by Franz Kafka
The landlady’s threats did not frighten K., the hopes with which she sought to trap him wearied him. Klamm was remote, the landlady had once compared Klamm to an eagle and to K. that had seemed ridiculous, but no longer, he considered Klamm’s remoteness, his impregnable abode, his muteness, broken perhaps only by shouts the likes of which K. had never heard before, his piercing downturned gaze, which could never be proved, never be refuted, and his, from K.’s position below, indestructible circles, which he was describing up there in accordance with incomprehensible laws, visible only for seconds—all this Klamm and the eagle had in common. But it certainly had nothing to do with the deposition, over which just now Momus broke a salted pretzel, which he enjoyed with his beer, sprinkling all his papers with salt and caraway seeds.
“Good night,” said K., “I have an aversion to all manner of interrogations,” and now he actually did go to the door. “So he is indeed leaving,” said Momus to the landlady, almost anxiously. “He wouldn’t dare,” said the landlady, K. heard no more, he was already in the corridor. It was cold, there was a strong wind blowing. From a door opposite came the landlord, he seemed to have been observing the corridor from behind a peephole. He had to tie his coattails around his body, so strongly did the wind pull at them even here in the corridor. “Surveyor, you’re already leaving?” he said. “That surprises you?” asked K. “Yes,” said the landlord, “were you not interrogated, then?” “No,” said K., “I did not submit to the interrogation.” “Why not?” asked the landlord. “It is unclear to me,” said K., “why I should let myself be interrogated, why I should subject myself to a prank or an official whim. Perhaps I would have done so another time also as a joke or whim, but not today.” “To be sure,” said the landlord, but his assent was merely polite, not convinced. “But now I must let the servants into the taproom,” he said, “their allotted time began quite a while ago. Only I didn’t want to interrupt the interrogation.” “So you thought it that important?” asked K. “Oh, yes,” said the landlord. “So I ought not to have refused?” asked K. “No,” said the landlord, “you ought not to have done so.” Since K. remained silent, he added, either to console K. or to hasten his own departure: “Now, now, this doesn’t mean that sulphur will come raining down right away from the heavens.” “No,” said K., “not by the looks of the weather.” And they parted, laughing.
X.
ON THE STREET
K. stepped out on the wild blustery steps and gazed into the darkness. Nasty, nasty weather. Somehow in connection with this he thought of how the landlady had endeavored to make him amenable to the deposition and how he had held his ground. It was not a candid effort, though, for she had at the same time furtively dragged him away from the deposition, and ultimately one couldn’t tell whether one had held one’s ground or given way. An intriguer by nature, operating like the wind, seemingly to no end, upon remote alien instructions that one never got to see.
No sooner had he taken a few steps along the main road than he saw two wavering lights in the distance; this sign of life pleased him and he hurried toward them and they in turn glided toward him. He had no idea why he was so greatly disappointed on seeing the assistants, it was indeed they coming toward him, probably sent by Frieda, and the lanterns that rescued him from the darkness, where there were noises all around him, were his all right, but he was disappointed, he had expected strangers, not these old acquaintances, who were a burden to him. But it wasn’t just the assistants, out of the dark between them stepped Barnabas. “Barnabas,” cried K., extending his hand, “you’ve come to see me?” The surprise at seeing him initially made K. forget all the trouble Barnabas had caused him. “Yes, to see you,” said Barnabas, as cordially as ever, “with a letter from Klamm.” “A letter from Klamm!” said K., throwing his head back and taking the letter quickly from Barnabas’s hand. “Give me some light!” he told the assistants, who drew close on either side, raising their lanterns. K. had to fold the large sheet up tiny in order to shield it from the wind. Then he read: “To the Land Surveyor at the Bridge Inn! The surveying work that you have carried out so far meets with my approval. The assistants’ work is also praiseworthy; you really know how to induce them to work. Do not relax your exertions! Carry your work to a successful conclusion! Any interruption would embitter me. But rest assured, the question of remuneration will soon be resolved. I will keep you in mind.” K. looked up from the letter only when the assistants, who read much more slowly than he, gave three loud hurrahs