by Franz Kafka
The examining magistrate shifted about in his chair in embarrassment or impatience. The man behind him, with whom he had been talking earlier, bent down to him again, either to give him some general words of encouragement or to pass on special advice. The people below conversed quietly but animatedly. The two parties, which had appeared to hold such contrasting opinions before, mingled with one another, some people pointing their fingers at K., others at the examining magistrate. The foglike haze in the room was extremely annoying, even preventing any closer observation of those standing further away. It must have been particularly disturbing for the visitors in the gallery, who were forced, with timid side glances at the examining magistrate of course, to address questions under their breath to the members of the assembly in order to find out what was happening. The answers were returned equally softly, shielded behind cupped hands.
“I’m almost finished,” said K. striking his fist on the table, since no bell was available, at which the heads of the examining magistrate and his advisor immediately drew apart, startled: “I’m completely detached from this whole affair, so I can judge it calmly, and it will be to your distinct advantage to pay attention, always assuming you care about this so-called court. I suggest that you postpone your mutual discussion of what I’m saying until later, because I don’t have much time, and will be leaving soon.”
There was an immediate silence, so completely did K. now control the assembly. People weren’t shouting back and forth as they had at the beginning; they no longer even applauded but seemed by now convinced, or on the verge of being so.
“There can be no doubt,” K. said very quietly, for he was pleased by the keen attention with which the whole assembly was listening, a murmuring arising in that stillness that was more exciting than the most delighted applause, “there can be no doubt that behind all the pronouncements of this court, and in my case, behind the arrest and today’s inquiry, there exists an extensive organization. An organization that not only engages corrupt guards, inane inspectors, and examining magistrates who are at best mediocre, but that supports as well a system of judges of all ranks, including the highest, with their inevitable innumerable entourage of assistants, scribes, gendarmes, and other aides, perhaps even hangmen, I won’t shy away from the word. And the purpose of this extensive organization, gentlemen? It consists of arresting innocent people and introducing senseless proceedings against them, which for the most part, as in my case, go nowhere. Given the senselessness of the whole affair, how could the bureaucracy avoid becoming entirely corrupt? It’s impossible, even the highest judge couldn’t manage it, even with himself. So guards try to steal the shirts off the backs of arrested men, inspectors break into strange apartments, and innocent people, instead of being examined, are humiliated before entire assemblies. The guards told me about depositories to which an arrested man’s property is taken; I’d like to see these depository places sometime, where the hard-earned goods of arrested men are rotting away, if they haven’t already been stolen by pilfering officials.”
K. was interrupted by a shriek from the other end of the hall; he shaded his eyes so that he could see, for the dull daylight had turned the haze into a blinding white glare. It was the washerwoman, whom K. had sensed as a major disturbance from the moment she entered. Whether or not she was at fault now was not apparent. K. saw only that a man had pulled her into a corner by the door and pressed her to himself. But she wasn’t shrieking, it was the man; he had opened his mouth wide and was staring up toward the ceiling. A small circle had gathered around the two of them, and the nearby visitors in the gallery seemed delighted that the serious mood K. had introduced into the assembly had been interrupted in this fashion. K.’s initial reaction was to run toward them, in fact he thought everyone would want to restore order and at least banish the couple from the hall, but the first rows in front of him stood fast; not a person stirred and no one let K. through. On the contrary they hindered him: old men held out their arms and someone’s hand—he didn’t have time to turn around—grabbed him by the collar from behind; K. wasn’t really thinking about the couple anymore, for now it seemed to him as if his freedom were being threatened, as if he were being arrested in earnest, and he sprang from the platform recklessly. Now he stood eye-to-eye with the crowd. Had he misjudged these people? Had he overestimated the effect of his speech? Had they been pretending all the time he was speaking, and now that he had reached his conclusions, were they fed up with pretending? The faces that surrounded him! Tiny black eyes darted about, cheeks drooped like those of drunken men, the long beards were stiff and scraggly, and when they pulled on them, it seemed as if they were merely forming claws, not pulling beards. Beneath the beards, however—and this was the true discovery K. made—badges of various sizes and colors shimmered on the collars of their jackets. They all had badges, as far as he could see. They were all one group, the apparent parties on the left and right, and as he suddenly turned, he saw the same badges on the collar of the examining magistrate, who was looking on calmly with his hands in his lap. “So!” K. cried and flung his arms in the air, this sudden insight demanding space; “I see you’re all officials, you’re the corrupt band I was speaking about; you’ve crowded in here to listen and snoop, you’ve formed apparent parties and had one side applaud to test me, you wanted to learn how to lead innocent men astray. Well I hope you haven’t come in vain; either you found it entertaining that someone thought you would defend the innocent or else—back off or I’ll hit you,” cried K. to a trembling old man who had shoved his way quite near to him “—or else you’ve actually learned something. And with that I wish you luck in your trade.” He quickly picked up his hat, which was lying at the edge of the table, and made his way through the general silence, one of total surprise at least, toward the exit. The examining magistrate, however, seemed to have been even quicker than K., for he was waiting for him at the door. “One moment,” he said. K. stopped, looking not at the examining magistrate but at the door, the handle of which he had already seized. “I just wanted to draw your attention to the fact,” said the examining magistrate, “that you have today deprived yourself—although you can’t yet have realized it—of the advantage that an interrogation offers to the arrested man in each case.” K. laughed at the door. “You scoundrels,” he cried, “you can have all your interrogations”; then he opened the door and hurried down the stairs. Behind him rose the sounds of the assembly, which had come to life again, no doubt beginning to discuss what had occurred, as students might.
