what they were
doing. "It should have been done long ago, we're sinking in dirt!" They
would be able to do the job the next day, K. nodded, it was too late in
the evening to make them do it there and then as he had originally
intended. He sat down briefly in order to keep them near him for a
little longer, looked through a few of the copies to give the impression
that he was checking them and then, as he saw that they would not dare
to leave at the same time as himself, went home tired and with his mind
numb.




Chapter Six

K.'s uncle--Leni


One afternoon--K. was very busy at the time, getting the post
ready--K.'s Uncle Karl, a small country land owner, came into the room,
pushing his way between two of the staff who were bringing in some
papers. K. had long expected his uncle to appear, but the sight of him
now shocked K. far less than the prospect of it had done a long time
before. His uncle was bound to come, K. had been sure of that for about
a month. He already thought at the time he could see how his uncle
would arrive, slightly bowed, his battered panama hat in his left hand,
his right hand already stretched out over the desk long before he was
close enough as he rushed carelessly towards K. knocking over everything
that was in his way. K.'s uncle was always in a hurry, as he suffered
from the unfortunate belief that he had a number of things to do while
he was in the big city and had to settle all of them in one day--his
visits were only ever for one day--and at the same time thought he could
not forgo any conversation or piece of business or pleasure that might
arise by chance. Uncle Karl was K.'s former guardian, and so K. was
duty-bound to help him in all of this as well as to offer him a bed for
the night. "I'm haunted by a ghost from the country," he would say.

As soon as they had greeted each other--K. had invited him to sit in
the armchair but Uncle Karl had no time for that--he said he wanted to
speak briefly with K. in private. "It is necessary," he said with a
tired gulp, "it is necessary for my peace of mind." K. immediately sent
the junior staff from the room and told them to let no-one in. "What's
this that I've been hearing, Josef?" cried K.'s uncle when they were
alone, as he sat on the table shoving various papers under himself
without looking at them to make himself more comfortable. K. said
nothing, he knew what was coming, but, suddenly relieved from the
effort of the work he had been doing, he gave way to a pleasant
lassitude and looked out the window at the other side of the street.
From where he sat, he could see just a small, triangular section of it,
part of the empty walls of houses between two shop windows. "You're
staring out the window!" called out his uncle, raising his arms, "For
God's sake, Josef, give me an answer! Is it true, can it really be
true?" "Uncle Karl," said K., wrenching himself back from his
daydreaming, "I really don't know what it is you want of me." "Josef,"
said his uncle in a warning tone, "as far as I know, you've always told
the truth. Am I to take what you've just said as a bad sign?" "I think I
know what it is you want," said K. obediently, "I expect you've heard
about my trial." "That's right," answered his uncle with a slow nod,
"I've heard about your trial." "Who did you hear it from, then?" asked
K. "Erna wrote to me," said his uncle, "she doesn't have much contact
with you, it's true, you don't pay very much attention to her, I'm
afraid to say, but she learned about it nonetheless. I got her letter
today and, of course, I came straight here. And for no other reason, but
it seems to me that this is reason enough. I can read you out the part
of the letter that concerns you." He drew the letter out from his
wallet. "Here it is. She writes; 'I have not seen Josef for a long time,
I was in the bank last week but Josef was so busy that they would not
let me through; I waited there for nearly an hour but then I had to go
home as I had my piano lesson. I would have liked to have spoken to him,
maybe there will be a chance another time. He sent me a big box of
chocolates for my name-day, that was very nice and attentive of him. I
forgot to tell you about it when I wrote, and I only remember now that
you ask me about it. Chocolate, as I am sure you are aware, disappears
straight away in this lodging house, almost as soon as you know somebody
has given you chocolate it is gone. But there is something else I wanted
to tell you about Josef. Like I said, they would not let me through to
see him at the bank because he was negotiating with some gentleman just
then. After I had been waiting quietly for quite a long time I asked one
of the staff whether his meeting would last much longer. He said it
might well do, as it was probably about the legal proceedings, he said,
that were being conducted against him. I asked what sort of legal
proceedings it was that were being conducted against the chief clerk,
and whether he was not making some mistake, but he said he was not
making any mistake, there were legal proceedings underway and even that
they were about something quite serious, but he did not know any more
about it. He would have liked to have been of some help to the chief
clerk himself, as the chief clerk was a gentleman, good and honest, but
he did not know what it was he could do and merely hoped there would be
some influential gentlemen who would take his side. I'm sure that is
what will happen and that everything will turn out for the best in the
end, but in the mean time things do not look at all good, and you can
see that from the mood of the chief clerk himself. Of course, I did not
place too much importance on this conversation, and even did my best to
put the bank clerk's mind at rest, he was quite a simple man. I told him
he was not to speak to anyone else about this, and I think it is all
just a rumour, but I still think it might be good if you, Dear Father,
if you looked into the matter the next time you visit. It will be easy
for you to find out more detail and, if it is really necessary, to do
something about it through the great and influential people you know.
