by Franz Kafka
He was still free. “Pardon me,” he said, and walked quickly between the guards into his room. “He seems to be reasonable,” he heard them say behind him. In his room he yanked open the drawers of his desk at once; everything lay there in perfect order, but at first, in his agitation, he couldn’t find the one thing he was looking for: his identification papers. Finally he found his bicycle license and was about to take that to the guards, but then it seemed too insignificant a document and he kept on looking until his found his birth certificate. When he returned to the adjoining room, the door opposite opened and Frau Grubach started to enter. She was only visible for a moment, for no sooner had she noticed K. than she seemed seized by embarrassment, apologized, and disappeared, closing the door carefully behind her. “Come on in,” K. barely had time to say. But now he remained standing in the middle of the room with his papers, still staring at the door, which did not reopen, until he was brought to himself by a call from the guards, who were sitting at the small table by the open window and, as K. now saw, eating his breakfast. “Why didn’t she come in?” he asked. “She’s not allowed to,” said the tall guard, “after all, you’re under arrest.” “How can I be under arrest? And in this manner?” “Now there you go again,” said the guard, dipping his buttered bread into the little honey pot. “We don’t answer such questions.” “You’re going to have to answer them,” said K. “Here are my papers, now show me yours, starting with the arrest warrant.” “Good heavens!” said the guard, “you just can’t accept your situation; you seem bent on annoying us unnecessarily, although we’re probably the human beings closest to you now.” “That’s right, you’d better believe it,” said Franz, not lifting the coffee cup in his hand to his mouth but staring at K. with a long and no doubt meaningful, but incomprehensible, look. K. allowed himself to become involved in an involuntary staring match with Franz, but at last thumped his papers and said: “Here are my identification papers.” “So what?” the taller guard cried out, “you’re behaving worse than a child. What is it you want? Do you think you can bring your whole damn trial to a quick conclusion by discussing your identity and arrest warrant with your guards? We’re lowly employees who can barely make our way through such documents, and whose only role in your affair is to stand guard over you ten hours a day and get paid for it. That’s all we are, but we’re smart enough to realize that before ordering such an arrest the higher authorities who employ us inform themselves in great detail about the person they’re arresting and the grounds for the arrest. There’s been no mistake. After all, our department, as far as I know, and I know only the lowest level, doesn’t seek out guilt among the general population, but, as the Law states, is attracted by guilt and has to send us guards out. That’s the Law. What mistake could there be?” “I don’t know that law,” said K. “All the worse for you,” said the guard. “It probably exists only in your heads,” said K.; he wanted to slip into his guards’ thoughts somehow and turn them to his own advantage or accustom himself to them. But the guard merely said dismissively: “You’ll feel it eventually.” Franz broke in and said: “You see, Willem, he admits that he doesn’t know the Law and yet he claims he’s innocent.” “You’re right there, but he can’t seem to understand anything,” said the other. K. said nothing more; why should I let the idle talk of these lowly agents—they admit themselves that’s what they are—confuse me even further? he thought. After all, they’re discussing things they don’t understand. Their confidence is based solely on ignorance. A few words spoken with someone of my own sort will make everything incomparably clearer than the longest conversations with these two. He paced back and forth a few times through the cleared space of the room; across the way he saw the old woman, who had pulled an ancient man far older than herself to the window and had her arms wrapped about him; K. had to bring this show to an end: “Take me to your supervisor,” he said. “When he wishes it; not before,” said the guard called Willem. “And now I advise you,” he added, “to go to your room, remain there quietly, and wait to find out what’s to be done with you. We advise you not to waste your time in useless thought, but to pull yourself together; great demands will be placed upon you. You haven’t treated us as we deserve, given how accommodating we’ve been; you’ve forgotten that whatever else we may be, we are at least free men with respect to you, and that’s no small advantage. Nevertheless we’re prepared, if you have any money, to bring you a small breakfast from the coffeehouse across the way.”
K. stood quietly for a moment without responding to this offer. Perhaps if he were to open the door to the next room, or even the door to the hall, the two would not dare stop him, perhaps the best solution would be to bring the whole matter to a head. But then they might indeed grab him, and once subdued he would lose any degree of superiority he might still hold over them. Therefore he preferred the safety of whatever solution would surely arise in the natural course of things and returned to his room without a further word having passed on either side.
He threw himself onto his bed and took from the nightstand a nice apple that he had placed out the previous evening to have with breakfast. Now it was his entire breakfast, and in any case, as he verified with the first large bite, a much better breakfast than he could have had from the filthy all-night café through the grace of his guards. He felt confident and at ease; he was missing work at the bank this morning of course, but in light of the relatively high position he held there, that would be easily excused. Should he give the real excuse? He considered doing so. If they didn’t believe him, which would be understandable given the circumstances, he could offer Frau Grubach as a witness, or even the two old people across the way, who were probably even now on the march to the window opposite him. K. was surprised, at least from the guards’ perspective, that they had driven him into his room and left him alone there, where it would be ten times easier to kill himself. At the same time he asked himself from his own perspective what possible reason he could have for doing so. Because those two were sitting next door and had taken away his breakfast? Committing suicide would be so irrational that even had he wished to, the irrationality of the act would have prevented him. Had the intellectual limitations of the guards not been so obvious, he might have assumed this same conviction led them to believe there was no danger in leaving him alone. Let them watch if they liked as he went to the little wall cupboard in which he kept good schnapps and downed a small glass in place of breakfast, then a second one as well, to give himself courage, a mere precaution, in the unlikely event it might be needed.
