Part 3

It was past half past eleven when someone was heard in the stairwell. K., who had been walking up and down aloud in the anteroom as if it were his own room, given over to his thoughts, fled behind his door. It was Fräulein Bürstner, who had come. Shivering, she drew a silk shawl around her narrow shoulders as she locked the door. The next moment she would have to go into her room, into which K. certainly might not intrude at midnight; he therefore had to speak to her now, but unfortunately he had forgotten to turn on the electric light in his room, so that his stepping forward out of the dark room had the appearance of an attack and must at least be very frightening. In his helplessness and since there was no time to lose, he whispered through the crack of the door: "Fräulein Bürstner." It sounded like a request, not like a call. "Is someone here," asked Fräulein Bürstner, and looked around with wide eyes. "It is I," said K. and stepped forward. "Oh, Herr K.!" said Fräulein Bürstner smiling. "Good evening" and she offered him her hand. "I wanted to speak a few words with you, will you allow me that now?" "Now?" asked Fräulein Bürstner, "must it be now? it is a little strange, isn't it?" "I have been waiting for you since 9 o'clock." "Well, I was at the theater, I didn't know anything about you." "The occasion for what I want to tell you only arose today." "I see. Well, I have no fundamental objection, except that I am dead tired. So come into my room for a few minutes. We cannot possibly talk here, we would wake everyone and that would be more unpleasant for me on our account than on account of the people. Wait here until I have lit the light in my room, and then turn off the light here." K. did so, but then waited still until Fräulein Bürstner from her room once more softly bade him come. "Sit down," she said and pointed to the ottoman; she herself remained upright at the bedpost despite the tiredness she had spoken of; she did not even remove her small hat, though adorned with an overabundance of flowers. "So what did you want? I am really curious?" She crossed her legs lightly. "You will perhaps say," began K., "that the matter was not so urgent as to be discussed now, but—" "I always disregard preliminaries," said Fräulein Bürstner. "That eases my task," said K. "Your room was this morning, in a manner through my fault, brought into a little disorder, it was done by strange people against my will and yet, as said, through my fault; for that I wanted to apologize." "My room?" asked Fräulein Bürstner, and instead of the room looked searchingly at K. "It is so," said K., and now for the first time they looked each other in the eyes, "the manner in which it happened is in itself not worth a word." "But that is the actually interesting part," said Fräulein Bürstner. "No," said K. "Well," said Fräulein Bürstner, "I do not want to intrude into secrets; if you insist that it is uninteresting, then I shall not object either. The apology you ask for I hereby gladly grant, especially since I can find no trace of disorder." She made a circuit of the room, her flat hands laid deep on her hips. At the mat with the photographs she stopped. "Look," she cried, "my photographs are really thrown about. That is ugly. So someone has been in my room without authorization." K. nodded and silently cursed the clerk Kaminer, who could never tame his dull, senseless liveliness. "It is strange," said Fräulein Bürstner, "that I am forced to forbid you something which you ought to forbid yourself, namely to enter my room in my absence." "But I explained to you, Fräulein," said K. and also went to the photographs, "that it was not I who molested your photographs; but since you do not believe me, I must therefore confess that the investigating commission brought along three bank clerks, one of whom, whom I shall next opportunity throw out of the bank, probably took the photographs in his hand." "Yes, there was an investigating commission here," added K., since the young lady looked at him with a questioning glance. "On your account?" asked the young lady. "Yes," answered K. "No," cried the young lady and laughed. "Yes," said K., "do you believe then that I am innocent?" "Well, innocent," said the young lady, "I do not want to pronounce at once a perhaps far-reaching judgment, and after all I do not know you; still, it must already be a grave criminal upon whom one sends an investigating commission straightaway. But since you are free—I conclude at least from your composure that you have not escaped from prison—you cannot have committed such a crime." "Yes," said K., "but the investigating commission could have perceived that I am innocent or at least not as guilty as was assumed." "Certainly, that may be," said Fräulein Bürstner very attentively. "You see," said K., "you have little experience in legal matters." "No, I do not," said Fräulein Bürstner, "and have often regretted it, for I want to know everything, and legal matters interest me immensely. The court has a peculiar attraction, doesn't it? But I shall surely complete my knowledge in this direction, for next month I am entering a lawyer's office as a clerk." "That is very good," said K., "you will then be able to help me a little in my trial." "That could be," said Fräulein Bürstner, "why not? I gladly apply my knowledge." "I mean it in earnest too," said K., "or at least in the half-earnestness with which you mean it. To bring in a lawyer, the matter is too petty for that, but a counselor I could well use." "Yes, but if I am to be counselor, I would have to know what it is about," said Fräulein Bürstner. "That is just the catch," said K., "I do not know that myself." "Then you have been making fun of me," said Fräulein Bürstner excessively disappointed, "it was most unnecessary to pick out this late night-time for it." And she walked away from the photographs, where they had stood together so long. "But Fräulein," said K., "I am not making fun. That you will not believe me! What I know I have already told you. Even more than I know, for there was not really any investigating commission, I call it that because I know no other name for it. Nothing was investigated at all, I was only arrested, but by a commission." Fräulein Bürstner sat on the ottoman and laughed again. "How was it then?" she asked. "Terrible" said K., but he was not thinking of that at all now, but was entirely seized by the sight of Fräulein Bürstner, who supported her face on one hand—the elbow rested on the cushion of the ottoman—while the other hand slowly stroked her hip. "That is too general," said Fräulein Bürstner. "What is too general?" asked K. Then he remembered and asked: "Shall I show you how it was?" He wanted to move yet not go away. "I am already tired," said Fräulein Bürstner. "You came so late," said K. "Now it ends with me being reproached, that is also justified, for I should not have let you in anymore. It was not necessary either, as has shown." "It was necessary, you will only see that now," said K. "May I move the night table from your bed?" "What are you thinking of?" said Fräulein Bürstner, "you certainly may not do that!" "Then I cannot show it to you," said K. excitedly, as if thereby an immeasurable harm were being done him. "Well, if you need it for the representation, then just move the table away quietly," said Fräulein Bürstner and added after a while in a weaker voice: "I am so tired that I permit more than is good." K. placed the table in the middle of the room and sat down behind it. "You must imagine the arrangement of the persons correctly, it is very interesting. I am the supervisor, there on the trunk sit two guards, by the photographs stand three young men. On the window latch hangs, what I only mention in passing, a white blouse. And now it begins. Yes, I forget myself, the most important person, that is I, stands here before the little table. The supervisor sits extremely comfortably, legs crossed, the arm hanging down over the backrest here, a lout like no other. And now it really begins. The supervisor calls as if he had to wake me, he practically shouts, I must unfortunately, if I want to make it comprehensible to you, also shout, it is incidentally only my name that he shouts thus." Fräulein Bürstner, who listened laughing, laid her index finger on her mouth to prevent K. from shouting, but it was too late, K. was too much in the role, he called slowly "Josef K.," incidentally not as loud as he had threatened, but yet so that the call, after being suddenly uttered, seemed only gradually to spread in the room.

