The Castle quotes

It was late in the evening when K. arrived. The village was deep in snow. The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show that a castle was there.

On the wooden bridge leading from the main road to the village K. stood for a long time gazing into the illusory emptiness above him.

Then he went on to find quarters for the night. The inn was still awake, and although the landlord could not provide a room and was upset by such a late and unexpected arrival, he was willing to let K.

“Well,” said K., “

I’m not one of your timid people, and can give a piece of my mind even to a Count, but of course it’s much better to have everything settled up without any trouble.

”

On the whole this distant prospect of the Castle satisfied K.’s expectations.

It was neither an old stronghold nor a new mansion, but a rambling pile consisting of innumerable small buildings closely packed together and of one or two storeys; if K. had not known that it was a Castle he might have taken it for a little town.

There was only one tower as far as he could see, whether it belonged to a dwelling-house or a church he could not determine. Swarms of crows were circling round it.

… pierced by small windows that glittered in the sun, a somewhat maniacal glitter, and topped by what looked like an attic, with battlements that were irregular, broken, fumbling, as if designed by the trembling or careless hand of a child, clearly outlined against the blue.

It was as if a melancholy-mad tenant who ought to have been kept locked in the topmost chamber of his house had burst through the roof and lifted himself up to the gaze of the world.

Again K. came to a stop, as if in standing still he had more power of judgment. But he was disturbed.

would have done better to visit his native town again, which he had not seen for such a long time. And in his mind he compared the church tower at home with the tower above him.

The church tower, firm in line, soaring unfalteringly to its tapering point, topped with red tiles and broad in the roof, an earthly building⁠—what else can men build?⁠—but with a loftier goal than the humble dwelling-houses, and a clearer meaning than the muddle of everyday life.

The tower above him here—the only one visible—the tower of a house, as was now apparent, perhaps of the main building, was uniformly round, part of it graciously mantled with ivy, pierced by small windows that glittered in the sun, a somewhat maniacal glitter, and …

“Might I come to pay you a visit one day, sir? I am to be staying here for some time and already feel a little lonely. I don’t fit in with the peasants nor, I imagine, with the Castle.”

“There is no difference between the peasantry and the Castle,” said the teacher.

“Maybe,” said K., “that doesn’t alter my position. Can I pay you a visit one day?” “I live in Swan Street at the butcher’s.” That was assuredly more of a statement than an invitation, but K. said: “Right, I’ll come.”

The long journey he had made seemed at first to have imposed no strain upon him—how quietly he had sauntered through the days, step by step!—but now the consequences of his exertion were making themselves felt, and at the wrong time, too.

He felt irresistibly drawn to seek out new acquaintances, but each new acquaintance only seemed to increase his weariness.

If he forced himself in his present condition to go on at least as far as the Castle entrance, he would have done more than enough.

So he resumed his walk, but the way proved long.

For the street he was in, the main street of the village, did not lead up to the Castle hill, it only made towards it and then, as if deliberately, turned aside, and though it did not lead away from the Castle it got no nearer to it either.

At every turn K. expected the road to double back to the Castle, and only because of this expectation did he go on;

“I am the Count’s Land Surveyor,” said K., trying to justify himself before this still invisible personage. “Oh, it’s the Land Surveyor,” said a woman’s voice, and then came a complete silence. “You know me, then?” asked K. “Of course,” said the same voice curtly.

The fact that he was known did not seem to be a recommendation.

At last the steam thinned a little, and K. was able gradually to make things out. It seemed to be a general washing-day. Near the door clothes were being washed.

Excuse the discourtesy.” “I don’t want to stay,” said K., “I only wanted to rest a little. I have rested, and now I shall go.”

“You’re probably surprised at our lack of hospitality,” said the man, “but hospitality is not our custom here, we have no use for visitors.”

Somewhat refreshed by his sleep, his perceptions somewhat quickened, K. was pleased by the man’s frankness. He felt less constrained, poked with his stick here and there, approached the woman in the armchair, and noted that he was physically the biggest man in the room.

the tanner and his comrade, satisfied with having finally got rid of him, edged slowly into the house through the door which was now barely ajar, casting backward glances at K., and he was left alone in the falling snow.

“A fine setting for a fit of despair,” it occurred to him, “if I were only standing here by accident instead of design.”

Just then in the hut on his left hand a tiny window was opened, which had seemed quite blue when shut, perhaps from the reflection of the snow, and was so tiny that when opened it did not permit the whole face of the person …

K. said no more, but sat down on the sledge, the man’s cough slowly abated, and they drove off.

The Castle above them, which K. had hoped to reach that very day, was already beginning to grow dark, and retreated again into the distance.

But as if to give him a parting sign till their next encounter a bell began to ring merrily up there, a bell which for at least a second made his heart palpitate, for its tone was menacing, too, as if it threatened him with …

The Castle above them, which K. had hoped to reach that very day, was already beginning to grow dark, and retreated again into the distance.

But as if to give him a parting sign till their next encounter a bell began to ring merrily up there, a bell which for at least a second made his heart palpitate, for its tone was menacing, too, as if it threatened him with the fulfilment of his vague desire.

This great bell soon died away, however, and its place was taken by a feeble monotonous little tinkle which might have come from the Castle, but might have been somewhere in the village.

The receiver gave out a buzz of a kind that K. had never before heard on a telephone.

It was like the hum of countless children’s voices⁠—but yet not a hum, the echo rather of voices singing at an infinite distance⁠—blended by sheer impossibility into one high but resonant sound which vibrated on the ear as if it were trying to penetrate beyond mere hearing.

K. listened without attempting to telephone, leaning his left arm on the telephone shelf.

If K. were willing to become a workman he could do so, but he would have to do it in grim earnest, without any other prospect.

K. knew that he had no real compulsory discipline to fear, he was not afraid of that, and in this case least of all, but the pressure of a discouraging environment, of a growing resignation to disappointment, the pressure of the imperceptible influences of every moment, these things he did fear, but that was a danger he would have to guard against.

