Part. 02
Chapter 2
First Cross-examination
K. was informed by telephone that there would be a small hearing concerning
his case the following Sunday. He was made aware that these
cross examinations would follow one another regularly, perhaps not
every week but quite frequently. On the one hand it was in everyone's
interest to bring proceedings quickly to their conclusion, but on the other
hand every aspect of the examinations had to be carried out thoroughly
without lasting too long because of the associated stress. For these reasons,
it had been decided to hold a series of brief examinations following
on one after another. Sunday had been chosen as the day for the hearings
so that K. would not be disturbed in his professional work. It was assumed
that he would be in agreement with this, but if he wished for another
date then, as far as possible, he would be accommodated. Cross-examinations
could even be held in the night, for instance, but K. would
probably not be fresh enough at that time. Anyway, as long as K. made
no objection, the hearing would be left on Sundays. It was a matter of
course that he would have to appear without fail, there was probably no
need to point this out to him. He would be given the number of the
building where he was to present himself, which was in a street in a suburb
well away from the city centre which K. had never been to before.
Once he had received this notice, K. hung up the receiver without giving
an answer; he had decided immediately to go there that Sunday, it
was certainly necessary, proceedings had begun and he had to face up to
it, and this first examination would probably also be the last. He was still
standing in thought by the telephone when he heard the voice of the
deputy director behind him - he wanted to use the telephone but K.
stood in his way. "Bad news?" asked the deputy director casually, not in
order to find anything out but just to get K. away from the device. "No,
no, " said K., he stepped to one side but did not go away entirely. The
deputy director picked up the receiver and, as he waited for his connection,
turned away from it and said to K., "One question, Mr. K.: Would
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you like to give me the pleasure of joining me on my sailing boat on
Sunday morning? There's quite a few people coming, you're bound to
know some of them. One of them is Hasterer, the state attorney. Would
you like to come along? Do come along!" K. tried to pay attention to
what the deputy director was saying. It was of no small importance for
him, as this invitation from the deputy director, with whom he had never
got on very well, meant that he was trying to improve his relations
with him. It showed how important K. had become in the bank and how
its second most important official seemed to value his friendship, or at
least his impartiality. He was only speaking at the side of the telephone
receiver while he waited for his connection, but in giving this invitation
the deputy director was humbling himself. But K. would have to humiliate
him a second time as a result, he said, "Thank you very much, but I'm
afraid I will have no time on Sunday, I have a previous obligation."
"Pity," said the deputy director, and turned to the telephone conversation
that had just been connected. It was not a short conversation, but K., remained
standing confused by the instrument all the time it was going on.
It was only when the deputy director hung up that he was shocked into
awareness and said, in order to partially excuse his standing there for no
reason, "I've just received a telephone call, there's somewhere I need to
go, but they forgot to tell me what time." "Ask them then," said the
deputy director. "It's not that important," said K., although in that way
his earlier excuse, already weak enough, was made even weaker. As he
went, the deputy director continued to speak about other things. K.
forced himself to answer, but his thoughts were mainly about that
Sunday, how it would be best to get there for nine o'clock in the morning
as that was the time that courts always start work on weekdays.
The weather was dull on Sunday. K. was very tired, as he had stayed
out drinking until late in the night celebrating with some of the regulars,
and he had almost overslept. He dressed hurriedly, without the time to
think and assemble the various plans he had worked out during the
week. With no breakfast, he rushed to the suburb he had been told
about. Oddly enough, although he had little time to look around him, he
came across the three bank officials involved in his case, Rabensteiner,
Kullich and Kaminer. The first two were travelling in a tram that went
across K.'s route, but Kaminer sat on the terrace of a café and leant curiously
over the wall as K. came over. All of them seemed to be looking at
him, surprised at seeing their superior running; it was a kind of pride
that made K. want to go on foot, this was his affair and the idea of any
help from strangers, however slight, was repulsive to him, he also
26
wanted to avoid asking for anyone's help because that would initiate
them into the affair even if only slightly. And after all, he had no wish at
all to humiliate himself before the committee by being too punctual.
Anyway, now he was running so that he would get there by nine o'clock
if at all possible, even though he had no appointment for this time.
He had thought that he would recognise the building from a distance
by some kind of sign, without knowing exactly what the sign would look
like, or from some particular kind of activity outside the entrance. K. had
been told that the building was in Juliusstrasse, but when he stood at the
street's entrance it consisted on each side of almost nothing but monotonous,
grey constructions, tall blocks of flats occupied by poor people.
Now, on a Sunday morning, most of the windows were occupied, men in
their shirtsleeves leant out smoking, or carefully and gently held small
children on the sills. Other windows were piled up with bedding, above
which the dishevelled head of a woman would briefly appear. People
called out to each other across the street, one of the calls provoked a loud
laugh about K. himself. It was a long street, and spaced evenly along it
were small shops below street level, selling various kinds of foodstuffs,
which you reached by going down a few steps. Women went in and out
of them or stood chatting on the steps. A fruitmonger, taking his goods
up to the windows, was just as inattentive as K. and nearly knocked him
down with his cart. Just then, a gramophone, which in better parts of
town would have been seen as worn out, began to play some murderous
tune.
K. went further into the street, slowly, as if he had plenty of time now,
or as if the examining magistrate were looking at him from one of the
windows and therefore knew that K. had found his way there. It was
shortly after nine. The building was quite far down the street, it covered
so much area it was almost extraordinary, and the gateway in particular
was tall and long. It was clearly intended for delivery wagons belonging
to the various warehouses all round the yard which were now locked up
and carried the names of companies some of which K. knew from his
work at the bank. In contrast with his usual habits, he remained standing
a while at the entrance to the yard taking in all these external details.
Near him, there was a bare-footed man sitting on a crate and reading a
newspaper. There were two lads swinging on a hand cart. In front of a
pump stood a weak, young girl in a bedjacket who, as the water flowed
into her can, looked at K. There was a piece of rope stretched between
two windows in a corner of the yard, with some washing hanging on it
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to dry. A man stood below it calling out instructions to direct the work
being done.
K. went over to the stairway to get to the room where the hearing was
to take place, but then stood still again as besides these steps he could
see three other stairway entrances, and there also seemed to be a small
passageway at the end of the yard leading into a second yard. It irritated
him that he had not been given more precise directions to the room, it
meant they were either being especially neglectful with him or especially
indifferent, and he decided to make that clear to them very loudly and
very unambiguously. In the end he decided to climb up the stairs, his
thoughts playing on something that he remembered the policeman,
Willem, saying to him; that the court is attracted by the guilt, from which
it followed that the courtroom must be on the stairway that K. selected
by chance.
As he went up he disturbed a large group of children playing on the
stairs who looked at him as he stepped through their rows. "Next time I
come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with me make
them like me or a stick to hit them with." Just before he reached the first
landing he even had to wait a little while until a ball had finished its
movement, two small lads with sly faces like grown-up scoundrels held
him by his trouser-legs until it had; if he were to shake them off he
would have to hurt them, and he was afraid of what noise they would
make by shouting.
On the first floor, his search began for real. He still felt unable to ask
for the investigating committee, and so he invented a joiner called Lanz -
that name occurred to him because the captain, Mrs. Grubach's nephew,
was called Lanz - so that he could ask at every flat whether Lanz the joiner
lived there and thus obtain a chance to look into the rooms. It turned
out, though, that that was mostly possible without further ado, as almost
all the doors were left open and the children ran in and out. Most of
them were small, one-windowed rooms where they also did the cooking.
Many women held babies in one arm and worked at the stove with the
other. Half grown girls, who seemed to be dressed in just their pinafores
worked hardest running to and fro. In every room, the beds were still in
use by people who were ill, or still asleep, or people stretched out on
them in their clothes. K. knocked at the flats where the doors were closed
and asked whether Lanz the joiner lived there. It was usually a woman
who opened the door, heard the enquiry and turned to somebody in the
room who would raise himself from the bed. "The gentleman's asking if
a joiner called Lanz, lives here." "A joiner, called Lanz?" he would ask
28
from the bed." "That's right," K. would say, although it was clear that the
investigating committee was not to be found there, and so his task was at
an end. There were many who thought it must be very important for K.
to find Lanz the joiner and thought long about it, naming a joiner who
was not called Lanz or giving a name that had some vague similarity
with Lanz, or they asked neighbours or accompanied K. to a door a long
way away where they thought someone of that sort might live in the
back part of the building or where someone would be who could advise
K. better than they could themselves. K. eventually had to give up asking
if he did not want to be led all round from floor to floor in this way. He
regretted his initial plan, which had at first seemed so practical to him.
