by Franz Kafka
K. was still listening to the sound of the voice and almost missed the next question: “What do you want?” Most of all he would have liked to put down the receiver. He was no longer expecting anything from this conversation. Only under pressure did he quickly add: “When can my master come to the Castle?” “Never,” came the answer. “Fine,” said K., replacing the receiver.
Behind him the peasants had already edged up extremely close to him. The assistants, who kept casting side glances at him, were busy keeping the peasants away. But this seemed no more than a comedy, and the peasants, satisfied with the outcome of the conversation, gradually yielded. Just then their group was divided in two by a man who came from behind in rapid stride, bowed before K., and handed him a letter. K. held the letter in his hand and looked at the man, who seemed more important to him just then. He greatly resembled the assistants, was as slender as they, just as lightly dressed, had the same quickness and agility, and yet he was quite different. If only K. could have had him as an assistant! He reminded K. somewhat of the woman with the infant whom he had seen at the master tanner’s. He was dressed almost entirely in white, the material could scarcely be silk, it was winter clothing like all the rest, but it had the delicacy and formality of silk. His face was bright and open, with enormous eyes. His smile was uncommonly encouraging; he brushed his hand across his face as though trying to chase away the smile, but he didn’t succeed. “Who are you?” asked K. “My name is Barnabas,” he said, “I am a messenger.” As he spoke, his lips opened and closed in a masculine but gentle way. “How do you like it here?” asked K., pointing to the peasants, who still hadn’t lost interest in him and who, with their bulging lips, open mouths, and almost tortured faces—their heads looked as if they had been beaten flat on top and their features shaped in the pain of the beating—were staring at him but then again not staring at him since their eyes sometimes wandered off and rested a while on some indifferent object before returning to him, and then K. pointed to the assistants, who were embracing each other, cheek to cheek, and smiling, whether in humility or mockery one could not tell, he pointed all this out as if introducing an entourage forced on him by special circumstances in the hope—this suggested familiarity, which was what mattered to K.—that Barnabas had the sense to tell the difference between these people and K. Yet Barnabas completely ignored this, though in all innocence as one could see, letting the question pass, just like a well-trained servant faced with a comment only seemingly addressed to him by his master, and in response to the question merely looked about, greeting his acquaintances among the peasants with a wave and exchanging a few words with the assistants, all this freely and independently, without mingling with them. Rejected but not abashed, K. turned to the letter in his hand and opened it. It read as follows: “Dear Sir! As you know, you have been accepted into the Count’s service. Your immediate superior is the village council chairman, he will furnish you with all further details concerning your work and terms of employment, and you, in turn, will be accountable to him. Nevertheless, I too shall keep you in mind. Barnabas, who brings you this letter, will occasionally call on you to ascertain your wishes and relay them to me. You will find that I am always ready, insofar as possible, to oblige you. Having satisfied workers is important to me.” The signature wasn’t legible, but printed beside it were the words: The Director of Bureau No. 10. “Wait!” K. told Barnabas, who was bowing, then he asked the landlord to show him his room, since he wanted to spend some time alone with the letter. At the same time it occurred to him that regardless of his affection for Barnabas he was merely a messenger, so he had them bring him a beer. He observed him to see how he would accept it; he accepted it with seeming eagerness and drank it right away. Then K. left with the landlord. In that little house they had only been able to prepare a small attic room for K., and even that had caused problems, for the two maids who had slept there until then had had to be lodged elsewhere. Actually, they had only moved out the maids, aside from that the room was probably unchanged, there were no sheets on the one bed, just a few pillows and a horse blanket left in the same state as everything else after last night, on the wall there were a few saints’ pictures and photographs of soldiers, the room hadn’t even been aired, they were evidently hoping the new guest wouldn’t stay long and did nothing to keep him. Yet K. agreed to everything, wrapped himself in the blanket, sat down at the table and in the light of a candle began to read the letter again.
