Part 9

Immediately after the greeting—he had no time to sit down in the armchair K. offered him—he asked K. for a brief word in private. “It is necessary,” he said, swallowing with difficulty, “for my peace of mind it is necessary.” K. at once sent the servants out of the room with the instruction to admit no one. “What have I heard, Josef?” cried the uncle when they were alone; he sat down on the table and, without looking, stuffed various papers under himself to sit more comfortably. K. was silent; he knew what was coming, but, suddenly relaxed from his exhausting work as he was, he first gave himself up to a pleasant languor and looked through the window at the opposite side of the street, of which from his seat only a small triangular section was visible, a stretch of empty house wall between two shop windows. “You are looking out of the window,” cried the uncle with raised arms, “for heaven’s sake, Josef, answer me. Is it true, can it really be true?” “Dear uncle,” said K., tearing himself from his distraction, “I don’t even know what you want of me.” “Josef,” said the uncle warningly, “you have always told the truth, as far as I know. Am I to take your last words as a bad sign.” “I suspect what you want,” said K. obediently, “you have probably heard of my trial.” “So it is,” answered the uncle, nodding slowly, “I have heard of your trial.” “From whom?” asked K. “Erna wrote it to me,” said the uncle, “she has no contact with you, unfortunately you don’t trouble yourself much about her, yet she found it out. I got the letter today and of course came at once. For no other reason, but it seems a sufficient one. I can read you the passage concerning you.” He drew the letter from his wallet. “Here it is. She writes: I have not seen Josef for a long time; last week I was at the bank once, but Josef was so busy that I was not admitted; I waited almost an hour, but then had to go home because I had a piano lesson. I would have liked to speak with him; perhaps an opportunity will arise soon. For my name day he sent me a large box of chocolate; it was very kind and thoughtful. I had forgotten to write you of it then; only now, since you ask, do I remember it. Chocolate, you must know, disappears at once in the boarding house; scarcely have you become conscious of having been given chocolate than it is already gone. But as regards Josef, I wanted to tell you something more. As mentioned, I was not admitted to him at the bank because he was just negotiating with a gentleman. After I had waited quietly for a while, I asked a servant whether the negotiation would last much longer. He said it probably would, for it was likely a matter of the trial being conducted against the head clerk. I asked what kind of trial that was, whether he might be mistaken, but he said he was not mistaken, it was a trial, and indeed a serious one, but he knew no more. He himself would gladly help the head clerk, for he was a good and just gentleman, but he did not know how to go about it, and he could only wish that influential gentlemen would take him in hand. That would certainly happen and it would finally take a good end, but for the present, as he could gather from the mood of the head clerk, it stood not at all well. I naturally attached little importance to these words, also sought to calm the simple servant, forbade him to speak of it to others, and hold the whole thing for gossip. Still, it might be well if you, dearest father, on your next visit were to look into the matter; it will be easy for you to learn particulars, and if it should really be necessary, to intervene through your great influential acquaintances. But if it should not be necessary, as is surely most probable, then at least it will soon give your daughter occasion to embrace you, which would delight her.”

