by Franz Kafka
At nine-thirty, just as he was preparing to leave, he received a phone call; Leni said good morning and asked how he was doing; K. thanked her hurriedly and said he couldn’t possibly talk now because he had to go to the cathedral. “To the cathedral?” asked Leni. “Yes, that’s right, to the cathedral.” “Why the cathedral?” asked Leni. K. started to give a brief explanation, but he’d hardly begun when Leni suddenly said: “They’re hounding you.” K. could not stand pity that he neither desired nor expected; he broke off the conversation with a word or two, but as he replaced the receiver he said, partly to himself, partly to the distant young woman he could no longer hear: “Yes, they’re hounding me.”
By now it was getting late; there was almost a danger he might not arrive in time. He went there by cab; at the last moment he remembered the album, which he’d found no opportunity to hand over earlier, and took it along. He held it on his knees and drummed on it restlessly throughout the trip. The rain had let up, but it was damp, cool, and dark; it would be hard to see much in the cathedral, and K.’s cold would surely get worse from his standing so long on the cold flagstones.
The cathedral square was totally deserted; K. recalled how even as a small child he’d been struck by the fact that the houses on this narrow square always had most of their window curtains lowered. Of course given today’s weather that made more sense than usual. The cathedral appeared deserted as well; naturally no one thought of visiting it now. K. walked down both side aisles and saw only an old woman, wrapped in a warm shawl, kneeling before a painting of the Virgin Mary and gazing up at it. Then in the distance he saw a limping sexton disappear through a door in the wall. K. had arrived punctually; it was striking eleven just as he entered, but the Italian wasn’t there yet. K. went back to the main entrance, stood there a while indecisively, then circled the cathedral in the rain to see if the Italian might be waiting at one of the side entrances. He was nowhere to be seen. Could the president have misunderstood the time? How could anyone understand the man? Be that as it may, K. should wait for him at least half an hour. Since he was tired he wanted to sit down; he walked back into the cathedral, found a small carpetlike remnant on a step, dragged it with his toe over to a nearby pew, wrapped his overcoat more tightly around him, turned up his collar, and sat down. To pass the time he opened the album and leafed through it a while, but soon had to stop, for it had grown so dark that when he looked up he could scarcely distinguish a single detail in the nearby side aisle.
In the distance a large triangle of candle flames gleamed on the high altar; K. couldn’t say for certain if he had seen them before. Perhaps they had just been lighted. Sextons are stealthy by profession, one hardly notices them. K. happened to turn around and saw not far behind him a tall, thick candle affixed to a column, burning as well. Lovely as it was, it was an entirely inadequate illumination for the altarpieces, most of which were hanging in the darkness of the side chapels; it actually increased the darkness. The Italian had been as right as he was impolite not to come; there would have been nothing to see, and they would have had to rest content with examining a few paintings inch by inch with K.’s pocket flashlight. To try this out, and discover what they might expect to see, K. approached a small nearby chapel, climbed a few steps to a low marble balustrade and, leaning forward over it, illuminated the altarpiece with his flashlight. The sanctuary lamp dangled annoyingly in the way. The first thing K. saw, and in part surmised, was a tall knight in armor, portrayed at the extreme edge of the painting. He was leaning on his sword, which he had thrust into the bare earth—only a few blades of grass sprang up here and there—before him. He seemed to be gazing attentively at a scene taking place directly in front of him. It was amazing that he simply stood there without moving closer. Perhaps he was meant to stand guard. K., who hadn’t seen any paintings for a long time, regarded the knight at length, in spite of the fact that he had to keep squinting, bothered by the green glare of the flashlight. Then, as he passed the light over the remaining portion of the painting, he discovered it was a conventional depiction of the entombment of Christ, and moreover a fairly recent one. He put his flashlight away and returned to his seat.