It wasn’t consistent, some passages treated him as a free man and conceded that he had a will of his own, such as the initial greeting and the passage concerning his wishes. There were other passages, though, that treated him openly or indirectly as a lowly worker who was barely noticeable from the director’s post, the director had to make an effort to “keep him in mind,” his superior was only the village chairman, to whom he was even accountable, his only colleague was perhaps the village policeman. Undoubtedly these were contradictions, so obvious they must be intentional. The thought—a crazy one in the case of such authorities—that indecision might have played a role here, scarcely occurred to K. He saw it more as a choice that had been freely offered him, it had been left up to him to decide what he wanted to make of the provisions in the letter, whether he wanted to be a village worker with a distinctive but merely apparent connection to the Castle, or an apparent village worker who in reality allowed the messages brought by Barnabas to define the terms of his position. K. did not hesitate to choose, nor would he have hesitated to do so even if he had never had certain experiences here. It was only as a village worker, as far from the Castle gentlemen as possible, that he could achieve anything at the Castle, these people in the village who were so distrustful of him would start talking as soon as he had become if not their friend then their fellow citizen, and once he had become indistinguishable from, say, Gerstäcker or Lasemann—this must happen very quickly, everything depended on it—all those paths would suddenly open up, which if he were to rely solely on the gentlemen above, on their good graces, would always remain blocked off and invisible too. Yet there was certainly a risk, and the letter stressed this and even dwelled on it with a certain delight, as though it were inevitable: it was his status as a worker. “Service,” “superior,” “work,” “terms of employment,” “accountable,” “workers,” the letter was crammed with such terms and even if it referred to other, more personal matters, it did so from the same point of view. If K. wanted to become a worker, he could become one, but then only in dreadful earnest, without any prospects anywhere else. K. knew that there was no threat of actual compulsion, he had no fear of that, especially not here, but the force of these discouraging surroundings and of the increasing familiarity with ever more predictable disappointments, the force of scarcely perceptible influences at every moment, these he certainly did fear, but even in the face of this danger he had to risk taking up the struggle. Indeed, the letter made no secret of the fact that if it came to a struggle, K. was the one who had been reckless enough to start, this was delicately put and could only have been noticed by a troubled conscience—troubled, not bad—namely, the three words “as you know,” concerning his being accepted into the Castle’s service. K. had announced his presence and ever since then he had known, as the letter put it, that he was accepted.
K. took a picture from the wall and hung the letter on the nail, this is where he would be living, so the letter should hang here.
Then he went down to the taproom, Barnabas was sitting at a small table with the assistants. “Ah, there you are,” said K., for no reason, simply because he was glad to see Barnabas. He jumped up at once. K. had no sooner entered than the peasants rose to get close to him, they had already formed the habit of following him about constantly. “What is it you always want from me?” cried K. They did not take offense and slowly withdrew to their places. As one of them walked off, he said casually with an indecipherable smile, which several others adopted: “One always gets to hear some news” and he licked his lips as if
the news were edible. K. didn’t say anything conciliatory to him, it was good if they learned to respect him, but no sooner was he seated beside Barnabas than he felt a peasant’s breath down the back of his neck, the peasant said he had come for the salt shaker, but K. stomped his foot in anger, and the peasant ran off without the salt shaker. It was really easy to get the better of K.; one simply needed, say, to set the peasants on him, their stubborn concern seemed more malicious to him than the aloofness of the others and it, too, was a form of aloofness, for if K. had sat down at their table, they would certainly not have remained seated. Only Barnabas’s presence prevented him from making a commotion. Nonetheless, he swung around menacingly toward them, they were also facing him. Yet seeing them sitting there like that, each one on his own chair, neither conversing with one another nor visibly connected, connected only because all of them were staring at him, it seemed to him that they weren’t pursuing him out of malice, perhaps they really wanted something from him but just couldn’t say what it was, and if that wasn’t it, perhaps it was merely childlike behavior on their part, the childlike quality that seemed very much at home here; wasn’t it also childlike of the landlord to be standing there, holding in both hands a glass of beer, which he should have taken to some guest, gazing at K. and missing a cry from the landlady, who had leaned out of the kitchen hatch.
Calmer now, K. turned to Barnabas, he would have liked to remove the assistants but couldn’t find a pretext, besides they were staring silently at their beer. “I have read the letter,” K. began. “Do you know the contents?” “No,” said Barnabas. His expression seemed to convey more than his words. Perhaps K. was being mistakenly positive now, just as he had been mistakenly negative with the peasants, but the presence of Barnabas remained a source of comfort. “There is also talk of you in the letter, you must carry messages back and forth between me and the director, that’s why I assumed you knew the contents.” “I was simply instructed,” Barnabas said, “to hand you the letter, wait until you had read it, and bring back a verbal or written reply, should you find this necessary.” “Fine,” said K., “no letter is required, convey to the director—but what’s his name? I couldn’t read his signature.” “Klamm,” said Barnabas. “Well then convey my thanks to Mr. Klamm for the acceptance and also for his exceptional kindness, which I, as one who still hasn’t proved himself here, certainly appreciate. I shall act entirely in accordance with his intentions. I have no special wishes for today.” Barnabas, who had followed this closely, asked whether he could repeat the message in K.’s presence, K. gave permission, and Barnabas repeated everything word for word. Then he stood up in order to take his leave.
Throughout all this K. had been examining his face and now did so one last time. Though Barnabas was about as tall as K., his eyes seemed to look down on K., but almost deferentially; it was inconceivable that this man could ever put anybody to shame. Of course, he was only a messenger and wasn’t familiar with the contents of the letters he had to deliver, but his expression, his smile, his gait, seemed to bear a message, even if he himself was unaware of it. And K. stretched out his hand, which clearly surprised Barnabas, for he had merely intended to bow.