“A good child,” said the uncle when he had finished reading, and wiped a few tears from his eyes. K. nodded; owing to the various disturbances of late he had completely forgotten Erna, even her birthday he had forgotten, and the story of the chocolate was evidently invented to protect him before uncle and aunt. It was very touching, and with the theater tickets he intended to send her regularly from now on, certainly not sufficiently rewarded, but for visits to the boarding house and conversations with a little eighteen-year-old schoolgirl he did not feel suited at present. “And what do you say now?” asked the uncle, who through the letter had forgotten all haste and agitation and seemed to read it once more. “Yes, uncle,” said K., “it is true.” “True?” cried the uncle. “What is true? How can it be true? What kind of trial? Surely not a criminal trial?” “A criminal trial,” answered K. “And you sit quietly here and have a criminal trial on your neck?” cried the uncle, who grew louder and louder. “The calmer I am, the better for the outcome,” said K. wearily. “Fear nothing.” “That cannot calm me,” cried the uncle, “Josef, dear Josef, think of yourself, of your relatives, of our good name. You were hitherto our honor; you must not become our shame. Your bearing”—he looked at K. with his head tilted sideways—“does not please me; thus behaves no innocent accused who is still in his strength. Only tell me quickly what it is about, so that I may help you. It concerns the bank, of course?” “No,” said K. and stood up, “but you speak too loudly, dear uncle; the servant is probably at the door listening. That is unpleasant to me. We had better go away. I will then answer all your questions as well as I can. I know very well that I owe the family an account.” “Right,” shouted the uncle, “quite right, only hurry, Josef, hurry.” “I must only give a few orders,” said K. and by telephone summoned his deputy, who entered in a few moments. The uncle in his agitation showed him with his hand that K. had called him, of which there would otherwise have been no doubt. K., who stood before the writing desk, explained to the young man, who listened coolly but attentively, in a low voice with the help of various documents what must still be settled in his absence. The uncle disturbed by standing at first with big eyes and nervous lip-biting, without however listening, but the appearance of it was disturbing enough. Then, though, he walked up and down the room and stopped now and then before the window or before a picture, breaking each time into various exclamations, such as: “It is completely incomprehensible to me” or “Now tell me, what is to become of it.” The young man acted as if he noticed nothing, listened calmly to K.’s orders to the end, noted down something, and left after bowing to K. as well as to the uncle, who, however, just then turned his back, looked out the window, and with outstretched hands crumpled the curtains together. The door had scarcely closed when the uncle cried: “At last the puppet has gone; now we can go too. At last!” Unfortunately there was no means of moving the uncle, in the entrance hall where some officials and servants were standing about and where just then the deputy director crossed, to omit the questions about the trial. “So, Josef,” began the uncle, while he answered the bows of those present with slight salutes, “now tell me openly what kind of trial it is.” K. made some meaningless remarks, even laughed a little, and only on the stairs did he explain to the uncle that he had not wanted to speak openly before the people. “Right,” said the uncle, “but now speak.” With inclined head, smoking a cigar in short, hurried puffs, he listened. “Above all, uncle,” said K., “it is not at all a trial before the ordinary court.” “That is bad,” said the uncle. “How?” said K. and looked at the uncle. “That it is bad, I mean,” repeated the uncle. They stood on the front steps leading to the street; since the porter seemed to be listening, K. drew the uncle down; the lively street traffic received them. The uncle, who had linked arms with K., no longer asked so urgently after the trial; they even walked silently for a while. “But how did it happen?” asked the uncle at last, stopping so suddenly that the people behind him started back in fright. “Such things do not come suddenly; they prepare themselves long beforehand; there must have been signs; why did you not write to me. You know that I do everything for you; I am, in a way, still your guardian and was proud of it until today. I shall of course still help you now, but it is now, since the trial is already underway, very difficult. Best would be in any case if you now took a little leave and came to us in the country. You have also grown a little thin; now I notice it. In the country you will strengthen yourself; that will be good; you surely have exertions ahead. Besides, you would thereby be, in a way, withdrawn from the court. Here they have all manner of means of power which, necessarily, they automatically apply against you too; to the country, however, they would first have to delegate organs or only try to influence you by letter, telegraph, telephone. That weakens the effect, does not free you, but lets you catch your breath.” “They could forbid me to go away,” said K., whom the uncle’s speech had drawn a little into its train of thought. “I do not believe they will do that,” said the uncle thoughtfully, “the loss of power they suffer through your departure is not so great.” “I thought,” said K. and took the uncle under the arm, so as to prevent him from stopping, “that you would attach even less importance to the whole thing than I, and now you yourself take it so hard.” “Josef,” cried the uncle and wanted to free himself, to