As he reached the fifth floor, he decided to give up the search, took his
leave of a friendly, young worker who wanted to lead him on still further
and went down the stairs. But then the thought of how much time
he was wasting made him cross, he went back again and knocked at the
first door on the fifth floor. The first thing he saw in the small room was
a large clock on the wall which already showed ten o'clock. "Is there a
joiner called Lanz who lives here?" he asked. "Pardon?" said a young woman
with black, shining eyes who was, at that moment, washing
children's underclothes in a bucket. She pointed her wet hand towards
the open door of the adjoining room.
K. thought he had stepped into a meeting. A medium sized, two windowed
room was filled with the most diverse crowd of people - nobody
paid any attention to the person who had just entered. Close under its
ceiling it was surrounded by a gallery which was also fully occupied and
where the people could only stand bent down with their heads and their
backs touching the ceiling. K., who found the air too stuffy, stepped out
again and said to the young woman, who had probably misunderstood
what he had said, "I asked for a joiner, someone by the name of Lanz."
"Yes," said the woman, "please go on in." K. would probably not have
followed her if the woman had not gone up to him, taken hold of the
door handle and said, "I'll have to close the door after you, no-one else
will be allowed in." "Very sensible," said K., "but it's too full already." But
then he went back in anyway. He passed through between two men who
were talking beside the door - one of them held both hands far out in
front of himself making the movements of counting out money, the other
looked him closely in the eyes - and someone took him by the hand. It
was a small, red-faced youth. "Come in, come in," he said. K. let himself
be led by him, and it turned out that there was - surprisingly in a densely
packed crowd of people moving to and fro - a narrow passage which
29
may have been the division between two factions; this idea was reinforced
by the fact that in the first few rows to the left and the right of him
there was hardly any face looking in his direction, he saw nothing but
the backs of people directing their speech and their movements only towards
members of their own side. Most of them were dressed in black,
in old, long, formal frock coats that hung down loosely around them.
These clothes were the only thing that puzzled K., as he would otherwise
have taken the whole assembly for a local political meeting.
At the other end of the hall where K. had been led there was a little
table set at an angle on a very low podium which was as overcrowded as
everywhere else, and behind the table, near the edge of the podium, sat a
small, fat, wheezing man who was talking with someone behind him.
This second man was standing with his legs crossed and his elbows on
the backrest of the chair, provoking much laughter. From time to time he
threw his arm in the air as if doing a caricature of someone. The youth
who was leading K. had some difficulty in reporting to the man. He had
already tried twice to tell him something, standing on tip-toe, but
without getting the man's attention as he sat there above him. It was only
when one of the people up on the podium drew his attention to the
youth that the man turned to him and leant down to hear what it was he
quietly said. Then he pulled out his watch and quickly looked over at K.
"You should have been here one hour and five minutes ago," he said. K.
was going to give him a reply but had no time to do so, as hardly had the
man spoken than a general muttering arose all over the right hand side
of the hall. "You should have been here one hour and five minutes ago,"
the man now repeated, raising his voice this time, and quickly looked
round the hall beneath him. The muttering also became immediately
louder and, as the man said nothing more, died away only gradually.
Now the hall was much quieter than when K. had entered. Only the
people up in the gallery had not stopped passing remarks. As far as
could be distinguished, up in the half-darkness, dust and haze, they
seemed to be less well dressed than those below. Many of them had
brought pillows that they had put between their heads and the ceiling so
that they would not hurt themselves pressed against it.
K. had decided he would do more watching than talking, so he did not
defend himself for supposedly having come late, and simply said, "Well
maybe I have arrived late, I'm here now." There followed loud applause,
once more from the right hand side of the hall. Easy people to get on
your side, thought K., and was bothered only by the quiet from the left
hand side which was directly behind him and from which there was
30
applause from only a few individuals. He wondered what he could say
to get all of them to support him together or, if that were not possible, to
at least get the support of the others for a while.
"Yes," said the man, "but I'm now no longer under any obligation to
hear your case" - there was once more a muttering, but this time it was
misleading as the man waved the people's objections aside with his hand
and continued - "I will, however, as an exception, continue with it today.
But you should never arrive late like this again. And now, step forward!"
Someone jumped down from the podium so that there would be a place
free for K., and K. stepped up onto it. He stood pressed closely against
the table, the press of the crowd behind him was so great that he had to
press back against it if he did not want to push the judge's desk down off
the podium and perhaps the judge along with it.
The judge, however, paid no attention to that but sat very comfortably
on his chair and, after saying a few words to close his discussion with the
man behind him, reached for a little note book, the only item on his desk.
It was like an old school exercise book and had become quite misshapen
from much thumbing. "Now then," said the judge, thumbing through the
book. He turned to K. with the tone of someone who knows his facts and
said, "you are a house painter?" "No," said K., "I am the chief clerk in a
large bank." This reply was followed by laughter among the right hand
faction down in the hall, it was so hearty that K. couldn't stop himself
joining in with it. The people supported themselves with their hands on
their knees and shook as if suffering a serious attack of coughing. Even
some of those in the gallery were laughing. The judge had become quite
cross but seemed to have no power over those below him in the hall, he
tried to reduce what harm had been done in the gallery and jumped up
threatening them, his eyebrows, until then hardly remarkable, pushed
themselves up and became big, black and bushy over his eyes.
The left hand side of the hall was still quiet, though, the people stood
there in rows with their faces looking towards the podium listening to
what was being said there, they observed the noise from the other side of
the hall with the same quietness and even allowed some individuals
from their own ranks, here and there, to go forward into the other faction.
The people in the left faction were not only fewer in number than
the right but probably were no more important than them, although
their behaviour was calmer and that made it seem like they were. When
K. now began to speak he was convinced he was doing it in the same
way as them.
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"Your question, My Lord, as to whether I am a house painter - in fact
even more than that, you did not ask at all but merely imposed it on me -
is symptomatic of the whole way these proceedings against me are being
carried out. Perhaps you will object that there are no proceedings against
me. You will be quite right, as there are proceedings only if I acknowledge
that there are. But, for the moment, I do acknowledge it, out of pity
for yourselves to a large extent. It's impossible not to observe all this
business without feeling pity. I don't say things are being done without
due care but I would like to make it clear that it is I who make the
acknowledgement."
K. stopped speaking and looked down into the hall. He had spoken
sharply, more sharply than he had intended, but he had been quite right.
It should have been rewarded with some applause here and there but
everything was quiet, they were all clearly waiting for what would follow,
perhaps the quietness was laying the ground for an outbreak of
activity that would bring this whole affair to an end. It was somewhat
disturbing that just then the door at the end of the hall opened, the
young washerwoman, who seemed to have finished her work, came in
and, despite all her caution, attracted the attention of some of the people
there. It was only the judge who gave K. any direct pleasure, as he
seemed to have been immediately struck by K.'s words. Until then, he
had listened to him standing, as K.'s speech had taken him by surprise
while he was directing his attention to the gallery. Now, in the pause, he
sat down very slowly, as if he did not want anyone to notice. He took out
the notebook again, probably so that he could give the impression of being
calmer.
"That won't help you, sir, " continued K., "even your little book will
only confirm what I say." K. was satisfied to hear nothing but his own
quiet words in this room full of strangers, and he even dared casually to
pick up the examining judge's notebook and, touching it only with the
tips of his fingers as if it were something revolting, lifted it in the air,
holding it just by one of the middle pages so that the others on each side
of it, closely written, blotted and yellowing, flapped down. "Those are
the official notes of the examining judge," he said, and let the notebook
fall down onto the desk. "You can read in your book as much as you like,
sir, I really don't have anything in this charge book to be afraid of, even
though I don't have access to it as I wouldn't want it in my hand, I can
only touch it with two fingers." The judge grabbed the notebook from
where it had fallen on the desk - which could only have been a sign of
his deep humiliation, or at least that is how it must have been perceived -
32
tried to tidy it up a little, and held it once more in front of himself in order
to read from it.
