stairway. K., who had been lost in his thoughts in the hallway, walking
up and down loudly as if it were his own room, fled behind his door.
Miss Bürstner had arrived. Shivering, she pulled a silk shawl over her
slender shoulders as she locked the door. The next moment she would
certainly go into her room, where K. ought not to intrude in the middle
of the night; that meant he would have to speak to her now, but,
unfortunately, he had not put the electric light on in his room so that
when he stepped out of the dark it would give the impression of being an
attack and would certainly, at the very least, have been quite alarming.
There was no time to lose, and in his helplessness he whispered through
the crack of the door, "Miss Bürstner." It sounded like he was pleading
with her, not calling to her. "Is there someone there?" asked Miss
Bürstner, looking round with her eyes wide open. "It's me," said K. and
came out. "Oh, Mr. K.!" said Miss Bürstner with a smile. "Good Evening,"
and offered him her hand. "I wanted to have a word with you, if you
would allow me?" "Now?" asked Miss Bürstner, "does it have to be now? It
is a little odd, isn't it?" "I've been waiting for you since nine
o'clock." "Well, I was at the theatre, I didn't know anything about you
waiting for me." "The reason I need to speak to you only came up
today." "I see, well I don't see why not, I suppose, apart from being
so tired I could drop. Come into my room for a few minutes then. We
certainly can't talk out here, we'd wake everyone up and I think that
would be more unpleasant for us than for them. Wait here till I've put
the light on in my room, and then turn the light down out here." K. did
as he was told, and then even waited until Miss Bürstner came out of her
room and quietly invited him, once more, to come in. "Sit down," she
said, indicating the ottoman, while she herself remained standing by
the bedpost despite the tiredness she had spoken of; she did not even
take off her hat, which was small but decorated with an abundance of
flowers. "What is it you wanted, then? I'm really quite curious." She
gently crossed her legs. "I expect you'll say," K. began, "that the
matter really isn't all that urgent and we don't need to talk about it
right now, but...." "I never listen to introductions," said Miss
Bürstner. "That makes my job so much easier," said K. "This morning, to
some extent through my fault, your room was made a little untidy, this
happened because of people I did not know and against my will but, as I
said, because of my fault; I wanted to apologise for it." "My room?"
asked Miss Bürstner, and instead of looking round the room scrutinised
K. "It is true," said K., and now, for the first time, they looked each
other in the eyes, "there's no point in saying exactly how this came
about." "But that's the interesting thing about it," said Miss Bürstner.
"No," said K. "Well then," said Miss Bürstner, "I don't want to force my
way into any secrets, if you insist that it's of no interest I won't
insist. I'm quite happy to forgive you for it, as you ask, especially as
I can't see anything at all that's been left untidy." With her hand laid
flat on her lower hip, she made a tour around the room. At the mat where
the photographs were she stopped. "Look at this!" she cried. "My
photographs really have been put in the wrong places. Oh, that's
horrible. Someone really has been in my room without permission." K.
nodded, and quietly cursed Kaminer who worked at his bank and who was
always active doing things that had neither use nor purpose. "It is
odd," said Miss Bürstner, "that I'm forced to forbid you to do something
that you ought to have forbidden yourself to do, namely to come into my
room when I'm not here." "But I did explain to you," said K., and went
over to join her by the photographs, "that it wasn't me who interfered
with your photographs; but as you don't believe me I'll have to admit
that the investigating committee brought along three bank employees with
them, one of them must have touched your photographs and as soon as I
get the chance I'll ask to have him dismissed from the bank. Yes, there
was an investigating committee here," added K., as the young lady was
looking at him enquiringly. "Because of you?" she asked. "Yes," answered
K. "No!" the lady cried with a laugh. "Yes, they were," said K., "you
believe that I'm innocent then, do you?" "Well now, innocent ..." said
the lady, "I don't want to start making any pronouncements that might
have serious consequences, I don't really know you after all, it means
they're dealing with a serious criminal if they send an investigating
committee straight out to get him. But you're not in custody now--at
least I take it you've not escaped from prison considering that you seem
quite calm--so you can't have committed any crime of that sort." "Yes,"
said K., "but it might be that the investigating committee could see
that I'm innocent, or not so guilty as had been supposed." "Yes, that's
certainly a possibility," said Miss Bürstner, who seemed very
interested. "Listen," said K., "you don't have much experience in legal
matters." "No, that's true, I don't," said Miss Bürstner, "and I've
often regretted it, as I'd like to know everything and I'm very
interested in legal matters. There's something peculiarly attractive
about the law, isn't there. But I'll certainly be perfecting my
knowledge in this area, as next month I start work in a legal office."