in celebration of the good news and swung the lanterns. “Be quiet,” he said, and then to Barnabas: “It’s a misunderstanding.” Barnabas did not understand him. “It’s a misunderstanding,” K. repeated, and the weariness brought on by the afternoon came over him again, the school was still such a long way off, and behind him seemed to loom up the entire Barnabas family; the assistants still clung to K., so he elbowed them aside; why had Frieda sent them out to meet him when he had expressly ordered that they should stay with her. Besides, he certainly would have found the way home alone, and it would have been easier alone than in such company. And now, to crown it all, one of them had wrapped about his neck a scarf with loose ends flapping in the wind that had already hit K. several times in the face, and though the other assistant had always lifted the scarf off K.’s face right away with his long, pointed, continually fidgeting fingers, this hadn’t improved matters. Both of them even seemed to have enjoyed the to-and-fro, just as the wind and the unruly night excited them. “Go away,” K. shouted, “since you insisted on coming, why didn’t you bring my walking stick? And now what can I use to drive you home?” They ducked behind Barnabas, but their fear did not prevent the two of them, one on either side, from placing their lanterns on the shoulders of their defender, but of course he shook them off right away. “Barnabas,” said K., and it weighed upon his heart that Barnabas obviously couldn’t understand him, that though his jacket gave off a brilliant sheen in times that were calm, when the situation became serious Barnabas was no help at all, he simply resorted to a kind of silent resistance that was impossible to overcome, for he was quite defenseless, all that glittered at such moments was his smile, but it was about as effective as the stars above against the gale down here. “Look what the gentleman wrote,” K. said, holding the letter up to his face. “The gentleman is ill-informed. For I am not doing any work as surveyor, and as for the assistants, you can see what they are worth. And work I am not doing, I obviously cannot interrupt; I cannot even arouse the gentleman’s bitterness, so how could I earn his recognition! And I will never be able to rest assured.” “I’ll deliver the message,” said Barnabas, who had been looking past the letter, which in any case he couldn’t have read since he had put it right next to his face. “Oh,” said K., “you promise to deliver it, but can I really believe you? I need a trustworthy messenger so badly, now more than ever!” K. bit his lips in impatience. “Sir,” said Barnabas, bending his head gently—K. almost let this seduce him again into believing Barnabas—“I’ll certainly deliver it, and the other message you gave me recently, I’ll certainly deliver that, too.” “What!” cried K., “you mean you haven’t delivered it yet? Didn’t you go to the Castle the following day?” “No,” said Barnabas, “my dear father is old—well, you saw him—and just then there was a great deal of work, I had to help him, but I’ll soon be going up to the Castle again.” “But what are you doing, you incomprehensible person, you?” cried K., slapping himself on the forehead, “don’t Klamm’s affairs take precedence over everything else? You have the high position of messenger, yet you discharge it so shamefully? Who cares about your father’s work? Klamm is waiting for news, but instead of rushing there head over heels, you spend your time carting dung from the cowshed.” “My father is a shoemaker,” Barnabas said, undeterred, “he had orders from Brunswick, and I am Father’s apprentice.” “Shoemaker—orders—Brunswick,” K. cried bitterly, as if trying to make each word forever unusable. “And who needs shoes here on these everlastingly empty paths? A
nd why should I care about shoe-making, I entrusted a message to you not so you would forget it or garble it on your cobbler’s bench but so you would take it to the gentleman right away.” K. now calmed down somewhat on realizing that all this time Klamm had probably not been at the Castle but rather at the Gentlemen’s Inn, yet Barnabas annoyed him again, for in an effort to prove that he had memorized K.’s first message, he began reciting it. “That’s enough, I don’t want to hear it,” said K. “Don’t be angry at me, sir,” said Barnabas, and then, as if unconsciously wanting to punish K., he withdrew his gaze and lowered his eyes, but probably only in dismay over K.’s raised voice. “I’m not angry at you,” said K., and now he himself was overcome by uneasiness, “no, not at you, though it’s very bad for me to have only a messenger like this for important business.” “Look,” said Barnabas, and it seemed as if, in an attempt to defend his honor as a messenger, he was saying more than