The people in the front row looked up at him, showing such tension
on their faces that he looked back down at them for some time. Every
one of them was an old man, some of them with white beards. Could
they perhaps be the crucial group who could turn the whole assembly
one way or the other? They had sunk into a state of motionlessness while
K. gave his oration, and it had not been possible to raise them from this
passivity even when the judge was being humiliated. "What has
happened to me," continued K., with less of the vigour he had had earlier,
he continually scanned the faces in the first row, and this gave his address
a somewhat nervous and distracted character, "what has happened
to me is not just an isolated case. If it were it would not be of much importance
as it's not of much importance to me, but it is a symptom of
proceedings which are carried out against many. It's on behalf of them
that I stand here now, not for myself alone."
Without having intended it, he had raised his voice. Somewhere in the
hall, someone raised his hands and applauded him shouting, "Bravo!
Why not then? Bravo! Again I say, Bravo!" Some of the men in the first
row groped around in their beards, none of them looked round to see
who was shouting. Not even K. thought him of any importance but it did
raise his spirits; he no longer thought it at all necessary that all of those
in the hall should applaud him, it was enough if the majority of them
began to think about the matter and if only one of them, now and then,
was persuaded.
"I'm not trying to be a successful orator," said K. after this thought,
"that's probably more than I'm capable of anyway. I'm sure the examining
judge can speak far better than I can, it is part of his job after all. All
that I want is a public discussion of a public wrong. Listen: ten days ago
I was placed under arrest, the arrest itself is something I laugh about but
that's beside the point. They came for me in the morning when I was still
in bed. Maybe the order had been given to arrest some house painter -
that seems possible after what the judge has said - someone who is as innocent
as I am, but it was me they chose. There were two police thugs
occupying the next room. They could not have taken better precautions
if I had been a dangerous robber. And these policemen were
unprincipled riff-raff, they talked at me till I was sick of it, they wanted
bribes, they wanted to trick me into giving them my clothes, they wanted
money, supposedly so that they could bring me my breakfast after they
had blatantly eaten my own breakfast in front of my eyes. And even that
33
was not enough. I was led in front of the supervisor in another room.
This was the room of a lady who I have a lot of respect for, and I was
forced to look on while the supervisor and the policemen made quite a
mess of this room because of me, although not through any fault of mine.
It was not easy to stay calm, but I managed to do so and was completely
calm when I asked the supervisor why it was that I was under arrest. If
he were here he would have to confirm what I say. I can see him now,
sitting on the chair belonging to that lady I mentioned - a picture of dullwitted
arrogance. What do you think he answered? What he told me,
gentlemen, was basically nothing at all; perhaps he really did know
nothing, he had placed me under arrest and was satisfied. In fact he had
done more than that and brought three junior employees from the bank
where I work into the lady's room; they had made themselves busy interfering
with some photographs that belonged to the lady and causing a
mess. There was, of course, another reason for bringing these employees;
they, just like my landlady and her maid, were expected to spread the
news of my arrest and damage my public reputation and in particular to
remove me from my position at the bank. Well they didn't succeed in
any of that, not in the slightest, even my landlady, who is quite a simple
person - and I will give you here her name in full respect, her name is
Mrs. Grubach - even Mrs. Grubach was understanding enough to see
that an arrest like this has no more significance than an attack carried out
on the street by some youths who are not kept under proper control. I repeat,
this whole affair has caused me nothing but unpleasantness and
temporary irritation, but could it not also have had some far worse
consequences?"
K. broke off here and looked at the judge, who said nothing. As he did
so he thought he saw the judge use a movement of his eyes to give a sign
to someone in the crowd. K. smiled and said, "And now the judge, right
next to me, is giving a secret sign to someone among you. There seems to
be someone among you who is taking directions from above. I don't
know whether the sign is meant to produce booing or applause, but I'll
resist trying to guess what its meaning is too soon. It really doesn't matter
to me, and I give his lordship the judge my full and public permission
to stop giving secret signs to his paid subordinate down there and give
his orders in words instead; let him just say "Boo now!," and then the
next time "Clap now!".
Whether it was embarrassment or impatience, the judge rocked backwards
and forwards on his seat. The man behind him, whom he had
been talking with earlier, leant forward again, either to give him a few
34
general words of encouragement or some specific piece of advice. Below
them in the hall the people talked to each other quietly but animatedly.
The two factions had earlier seemed to hold views strongly opposed to
each other but now they began to intermingle, a few individuals pointed
up at K., others pointed at the judge. The air in the room was fuggy and
extremely oppressive, those who were standing furthest away could
hardly even be seen through it. It must have been especially troublesome
for those visitors who were in the gallery, as they were forced to quietly
ask the participants in the assembly what exactly was happening, albeit
with timid glances at the judge. The replies they received were just as
quiet, and given behind the protection of a raised hand.
"I have nearly finished what I have to say," said K., and as there was
no bell available he struck the desk with his fist in a way that startled the
judge and his advisor and made them look up from each other. "Non of
this concerns me, and I am therefore able to make a calm assessment of
it, and, assuming that this so-called court is of any real importance, it
will be very much to your advantage to listen to what I have to say. If
you want to discuss what I say, please don't bother to write it down until
later on, I don't have any time to waste and I'll soon be leaving."
There was immediate silence, which showed how well K. was in control
of the crowd. There were no shouts among them as there had been at
the start, no-one even applauded, but if they weren't already persuaded
they seemed very close to it.
K was pleased at the tension among all the people there as they
listened to him, a rustling rose from the silence which was more invigorating
than the most ecstatic applause could have been. "There is no
doubt," he said quietly, "that there is some enormous organisation determining
what is said by this court. In my case this includes my arrest
and the examination taking place here today, an organisation that employs
policemen who can be bribed, oafish supervisors and judges of
whom nothing better can be said than that they are not as arrogant as
some others. This organisation even maintains a high-level judiciary
along with its train of countless servants, scribes, policemen and all the
other assistance that it needs, perhaps even executioners and torturers -
I'm not afraid of using those words. And what, gentlemen, is the purpose
of this enormous organisation? Its purpose is to arrest innocent people
and wage pointless prosecutions against them which, as in my case, lead
to no result. How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt
when everything is devoid of meaning? That is impossible, not even
the highest judge would be able to achieve that for himself. That is why
35
policemen try to steal the clothes off the back of those they arrest, that is
why supervisors break into the homes of people they do not know, that
is why innocent people are humiliated in front of crowds rather than being
given a proper trial. The policemen only talked about the warehouses
where they put the property of those they arrest, I would like to
see these warehouses where the hard won possessions of people under
arrest is left to decay, if, that is, it's not stolen by the thieving hands of
the warehouse workers."
K. was interrupted by a screeching from the far end of the hall, he
shaded his eyes to see that far, as the dull light of day made the smoke
whitish and hard to see through. It was the washerwoman whom K. had
recognised as a likely source of disturbance as soon as she had entered. It
was hard to see now whether it was her fault or not. K. could only see
that a man had pulled her into a corner by the door and was pressing
himself against her. But it was not her who was screaming, but the man,
he had opened his mouth wide and looked up at the ceiling. A small
circle had formed around the two of them, the visitors near him in the
gallery seemed delighted that the serious tone K. had introduced into the
gathering had been disturbed in this way. K.'s first thought was to run
over there, and he also thought that everyone would want to bring
things back into order there or at least to make the pair leave the room,
but the first row of people in from of him stayed were they were, no-one
moved and no-one let K. through. On the contrary, they stood in his
way, old men held out their arms in front of him and a hand from somewhere
- he did not have the time to turn round - took hold of his collar.
K., by this time, had forgotten about the pair, it seemed to him that his
freedom was being limited as if his arrest was being taken seriously, and,
without any thought for what he was doing, he jumped down from the
podium. Now he stood face to face with the crowd. Had he judged the
people properly? Had he put too much faith in the effect of his speech?
