The Castle

by Franz Kafka

  That was all K. heard, he was asleep, cut off from everything around him. His head, which initially had rested on his left arm up on the bedpost, had slid off while he slept and now hung freely, sinking slowly; the support from the arm above no longer sufficed, K. involuntarily found a new hold by bracing his right hand against the blanket, thereby accidentally grasping Bürgel’s foot, which stuck up under the blanket. Bürgel looked down and let him have his foot, no matter how bothersome that must have been.

  Just then, there was knocking, a few heavy blows, on the side wall, K. gave a start and stared at the wall. “Isn’t the surveyor there?” a voice asked. “Yes,” Bürgel said, freeing his foot from K.’s grasp, and he suddenly stretched in a wild and willful manner, like a little boy. “Then he should finally come,” the voice said again; it showed no consideration for Bürgel nor for the possibility that he might still need K. “It’s Erlanger,” Bürgel said in a whisper; the presence of Erlanger next door didn’t seem to surprise him, “go to him at once, he’s angry now, try to soothe him. He’s a sound sleeper, but we spoke too loudly, one cannot control oneself or one’s voice when one speaks of certain matters. Well, get going now, you seem unable to drag yourself out of your slumber. But do get going, what more do you want here? No, you needn’t excuse yourself on account of your sleepiness, why should you? One’s physical strength has a certain limit, who can help it that this limit is significant in other ways, too. No, nobody can help it. That is how the world corrects its course and keeps its equilibrium. It’s certainly an excellent arrangement, always unimaginably excellent, even if in certain other respects hopeless. Get going now, I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. If you delay your departure any longer, Erlanger will come down on me, and that’s something I would very much like to avoid. But get going now, who knows what awaits you there; here everything is full of opportunities. Except that some opportunities are, as it were, too great to be acted upon; there are things that fail through nothing other than themselves. Yes, that is amazing. Incidentally, I hope that now I can finally go to sleep for a while. But it’s already five o’clock and the noise will soon start. If you would only go!”

  Dizzy on being suddenly awakened from deep sleep, still immensely in need of sleep, his body hurting all over owing to the uncomfortable position, for a long time K. couldn’t decide whether to get up, he put his hands on his forehead and gazed down into his lap. Even Bürgel’s constant goodbyes couldn’t have prompted him to leave; it was only a sense of the utter futility of remaining in this room that gradually led him to do so. How indescribably desolate this room seemed to him. Whether it had simply become so or had always been so, he did not know. He wouldn’t even be able to fall asleep here again. And that was the decisive thought; smiling slightly about this, he stood up, leaned against anything that would support him, against the bed, the door, and, as though he had long since taken leave of Bürgel, left without saying goodbye.

  XXIV.

  It’s likely that he would have walked past Erlanger’s room just as indifferently if Erlanger hadn’t stood in the open door and signaled to him. A single brief signal with his index finger. Erlanger was already completely prepared to leave, he wore a black fur coat with a high-buttoned collar. A servant was handing him his gloves and still held his fur cap. “You should have come long ago,” said Erlanger. K. was about to give an excuse, but Erlanger indicated by closing his eyes wearily that he did not want to hear it. “This has to do with the following matter,” he said, “a certain Frieda used to serve in the taproom, I only know her name, I don’t know Frieda herself, she is of no interest to me. At times this Frieda served Klamm his beer. There now seems to be another girl there. Well, this is of course a trivial change, probably for everyone and certainly for Klamm. But the greater the work, and Klamm’s work is of course the greatest, the less energy is left for fending off the outside world, and as a result every trivial change in the most trivial matters can be a serious disturbance. The slightest change on Klamm’s desk, the removal of a stain that was there forever, all of these things can disturb him, and so too can a new serving girl. Now even if this were to disturb everybody else and every other kind of work, it does not disturb Klamm, there can simply be no question of that. Still, we must guard Klamm’s comfort so closely that we even dispose of disturbances that he doesn’t regard as such—and for him there probably are no disturbances—if they strike us as possible disturbances. It isn’t for his sake, not because of his work, that we dispose of these disturbances, but for ourselves, for our consciences and for our peace of mind. And Frieda must therefore return to the taproom at once, she will perhaps cause a disturbance by returning; then we shall send her away again, but for now she must return. You live with her, they tell me, so see to it at once that she returns. Personal feelings cannot be taken into account, that goes without saying, and I therefore refuse to engage in any further discussion of the matter. I’m certainly doing far more than is necessary by mentioning that if you prove yourself in this little affair, it may at some point help you get ahead. That is all I have to say to you.” Nodding to K. in farewell, he put on the fur cap the servant had handed him and set off down the corridor, quickly but with a slight limp, followed by the servant.