Nor did the letter pass over the fact that if it should come to a struggle K. had had the hardihood to make the first advances;

The beer was drawn off by a young girl called Frieda. An unobtrusive little girl with fair hair, sad eyes and hollow cheeks, but with a striking look of conscious superiority.

As soon as her eye met K.’s it seemed to him that her look decided something concerning himself, something which he had not known to exist, but which her look assured him did exist.

He kept on studying her from the side, even while she was speaking to Olga. Olga and Frieda were apparently not intimate, they exchanged only a few cold words. K. wanted to hear more, and so interposed with a question on his own account:

An absurd idea. Your eyes—don’t laugh at me, Fräulein Frieda—speak to me far more of conquests still to come than of conquests past.

But the opposition one meets in the world is great, and becomes greater the higher one aims, and it’s no disgrace to accept the help of a man who’s fighting his way up too, even though he’s a small and uninfluential man.

Perhaps we could have a quiet talk together sometime, without so many onlookers?” “I don’t know what you’re after,” she said, and in her tone this time there seemed to be, against her will, an echo rather of countless disappointments than of past triumphs.

That’s how he sleeps, the gentlemen do sleep a great deal, it’s hard to understand. Anyhow, if he didn’t sleep so much, he wouldn’t be able to put up with his servants. But now I’ll have to turn them out myself.”

She took a whip from a corner and sprang among the dancers with a single bound, a little uncertainly, as a young lamb might spring.

At first they faced her as if she were merely a new partner, and actually for a moment Frieda seemed inclined to let the whip fall, but she soon raised it again, crying, “In the name of Klamm into the stall with you, into the …

like dogs desperately tearing up the ground they tore at each other’s bodies, and often, helplessly baffled, in a final effort to attain happiness they nuzzled and tongued each other’s faces.

Sheer weariness stilled them at last and brought them gratitude to each other.

Then the maids came in, “Look how they’re lying there,” said one, and sympathetically cast a coverlet over them.

Herr Klamm is a gentleman from the Castle, and that in itself, without considering Klamm’s position there at all, means that he is of very high rank. But what are you, for whose marriage we are humbly considering here ways and means of getting permission?

You are not from the Castle, you are not from the village, you aren’t anything.

Or rather, unfortunately, you are something, a stranger, a man who isn’t wanted and is in everybody’s way, a man who’s always causing trouble, a man who takes up the maids’ room, a man whose intentions are obscure, a man who has ruined our dear …

I don’t hold all that up against you.

You are what you are, and I have seen enough in my lifetime to be able to face facts.

But now consider what it is you ask. A man like Klamm is to talk with you. It vexed me to hear that Frieda let you look through the peephole, when she did that she was already corrupted by you.

But just tell me, how did you have the face to look at Klamm? You needn’t answer, I know you think you were quite equal to the occasion.

You’re not even capable of seeing Klamm as he really is, that’s not merely an exaggeration, for I myself am not capable of it either.

Klamm is to talk to you, and yet Klamm doesn’t talk even to people from the village, never yet has he spoken a word himself to anyone in the village.

… deny that he was her honoured lover—in which case there is still no relationship between them, or else there was a relationship, and then how could I, a cipher in Klamm’s eyes, as you rightly point out, how could I make any difference to it?

One flies to such suppositions in the first moment of alarm, but the smallest reflection must correct one’s bias.

Anyhow, let us hear what Frieda herself thinks about it.”

… been only a few days in the village and already you think you know everything better than people who have spent their lives here, better than an old woman like me, and better than Frieda who has seen and heard so much in the Herrenhof.

I don’t deny that it’s possible once in a while to achieve something in the teeth of every rule and tradition.

I’ve never experienced anything of that kind myself, but I believe there are precedents for it.

But if it proves to be possible, why shouldn’t I do it, especially as that would remove your main objection and so make your other premises questionable.

Of course I’m ignorant, that’s an unshakable truth and a sad truth for me, but it gives me all the advantage of ignorance, which is greater daring, and so I’m prepared to put up with my ignorance, evil consequences and all, for some time to come, so long as my strength holds out.

But these consequences really affect nobody but myself, and that’s why I simply can’t understand your pleading. I’m certain you would always look after Frieda, and if I were to vanish from Frieda’s ken you couldn’t regard that as anything but good luck.

And what was it, this other life to which he was consigned?

Never yet had K. seen vocation and life so interlaced as here, so interlaced that sometimes one might think that they had exchanged places.

What importance, for example, had the power, merely formal up till now, which Klamm exercised over K.’s services, compared with the very real power which Klamm possessed in K.’s bedroom.

“But how is that possible?” cried K. “Surely I haven’t made this endless journey just be sent back again.” “That’s another question,” replied the Superintendent, “which isn’t for me to decide, but how this misunderstanding became possible, I can certainly explain that.

In such a large governmental office as the Count’s, it may occasionally happen that one department ordains this, another that; neither knows of the other, and though the supreme control is absolutely efficient, it comes by its nature too late, and so every now and then a trifling miscalculation arises.

Of course that applies only to the pettiest little affairs, as for example your case. In great matters I’ve never known of any error yet, but even little affairs are often painful enough.

neither knows of the other, and though the supreme control is absolutely efficient, it comes by its nature too late, and so every now and then a trifling miscalculation arises. Of course that applies only to the pettiest little affairs, as for example your case.

In great matters I’ve never known of any error yet, but even little affairs are often painful enough.

Now as for your case, I’ll be open with you about its history, and make no official mystery of it—I’m not enough of the official for that, I’m a farmer and always will remain one.

Thereupon the Superintendent said: “I’m not telling it to amuse you.”

“It only amuses me,” said K., “because it gives me an insight into the ludicrous bungling which in certain circumstances may decide the life of a human being.”

“You haven’t been given any insight into that yet,” replied the Superintendent gravely, “and I can go on with my story. Naturally Sordini was not satisfied with our reply. I admire the man, although he is a plague to me. He literally distrusts everyone;

But that is just what would have been wrong; I don’t want any blame to attach to this man, no, not even in your thoughts.

