by Franz Kafka
And so just as he had immediately wanted to run to the inn, on hearing the new order he was immediately ready to tidy up the room so that the schoolmistress could come over again with her class. But everything had to be tidied up quickly since K. was then supposed to fetch the luncheon and the teacher was already quite hungry and thirsty. K. assured him that everything would be done exactly as he had wished; for a moment the teacher watched as K. rushed about, putting away the bedding, straightening out the gymnastic equipment, sweeping up quickly while Frieda washed and scrubbed the podium. This eagerness seemed to satisfy the teacher, he indicated that outside the door there was a pile of firewood for the stove—he was probably determined not to let K. set foot in the shed again—and then, after threatening that he would be back soon to check, he went over to the children.
After working in silence for a while, Frieda asked K. why he was giving in so much to the teacher. This was probably a concerned and compassionate question, but K., who was thinking of how poorly—given her original promise—Frieda had succeeded in shielding him from the imperiousness and aggression of the teacher, simply said curtly that now, since he had become a janitor, he would have to carry out the duties of the post. Then there was silence again until K., reminded by this brief exchange that Frieda had been lost in anxious thought for some time now, especially during almost the entire conversation with Hans, asked her openly, as he was carrying in the wood, what she was worried about. She answered, raising her face slowly toward him, that it was nothing in particular, she was simply thinking of the landlady and of the truth of certain things she had said. Only at K.’s insistence, after refusing several times, did she answer in greater detail, but without interrupting her work, not out of diligence, for the work wasn’t advancing at all, but only so that she wouldn’t be obliged to look at K. And now she described how at first she had listened calmly to K.’s conversation with Hans, but then, startled by certain words of K.’s, she had begun to get a clearer sense of the meaning of his words and how from then on she couldn’t avoid hearing in K.’s words the confirmation of a warning she had the landlady to thank for, though she certainly hadn’t wanted to admit it was justified. Annoyed by these vague generalities and more irritated than moved by Frieda’s tearfully plaintive voice—especially since the landlady was again interfering in his life, by means of memories at any rate, for until now she hadn’t had much success in person—K. threw the wood he was holding in his arms on the floor, sat down on it, and asked gravely for clarification. “Quite often,” Frieda began, “right from the start the landlady tried to make me doubt you, she didn’t claim that you’re lying, on the contrary, she said you are childishly open but by nature so different from us that even when you’re speaking openly we can barely bring ourselves to believe you, and if a certain good friend of ours doesn’t rescue us first, we will have to find out how true this is through bitter experience. Despite her keen eye for people, even she has gone through something similar. But after her last conversation with you at the Bridge Inn—and I’m simply repeating her malicious words—she caught on to you, then you couldn’t deceive her anymore even though you made a great effort to hide your intentions. ‘But he’s not hiding anything,’ she said again and again, and then she added: ‘Do make an effort sometime to listen to him properly, not just superficially, no, really listen to him.’ That’s all she had done and she had been able to make out something like the following concerning me: You cozied up to me—she actually used that shameful expression—simply because I happened to cross your path, wasn’t exactly displeasing to you, and because you quite mistakenly think that a barmaid is preordained to be the victim of every guest who reaches out a hand. Besides, as the landlady learned from the landlord at the Gentlemen’s Inn, for some reason you were determined to spend the night at the Gentlemen’s Inn and yet the only way that could be accomplished was through me. Now all this would have been a sufficiently good reason to take you as my lover for that one night, but if more was to come of it, more was needed, and that more was Klamm. The landlady doesn’t claim to know what it is you want from Klamm, she merely claims that before getting to know me you sought to reach Klamm just as eagerly as you’ve been doing ever