The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text

by Franz Kafka

  K. had just reached the door again when there was a knock. It was the maid, who reported that Fräulein Montag would like a few words with Herr K. and requested that he join her for that purpose in the dining room, where she was awaiting him. K. listened pensively to the maid, then turned with an almost scornful look to a startled Frau Grubach. His look seemed to say he’d long since expected Fräulein Montag’s invitation and that it fit in quite well with the general annoyance he was being forced to suffer at the hands of Frau Grubach’s boarders this Sunday morning. He sent the maid back to say that he would come at once, then went to his wardrobe to change his jacket, responding to Frau Grubach, who was complaining under her breath about the irksome young woman, merely by asking her to please clear away the breakfast dishes. “But you’ve hardly touched anything,” said Frau Grubach. “Oh, just take it away,” cried K; it seemed to him as if Fräulein Montag were somehow mixed up with it all, making it disgusting.

  As he passed through the hall, he looked over at the closed door to Fräulein Bürstner’s room. He hadn’t been invited there, however, but to the dining room instead, where he pulled the door open without knocking.

  It was a very long but narrow room with a single window. There was only enough space to place two cupboards at an angle in the corners on the wall at the door, while the remainder of the room was totally occupied by the long dining table, which began near the door and extended almost to the large window, practically blocking it off. The table was already set, and for several people, since almost all the boarders took their midday meal there on Sunday.