"That's very good," said K., "that means you'll be able to give me some
help with my trial." "That could well be," said Miss Bürstner, "why not?
I like to make use of what I know." "I mean it quite seriously," said
K., "or at least, half seriously, as you do. This affair is too petty to
call in a lawyer, but I could make good use of someone who could give me
advice." "Yes, but if I'm to give you advice I'll have to know what it's
all about," said Miss Bürstner. "That's exactly the problem," said K.,
"I don't know that myself." "So you have been making fun of me, then,"
said Miss Bürstner exceedingly disappointed, "you really ought not to
try something like that on at this time of night." And she stepped away
from the photographs where they had stood so long together. "Miss
Bürstner, no," said K., "I'm not making fun of you. Please believe me!
I've already told you everything I know. More than I know, in fact, as
it actually wasn't even an investigating committee, that's just what I
called them because I don't know what else to call them. There was no
cross questioning at all, I was merely arrested, but by a committee."
Miss Bürstner sat on the ottoman and laughed again. "What was it like
then?" she asked. "It was terrible," said K., although his mind was no
longer on the subject, he had become totally absorbed by Miss Bürstner's
gaze who was supporting her chin on one hand--the elbow rested on the
cushion of the ottoman--and slowly stroking her hip with the other.
"That's too vague," said Miss Bürstner. "What's too vague?" asked K.
Then he remembered himself and asked, "Would you like me to show you
what it was like?" He wanted to move in some way but did not want to
leave. "I'm already tired," said Miss Bürstner. "You arrived back so
late," said K. "Now you've started telling me off. Well I suppose I
deserve it as I shouldn't have let you in here in the first place, and
it turns out there wasn't even any point." "Oh, there was a point,
you'll see now how important a point it was," said K. "May I move this
table away from your bedside and put it here?" "What do you think you're
doing?" said Miss Bürstner. "Of course you can't!" "In that case I
can't show you," said K., quite upset, as if Miss Bürstner had committed
some incomprehensible offence against him. "Alright then, if you need it
to show what you mean, just take the bedside table then," said Miss
Bürstner, and after a short pause added in a weak voice, "I'm so tired
I'm allowing more than I ought to." K. put the little table in the
middle of the room and sat down behind it. "You have to get a proper
idea of where the people were situated, it is very interesting. I'm the
supervisor, sitting over there on the chest are two policemen, standing
next to the photographs there are three young people. Hanging on the
handle of the window is a white blouse--I just mention that by the way.
And now it begins. Ah yes, I'm forgetting myself, the most important
person of all, so I'm standing here in front of the table. The
supervisor is sitting extremely comfortably with his legs crossed and
his arm hanging over the backrest here like some layabout. And now it
really does begin. The supervisor calls out as if he had to wake me up,
in fact he shouts at me, I'm afraid, if I'm to make it clear to you,
I'll have to shout as well, and it's nothing more than my name that he
shouts out." Miss Bürstner, laughing as she listened to him, laid her
forefinger on her mouth so that K. would not shout, but it was too late.
K. was too engrossed in his role and slowly called out, "Josef K.!" It
was not as loud as he had threatened, but nonetheless, once he had
suddenly called it out, the cry seemed gradually to spread itself all
round the room.
There was a series of loud, curt and regular knocks at the door of the
adjoining room. Miss Bürstner went pale and laid her hand on her heart.
K. was especially startled, as for a moment he had been quite unable to
think of anything other than the events of that morning and the girl for
whom he was performing them. He had hardly pulled himself together when
he jumped over to Miss Bürstner and took her hand. "Don't be afraid," he
whispered, "I'll put everything right. But who can it be? It's only the
living room next door, nobody sleeps in there." "Yes they do," whispered
Miss Bürstner into K.'s ear, "a nephew of Mrs. Grubach's, a captain in
the army, has been sleeping there since yesterday. There's no other room
free. I'd forgotten about it too. Why did you have to shout like that?
You've made me quite upset." "There is no reason for it," said K., and,
now as she sank back onto the cushion, kissed her forehead. "Go away, go
away," she said, hurriedly sitting back up, "get out of here, go, what
is it you want, he's listening at the door, he can hear everything.
