by Franz Kafka
Just then the door opened, Pepi gave a start, her thoughts had strayed too far from the taproom, but it was not Frieda, it was the landlady. She feigned surprise on finding K. still here, K. excused himself by saying that he had been waiting for the landlady, he also thanked her for the permission he had been given to spend the night here. The landlady could not understand why K. had waited for her. K. said he had the impression that the landlady wanted to say something else to him, and he begged her pardon if he had been mistaken, besides he had to leave, he had left the school, where he was janitor, to its own devices for too long, that summons yesterday was to blame for everything, he didn’t have enough experience in such matters yet, it would certainly never happen again, never again would he create unpleasantness for the landlady, like yesterday. And he bowed with the intention of leaving. The landlady gazed at K., as if she were dreaming. Her gaze detained K. longer than he had intended. And now she was even smiling a little, having only just been awakened, as it were, by the astonished expression on K.’s face; it was as though she were expecting an answer to her smile and woke up only because the answer failed to come. “Yesterday, I think it was, you were so cheeky as to say something about my dress.” K. couldn’t remember. “You cannot remember? Cheekiness is often followed by cowardice.” K. excused himself, yesterday he had been tired and might have said something like that, in any case he couldn’t remember anymore. Besides, what could he have said about the landlady’s clothes? That they were so beautiful that he had never before seen anything like them. At any rate he had never seen a landlady working in such clothes. “Stop making comments like that,” the landlady said quickly, “I do not want to hear another word from you about the clothes. My clothes are no concern of yours. I forbid you to talk about them, once and for all.” K. bowed again and went to the door. “Well, what does that mean,” the landlady called after him, “that you’ve never seen a landlady working in such clothes. What’s the point of senseless comments like that? That makes no sense at all. What are you trying to say?” K. turned around and asked the landlady not to get upset. Of course it was a pointless comment. Besides, he knew absolutely nothing about clothes. In the situation he was in every clean, unpatched dress seemed valuable to him. He had simply been surprised to see the landlady appear at night in the corridor in such a beautiful evening dress among all those barely dressed men, that was all. “Well, then,” said the landlady, “you finally seem to have remembered the comment you made yesterday. And now you’re topping it off with some more nonsense. As for your not knowing anything about clothes, that is true. But in that case—and I am requesting this of you in all seriousness—do also refrain from passing judgment on the valuableness of clothes or the inappropriateness of evening dresses and so on. Besides”—it was if a cold shudder went running through her—“you may have nothing to do with my clothes, do you hear?” And since K. was about to turn away again without saying a word, she asked: “So where did you acquire your knowledge of clothes?” K. shrugged and said that he had no such knowledge. “You have no such knowledge,” said the landlady, “then you shouldn’t act as though you do. Come to the office, I’ll show you something, and then you will, I hope, cease being cheeky for good.” She went through the door first; Pepi leaped over to K.; under the pretext of settling K.’s account, they quickly reached agreement; this was quite easy since K. knew the courtyard, which had a gate leading into the side street; by the gate was a small door behind which Pepi would be standing in about an hour and which she would open on the third knock.
The private office was opposite the taproom, all he had to do now was cross the corridor, the landlady already stood in the illuminated office, looking impatiently in K.’s direction. But there was another interruption. Gerstäcker had been waiting in the corridor and wanted to speak to K. It wasn’t easy to shake him off, even the landlady helped out by chiding Gerstäcker for his intrusiveness. “So where to? So where to?” Gerstäcker could still be heard calling even after the door had been closed, and his words were disagreeably interspersed with sighs and coughs.