It’s a working principle of the Head Bureau that the very possibility of error must be ruled out of account.

This ground principle is justified by the consummate organisation of the whole authority, and it is necessary if the maximum speed in transacting business is to be attained.

“You’re very strict,” said the Superintendent, “but multiply your strictness a thousand times and it would still be nothing compared with the strictness which the Authority imposes on itself. Only a total stranger could ask a question like yours.

Is there a Control Authority? There are only control authorities.

Frankly it isn’t their function to hunt out errors in the vulgar sense, for errors don’t happen, and even when once in a while an error does happen, as in your case, who can say finally that it’s an error?”

Only a total stranger could ask a question like yours. Is there a Control Authority? There are only control authorities.

Frankly it isn’t their function to hunt out errors in the vulgar sense, for errors don’t happen, and even when once in a while an error does happen, as in your case, who can say finally that it’s an error?

”

“No,” said the Superintendent, “it’s not at all a great affair, in that respect you’ve no ground for complaint—it’s one of the least important among the least important.

The importance of a case is not determined by the amount of work it involves, you’re far from understanding the authorities if you believe that.

But even if it’s a question of the amount of work, your case would remain one of the slightest; ordinary cases, those without any so-called errors I mean, provide far more work and far more profitable work as well.

… even before the matter has been fully considered, that suddenly in a flash the decision comes in some unforeseen place that, moreover, can’t be found any longer later on, a decision that settles the matter, if in most cases justly, yet all the same arbitrarily.

It’s as if the administrative apparatus were unable any longer to bear the tension, the yearlong irritation caused by the same affair⁠—probably trivial in itself⁠—and had hit upon the decision by itself, without the assistance of the officials.

Of course a miracle didn’t happen and certainly it was some clerk who hit upon the solution or the unwritten decision, but in any case it couldn’t be discovered by us at least, by us here, or even by the Head Bureau, which clerk had …

“Very simply,” replied the Superintendent. “You haven’t once up till now come into real contact with our authorities.

All those contacts of yours have been illusory, but owing to your ignorance of the circumstances you take them to be real.

And as for the telephone: As you see, in my place, though I’ve certainly enough to do with the authorities, there’s no telephone.

We can hear this continual telephoning in our telephones down here as a humming and singing, you must have heard it too.

Now this humming and singing transmitted by our telephones is the only real and reliable thing you’ll hear, everything else is deceptive.

There’s no fixed connection with the Castle, no central exchange which transmits our calls further.

“Who would take the risk of throwing you out, Land Surveyor?” asked the Superintendent. “The very uncertainty about your summons guarantees you the most courteous treatment, only you’re too sensitive by all appearances.

Nobody keeps you here, but that surely doesn’t amount to throwing you out.

”

“Who would take the risk of throwing you out, Land Surveyor?” asked the Superintendent. “

The very uncertainty about your summons guarantees you the most courteous treatment, only you’re too sensitive by all appearances.

Nobody keeps you here, but that surely doesn’t amount to throwing you out.”

“No, absolutely,” said K. “

I don’t want any act of favour from the Castle, but my rights.

”

Of course one must make a point of it,

Klamm gives nothing of himself, but if one sees something one likes lying about there, one can get it out of him.

”

“The assistants again,” he said apologetically to the landlady and pointed outside. But she paid no attention to him, she had taken the portrait from him, looked at it, smoothed it out and pushed it again under her pillow.

Her movements had become slower, but not with weariness, but with the burden of memory.

She had wanted to tell K. the story of her life and had forgotten about him in thinking of the story itself. She was playing with the fringe of her wrap.

But she paid no attention to him, she had taken the portrait from him, looked at it, smoothed it out and pushed it again under her pillow. Her movements had become slower, but not with weariness, but with the burden of memory.

She had wanted to tell K. the story of her life and had forgotten about him in thinking of the story itself.

She was playing with the fringe of her wrap. A little time went by before she looked up, passed her hand over her eyes, and said: “This wrap was given me by Klamm. And the nightcap, too.

“You’re right,” said the landlady bowing her head, “but spare me.

I’m not more touchy than other people; on the contrary, everyone has his sensitive spots, and I have only this one.

”

“Terrible fidelity!” repeated the landlady with a growl. “Is it a question of fidelity? I’m faithful to my husband—but Klamm?

Klamm once chose me as his mistress, can I ever lose that honour?

And you ask how you are to put up with Frieda? Oh, Land Surveyor, who are you after all, that you dare to ask such things?”

Still, my thoughts were more exclusively occupied by my unhappiness then, all the same, for I had always to be asking myself one question, and in reality haven’t ceased to ask it to this day: Why did this happen?

Three times Klamm sent for me, but he never sent a fourth time, no, never a fourth time!

What else could I have thought of during those days? What else could I have talked about with my husband, whom I married shortly afterwards?

“Yes,” replied the landlady, “that serves your purpose as well, and just that serves it best.

You misconstrue everything, even a person’s silence.

You can’t do anything else. I allow you to ask your question.”

But it’s next thing to madness to imagine that Klamm could have given me Hans as a husband simply that I might have no great difficulty in going to him if he should summon me sometime again.

Where is the man who could hinder me from running to Klamm if Klamm lifted his little finger?

Madness, absolute madness, one begins to feel confused oneself when one plays with such mad ideas.”

He knew nothing about me by that time. The fact that he had ceased to summon me was a sign that he had forgotten me.

When he stops summoning people, he forgets them completely.

I didn’t want to talk of this before Frieda. And it’s not mere forgetting, it’s something more than that. For anybody one has forgotten can come back to one’s memory again, of course. With Klamm that’s impossible.

And you yourself certainly can’t be happy, seeing you say you wouldn’t be able to go on without these three keepsakes, and your heart is bad, too. Then were Hans’ relatives mistaken in their hopes? I don’t think so.

The blessing was over you, but they didn’t know how to bring it down.

”

For my own part I don’t know why he should fear that—my own opinion is that you should just be allowed to do what you like.

We aren’t your guardian angels and we’re not obliged to run after you in all your doings.