But if it is not necessary, and that is what seems most likely, then at
least your daughter will soon have the chance to embrace you and I look
forward to it.'--She's a good child," said K.'s uncle when he had
finished reading, and wiped a few tears from his eyes. K. nodded. With
all the different disruptions he had had recently he had completely
forgotten about Erna, even her birthday, and the story of the chocolates
had clearly just been invented so that he wouldn't get in trouble with
his aunt and uncle. It was very touching, and even the theatre tickets,
which he would regularly send her from then on, would not be enough to
repay her, but he really did not feel, now, that it was right for him to
visit her in her lodgings and hold conversations with a little, eighteen
year old schoolgirl. "And what do you have to say about that?" asked his
uncle, who had forgotten all his rush and excitement as he read the
letter, and seemed to be about to read it again. "Yes, Uncle," said K.,
"it is true." "True!" called out his uncle. "What is true? How can this
be true? What sort of trial is it? Not a criminal trial, I hope?" "It's
a criminal trial," answered K. "And you sit quietly here while you've
got a criminal trial round your neck?" shouted his uncle, getting ever
louder. "The more calm I am, the better it will be for the outcome,"
said K. in a tired voice, "don't worry." "How can I help worrying?!"
shouted his uncle, "Josef, my dear Josef, think about yourself, about
your family, think about our good name! Up till now, you've always been
our pride, don't now become our disgrace. I don't like the way you're
behaving," he said, looking at K. with his head at an angle, "that's not
how an innocent man behaves when he's accused of something, not if he's
still got any strength in him. Just tell me what it's all about so that
I can help you. It's something to do with the bank, I take it?" "No,"
said K. as he stood up, "and you're speaking too loud, Uncle, I expect
one of the staff is listening at the door and I find that rather
unpleasant. It's best if we go somewhere else, then I can answer all
your questions, as far as I can. And I know very well that I have to
account to the family for what I do." "You certainly do!" his uncle
shouted, "Quite right, you do. Now just get a move on, Josef, hurry up
now!" "I still have a few documents I need to prepare," said K., and,
using the intercom, he summoned his deputy who entered a few moments
later. K.'s uncle, still angry and excited, gestured with his hand to
show that K. had summoned him, even though there was no need whatever to
do so. K. stood in front of the desk and explained to the young man, who
listened calm and attentive, what would need to be done that day in his
absence, speaking in a calm voice and making use of various documents.