  As K. entered, Fräulein Montag left the window and approached him along one side of the table. They greeted each other in silence. Then Fräulein Montag, as always holding her head unusually erect, said: “I don’t know if you know me.” K. regarded her with a frown. “Of course,” he said, “you’ve been living at Frau Grubach’s for some time now.” “But I don’t think you pay much attention to the affairs of the boardinghouse,” said Fräulein Montag. “No,” said K. “Won’t you sit down,” said Fräulein Montag. In silence, they both drew out chairs from the very end of the table and sat down across from each other. But Fräulein Montag rose again immediately, for she had left her little handbag on the windowsill and went back to get it; she limped the whole length of the room. When she returned, gently swinging the little handbag, she said: “I just want to have a few words with you on behalf of my friend. She wanted to come herself, but she’s not feeling very well today. She asks you to forgive her and to hear me out instead. She couldn’t have said anything to you but what I’m going to say anyway. On the contrary, I think I can say more, since I’m relatively uninvolved. Don’t you think?” “Well, what is there to say!” replied K., who was tired of seeing Fräulein Montag stare so fixedly at his lips. By this means she already assumed control over what he had yet to say. “Apparently Fräulein Bürstner doesn’t wish to grant me the personal discussion I requested.” “That’s right,” said Fräulein Montag, “or rather, that’s not it at all, you put it much too strongly. As a general rule, discussions are neither granted nor denied. But they may be considered unnecessary, as in this case. Now after what you’ve said I can speak frankly. You asked my friend, either in writing or orally, to discuss something with you. But my friend knows what this discussion would concern, or so I at least assume, and is therefore convinced, for reasons unknown to me, that it would be to no one’s benefit for the discussion to actually take place. She mentioned it to me for the first time yesterday, by the way, and then only in passing; she said among other things that the discussion couldn’t be all that important to you, for you could only have hit upon such an idea by chance, and that, even without a specific explanation, you would soon see how pointless the whole thing was, if you hadn’t realized it already. I replied that she might be right, but nonetheless I felt that, in order to make everything perfectly clear, it might still be preferable to give you some explicit answer. I offered to take on this task myself, and after some hesitation my friend yielded. I hope I’ve acted as you would have wished too, for even the slightest uncertainty in the most minor matter is always annoying, and if, as in this case, the uncertainty can be dispelled so easily, it’s best to do so at once.” “I thank you,” K. replied at once, rose slowly, gazed at Fräulein Montag, then across the table, then out the window—the building opposite stood in sunlight—and walked toward the door. Fräulein Montag followed him for a few steps as if she didn’t trust him completely. But at the door they both had to draw back, for it opened and Captain Lanz entered. K. saw him for the first time up close. He was a tall man of about forty, with a tanned, fleshy face. He made a slight bow, which was meant for K. as well, then went up to Fräulein Montag and kissed her hand respectfully. He moved with easy assurance. His politeness toward Fräulein Montag differed strikingly from the treatment K. had accorded her. Even so, Fräulein Montag didn’t seem angry with K., for as far as he could tell, she was about to introduce him to the captain. But K. had no desire for introductions; he felt incapable of showing any friendliness toward either the captain or Fräulein Montag, for in his eyes the kiss of her hand had united them as a pair that desired, beneath the appearance of utmost inoffensiveness and unselfishness, to keep him from seeing Fräulein Bürstner. K. not only believed this but felt as well that Fräulein Montag had selected an excellent, albeit two-edged, weapon to accomplish her aim. She exaggerated the importance of the relationship between Fräulein Bürstner and K., and above all the importance of the discussion he sought, while at the same time attempting to twist things around so that K. seemed to be the one exaggerating everything. She would be proved wrong; K. had no desire to exaggerate anything; he knew that Fräulein Bürstner was an ordinary little typist who couldn’t resist him for long. In this connection, he deliberately omitted any consideration of what he had learned about Fräulein Bürstner from Frau Grubach. He was thinking about all this as he left the room with scarcely a nod. He intended to go straight to his room, but a little laugh he heard coming from Fräulein Montag in the dining room gave him an idea that would give both the captain and Fräulein Montag a surprise. He looked around and listened to see if an interruption might be expected from any of the adjoining rooms; it was quiet everywhere; the only sound was the conversation in the dining room and, from the hall leading to the kitchen, Frau Grubach’s voice. It seemed like a good opportunity; K went to Fräulein Bürstner’s door and knocked softly. Since nothing stirred, he knocked again, but there was still no response. Was she asleep? Or was she truly ill? Or just pretending she wasn’t there because she sensed that only K. would knock so softly? K. decided she was pretending and knocked more loudly, and since his knocking went unanswered, finally opened the door cautiously, not without the feeling he was doing something wrong, and pointless as well. There was no one in the room. Moreover it scarcely resembled the room as K. knew it. Two beds were now placed in a row against the wall, three armchairs near the door were piled high with clothes and undergarments, a wardrobe stood open. Fräulein Bürstner had probably departed while Fräulein Montag was talking to K. in the dining room. K. was not particularly thrown by this, he had hardly expected to find Fräulein Bürstner so easily; he had made this attempt largely to spite Fräulein Montag. That, however, made it all the more embarrassing when, as he was reclosing the door, he saw Fräulein Montag and the captain conversing in the open doorway of the dining room. They might have been standing there since the moment K. first opened the door; they avoided any appearance of having been watching K.; they were talking softly and merely followed K.’s movements with occasional glances as people do without thinking in the midst of a conversation. But their glances weighed heavily upon K., and he hurried along the wall to reach his room.

  PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

  In spite of the human insight and worldly experience K. had acquired during his long period of service in the bank, the company at his regular table had always seemed to him unusually worthy of respect, and he never d
enied in his own mind that it was a great honor to belong to such a group. It consisted almost exclusively of judges, public prosecutors, and lawyers, to which were added a few quite young clerks and legal assistants, who, however, sat at the very end of the table and were only allowed to join in the debates when questions were put directly to them. For the most part such queries were intended only for the company’s amusement, and Public Prosecutor Hasterer, who generally sat next to K., took particular pleasure in embarrassing the young men in this way. Whenever he spread out his strong, hairy hand in the middle of the table and turned toward its lower end, they all immediately pricked up their ears. And when someone there took up his question but either failed from the very start to decipher it, or stared thoughtfully into his beer, or instead of speaking simply clamped his jaw shut, or even—that was the worst—broke into an impetuous flood of words to back up some erroneous or unverified opinion, then the older men shifted about in their chairs with a smile and seemed to be really enjoying themselves for the first time. Truly serious professional conversations remained their exclusive preserve.

