Part 18

“I have been waiting for you for a very long time,” said the lawyer from the bed, laid down a document he had been reading by the light of a candle on the night table, and put on a pair of spectacles with which he looked sharply at K. Instead of apologizing, K. said: “I shall be leaving again soon.” The lawyer, because K.’s remark was no apology, had left it unheeded and said: “I shall not admit you at such a late hour in future.” “That suits my wishes,” said K. The lawyer looked at him questioningly. “Sit down,” he said. “Since you wish it,” said K., drew an armchair up to the night table and sat down. “It seemed to me that you had locked the door,” said the lawyer. “Yes,” said K., “it was because of Leni.” He had no intention of sparing anyone. But the lawyer asked: “Was she importunate again?” “Importunate?” asked K. “Yes,” said the lawyer, laughing as he spoke, fell into a fit of coughing, and after it had passed began to laugh again. “Surely you have noticed her importunity,” he asked, and patted K. on the hand which the latter had rested absentmindedly on the night table and which he now quickly withdrew. “You do not attach much importance to it,” said the lawyer, when K. remained silent, “so much the better. Otherwise I might perhaps have had to apologize to you. It is a peculiarity of Leni’s, which I long ago forgave her and of which I would not speak, if you had not just now locked the door. This peculiarity—to you, of course, I should least of all have to explain it, but you look at me so dismayed and therefore I will do it—this peculiarity consists in Leni finding most of the accused men handsome. She attaches herself to all of them, loves all of them, and seems, moreover, to be loved by all; to entertain me, she then sometimes tells me about it, when I allow it. I am not as astonished at the whole thing as you seem to be. If one has the right eye for it, one really often finds the accused handsome. That, however, is a strange, in a certain sense scientific, phenomenon. As a consequence of the accusation, of course, no clear, precisely determinable change of appearance takes place. It is not, after all, as in other legal matters; most remain in their ordinary way of life and, if they have a good lawyer who takes care of them, are not much hindered by the proceedings. Nevertheless, those who have experience in this are able to recognize the accused, man for man, out of the greatest crowd. How? you will ask. My answer will not satisfy you. The accused are simply the handsomest. It cannot be the guilt that makes them handsome, for—at least I as a lawyer must speak thus—not all are guilty; it cannot be the right punishment that already makes them handsome, for not all are punished; it can therefore only lie in the proceedings instituted against them, which somehow cling to them. To be sure, among the handsome there are also especially handsome ones. But all are handsome, even Block, that wretched worm.”

