Part 19

Block had come at once on being summoned, but stood still before the door, seeming to consider whether he should enter. He raised his eyebrows and inclined his head, as though listening to hear whether the order to come to the advocate would be repeated. K. could have encouraged him to come in, but he had resolved to break off finally, not only with the advocate, but with everything that was in this apartment, and therefore remained motionless. Leni too was silent. Block noticed that at least no one was driving him away, and stepped in on tiptoe, his face tense, his hands cramped behind his back. He had left the door open for a possible retreat. He did not look at K. at all, but always only at the high featherbed, under which the advocate, having pushed himself quite close to the wall, was not even to be seen. Then one heard his voice, however: "Block here?" he asked. This question gave Block, who had already advanced a good distance further, literally a push in the chest and then one in the back; he staggered, remained standing deeply bowed, and said: "At your service." "What do you want?" asked the advocate, "you come at an inconvenient time." "Was I not summoned?" asked Block, more of himself than of the advocate, held his hands up protectively, and was ready to run away. "You were summoned," said the advocate, "nevertheless you come at an inconvenient time." And after a pause he added: "You always come at an inconvenient time." Since the advocate had spoken, Block no longer looked at the bed, but rather stared somewhere into a corner and only listened, as if the sidelong glance of the speaker were too dazzling for him to bear. But listening was also difficult, for the advocate spoke against the wall, and indeed softly and quickly. "Do you wish me to leave?" asked Block. "Now that you are here," said the advocate, "stay!" One might have thought the advocate had not granted Block's wish, but rather threatened him with blows, for now Block really began to tremble. "Yesterday," said the advocate, "I was with the third judge, my friend, and gradually steered the conversation onto you. Do you want to know what he said?" "Oh please," said Block. Since the advocate did not answer at once, Block repeated the request and inclined himself, as if about to kneel. Then K. snapped at him: "What are you doing?" he cried. Since Leni had wanted to prevent him with the cry, he also seized her other hand. It was not the pressure of love with which he held her; she sighed repeatedly and tried to wrench her hands free from him. But for K.'s cry Block was punished, for the advocate asked him: "Who is your advocate?" "You are," said Block. "And besides me?" asked the advocate. "No one besides you," said Block. "Then follow no one else either," said the advocate. Block fully acknowledged this; he measured K. with evil glances and shook his head violently at him. Had this behavior been translated into words, they would have been gross insults. With this man K. had wanted to speak friendlily about his own affair! "I shall not disturb you any further," said K., leaning back in the armchair. "Kneel or crawl on all fours, do as you please, I shall not concern myself with it." But Block did have a sense of honor, at least toward K., for he came at him with fists flailing, and cried as loudly as he dared in the advocate's vicinity: "You may not speak to me so, that is not permitted. Why do you insult me? And moreover here before the gentleman advocate, where both of us, you and I, are tolerated only out of charity? You are no better a person than I, for you too are accused and also have a trial. But if you are nevertheless still a gentleman, then I am an equally such gentleman, if not an even greater one. And I wish to be addressed as such, precisely by you. But if you consider yourself favored thereby, that you may sit here and listen quietly, while I, as you put it, crawl on all fours, then I remind you of the old legal maxim: for the suspect, movement is better than rest, for he who rests can always, unknowingly, be upon a scale and be weighed with his sins." K. said nothing; he only gazed with unmoving eyes at this confused man. What changes had come over him even in the last hour! Was it the trial that tossed him to and fro and did not let him recognize where friend and where enemy was? Did he not see that the advocate was deliberately humiliating him and this time intended nothing other than to boast before K. of his power and perhaps thereby to subjugate K. as well? But if Block was not capable of recognizing that, or if he feared the advocate so much that that recognition could not help him, how came it that he was yet so cunning or so bold as to deceive the advocate and conceal from him that besides him he had other advocates working for him? And how did he dare to attack K., who could at once betray his secret? But he dared still more: he went to the advocate's bed and began now there too to complain about K. "Mr. Advocate," he said, "have you heard how this man spoke to me? One can still count the hours of his trial, and already he wants to give good lessons to me, a man who has stood in trial for five years. He even insults me. Knows nothing and insults me, I who, as far as my weak powers reach, have exactly studied what decorum, duty, and court usage demand." "Concern yourself with no one," said the advocate, "and do what seems right to you." "Certainly," said Block, as if speaking courage to himself, and knelt down close by the bed under a brief sidelong glance. "I am kneeling already, my advocate," he said. But the advocate was silent. Block stroked the featherbed cautiously with one hand. In the silence that now prevailed, Leni, freeing