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that, I realized you were no match for the forces at work here and was happy to see you were at least putting up a fight, I helped to defend you, and it was only because I failed to do so for an hour or two, trusting in your faithfulness and also in hopes that the building would inevitably be locked and the assistants finally put to flight—I still underestimate them, I fear—only because I failed to do so for an hour or two and because this Jeremias, who on closer inspection is a none-too-healthy, oldish fellow, had the cheek to come to the window, it's for those reasons alone that I must lose you, Frieda, and hear greetings such as: 'There will be no wedding.' Shouldn't I be the one to utter reproaches, but I do not, I still do not." And again K. thought it a good idea to dis­tract Frieda, so he asked her to bring him something to eat, for he had not eaten anything since noon. Frieda, obviously relieved by the request, nodded and ran to get something, not farther along the corridor where K. assumed the kitchen was, but off to the side down a few steps. She soon brought a plate of cold meats and a bottle of wine, but these were evidently only the remnants of a meal, the individual slices had been quickly rearranged so that this could not be discerned, a few sausage skins had even been left lying there, and the bottle was three-quarters empty. But K. said nothing about this and with a good appetite set about eating. "You were in the kitchen?" he asked. "No, in my own room," she said, "I have a room downstairs." "If only you had taken me along," said K., "I'll go downstairs so that I can sit for a little while I eat." "I'll bring you a chair," said Frieda, who was already on her way. "No thanks," said K., holding her back, "I won't go and don't need a chair either." Defiantly, Frieda en­dured his grip, she had her head bent low and was biting her lips. "Well, he's downstairs," she said, "what else did you expect? He's lying in my bed, he caught a chill outside, he's shivering, and has barely eaten. Basically this is all your fault; if you had not chased away the assistants and run after those people, we could be sitting peacefully in the schoolhouse. You alone destroyed our happiness. Do you really think Jeremias would have dared to abduct me while he was still on duty? In that case you fail to

appreciate the system of order here. He tried to approach me, tormented himself, lay in wait for me, but it was only a game, just as a hungry dog plays about without quite having the audac­ity to jump up on the table. And the same is true of me. I was drawn to him, he's my playmate from childhood days—we used to play with one another on the slope of the Castle hill, wonderful days, you've never once asked me about my past—but none of that was of any great moment while Jeremias's position was still hold­ing him in check, for I knew my duty as your wife-to-be. But then you drove away the assistants, and still boast of that, as though you had achieved something for me; well, in a sense that's true. With Artur you attained your goal, though only temporarily, he's delicate, he lacks Jeremias's passion, which fears no obstacle, and also that night with your fist—that blow with your fist was also dealt against our happiness—you nearly destroyed him, he fled to the Castle to complain, and even if he comes back soon, he's gone right now. But Jeremias stayed. On duty he fears every twitch in his master's eye, but off-duty he fears nothing. He came and took me; abandoned by you, overpowered by him, my old friend, I couldn't hold out anymore. It was not I who unlocked the school door, he smashed the window and pulled me out. We flew here, the landlord respects him, and nothing could please the guests more than to have a room waiter like him, so we were taken on, he doesn't live in my room, but we have taken a room together." "In spite of everything," said K., "I don't regret having driven the assistants from my service. If the relationship was as you describe it, in other words if your faithfulness depended solely on the pro­fessional commitment of the assistants, then it was good that all this came to an end. The happiness of that marriage in between those two predators, who backed down only under the threat of a whipping, would not have been that great. So I too am grateful to that family, which inadvertently played a role in separating us." In silence they walked up and down, side by side, but now it was impossible to tell who had begun first. Frieda, who was be­side K., seemed annoyed that he didn't take her by the arm again. "And then everything would be in order," K. went on, "we could