You're causing me so much trouble!" "I won't go," said K., "until you've
calmed down a bit. Come over into the other corner of the room, he
won't be able to hear us there." She let him lead her there. "Don't
forget," he said, "although this might be unpleasant for you you're not
in any real danger. You know how much esteem Mrs. Grubach has for me,
she's the one who will make all the decisions in this, especially as the
captain is her nephew, but she believes everything I say without
question. What's more, she has borrowed a large sum of money from me and
that makes her dependent on me. I will confirm whatever you say to
explain our being here together, however inappropriate it might be, and
I guarantee to make sure that Mrs. Grubach will not only say she
believes the explanation in public but will believe it truly and
sincerely. You will have no need to consider me in any way. If you wish
to let it be known that I have attacked you then Mrs. Grubach will be
informed of such and she will believe it without even losing her trust
in me, that's how much respect she has for me." Miss Bürstner looked at
the floor in front of her, quiet and a little sunk in on herself. "Why
would Mrs. Grubach not believe that I've attacked you?" added K. He
looked at her hair in front of him, parted, bunched down, reddish and
firmly held in place. He thought she would look up at him, but without
changing her manner she said, "Forgive me, but it was the suddenness of
the knocking that startled me so much, not so much what the consequences
of the captain being here might be. It was all so quiet after you'd
shouted, and then there was the knocking, that's what made me so
shocked, and I was sitting right by the door, the knocking was right
next to me. Thank you for your suggestions, but I won't accept them. I
can bear the responsibility for anything that happens in my room myself,
and I can do so with anyone. I'm surprised you don't realise just how
insulting your suggestions are and what they imply about me, although I
certainly acknowledge your good intentions. But now, please go, leave me
alone, I need you to go now even more than I did earlier. The couple of
minutes you asked for have grown into half an hour, more than half an
hour now." K. took hold of her hand, and then of her wrist, "You're not
cross with me, though?" he said. She pulled her hand away and answered,
"No, no, I'm never cross with anyone." He grasped her wrist once more,
she tolerated it now and, in that way, led him to the door. He had
fully intended to leave. But when he reached the door he came to a halt
as if he hadn't expected to find a door there, Miss Bürstner made use of
that moment to get herself free, open the door, slip out into the
hallway and gently say to K. from there, "Now, come along, please.
Look," she pointed to the captain's door, from under which there was a
light shining, "he's put a light on and he's laughing at us." "Alright,
I'm coming," said K., moved forward, took hold of her, kissed her on
the mouth and then over her whole face like a thirsty animal lapping
with its tongue when it eventually finds water. He finally kissed her on
her neck and her throat and left his lips pressed there for a long time.
He did not look up until there was a noise from the captain's room.
"I'll go now," he said, he wanted to address Miss Bürstner by her
Christian name, but did not know it. She gave him a tired nod, offered
him her hand to kiss as she turned away as if she did not know what she
was doing, and went back into her room with her head bowed. A short
while later, K. was lying in his bed. He very soon went to sleep, but
before he did he thought a little while about his behaviour, he was
satisfied with it but felt some surprise that he was not more satisfied;
he was seriously worried about Miss Bürstner because of the captain.
Chapter Two
First Cross-examination
K. was informed by telephone that there would be a small hearing
concerning his case the following Sunday. He was made aware that these
cross examinations would follow one another regularly, perhaps not every
week but quite frequently. On the one hand it was in everyone's interest
to bring proceedings quickly to their conclusion, but on the other hand
every aspect of the examinations had to be carried out thoroughly
without lasting too long because of the associated stress. For these
reasons, it had been decided to hold a series of brief examinations
following on one after another. Sunday had been chosen as the day for
the hearings so that K. would not be disturbed in his professional work.
It was assumed that he would be in agreement with this, but if he wished
for another date then, as far as possible, he would be accommodated.
Cross-examinations could even be held in the night, for instance, but K.
would probably not be fresh enough at that time. Anyway, as long as K.
made no objection, the hearing would be left on Sundays. It was a matter
of course that he would have to appear without fail, there was probably
no need to point this out to him. He would be given the number of the
building where he was to present himself, which was in a street in a
suburb well away from the city centre which K. had never been to before.
Once he had received this notice, K. hung up the receiver without giving
an answer; he had decided immediately to go there that Sunday, it was
certainly necessary, proceedings had begun and he had to face up to it,
and this first examination would probably also be the last. He was still
standing in thought by the telephone when he heard the voice of the
deputy director behind him--he wanted to use the telephone but K. stood
in his way. "Bad news?" asked the deputy director casually, not in order
to find anything out but just to get K. away from the device. "No, no,"
said K., he stepped to one side but did not go away entirely. The deputy
director picked up the receiver and, as he waited for his connection,
turned away from it and said to K., "One question, Mr. K.: Would you
like to give me the pleasure of joining me on my sailing boat on Sunday
morning? There's quite a few people coming, you're bound to know some
of them. One of them is Hasterer, the state attorney. Would you like to
come along? Do come along!" K. tried to pay attention to what the
deputy director was saying. It was of no small importance for him, as
this invitation from the deputy director, with whom he had never got on
very well, meant that he was trying to improve his relations with him.