be able to stop, but K. would not let him, “you are changed; you always had such sound judgment and just now it deserts you. Do you want to lose the trial? Do you know what that means? It means that you are simply struck off. And that the whole family is dragged along or at least humiliated to the ground. Josef, pull yourself together. Your indifference drives me out of my wits. If one looks at you, one might almost believe the proverb: ‘To have such a trial is already to have lost it.’” “Dear uncle,” said K., “the agitation is so useless; it is so on your side and would be so on mine. With agitation one does not win trials; let my practical experience count a little too, just as I always, even when they surprise me, highly esteem yours. Since you say that the family would also be affected by the trial—which for my part I cannot understand at all, but that is beside the point—I will gladly follow you in everything. Only the stay in the country I do not hold advantageous even in your sense, for that would mean flight and consciousness of guilt. Moreover, here I am indeed more persecuted, but can also myself pursue the matter more.” “Right,” said the uncle in a tone as if they were now finally drawing nearer to each other, “I made the suggestion only because, if you stayed here, I saw the matter endangered by your indifference and thought it better if I worked for you instead of you. But if you want to pursue it with all your strength yourself, then it is of course far better.” “There we would be agreed,” said K. “And do you now have a suggestion as to what I should do first?” “I must of course still consider the matter,” said the uncle, “you must consider that I have now been almost uninterruptedly in the country for 20 years; thereby the scent in these directions dulls. Various important connections with personalities who might know better here have loosened of themselves. I am somewhat forsaken in the country, as you know. One notices it oneself really only on such occasions. In part your affair also came unexpectedly to me, though strangely enough after Erna’s letter I already suspected something of the sort and today at the sight of you almost knew it with certainty. But that is indifferent; the most important now is to lose no time.” Already during his speech he had, standing on tiptoe, waved to an automobile and now, while at the same time calling an address to the driver, drew K. behind him into the car. “We are now driving to the advocate Huld,” he said; “he was my schoolmate. You surely know the name too? No? But that is strange. He has, as defender and advocate for the poor, a significant reputation. But I have especially great trust in him as a man.” “Everything you undertake is all right with me,” said K., although the hasty and urgent manner with which the uncle treated the affair caused him uneasiness. It was not very pleasing to drive as an accused to an advocate for the poor. “I did not know,” he said, “that one can also engage an advocate in such a matter.” “But of course,” said the uncle, “that is self-evident. Why not? And now tell me, so that I am exactly informed of the matter, everything that has happened so far.” K. began at once to tell, without withholding anything; his complete openness was the only protest he allowed himself against the uncle’s view that the trial was a great shame. Miss Bürstner’s name he mentioned only once and in passing, but that did not impair the openness, for Miss Bürstner stood in no connection with the trial. While he told, he looked out the window and observed how they were just approaching that suburb where the court offices were; he drew the uncle’s attention to it, but the uncle did not find the coincidence particularly striking. The car stopped before a dark house. The uncle rang at once on the ground floor at the first door; while they waited, he bared his big teeth smiling and whispered: “8 o’clock, an unusual time for visiting clients. But Huld won’t take it amiss.” In the spy window of the door appeared two big black eyes, looked a while at the two guests and disappeared; but the door did not open. The uncle and K. confirmed to each other mutually the fact of having seen the two eyes. “A new chambermaid who is afraid of strangers,” said the uncle and knocked again. Again the eyes appeared; one could now almost take them for sad, but perhaps that too was only a deception caused by the open gas flame which burned hissing strongly just above their heads but gave little light. “Open,” cried the uncle and struck the door with his fist, “they are friends of the advocate.” “The advocate is ill,” whispered it behind them. In a door at the other end of the small passage stood a gentleman in a dressing gown and made this communication in an extremely low voice. The uncle, who was already furious at the long waiting, turned with a jerk, cried: “Ill? You say he is ill?” and went almost threateningly, as if the gentleman were the illness, toward him. “It has already been opened,” said the gentleman, pointed to the advocate’s door, gathered his dressing gown together and vanished. The door had really been opened; a young girl—K. recognized the dark, somewhat protruding eyes again—stood in a long white apron in the anteroom and held a candle in her hand. “Next time open earlier,” said the uncle instead of a greeting, while the girl made a little curtsy. “Come, Josef,” he then said to K., who slowly moved past the girl. “The advocate is ill,” said the girl, since the uncle, without stopping, hurried toward a door. K. still marveled at the girl while she had already turned to bolt the apartment door again; she had a doll-like rounded face; not only the pale cheeks and the chin ran round, but also the temples and the edges of the