take leave of each other, you could go to your master Jeremias, who probably still has a chill from the school garden and whom you have, under the circumstances, left alone for too long, and I could go on my own to the schoolhouse or, now that I have nothing to do there without you, anywhere I will be admitted. If I am nevertheless hesitant, it's because I still have good reason to doubt what you told me. I have the opposite impression of Jere­mias. All the time he was on duty, he was pursuing you, and I cannot believe that his being on duty would ultimately have re­strained him from assaulting you in earnest. But now, ever since he chose to regard his duties here with me as suspended, he is dif­ferent. Forgive me if I explain it to myself this way: Ever since you ceased to be his master's fiancée, you are no longer the temp­tation you once were for him. You may be his friend from child­hood, but in my opinion—and I know him only from a brief conversation I had with him tonight—he doesn't attach much importance to sentimental matters of that sort. I don't know why you consider him a passionate individual. On the contrary, I find his way of thinking remarkably cold. From Galater he received in my regard certain perhaps not very favorable instructions, he en­deavors to carry them out, with, as I willingly admit, a certain passion for duty—it is not all that rare here—specifying that he should destroy our relationship; he may have attempted this in various ways, for instance, by trying to entice you with his lascivious longings, and also—the landlady supported him in this—by spinning yarns about my unfaithfulness; his attack was successful, some memory or other of Klamm that still clings to him may have been of some help here, he certainly lost his post, but perhaps precisely when he no longer needed it, now he reaps the fruits of his labor and pulls you through the school window, but with that his work is finished, and, abandoned by his passion for duty, he becomes tired and would prefer to take over from Artur, who is not complaining but picking up praise and new or­ders, yet someone has to stay to keep track of how things develop here. He regards it as a somewhat bothersome duty having to care for you. There is no love for you, he openly admitted that to

me, but as the mistress of Klamm you are naturally somebody he respects, and it must make him feel very good to be able to settle down in your room and have for once the feeling of being like a little Klamm, but that's all, you yourself mean nothing to him now; placing you in a position in here was, in his opinion, simply an addition to his main work; in order not to unsettle you he himself remained here, but only temporarily, so long as he does not have any news from the Castle and you have not cured his cold for him." "How you slander him!" said Frieda, knocking her little fists together. "Slander him?" said K., "no, I don't want to slander him. Perhaps I'm doing him something of an injustice, that is of course possible. What I said about him doesn't lie openly on the surface, it can be interpreted differently. But slan­der? After all, the only purpose in slandering him would be to combat your love of him. Were that necessary and were slander a suitable means, I wouldn't hesitate to slander him. Nobody could condemn me for that, he has such a great advantage over me because of his patrons that I, thrown back as I am entirely on my own resources, should also be allowed to do a little slander­ing. That would be a relatively innocent and in the end also quite impotent means of defense. So drop your fists." And K. took Frieda's hand in his own; Frieda attempted to withdraw it, but smiling and without any great effort. "But I have no need to slan­der him," said K., "for you certainly don't love him, you only think you do, and you'll be grateful when I deliver you from that illusion. Look, if someone wanted to take you from me without resorting to force, in the most carefully calculated fashion, he would have to do so through the two assistants. They are seem­ingly good, childish, funny, irresponsible youths, blown in from high up, from the Castle, along with a few childhood memories, but all this is quite endearing, especially if I myself am the oppo­site, as it were, for I'm constantly running after things that aren't entirely comprehensible to you, that annoy you, that bring me to­gether with people who seem despicable to you, and some of that gets carried over to me in all my innocence. All of this is simply a malicious, though certainly very clever, exploitation of the short-