since. The only difference was that back then you had no hope while now you thought that in me you had a reliable means of really penetrating through to Klamm, without delay, and even with a certain degree of superiority. How startled I was—but only for a moment and without having any particularly deep reason—when at one point today you said that before getting to know me you were adrift here. Those are perhaps the same words the landlady used, she too says it’s only since getting to know me that you have become conscious of your goal. That was because you believed that in me you had conquered a mistress of Klamm’s and thus had a pawn that could be redeemed only at the highest price. Negotiating about this price with Klamm was your sole aim. Since I mean nothing to you and the price everything, you’re ready for every compromise concerning me, but remain stubborn concerning the price. So you couldn’t care less about my loss of the position at the Gentlemen’s Inn, couldn’t care less about my having to leave the Bridge Inn, couldn’t care less about all the heavy janitorial work that I will have to do, you have no tenderness, let alone time for me, you leave me to the assistants, you don’t feel jealous, the only value I have in your eyes is that I was Klamm’s mistress, in your ignorance you try to ensure that I do not forget Klamm, so that in the end I don’t put up too much resistance when the decisive moment arrives, but you also fight with the landlady, the only person you think capable of tearing me from you, and that’s why you carry the fight with her to such extremes, in order to make it necessary for you to leave the Bridge Inn with me; you have absolutely no doubt that I am—insofar as it’s simply a question of me and no matter what happens—your property. You think of the interview with Klamm as business, cash for cash. You’re counting on every possibility; you’re ready to do anything provided you get your price; if Klamm wants me, you’ll give me back to him, if he wants you to stay with me, you’ll stay, if he wants you to cast me out, you’ll cast me out, but you’re also prepared to put on a comedy, and if it’s to your advantage, you’ll pretend to love me, you’ll try to combat his indifference by stressing your own insignificance and by shaming him with the fact that you’re his successor or with tales of my confessions of love for him, which I did indeed make, and you’ll ask him to take me back, but only on payment of your price; and if nothing else works, then you’ll simply beg on behalf of the married couple, the K.’s. And then, the landlady said in conclusion, if you see that you’ve been wrong about everything, about your assumptions, your hopes, your notion of Klamm and of his relations with me, then my true hell will begin, then, even more than before, I shall be your only possession, on which you are dependent, but at the same time a possession that has proved to be worthless and that you’ll treat accordingly, since the only feeling you have for me is as proprietor.”
Intently, with compressed lips, K. had listened, the logs beneath him had begun to roll, he had almost slipped onto the floor, had paid no attention to that and only now got up, sat on the podium, took Frieda’s hand, which she feebly attempted to withdraw, and said: “In the account you gave I couldn’t always distinguish your opinion from the landlady’s.” “It was only the landlady’s opinion,” said Frieda, “I listened to it all because I admire the landlady, but it was the first time in my life that I utterly rejected her opinion. Everything she said seemed so pathetic to me, so far removed from any real understanding of how things were with the two of us. The complete opposite of what she said seemed more likely to me. I thought of the bleak morning after our first night. How you knelt beside me looking as though everything were already lost. And how eventually, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t helping you but rather hindering you. It was because of me that the landlady became your enemy, a powerful enemy, whom you still underestimate; it was for my sake, because I was in your care, that you had to fight for your