Had they been putting up a pretence all the time he had been speaking,
and now that he come to the end and to what must follow, were they
tired of pretending? What faces they were, all around him! Dark, little
eyes flickered here and there, cheeks drooped down like on drunken
men, their long beards were thin and stiff, if they took hold of them it
was more like they were making their hands into claws, not as if they
were taking hold of their own beards. But underneath those beards - and
this was the real discovery made by K. - there were badges of various
sizes and colours shining on the collars of their coats. As far as he could
see, every one of them was wearing one of these badges. All of them
36
belonged to the same group, even though they seemed to be divided to
the right and the left of him, and when he suddenly turned round he saw
the same badge on the collar of the examining judge who calmly looked
down at him with his hands in his lap. "So," called out K, throwing his
arms in the air as if this sudden realisation needed more room, "all of
you are working for this organisation, I see now that you are all the very
bunch of cheats and liars I've just been speaking about, you've all
pressed yourselves in here in order to listen in and snoop on me, you
gave the impression of having formed into factions, one of you even applauded
me to test me out, and you wanted to learn how to trap an innocent
man! Well, I hope you haven't come here for nothing, I hope you've
either had some fun from someone who expected you to defend his innocence
or else - let go of me or I'll hit you," shouted K. to a quivery old
man who had pressed himself especially close to him - "or else that
you've actually learned something. And so I wish you good luck in your
trade." He briskly took his hat from where it lay on the edge of the table
and, surrounded by a silence caused perhaps by the completeness of
their surprise, pushed his way to the exit. However, the examining judge
seems to have moved even more quickly than K., as he was waiting for
him at the doorway. "One moment," he said. K. stood where he was, but
looked at the door with his hand already on its handle rather than at the
judge. "I merely wanted to draw your attention, " said the judge, "to
something you seem not yet to be aware of: today, you have robbed
yourself of the advantages that a hearing of this sort always gives to
someone who is under arrest." K. laughed towards the door. "You bunch
of louts," he called, "you can keep all your hearings as a present from
me," then opened the door and hurried down the steps. Behind him, the
noise of the assembly rose as it became lively once more and probably
began to discuss these events as if making a scientific study of them.
37
Chapter 3
In the empty Courtroom - The Student - The Offices
Every day over the following week, K. expected another summons to arrive,
he could not believe that his rejection of any more hearings had
been taken literally, and when the expected summons really had not
come by Saturday evening he took it to mean that he was expected,
without being told, to appear at the same place at the same time. So on
Sunday, he set out once more in the same direction, going without hesitation
up the steps and through the corridors; some of the people remembered
him and greeted him from their doorways, but he no longer
needed to ask anyone the way and soon arrived at the right door. It was
opened as soon as he knocked and, paying no attention to the woman he
had seen last time who was standing at the doorway, he was about to go
straight into the adjoining room when she said to him "There's no session
today". "What do you mean; no session?" he asked, unable to believe it.
But the woman persuaded him by opening the door to the next room. It
was indeed empty, and looked even more dismal empty than it had the
previous Sunday. On the podium stood the table exactly as it had been
before with a few books laying on it. "Can I have a look at those books?"
asked K., not because he was especially curious but so that he would not
have come for nothing. "No," said the woman as she re-closed the door,
"that's not allowed. Those books belong to the examining judge." "I see,"
said K., and nodded, "those books must be law books, and that's how
this court does things, not only to try people who are innocent but even
to try them without letting them know what's going on." "I expect you're
right," said the woman, who had not understood exactly what he meant.
"I'd better go away again, then," said K.
"Should I give a message to the examining judge?" asked the woman.
"Do you know him, then?" asked K. "Of course I know him," said the woman,
"my husband is the court usher." It was only now that K. noticed
that the room, which before had held nothing but a wash-tub, had been
fitted out as a living room. The woman saw how surprised he was and
38
said, "Yes, we're allowed to live here as we like, only we have to clear the
room out when the court's in session. There's lots of disadvantages to my
husband's job." "It's not so much the room that surprises me," said K.,
looking at her crossly, "it's your being married that shocks me." "Are you
thinking about what happened last time the court was in session, when I
disturbed what you were saying?" asked the woman. "Of course," said
K., "it's in the past now and I've nearly forgotten about it, but at the time
it made me furious. And now you tell me yourself that you are a married
woman." "It wasn't any disadvantage for you to have your speech interrupted.
The way they talked about you after you'd gone was really bad."
"That could well be," said K., turning away, "but it does not excuse you."
"There's no-one I know who'd hold it against me," said the woman.
"Him, who put his arms around me, he's been chasing after me for a long
time. I might not be very attractive for most people, but I am for him. I've
got no protection from him, even my husband has had to get used to it; if
he wants to keep his job he's got to put up with it as that man's a student
and he'll almost certainly be very powerful later on. He's always after
me, he'd only just left when you arrived." "That fits in with everything
else," said K., "I'm not surprised." "Do you want to make things a bit better
here?" the woman asked slowly, watching him as if she were saying
something that could be as dangerous for K. as for herself. "That's what I
thought when I heard you speak, I really liked what you said. Mind you,
I only heard part of it, I missed the beginning of it and at the end I was
lying on the floor with the student. - it's so horrible here," she said after a
pause, and took hold of K.'s hand. "Do you believe you really will be able
to make things better?" K. smiled and twisted his hand round a little in
her soft hands. "It's really not my job to make things better here, as you
put it," he said, "and if you said that to the examining judge he would
laugh at you or punish you for it. I really would not have become involved
in this matter if I could have helped it, and I would have lost no
sleep worrying about how this court needs to be made better. But because
I'm told that I have been arrested - and I am under arrest - it forces
me to take some action, and to do so for my own sake. However, if I can
be of some service to you in the process I will, of course, be glad to do so.
And I will be glad to do so not only for the sake of charity but also because
you can be of some help to me." "How could I help you, then?"
said the woman. "You could, for example, show me the books on the
table there." "Yes, certainly," the woman cried, and pulled K. along behind
her as she rushed to them. The books were old and well worn, the
cover of one of them had nearly broken through in its middle, and it was
39
held together with a few threads. "Everything is so dirty here," said K.,
shaking his head, and before he could pick the books up the woman
wiped some of the dust off with her apron. K. took hold of the book that
lay on top and threw it open, an indecent picture appeared. A man and a
woman sat naked on a sofa, the base intent of whoever drew it was easy
to see but he had been so grossly lacking in skill that all that anyone
could really make out were the man and the woman who dominated the
picture with their bodies, sitting in overly upright postures that created a
false perspective and made it difficult for them to approach each other.
K. didn't thumb through that book any more, but just threw open the
next one at its title page, it was a novel with the title, What Grete
Suffered from her Husband, Hans. "So this is the sort of law book they
study here," said K., "this is the sort of person sitting in judgement over
me." "I can help you," said the woman, "would you like me to?" "Could
you really do that without placing yourself in danger? You did say earlier
on that your husband is wholly dependent on his superiors." "I still
want to help you," said the woman, "come over here, we've got to talk
about it. Don't say any more about what danger I'm in, I only fear danger
where I want to fear it. Come over here." She pointed to the podium and
invited him to sit down on the step with her. "You've got lovely dark
eyes," she said after they had sat down, looking up into K.'s face, "people
say I've got nice eyes too, but yours are much nicer. It was the first thing
I noticed when you first came here. That's even why I came in here, into
the assembly room, afterwards, I'd never normally do that, I'm not really
even allowed to." So that's what all this is about, thought K., she's offering
herself to me, she's as degenerate as everything else around here,
she's had enough of the court officials, which is understandable I suppose,
and so she approaches any stranger and makes compliments about
his eyes. With that, K. stood up in silence as if he had spoken his
thoughts out loud and thus explained his action to the woman. "I don't
think you can be of any assistance to me," he said, "to be of any real assistance
you would need to be in contact with high officials. But I'm sure
you only know the lower employees, and there are crowds of them
milling about here. I'm sure you're very familiar with them and could
achieve a great deal through them, I've no doubt of that, but the most
that could be done through them would have no bearing at all on the final
outcome of the trial. You, on the other hand, would lose some of your
friends as a result, and I have no wish of that. Carry on with these people
in the same way as you have been, as it does seem to me to be something
you cannot do without. I have no regrets in saying this as, in return for
40
your compliment to me, I also find you rather attractive, especially when
you look at me as sadly as you are now, although you really have no
reason to do so. You belong to the people I have to combat, and you're
very comfortable among them, you're even in love with the student, or if
you don't love him you do at least prefer him to your husband. It's easy
to see that from what you've been saying." "No!" she shouted, remained
sitting where she was and grasped K.'s hand, which he failed to pull
away fast enough. "You can't go away now, you can't go away when
you've misjudged me like that! Are you really capable of going away
now? Am I really so worthless that you won't even do me the favour of
staying a little bit longer?" "You misunderstand me," said K., sitting back
down, "if it's really important to you for me to stay here then I'll be glad
to do so, I have plenty of time, I came here thinking there would be a trial
taking place. All I meant with what I said just now was to ask you not
to do anything on my behalf in the proceedings against me. But even
that is nothing for you to worry about when you consider that there's
nothing hanging on the outcome of this trial, and that, whatever the verdict,
I will just laugh at it. And that's even presupposing it ever even
reaches any conclusion, which I very much doubt. I think it's much more
likely that the court officials will be too lazy, too forgetful, or even to
fearful ever to continue with these proceedings and that they will soon
be abandoned if they haven't been abandoned already. It's even possible
that they will pretend to be carrying on with the trial in the hope of receiving
a large bribe, although I can tell you now that that will be quite
in vain as I pay bribes to no-one. Perhaps one favour you could do me
would be to tell the examining judge, or anyone else who likes to spread
important news, that I will never be induced to pay any sort of bribe
through any stratagem of theirs - and I'm sure they have many
stratagems at their disposal. There is no prospect of that, you can tell
them that quite openly. And what's more, I expect they have already noticed
themselves, or even if they haven't, this affair is really not so important
to me as they think. Those gentlemen would only save some
work for themselves, or at least some unpleasantness for me, which,
however, I am glad to endure if I know that each piece of unpleasantness
for me is a blow against them. And I will make quite sure it is a blow
against them. Do you actually know the judge?" "Course I do," said the
woman, "he was the first one I thought of when I offered to help you. I
didn't know he's only a minor official, but if you say so it must be true.