It was a small overheated room. By the end walls were a reading stand and an iron safe, along the side walls a wardrobe and an ottoman. Most of the room was occupied by the wardrobe, which not only took up the entire side wall but was so deep that it made the room much narrower, three sliding doors were needed to open it completely. The landlady pointed to the ottoman, K. should take a seat, she herself sat on the swivel chair by the desk. “Have you never even learned anything about clothesmaking?” asked the landlady. “No, never,” said K. “Well then, what are you?” “A surveyor.” “And what’s that?” K. explained, the explanation made her yawn. “You’re not telling the truth. So why aren’t you telling the truth?” “You are not either.” “I’m not? You’re becoming cheeky again. And even if I weren’t telling the truth—must I answer to you? And in what way am I not telling the truth?” “You are not only a landlady, as you claim.” “Look here, you’re full of discoveries. So what else am I? But your cheekiness is really getting out of hand.” “I don’t know what else you are. I can see only that you are a landlady and, besides, that you are wearing clothes which aren’t suitable for a landlady and which, so far as I know, no one else in the village wears.” “Well then we finally are getting to the heart of the matter, you cannot even conceal it, perhaps you are not cheeky, you are like a child who knows some silly thing and cannot be kept silent. So speak. What’s special about these clothes?” “You’ll be angry if I tell you.” “No, I shall laugh, it’ll be nothing but childish talk. What kind of clothes are they?” “So you do want to know. Well, they are made of good material, quite costly, but they are outmoded, overdone, they’ve been frequently altered, are worn out, and aren’t suitable for your age, your figure, or your position. They struck me at once when I first saw you, it was about a week ago, here in the corridor.” “Oh, so that’s it, then. They’re outmoded, overdone, and what else? And how do you come to know all this?” “I can see it. No training is required.” “So you can see it that easily. You do not need to ask, you simply know immediately what fashion demands. Then you will become indispensable to me, since I do have a weakness for beautiful clothes. And now what will you say once you see that the wardrobe here is full of clothes.” She pushed aside the sliding doors, one could see the dresses pressed tightly together throughout the length and breadth of the wardrobe, they were mostly dark-colored, gray, brown, or black dresses, all of them had been carefully hung up and spread out. “These are my dresses, they are all in your opinion outmoded and overdone. But these are simply the dresses I have no space for in my room upstairs, I have two more wardrobes full there, two wardrobes, each one almost as large as this one here. You are amazed?” “No, I was expecting something like that, for, as I said, you are not only a landlady, you have other goals.” “My only goal is to dress beautifully, and you are a fool, or a child, or a very malicious, dangerous person. Off with you now!” K. was already in the corridor and Gerstäcker had again caught hold of his sleeve when the landlady called after him: “I am getting a new dress tomorrow, perhaps I shall send for you.”
Gerstäcker, waving his hand angrily as if determined to silence from afar the landlady, who was bothering him, asked K. to go with him. Initially he refused to give any further explanation. He paid scarcely any attention to K.’s objection that he needed to go to the school. Only when K. began to resist being dragged did Gerstäcker tell him that he shouldn’t worry, that he would be given everything he needed at his house, that he could give up his position as school janitor but should finally come, he had spent all day waiting for him, his mother had no idea where he was. Gradually giving way to him, K. asked what he wanted in return for food and lodgings. Gerstäcker gave only a cursory answer, he needed K.’s help with the horses, he himself now had other business, but K. shouldn’t let himself be dragged along like this and make things needlessly difficult for him. If he wanted to be paid, he would be paid. But K. now came to a
halt, despite all the dragging. He didn’t know anything at all about horses. That wasn’t necessary, Gerstäcker said impatiently, clasping his hands angrily in order to induce K. to go with him. “I know why you want to take me with you,” K. said finally. What K. knew was of no concern to Gerstäcker. “Because you think I can get something out of Erlanger for you.” “Certainly,” said Gerstäcker, “why else would I be interested in you?” K. laughed, took Gerstäcker’s arm, and let himself be led through the darkness.
The room in Gerstäcker’s cottage was only dimly illuminated by the fire in the hearth and by a candle stump in the light of which someone deep inside an alcove sat bent under the crooked protruding beams, reading a book. It was Gerstäcker’s mother. She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said
Appendix
AFTERWORD TO THE GERMAN CRITICAL EDITION*
BY MALCOLM PASLEY
Kafka began The Castle in January 1922, in a mountain village where he had sought refuge after a severe breakdown. On the evening of his arrival he notes in his diary: “The strange, mysterious, perhaps dangerous, perhaps redeeming consolation of writing.” He had long been unproductive, and it was many years since he had attempted a substantial piece of work.
He continued work on the novel in Prague (where he read parts of it to Max Brod), and then at his sister Ottla’s house in the country; but in September he writes to Brod: “I have not spent this past week very cheerfully, for I have had to give up the Castle story, evidently for good.” Like all the novels he had previously embarked on, this last and most ambitious one remained a fragment.