The presence of K.'s uncle while this was going on was quite disturbing;
he did not listen to what was being said, but at first he stood there
with eyes wide open and nervously biting his lips. Then he began to walk
up and down the room, stopped now and then at the window, or stood in
front of a picture always making various exclamations such as, "That is
totally incomprehensible to me!" or "Now just tell me, what are you
supposed to make of that?" The young man pretended to notice nothing of
this and listened to K.'s instructions through to the end, he made a few
notes, bowed to both K. and his uncle and then left the room. K.'s uncle
had turned his back to him and was looking out the window, bunching up
the curtains with his outstretched hands. The door had hardly closed
when he called out, "At last! Now that he's stopped jumping about we can
go too!" Once they were in the front hall of the bank, where several
members of staff were standing about and where, just then, the deputy
director was walking across, there was unfortunately no way of stopping
K.'s uncle from continually asking questions about the trial. "Now
then, Josef," he began, lightly acknowledging the bows from those around
them as they passed, "tell me everything about this trial; what sort of
trial is it?" K. made a few comments which conveyed little information,
even laughed a little, and it was only when they reached the front steps
that he explained to his uncle that he had not wanted to talk openly in
front of those people. "Quite right," said his uncle, "but now start
talking." With his head to one side, and smoking his cigar in short,
impatient draughts, he listened. "First of all, Uncle," said K., "it's
not a trial like you'd have in a normal courtroom." "So much the worse,"
said his uncle. "How's that?" asked K., looking at him. "What I mean is,
that's for the worse," he repeated. They were standing on the front
steps of the bank; as the doorkeeper seemed to be listening to what they
were saying K. drew his uncle down further, where they were absorbed
into the bustle of the street. His uncle took K.'s arm and stopped
asking questions with such urgency about the trial, they walked on for a
while in silence. "But how did all this come about?" he eventually
asked, stopping abruptly enough to startle the people walking behind,
who had to avoid walking into him. "Things like this don't come all of a
sudden, they start developing a long time beforehand, there must have
been warning signs of it, why didn't you write to me? You know I'd do
anything for you, to some extent I am still your guardian, and until
today that's something I was proud of. I'll still help you, of course I
will, only now, now that the trial is already underway, it makes it
very difficult. But whatever; the best thing now is for you to take a
short holiday staying with us in the country. You've lost weight, I can
see that now. The country life will give you strength, that will be
good, there's bound to be a lot of hard work ahead of you. But besides
that it'll be a way of getting you away from the court, to some extent.
Here they've got every means of showing the powers at their disposal
and they're automatically bound to use them against you; in the country
they'll either have to delegate authority to different bodies or just
have to try and bother you by letter, telegram or telephone. And that's
bound to weaken the effect, it won't release you from them but it'll
give you room to breathe." "You could forbid me to leave," said K., who
had been drawn slightly into his uncle's way of thinking by what he had
been saying. "I didn't think you would do it," said his uncle
thoughtfully, "you won't suffer too much loss of power by moving away."
K. grasped his uncle under the arm to prevent him stopping still and
said, "I thought you'd think all this is less important than I do, and
now you're taking it so hard." "Josef," called his uncle trying to
disentangle himself from him so that he could stop walking, but K. did
not let go, "you've completely changed, you used to be so astute, are
you losing it now? Do you want to lose the trial? Do you realise what
that would mean? That would mean you would be simply destroyed. And
that everyone you know would be pulled down with you or at the very
least humiliated, disgraced right down to the ground. Josef, pull
yourself together. The way you're so indifferent about it, it's driving
me mad. Looking at you I can almost believe that old saying: 'Having a
trial like that means losing a trial like that'." "My dear Uncle," said
K., "it won't do any good to get excited, it's no good for you to do it
and it'd be no good for me to do it. The case won't be won by getting
excited, and please admit that my practical experience counts for
something, just as I have always and still do respect your experience,
even when it surprises me. You say that the family will also be
affected by this trial; I really can't see how, but that's beside the
point and I'm quite willing to follow your instructions in all of this.