Mind you, I still think the report he gives to his superiors must have
some influence. And he writes so many reports. You say these officials
41
are lazy, but they're certainly not all lazy, especially this examining
judge, he writes ever such a lot. Last Sunday, for instance, that session
went on till the evening. Everyone had gone, but the examining judge, he
stayed in the hall, I had to bring him a lamp in, all I had was a little kitchen
lamp but he was very satisfied with it and started to write straight
away. Meantime my husband arrived, he always has the day off on
Sundays, we got the furniture back in and got our room sorted out and
then a few of the neighbours came, we sat and talked for a bit by a
candle, in short, we forgot all about the examining judge and went to
bed. All of a sudden in the night, it must have been quite late in the
night, I wakes up, next to the bed, there's the examining judge shading
the lamp with his hand so that there's no light from it falls on my husband,
he didn't need to be as careful as that, the way my husband sleeps
the light wouldn't have woken him up anyway. I was quite shocked and
nearly screamed, but the judge was very friendly, warned me I should be
careful, he whispered to me he's been writing all this time, and now he's
brought me the lamp back, and he'll never forget how I looked when he
found me there asleep. What I mean, with all this, I just wanted to tell
you how the examining judge really does write lots of reports, especially
about you as questioning you was definitely one of the main things on
the agenda that Sunday. If he writes reports as long as that they must be
of some importance. And besides all that, you can see from what
happened that the examining judge is after me, and it's right now, when
he's first begun to notice me, that I can have a lot of influence on him.
And I've got other proof I mean a lot to him, too. Yesterday, he sent that
student to me, the one he really trusts and who he works with, he sent
him with a present for me, silk stockings. He said it was because I clear
up in the courtroom but that's only a pretence, that job's no more than
what I'm supposed to do, it's what my husband gets paid for. Nice stockings,
they are, look," - she stretched out her leg, drew her skirt up to her
knee and looked, herself, at the stocking - "they are nice stockings, but
they're too good for me, really."
She suddenly interrupted herself and lay her hand on K.'s as if she
wanted to calm him down, and whispered, "Be quiet, Berthold is watching
us." K. slowly looked up. In the doorway to the courtroom stood a
young man, he was short, his legs were not quite straight, and he continually
moved his finger round in a short, thin, red beard with which he
hoped to make himself look dignified. K. looked at him with some curiosity,
he was the first student he had ever met of the unfamiliar discipline
of jurisprudence, face to face at least, a man who would even most
42
likely attain high office one day. The student, in contrast, seemed to take
no notice of K. at all, he merely withdrew his finger from his beard long
enough to beckon to the woman and went over to the window, the woman
leant over to K. and whispered, "Don't be cross with me, please
don't, and please don't think ill of me either, I've got to go to him now, to
this horrible man, just look at his bent legs. But I'll come straight back
and then I'll go with you if you'll take me, I'll go wherever you want, you
can do whatever you like with me, I'll be happy if I can be away from
here for as long as possible, it'd be best if I could get away from here for
good." She stroked K.'s hand once more, jumped up and ran over to the
window. Before he realised it, K. grasped for her hand but failed to catch
it. He really was attracted to the woman, and even after thinking hard
about it could find no good reason why he should not give in to her allure.
It briefly crossed his mind that the woman meant to entrap him on
behalf of the court, but that was an objection he had no difficulty in fending
off. In what way could she entrap him? Was he not still free, so free
that he could crush the entire court whenever he wanted, as least where
it concerned him? Could he not have that much confidence in himself?
And her offer of help sounded sincere, and maybe it wasn't quite worthless.
And maybe there was no better revenge against the examining
judge and his cronies than to take this woman from him and have her for
himself. Maybe then, after much hard work writing dishonest reports
about K., the judge would go to the woman's bed late one night and find
it empty. And it would be empty because she belonged to K., because
this woman at the window, this lush, supple, warm body in its sombre
clothes of rough, heavy material belonged to him, totally to him and to
him alone. Once he had settled his thoughts towards the woman in this
way, he began to find the quiet conversation at the window was taking
too long, he rapped on the podium with his knuckles, and then even
with his fist. The student briefly looked away from the woman to glance
at K. over his shoulder but did allow himself to be disturbed, in fact he
even pressed himself close to the woman and put his arms around her.
She dropped her head down low as if listening to him carefully, as she
did so he kissed her right on the neck, hardly even interrupting what he
was saying. K. saw this as confirmation of the tyranny the student held
over the woman and which she had already complained about, he stood
up and walked up and down the room. Glancing sideways at the student,
he wondered what would be the quickest possible way to get rid of
him, and so it was not unwelcome to him when the student, clearly
43
disturbed by K.'s to-ing and fro-ing which K. had now developed into a
stamping up and down, said to him,
"You don't have to stay here, you know, if you're getting impatient.
You could have gone earlier, no-one would have missed you. In fact you
should have gone, you should have left as quickly as possible as soon as
I got here." This comment could have caused all possible rage to break
out between them, but K. also bore in mind that this was a prospective
court official speaking to a disfavoured defendant, and he might well
have been taking pride in speaking in this way. K. remained standing
quite close to him and said with a smile, "You're quite right, I am impatient,
but the easiest way to settle this impatience would be if you left us.
On the other hand, if you've come here to study - you are a student, I
hear - I'll be quite happy to leave the room to you and go away with the
woman. I'm sure you'll still have a lot of study to do before you're made
into a judge. It's true that I'm still not all that familiar with your branch
of jurisprudence but I take it it involves a lot more than speaking
roughly - and I see you have no shame in doing that extremely well." "He
shouldn't have been allowed to move about so freely," said the student,
as if he wanted to give the woman an explanation for K.'s insults, "that
was a mistake. I've told the examining judge so. He should at least have
been detained in his room between hearings. Sometimes it's impossible
to understand what the judge thinks he's doing."
