by Franz Kafka
K. stared at the inspector. Was he to be lectured like a schoolboy by what might well be a younger man? To be reprimanded for his openness? And to learn nothing about why he had been arrested and on whose orders? He grew increasingly agitated, paced up and down, freely and without hindrance, pushed his cuffs back, felt his chest, brushed his hair into place, went past the three men, muttering, “It’s completely senseless,” at which they turned and looked at him in a friendly but serious way, and finally came to a stop before the inspector’s table. “Hasterer, the public prosecutor, is a good friend of mine,” he said, “can I telephone him?” “Certainly,” said the inspector, “but I don’t see what sense it makes, unless you have some private matter to discuss with him.” “What sense?” K. cried out, more startled than annoyed. “Who do you think you are? You ask what sense it makes, while you stage the most senseless performance imaginable? Wouldn’t it break a heart of stone? First these gentlemen assault me, and now they sit around or stand about and put me through my paces before you. What sense is there in telephoning a lawyer when I’ve supposedly been arrested? Fine, I won’t telephone.” “But do,” said the inspector, and waved toward the hall, where the telephone was, “please do telephone.” “No, I no longer wish to,” K. said, and went to the window. Across the way the group was still at the window, their peaceful observation now slightly disturbed as K. stepped to the window. The old couple started to rise, but the man behind them calmed them down. “There’s more of the audience over there,” K. cried out to the inspector and pointed outside. “Get away from there,” he yelled at them. The three immediately retreated a few steps, the old couple even withdrawing behind the man, who shielded them with his broad body and, judging by the movement of his lips, apparently said something that couldn’t be understood at that distance. They didn’t disappear entirely, however, but instead seemed to wait for the moment when they could approach the window again unnoticed. “Obnoxious, thoughtless people!” said K., turning back to the room. The inspector may have agreed with him, as he thought he noticed with a sideways glance. But it was equally possible he hadn’t been listening at all, for he had pressed his hand firmly down on the table and seemed to be comparing the length of his fingers. The two guards were sitting on a chest draped with an embroidered coverlet, rubbing their knees. The three young men had placed their hands on their hips and were gazing around aimlessly. Everything was silent, as in some deserted office. “Now, gentlemen,” K. said firmly, and for a moment it seemed to him as if he bore them all upon his shoulders, “judging by your expressions, this affair of mine must be closed. In my view, it would be best to stop worrying whether or not your actions were justified and end the matter on a note of reconciliation, by shaking hands. If you share my view, then please—” and he stepped up to the inspector’s table and held out his hand. The inspector looked up, chewed his lip, and regarded K.’s outstretched hand; K. still believed that the inspector would grasp it. But instead he rose, lifted a hard bowler from Fräulein Bürstner’s bed, and donned it carefully with both hands, like someone trying on a new hat. “How simple everything seems to you!” he said to K. as he did so. “So you think we should end this matter on a note of reconciliation? No, I’m afraid we really can’t. Although that’s not at all to say you should despair. Why should you? You’re under arrest, that’s all. I was to inform you of that, I’ve done so, and I’ve noted your reaction. That’s enough for today, and we can take our leave, temporarily of course. No doubt you wish to go to the bank now?” “To the bank?” K. asked. “I thought I was under arrest.” K. said this with a certain insistence, for although no one had shaken his hand, he was beginning to feel increasingly independent of these people, particularly once the inspector had stood up. He was toying with them. If they did leave, he intended to follow them to the door of the building and offer to let them arrest him. And so he said again: “How can I go to the bank if I’m under arrest?” “Oh, I see,” said the inspector, who was already at the door, “you’ve misunderstood me; you’re under arrest, certainly, but that’s not meant to keep you from carrying on your profession. Nor are you to be hindered in the course of your ordinary life.” “Then being under arrest isn’t so bad,” said K., approaching the inspector. “I never said it was,” he replied. “But in that case even the notification of arrest scarcely seems necessary,” said K., stepping