Part 6

K. was still standing before the notice board when a man came up the stairs, looked through the open door into the living room, from which one could also see into the council chamber, and finally asked K. whether he had not seen a woman here shortly before. "You are the court usher, aren't you?" asked K. "Yes," said the man, "oh, I see, you are the accused K., now I recognize you too, welcome." And he offered K. his hand, which the latter had by no means expected. "There is no session announced today," said the court usher then, when K. remained silent. "I know," said K. and examined the usher's civilian coat, which, as the only official insignia besides some ordinary buttons, also displayed two gilded buttons that seemed to have been cut off from an old officer's coat. "I spoke with your wife a little while ago. She is no longer here. The student carried her off to the examining magistrate." "You see," said the court usher, "they always take her away from me. Today is Sunday and I am not obliged to do any work, but just to get me away from here they send me off with a useless message. And what is more, they don't send me far, so that I have the hope that if I hurry very much I may perhaps get back in time. So I run as fast as I can, shout my message through the crack of the door to the office I was sent to so breathlessly that they will hardly have understood it, run back again, but the student has hurried even more than I, though he did have a shorter way, he only had to run down the attic stairs. If I were not so dependent, I would have crushed the student against the wall here long ago. Here next to the notice board. That is what I always dream of. Here a little above the floor he is pressed flat, arms outstretched, fingers spread, crooked legs twisted into a circle and blood spattered all around. But so far it has only been a dream." "Is there no other help?" asked K. with a smile. "I know of none," said the court usher. "And now it is getting worse, until now he has only carried her to himself, now he carries her, which I have long expected, to the examining magistrate as well." "Does your wife bear no blame in this?" asked K.; he had to restrain himself in asking this, so strongly did he now feel the jealousy too. "But certainly," said the court usher, "she bears even the greatest blame. She has clung to him. As for him, he runs after all the women. In this house alone he has already been thrown out of five apartments into which he had sneaked. My wife is indeed the most beautiful in the whole house, and precisely I may not defend myself." "If that is how it stands, then there is indeed no help," said K. "Why not?" asked the court usher. "One would only have to thrash the student, who is a coward, once, when he wants to touch my wife, so that he never dares it again. But I may not do it, and others do not do me the favor, for all fear his power. Only a man like you could do it." "Why me?" asked K. in astonishment. "You are accused," said the court usher. "Yes," said K., "but all the more should I fear that he, if perhaps not influence on the outcome of the trial, then probably on the preliminary investigation, has." "Yes, certainly," said the court usher, as if K.'s opinion were exactly as correct as his own. "But as a rule no hopeless trials are conducted with us." "I do not share your opinion," said K., "but that shall not prevent me from taking the student in hand on occasion." "I would be very grateful to you," said the court usher somewhat formally; he hardly seemed to believe, after all, in the fulfillability of his highest wish. "Perhaps," K. continued, "also some of your other officials and perhaps even all of them would deserve the same." "Yes, yes," said the court usher, as if it were a matter of course. Then he looked at K. with a confidential glance such as he had not yet given despite all friendliness, and added: "One always rebels, you see." But the conversation seemed to have become a little uncomfortable for him, for he broke it off by saying: "Now I must report to the registry. Will you come along?" "I have nothing to do there," said K. "You could look at the registries. No one will concern themselves with you." "Are they worth seeing?" asked K. hesitantly, but had a great desire to go along. "Well," said the court usher, "I thought it would interest you." "Very well," said K. finally, "I will go with you." And he walked up the stairs faster than the court usher.