Well and good. The Superintendent, however, is of a different opinion. He can’t of course hasten the decision itself, which is a matter for the authorities. But in his own sphere of jurisdiction he wants to provide a temporary and truly generous settlement;

“That’s just what I meant,” replied K., “you must take me on against your will. Although it causes you grave perturbation, you must take me on.

But when one is compelled to take someone else on, and this someone else allows himself to be taken on, then he is the one who grants the favour.

” “Strange!” said the teacher. “What is it that compels us to take you on? The only thing that compels us is the Superintendent’s kind heart, his too kind heart.

was glad to have escaped from the crush of the maids and the assistants in the warm room. It was freezing a little, the snow was firmer, the going easier. But already darkness was actually beginning to fall, and he hastened his steps.

The Castle, whose contours were already beginning to dissolve, lay silent as ever; never yet had K. seen there the slightest sign of life⁠—perhaps it was quite impossible to recognise anything at that distance, and yet the eye demanded it and could not endure that stillness.

When K.

I’m not surprised that Frieda threw it up.” “Frieda was very happy here,” said K., to make her aware definitely of the difference between Frieda and herself, which she did not seem to appreciate. “Don’t you believe her,” said Pepi. “

Frieda can keep a straight face better than other people can. She doesn’t admit what she doesn’t want to admit, and so nobody noticed that she had anything to admit.

I’ve been in service here with her several years already. We’ve slept together all that time in the same bed, yet I’m not intimate with her, and by now I’m quite out of her thoughts, that’s certain.

Perhaps he had this power, but it would have availed him nothing; to call the sledge back would be to drive himself away.

So he remained standing as one who held the field, but it was a victory which gave him no joy.

Alternately he looked at the backs of the gentleman and the coachman. The gentleman had already reached the door through which K. had first come into the courtyard; yet once more he looked back, K.

I wanted to prevent further damage, and thought that the only means of achieving that was to shake your resolution by prayers and threats. Since then I have learned to look on the whole thing more calmly. You can do what you like.

Your actions may no doubt leave deep footprints in the snow out there in the courtyard, but they’ll do nothing more.

” “The contradiction doesn’t seem to me to be quite cleared up,” said K., “but I’m content with having drawn attention to it. But now I beg you, Mr.

And won’t you achieve that at least through the protocol, perhaps much more?” “Much more?” asked K. “In what way?” “

If you wouldn’t always talk about things like a child, as if they were for eating!

Who on earth can give any answer to such questions? The protocol will be put in Klamm’s village register, you have heard that already, more than that can’t be said with certainty.

The landlady’s attempt had of course not been a straightforward one, surreptitiously she had tried to put him against the protocol at the same time; in reality he could not tell whether he had stood out or given in.

An intriguing nature, acting blindly, it seemed, like the wind, according to strange and remote behests which one could never guess at.

He had only taken a few steps along the main street when he saw two swaying lights in the distance; these signs of life gladdened him and he hastened towards them, while they too made in his direction.

I haven’t done any surveying at all, and you see yourself how much the assistants are worth. And obviously too I can’t interrupt work which I’ve never begun; I can’t even excite the gentleman’s displeasure, so how can I have earned his appreciation?

As for being easy in my mind, I can never be that.

” “I’ll see to it,” said Barnabas, who all the time had been gazing past the letter, which he could not have read in any case, for he was holding it too close to his face.

“My father is a cobbler,” replied Barnabas calmly, “he had orders from Brunswick, and I’m my father’s assistant.” “Cobbler-orders-Brunswick!” cried K. bitingly, as if he wanted to abolish the words forever. “

And who can need boots here in these eternally empty streets?

And what is all this cobbling to me? I entrusted you with a letter, not so that you might mislay it and crumple it on your bench, but that you might carry it at once to Klamm!” K.

Besides, it isn’t laid down that I should go at once with every message; if it were laid down of course I would go at once; but it isn’t laid down, and if I never went at all, nothing could be said to me.

When I take a message it’s of my own free will.

” “Well and good,” replied K., staring at Barnabas and intentionally ignoring the assistants, who kept on slowly raising their heads by turns behind Barnabas’ shoulders as from a trapdoor, and hastily disappearing again with a soft whistle in imitation of the whistling of the …

he submits himself to any and every limitation of time, also any stipulation which may be considered necessary as to the number of words which may be allowed him during the interview, even with ten words he believes he will be able to manage.

In profound respect and extreme impatience he awaits your decision.

’ ” K. had forgotten himself while he was speaking, it was as if he were standing before Klamm’s door talking to the porter.

Although she knew of everything, K. formally announced to her all the same that he had dismissed the assistants. She merely nodded. K. sat down at one of the desks and followed her tired movements.

It had been her unfailing liveliness and decision that had given her insignificant physique its beauty; now that beauty was gone.

A few days of living with K. had been enough to achieve this. Her work in the taproom had not been light, but apparently it had been more suited to her. Or was her separation from Klamm the real cause of her falling away?

A few days of living with K. had been enough to achieve this. Her work in the taproom had not been light, but apparently it had been more suited to her. Or was her separation from Klamm the real cause of her falling away?

It was the nearness of Klamm that had made her so irrationally seductive; that was the seduction which had drawn K. to her, and now she was withering in his arms.

“Frieda,” said K. She put away the coffee-mill at once and went over to K. at his desk. “You’re angry with me?” asked she. “No,” replied K. “I don’t think you can help yourself. You were happy in the Herrenhof.

“I can’t go away,” replied K. “I came here to stay. I’ll stay here.” And giving utterance to a self-contradiction which he made no effort to explain, he added as if to himself:

“What could have enticed me to this desolate country except the wish to stay here?”

Then he went on: “But you want to stay here too, after all it’s your own country. Only you miss Klamm and that gives you desperate ideas.” “I miss Klamm?” said Frieda, “I’ve all I want of Klamm here, too much Klamm;

it’s to escape from him that I want to go away. It’s not Klamm that I miss, it’s you. I want to go away for your sake, because I can’t get enough of you, here where everything distracts me.