Only, I don't see any advantage in staying in the country, not even for
you, as that would indicate flight and a sense of guilt. And besides,
although I am more subject to persecution if I stay in the city I can
also press the matter forward better here." "You're right," said his
uncle in a tone that seemed to indicate they were finally coming closer
to each other, "I just made the suggestion because, as I saw it, if you
stay in the city the case will be put in danger by your indifference to
it, and I thought it was better if I did the work for you. But will you
push things forward yourself with all your strength, if so, that will
naturally be far better." "We're agreed then," said K. "And do you have
any suggestions for what I should do next?" "Well, naturally I'll have
to think about it," said his uncle, "you must bear in mind that I've
been living in the country for twenty years now, almost without a
break, you lose your ability to deal with matters like this. But I do
have some important connections with several people who, I expect, know
their way around these things better than I do, and to contact them is a
matter of course. Out there in the country I've been getting out of
condition, I'm sure you're already aware of that. It's only at times
like this that you notice it yourself. And this affair of yours came
largely unexpected, although, oddly enough, I had expected something of
the sort after I'd read Erna's letter, and today when I saw your face I
knew it with almost total certainty. But all that is by the by, the
important thing now is, we have no time to lose." Even while he was
still speaking, K.'s uncle had stood on tiptoe to summon a taxi and now
he pulled K. into the car behind himself as he called out an address to
the driver. "We're going now to see Dr. Huld, the lawyer," he said, "we
were at school together. I'm sure you know the name, don't you? No? Well
that is odd. He's got a very good reputation as a defence barrister and
for working with the poor. But I esteem him especially as someone you
can trust." "It's alright with me, whatever you do," said K., although
he was made uneasy by the rushed and urgent way his uncle was dealing
with the matter. It was not very encouraging, as the accused, to be
taken to a lawyer for poor people. "I didn't know," he said, "that you
could take on a lawyer in matters like this." "Well of course you can,"
said his uncle, "that goes without saying. Why wouldn't you take on a
lawyer? And now, so that I'm properly instructed in this matter, tell me
what's been happening so far." K. instantly began telling his uncle
about what had been happening, holding nothing back--being completely
open with him was the only way that K. could protest at his uncle's
belief that the trial was a great disgrace. He mentioned Miss Bürstner's
name just once and in passing, but that did nothing to diminish his
openness about the trial as Miss Bürstner had no connection with it. As
he spoke, he looked out the window and saw how, just then, they were
getting closer to the suburb where the court offices were. He drew this
to his uncle's attention, but he did not find the coincidence especially
remarkable. The taxi stopped in front of a dark building. K.'s uncle
knocked at the very first door at ground level; while they waited he
smiled, showing his big teeth, and whispered, "Eight o'clock; not the
usual sort of time to be visiting a lawyer, but Huld won't mind it from
me." Two large, black eyes appeared in the spy-hatch in the door, they
stared at the two visitors for a while and then disappeared; the door,
however, did not open. K. and his uncle confirmed to each other the fact
that they had seen the two eyes. "A new maid, afraid of strangers," said
K.'s uncle, and knocked again. The eyes appeared once more. This time
they seemed almost sad, but the open gas flame that burned with a hiss
close above their heads gave off little light and that may have merely
created an illusion. "Open the door," called K.'s uncle, raising his
fist against it, "we are friends of Dr. Huld, the lawyer!" "Dr. Huld is
ill," whispered someone behind them. In a doorway at the far end of a
narrow passage stood a man in his dressing gown, giving them this
information in an extremely quiet voice. K.'s uncle, who had already
been made very angry by the long wait, turned abruptly round and
retorted, "Ill. You say he's ill?" and strode towards the gentleman in a
way that seemed almost threatening, as if he were the illness himself.
"They've opened the door for you, now," said the gentleman, pointing at
the door of the lawyer. He pulled his dressing gown together and
disappeared. The door had indeed been opened, a young girl--K.
recognised the dark, slightly bulging eyes--stood in the hallway in a
long white apron, holding a candle in her hand. "Next time, open up
sooner!" said K.'s uncle instead of a greeting, while the girl made a
slight curtsey. "Come along, Josef," he then said to K. who was slowly
moving over towards the girl. "Dr. Huld is unwell," said the girl as
K.'s uncle, without stopping, rushed towards one of the doors. K.
continued to look at the girl in amazement as she turned round to block
the way into the living room, she had a round face like a puppy's, not
only the pale cheeks and the chin were round but the temples and the
hairline were too. "Josef!" called his uncle once more, and he asked the
girl, "It's trouble with his heart, is it?" "I think it is, sir," said
the girl, who by now had found time to go ahead with the candle and open
the door into the room. In one corner of the room, where the light of
the candle did not reach, a face with a long beard looked up from the
bed. "Leni, who's this coming in?" asked the lawyer, unable to recognise
his guests because he was dazzled by the candle. "It's your old friend,
Albert," said K.'s uncle. "Oh, Albert," said the lawyer, falling back
onto his pillow as if this visit meant he would not need to keep up
appearances. "Is it really as bad as that?" asked K.'s uncle, sitting on
the edge of the bed. "I don't believe it is. It's a recurrence of your
heart trouble and it'll pass over like the other times." "Maybe," said
the lawyer quietly, "but it's just as much trouble as it's ever been. I
can hardly breathe, I can't sleep at all and I'm getting weaker by the
day." "I see," said K.'s uncle, pressing his panama hat firmly against
his knee with his big hand. "That is bad news. But are you getting the
right sort of care? And it's so depressing in here, it's so dark. It's a
long time since I was last here, but it seemed to me friendlier then.