forehead. “Josef,” cried the uncle again and the girl he asked: “Is it the heart complaint?” “I believe so,” said the girl; she had found time to go ahead with the candle and open the room door. In a corner of the room, where the candlelight had not yet reached, a face with a long beard rose in the bed. “Leni, who comes then,” asked the advocate, who, blinded by the candle, did not recognize the guests. “Albert, it is your old friend,” said the uncle. “Ah Albert,” said the advocate and let himself fall back on the pillows, as if before this visit no pretense were needed. “Is it really so bad?” asked the uncle and sat on the edge of the bed. “I do not believe so. It is an attack of your heart complaint and will pass like the former ones.” “Possible,” said the advocate softly, “but it is worse than it has ever been. I breathe heavily, sleep not at all and lose strength daily.” “So,” said the uncle and pressed the panama hat with his big hand firmly on his knee. “Those are bad tidings. By the way, do you have the right care? It is also so sad here, so dark. It is long since I was here last; then it seemed to me friendlier. Also your little miss here seems not very cheerful or she dissembles.” The girl still stood with the candle near the door; as far as her indeterminate gaze allowed one to recognize, she looked rather at K. than at the uncle, even when the latter now spoke of her. K. leaned against an armchair which he had pushed near the girl. “When one is so ill as I,” said the advocate, “one must have rest. It is not sad to me.” After a short pause he added: “And Leni nurses me well; she is good.” But the uncle could not be convinced by that; he was visibly prejudiced against the nurse, and if he answered the sick man nothing, yet he followed the nurse with stern glances as she now went to the bed, set the candle on the night table, bent over the sick man and whispered with him while arranging the pillows. He almost forgot consideration for the sick man, stood up, walked back and forth behind the nurse, and K. would not have been surprised if he had seized her from behind by the skirts and dragged her from the bed. K. himself watched everything calmly; the illness of the advocate was not entirely unwelcome to him; to the zeal the uncle had developed for his cause he had not been able to oppose himself, but the diversion this zeal now experienced without his doing he gladly accepted. Then the uncle said, perhaps only with the intention of offending the nurse: “Miss, please, leave us alone a while; I have a personal matter to discuss with my friend.” The nurse, who was still bent far over the sick man and just then smoothed the linen at the wall, only turned her head and said very calmly, which formed a striking contrast to the uncle’s speeches that stuck in rage and then overflowed again: “You see, the gentleman is so ill, he cannot discuss matters.” She had probably only repeated the uncle’s words out of convenience; still, it could be taken even by an uninvolved person as mocking; the uncle, however, naturally started up like one stung. “You damned,” he said in the first gurgling of agitation still rather unintelligible; K. was startled, although he had expected something similar, and ran to the uncle with the definite intention of closing his mouth with both hands. Fortunately, however, behind the girl the sick man rose; the uncle made a grim face, as if swallowing something loathsome, and then said more calmly: “We have of course not lost our reason either; were what I demand not possible, I would not demand it. Please go now.” The nurse stood upright at the bed, fully turned to the uncle; with one hand she stroked, as K. believed to notice, the hand of the advocate. “You can say everything before Leni,” said the sick man undoubtedly in the tone of an urgent request. “It does not concern me,” said the uncle, “it is not my secret.” And he turned around, as if meaning to enter into no further negotiations, but gave yet a little time for reflection. “Whom does it concern then?” asked the advocate with fading voice and lay back again. “My nephew,” said the uncle, “I have brought him along too.” And he introduced: head clerk Josef K. “Oh,” said the sick man much more lively and stretched out his hand to K., “pardon me, I had not noticed you at all. Go, Leni,” he then said to the nurse, who no longer resisted either, and gave her his hand, as if it were a farewell for a long time. “So you have not come,” he finally said to the uncle, who had approached reconciled, “to make me a sick visit, but you come on business.” It was as if the notion of a sick visit had hitherto paralyzed the advocate; so strengthened did he now look; he remained constantly propped on one elbow, which must have been rather strenuous, and kept pulling at a strand of beard in the middle of his beard. “You already look much healthier,” said the uncle, “since that witch is outside.” He interrupted himself, whispered: “I wager she is listening” and sprang to the door. But behind the door was no one; the uncle came back, not disappointed, for her not listening appeared to him as an even greater malice, but embittered. “You misjudge her,” said the advocate, without further defending the nurse; perhaps he wanted to express thereby that she was not in need of defense. But in a much more sympathetic tone he continued: “As regards the matter of your nephew, I would indeed count myself happy if my strength could suffice for this extremely difficult task; I fear very much that it will not suffice; in any case I want to leave nothing untried; if I do not suffice, one could still engage someone else. To be candid, the matter interests me too much for me to bring myself to renounce all participation. If my heart does not hold out, then it will