It showed how important K. had become in the bank and how its second
most important official seemed to value his friendship, or at least his
impartiality. He was only speaking at the side of the telephone receiver
while he waited for his connection, but in giving this invitation the
deputy director was humbling himself. But K. would have to humiliate him
a second time as a result, he said, "Thank you very much, but I'm afraid
I will have no time on Sunday, I have a previous obligation." "Pity,"
said the deputy director, and turned to the telephone conversation that
had just been connected. It was not a short conversation, but K.
remained standing confused by the instrument all the time it was going
on. It was only when the deputy director hung up that he was shocked
into awareness and said, in order to partially excuse his standing there
for no reason, "I've just received a telephone call, there's somewhere I
need to go, but they forgot to tell me what time." "Ask them then," said
the deputy director. "It's not that important," said K., although in
that way his earlier excuse, already weak enough, was made even weaker.
As he went, the deputy director continued to speak about other things.
K. forced himself to answer, but his thoughts were mainly about that
Sunday, how it would be best to get there for nine o'clock in the
morning as that was the time that courts always start work on weekdays.
The weather was dull on Sunday. K. was very tired, as he had stayed out
drinking until late in the night celebrating with some of the regulars,
and he had almost overslept. He dressed hurriedly, without the time to
think and assemble the various plans he had worked out during the week.
With no breakfast, he rushed to the suburb he had been told about. Oddly
enough, although he had little time to look around him, he came across
the three bank officials involved in his case, Rabensteiner, Kullich and
Kaminer. The first two were travelling in a tram that went across K.'s
route, but Kaminer sat on the terrace of a café and leant curiously
over the wall as K. came over. All of them seemed to be looking at him,
surprised at seeing their superior running; it was a kind of pride that
made K. want to go on foot, this was his affair and the idea of any help
from strangers, however slight, was repulsive to him, he also wanted to
avoid asking for anyone's help because that would initiate them into the
affair even if only slightly. And after all, he had no wish at all to
humiliate himself before the committee by being too punctual. Anyway,
now he was running so that he would get there by nine o'clock if at all
possible, even though he had no appointment for this time.
He had thought that he would recognise the building from a distance by
some kind of sign, without knowing exactly what the sign would look
like, or from some particular kind of activity outside the entrance. K.
had been told that the building was in Juliusstrasse, but when he stood
at the street's entrance it consisted on each side of almost nothing but
monotonous, grey constructions, tall blocks of flats occupied by poor
people. Now, on a Sunday morning, most of the windows were occupied, men
in their shirtsleeves leant out smoking, or carefully and gently held
small children on the sills. Other windows were piled up with bedding,
above which the dishevelled head of a woman would briefly appear. People
called out to each other across the street, one of the calls provoked a
loud laugh about K. himself. It was a long street, and spaced evenly
along it were small shops below street level, selling various kinds of
foodstuffs, which you reached by going down a few steps. Women went in
and out of them or stood chatting on the steps. A fruitmonger, taking
his goods up to the windows, was just as inattentive as K. and nearly
knocked him down with his cart. Just then, a gramophone, which in better
parts of town would have been seen as worn out, began to play some
murderous tune.
K. went further into the street, slowly, as if he had plenty of time
now, or as if the examining magistrate were looking at him from one of
the windows and therefore knew that K. had found his way there. It was
shortly after nine. The building was quite far down the street, it
covered so much area it was almost extraordinary, and the gateway in
particular was tall and long. It was clearly intended for delivery
wagons belonging to the various warehouses all round the yard which were
now locked up and carried the names of companies some of which K. knew
from his work at the bank. In contrast with his usual habits, he
remained standing a while at the entrance to the yard taking in all
these external details. Near him, there was a bare-footed man sitting on
a crate and reading a newspaper. There were two lads swinging on a hand
cart. In front of a pump stood a weak, young girl in a bedjacket who, as
the water flowed into her can, looked at K. There was a piece of rope
stretched between two windows in a corner of the yard, with some washing
hanging on it to dry. A man stood below it calling out instructions to
direct the work being done.