"You're wasting your breath," said K., then he reached his hand out towards
the woman and said, "come with me." "So that's it," said the student,
"oh no, you're not going to get her," and with a strength you would
not have expected from him, he glanced tenderly at her, lifted her up on
one arm and, his back bent under the weight, ran with her to the door. In
this way he showed, unmistakeably, that he was to some extent afraid of
K., but he nonetheless dared to provoke him still further by stroking and
squeezing the woman's arm with his free hand. K. ran the few steps up
to him, but when he had reached him and was about to take hold of him
and, if necessary, throttle him, the woman said, "It's no good, it's the examining
judge who's sent for me, I daren't go with you, this little bastard…
" and here she ran her hand over the student's face, "this little bastard
won't let me." "And you don't want to be set free!" shouted K., laying
his hand on the student's shoulder, who then snapped at it with his
teeth. "No!" shouted the woman, pushing K. away with both hands, "no,
no don't do that, what d'you think you're doing!? That'd be the end of
me. Let go of him, please just let go of him. He's only carrying out the
judge's orders, he's carrying me to him." "Let him take you then, and I
44
want to see nothing more of you," said K., enraged by his disappointment
and giving the student a thump in the back so that he briefly
stumbled and then, glad that he had not fallen, immediately jumped up
all the higher with his burden. K. followed them slowly. He realised that
this was the first unambiguous setback he had suffered from these
people. It was of course nothing to worry about, he accepted the setback
only because he was looking for a fight. If he stayed at home and carried
on with his normal life he would be a thousand times superior to these
people and could get any of them out of his way just with a kick. And he
imagined the most laughable scene possible as an example of this, if this
contemptible student, this inflated child, this knock-kneed redbeard, if
he were kneeling at Elsa's bed wringing his hands and begging for forgiveness.
K. so enjoyed imagining this scene that he decided to take the
student along to Elsa with him if ever he should get the opportunity.
K. was curious to see where the woman would be taken and he hurried
over to the door, the student was not likely to carry her through the
streets on his arm. It turned out that the journey was far shorter. Directly
opposite the flat there was a narrow flight of wooden steps which probably
led up to the attic, they turned as they went so that it was not possible
to see where they ended. The student carried the woman up these
steps, and after the exertions of running with her he was soon groaning
and moving very slowly. The woman waved down at K. and by raising
and lowering her shoulders she tried to show that she was an innocent
party in this abduction, although the gesture did not show a lot of regret.
K. watched her without expression like a stranger, he wanted to show
neither that he was disappointed nor that he would easily get over his
disappointment.
The two of them had disappeared, but K. remained standing in the
doorway. He had to accept that the woman had not only cheated him
but that she had also lied to him when she said she was being taken to
the examining judge. The examining judge certainly wouldn't be sitting
and waiting in the attic. The wooden stairs would explain nothing to him
however long he stared at them. Then K. noticed a small piece of paper
next to them, went across to it and read, in a childish and unpractised
hand, "Entrance to the Court Offices". Were the court offices here, in the
attic of this tenement, then? If that was how they were accommodated it
did not attract much respect, and it was some comfort for the accused to
realise how little money this court had at its disposal if it had to locate its
offices in a place where the tenants of the building, who were themselves
among the poorest of people, would throw their unneeded junk. On the
45
other hand, it was possible that the officials had enough money but that
they squandered it on themselves rather than use it for the court's purposes.
Going by K.'s experience of them so far, that even seemed probable,
except that if the court were allowed to decay in that way it would
not just humiliate the accused but also give him more encouragement
than if the court were simply in a state of poverty. K. also now understood
that the court was ashamed to summon those it accused to the attic
of this building for the initial hearing, and why it preferred to impose
upon them in their own homes. What a position it was that K. found
himself in, compared with the judge sitting up in the attic! K., at the
bank, had a big office with an ante-room, and had an enormous window
through which he could look down at the activity in the square. It was
true, though, that he had no secondary income from bribes and fraud,
and he couldn't tell a servant to bring him a woman up to the office on
his arm. K., however, was quite willing to do without such things, in this
life at least. K. was still looking at the notice when a man came up the
stairs, looked through the open door into the living room where it was
also possible to see the courtroom, and finally asked K. whether he had
just seen a woman there. "You're the court usher, aren't you?" asked K.
"That's right," said the man, "oh, yes, you're defendant K., I recognise
you now as well. Nice to see you here." And he offered K. his hand,
which was far from what K. had expected. And when K. said nothing, he
added, "There's no court session planned for today, though." "I know
that," said K. as he looked at the usher's civilian coat which, beside its ordinary
buttons, displayed two gilded ones as the only sign of his office
and seemed to have been taken from an old army officer's coat. "I was
speaking with your wife a little while ago. She is no longer here. The student
has carried her off to the examining judge." "Listen to this," said the
usher, "they're always carrying her away from me. It's Sunday today,
and it's not part of my job to do any work today, but they send me off
with some message which isn't even necessary just to get me away from
here. What they do is they send me off not too far away so that I can still
hope to get back on time if I really hurry. So off I go running as fast as I
can, shout the message through the crack in the door of the office I've
been sent to, so out of breath they'll hardly be able to understand it, run
back here again, but the student's been even faster than I have - well he's
got less far to go, he's only got to run down the steps. If I wasn't so dependent
on them I'd have squashed the student against the wall here a
long time ago. Right here, next to the sign. I'm always dreaming of doing
that. Just here, just above the floor, that's where he's crushed onto the
46
wall, his arms stretched out, his fingers spread apart, his crooked legs
twisted round into a circle and blood squirted out all around him. It's
only ever been a dream so far, though." "Is there nothing else you do?"
asked K. with a smile. "Nothing that I know of," said the usher. "And it's
going to get even worse now, up till now he's only been carrying her off
for himself, now he's started carrying her off for the judge and all, just
like I'd always said he would." "Does your wife, then, not share some of
the responsibility?" asked K. He had to force himself as he asked this
question, as he, too, felt so jealous now. "Course she does," said the usher,
"it's more her fault than theirs. It was her who attached herself to him.
All he did, he just chases after any woman. There's five flats in this block
alone where he's been thrown out after working his way in there. And
my wife is the best looking woman in the whole building, but it's me
who's not even allowed to defend himself." "If that's how things are, then
there's nothing that can be done," said K. "Well why not?" asked the usher.
"He's a coward that student, if he wants to lay a finger on my wife all
you'd have to do is give him such a good hiding he'd never dare do it
again. But I'm not allowed to do that, and nobody else is going to do me
the favour as they're all afraid of his power. The only one who could do
it is a man like you." "What, how could I do it?" asked K. in
astonishment.
"Well you're facing a charge, aren't you," said the usher. "Yes, but
that's all the more reason for me to be afraid. Even if he has no influence
on the outcome of the trial he probably has some on the initial examination."
"Yes, exactly," said the usher, as if K.'s view had been just as correct
as his own. "Only we don't usually get any trials heard here with no
hope at all." "I am not of the same opinion", said K., "although that ought
not to prevent me from dealing with the student if the opportunity
arises." "I would be very grateful to you," said the usher of the court,
somewhat formally, not really seeming to believe that his highest wish
could be fulfilled. "Perhaps," continued K., "perhaps there are some other
officials of yours here, perhaps all of them, who would deserve the
same." "Oh yes, yes," said the usher, as if this was a matter of course.
Then he looked at K. trustingly which, despite all his friendliness, he had
not done until then, and added, "they're always rebelling." But the conversation
seemed to have become a little uncomfortable for him, as he
broke it off by saying, "now I have to report to the office. Would you like
to come with me?" "There's nothing for me to do there," said K.
"You'd be able to have a look at it. No-one will take any notice of you."
"Is it worth seeing then?" asked K. hesitatingly, although he felt very
47
keen to go with him. "Well," said the usher, "I thought you'd be interested
in it." "Alright then," said K. finally, "I'll come with you." And,
quicker than the usher himself, he ran up the steps.
At the entrance he nearly fell over, as behind the door there was another
step. "They don't show much concern for the public," he said.
"They don't show any concern at all," said the usher, "just look at the
waiting room here." It consisted of a long corridor from which roughly
made doors led out to the separate departments of the attic. There was
no direct source of light but it was not entirely dark as many of the departments,
instead of solid walls, had just wooden bars reaching up to
the ceiling to separate them from the corridor. The light made its way in
through them, and it was also possible to see individual officials through
them as they sat writing at their desks or stood up at the wooden frameworks
and watched the people on the corridor through the gaps. There
were only a few people in the corridor, probably because it was Sunday.
They were not very impressive. They sat, equally spaced, on two rows of
long wooden benches which had been placed along both sides of the corridor.