There was probably no point in waiting any longer for the Italian, but it must be pouring rain outside, and since it wasn’t as cold inside as K. had expected, he decided to remain for the time being. The main pulpit was nearby; two bare golden crosses were placed aslant on its small round dome, their tips crossed. The front of the balustrade and its juncture with the supporting column were formed of green foliage clutched by little angels, now lively, now serene. K. stepped before the pulpit and examined it from all sides; the stonework had been carved with extraordinary care, the profound darkness between and behind the leaves seemed captured and held fast; K. placed his hand in one such gap and carefully felt along the stone; he had never known this pulpit existed. Then he happened to notice a sexton standing behind the nearest row of pews in a long, loosely hanging, pleated black robe, holding a snuffbox in his left hand and staring at him. “What does the man want?” thought K. “Do I seem suspicious to him? Does he want a tip?” When the sexton realized K. had noticed him, he pointed with his right hand, still holding a pinch of snuff between two fingers, in some vague direction. His behavior was almost incomprehensible; K. waited a while longer, but the sexton kept pointing at something and nodding emphatically. “What does he want?” K. asked under his breath, not daring to call out there; but then he pulled out his wallet and squeezed his way through the next pew to reach the man. The man, however, made an immediate dismissive gesture, shrugged his shoulders, and limped away. With just such a hasty limp had K. attempted, as a child, to imitate a man riding a horse. “A childish old man,” thought K., “with just enough wits about him to handle the job of a sexton. Look how he pauses whenever I do, watching to see if I intend to continue.” Smiling, K. followed the old man along the entire side aisle almost to the high altar; the old man kept pointing, but K. refused to turn around, the pointing had no other purpose than to throw him off the old man’s track. At last he relented, however; he didn’t want to frighten him too greatly, and he didn’t want to scare away this apparition completely, in case the Italian arrived after all.
As he stepped into the nave to find the place where he’d left the album, he noticed, almost immediately adjoining the benches for the choir, a column with a small auxiliary pulpit of pale bare stone. It was so small that from the distance it appeared to be an empty niche intended for a statue. The preacher would not have room to step even one full pace back from the balustrade. Moreover the stone vaulting of the pulpit began at an unusually low point and rose, bare of any decoration it’s true, but curved inward so sharply that a man of average height could not stand upright there, but instead would have to bend forward over the balustrade the entire time. The whole arrangement seemed designed to torture the preacher; there was no conceivable reason why this pulpit was needed at all, since the other large and finely decorated one was available.
Nor would K. have even noticed this small pulpit, had not a lamp been placed above it, as is the custom shortly before a sermon is to begin. Was there going to be a sermon? In the empty church? K. peered down at the steps that hugged the column and led up to the pulpit; they were so narrow they appeared merely decorative, not meant for human use. But at the foot of the pulpit, K. smiled with astonishment, a priest actually stood, his hand on the railing, ready to ascend, and stared at K. Then he nodded slightly, at which K. crossed himself and bowed, as he should have done earlier. The priest swung forward and ascended to the pulpit with short, quick steps. Was a sermon really about to begin? Perhaps the sexton was not quite so witless as he seemed and had wished to guide K. toward the preacher, which would certainly be necessary given the empty church. And there was still an old woman somewhere in front of a picture of the Virgin Mary who should come too. And if it was going to be a sermon, why wasn’t it being introduced by the organ? But the organ remained silent, gleaming faintly in
the gloom of its great height.
K. considered leaving as quickly as possible; if he didn’t go now there was no chance of doing so during the sermon, he would have to remain for as long as it lasted, losing a great deal of time at the office, and he was certainly no longer obliged to wait for the Italian; he looked at his watch: it was eleven. But could there really be a sermon? Could K. alone represent the congregation? What if he were merely a stranger who wanted to see the church? Basically that’s all he was. It was senseless to believe there was going to be a sermon, now, at eleven o’clock, on a workday, in the dreariest of weather. The priest—he was clearly a priest, a young man with a smooth, dark face—was obviously climbing up simply to extinguish the lamp that had been lighted in error.
But that wasn’t the case; in fact the priest inspected the lamp and screwed it a bit higher, then turned slowly to the balustrade, grasping the angular border at its front with both hands. He stood for a while thus and gazed about without moving his head. K. had retreated some distance and was resting his elbows against the foremost pew. Vaguely, without knowing precisely where, he saw the sexton huddling peacefully, his back bent, as if his task had been accomplished. What silence now reigned in the cathedral! But K. was going to have to disturb it, for he had no intention of staying; if it was the priest’s duty to deliver a sermon at a given hour without regard to the circumstances, he was free to do so; it could take place just as well without K.’s support, just as K.’s presence would in no way intensify the effect. So K. began to move off slowly; he tiptoed along the pew, entered the broad central aisle, and proceeded down it undisturbed, except that the stone floor rang beneath the softest tread, and the vaulted roof echoed the sounds faintly but steadily, continuing to multiply them in regular progression. K. felt somewhat forlorn walking along alone between the empty rows, perhaps observed by the priest, and the cathedral’s size seemed to border on the limits of human endurance. When he came to his earlier seat, he reached out and grabbed the album lying there without even slowing down. He had almost left the area of the pews and was approaching the open space between them and the outer door when he heard the voice of the priest for the first time. A powerful, well-trained voice. How it filled the waiting cathedral! It was not the congregation that the priest addressed, however; it was completely clear, and there was no escaping it; he cried out: “Josef K.!”