  K. had been introduced into this company by a lawyer, the bank’s legal representative. At one period, K. had been involved in several long conferences with this lawyer which kept them at the bank late into the evening, and so it happened that he joined the lawyer for supper at his regular table and took pleasure in the company he found there. He considered them all scholarly, respectable, and relatively powerful gentlemen, whose relaxation consisted in trying to solve complex questions far removed from everyday life, and who worked hard to do so. If, as was natural, he was unable to join in to any great degree, he could still make use of the opportunity to learn a great deal that might sooner or later be of advantage to him at the bank, while establishing the sort of personal contacts with the court that were always useful. And those present seemed to enjoy his company as well. He was soon acknowledged as an expert in business, and his views on such matters were accepted—though not without a touch of irony—as the final word. It was by no means rare for two members who disagreed on some legal question to request K.’s view of the matter, and for K.’s name to recur in their subsequent statements and rejoinders, and be brought even into the most abstract analyses, which K. had long since ceased to follow. Of course he gradually came to understand a good deal, particularly since he had a good advisor at his side in Hasterer, the public prosecutor, who also drew closer to him as a friend. K. even often accompanied him home at night. But it took a long time for him to grow used to walking arm in arm with this giant of a man, who could have hidden him quite unobtrusively in his cycling cape.

  In the course of time, however, they grew so intimate that all distinctions of education, profession, and age were gradually effaced. They acted as if they had always been together, and if one occasionally appeared superior to the other in the relationship, it was not Hasterer but K., for in the end his practical experience usually proved correct, since it was gained so directly, as almost never happens at the courtroom table.

  This friendship was of course soon generally recognized at the table, and no one really remembered who had first introduced K. into the company; by now at any rate it was Hasterer who stood behind K.; if K.’s right to sit there was ever questioned, he was fully justified in calling on Hasterer for support. K. thus achieved a particularly privileged position, for Hasterer was as respected as he was feared. The power and skill of his legal thought were no doubt admirable, but in this there were many who were at least his equal, yet no one matched the savagery with which he defended his opinions. K. had the impression that if Hasterer couldn’t convince his opponent, he at least frightened him, for many drew back when he merely raised his outstretched finger. It seemed as if the opponent had forgotten he was in the company of old acquaintances and colleagues, that the questions under discussion were after all merely theoretical, that there was no way anything could actually happen to him—instead he fell silent, and even shaking his head took courage. It was an almost painful sight when his opponent was sitting so far away, Hasterer realized, that no agreement was possible at such a distance, when he would shove back his plate of food and slowly rise to approach the man himself. Those close by would lean their heads back to observe his face. Of course these incidents were relatively rare; for the most part only legal questions excited him, and in particular those concerning trials he himself had conducted, or was conducting. When such questions were not involved he was friendly and calm, his laugh was kindly, and his passion devoted to food and drink. On occasion he even ignored the general conversation, turned toward K., placed his arm on the back of his chair, questioned him in an undertone about the bank, then spoke of his own work or even told stories about women he knew who kept him almost as busy as the court did. He was not to be seen conversing thus with any other person among the company and in fact if someone wanted to ask a favor of Hasterer—generally it was to effect a reconciliation with some colleague—they came first to K. and asked him to intercede, which he always did gladly and easily. He was in general quite polite and modest toward everyone, without exploiting his relationship with Hasterer in any way, and, more important than politeness or modesty, he was capable of accurately assessing the rank of the various gentlemen, and knew how to treat each according to his station. Of course Hasterer constantly instructed him in this regard; it was the only set of rules Hasterer himself never violated, even in the most heated debate. Thus Hasterer never addressed the young men at the end of the table, who had almost no rank at all, in any but the most general of terms, as if they were not individuals but merely an aggregate mass. But it was precisely these gentlemen who showed him the greatest respect, and when he arose around eleven o’clock to go home, there was always someone there to help him on with his heavy coat, and another who opened the door for him with a low bow, and who of course still held it open as K. left the room behind Hasterer.