When the lawyer had finished, K. was completely composed; he had even, at the last words, nodded conspicuously and thereby given himself the confirmation of his old opinion, according to which the lawyer always sought, as now again, to distract him by general communications that did not pertain to the matter and to divert him from the main question of what actual work he had done for K.’s case. The lawyer noticed well that this time K. offered more resistance than usual, for he now fell silent to give K. the possibility of speaking himself, and then asked, since K. remained mute: “Did you come to me today with a definite intention?” “Yes,” said K., and shaded the candle a little with his hand in order to see the lawyer better, “I wanted to tell you that as of today I withdraw my representation from you.” “Do I understand you rightly,” asked the lawyer, raising himself halfway in the bed and supporting himself with one hand on the pillows. “I assume so,” said K., who sat upright as if on the watch. “Well, we can also discuss this plan,” said the lawyer after a while. “It is no longer a plan,” said K. “Perhaps,” said the lawyer, using the word “we” as if he had no intention of releasing K. and as if he wished, even if he might no longer be his representative, at least to remain his adviser. “It is not precipitate,” said K., slowly standing up and stepping behind his chair, “it is well considered and perhaps even too late. The decision is final.” “Then allow me only a few words,” said the lawyer, pushed the featherbed away and sat on the edge of the bed. His bare white-haired legs trembled with cold. He asked K. to hand him a blanket from the couch. K. fetched the blanket and said: “You are exposing yourself quite unnecessarily to a chill.” “The occasion is important enough,” said the lawyer, while he wrapped his upper body in the featherbed and then wound the blanket around his legs. “Your uncle is my friend and you too have become dear to me in the course of time. I admit that openly. I need not be ashamed of it.” These sentimental speeches of the old man were very unwelcome to K., for they compelled him to a more detailed explanation which he would gladly have avoided, and they also confused him, as he openly admitted, although they could never reverse his decision. “I thank you for your kind disposition,” he said, “I also acknowledge that you have taken up my case as much as was possible for you and as seemed advantageous to me. I, however, have in recent times gained the conviction that that is not enough. I shall of course never attempt to convince you, a man so much older and more experienced, of my view; if I have sometimes attempted it involuntarily, forgive me, but the matter is, as you yourself expressed it, important enough, and in my conviction it is necessary to intervene in the proceedings much more forcefully than has happened so far.” “I understand you,” said the lawyer, “you are impatient.” “I am not impatient,” said K., somewhat irritated and no longer taking such care with his words. “You must have noticed at my first visit, when I came with my uncle to you, that I did not care much about the proceedings; if I was not reminded of them in a certain sense by force, I forgot them completely. But my uncle insisted that I hand over my representation to you; I did it to please him. And now one should have expected that the proceedings would be easier for me than before, for one hands over the representation to the lawyer in order to roll off a little of the burden of the proceedings from oneself. But the opposite happened. Never before had I such great worries about the proceedings as since the time when you have represented me. When I was alone, I undertook nothing in my matter, but I scarcely felt it; now, on the contrary, I had a representative, everything was arranged so that something would happen, unceasingly and ever more tensely I expected your intervention, but it failed to come. To be sure, I received various communications from you about the court, which perhaps I could have received from no one else. But that cannot suffice me, when now the proceedings are creeping up on me, as it were secretly, ever closer to my body.” K. had pushed the armchair away from him and stood, his hands in the pockets of his coat, upright. “From a certain point of practice onward,” said the lawyer quietly and calmly, “nothing essentially new occurs any more. How many parties have stood before me in similar stages of their proceedings, similar to you, and have spoken similarly.” “Then,” said K., “all these similar parties were just as right as I am. That does not refute me at all.” “I did not wish to refute you with that,” said the lawyer, “but I wanted to add that I would have expected more power of judgment from you than from others, especially since I have given you more insight into the court system and into my activity than I otherwise do toward parties. And now I must see that, despite everything, you do not have sufficient trust in me. You do not make it easy for me.” How the lawyer humiliated himself before K.! Without any regard for professional honor, which is certainly most sensitive precisely on this point. And why did he do that? He was, to all appearances, a much-employed lawyer and moreover a rich man; in itself it could not matter much to him either about the loss of earnings or the loss of a client. Besides, he was ailing and should himself have been mindful of having work taken off him. And nevertheless he held K. so fast! Why? Was it personal concern for the uncle, or did he really regard K.’s proceedings as so extraordinary and hope to distinguish himself therein either for K. or—this possibility was never to be excluded—for the friends at the court? Nothing could be discerned in himself, however searchingly K. looked at him. One could almost suppose he was waiting, with deliberately closed expression, for the effect of his words. But he evidently interpreted K.’s silence too favorably for himself, if he now continued: “You will have noticed that although I have a large practice, I employ no assistants. That was different formerly; there was a time when some young jurists worked for me; today I work alone. This is partly connected with the change in my practice, in that I increasingly restricted myself to legal matters of the kind of yours, partly with the ever deeper insight I gained into these legal matters. I found that I might not leave this work to anyone, if I did not wish to sin against my clients and against the task I had undertaken. But the decision to do all the work myself had the natural consequences: I had to refuse almost all requests for representation and could only yield to those who were especially close to me—well, there are enough creatures, and even quite nearby, who throw themselves on every scrap I throw away. And besides I became ill from overwork. But nevertheless I do not regret my decision; it is possible that I should have refused more representations than I did, but that I gave myself wholly to the undertaken proceedings has proved to be absolutely necessary and been rewarded by successes. I once found very beautifully expressed in a writing the difference that exists between representation in ordinary legal matters and representation in these legal matters. It said there: the one lawyer leads his client on a thread of silk to the verdict, the other, however, lifts his client onto his shoulders and carries him, without setting him down, to the verdict and beyond. So it is. But it was not quite right when I said that I never regret this great work. When it is, as in your case, so completely misunderstood, then, well then I almost regret it.” K. was made more impatient than convinced by these speeches. He believed he could somehow hear from the tone of the lawyer what awaited him if he gave in; again the postponements would begin, the references to the advancing petition, to the improved mood of the court officials, but also to the great difficulties that opposed the work—in short, all the to-satiety known would be brought out, to deceive K. again with indefinite hopes and torment him with indefinite threats. That had to be prevented definitively; he therefore said: “What do you intend to undertake in my matter, if you keep the representation?” The lawyer even submitted to this insulting question and answered: “To continue with what I have already undertaken for you.” “I knew it,” said K., “now every further word is superfluous.” “I shall make one more attempt,” said the lawyer, as if what excited K. happened not to K. but to him. “I have namely the suspicion that you are led not only to the false assessment of my legal counsel, but also to your otherwise conduct, by the fact that one, although you are an accused person, treats you too well or, more correctly expressed, negligently, apparently negligently. This latter too has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than free. But I should like to show you how other accused are treated; perhaps you will succeed in drawing a lesson from it. I shall now call Block in; unlock the door and sit down here beside the night table.” “Gladly,” said K. and did what the lawyer demanded; to learn he was always ready. But to secure himself for every eventuality, he asked further: “But you have taken note that I withdraw my representation from you?” “Yes,” said the lawyer, “but you can reverse it today still.” He lay back down in bed, pulled the featherbed up to his knee and turned toward the wall. Then he rang.

Almost simultaneously with the bell signal Leni appeared; she sought by quick glances to find out what had happened; that K. sat quietly by the bed of the lawyer seemed reassuring to her. She nodded smilingly to K., who looked at her fixedly. “Fetch Block,” said the lawyer. Instead of fetching him, however, she only stepped to the door, called: “Block! To the lawyer!” and then slipped, probably because the lawyer remained turned to the wall and cared for nothing, behind K.’s armchair. From then on she disturbed him, bending over the back of the armchair or running her hands, to be sure very gently and cautiously, through his hair and stroking his cheeks. Finally K. sought to prevent her by seizing her by a hand, which after some resistance she left to him.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”