As soon as he had left—before opening the door he had leaned against the door with his shoulder for a moment and looked around the taproom, with a glance no longer directed at anyone in particular—K. said to the assistants: “I shall get my notes from my room, then we’ll discuss the next project.” They wanted to go with him. “Stay here!” said K. They still wanted to go with him. K. had to repeat the command in a more severe tone of voice. Barnabas was no longer in the corridor. But he had just left. And yet outside the inn—it was snowing again—K. could not see him. He cried: “Barnabas!” No answer. Could he still be in the building? This seemed the only possibility. Nevertheless, with full force K. shouted out the name, the name thundered through the night. And from a distance a faint answer came, so Barnabas had already gone that far. K. called him back as he went toward him; where they met, they were no longer visible from the inn.
“Barnabas,” said K., unable to suppress a tremor in his voice, “there is something else I must tell you. I see now that this is actually quite a bad arrangement, my having to depend entirely on your chance appearances whenever I need anything from the Castle. If I hadn’t managed to catch you just now by chance—the speed at which you fly, I thought you were still at the inn—who knows how long I should have had to wait before you came again.” “Well,” said Barnabas, “you can ask the director to ensure that I always come at times set by you.” “But that wouldn’t do either,” said K., “perhaps for a whole year I won’t want to send any messages, and then only fifteen minutes after you’re gone, something that cannot be delayed.” “Should I report to the director, then,” said Barnabas, “that there needs to be another means of communication between him and you, other than through me.” “No, no,” said K., “absolutely not, I’m only mentioning this in passing, for I had the good fortune to catch you just now.” “Should we go back to the inn,” said Barnabas, “so that you can give me the new instructions?” He already had taken a step toward the inn. “Barnabas,” said K., “that isn’t necessary, I shall go part of the way with you.” “Why don’t you want to go to the inn?” asked Barnabas. “Those people there keep disturbing me,” said K., “you yourself have seen how intrusive those peasants are.” “We can go to your room,” said Barnabas. “It’s the maids’ room,” said K., “it’s dirty and dank, I wanted to go a bit of the way with you so I wouldn’t have to stay there, only,” K. added in an attempt to overcome Barnabas’s hesitation, “you must let me take your arm, your footing is surer than mine.” K. took his arm. It was quite dark, K. couldn’t see his face, his form was indistinct, a little while ago he had tried to grope about for his arm.
Barnabas gave in, they moved away from the inn. Still, K. felt that however hard he tried he couldn’t keep up with Barnabas and was restricting his freedom of movement and that a little thing like that could ruin everything even under ordinary conditions, let alone in side streets like the one where K. had sunk into the snow that morning and from which he could extricate himself only if Barnabas lifted him out. Yet he put aside those worries for now, besides he found Barnabas’s silence comforting; if they went on like this in silence, it meant that for Barnabas, too, the only reason for being together was to keep going.
They went on, where to K. had no idea, he couldn’t recognize anything, didn’t even know whether they had passed the church. Due to the sheer effort of walking he could no longer control his thoughts. Rather than remaining fixed on the goal, they became confused. His homeland kept surfacing, filling him with memories. On its main square, too, was a church, partly surrounded by an old cemetery, and it, in turn, by a high wall. Only very few boys had ever climbed this wall, K. still hadn’t succeeded either. It wasn’t curiosity that drove them, the cemetery no longer held any secrets for them, they had often enough gone in through the small wrought-iron gate and had merely wanted to conquer the smooth high wall. And then one morning—the calm, empty square was flooded with light, when before or since had K. ever seen it like this?—he succeeded with surprising ease; at a spot where he had been often rebuffed, with a small flag clenched between his teeth, he climbed the wall on the first attempt. Pebbles were still trickling down, but he was on top. He rammed in the flag, the wind filled out the cloth, he looked down, all around, even over his shoulder at the crosses sinking into the earth; there was nobody here, now, bigger than he. By chance the teacher came by and with an angry look drove K. down, in jumping off K. hurt his knee and only with difficulty reached home, but still he had been up on the wall, it had seemed to him then that this feeling of victory would sustain him throughout a long life, and this hadn’t been entirely foolish, for now, after many years, on the arm of Barnabas in this snowy night it came to his aid.
He tightened his grip, Barnabas almost dragged him, the silence was not broken; of this particular route K.
could say only that judging by the state of the road they had not yet turned off into a side street. He vowed not to let any difficulties along the way or worries about the way back keep him from going on, for after all he surely had sufficient strength for being dragged along. And could this path be endless? All day the Castle had lain before him like an easy goal, and this messenger certainly knew the shortest way.