I would gladly lose my pretty looks, I would gladly be sick and ailing, if I could be left in peace with you.

” K. had only paid attention to one thing. “Then Klamm is still in communication with you?” he asked eagerly, “he sends for you?” “I know nothing about Klamm,” replied Frieda, “I was speaking just now of others, I mean the assistants.”

“No, no,” said K. putting his arm round her comfortingly. “All these things are trifles that don’t hurt me, and it’s not only on your account that I want to get to Klamm. And then think of all you’ve done for me!

Before I knew you I was going about in a blind circle.

Nobody took me up, and if I made up to anybody I was soon sent about my business.

Do you think I don’t see that? It makes me feel ashamed for them. Well, that’s just it, they don’t repel me, but I feel ashamed for them. I can’t help looking at them.

When one ought to be annoyed with them, I can only laugh at them. When people want to strike them, I can only stroke their hair.

And when I’m lying beside you at night I can’t sleep and must always be leaning across you to look at them, one of them lying rolled up asleep in the blanket and the other kneeling before the stove door putting in wood, and I …

What an idea, to choose between you and the assistants! But now I want to be rid of them finally, in word and thought as well.

Besides who knows whether the weakness that has come over us both mayn’t be due to the fact that we haven’t had breakfast yet?

” “That’s possible,” said Frieda smiling wearily and going about her work. K. too grasped the broom again.

… good hot coffee he became lively and confidential and began to question them eagerly and insistently, as if he wanted to know the gist of the matter as quickly as possible, to enable him to come to an independent decision about what they should do.

There was something imperious in his character, but it was so mingled with childish innocence that they submitted to it without resistance, half-smilingly, half in earnest.

In any case he demanded all their attention for himself, work completely stopped, the breakfast lingered on unconscionably. Although Hans was sitting at one of the scholars’ desks and K.

but when he had found K. here in the school, he had had to speak to him, so that he might tell his mother the news.

For that was what pleased his mother most, when without her express command one did what she wanted.

After a short pause for reflection K. said that he did not need any help, he had all that he required, but it was very good of Hans to want to help him, and he thanked him for his good intentions;

… he must try to keep this post which gave Frieda a certain degree of security, and he must not complain if for this end he were made to endure more at the teacher’s hands than he would have had to endure in the ordinary course.

All that sort of thing could be put up with, it belonged to the ordinary continual petty annoyances of life, it was nothing compared with what K. was striving for, and he had not come here simply to lead an honoured and comfortable life.

And so, as he had been ready to run over to the inn, he showed himself now willing to obey the second order, and first set the room to rights so that the lady teacher and her children could come back to it.

“Everything,” said K. who had regained his composure in listening. “

Everything that you say is in a certain sense justifiable, it is not untrue, it is only partisan.

These are the landlady’s ideas, my enemy’s ideas, even if you imagine that they’re your own; and that comforts me. But they’re instructive, one can learn a great deal from the landlady.

you come and go, I don’t know where or from where. Just now when Hans knocked, you cried out Barnabas’s name. I only wish you had once called out my name as lovingly as for some incomprehensible reason you called that hateful name.

If you have no trust in me, how can I keep mistrust from rising?

It delivers me completely to the landlady, whom you justify in appearance by your behaviour. Not in everything, I won’t say that you justify her in everything, for was it not on my account alone that you sent the assistants packing?

It delivers me completely to the landlady, whom you justify in appearance by your behaviour. Not in everything, I won’t say that you justify her in everything, for was it not on my account alone that you sent the assistants packing?

Oh, if you but knew with what passion I try to find a grain of comfort for myself in all that you do and say, even when it gives me pain.

” “Once and for all, Frieda,” said K. “I conceal not the slightest thing from you.

At long last, late in the afternoon, when it was already dark, K. had cleared the garden path, piled the snow high on either side, beaten it down hard, and so accomplished his work for the day.

He was standing by the garden gate in the middle of a wide solitude.

He had driven off the remaining assistant hours before, and chased him a long way, but the fellow had managed to hide himself somewhere between the garden and the schoolhouse and could not be found, nor had he shown himself since.

Amalia assured him, however, that Olga knew nothing about it, and that it would make her very unhappy, for she seemed to be in love with K.

She had not directly said so, for she was very reserved, but love betrayed itself involuntarily.

K. was convinced that Amalia was mistaken.

She had not directly said so, for she was very reserved, but love betrayed itself involuntarily. K. was convinced that Amalia was mistaken.

Amalia smiled, and this smile of hers, although sad, lit up her gloomy face, made her silence eloquent, her strangeness intimate, and unlocked a mystery jealously guarded hitherto, a mystery which could indeed be concealed again, but never so completely.

Amalia said that she was certainly not mistaken, she would even go further and affirm that K. too had an inclination for Olga, and that his visits, which were ostensibly concerned with some message or other from Barnabas, were really intended for Olga.

… taken up, that Barnabas for instance is still on probation, and in the long run it can also mean that the whole thing has been settled, that for some reason or other the promise has been cancelled, and that Barnabas will never get his suit.

One can never find out exactly what is happening, or only a long time afterwards.

We have a saying here, perhaps you’ve heard it: Official decisions are as shy as young girls.”

One can never find out exactly what is happening, or only a long time afterwards.

We have a saying here, perhaps you’ve heard it: Official decisions are as shy as young girls.

” “That’s a good observation,” said K., he took it still more seriously than Olga, “a good observation, and the decisions may have other characteristics in common with young girls.” “Perhaps,” said Olga.

That side of his nature is the easiest to imitate, there are many who try it on, although they have sense enough not to attempt anything more.

And a man like Klamm who is so much sought after and so rarely seen is apt to take different shapes in people’s imagination.

For instance Klamm has a village secretary here called Momus. You know him, do you? He keeps well in the background too, but I’ve seen him several times. A stoutly-built young man, isn’t he? And so evidently not in the least like Klamm.

A stoutly-built young man, isn’t he? And so evidently not in the least like Klamm. And yet you’ll find people in the village who swear that Momus is Klamm, he and no other.