comings in our relationship. Every relationship has its shortcom­ings, even ours; we came together, each of us from a completely different world, and ever since getting to know each other, each of our lives has taken a completely new path, we still feel uncer­tain, all of this is too new. I'm not talking about myself, that isn't so important, on the whole I have been constantly inundated with gifts ever since you first turned your eyes toward me, and of course it isn't all that difficult to get used to receiving gifts. But as for you, aside from everything else, you were torn from Klamm, I cannot gauge what that means, but I have gradually gained an idea of what that means, one staggers, one cannot find one's way, and, even if I was always prepared to take you in, I was not al­ways there, and when I was there, you were sometimes detained by your daydreams or something even more alive, like, for in­stance, the landlady—in short, there were times when you looked away from me, you were yearning, poor child, for something that was only half-defined, and at moments like that all that was needed was that the right people be posted in the direction you were looking and you were lost to them, you succumbed to the il­lusion that all of this, which was nothing but moments, ghosts, old memories, mostly your past and constantly receding former life, was still your real life right then. A mistake, Frieda, nothing but the final, and, rightly considered, rather contemptible obsta­cle facing our ultimate union. Pull yourself together, compose your­self; even if you thought that the assistants were sent by Klamm— it isn't true, they come from Galater—and if with the help of this illusion they could so enchant you that you believed that even in their dirt and their lechery you could find traces of Klamm, like a person who thinks he is seeing a long-lost precious stone in a dung heap, whereas in reality he would be incapable of finding it even if it actually was there—they too are simply the same type of fellows as the domestics in the stable, only not as healthy, a little fresh air makes them ill and throws them into bed, which they admittedly go about choosing with the craftiness of a do­mestic." Frieda had leaned her head on K.'s shoulder; with their arms wrapped around each other they walked up and down in

silence. "If only," said Frieda, slowly, calmly, almost contentedly, as though she knew that she had merely been granted a tiny little interlude of peace on K.'s shoulder but intended to enjoy it to the utmost, "if only we had gone abroad at once, that same night, we could be somewhere else, safe, always together, your hand al­ways close enough for me to catch hold of; how I need your closeness; how lost I am ever since I came to know you without your closeness; believe me, your closeness is the only dream that I dream, none other."

At that, someone cried out from the side corridor, it was Jere-mias, he stood on the bottom step, he had only a shirt on but had thrown one of Frieda's shawls around himself. Standing there like that with his tousled hair, thin and seemingly rain-soaked beard, his eyes strenuously, pleadingly, reproachfully open, his dark cheeks reddish but as if consisting of extremely loose flesh, his bare legs trembling from the cold and the long fringes of his shawl trembling along with them, he was like a patient who had escaped from a hospital, so that one's only thought was how to get him back to bed. That's also how Frieda saw the matter, she withdrew from K. and immediately joined Jeremias downstairs. Her closeness, the solicitous way she drew the shawl more tightly about him, and her haste, in trying to press him back into the room, already seemed to be fortifying him a bit, it was as if he only now recognized K., "Oh, it is the surveyor," he said, sooth­ingly stroking the cheek of Frieda, who wanted to prevent all fur­ther discussion, "forgive the disturbance. I'm not feeling at all well, so I do have an excuse. I think I have a fever, I must have some tea and sweat it out. That damned fence in the school gar­den, it'll take me a long time to forget it, and then after catching cold I continued to run about during the night. Although one doesn't realize it at the time, one ends up sacrificing one's health for things that are truly not worth it. But, Surveyor, don't let me disturb you, join us in the room, pay a sick visit, and at the same time you can tell Frieda whatever still needs to be said. When two people who have become used to each other part, there is still so much to tell each other in the final moments that a third party,

especially one lying in bed waiting for the tea he has been prom­ised, cannot possibly understand what it's all about. Come right in, I shall be quite still." "Enough, enough," said Frieda, tugging at his arm, "he is feverish and has no idea what he's saying. But K., don't come with us, I beg you. The room is mine and Jere-mias's, or rather just mine, I forbid you to enter. You're pursuing me, oh K., why are you pursuing me. I will never, never go back to you, the very thought of it makes me shudder. Do go to your girls; they're sitting in their chemises on the oven bench by your side, so I'm told, and when anybody comes for you they snarl at him. You must be at home there if you feel so strongly drawn to the place. I always held you back, without much success, still I did hold you back, but that's over now, you're free. You have a lovely life ahead of you, you may have to fight a little with the domestics over that first girl, but so far as the second is con­cerned, no one in heaven or on earth will begrudge you that one. The union is blessed from the start. Don't object, you can cer­tainly contradict everything, but in the end nothing would be contradicted. Just imagine, Jeremias, he has contradicted every­thing!" They signaled to each other by nodding and smiling. "But," Frieda went on, "assuming that he contradicted everything, what good would that do, what concern is it of mine? What hap­pens at their house is absolutely their own business, and also his, but not mine. Mine is to care for you until you become healthy again, the way you were before K. tormented you because of me." "So you're not coming, Surveyor?" asked Jeremias, but just then he was dragged away by Frieda, who did not even turn around to look at K. One could see a small door down there, even lower than the doors in this corridor; not only Jeremias but Frieda too had to bend down to go in, it seemed to be bright and warm inside, one could still hear some whispering, probably af­fectionate words coaxing Jeremias to go to bed, and then they closed the door.