K. went over to the stairway to get to the room where the hearing was to
take place, but then stood still again as besides these steps he could
see three other stairway entrances, and there also seemed to be a small
passageway at the end of the yard leading into a second yard. It
irritated him that he had not been given more precise directions to the
room, it meant they were either being especially neglectful with him or
especially indifferent, and he decided to make that clear to them very
loudly and very unambiguously. In the end he decided to climb up the
stairs, his thoughts playing on something that he remembered the
policeman, Willem, saying to him; that the court is attracted by the
guilt, from which it followed that the courtroom must be on the stairway
that K. selected by chance.
As he went up he disturbed a large group of children playing on the
stairs who looked at him as he stepped through their rows. "Next time I
come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with me to
make them like me or a stick to hit them with." Just before he reached
the first landing he even had to wait a little while until a ball had
finished its movement, two small lads with sly faces like grown-up
scoundrels held him by his trouser-legs until it had; if he were to
shake them off he would have to hurt them, and he was afraid of what
noise they would make by shouting.
On the first floor, his search began for real. He still felt unable to
ask for the investigating committee, and so he invented a joiner called
Lanz--that name occurred to him because the captain, Mrs. Grubach's
nephew, was called Lanz--so that he could ask at every flat whether Lanz
the joiner lived there and thus obtain a chance to look into the rooms.
It turned out, though, that that was mostly possible without further
ado, as almost all the doors were left open and the children ran in and
out. Most of them were small, one-windowed rooms where they also did the
cooking. Many women held babies in one arm and worked at the stove with
the other. Half grown girls, who seemed to be dressed in just their
pinafores worked hardest running to and fro. In every room, the beds
were still in use by people who were ill, or still asleep, or people
stretched out on them in their clothes. K. knocked at the flats where
the doors were closed and asked whether Lanz the joiner lived there. It
was usually a woman who opened the door, heard the enquiry and turned to
somebody in the room who would raise himself from the bed. "The
gentleman's asking if a joiner called Lanz, lives here." "A joiner,
called Lanz?" he would ask from the bed." "That's right," K. would say,
although it was clear that the investigating committee was not to be
found there, and so his task was at an end. There were many who thought
it must be very important for K. to find Lanz the joiner and thought
long about it, naming a joiner who was not called Lanz or giving a name
that had some vague similarity with Lanz, or they asked neighbours or
accompanied K. to a door a long way away where they thought someone of
that sort might live in the back part of the building or where someone
would be who could advise K. better than they could themselves. K.
eventually had to give up asking if he did not want to be led all round
from floor to floor in this way. He regretted his initial plan, which
had at first seemed so practical to him. As he reached the fifth floor,
he decided to give up the search, took his leave of a friendly, young
worker who wanted to lead him on still further and went down the stairs.
But then the thought of how much time he was wasting made him cross, he
went back again and knocked at the first door on the fifth floor. The
first thing he saw in the small room was a large clock on the wall which
already showed ten o'clock. "Is there a joiner called Lanz who lives
here?" he asked. "Pardon?" said a young woman with black, shining eyes
who was, at that moment, washing children's underclothes in a bucket.
She pointed her wet hand towards the open door of the adjoining room.
K. thought he had stepped into a meeting. A medium sized, two windowed
room was filled with the most diverse crowd of people--nobody paid any
attention to the person who had just entered. Close under its ceiling it
was surrounded by a gallery which was also fully occupied and where the
people could only stand bent down with their heads and their backs
touching the ceiling. K., who found the air too stuffy, stepped out
again and said to the young woman, who had probably misunderstood what
he had said, "I asked for a joiner, someone by the name of Lanz." "Yes,"
said the woman, "please go on in." K. would probably not have followed
her if the woman had not gone up to him, taken hold of the door handle
and said, "I'll have to close the door after you, no-one else will be
allowed in." "Very sensible," said K., "but it's too full already." But
then he went back in anyway. He passed through between two men who were
talking beside the door--one of them held both hands far out in front of
himself making the movements of counting out money, the other looked him
closely in the eyes--and someone took him by the hand. It was a small,
red-faced youth. "Come in, come in," he said. K. let himself be led by
him, and it turned out that there was--surprisingly in a densely packed
crowd of people moving to and fro--a narrow passage which may have been
the division between two factions; this idea was reinforced by the fact
that in the first few rows to the left and the right of him there was
hardly any face looking in his direction, he saw nothing but the backs
of people directing their speech and their movements only towards
members of their own side. Most of them were dressed in black, in old,
long, formal frock coats that hung down loosely around them. These
clothes were the only thing that puzzled K., as he would otherwise have
taken the whole assembly for a local political meeting.