herself from K.'s hands, said: "You are hurting me. Let me go. I am going to Block." She went over and sat on the edge of the bed. Block was very pleased at her coming; at once he begged her through lively but mute signs to intercede for him with the advocate. He evidently needed the advocate's communications very urgently, but perhaps only for the purpose of having them exploited through his other advocates. Leni probably knew exactly how one might get around the advocate; she pointed to the advocate's hand and pursed her lips as if for a kiss. At once Block executed the hand-kiss and, at Leni's prompting, repeated it twice more. But the advocate was still silent. Then Leni bent over the advocate—the beautiful build of her body became visible as she stretched so—and stroked his long white hair, bending deep toward his face. This forced an answer from him after all. "I hesitate to tell him," said the advocate, and one saw how he shook his head a little, perhaps to partake more of the pressure of Leni's hand. Block listened with lowered head, as if he were transgressing a command by this listening. "Why do you hesitate?" asked Leni. K. had the feeling as if he were hearing a rehearsed conversation that had often repeated itself, that would often repeat itself again, and that could lose its novelty for Block alone. "How has he behaved today?" asked the advocate, instead of answering. Before Leni expressed herself on this, she looked down at Block and observed for a while how he raised his hands toward her and rubbed them together beseechingly. Finally she nodded gravely, turned to the advocate, and said: "He was calm and diligent." An old merchant, a man with a long beard, implored a young girl for a favorable testimony. Even if he had ulterior motives, nothing could justify him in the eyes of a fellow human being. He almost degraded the onlooker. Such was the effect of the advocate's method, to which K. fortunately had not been exposed long enough, that the client finally forgot the whole world and hoped only on this wrong path to drag himself to the end of the trial. That was no longer a client, that was the advocate's dog. Had the advocate ordered him to crawl under the bed like into a doghouse and bark from there, he would have done it with pleasure. As if K. were commissioned to take in exactly all that was spoken here, to report it at a higher place and render an account, he listened examining and reflective. "What has he done the whole day?" asked the advocate. "I," said Leni, "locked him in the maid's room so he wouldn't disturb me at work, where he usually stays anyway. Through the gap I could now and then look in to see what he was doing. He was always kneeling on the bed, had the writings you lent him opened on the windowsill, and read in them. That made a good impression on me; for the window leads only into an air shaft and gives almost no light. That Block read nevertheless showed me how obedient he is." "I am glad to hear that," said the advocate. "But did he read with understanding?" Block moved his lips incessantly during this conversation, evidently formulating the answers he hoped for from Leni. "I cannot, of course," said Leni, "answer that with certainty. In any case I saw that he read thoroughly. He read the same page the whole day and, while reading, ran his finger along the lines. Whenever I looked in at him, he sighed, as if the reading cost him much effort. The writings you lent him are probably hard to understand." "Yes," said the advocate, "they certainly are. I do not believe either that he understands anything of them. They are only to give him an inkling of how hard the struggle is that I wage for his defense. And for whom do I wage this hard struggle? For—it is almost ludicrous to say it—for Block. He shall learn to grasp what that means too. Has he studied uninterruptedly?" "Almost uninterruptedly," answered Leni, "only once did he ask me for water to drink. Then I handed him a glass through the hatch. At 8 o'clock I let him out and gave him something to eat." Block brushed K. with a sidelong glance, as if something praiseworthy were being told of him and must make an impression on K. too. He now seemed to have good hopes, moved more freely, and shifted back and forth on his knees. All the more clearly was it seen how he stiffened under the advocate's following words. "You praise him," said the advocate. "But precisely that makes it hard for me to speak. For the judge did not express himself favorably, neither about Block himself nor about his trial." "Not favorably?" asked Leni. "How is that possible?" Block looked at her with such a tense gaze, as if he trusted her with the ability to turn even now, to his advantage, the words of the judge long since spoken. "Not favorably," said the advocate. "He was even unpleasantly affected when I began to speak of Block. Do not speak of Block, he said. He is my client, I said. You let yourself be abused, he said. I do not consider his case lost, I said. You let yourself be abused, he repeated. I do not believe it, I said. Block is diligent in the trial and always after his affair. He lives almost with me, to be always up to date. Such zeal is not always found. Certainly, he is personally unpleasant, has ugly manners, and is dirty, but in procedural respects he is irreproachable. I said irreproachable, I exaggerated intentionally. Thereupon he said: Block is merely cunning. He has accumulated much experience and understands how to delay the trial. But his ignorance is still far greater than his cunning. What would he say, if he learned that his trial has not even begun, if one told him that the bell signal for the beginning of the trial has not