XXIII.

It was only now that K. noticed how quiet it had become in the corridor, not only here in this part of the corridor, where he had been with Frieda and which seemed to belong to the pub­lic rooms, but also in the long corridor with the guest rooms that had been so animated earlier. So the gentlemen had finally fallen asleep. K., too, was very weary, perhaps it was out of weariness that he hadn't defended himself as much against Jeremias as he ought to have done. It might have been wiser to take a cue from Jeremias, who was clearly exaggerating his cold—his misery was not due to his cold but was innate in him and could not be chased away by any medicinal tea—and to make just as much of a show of one's truly great weariness, sinking down here in the corridor, which would already do some good, dozing off a bit and then maybe even getting taken care of a little. Except the result

wouldn't have been as favorable as for Jeremias, who would cer­tainly, and no doubt rightly, have been victorious in this compe­tition for sympathy, and obviously in every other battle as well. K. was so weary that he thought of going into one of these rooms, some of which were certainly empty, and having a good sleep in a nice bed. This would, in his opinion, have compensated for a good deal. There was even a nightcap handy. On the tray that Frieda had left lying on the floor there had been a small carafe of rum. K. did not recoil from the effort of going back, and he emptied the little bottle.

He now felt at least strong enough to appear before Erlanger. He looked for Erlanger's door, but since there was no longer any trace of the servant or of Gerstäcker and all of the doors were identical, he was unable to find it. Yet he thought he recalled the spot in the corridor where the door had been, and decided to open the door that he considered most likely to be the one he sought. This experiment couldn't possibly prove all that danger­ous; if it was Erlanger's room, then he would surely receive him, if it was someone else's, then he could still excuse himself and leave, and if the guest was sleeping, which was most likely, then K.'s visit wouldn't even be noticed, it would be unfortunate only if the room was empty, for then K. would scarcely be able to re­sist the temptation to lie down in bed and sleep endlessly. Again he looked right and left in the corridor to see whether anybody was coming who could give him information and make it unnec­essary to take such a risk, but the long corridor was silent and empty. Then K. listened at the door, there was not a sound here either. He knocked so softly that the sound couldn't have woken up anyone who was asleep, and since there was no response even then, he opened the door with extreme caution. But he was now greeted by a low cry. It was a small room, more than half of it oc­cupied by a wide bed, the electric lamp on the night table was still on, next to it was a travel bag. Lying in bed but completely hid­den under the blanket, someone was stirring uneasily and whis­pering through an opening between the blanket and sheet: "Who is it?" K. couldn't leave that easily now; disgruntled, he gazed at

the sumptuous but unfortunately not empty bed, remembered the question, and gave his name. That seemed to have a positive effect, the man in bed pushed the blanket off his face a little, but fearfully, prepared to cover himself immediately again if every­thing wasn't quite right outside. But then without hesitation he threw off the blanket and sat up. It certainly was not Erlanger. It was a short, good-looking gentleman, with a somewhat contra­dictory face, the cheeks round and childlike, the eyes cheerful and childlike, yet the high forehead, the pointed nose, and the narrow mouth with its barely closed lips and almost vanishing chin were by no means childlike but revealed a superior mind. It was probably his satisfaction with that, his satisfaction with him­self, that had preserved a powerful remnant of healthy childlike-ness in him. "Do you know Friedrich?" he asked. K. said no. "But he knows you," the gentleman said, smiling. K. nodded, there was no shortage of people who knew him, and this was even one of the main obstacles in his way. "I'm his secretary," said the gentleman, "my name is Bürgel." "Excuse me," said K., reach­ing for the door handle, "unfortunately I mistook your door for another one. I was actually summoned to Secretary Erlanger's." "What a pity!" said Bürgel. "Not that you've been summoned elsewhere but that you mistook the doors. You see, once I've been awakened, I certainly will not fall asleep again. Well, this shouldn't make you so gloomy, it is my personal misfortune. Why can't these doors be locked, isn't that it? Of course there is a reason for that. Because, according to an old saying, the doors of the secretaries should be open at all times. But there is no need to take that literally." Bürgel gave K. a quizzical, cheer­ful look; contrary to his complaint he seemed perfectly well rested; as tired as K. was now, Bürgel had probably never been. "So where do you want to go now?" asked Bürgel. "It's four o'clock. You would have to wake up anybody you wanted to see, not all are so used to disturbances as I am, not all will take it so patiently, the secretaries are a nervous bunch. So stay a while. At about five o'clock the people here start getting up, you will be best able to comply with your summons at that time. And please