That’s how people work their own confusion.

Is there any reason why it should be different in the Castle? Somebody pointed out that particular official to Barnabas as Klamm, and there is actually a resemblance that Barnabas has always questioned. And everything goes to support his doubt.

you see how uncertain he feels; and this miserable uncertainty of his throws a clearer light on his position there than all his descriptions.

How ambiguous and threatening everything must appear to him when he won’t even risk opening his mouth to put an innocent question!

When I reflect on that I blame myself for letting him go alone into those unknown rooms, which have such an effect on him that, though he’s daring rather than cowardly, he apparently trembles with fright as he stands there.”

I admit their situation is different from ours and they have no grounds for ambition beyond their daily work, but even without making comparisons it’s easy to see that you’re all right.

Hindrances there may be, doubts and disappointments, but that only means, what we all knew beforehand, that you get nothing without paying for it, that you have to fight for every trivial point; all the more reason for being proud instead of downcast.

And aren’t you fighting for us as well? Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Doesn’t that put new strength into you? And the fact that I’m happy and almost conceited at having such a brother, doesn’t that give you any confidence?

“But he doesn’t need encouragement,” said K. “to encourage him amounts to telling him that he’s right, that he has only to go on as he is doing now, but that is just the way he will never achieve anything by.

If a man has his eyes bound you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he’ll never see anything.

He’ll be able to see only when the bandage is removed. It’s help Barnabas needs, not encouragement.

Since he’s beside himself with fright up there, he’s incapable of observing, and when you force him to give an account of what he has seen, you get simply confused fabrications. That doesn’t surprise me.

Fear of the authorities is born in you here, and is further suggested to you all your lives in the most various ways and from every side, and you yourselves help to strengthen it as much as possible.

Still, I have no fundamental objection to that; if an authority is good why should it not be feared?

Hasn’t Frieda told you anything about us?” “Mere hints,” said K., “nothing definite, but the very mention of your name exasperates her.” “And has the landlady told you nothing either?” “No, nothing.” “Nor anybody else?” “Nobody.” “Of course; how could anybody tell you anything?

Everyone knows something about us, either the truth, so far as it is accessible, or at least some exaggerated rumour, mostly invention, and everybody thinks about us more than need be, but nobody will actually speak about it, people are shy of putting these things into words.

And they’re quite right in that.

It’s Sortini that horrifies me, the possibility of such an abuse of power.

The very thing that failed this one time because it came naked and undisguised and found an effective opponent in Amalia, might very well succeed completely on a thousand other occasions in circumstances just a little less favourable, and might defy detection even by its victim.

” “Hush,” said Olga, “Amalia’s looking this way.” Amalia had finished giving food to her parents and was now busy taking off her mother’s clothes.

“But is that really a difference?” asked Olga. “Do you imagine Klamm couldn’t have written to Frieda in the same tone?

That’s what the gentlemen are like when they rise from their desks, they feel out of place in the ordinary world and in their distraction they say the most beastly things, not all of them, but many of them.

The letter to Amalia may have been the thought of a moment, thrown on the paper in complete disregard for the meaning to be taken out of it. What do we know of the thoughts of these gentlemen?

What do we know of the thoughts of these gentlemen? Haven’t you heard of, or heard yourself, the tone in which Klamm spoke to Frieda?

Klamm’s notorious for his rudeness, he can apparently sit dumb for hours and then suddenly bring out something so brutal that it makes one shiver.

Nothing of that kind is known of Sortini, but then very little is known of him. All that’s really known about him is that his name is like Sordini’s.

And if there’s no distinction here in Klamm’s favour, but the reverse, how can Frieda’s love for him establish one? The relation existing between the women and the officials, believe me, is very difficult, or rather very easy to determine.

Love always enters into it. There’s no such thing as an official’s unhappy love affair.

So in that respect it’s no praise to say of a girl—I’m referring to many others besides Frieda—that she gave herself to an official only out of love. She loved him and gave herself to him, that was all, there’s nothing praiseworthy in that.

Amalia’s act was remarkable enough, but the more you say about it the less clearly can it be decided whether it was noble or petty, clever or foolish, heroic or cowardly;

Amalia keeps her motives locked in her own bosom and no one will ever get at them.

Frieda, on the other hand, has done nothing at all remarkable, she has only followed her own heart, for anyone who looks at her actions with goodwill that is clear, it can be substantiated, it leaves no room for slander.

Frieda with the whip in her hand, and I among the crowd of servants. But it’s worse even than that! Frieda may despise us, her position entitles her to do so, actual circumstances compel it. But who is there who doesn’t despise us?

Whoever decides to despise us will find himself in good company.

Do you know Frieda’s successor? Pepi, she’s called. I met her for the first time the night before last, she used to be a chamber maid. She certainly outdoes Frieda in her contempt for me.

When Frieda gave it away it wasn’t out of mischief but as a warning, to let the parish know that something had happened which everybody should be careful to keep clear of.

It wasn’t our family that was taboo, it was the affair, and our family only in so far as we were mixed up in the affair.

So if we had quietly come forward again and let bygones be bygones and shown by our behaviour that the incident was closed, no matter in what way, and reassured public opinion that it was never likely to be mentioned again, whatever its nature had …

and she didn’t hold out for long; no one could say that she’s holding out against them today, and even at that time her mind was beginning to go.

But Amalia not only suffered, she had the understanding to see her suffering clearly, we saw only the effects, but she knew the cause, we hoped for some small relief or other, she knew that everything was decided, we had to whisper, she had only to be silent.

She stood face to face with the truth and went on living and endured her life then as now. In all our straits we were better off than she. Of course, we had to leave our house.

… only suffered, she had the understanding to see her suffering clearly, we saw only the effects, but she knew the cause, we hoped for some small relief or other, she knew that everything was decided, we had to whisper, she had only to be silent.

She stood face to face with the truth and went on living and endured her life then as now.

In all our straits we were better off than she. Of course, we had to leave our house.

Our relatives stopped sending us things, our money was almost done, and that was the time when people first began to despise us in the way you can see now.