On entering he almost fell, for behind the door there was another step. "Not much consideration is given to the public," he said. "No consideration is given at all," said the court usher, "just look at the waiting room here." It was a long corridor, from which roughly hewn doors led to the individual sections of the attic. Although there was no direct light, it was not completely dark, for some sections had, facing the corridor instead of solid board walls, mere wooden gratings that reached to the ceiling, through which some light penetrated and through which one could also see individual officials, how they sat writing at tables or stood right at the grating and observed the people in the corridor through the gaps. There were, probably because it was Sunday, only few people in the corridor. They made a very modest impression. At almost regular intervals from one another they sat on the two rows of long wooden benches that were placed on both sides of the corridor. All were negligently dressed, although most, judging by facial expression, posture, beard style and many hardly ascertainable small details, belonged to the higher classes. Since there were no clothes hooks, they had, probably following one another's example, placed their hats under the bench. When those sitting nearest the door caught sight of K. and the court usher, they rose to greet them; as those following saw this, they thought they too must greet, so that all rose when the two passed. They never stood fully upright, the back was bent, the knees buckled, they stood like street beggars. K. waited for the court usher walking a little behind him and said: "How humiliated they must be." "Yes," said the court usher, "they are accused, all those you see here are accused." "Really!" said K. "Then they are my colleagues." And he turned to the nearest, a tall slender man already almost gray-haired. "What are you waiting for here?" asked K. politely. But the unexpected address confused the man, which looked all the more embarrassing since it was evidently a man of the world who elsewhere certainly knew how to control himself and did not easily give up the superiority he had acquired over many. Here, however, he did not know how to answer so simple a question and looked at the others, as if they were obliged to help him, and as if no one could demand an answer from him if that help failed. Then the court usher stepped up and said, to calm and cheer the man: "The gentleman here only asks what you are waiting for. Do answer." The probably familiar voice of the court usher worked better: "I am waiting —" he began and faltered. Evidently he had chosen this beginning in order to answer exactly to the phrasing of the question, but now found no continuation. Some of the waiting people had approached and stood around the group; the court usher said to them: "Away, away, clear the corridor." They withdrew a little, but not to their former seats. Meanwhile the questioned man had collected himself and answered even with a slight smile: "A month ago I submitted some motions for evidence in my case and am waiting for their disposition." "You seem to take a great deal of trouble," said K. "Yes," said the man, "it is my case after all." "Not everyone thinks as you do," said K., "I, for example, am also accused, but, so help me God, have neither submitted a motion for evidence nor undertaken anything of the sort. Do you consider that necessary?" "I do not know exactly," said the man again in complete uncertainty; he evidently believed K. was making fun of him, therefore would probably have preferred, out of fear of making any new mistake, to repeat his earlier answer entirely, but before K.'s impatient look he only said, "as for me, I submitted motions for evidence." "You probably do not believe that I am accused," asked K. "Oh, by all means," said the man, and stepped a little to the side, but in the answer there was not belief but only fear. "So you do not believe me?" asked K. and took him by the arm, unconsciously prompted to it by the man's submissive nature, as if he wanted to force him to belief. He did not want to cause him pain, and had only touched him very lightly, yet the man cried out as if K. had seized him not with two fingers but with a glowing pair of tongs. This ridiculous crying out made K. finally weary of it; if one did not believe him that he was accused, so much the better; perhaps he even took him for a judge. And he now took him, in parting, really more firmly, pushed him back onto the bench and went on. "Most of the accused are so sensitive," said the court usher. Behind them now almost all the waiting people gathered around the man, who had already stopped crying out, and seemed to question him closely about the incident. Toward K. came now a guard, recognizable mainly by a saber whose scabbard, at least in color, was made of aluminum. K. marveled at it and even reached out with his hand. The guard, who had come because of the crying, asked what had happened. The court usher tried to reassure him with a few words, but the guard declared he must nevertheless look for himself, saluted and went on with very hurried but very short steps, probably measured by gout.

K. did not concern himself long with him and the company in the corridor, especially since about halfway down the corridor he saw the possibility of turning off to the right through a doorless opening. He conferred with the court usher whether that was the right way; the court usher nodded and K. indeed turned in there. It was annoying to him that he always had to walk one or two steps ahead of the court usher; at least in this place it could give the appearance that he was being brought in under arrest. He therefore waited several times for the court usher, but the latter kept falling behind again. Finally K. said, to put an end to his discomfort: "Now I have seen how it looks here, I want to go now." "You have not seen everything yet," said the court usher quite innocuously. "I do not want to see everything," said K., who was in fact really tired, "I want to go, how does one get to the exit?" "You have not already lost your way?" asked the court usher in astonishment, "you go here to the corner and then down the corridor to the right straight to the door." "Come with me," said K., "show me the way, I will miss it, there are so many ways here." "It is the only way," said the court usher now already reproachfully, "I cannot go back with you again, I must after all deliver my report and have already lost much time through you." "Come with me," repeated K. now more sharply, as if he had finally caught the court usher in a falsehood. "Do not shout so," whispered the court usher, "there are offices everywhere here. If you do not want to go back alone, then come a little further with me or wait here until I have delivered my report, then I will gladly go back with you." "No, no," said K., "I will not wait and you must come with me now." K. had not yet looked around in the room he was in; only when now one of the many wooden doors that stood all around opened, did he look. A girl, probably summoned by K.'s loud speaking, entered and asked: "What does the gentleman wish?" Behind her in the distance one could see a man approaching in the half-dark. K. looked at the court usher. The latter had said that no one would concern themselves with K., and now two came; it needed little and the officialdom would become aware of him, would want an explanation of his presence. The only understandable and acceptable one was that he was an accused and wanted to learn the date of the next hearing; precisely this explanation, however, he did not want to give, especially since it was also not truthful, for he had come only out of curiosity or, what was an even more impossible explanation, out of the desire to establish that the interior of this judicial system was just as repulsive as its exterior. And it seemed that he was right in this assumption; he did not want to penetrate further, he was confined enough by what he had seen so far, he was just now not in the state to face a higher official, as could appear behind every door, he wanted to go, and indeed with the court usher or alone if necessary.