he ought, “Klamm doesn’t wait for the news, he even gets annoyed when I come, ‘More fresh news,’ he once said, and he usually stands up on seeing me come from afar, goes into the next room, and doesn’t receive me. Besides, it hasn’t been stipulated that I should take every message there at once; had it been stipulated, I would naturally go at once, but it wasn’t stipulated, and if I never went, nobody would admonish me because of that. Whenever I take a message, I do so voluntarily.” “Fine,” said K., observing Barnabas and studiously looking away from the assistants, who took turns slowly rising up from behind Barnabas’s shoulders, as if through a trapdoor, and then quickly, whistling a little in imitation of the wind as if frightened by the sight of K., they disappeared again, amusing themselves at length in this way, “how it is at Klamm’s I don’t know, but I doubt that you can distinguish everything clearly there, and even if you could, we couldn’t bring about any improvement. But you can take a message and that’s what I ask of you. An extremely short message. Can you deliver it tomorrow right away and give me the answer tomorrow right away, or at least let me know how you were received? Can you and will you? That would be very valuable for me. And perhaps I will still get an opportunity to thank you fittingly, or perhaps you already have a wish that I can grant you.” “Certainly I shall carry out the assignment,” said Barnabas. “And will you endeavor to carry it out as well as possible and to deliver it to Klamm himself, to get the answer from Klamm himself, very soon, and to do all this immediately, tomorrow, tomorrow morning, will you?” “I’ll do my best,” said Barnabas, “but then I always do.” “Let’s stop fighting about this,” said K., “here is the assignment: The surveyor K. asks the director for permission to call on him in person and accepts in advance all stipulations that might be attached to any such permission. He is obliged to make this request because all previous intermediaries have utterly failed, as proof of which he adduces the fact that he has done no surveying so far and, judging by the council chairman’s statement, will never do so; it was therefore with a desperate feeling of shame that he read the director’s last letter and the only thing that can help here is a personal interview with the director. The surveyor realizes the burdensome nature of this request, but he will try to minimize any disruption to the director, he submits to all restrictions as regards time, including, for example, a restriction on the number of words he may use during the interview, he believes that he could even make do with ten words. With deep reverence and extreme impatience he awaits the decision.” K. had spoken in utter self-forgetfulness, as though he stood at Klamm’s door and spoke with the doorkeeper. “It’s become much longer than I expected,” he then said, “but you must nonetheless deliver it orally, I don’t want to write a letter, for it would once again travel along the endless path of the files.” It was only for Barnabas’s sake that K. scribbled down the message on a piece of paper on one assistant’s back while the other shone the light, but K. was already able to take it down right away from the dictation of Barnabas, who had retained everything and recited it with a schoolchild’s precision, disregarding the false clues given by the assistants. “You have an extraordinary memory,” said K., handing him the paper, “and now please show that you’re extraordinary in other ways, too. And what about your wishes? Have you none? Indeed, to be frank, I would be somewhat reassured about the fate of my message if you had some.” At first Barnabas kept silent, and then he said: “My sisters send you their regards.” “Your sisters,” said K., “yes, those big strong girls.” “Both send their regards, but especially Amalia,” said Barnabas, “today she gave me this letter for you from the Castle.” Latching on to that particular communication, K. asked: “Couldn’t she also take my message to the Castle? Or couldn’t both of you go and each of you try your luck?” “Amalia isn’t allowed into the offices,” said Barnabas, “otherwise she would certainly be glad to do so.” “I shall, perhaps, come to see you tomorrow,” said K., “but do come here first with the answer. I shall wait for you at the school. My regards to your sisters, too.” K.’s promise seemed to have made Barnabas quite happy, he not only gave K. a parting handshake but touched him lightly on the shoulder. As though everything were once more as it had been when Barnabas in his radiance first came among the peasants in the taproom, K., though smiling, regarded Barnabas’s gesture as a distinction. Having mellowed, on the way back he let the assistants do as they pleased.
XI.
IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE
He arrived home completely frozen, it was dark everywhere, the candles in the lanterns had burned down, and, led by the assistants, who already knew their way around, he groped his way through a schoolroom—“Your first praiseworthy deed,” he said, recalling Klamm’s letter—from a corner, Frieda, still half asleep, cried: “Let K. sleep! Don’t disturb him!” so preoccupied was she with thoughts of K., even though, overcome by sleepiness, she hadn’t been able to wait up for him. Then the lamp was lit, but it couldn’t be turned up all that high since there wasn’t much kerosene left. This new household still had a number of deficiencies. True, the stove was lit, but the large room, which was also used for gymnastics—the equipment lay on the floor and hung from the ceiling—had used up the entire supply of wood and though it had been pleasantly warm, so K. was assured, in the meantime it had, alas, cooled down again. Though there was a large supply of wood in a shed, the shed was locked and the key with the teacher, who permitted wood to be removed only for heating during school hours. This would have been tolerable had there been beds to take refuge in. Yet there was nothing of the sort, except for a straw mattress covered with commendable cleanliness by a woolen shawl of Frieda’s, but there was no eiderdown and only two stiff coarse blankets, which barely gave off any warmth. And now the assistants greedily eyed this miserable straw mattress, though naturally without hope of ever lying on it. Anxiously, Frieda looked at K.; she had shown at the Bridge Inn that she could take any room, no matter how miserable, and make it comfortable to live in, but she couldn’t have done anything more here, completely without means as she was. “Our only decoration is the gymnastic equipment,” she said, smiling with difficulty under her tears. But as for the main deficiencies, the inadequate sleeping arrangements and the heating, she would definitely see to them tomorrow and was only asking K. to be patient till then. There was not a word, a hint, a sign to suggest that she bore K. the slightest bitterness in her heart, though he had torn her, not only from the Gentlemen’s Inn, but now, as he had to admit to himself, from the Bridge Inn too. But that is why he was making an effort to find all of this bearable, which was not all that difficult, for in thought he was walking alongside Barnabas, repeating the message word for word, not as he had told it to Barnabas but as he thought it would sound in front of Klamm. Still, he was genuinely looking forward to the coffee Frieda had made for him on a kerosene burner and, leaning on the now almost cold stove, he followed the quick and experienced movements with which she spread the inevitable white cloth on the teacher’s desk, put out a flowered coffee cup along with some bread and bacon, and even a tin of sardines. Everything was ready,
Frieda hadn’t eaten either, but had waited for K. There were two chairs at hand, K. and Frieda sat down at the table, the assistants at their feet on the podium, but they wouldn’t stay quiet and even created a disturbance during the meal; though they had plenty of everything and were still nowhere near finished, now and then they got up to ascertain how much food was still left on the table and whether they could expect any more. K. was not in the least concerned about the assistants and took notice of them only when Frieda laughed. Then he covered her hand cajolingly with his and asked softly why she treated them so leniently and tolerated their misconduct. That was certainly no way to get rid of them, but if you dealt with them very firmly, as became their conduct, you could rein them in or—and this was not only more likely but also better still—make their position so unpleasant that they would finally run away. It looked as if their stay in the school wouldn’t be particularly pleasant, and of course it wouldn’t last, but they would barely notice all the deficiencies if the assistants left and the two of them were alone in the silent building. Didn’t she notice too that the assistants were getting cheekier each day, as though they were encouraged by Frieda’s presence and the hope that, with Frieda there, K. wouldn’t deal as vigorously with them as he would otherwise have done. Incidentally, there might be some extremely simple measures for getting rid of them at once, without fuss, and perhaps Frieda even knew of some, given her intimate knowledge of local affairs. And one would probably only be doing the assistants a favor by driving them away, for the life they led here could scarcely be called luxurious, and they would have to cease lounging about, or at least do less of that, since they would have to work, whereas Frieda needed to go easy on herself after the excitement of the last few days, and he, K., would be busy seeking a way out of their predicament. Still, if the assistants left, he would feel so relieved that he could easily take care of all the janitorial work in addition to everything else.