closer still. The others had approached as well. Everyone was now gathered in a small area by the door. “It was my duty,” said the inspector. “A stupid duty,” said K. relentlessly. “Perhaps so,” replied the inspector, “but let’s not waste our time with such talk. I assumed you wished to go to the bank. Since you weigh every word so carefully, let me add that I’m not forcing you to go to the bank, I simply assumed you would want to. And to facilitate that, and to render your arrival at the bank as inconspicuous as possible, I’ve arranged for three of your colleagues here to be placed at your disposal.” “What?” K. cried out, and stared at the three in amazement. These so uncharacteristically anemic young men, whom he recalled only as a group by the photographs, were indeed clerks from his bank, not colleagues, that would be an overstatement, and indicated a gap in the inspector’s omniscience, but they were certainly lower-level clerks from the bank. How could K. have failed to notice that? How preoccupied he must have been by the inspector and the guards not to recognize these three. Wooden, arm-swinging Rabensteiner, blond Kullich with his deep-set eyes, and Kaminer with his annoying smile, produced by a chronic muscular twitch. “Good morning!” K. said after a moment, and held out his hand to the men, who bowed courteously. “I completely failed to recognize you. So now we can go to work, right?” The men nodded, laughing and eager, as if that was what they’d been waiting for all along, but when K. missed his hat, which he’d left in his room, all three tripped over each other’s heels to get it, which indicated a certain embarrassment on their part after all. K. stood still and watched them pass through the two open doors, the lethargic Rabensteiner bringing up the rear, of course, having broken into no more than an elegant trot. Kaminer handed over the hat and K. had to remind himself, as he often did at the bank, that Kaminer’s smile was not deliberate and that in fact he couldn’t smile deliberately at all. In the hall, Frau Grubach, not looking as if she felt any particular sense of guilt, opened the outer door for the whole company and K. looked down, as so often, at her apron strings, which cut so unnecessarily deeply into her robust body. Downstairs, watch in hand, K. decided to go by car so as not to extend unnecessarily what was already a half-hour delay. Kaminer ran to the corner to get a cab; the other two apparently felt they should entertain K. somehow, since Kullich suddenly pointed to the door of the building across the way, in which the man with the blond goatee had just appeared, and, at first embarrassed by now showing himself full-length, had retreated to the wall and leaned against it. The old couple were probably still on the stairs. K. was annoyed at Kullich for having pointed out the man, since he had already seen him himself, and in fact had been expecting him. “Don’t look over there,” he said quickly, without realizing how strange it must sound to speak that way to grown men. But no explanation was necessary, for at that moment the cab arrived, they got in, and it pulled away. Then K. remembered that he hadn’t seen the inspector and the guards leave: the inspector had diverted his attention from the three clerks, and now the clerks had done the same for the inspector. That didn’t show much presence of mind, and K. resolved to pay greater attention to such things. Even now he turned around involuntarily and leaned across the rear panel of the car to see if the inspector and guards might still be in sight. But he turned around again immediately, without having made the slightest effort to locate anyone, and leaned back comfortably into the corner of the cab. Despite appearances, he could have used some conversation, but now the men seemed tired: Rabensteiner gazed out of the car to the right, and Kullych to the left, leaving only Kaminer and his grin, which common decency unfortunately forbade as a topic of humor.
CONVERSAT
ION WITH FRAU GRUBACH
THEN FRÄULEIN BÜRSTNER
That spring K. generally spent his evenings as follows: after work, if there was still time—he usually stayed at the office until nine—he would take a short walk, alone or with acquaintances, then go to a tavern, where he would sit with a group of regulars, mostly older men, until eleven o’clock. But there were also exceptions to this routine; for example, when K. was invited by the bank president, who valued his diligence and reliability highly, for a drive in his car or for supper at his villa. In addition K. paid a weekly visit to a young woman named Elsa, who worked at night and late into the morning as a waitress in a wine house, and by day received visitors only in bed.