position, that you were at a disadvantage in your dealings with the council chairman, that you had to submit to the teacher, that you were at the assistants’ mercy, but worst of all: it was for my sake that you may have committed an offense against Klamm. Your constant efforts to reach Klamm were nothing but an ineffectual striving to appease him in some way. And I told myself that the landlady, who surely knew far more about this than I did, was merely attempting with her blandishments to ensure that I didn’t reproach myself too seriously. A well-meant but superfluous effort. My love for you would have helped me to overcome everything, and in the end would also have taken you further, if not in the village, then somewhere else; it had of course already demonstrated its strength, it saved you from the Barnabas family.” “So that was your objection then,” said K., “and in the meantime what has changed?” “I don’t know,” Frieda said and she glanced at K.’s hand, which was holding hers, “perhaps nothing has changed; when you’re so close to me and you ask so quietly, then I think nothing has changed. But in reality—” she withdrew her hand from K., sat erect across from him, and wept without covering her face; spontaneously she turned her tear-streaked face toward him not as though she were weeping about herself and therefore had nothing to hide but rather as if she were weeping about K.’s betrayal and he therefore deserved the miserable look on her face—“but in reality everything has changed from the moment I heard you talking to the boy. How innocently you began, you asked about the situation at home, about this person and that, it seemed to me as though you had just come to the inn, you were so affectionate, so open-hearted, and sought my eye with such childlike eagerness. It was just the way it used to be, and all I wished was that the landlady were here, listening to you and still trying to stick to her opinion. But then all of a sudden, I don’t know how it happened, I understood what your intention was in speaking to the boy. With your sympathetic words you gained his confidence, which isn’t easy to do, so that you could quietly pursue your goal, which had become increasingly clear to me. That woman was your goal. The only thing that emerged clearly from your remarks, seemingly so full of concern for her, was your devotion to your own affairs. You deceived that woman even before you won her. In your words I heard not only my past but also my future, I felt as though the landlady were sitting beside me explaining everything and I were trying with all my strength to push her away, but now I see clearly the hopelessness of such efforts, and indeed it was no longer I who was being deceived, I wasn’t even being deceived, but rather that strange woman. And then when I pulled myself together and asked Hans what he wanted to be and he said he wanted to be like you, and was therefore already entirely yours, what was the big difference between him, the good boy who was mistreated here, and me then, at the inn?”
“Everything,” said K., who, in becoming accustomed to the reproach, had pulled himself together, “everything you say is in a sense right, it is not wrong, only it is hostile. Those are the landlady’s thoughts, those of my enemy, even if you think they’re your own, which I find reassuring. But they are instructive, the landlady is still capable of teaching one a thing or two. She didn’t tell me this directly, though she certainly hasn’t spared me in other ways, she obviously entrusted this weapon to you in hopes that you would make use of it at a particularly bad or decisive hour; if I mistreat you, then she mistreats you in the same way. But Frieda, just think: Even if everything was exactly as the landlady says, that would be terrible only in one case, namely, if you’re not fond of me. Then, well then it would really be true that I won you by means of calculation and wiles, so that I would make a huge profit from this possession. So perhaps it was even part of my plan that I came before you arm in arm with Olga in order to arouse your pity, and that the landlady simply forgot to include this in her tally of my guilt. Yet, if it isn’t such a dreadful case and a sly beast of prey didn’t drag you away but instead you came toward me as I came toward you and in this way we found each other, both oblivious to everything else, tell me, Frieda, what then? Then I am after all not only furthering my own cause but yours too, there’s no difference between them, and only a certain enemy of ours can distinguish between them. This is true everywhere, even with Hans. Besides, with your delicacy of feeling you exaggerate greatly in assessing the conversation with Hans, for if Hans’s intentions and mine don’t entirely coincide, that still doesn’t mean there’s a contradiction between them, besides our disagreement wasn’t lost on Hans, if you thought so, you would be seriously underestimating that cautious little fellow, and even if everything remained hidden from him, it still wouldn’t do anybody any harm, I hope.”