IN THE EMPTY COURTROOM
THE STUDENT
THE OFFICES
K. waited from day to day throughout the following week for further notification; he couldn’t believe they had taken his waiver of interrogations literally, and when the expected notification had not arrived by Saturday evening, he took it as an implicit summons to appear again in the same building at the same time. So he returned on Sunday, but this time he went straight up the stairs and along the passageways; a few people who remembered him greeted him from their doors, but he no longer needed to ask the way and soon reached the right door. It opened at once at his knock, and without even glancing at the familiar face of the woman, who remained standing by the door, he headed directly for the adjoining room. “There’s no session today,” the woman said. “Why wouldn’t there be a session?” he asked, not really believing it. But the woman convinced him by opening the door to the next room. It was indeed empty and in its emptiness looked even more sordid than it had last Sunday. On the table, which stood unchanged on the platform, lay several books. “Can I look at the books?” K. asked, not out of any particular curiosity, but simply so that his presence was not entirely pointless. “No,” said the woman and shut the door again, “that’s not allowed. Those books belong to the examining magistrate.” “Oh, I see,” said K. and nodded, “they’re probably law books, and it’s in the nature of this judicial system that one is condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance.” “It must be,”
said the woman, who hadn’t really understood him. “Well, then I’ll leave,” said K. “Shall I give the examining magistrate any message?” asked the woman. “You know him?” K. asked. “Of course,” said the woman, “after all, my husband is a court usher.” Only then did K. see that the room, which had contained only a washtub last time, was now a fully furnished living room. The woman noticed his astonishment and said: “Yes, we live here rent free, but we have to move our furniture out on days when the court is in session. My husband’s job has a few disadvantages.” “It’s not so much the room that astonishes me,” said K., giving her an angry look, “as the fact that you’re married.” “Are you referring perhaps to the incident last session, when I interrupted your speech?” asked the woman. “Of course,” said K., “today that’s all over and practically forgotten, but it really angered me at the time. And now you yourself say you’re a married woman.” “It wasn’t to your disadvantage to have your speech interrupted. You were judged quite unfavorably afterwards.” “That may be,” said K. brushing the remark aside, “but that doesn’t excuse you.” “I’m excused in the eyes of those who know me,” said the woman, “the man who was embracing me has been persecuting me for a long time. I may not be tempting in general, but I am to him. There’s no way to protect myself, even my husband has finally come to terms with it; he has to put up with it if he wants to keep his job, because the man involved is a student and will presumably become even more powerful. He’s always after me; he left just before you arrived.” “It fits in with all the rest,” said K., “I’m not surprised.” “You’d probably like to improve a few things around here?” the woman asked slowly and tentatively, as if she were saying something dangerous for her as well as for K. “I gathered that from your speech, which personally I liked a lot. Of course I heard only part of it, since I missed the beginning and at the end I was on the floor with the student.” “It’s so disgusting here,” she said after a pause, and took K.’s hand. “Do you think you’ll be able to improve things?” K. smiled and turned his hand slightly in her soft hands. “Actually,” he said, “it’s not my job to improve things here, as you put it, and if you said that to someone like the examining magistrate you’d be laughed at or punished. I certainly wouldn’t have become involved in these matters of my own free will, and I would never have lost any sleep over the shortcomings of this judicial system. But because I was supposedly placed under arrest—I’ve been arrested, you see—I’ve been forced to take action in my own behalf. But if I can be of any help to you in the process, I’ll of course be happy to do so. Not simply out of compassion, but because you can help me in turn.” “How could I do that?” asked the woman. “By showing me those books on the table now, for example.” “But of course,” cried the woman, dragging him quickly after her. They were old dog-eared books; one of the bindings was almost split in two at the spine, the covers barely hanging by the cords. “How dirty everything is,” said K., shaking his head, and before K. could reach for the books, the woman wiped at least some of the dust off with her apron. K. opened the book on top, and an indecent picture was revealed. A man and a woman were sitting naked on a divan; the obscene intention of the artist was obvious, but his ineptitude was so great that in the end there was nothing to be seen but a man and woman, emerging far too corporeally from the picture, sitting rigidly upright, and due to the poor perspective, turning toward each other quite awkwardly. K. didn’t leaf through any further, but simply opened to the frontispiece of the second book, a novel entitled The Torments Grete Suffered at the Hands of Her Husband Hans. “So these are the law books they study,” said K. “I’m to be judged by such men.” “I’ll help you,” said the woman. “Do you want me to?” “Could you really do so without endangering yourself, after all, you said before that your husband was highly dependent on his superiors.” “Even so, I’ll help you,” said the woman. “Come on, we have to discuss it. Forget about my danger; I only fear danger when I want to. Come on.” She pointed to the platform and asked him to sit with her on the step. “You have beautiful dark eyes,” she said, after they were seated, looking up into K.’s face, “they say I have beautiful eyes as well, but yours are much more beautiful. By the way, I was struck by them right