finally let go of that handle and take a seat somewhere, it's cer­tainly cramped here, it would be best if you sat here on the edge of the bed. You're surprised that I haven't a chair or table here? Well, I had a choice—either a complete set of furniture with a narrow hotel bed, or this large bed with nothing but the wash-stand. I chose the large bed, for, after all, the main thing in a bed­room surely is the bed. Oh, for anyone who could stretch out and sleep soundly, for any sound sleeper, this bed would be truly de­licious. But even for someone like myself, who is always tired but cannot sleep, it does some good, I spend a large part of the day in it, dispatching all my correspondence and questioning the par­ties. This works quite well. True, the parties have nowhere to sit, but that is something they get over since it's certainly more pleas­ant for them as well when they stand and the deposition taker feels good than when they sit there comfortably and get shouted at. So all I have to give away is this place on the edge of the bed, but it is not an official seat and is meant only for nighttime dis­cussions. But you're so silent, Surveyor." "I'm very tired," said K., who, on hearing the invitation, had immediately sat down rudely and disrespectfully on the bed and had leaned against the post. "Of course," said Bürgel, laughing, "everyone is tired here. The work I did yesterday or even today, for instance, certainly wasn't insignificant. And now there's absolutely no possibility of my falling asleep, but even if that most unlikely event happened and I should fall asleep while you're still here, please remain still and do not open the door. But have no fear, I shall certainly not fall asleep, or at best only for a few minutes. Probably because I am so used to holding office hours, I find it easiest to fall asleep in company." "Go to sleep, please, Secretary," said K., delighted with this announcement, "then with your permission I too shall sleep a little." "No, no," Bürgel laughed again, "unfortunately I cannot fall asleep simply upon request, such opportunities can arise only during a conversation, a conversation is the likeliest means of putting me to sleep. Yes indeed, this business affects our nerves. Take me, for instance, I am a connecting secretary. You don't know what that is? Well, I'm the strongest connection"—

just then he rubbed his hands quickly in unintentional mirth— "between Friedrich and the village, I'm the connection between his Castle and village secretaries and am stationed in the village, though not permanently; at any moment I must be prepared to journey to the Castle, you see the travel bag, it is an unsettled life, not suitable for everyone. Still, it's true that I couldn't manage without this kind of work, I would find every other kind of work shallow. Now what is the situation concerning the land survey­ing?" "I'm not doing that kind of work, I'm not employed as a land surveyor," said K., who paid little heed since he was dying for Bürgel to fall asleep, but this too was simply out of a certain sense of obligation toward himself, for deep within he thought he knew that the instant when Bürgel would fall asleep was still un-foreseeably distant. "That's astonishing," said Bürgel, tossing his head vigorously and pulling a pad from under the blanket to jot down something, "you are a surveyor, but you have no surveying work." K. nodded mechanically, he had stretched out his left arm on the bedpost and had leaned his head on it; he had already tried various ways of making himself comfortable but this was the most comfortable position of them all, and now he could also pay a little bit better attention to what Bürgel was saying. "I'm willing," Bürgel went on, "to pursue the matter further. After all, the situation here certainly isn't such that we can afford to let a skilled employee go idle. And it must also be hurtful for you, aren't you suffering from it?" "Yes, I am suffering from it," said K. slowly, smiling to himself, for right now he was not suffering from it at all. Besides, Burgel's offer made little impression on him. It was really quite amateurish. Without knowing anything about the circumstances attending the summoning of K., the dif­ficulties it had encountered in the community and at the Castle, about the complications that had already arisen during K.'s stay here or that were in the offing—without knowing anything about all this, without even showing that he had an inkling of it, which was the least one could expect of a secretary, he offered without further ado, simply with the help of his little notepad, to resolve the matter. "You do seem to have had a few disappointments,"