at least find here a worthy occasion to fail completely.” K. believed he understood not a word of this whole speech; he looked at the uncle to find an explanation, but the latter sat with the candle in his hand on the night table, from which a medicine bottle had already rolled onto the carpet, nodded to all the advocate said, agreed with everything and now and then looked at K. with the demand for like agreement. Had perhaps the uncle already earlier told the advocate of the trial? But that was impossible; everything that had preceded spoke against it. “I do not understand”—he therefore said. “Yes, have perhaps I misunderstood you?” asked the advocate, just as astonished and embarrassed as K. “I was perhaps precipitate. What did you want to speak with me about? I thought it concerned your trial?” “Naturally,” said the uncle and then asked K.: “What do you want then?” “Yes, but how do you know anything about me and my trial?” asked K. “Ah so,” said the advocate smiling, “I am after all an advocate; I move in court circles; one speaks of various trials and more striking ones, especially when it concerns the nephew of a friend, one keeps in memory. That is nothing remarkable.” “What do you want then?” asked the uncle K. again. “You are so restless.” “You move in those court circles,” asked K. “Yes,” said the advocate. “You ask like a child,” said the uncle. “With whom should I move, if not with people of my profession?” added the advocate. It sounded so irrefutable that K. did not answer at all. “You must after all consider,” the advocate continued, in a tone as if he were explaining something self-evident, superfluously and incidentally, “you must after all consider that I draw great advantages for my clientele from such intercourse, and indeed in manifold respects; one may not always even speak of it. Naturally I am now somewhat hindered by my illness, but I still receive visits from good friends from the court and learn nevertheless something. Learn perhaps more than some who spend the whole day at court in best health. Thus I have for example just now a dear visit.” And he pointed into a dark corner of the room. “Where then?” asked K. in his first surprise almost rudely. He looked about uncertainly; the light of the small candle by far did not reach the opposite wall. And really there began to stir something in the corner. In the light of the candle, which the uncle now held high, one saw there at a small table an older gentleman sitting. He had probably not even breathed, that he had remained unnoticed so long. Now he stood up laboriously, evidently dissatisfied at having been made noticeable. It was as if he wanted to ward off with his hands, which he moved like short wings, all presentations and greetings, as if he wanted under no circumstances to disturb the others by his presence and as if he urgently begged for a return to the dark and for forgetting his presence. That, however, one could now no longer grant him. “You have namely surprised us,” said the advocate by way of explanation and beckoned encouragingly to the gentleman to come nearer, which the latter did slowly, hesitantly, looking around and yet with a certain dignity, “the chief clerk—oh so, pardon, I have not introduced—here my friend Albert K., here his nephew head clerk Josef K. and here the chief clerk—the chief clerk then was so kind as to visit me. The value of such a visit only the initiate can properly esteem, who knows how the dear chief clerk is overwhelmed with work. Well, he came nevertheless; we conversed peacefully, as far as my weakness allowed; we had indeed not forbidden Leni to admit visitors, for none were expected, but our opinion was still that we should remain alone; then came your fist-blows, Albert; the chief clerk moved chair and table into the corner; now, however, it appears that we possibly, that is if the wish exists, have common affair to discuss and can very well move together again.—Mr. Chief Clerk,” he said with a nod of the head and a submissive smile and pointed to an armchair near the bed. “I can unfortunately remain only a few minutes more,” said the chief clerk friendly, sat down broadly in the armchair and looked at the watch, “business calls me. In any case I do not want to let the opportunity pass to make the acquaintance of a friend of my friend.” He inclined his head slightly toward the uncle, who seemed very satisfied with the new acquaintance, but through his nature could not express feelings of devotion and accompanied the words of the chief clerk with an embarrassed but loud laugh. An ugly sight! K. could calmly observe everything, for no one cared about him; the chief clerk, as if it were his habit, now that he had once been drawn out, took command of the conversation; the advocate, whose first weakness had perhaps only served to drive away the new visit, listened attentively, hand at ear; the uncle as candle-bearer—he balanced the candle on his thigh; the advocate looked over anxiously now and then—was soon free of embarrassment and only enraptured, both by the manner of the chief clerk’s speech and by the gentle wave-like hand movements with which he accompanied it. K., who leaned on the bedpost, was perhaps even intentionally completely neglected by the chief clerk and served the old gentlemen only as listener. Besides, he scarcely knew what was spoken of and thought now of the nurse and of the bad treatment she had received from the uncle, now whether he had not seen the chief clerk before, perhaps even in the assembly at his first examination. Even if he perhaps deceived himself, the chief clerk would have fitted excellently among the assembly participants in the front row, the old gentlemen with the sparse beards.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”