away, the first time you came here. They were the reason I came into the assembly room later, which I never do otherwise; in fact, it’s more or less forbidden.” “So that’s all it is,” thought K., “she’s offering herself to me; she’s depraved, like everyone else around here, she’s had her fill of court officials, which is understandable, so she accosts any stranger who comes along with a compliment about his eyes.” And K. stood up without saying anything, as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud and thus explained his conduct to the woman. “I don’t think you can help me,” he said, “to be of real help a person would have to have connections with higher officials. But I’m sure you know only the low-level employees who hang around here in such great numbers. Of course those you know quite well, and you might be able to get somewhere with them, I don’t doubt that, but the best you could hope to achieve through them would have no effect whatsoever on the final outcome of the trial. And you would have lost a few friends in the process. I don’t want that. Keep your present relationship with these people, it seems to me you really can’t do without it. I say that with some regret, because, to return your compliment at least in part, I like you, too, especially when you look at me as sadly as you do right now, although you really have no reason to. You’re part of the group I have to fight, but you’re quite comfortable among them; you even love the student, or if you don’t love him, you at least prefer him to your husband. That was easy to tell from what you said.” “No,” she cried, remaining seated and simply reaching for K.’s hand, which he failed to withdraw quickly enough, “you can’t leave now, you mustn’t go away having judged me falsely. Could you really bring yourself to leave now? Am I really so worthless that you won’t even do me the kindness of staying here a tiny bit longer?” “You misunderstand me,” said K, sitting down, “if it means so much to you for me to stay, I’ll do so gladly; after all, I have plenty of time, since I came here today thinking there would be a hearing. All I meant by what I said earlier was that you shouldn’t try to do anything about my trial for me. But there’s no reason to feel hurt by that either, knowing that I’m not at all concerned about the outcome of the trial, and would only laugh at a conviction. Assuming the trial ever comes to an actual conclusion, which I greatly doubt. I think it much more likely that the proceedings have already been dropped through laziness or forgetfulness or perhaps even fear on the part of the officials, or that they will be dropped in the near future. Of course it’s always possible that they’ll seem to continue the trial in hopes of some sort of sizable bribe, totally in vain, I can tell you right now, for I won’t bribe anyone. You would be doing me a favor, however, if you would tell the examining magistrate, or some other person who enjoys spreading important information, that I will never bribe anyone, nor be brought to do so by any of the rich store of tricks these gentlemen no doubt possess. There’s no chance of success, you can tell them that quite frankly. But they may well have realized that already, and even if they haven’t, it makes no real difference to me for them to find out now. Afer all, it would only spare these gentlemen work, and me a few annoyances as well of course, ones I’ll happily accept, if I know that each is a blow against them in turn. And I’ll make sure that that’s the case. Do you really know the examining magistrate?” “Of course,” said the woman, “in fact he’s the first person I thought of when I offered to help. I didn’t know he was only a low-level official, but since you say so, that’s probably right. Even so, I think that the report he sends to his superiors still has some influence. And he writes so many reports. You say the officials are lazy, but surely not all, and particularly not this examining magistrate, he writes a lot. Last Sunday, for example, the session went on almost into the evening. Everyone left, but the examining magistrate remained behind in the hall, and had
me bring him a lamp; all I had was a little kitchen lamp, but he was satisfied with it and immediately started writing. In the meantime my husband, who had been off duty that particular Sunday, returned, we carried in our furniture, arranged our room once more, then some neighbors arrived, we talked a while longer by candlelight, in short, we forgot the examining magistrate and went to bed. Suddenly, that night, it must have been late at night by then, I awake and find the examining magistrate standing by my bed, shielding the lamp with his hand so that no light falls upon my husband, a needless precaution, since the way my husband sleeps the light wouldn’t have awakened him anyway. I was so startled I almost screamed, but the examining magistrate was very friendly, cautioned me against crying out, whispered that he had been writing till then, that he was bringing the lamp back now, and that he would never forget the picture I made when he found me sleeping. I’m telling you all this simply to show that the examining magistrate really does write a lot of reports, especially about you: for your hearing was certainly one of the major events of the Sunday session. Such long reports surely can’t be totally meaningless. But you can also see from this incident that the examining magistrate is interested in me, and it’s precisely at this early stage, for he must have just noticed me, that I can have a major influence on him. And I now have other indications that he sets great store by me. Yesterday he sent me silk stockings through the student, whom he trusts, and who is his colleague, supposedly because I tidy up the courtroom, but that’s only an excuse, because after all that’s my duty and my husband gets paid for it. They’re pretty stockings, see”—she stretched out her legs, pulled her dress up to her knees, and viewed her legs herself as well—“they’re pretty stockings, but really they’re too nice, and not suitable for me.”