All of them were carelessly dressed although the expressions on
their faces, their bearing, the style of their beards and many details
which were hard to identify showed that they belonged to the upper
classes. There were no coat hooks for them to use, and so they had
placed their hats under the bench, each probably having followed the example
of the others. When those who were sitting nearest the door saw
K. and the usher of the court they stood up to greet them, and when the
others saw that, they also thought they had to greet them, so that as the
two of them went by all the people there stood up. None of them stood
properly upright, their backs were bowed, their knees bent, they stood
like beggars on the street. K. waited for the usher, who was following
just behind him. "They must all be very dispirited," he said. "Yes," said
the usher, "they are the accused, everyone you see here has been accused."
"Really!" said K. "They're colleagues of mine then." And he
turned to the nearest one, a tall, thin man with hair that was nearly grey.
"What is it you are waiting for here?" asked K., politely, but the man was
startled at being spoken to unexpectedly, which was all the more pitiful
to see because the man clearly had some experience of the world and
elsewhere would certainly have been able to show his superiority and
would not have easily given up the advantage he had acquired. Here,
though, he did not know what answer to give to such a simple question
and looked round at the others as if they were under some obligation to
help him, and as if no-one could expect any answer from him without
48
this help. Then the usher of the court stepped forward to him and, in order
to calm him down and raise his spirits, said, "The gentleman here's
only asking what it is you're waiting for. You can give him an answer."
The voice of the usher was probably familiar to him, and had a better effect
than K.'s. "I'm … I'm waiting… " he began, and then came to a halt.
He had clearly chosen this beginning so that he could give a precise answer
to the question, but now he didn't know how to continue. Some of
the others waiting had come closer and stood round the group, the usher
of the court said to them, "Get out the way, keep the gangway free." They
moved back slightly, but not as far as where they had been sitting before.
In the meantime, the man whom K. had first approached had pulled
himself together and even answered him with a smile.
"A month ago I made some applications for evidence to be heard in
my case, and I'm waiting for it to be settled." "You certainly seem to be
going to a lot of effort," said K. "Yes," said the man, "it is my affair after
all." "Not everyone thinks the same way as you do," said K. "I've been indicted
as well but I swear on my soul that I've neither submitted evidence
nor done anything else of the sort. Do you really think that's necessary?"
"I don't really know, exactly," said the man, once more totally unsure
of himself; he clearly thought K. was joking with him and therefore
probably thought it best to repeat his earlier answer in order to avoid
making any new mistakes. With K. looking at him impatiently, he just
said, "as far as I'm concerned, I've applied to have this evidence heard."
"Perhaps you don't believe I've been indicted?" asked K. "Oh, please, I
certainly do," said the man, stepping slightly to one side, but there was
more anxiety in his answer than belief. "You don't believe me then?"
asked K., and took hold of his arm, unconsciously prompted by the
man's humble demeanour, and as if he wanted to force him to believe
him. But he did not want to hurt the man and had only taken hold of
him very lightly. Nonetheless, the man cried out as if K. had grasped
him not with two fingers but with red hot tongs. Shouting in this ridiculous
way finally made K. tired of him, if he didn't believe he was indicted
then so much the better; maybe he even thought K. was a judge.
And before leaving, he held him a lot harder, shoved him back onto the
bench and walked on. "These defendants are so sensitive, most of them,"
said the usher of the court. Almost all of those who had been waiting
had now assembled around the man who, by now, had stopped shouted
and they seemed to be asking him lots of precise questions about the incident.
K. was approached by a security guard, identifiable mainly by his
sword, of which the scabbard seemed to be made of aluminium. This
49
greatly surprised K., and he reached out for it with his hand. The guard
had come because of the shouting and asked what had been happening.
The usher of the court said a few words to try and calm him down but
the guard explained that he had to look into it himself, saluted, and hurried
on, walking with very short steps, probably because of gout.
K. didn't concern himself long with the guard or these people, especially
as he saw a turning off the corridor, about half way along it on the
right hand side, where there was no door to stop him going that way. He
asked the usher whether that was the right way to go, the usher nodded,
and that is the way that K. went. The usher remained always one or two
steps behind K, which he found irritating as in a place like this it could
give the impression that he was being driven along by someone who had
arrested him, so he frequently waited for the usher to catch up, but the
usher always remained behind him. In order to put an end to his discomfort,
K. finally said, "Now that I've seen what it looks like here, I'd like to
go." "You haven't seen everything yet," said the usher ingenuously.
"I don't want to see everything," said K., who was also feeling very
tired, "I want to go, what is the way to the exit?" "You haven't got lost,
have you?" asked the usher in amazement, "you go down this way to the
corner, then right down the corridor straight ahead as far as the door."
"Come with me," said K., "show me the way, I'll miss it, there are so
many different ways here." "It's the only way there is," said the usher,
who had now started to sound quite reproachful, "I can't go back with
you again, I've got to hand in my report, and I've already lost a lot of
time because of you as it is." "Come with me!" K. repeated, now somewhat
sharper as if he had finally caught the usher out in a lie. "Don't
shout like that," whispered the usher, "there's offices all round us here. If
you don't want to go back by yourself come on a bit further with me or
else wait here till I've sorted out my report, then I'll be glad to go back
with you again." "No, no," said K., "I will not wait and you must come
with me now." K. had still not looked round at anything at all in the
room where he found himself, and it was only when one of the many
wooden doors all around him opened that he noticed it. A young woman,
probably summoned by the loudness of K.'s voice, entered and
asked, "What is it the gentleman wants?" In the darkness behind her
there was also a man approaching. K. looked at the usher. He had, after
all, said that no-one would take any notice of K., and now there were
two people coming, it only needed a few and everyone in the office
would become aware of him and asking for explanations as to why he
was there. The only understandable and acceptable thing to say was that
50
he was accused of something and wanted to know the date of his next
hearing, but this was an explanation he did not want to give, especially
as it was not true - he had only come out of curiosity. Or else, an explanation
even less usable, he could say that he wanted to ascertain that the
court was as revolting on the inside as it was on the outside. And it did
seem that he had been quite right in this supposition, he had no wish to
intrude any deeper, he was disturbed enough by what he had seen
already, he was not in the right frame of mind just then to face a high official
such as might appear from behind any door, and he wanted to go,
either with the usher of the court or, if needs be, alone.
But he must have seemed very odd standing there in silence, and the
young woman and the usher were indeed looking at him as if they
thought he would go through some major metamorphosis any second
which they didn't want to miss seeing. And in the doorway stood the
man whom K. had noticed in the background earlier, he held firmly on
to the beam above the low door swinging a little on the tips of his feet as
if becoming impatient as he watched. But the young woman was the first
to recognise that K.'s behaviour was caused by his feeling slightly unwell,
she brought a chair and asked,
"Would you not like to sit down?" K. sat down immediately and, in order
to keep his place better, put his elbows on the armrests. "You're a
little bit dizzy, aren't you?" she asked him. Her face was now close in
front of him, it bore the severe expression that many young women have
just when they're in the bloom of their youth. "It's nothing for you to
worry about," she said, "that's nothing unusual here, almost everyone
gets an attack like that the first time they come here. This is your first
time is it? Yes, it's nothing unusual then. The sun burns down on the roof
and the hot wood makes the air so thick and heavy. It makes this place
rather unsuitable for offices, whatever other advantages it might offer.