Even your young lady here doesn't seem to have much life in her, unless
she's just pretending." The maid was still standing by the door with the
candle; as far as could be made out, she was watching K. more than she
was watching his uncle even while the latter was still speaking about
her. K. leant against a chair that he had pushed near to the girl. "When
you're as ill as I am," said the lawyer, "you need to have peace. I
don't find it depressing." After a short pause he added, "and Leni looks
after me well, she's a good girl." But that was not enough to persuade
K.'s uncle, he had visibly taken against his friend's carer and, even
though he did not contradict the invalid, he persecuted her with his
scowl as she went over to the bed, put the candle on the bedside table
and, leaning over the bed, made a fuss of him by tidying the pillows.
K.'s uncle nearly forgot the need to show any consideration for the man
who lay ill in bed, he stood up, walked up and down behind the carer,
and K. would not have been surprised if he had grabbed hold of her
skirts behind her and dragged her away from the bed. K. himself looked
on calmly, he was not even disappointed at finding the lawyer unwell,
he had been able to do nothing to oppose the enthusiasm his uncle had
developed for the matter, he was glad that this enthusiasm had now been
distracted without his having to do anything about it. His uncle,
probably simply wishing to be offensive to the lawyer's attendant, then
said, "Young lady, now please leave us alone for a while, I have some
personal matters to discuss with my friend." Dr. Huld's carer was still
leant far over the invalid's bed and smoothing out the cloth covering
the wall next to it, she merely turned her head and then, in striking
contrast with the anger that first stopped K.'s uncle from speaking and
then let the words out in a gush, she said very quietly, "You can see
that Dr. Huld is so ill that he can't discuss any matters at all." It
was probably just for the sake of convenience that she had repeated the
words spoken by K.'s uncle, but an onlooker might even have perceived
it as mocking him and he, of course, jumped up as if he had just been
stabbed. "You damned ...," in the first gurglings of his excitement his
words could hardly be understood, K. was startled even though he had
been expecting something of the sort and ran to his uncle with the
intention, no doubt, of closing his mouth with both his hands.
Fortunately, though, behind the girl, the invalid raised himself up,
K.'s uncle made an ugly face as if swallowing something disgusting and
then, somewhat calmer, said, "We have naturally not lost our senses,
not yet; if what I am asking for were not possible I would not be asking
for it. Now please, go!" The carer stood up straight by the bed
directly facing K.'s uncle, K. thought he noticed that with one hand she
was stroking the lawyer's hand. "You can say anything in front of
Leni," said the invalid, in a tone that was unmistakably imploring.
"It's not my business," said K.'s uncle, "and it's not my secrets." And
he twisted himself round as if wanting to go into no more negotiations
but giving himself a little more time to think. "Whose business is it
then?" asked the lawyer in an exhausted voice as he leant back again.
"My nephew's," said K.'s uncle, "and I've brought him along with me."
And he introduced him, "Chief Clerk Josef K." "Oh!" said the invalid,
now with much more life in him, and reached out his hand towards K. "Do
forgive me, I didn't notice you there at all." Then he then said to his
carer, "Leni, go," stretching his hand out to her as if this were a
farewell that would have to last for a long time. This time the girl
offered no resistance. "So you," he finally said to K.'s uncle, who had
also calmed down and stepped closer, "you haven't come to visit me
because I'm ill but you've come on business." The lawyer now looked so
much stronger that it seemed the idea of being visited because he was
ill had somehow made him weak, he remained supporting himself on one
elbow, which must have been rather tiring, and continually pulled at a
lock of hair in the middle of his beard. "You already look much better,"
said K.'s uncle, "now that that witch has gone outside." He interrupted
himself, whispered, "I bet you she's listening!" and sprang over to the
door. But behind the door there was no-one, K.'s uncle came back not
disappointed, as her not listening seemed to him worse than if she had
been, but probably somewhat embittered. "You're mistaken about her,"
said the lawyer, but did no

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