Bürgel then said, however, showing again that he actually did have a certain understanding of people, and indeed, ever since stepping into the room, K. had told himself several times not to underestimate Bürgel, but in his present state it was hard to be a fair judge of anything other than his own weariness. "No," said Bürgel, as if he were responding to a thought of K.'s and out of consideration wanted to save him the trouble of formulating it, "you shouldn't let those disappointments frighten you off. Here some things seem to be arranged in such a way as to frighten peo­ple off, and when one is new to the place those obstacles seem ab­solutely impenetrable. I don't want to get into the question of the true state of affairs, the illusion may actually correspond to real­ity, in my position I lack the distance that is necessary to establish that, but listen carefully to what I am saying, sometimes op­portunities do arise that aren't altogether in keeping with the situation in general, opportunities through which more can be achieved with a word, with a glance, with a sign of trust, than with a lifetime of grueling effort. That is undoubtedly so. But then again these opportunities are actually in keeping with the situation in general inasmuch as nobody ever takes advantage of them. Now why does nobody ever take advantage of them, that's the very question I keep asking myself." K. had no idea; he did notice that the matters Bürgel was speaking about probably af­fected him greatly, but just now he very much disliked everything that affected him; he turned his head sideways a little, as if he were making way for BürgePs questions and could no longer be touched by them. "There is," Bürgel went on, stretching his arms out and yawning, which was in confusing contradiction to the gravity of his words, "there is constant complaining from the sec­retaries that they are forced to conduct most village interroga­tions at night. But why do they complain about that? Because it's too much of a strain on them? Because they would rather use the night for sleeping? No, they certainly don't complain about that. Among the secretaries there are of course some who are diligent and others who are less so, just like everywhere else, but none of them ever complain about having to work too hard, especially

not in public. That is simply not our style. In that respect we don't acknowledge any distinction between ordinary time and work time. Such distinctions are alien to us. Why then do the secretaries object to the nighttime interrogations? Perhaps it is even out of consideration for the parties? No, no, it isn't that ei­ther. The secretaries are always inconsiderate toward the parties, though not a bit more inconsiderate than they are toward them­selves, but just as inconsiderate. This inconsiderateness, or in other words this iron-clad pursuit and performance of duty, is the greatest consideration that the parties could possibly desire. On the whole this is—though the superficial observer does not notice it—fully acknowledged; in this case, for instance, it is precisely the nighttime interrogations that are so welcome to the par­ties, no fundamental complaints about the nighttime interroga­tions have been received. So why then do the secretaries dislike them?" K. didn't know this either, he knew so little, he couldn't even determine whether Burgel was serious or was only osten­sibly demanding an answer, "If you let me lie on your bed," he thought, "I shall answer all your questions at noon tomorrow or, better still, in the evening." But Burgel didn't seem to be paying attention to him, so excessively preoccupied was he with the question that he himself had raised: "As far as I can judge and as far as I myself have been able to establish, the secretaries have roughly the following concerns with regard to nighttime in­terrogations. Nights are not a suitable time for holding proceed­ings with the parties, for at night it is difficult or downright impossible to preserve the official character of the proceedings in full. That is not because of external factors, the formalities can of course be observed just as strictly by night as by day. So it isn't that; nevertheless, the capacity for making official judgments does suffer at night. At night one involuntarily inclines to judge matters from a more private point of view, the presentations of the parties are given more weight than should be the case, en­tirely irrelevant considerations about the parties' circumstances in other respects, their sorrows and their fears, interfere with the judgment, the necessary barrier between parties and officials,