Then there was a knocking at the door of the adjoining room several times, strong, short and regular. Fräulein Bürstner turned pale and laid her hand on her heart. K. was especially startled thereby because for a while he was quite incapable of thinking of anything other than the events of the morning and of the girl to whom he was presenting them. Scarcely had he composed himself when he sprang to Fräulein Bürstner and took her hand. "Fear nothing," he whispered, "I will set everything in order. But who can it be? Next door is only the parlor, in which no one sleeps." "Yes there is," whispered Fräulein Bürstner into K.'s ear, "since yesterday a nephew of Frau Grubach is sleeping here, a captain. There is just no other room free. I too had forgotten that. That you had to shout! I am unhappy about it." "There is no reason for that at all," said K. and kissed her forehead as she now sank back onto the cushion. "Away, away," she said and quickly raised herself again, "do go, do go, what do you want, he is listening at the door, he hears everything. How you torment me!" "I will not go before," said K., "until you are a little calmed. Come into the other corner of the room, there he cannot hear us." She let herself be led there. "You do not consider," he said, "that while it is an unpleasantness for you, it is by no means a danger. You know how Frau Grubach, who in this matter is after all decisive, especially since the captain is her nephew, practically adores me and believes unconditionally everything I say. She is otherwise also dependent on me, for she has borrowed a larger sum from me. I accept any of your suggestions for an explanation of our being together, if it is only somewhat appropriate, and pledge myself to bring Frau Grubach to believe the explanation not only before the public, but truly and sincerely. You need not spare me in any way. If you want it spread that I attacked you, then Frau Grubach will be informed accordingly and will believe it, without losing her confidence in me, so much does she cling to me." Fräulein Bürstner looked, silent and somewhat sunken together, before her at the floor. "Why should Frau Grubach not believe that I attacked you," added K. Before him he saw her hair, parted, low-puffed, tightly held, reddish hair. He believed she would turn her gaze to him, but she said in unchanged posture: "Forgive me, I was startled by the sudden knocking, not so much by the consequences that the captain's presence could have. It was so quiet after your cry and then came the knocking, therefore I was so frightened, I also sat near the door, it knocked almost beside me. I thank you for your suggestions, but I do not accept them. I can bear the responsibility for everything that happens in my room, and indeed toward everyone. I wonder that you do not notice what an insult to me lies in your suggestions, beside the good intentions of course, which I certainly acknowledge. But now go, leave me alone, I need that now even more than before. From the few minutes you asked for has now become half an hour and more." K. took her by the hand and then by the wrist: "But you are not angry with me?" he said. She shook off his hand and answered: "No, no, I am never and to no one angry." He grasped her wrist again, she now tolerated it and thus led him to the door. He was firmly resolved to go. But before the door, as if he had not expected to find a door there, he faltered; this moment Fräulein Bürstner used to free herself, open the door, slip into the anteroom and from there softly say to K.: "Now do come, please. Look"—she pointed to the captain's door, under which a gleam of light came forth—"he has lit up and is talking about us." "I am coming," said K., ran forward, seized her, kissed her on the mouth and then over the whole face, like a thirsty animal that with its tongue races over the finally found spring water. Finally he kissed her on the neck, where the throat is, and there left his lips lying long. A noise from the captain's room made him look up. "Now I will go," he said, he wanted to call Fräulein Bürstner by her Christian name, but did not know it. She nodded wearily, already half-turned away offered him her hand to kiss, as if she knew nothing of it, and went bent into her room. Shortly after, K. lay in his bed. He fell asleep very soon, before falling asleep he thought for a while yet about his behavior, he was satisfied with it, but wondered that he was not even more satisfied; on account of the captain he was seriously concerned for Fräulein Bürstner.