But on this particular evening—the day had passed quickly, filled with hard work and a number of friendly and deferential birthday greetings—K. wanted to go straight home. He had thought about it during all the small breaks throughout the workday: without knowing exactly how, it seemed to him as if the morning’s events had thrown the whole of Frau Grubach’s boardinghouse into disarray, and that he was the one needed to restore order. Once that order had been restored, all trace of what had happened would be wiped away, and the old routine would resume. There was nothing in particular to fear from the three clerks; they had faded back into the larger realm of the bank’s bureaucracy without any noticeable change. K. had called them to his office several times, both individually and as a group, for no other purpose than to observe them; he had always been able to dismiss them totally satisfied.
When, at nine-thirty that evening, he arrived at the building where he lived, he met a young fellow standing spread-legged at the entrance, smoking a pipe. “Who are you,” K. asked straightaway and brought his face close to that of the fellow; the semidarkness of the entranceway made it hard to see. “I’m the caretaker’s son, sir,” the fellow answered, removing the pipe from his mouth and stepping aside. “The caretaker’s son?” K. asked, tapping the floor impatiently with his cane. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir? Shall I get my father?” “No, no,” said K. with a note of forgiveness, as if the fellow had done something truly wrong, but he was willing to forgive him. “That’s all right,” he said, and passed on; but before he went up the stairs, he turned around once more.
He could have gone straight to his room, but since he wanted to speak with Frau Grubach, he knocked first at her door. She sat darning a stocking at a table piled with other old stockings. K. excused himself absentmindedly for calling so late, but Frau Grubach was very friendly and would hear of no apology: he could visit her anytime, he was her best and dearest boarder, as he well knew. K. looked around the room: it had been fully restored to its former state; the breakfast dishes that had stood on the table by the window that morning had been removed as well. A woman’s hand indeed works quiet wonders, he thought; he might have smashed the dishes on the spot, but he certainly couldn’t have carried them out. He looked at Frau Grubach with a touch of gratitude. “Why are you working so late?” he asked. Now they were both sitting at the table, and from time to time K. buried his hand in the stockings. “There’s a lot of work to do,” she said, “during the day I belong to my boarders, evenings are the only time I have to put my own affairs in order.” “I probably caused you a lot of extra work today.” “How is that?” she asked, becoming more animated, her work resting in her lap. “I mean the men who were here this morning.” “Oh, that,” she said, returning to her state of calm, “that was no particular work.” K. watched in silence as she again took up the stocking she was darning. “She seems surprised I’m talking about it,” he thought, “she doesn’t seem to think I should. All the more reason to do so. The only person I can discuss it with is an old woman.” “Oh, it surely caused some work,” he continued, “but it won’t happen again.” “No, it can’t happen again,” she said reassuringly and smiled at K. in an almost melancholy way. “Do you really think so?” asked K. “Yes,” she said softly, “but above all you mustn’t take it too seriously. All sorts of things go on in this world! Since you’re talking so openly with me, Herr K., I’ll confess that I listened a little behind the door, and the guards told me a few things too. It involves your happiness after all, and I really take that to heart, more than I should perhaps, since after all, I’m only your landlady. Well anyway, I heard a few things, but I can’t say that it was anything very bad. No. You’re under arrest all right, but not the way a thief would be. If you’re arrested like a thief, that’s bad, but this arrest—. It seems like something scholarly, I’m sorry if that sounds stupid, but it seems like something scholarly that I don’t understand, but that I don’t need to understand either.”
“What you’ve said is not at all stupid, Frau Grubach, at any rate I agree with you in part, except that I judge the whole matter even more harshly; I don’t even regard it as something scholarly, but simply as nothing at all. I was caught by surprise, that’s all. If I’d just gotten up the moment I awoke, without letting myself be thrown by the fact that Anna didn’t appear, and come to you without worrying about anyone’s standing in my way; if I’d eaten breakfast in the kitchen for once, and had you bring my clothes from my room; in short, if I’d behaved sensibly, nothing more would have happened, everything else would have been nipped in the bud. At the bank, for instance, I’m always prepared, nothing like this could ever happen to me there; I have my own assistant, the office phone and my outside line stand before me on the desk, people are constantly coming in, clients and officers; but even more importantly, I’m always involved in my work, and so I have my wits about me; it would be a positive pleasure to confront a situation like this at my office. Well, it’s all over now and I really didn’t want to talk about it any more, I just wanted to hear your judgment on the matter, the judgment of a sensible woman, and I’m glad we agree about it. But now you must give me your hand; an agreement like this has to be confirmed by shaking hands.”