  While in the beginning K. would walk part way home with Hasterer, or Hasterer with K., later such evenings generally ended with Hasterer inviting K. up to his apartment for a while. There they would sit for another hour over brandy and cigars. Hasterer enjoyed these evenings so much that he didn’t even want to forgo them when he had a woman by the name of Helene living with him for a few weeks. She was a thickset older woman with a yellowish complexion and black curls ringing her forehead. At first K. saw her only in bed; she usually lay there shamelessly, reading a serial novel and paying no attention to the gentlemen’s conversation. Only when it grew late would she stretch, yawn, and, if she could get his attention by no other means, even throw an installment of her novel at Hasterer. Then he would rise with a smile and K. would take his leave. Later of course, when Hasterer began to tire of Helene, she was a major irritant during their evenings together. Now she always awaited the men fully clothed, and usually in a dress she no doubt considered expensive and becoming, but which was in reality an old, overly ornate ball gown with several embarrassing rows of long fringe dangling from it for decoration. K. was unaware of the precise appearance of this dress, since he more or less refused to look at it, sitting for hours with eyes lowered while she swayed through the room or sat somewhere nearby; later, in desperation as her position became even less tenable, she even tried to make Hasterer jealous by showing a preference for K. It was simply desperation, and not spite, that made her lean her bare, fat round back across the table and bring her face close to K. to get him to look up. All this accomplished was to keep K. from going near Hasterer’s for a while, and when after a time he did come again, Helene had been sent away once and for all; K. accepted that as a matter of course. That evening they spent a particularly long time together, drank a pledge to brotherhood at Hasterer’s suggestion, and K. was almost a little tipsy on the way home from all the smoking and drinking.

  The very next morning in the course of a business discussion, the president of the bank mentioned he thought he’d seen K. the previous evening. If he wasn’t mistaken, K. had been w
alking arm in arm with Hasterer, the public prosecutor. The president seemed to find this so striking that—totally in keeping with his usual precision of course—he named the church beside which, near the fountain, the encounter had taken place. Had he wished to describe a mirage, he would not have expressed himself differently. K. now explained that the public prosecutor was his friend and that they had in fact passed by the church that evening. The president smiled in astonishment and asked K. to take a seat. It was one of those moments that so endeared the president to K., moments in which a certain concern for K.’s well-being and his future surfaced in this weak, ill, coughing man weighed down with work of the highest responsibility, a concern that some of course might call cold and superficial, as other officers who had similar experiences with the president tended to do, simply a good way to bind valuable officers to him for years by sacrificing two minutes of his time—be that as it may, K. succumbed to the president in such moments. Perhaps the president spoke to K. somewhat differently than he did to the others; it wasn’t that he ignored his superior position and dealt with K. on an equal footing—something he generally tended to do in everyday business affairs—but rather he seemed to disregard K.’s position altogether, speaking to him as if he were a child, or as if he were an inexperienced young man seeking his first job, who for some unknown reason had awakened the president’s good will. K. would certainly never have allowed himself to be spoken to in this way by anyone else, or even by the president himself, had the president’s solicitude not appeared to him genuine, or at least had the possibility of this solicitude as it appeared in such moments not cast such a total spell upon him. K. recognized his weakness; perhaps it was based on the fact that in this respect there was indeed still something childlike about him, since without ever having experienced the care of his own father, who had died quite young, he had left home early, and had always tended to reject rather than elicit the tenderness of his mother, whom he had last visited some two years ago, and who, half blind, still lived out in the small, unchanging village.