SECOND CHAPTER

FIRST EXAMINATION

K. had been informed by telephone that on the following Sunday a small examination in his matter would take place. One drew his attention to the fact that these examinations would now follow regularly, if perhaps not every week, yet more frequently. It lay on the one hand in the general interest to bring the trial quickly to an end, on the other hand the examinations must be thorough in every respect and yet, because of the exertion connected therewith, never last too long. Therefore one had chosen the expedient of these rapidly succeeding but short examinations. The determination of Sunday as examination day had been made in order not to disturb K. in his professional work. One assumed that he was in agreement therewith; should he wish another date, one would accommodate him as well as possible. The examinations would for example also be possible at night, but there he would probably not be fresh enough. In any case one would, as long as K. raised no objection, keep to Sunday. It was self-evident that he must appear with certainty, one need hardly draw his attention to that. The number of the house was given him in which he should present himself; it was a house in a remote suburban street in which K. had never been.

K., when he had received this message, hung up the receiver without answering; he was at once resolved to go on Sunday, it was certainly necessary, the trial was getting underway and he had to confront it, this first examination should also be the last. He still stood thoughtfully by the apparatus when he heard behind him the voice of the deputy director, who wanted to telephone but whom K. blocked from the way. "Bad news?" asked the deputy director lightly, not to learn anything but to get K. away from the apparatus. "No, no," said K., stepped aside, but did not go away. The deputy director took the receiver and said, while waiting for the telephone connection, over the mouthpiece: "A question, Herr K.? Would you do me the pleasure Sunday morning of joining a party on my sailboat. It will be a larger gathering, certainly also among them your acquaintances. Among others Public Prosecutor Hesterer. Will you come? Do come!" K. tried to pay attention to what the deputy director said. It was not unimportant for him, for this invitation of the deputy director, with whom he had never got on very well, signified an attempt at reconciliation on his part and showed how important K. had become in the bank and how valuable his friendship or at least his impartiality appeared to the second-highest official of the bank. This invitation was a humiliation of the deputy director, even if it was said only over the mouthpiece in expectation of the telephone connection. But K. had to allow a second humiliation to follow, he said: "Many thanks! But unfortunately I have no time Sunday, I already have an obligation." "Pity," said the deputy director and turned to the telephone conversation that had just been established. It was no short conversation, but K. remained beside the apparatus the whole time in his absentmindedness. Only when the deputy director rang off did he start and say, merely to excuse his useless standing a little: "I have just been telephoned to, I want to go somewhere, but they forgot to tell me at what hour." "Ask again," said the deputy director. "It is not so important," said K., although thereby his earlier already deficient excuse fell even further. The deputy director spoke on the way out about other things. K. forced himself also to answer, but thought mainly that it would be best to come on Sunday at 9 o'clock in the morning, since at that hour on working days all courts begin to work.