They saw that we hadn’t the strength to shake ourselves clear of the scandal, and they were irritated.

They didn’t underestimate our difficulties, although they didn’t know exactly what they were, and they knew that probably they wouldn’t have stood up to them any better themselves, but that made it only all the more needful to keep clear of us—if we had triumphed …

Where should it hang if not over the table? and yet they found it insupportable. But if we hung the lamp somewhere else they were still disgusted.

Whatever we did, whatever we had, it was all despicable.

”

asked K., “I don’t know,” said Olga, “perhaps Brunswick, although it doesn’t fit him exactly, but it might have been somebody else. It’s not easy to follow her, for often one can’t tell whether she’s speaking ironically or in earnest.

Mostly she’s in earnest but sounds ironical.

” “Never mind explaining,” said K. “How have you come to be so dependent on her? Were things like that before the catastrophe? Or did it happen later? And do you never feel that you want to be independent of her?

Well, you’re all three very like each other, but Amalia’s distinguishing mark is hardly a recommendation, and repelled me the first time I saw it, I mean her cold hard eye.

And although she’s the youngest she doesn’t look it, she has the ageless look of women who seem not to grow any older, but seem never to have been young either.

You see her every day, you don’t notice the hardness of her face. That’s why, on reflection, I can’t take Sortini’s passion for her very seriously, perhaps he sent the letter simply to punish her, but not to summon her.”

… secretaries, the advocates, the clerks, usually he wasn’t received at all, but if by guile or chance he managed to get a hearing—and how we used to exult when the news came, and rub our hands!—he was always thrown out immediately and never admitted again.

Besides, it was only too easy to answer him, the Castle always has the advantage.

What was it that he wanted? What had been done to him? What did he want to be forgiven for? When and by whom had so much as a finger been raised against him in the Castle?

Could he perhaps refer to some official decree that had been issued against him? Father couldn’t do that. Well then, if he knew of nothing and nothing had happened, what did he want?

What was there to forgive him? Nothing but the way he was aimlessly wasting official time, but that was just the unforgiveable sin.

Father didn’t give in, he was still very strong in those days, and his enforced leisure gave him plenty of time.

… say to Barnabas and me several times a day, but only in a low voice in case Amalia should hear, and yet he only said it for her benefit, for in reality he wasn’t hoping for the restoration of her honour, but only for forgiveness.

Yet before he could be forgiven he had to prove his guilt, and that was denied in all the bureaux.

He hit upon the idea—and it showed that his mind was already giving way—that his guilt was being concealed from him because he didn’t pay enough; until then he had paid only the established taxes, which were at least high enough for means like ours.

Since he had failed in proving his guilt, and consequently could hope for nothing more through official channels, he would have to depend on appeals alone, and would try to move the officials personally.

There must certainly be some among them who had good sympathetic hearts, which they couldn’t give way to in their official capacity, but out of office hours, if one caught them at the right time, they would surely listen.

”

If there were even the faintest possibility of getting anything in that way, that part of the road would be packed with petitioners; but since it’s a sheer impossibility, patent to the youngest schoolboy, the road is absolutely empty.

But maybe even that strengthened father in his hopes, he found food for them everywhere.

He had great need to find it, for a sound mind wouldn’t have had to make such complicated calculations, it would have realised from external evidence that the thing was impossible.

To be honest, it was a wild and senseless plan, even if the impossible should have happened, and his prayer have really reached an official’s ear.

For how could a single official give a pardon? That could only be done at best by the whole authority, and apparently even the authority can only condemn and not pardon.

And in any case even if an official stepped out of his carriage and was willing to take up the matter, how could he get any clear idea of the affair from the mumblings of a poor, tired, ageing man like father?

And in any case even if an official stepped out of his carriage and was willing to take up the matter, how could he get any clear idea of the affair from the mumblings of a poor, tired, ageing man like father?

Officials are highly educated, but one-sided; in his own department an official can grasp whole trains of thought from a single word, but let him have something from another department explained to him by the hour, he may nod politely, but he won’t understand a word of it.

That’s quite natural, take even the small official affairs that concern the ordinary person—trifling things that an official disposes of with a shrug—and try to understand one of them through and through, and you’ll waste a whole lifetime on it without result.

“But,” said K., “I’ve seen the inside of an official sledge in which there weren’t any papers.”

Olga’s story was opening for him such a great and almost incredible world that he could not help trying to put his own small experiences in relation to it, as much to convince himself of its reality as of his own existence.

“That’s possible,” said Olga, “but in that case it’s even worse, for that means that the official’s business is so important that the papers are too precious or too numerous to be taken with him, and those officials go at a gallop.

And it became a long absence, he never went back again, and for weeks he never left his bed. Amalia took over the nursing, the attending, the treatment, did everything he needed, and with a few intervals has kept it up to this day.

She knows healing herbs to soothe his pain, she needs hardly any sleep, she’s never alarmed, never afraid, never impatient, she does everything for the old folks; while we were fluttering round uneasily without being able to help in anything she remained cool and quiet whatever happened.

Then when the worst was past and father was able again to struggle cautiously out of bed with one of us supporting him on each side, Amalia withdrew into the background again and left him to us.”

… fury they did their best to wreck, not one intimate word have I spoke with any of them during those two years, I’ve had only cunning or lying or silly words from them, so only Barnabas remained for me, and Barnabas was still very young.

When I saw the light in his eyes as I told him those things, a light which has remained in them ever since, I felt terrified and yet I didn’t stop, the things at stake seemed too great.

I admit I hadn’t my father’s great though empty plans, I hadn’t the resolution that men have, I confined myself to making good the insult to the messenger, and only asked that the actual modesty of my attempt should be put to my credit.

In particular I can’t understand how the daring he had as a boy—it actually caused us anxiety—how he can have lost it so completely up there now that he’s a man.

Of course all that useless standing about and waiting all day, and day after day, and going on and on without any prospect of a change, must break a man down and make him unsure of himself and in the end actually incapable of anything else but this hopeless standing about.