But the air is almost impossible to breathe on days when there's a lot of
business, and that's almost every day. And when you think that there's a
lot of washing put out to dry here as well - and we can't stop the tenants
doing that - it's not surprising you started to feel unwell. But you get
used to the air alright in the end. When you're here for the second or
third time you'll hardly notice how oppressive the air is. Are you feeling
any better now?" K. made no answer, he felt too embarrassed at being
put at the mercy of these people by his sudden weakness, and learning
the reason for feeling ill made him feel not better but a little worse. The
girl noticed it straight away, and to make the air fresher for K., she took a
window pole that was leaning against the wall and pushed open a small
51
hatch directly above K.'s head that led to the outside. But so much soot
fell in that the girl had to immediately close the hatch again and clean the
soot off K.'s hands with her handkerchief, as K. was too tired to do that
for himself. He would have liked just to sit quietly where he was until he
had enough strength to leave, and the less fuss people made about him
the sooner that would be. But then the girl said, "You can't stay here,
we're in people's way here … " K. looked at her as if to ask whose way
they were impeding. "If you like, I can take you to the sick room," and
turning to the man in the doorway said, "please help me". The man immediately
came over to them, but K. did not want to go to the sick room,
that was just what he wanted to avoid, being led further from place to
place, the further he went the more difficult it must become. So he said,
"I am able to walk now," and stood up, shaking after becoming used to
sitting so comfortably. But then he was unable to stay upright. "I can't
manage it," he said shaking his head, and sat down again with a sigh. He
remembered the usher who, despite everything, would have been able to
lead him out of there but who seemed to have gone long before. K.
looked out between the man and the young woman who were standing
in front of him but was unable to find the usher. "I think," said the man,
who was elegantly dressed and whose appearance was made especially
impressive with a grey waistcoat that had two long, sharply tailored
points, "the gentleman is feeling unwell because of the atmosphere here,
so the best thing, and what he would most prefer, would be not to take
him to the sick room but get him out of the offices altogether." "That's
right," exclaimed K., with such joy that he nearly interrupted what the
man was saying, "I'm sure that'll make me feel better straight away, I'm
really not that weak, all I need is a little support under my arms, I won't
cause you much trouble, it's not such a long way anyway, lead me to the
door and then I'll sit on the stairs for a while and soon recover, as I don't
suffer from attacks like this at all, I'm surprised at it myself. I also work
in an office and I'm quite used to office air, but here it seems to be too
strong, you've said so yourselves. So please, be so kind as to help me on
my way a little, I'm feeling dizzy, you see, and it'll make me ill if I stand
up by myself." And with that he raised his shoulders to make it easier for
the two of them to take him by the arms.
The man, however, didn't follow this suggestion but just stood there
with his hands in his trouser pockets and laughed out loud. "There, you
see," he said to the girl, "I was quite right. The gentleman is only unwell
here, and not in general." The young woman smiled too, but lightly
tapped the man's arm with the tips of her fingers as if he had allowed
52
himself too much fun with K. "So what do you think, then?" said the
man, still laughing, "I really do want to lead the gentleman out of here."
"That's alright, then," said the girl, briefly inclining her charming head.
"Don't worry too much about him laughing," said the girl to K., who had
become unhappy once more and stared quietly in front of himself as if
needing no further explanation. "This gentleman - may I introduce you?"
- (the man gave his permission with a wave of the hand) - "so, this
gentleman's job is to give out information. He gives all the information
they need to people who are waiting, as our court and its offices are not
very well known among the public he gets asked for quite a lot. He has
an answer for every question, you can try him out if you feel like it. But
that's not his only distinction, his other distinction is his elegance of
dress. We, that's to say all of us who work in the offices here, we decided
that the information-giver would have to be elegantly dressed as he continually
has to deal with the litigants and he's the first one they meet, so
he needs to give a dignified first impression. The rest of us I'm afraid, as
you can see just by looking at me, dress very badly and old-fashioned;
and there's not much point in spending much on clothes anyway, as we
hardly ever leave the offices, we even sleep here. But, as I said, we decided
that the information-giver would have to have nice clothes. As the
management here is rather peculiar in this respect, and they would get
them for us, we had a collection - some of the litigants contributed too -
and bought him these lovely clothes and some others besides. So
everything would be ready for him to give a good impression, except
that he spoils it again by laughing and frightening people." "That's how it
is," said the man, mocking her, "but I don't understand why it is that
you're explaining all our intimate facts to the gentleman, or rather why it
is that you're pressing them on him, as I'm sure he's not all interested.
Just look at him sitting there, it's clear he's occupied with his own affairs."
K. just did not feel like contradicting him.. The girl's intention may
have been good, perhaps she was under instructions to distract him or to
give him the chance to collect himself, but the attempt had not worked. "I
had to explain to him why you were laughing," said the girl. "I suppose
it was insulting." "I think he would forgive even worse insults if I finally
took him outside." K. said nothing, did not even look up, he tolerated the
two of them negotiating over him like an object, that was even what
suited him best. But suddenly he felt the information-giver's hand on one
arm and the young woman's hand on the other. "Up you get then, weakling,"
said the information-giver. "Thank you both very much," said K.,
53
pleasantly surprised, as he slowly rose and personally guided these unfamiliar
hands to the places where he most needed support.
As they approached the corridor, the girl said quietly into K.'s ear, "I
must seem to think it's very important to show the information-giver in a
good light, but you shouldn't doubt what I say, I just want to say the
truth. He isn't hard-hearted. It's not really his job to help litigants outside
if they're unwell but he's doing it anyway, as you can see. I don't suppose
any of us is hard-hearted, perhaps we'd all like to be helpful, but
working for the court offices it's easy for us to give the impression we are
hard-hearted and don't want to help anyone. It makes me quite sad."
"Would you not like to sit down here a while?" asked the informationgiver,
there were already in the corridor and just in front of the defendant
whom K. had spoken to earlier. K. felt almost ashamed to be seen by
him, earlier he had stood so upright in front of him and now he had to be
supported by two others, his hat was held up by the information-giver
balanced on outstretched fingers, his hair was dishevelled and hung
down onto the sweat on his forehead. But the defendant seemed to notice
nothing of what was going on and just stood there humbly, as if
wanting to apologise to the information-giver for being there. The
information-giver looked past him. "I know," he said, "that my case can't
be settled today, not yet, but I've come in anyway, I thought, I thought I
could wait here anyway, it's Sunday today, I've got plenty of time, and
I'm not disturbing anyone here." "There's no need to be so apologetic,"
said the information-giver, "it's very commendable for you to be so attentive.
You are taking up space here when you don't need to but as long
as you don't get in my way I will do nothing to stop you following the
progress of your case as closely as you like. When one has seen so many
people who shamefully neglect their cases one learns to show patience
with people like you. Do sit down." "He's very good with the litigants,"
whispered the girl. K. nodded, but started to move off again when the
information-giver repeated, "Would you not like to sit down here a
while?" "No, "said K., "I don't want to rest." He had said that with as decisively
as he could, but in fact it would have done him a lot of good to
sit down. It was as if he were suffering sea-sickness. He felt as if he were
on a ship in a rough sea, as if the water were hitting against the wooden
walls, a thundering from the depths of the corridor as if the torrent were
crashing over it, as if the corridor were swaying and the waiting litigants
on each side of it rising and sinking. It made the calmness of the girl and
the man leading him all the more incomprehensible. He was at their
mercy, if they let go of him he would fall like a board. Their little eyes
54
glanced here and there, K. could feel the evenness of their steps but
could not do the same, as from step to step he was virtually being carried.
He finally noticed they were speaking to him but he did not understand
them, all he heard was a noise that filled all the space and through
which there seemed to be an unchanging higher note sounding, like a
siren. "Louder," he whispered with his head sunk low, ashamed at having
to ask them to speak louder when he knew they had spoken loudly
enough, even if it had been, for him, incomprehensible. At last, a draught
of cool air blew in his face as if a gap had been torn out in the wall in
front of him, and next to him he heard someone say, "First he says he
wants to go, and then you can tell him a hundred times that this is the
way out and he doesn't move." K. became aware that he was standing in
front of the way out, and that the young woman had opened the door. It
seemed to him that all his strength returned to him at once, and to get a
foretaste of freedom he stepped straight on to one of the stairs and took
his leave there of his companions, who bowed to him. "Thank you very
much," he repeated, shook their hands once more and did not let go until
he thought he saw that they found it hard to bear the comparatively
fresh air from the stairway after being so long used to the air in the offices.
They were hardly able to reply, and the young woman might even
have fallen over if K. had not shut the door extremely fast. K. then stood
still for a while, combed his hair with the help of a pocket mirror, picked
up his hat from the next stair - the information-giver must have thrown
it down there - and then he ran down the steps so fresh and in such long
leaps that the contrast with his previous state nearly frightened him. His
normally sturdy state of health had never prepared him for surprises
such as this. Did his body want to revolt and cause him a new trial as he
was bearing the old one with such little effort? He did not quite reject the
idea that he should see a doctor the next time he had the chance, but
whatever he did - and this was something on which he could advise
himself - he wanted to spend all Sunday mornings in future better than
he had spent this one.
55