Sunday was gloomy weather. K. was very tired, since because of a regulars'-table celebration he had remained in the tavern until late at night, he had almost overslept. Hurriedly, without time to reflect and to assemble the various plans he had thought out during the week, he dressed and ran, without breakfasting, into the suburban district indicated to him. Strangely enough he met, although he had little time to look about, the three clerks involved in his matter, Rabensteiner, Kullich and Kaminer. The first two rode in a tramway across K.'s path, but Kaminer sat on the terrace of a coffeehouse and just as K. passed bent curiously over the railing. All probably watched him and wondered how their superior was running; it was some defiance that had kept K. from riding, he had aversion to any, even the slightest foreign help in this his matter, he also wanted to claim no one and thereby initiate even in the remotest way, finally he also had not the least inclination to humiliate himself before the examining commission through too great punctuality. Certainly he was running now, in order to arrive if possible at 9 o'clock, although he was not even summoned for a definite hour.

He had thought to recognize the house from afar by some sign, which he had not exactly pictured to himself, or by a special movement before the entrance already from a distance. But the Juliusstrasse, in which it was to be and at the beginning of which K. paused for a moment, contained on both sides almost entirely uniform houses, high gray tenements inhabited by poor people. Now on Sunday morning most windows were occupied, men in shirt-sleeves leaned there and smoked or held small children carefully and tenderly to the window edge. Other windows were filled high with bedding, over which the disheveled head of a woman appeared fleetingly. One called to another across the alley, such a call caused just above K. a great laughter. Regularly distributed in the long street were small shops lying below street level, reachable by a few steps, with various foodstuffs. There women went in and out or stood on the steps and chatted. A fruit dealer who recommended his wares up to the windows would, just as inattentive as K., with his cart almost have knocked him down. Just then a gramophone, retired from better city quarters, began to play murderously.

K. went deeper into the alley, slowly, as if he now already had time or as if the examining judge saw him from some window and therefore knew that K. had appeared. It was shortly after 9 o'clock. The house lay fairly far, it was almost unusually extensive, especially the gate passage was high and wide. It was evidently intended for freight traffic belonging to the various warehouses which now locked surrounded the large courtyard and bore inscriptions of firms, some of which K. knew from the bank business. Contrary to his habit of occupying himself more exactly with all these externals, he also remained a little at the entrance of the courtyard. Near him on a crate sat a barefoot man and read a newspaper. On a handcart two boys rocked. Before a pump stood a weak young girl in a night jacket and looked, while the water streamed into her can, at K. In a corner of the courtyard a rope was stretched between two windows, on which the washing intended for drying already hung. A man stood below and directed the work with a few calls.

K. turned to the staircase to get to the examination room, but then stood still again, for besides this staircase he saw in the courtyard three other different stairways and moreover a small passage at the end of the courtyard seemed to lead into a second courtyard. He was annoyed that the location of the room had not been more exactly indicated to him, it was after all a strange carelessness or indifference with which one treated him, he intended to state that very loudly and clearly. Finally he nevertheless climbed the first staircase and in thought played with a memory of the saying of the guard Willem, that the court is attracted by the guilt, from which actually followed that the examination room must lie on the staircase that K. happened to choose.

In going up he disturbed many children who played on the staircase and looked at him angrily when he stepped through their row. "If I should come here again next time," he said to himself, "I must either bring sugar candy to win them, or the stick to beat them." Just before the first floor he even had to wait a while until a playing ball had completed its course; two small boys with the twisted faces of grown rabble held him meanwhile by the trousers; had he wanted to shake them off, he would have had to hurt them and he feared their crying.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”