K. hesitated and stared at the floor. At the moment he was still free; he could walk on and leave through one of the three small dark wooden doors not far from him. That would mean he hadn’t understood or that he had indeed understood but couldn’t be bothered to respond. But if he turned around he was caught, for then he would have confessed that he understood quite well, that he really was the person named, and that he was prepared to obey. If the priest had called out again, K. would surely have walked out, but since all remained still, however long K. waited, he finally turned his head a bit, for he wanted to see what the priest was doing now. He was standing quietly in the pulpit as before, but he had clearly noticed K.’s head turn. It would have been a childish game of hide-and-seek for K. not to turn around completely now. He did so and the priest beckoned him to approach. Now that everything could be done openly, he walked with long, rapid strides toward the pulpit—out of curiosity as well, and to cut this business short. He paused by the first pews, but that still seemed too great a distance to the priest, who stretched out his hand and pointed sharply downward toward a spot just in front of the pulpit. K. obeyed this gesture as well; from this position he had to lean his head far back in order to see the priest. “You’re Josef K.,” said the priest, and lifted one hand from the balustrade in a vague gesture. “Yes,” said K.; he recalled how openly he had always said his name; for some time now it had been a burden, and people he met for the first time already knew his name; how good it felt to introduce oneself first and only then be known. “You stand accused,” said the priest in a very low voice. “Yes,” said K. “I’ve been notified about it.” “Then you’re the one I’m seeking,” said the priest. “I’m the prison chaplain.” “I see,” said K. “I had you brought here,” said the priest, “so I could speak with you.” “I didn’t know that,” said K. “I came here to show the cathedral to an Italian.” “Forget such irrelevancies,” said the priest. “What’s that in your hand? Is it a prayer book?” “No,” replied K., “it’s an album of city sights.” “Put it aside,” said the priest. K. threw it down so violently that it flew open and skidded some distance across the floor, its pages crushed. “Do you realize your trial is going badly?” asked the priest. “It seems that way to me too,” said K. “I’ve tried as hard as I can, but without any success so far. Of course I haven’t completed my petition yet.” “How do you imagine it will end,” asked the priest. “At first I thought it would surely end well,” said K., “now sometimes I even have doubts myself. I don’t know how it will end. Do you?” “No,” said the priest, “but I fear it will end badly. They think you’re guilty. Your trial may never move beyond the lower courts. At least for the moment, your guilt is assumed proved.” “But I’m not guilty,” said K. “It’s a mistake. How can any person in general be guilty? We’re all human after all, each and every one of us.” “That’s right,” said the priest, “but that’s how guilty people always talk.” “Are you prejudiced against me too?” asked K. “I’m not prejudiced against you,” said the priest. “Thank you,” said K. “But everyone else involved with the proceedings is prejudiced against me. And they instill it in those who aren’t involved. My position is becoming increasingly difficult.” “You misunderstand the facts of the matter,” said the priest. “The judgment isn’t simply delivered at some point; the proceedings gradually merge into the judgment.” “So that’s how it is,” said K. and bowed his head. “What will you do next in your case?” asked the priest. “I intend to seek additional help,” said K., and raised his head to see how the priest judged this. “There are still certain possibilities I haven’t taken advantage of.” “You seek too much outside help,” the priest said disapprovingly, “particularly from women. Haven’t you noticed that it isn’t true help.” “Sometimes, often even, I’d have to say you’re right,” said K., “but not always. Women have great power. If I could get a few of the women I know to join forces and work for me, I could surely make it through. Particularly with this court, which consists almost entirely of skirt chasers. Show the examining magistrate a woman, even at a distance, and he’ll knock over the courtroom table and the defendant to get to her first.” The priest lowered his head to the balustrade; only now did the pulpit’s roof seem to weigh down upon him. What sort of a storm could there be outside? It was no longer a dull day, it was already deep night. No pane of stained glass within the great window emitted even a shimmer of light to interrupt the wall’s darkness. And this was the moment the sexton chose to start extinguishing the candles on the main altar one by one. “Are you angry with me?” K. asked the priest. “Perhaps you don’t know the sort of court you serve.” He received no reply. “Of course that’s just my own personal experience,” said K. Still only silence from above. “I didn’t mean to insult you,” said K. Then the priest screamed down at K.: “Can’t you see two steps in front of you?” It was a cry of rage, but at the same time it was the cry of someone who, seeing a man falling, shouts out in shock, involuntarily, without thinking.