“It’s so difficult, K., to get one’s bearings,” said Frieda, sighing, “I certainly don’t distrust you, and if anything of that sort has come down to me from the landlady, I shall gladly cast it off and kneel down to beg your forgiveness, as I’m actually doing the whole time, even if I do say such dreadful things. It’s true, though, that you keep many secrets from me; you come and you go, I don’t know where from and where to. When Hans knocked, you even called out Barnabas’s name. If only you had called me even once as lovingly as you did then, for reasons I couldn’t understand, called that hated name. If you have no faith in me, why shouldn’t I become distrustful, for then I’m completely dependent on the landlady, and your conduct merely confirms her opinion. Not in everything, I’m not claiming you confirm everything she says since you did drive away the assistants for my sake, didn’t you? Oh, if only you knew the longing with which I search for a decent core for myself in everything you do and say, even if it torments me.” “First of all, Frieda,” said K., “I’m not hiding the slightest thing from you. How the landlady hates me, and how she tries to wrench you away from me with such despicable methods, and how you give in to her, Frieda, oh how you give in to her. But tell me, what is it I am hiding from you? I want to reach Klamm, this you know; you cannot help me achieve this and I must therefore take matters into my own hands, this you also know; I still haven’t had any success, this you can see. Should I now in describing my useless efforts, which in reality are already sufficiently humiliating, humiliate myself twice over? Should I, say, brag about having waited in vain an entire afternoon, freezing, at the door of Klamm’s sleigh? Delighted that I no longer had to think of such things, I hurried over to you, only to have to listen to all these threats from you. And Barnabas? Certainly, I am expecting him. He is Klamm’s messenger, I didn’t appoint him.” “Barnabas again,” cried Frieda, “I cannot believe that he is a good messenger.” “Perhaps you’re right,” said K., “but he’s the only messenger who is sent to me.” “Too bad,” said Frieda, “then you should be all the more wary of him.” “Unfortunately, he has given me no cause for that,” said K. smiling, “he rarely comes and what he brings is insignificant; it’s valuable only because it comes directly from Klamm.” “But look,” said Frieda, “you’re no longer even aiming for Klamm, perhaps that’s what upsets me most; it was bad enough that you were always pushing past me to Klamm, but that you now seem to be turning away from Klamm is far worse, it’s something not even the landlady could have foreseen. According to the landlady, my happiness, my questionable but nonetheless very real happiness, would end on the day you finally realized that your hope for Klamm was futile. But now you’re no longer even waiting for that day, all of a sudden a little boy comes in and you start fighting with him over his mother, as if you were fighting for the air you need to live.” “You’ve understood my conversation with Hans correctly,” said K., “that’s how it was. But do you think your entire earlier life is so submerged (except of course for the landlady, who won’t let herself be forced down with it) that you no longer know how hard one must fight to get ahead, especially if one is coming up from the depths? How one must use everything that can somehow give one hope? And this woman comes from the Castle, she herself told me so when I wandered into Lasemann’s that first day. What was more natural than to ask her for advice or even for help; if the landlady knows only the obstacle
s that keep one from Klamm, then this woman probably knows the way, for that’s how she herself came down.” “The way to Klamm?” Frieda asked. “To Klamm, of course, where else,” said K. Then he jumped up: “But now it’s high time to get that luncheon.” Urgently, more insistently than was called for, Frieda asked him to stay, as though all the consoling things he had said to her would be confirmed only if he stayed. But K. reminded her about the teacher, pointed to the door, which at any moment could burst open with a sound like thunder, and also promised he would soon be back, she needn’t even light the stove, he would see to it himself. Finally, Frieda submitted silently. Once K. was outside trudging through the snow—the path should have been cleared long ago, strange how slowly the work was going—he saw one of the assistants, dead tired, clinging to the fence. Only one, where was the other? Had K. at least exhausted the staying power of one of them? The fellow still left certainly had lost none of his zeal, one could see this when, animated by K.’s gaze, he immediately began to stretch out his arms and roll his eyes longingly. “His stubbornness is exemplary,” K. said to himself, though he had to add: “still, it’s making him freeze at the fence.” Outwardly, all K. had for the assistant was a raised, threatening fist, which prevented any approach, indeed the assistant anxiously backed off a considerable distance. Just then Frieda opened a window, as had been agreed upon with K., in order to air the place before lighting the stove. Instantly the assistant stopped bothering K. and then, irresistibly attracted, crept toward the window. With a face contorted by friendliness toward the assistants and pleading helplessness toward K., she gave a little wave from the upstairs window, it wasn’t even clear whether this was a dismissal or a greeting, the assistant did not let it deter him from approaching. Then Frieda hastily closed the outer window, but remained behind it, with her hand on the latch, head turned sideways, eyes wide-open and a fixed smile. Did she realize that she was luring the assistant rather than frightening him away? But K. didn’t look around again, he wanted to hurry as much as possible and return soon.