yet been given. Calm, Block," said the advocate, for Block had just begun to raise himself on unsteady knees and evidently wanted to ask for clarification. It was now the first time that the advocate addressed himself in more extended words directly to Block. With tired eyes he looked down, half aimlessly, half toward Block, who under this gaze slowly sank back to his knees. "This utterance of the judge has no meaning at all for you," said the advocate. "Do not be frightened at every word. If that repeats itself, I shall reveal nothing more to you. One cannot begin a sentence without your looking at someone as if your final judgment were now coming. Be ashamed here before my client! You also shake the confidence he places in me. What do you want then? You still live, you still stand under my protection. Senseless fear! You have read somewhere that the final judgment in some cases comes unawares from any mouth at any time. With many reservations that is indeed true, but equally true is it that your fear disgusts me and that I see therein a lack of the necessary confidence. What have I said then? I have reported the utterance of a judge. You know, the various opinions pile up around the procedure until it is impenetrable. This judge, for example, assumes the beginning of the procedure at a different point in time than I. A difference of opinion, nothing more. At a certain stage of the trial, by old custom, a bell signal is given. According to this judge's view, the trial begins therewith. I cannot tell you now everything that speaks against it, you would not understand it either; suffice it for you that much speaks against it." Embarrassed, Block below ran his fingers through the fur of the bedside rug; the fear concerning the judge's utterance made him at times forget his own subservience toward the advocate; he then thought only of himself and turned the judge's words this way and that. "Block," said Leni in a warning tone and pulled him a little upward by the collar. "Leave the fur now and listen to the advocate." K. did not understand how the advocate could have thought to win him over through this exhibition. Had he not already driven him away earlier, he would have achieved it through this scene.

NINTH CHAPTER

IN THE CATHEDRAL

K. received the commission to show some art monuments to an Italian business friend of the bank, who was very important to them and was staying in this city for the first time. It was a commission which at another time he would certainly have considered an honor, but which he now, since he could maintain his standing in the bank only with great effort, undertook unwillingly. Every hour taken from the office caused him sorrow; he could indeed no longer make use of office time nearly as well as before, he spent many an hour only under the most rudimentary appearance of real work, but all the greater were his worries when he was not in the office. He then believed he saw how the deputy director, who had always been on the watch, now and then came into his office, sat down at his desk, searched through his documents, received parties with whom K. had been almost friendly for years, and alienated them from him, nay perhaps even uncovered errors, from which K. now always saw himself threatened from a thousand directions during work and which he could no longer avoid. If he was therefore once commissioned, be it in ever so distinguished a manner, for a business errand or even a short journey—such commissions had in the last time quite accidentally accumulated—then the suspicion at least lay near that one wanted to remove him from the office for a while and review his work, or at least that one considered him easily dispensable in the office. Most of these commissions he could have refused without difficulty, but he did not dare, for, if his apprehension was even slightly justified, the refusal of the commission meant confession of his fear. For this reason he accepted such commissions with apparent indifference and even concealed, when he was to make a strenuous two-day business trip, a serious cold, so as not to expose himself to the danger of being prevented from the trip by reference to the then prevailing rainy autumn weather. When he returned from this trip with raging headaches, he learned that he was destined, on the next day, to accompany the Italian business friend. The temptation to refuse at least this once was very great; above all, what was intended for him here was not work immediately connected with business, but the fulfillment of this social duty toward the business friend was in itself undoubtedly important enough, only not for K., who well knew that he could maintain himself only through work success, and that, if that should not succeed, it was completely worthless if he should even unexpectedly charm this Italian; he did not want to be pushed out of the sphere of work even for a day, for the fear of not being left behind was too great, a fear which he recognized very exactly as exaggerated, but which nevertheless oppressed him. In this case, however, it was almost impossible to invent an acceptable objection; K.'s knowledge of Italian was not very great, but still sufficient; the decisive point, however, was that K. from earlier times possessed some artistic knowledge, which had become known in the bank in an extremely exaggerated manner through the fact that K. had for a time, incidentally also only for business reasons, been a member of the association for the preservation of the city's art monuments. Now the Italian, as one had learned by rumor, was an art lover, and the choice of K. as his companion was therefore self-evident.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”