Will she shake my hand? The inspector didn’t, he thought, and he looked at the woman in a new way, scrutinizing her. She stood up because he had already done so; she was a little embarrassed because she hadn’t understood everything that K. was saying. In her embarrassment, however, she said something she didn’t mean to, something totally inappropriate: “Don’t take it so hard, Herr K.,” she said with tears in her voice, forgetting of course to shake his hand. “I didn’t think I was taking it hard,” K. said, suddenly weary, and realizing how worthless this woman’s assent was.
At the door he asked: “Is Fräulein Bürstner home?” “No,” said Frau Grubach, and as she delivered this dry piece of information she smiled with belated, shared understanding. “She’s at the theater. Did you want something from her? Do you want me to give her a message?” “Oh, I just wanted to say a few words to her.” “I’m sorry, I don’t know when she’ll be back; when she’s at the theater she usually comes home late.” “It doesn’t matter,” said K., and was already turning to the door to leave, his head bowed, “I just wanted to beg her pardon for using her room today.” “That’s not necessary, Herr K., you’re too considerate; she doesn’t know anything about it, she hasn’t been home since early this morning, and everything’s already been straightened up, see for yourself.” And she opened the door to Fräulein Bürstner’s room. “Thanks, I believe you,” said K., but nevertheless walked to the open door. The moon shone softly into the dark room. As far as one could tell, everything was really back in its place, and the blouse no longer hung from the window handle. The bolsters seemed strikingly plump on the bed, lying partially in moonlight. “She often returns home quite late,” K. said, and stared at Frau Grubach as if she were responsible. “Like all young people,” said Frau Grubach by way of pardon. “Of course, of course,” said K., “but it can go too far.” “It can indeed,” said Frau Grubach, “you’re certainly right there, Herr K. And perhaps it has in this case. I certainly have no wish to slander Fräulein Bürstner, she’s a fine and dear young woman, friendly, neat, punctual, and industrious, I appreciate al
l that, but it’s true she should show more pride, and more reserve. I’ve already seen her twice this month in other neighborhoods and each time with a different man. I find it very embarrassing; I swear to the dear Lord I’ve mentioned it to no one but you, Herr K., but there’s no getting around it, I’ll have to speak to the young woman about it. And that’s not the only thing I find suspicious about her.” “You’re totally off track,” said K., scarcely able to conceal his fury, “it seems you’ve misunderstood my remarks about the young woman; that’s not at all what I meant. In fact I warn you frankly not to say anything to her; you’re completely mistaken, I know the young woman quite well, and there’s no truth at all in what you’ve said. But perhaps I’m going too far; I don’t wish to stand in your way, say whatever you want to her. Good night.” “Herr K.,” said Frau Grubach imploringly and rushed after K. to his door, which he had already opened, “I really don’t want to speak to her; of course I’ll first keep an eye on her a while longer, you’re the only one I’ve told what I know. After all, it’s surely in the boarders’ best interest to try to run a clean house, and that’s all I’m trying to do.” “Clean!” K. cried through the crack in the door; “if you want to run a clean house, you’ll have to start by giving me notice.” Then he slammed the door shut, paying no attention to the timid knocks that followed.
However, since he didn’t feel like sleeping, he decided to stay up, and use the opportunity to find out when Fräulein Bürstner would arrive. It might even be possible, though hardly proper, to exchange a few words with her. As he lay in the window, rubbing his weary eyes, he even thought for a moment of punishing Frau Grubach by talking Fräulein Bürstner into joining him in giving notice. But he saw at once that this would be a gross overreaction and even suspected himself of wishing to change lodgings because of the morning’s events. Nothing would be more irrational, and above all more pointless and contemptible.