But why didn’t he put up a fight even at the beginning?

He was the little boy he had used to be again. Something had happened to him that he hadn’t been prepared for.

It was as if a whole new world had suddenly opened to him, and he could not bear the joy and the anxieties of all this newness.

And yet the only thing that had happened was that he had been given a letter for delivery to you. But it was actually the first letter, the first commission, that he had ever been given.”

… do anything so wild, but he still goes on hoping—how else could he keep alive?—then after years and years, perhaps as an old man, he learns that he has been rejected, learns that everything is lost and that all his life has been in vain.

Here, too, of course there are exceptions, that’s how one is so easily tempted.

It happens sometimes that really shady customers are actually appointed, there are officials who, literally in spite of themselves, are attracted by those outlaws;

… words be in such clear contradiction, why should we in this way disappoint not only you, the addressee, but also the sender of the letter, who certainly hadn’t handed the letter to us so that we should belittle it to the addressee by our explanations?

And to hold the mean, without exaggeration on either side, in other words to estimate the just value of those letters, is impossible, they themselves change in value perpetually, the reflections they give rise to are endless, and chance determines where one stops reflecting, and so even our estimate of them is a matter of chance.

And when on the top of that there came anxiety about you, everything became confused, and you mustn’t judge whatever I said too severely.

“You don’t recognise me?” asked the man, “Jeremiah, your old assistant.” “I see,” said K. tentatively producing the hazel switch again, which he had concealed behind his back, “But you look quite different.” “It’s because I’m by myself,” said Jeremiah. “

When I’m by myself then all my youthful spirits are gone.

” “But where is Arthur?” asked K. “Arthur?” said Jeremiah, “the little dear? He has left the service. You were rather hard and rough on us, you know, and the gentle soul couldn’t stand it.

As for your proposal, I have no cause, certainly, to deceive you, but I have just as little to confide anything to you. My case, in other words, is different from yours.

So long as my relation to you was that of a servant, you were naturally a very important person in my eyes, not because of your own qualities, but because of my office, and I would have done anything for you that you wanted, but now you’re of no importance to me.

Even your breaking the switch doesn’t affect me, it only reminds me what a rough master I had, it’s not calculated to prejudice me in your favour.”

But even that had not satisfied her. It was unendurable for her to be always “besieged,” as she expressed herself, in her own house.

It was incomprehensible to her why there should need to be clients waiting at all.

“To dirty the front-door steps,” an official had once told her, obviously in annoyance, but to her this pronouncement had seemed very illuminating, and she was never tired of quoting it.

“Ah, the Land Surveyor?” he said, “the man who was so unwilling to be examined and now is in a hurry to be examined. It would have been simpler to let me do it that time.

Well, really it’s difficult to choose the right time for a hearing.

” Since at these words K. made to stop, Momus went on: “Go in, go in! I needed your answers then, I don’t now.” Nevertheless K. replied, provoked by Momus’s tone: “You only think of yourselves.

Since at these words K. made to stop, Momus went on: “Go in, go in! I needed your answers then, I don’t now.” Nevertheless K. replied, provoked by Momus’s tone: “You only think of yourselves.

I would never and will never answer merely because of someone’s office, neither then nor now.

” Momus replied: “Of whom, then, should we think? Who else is there here? Look for yourself!”

You alone have destroyed our happiness. Do you think that Jeremiah, so long as he was in service, would have dared to take me away? Then you entirely misunderstood the way things are ordered here.

He wanted me, he tormented himself, he lay in watch for me, but that was only a game, like the play of a hungry dog who nevertheless wouldn’t dare to leap up on the table.

And just the same with me.

But Jeremiah stayed.

When he’s in service he fears the slightest look of his master, but when he’s not in service there’s nothing he’s afraid of.

He came and took me; forsaken by you, commanded by him, my old friend, I couldn’t resist. I didn’t unlock the school door. He smashed the window and lifted me out.

“I thought you were in the taproom,” he said. Frieda looked at him in amazement and then softly passed her free hand over his brow and cheeks.

It was as if she had forgotten what he looked like and were trying to recall it to mind again, even her eyes had the veiled look of one who was painfully trying to remember.

“I’ve been taken on in the taproom again,” she said slowly at last, as if it did not matter what she said, but as if beneath her words she were carrying on another conversation with K.

If things stood as you say, and your faithfulness was only determined by the assistants’ being in the position of servants, then it was a good thing that it came to an end.

The happiness of a married life spent with two beasts of prey, who could only be kept under by the whip, wouldn’t have been very great.

In that case I’m even thankful to this family who have unintentionally had some part in separating us.” They became silent and began to walk backwards and forwards again side by side, though neither this time could have told who had made the first move.

The whole thing was simply a wicked but very clever exploitation of the failings in our relationship.

Everybody’s relations have their blemishes, even ours, we came together from two very different worlds, and since we have known each other the life of each of us has had to be quite different, we still feel insecure, it’s all too new.

I don’t speak of myself, I don’t matter so much, in reality I’ve been enriched from the very first moment that you looked on me, and to accustom oneself to one’s riches isn’t very difficult.

Everybody’s relations have their blemishes, even ours, we came together from two very different worlds, and since we have known each other the life of each of us has had to be quite different, we still feel insecure, it’s all too new.

I don’t speak of myself, I don’t matter so much, in reality I’ve been enriched from the very first moment that you looked on me, and to accustom oneself to one’s riches isn’t very difficult.

But—not to speak of anything else—you were torn away from Klamm, I can’t calculate how much that must have meant, but a vague idea of it I’ve managed to arrive at gradually, you stumbled, you couldn’t find yourself, and even if I was always ready …

The Bridge Inn landlady once said of you: ‘

I can’t abide him, but I can’t let him alone either, one simply can’t control oneself when one sees a child that can hardly walk trying to go too far for it, one simply has to interfere.

’ ” “Pay attention to her advice for this once,” said K. smiling, “but that girl—whether she’s retiring or shameless doesn’t matter—I don’t want to hear any more about her.” “But why do you call her retiring?” asked Frieda obdurately—K.