Then a shout from the adjoining room startled him so that he rattled his teeth on the glass. “The inspector wants you!” It was the cry alone that startled him: a short clipped military cry that he would never have expected from the guard Franz. The order itself he gladly welcomed: “It’s about time,” he called back, locked the cupboard, and hurried into the adjoining room. The two guards were standing there and, as if it were a matter of course, chased him back into his room. “What are you thinking of?” they cried. “Do you want to see the inspector in your nightshirt? He’ll have you soundly flogged and us along with you!” “Let go of me, damn you,” cried K., who was already pushed back against his wardrobe, “if you assault me in bed, you can hardly expect to find me in formal attire.” “It’s no use,” said the guards, who, whenever K. shouted at them, fell into a calm, almost sad state that either put him at a loss or restored him somewhat to his senses. “Ridiculous formalities!” he grumbled, but he was already lifting a coat from the chair and holding it up for a moment in both hands, as if submitting it to the judgment of the guards. They shook their heads. “It has to be a black coat,” they said. K. threw the coat to the floor in response and said—without knowing himself in what sense he meant it—: “But this isn’t the main hearing yet.” The guards smiled, but stuck to their words: “It has to be a black coat.” “If that will speed things up, it’s fine with me,” said K., opened the wardrobe himself, took his time going through his many c
lothes, selected his best black suit, an evening jacket that had caused a small sensation among his friends because it was so stylish, then changed his shirt as well and began dressing with care. He secretly believed he’d managed to speed up the whole process after all, for the guards had forgotten to make him bathe. He watched to see if they might recall it now, but of course it didn’t occur to them, although Willem did remember to send Franz to the inspector with the message that K. was getting dressed.
When he was fully dressed, he had to walk just ahead of Willem through the empty room next door into the following room, the double doors to which were already thrown open. As K. well knew, this room had been newly occupied not long ago by a certain Fräulein Bürstner, a typist, who usually left for work quite early and came home late, and with whom K. had exchanged no more than a few words of greeting. Now the nightstand by her bed had been shoved to the middle of the room as a desk for the hearing and the inspector was sitting behind it. He had crossed his legs and placed one arm on the back of the chair. In a corner of the room three young men stood looking at Fräulein Bürstner’s photographs, which were mounted on a mat on the wall. A white blouse hung on the latch of the open window. Across the way, the old couple were again at the opposite window, but their party had increased in number, for towering behind them stood a man with his shirt open at the chest, pinching and twisting his reddish goatee.
“Josef K.?” the inspector asked, perhaps simply to attract K.’s wandering gaze back to himself. K. nodded. “You’re no doubt greatly surprised by this morning’s events?” asked the inspector, arranging with both hands the few objects lying on the nightstand—a candle with matches, a book, and a pincushion—as if they were tools he required for the hearing. “Of course,” said K., overcome by a feeling of relief at finally standing before a reasonable man with whom he could discuss his situation, “of course I’m surprised, but by no means greatly surprised.” “Not greatly surprised?” asked the inspector, placing the candle in the middle of the table and grouping the other objects around it. “Perhaps you misunderstand me,” K. hastened to add. “I mean—” Here K. interrupted himself and looked around for a chair. “I can sit down, can’t I?” he asked. “It’s not customary,” answered the inspector. “I mean,” K. continued without further pause, “I’m of course greatly surprised, but when you’ve been in this world for thirty years and had to make your way on your own, as has been my lot, you get hardened to surprises and don’t take them too seriously. Particularly not today’s.” “Why particularly not today’s?” “I’m not saying I think the whole thing’s a joke, the preparations involved seem far too extensive for that. All the lodgers at the boardinghouse would have to be in on it, and all of you, which would go far beyond a joke. So I’m not saying it’s a joke.” “That’s right,” said the inspector, checking the number of matches in the matchbox. “But on the other hand,” K. continued, as he turned to all of them, and would have gladly turned even to the three by the photographs, “on the other hand, it can’t be too important a matter. I conclude that from the fact that I’ve been accused of something but can’t think of the slightest offense of which I might be accused. But that’s also beside the point, the main question is: Who’s accusing me? What authorities are in charge of the proceedings? Are you officials? No one’s wearing a uniform, unless you want to call your suit”—he turned to Franz—“a uniform, but it’s more like a traveler’s outfit. I demand clarification on these matters, and I’m convinced that once they’ve been clarified we can part on the friendliest of terms.” The inspector flung the matchbox down on the table. “You’re quite mistaken,” he said. “These gentlemen and I are merely marginal figures in your affair, and in fact know almost nothing about it. We could be wearing the most proper of uniforms and your case would not be a whit more serious. I can’t report that you’ve been accused of anything, or more accurately, I don’t know if you have. You’ve been arrested, that’s true, but that’s all I know. Perhaps the guards have talked about other things, if so it was just that, idle talk. If, as a result, I can’t answer your questions either, I can at least give you some advice: think less about us and what’s going to happen to you, and instead think more about yourself. And don’t make such a fuss about how innocent you feel; it disturbs the otherwise not unfavorable impression you make. And you should talk less in general; almost everything you’ve said up to now could have been inferred from your behavior, even if you’d said only a few words, and it wasn’t terribly favorable to you in any case.”