But his standing mute must have been conspicuous, and indeed the girl and the court usher looked at him in such a way as if in the next minute some great transformation must occur with him, which they did not want to miss observing. And in the doorway stood the man whom K. had noticed earlier in the distance; he held onto the lintel of the low door and rocked a little on his toes like an impatient spectator. But the girl first recognized that K.'s behavior was based on a slight indisposition; she brought a chair and asked: "Won't you sit down?" K. sat down at once and, to get an even better hold, propped his elbows on the arms. "You are a little dizzy, aren't you?" she asked him. He now had her face close before him; it had the severe expression that some women have precisely in their most beautiful youth. "Do not trouble yourself about that," she said, "that is nothing extraordinary here, almost everyone gets such an attack when he comes here for the first time. You are here for the first time? Well, that is nothing extraordinary. The sun burns here on the roof frame and the hot wood makes the air so close and heavy. The place is therefore not very suitable for office rooms, great advantages as it otherwise offers. But as for the air, on days of large party traffic, and that is almost every day, it is hardly breathable. If you then consider that washing is also hung up to dry here in many places — one cannot entirely forbid it to the tenants — you will no longer wonder that you felt a little ill. But one finally gets very well accustomed to the air. When you come the second or third time, you will hardly feel the oppressiveness here. Do you already feel better?" K. did not answer; it was too embarrassing for him to be delivered up to these people by this sudden weakness; moreover, now that he had learned the causes of his nausea, he felt not better but a little worse. The girl noticed it at once; to refresh K., she took a hook pole leaning against the wall and with it pushed open a small hatch placed just above K. that led outside. But so much soot fell in that the girl had to close the hatch at once and clean K.'s hands of the soot with her handkerchief, for K. was too tired to do it himself. He would have liked to remain sitting quietly here until he had gathered enough strength to go, but this had to happen the sooner the less one concerned oneself with him. Now, however, the girl said besides: "You cannot remain here, here we are obstructing the traffic." — K. asked with his looks what traffic he was obstructing — "I will take you, if you wish, to the sickroom." "Please help me," she said to the man in the door, who also came nearer at once. But K. did not want to go to the sickroom; precisely that he wanted to avoid, being led further; the further he came, the worse it must become. "I can already go," he said therefore and stood up, spoiled by the comfortable sitting, trembling. But then he could not keep himself upright. "It won't do," he said shaking his head and sat down again sighing. He thought of the court usher, who could easily lead him out despite everything, but the latter seemed to have long since gone; K. looked between the girl and the man standing before him, but could not find the court usher.

"I believe," said the man, who was by the way elegantly dressed and especially conspicuous through a gray waistcoat that ended in two long, sharply cut points, "the gentleman's indisposition is due to the atmosphere here; it will therefore be best and also most agreeable to him if we lead him not first to the sickroom but altogether out of the registries." "That is it," cried K. and almost interrupted the man's speech out of sheer joy, "I will certainly feel better at once, I am not even so weak, only a little support under the arms I need, I will not make much trouble for you, it is after all not a long way, just lead me to the door, I will then sit a little on the steps and will soon be refreshed, for I do not suffer from such attacks at all, it surprises me myself. I am after all also an official and accustomed to office air, but here it seems too much, you say it yourself. Will you therefore have the kindness to lead me a little, for I have dizziness and it makes me ill if I stand up alone." And he raised his shoulders so as to make it easier for the two to take him under the arms.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”