thinking only of Miss Bürstner and how she was accepting an unknown girl
into her room. "Now don't cry," he said again as he turned his look back
into the room where Mrs. Grubach was still crying. "I meant no harm
either when I said that. It was simply a misunderstanding between us.
That can happen even between old friends sometimes." Mrs. Grubach pulled
her apron down to below her eyes to see whether K. really was attempting
a reconciliation. "Well, yes, that's how it is," said K., and as Mrs.
Grubach's behaviour indicated that the captain had said nothing he dared
to add, "Do you really think, then, that I'd want to make an enemy of
you for the sake of a girl we hardly know?" "Yes, you're quite right,
Mr. K.," said Mrs. Grubach, and then, to her misfortune, as soon as she
felt just a little freer to speak, she added something rather inept. "I
kept asking myself why it was that Mr. K. took such an interest in Miss
Bürstner. Why does he quarrel with me over her when he knows that any
cross word from him and I can't sleep that night? And I didn't say
anything about Miss Bürstner that I hadn't seen with my own eyes." K.
said nothing in reply, he should have chased her from the room as soon
as she had opened her mouth, and he didn't want to do that. He contented
himself with merely drinking his coffee and letting Mrs. Grubach feel
that she was superfluous. Outside, the dragging steps of Miss Montag
could still be heard as she went from one side of the hallway to the
other. "Do you hear that?" asked K. pointing his hand at the door.
"Yes," said Mrs. Grubach with a sigh, "I wanted to give her some help
and I wanted the maid to help her too but she's stubborn, she wants to
move everything in herself. I wonder at Miss Bürstner. I often feel it's
a burden for me to have Miss Montag as a tenant but Miss Bürstner
accepts her into her room with herself." "There's nothing there for you
to worry about," said K., crushing the remains of a sugar lump in his
cup. "Does she cause you any trouble?" "No," said Mrs. Grubach, "in
itself it's very good to have her there, it makes another room free for
me and I can let my nephew, the captain, occupy it. I began to worry he
might be disturbing you when I had to let him live in the living room
next to you over the last few days. He's not very considerate." "What an
idea!" said K. standing up, "there's no question of that. You seem to
think that because I can't stand this to-ing and fro-ing of Miss Montag
that I'm over-sensitive--and there she goes back again." Mrs. Grubach
appeared quite powerless. "Should I tell her to leave moving the rest of
her things over till later, then, Mr. K.? If that's what you want I'll
do it immediately." "But she has to move in with Miss Bürstner!" said K.
"Yes," said Mrs. Grubach, without quite understanding what K. meant. "So
she has to take her things over there." Mrs. Grubach just nodded. K. was
irritated all the more by this dumb helplessness which, seen from the
outside, could have seemed like a kind of defiance on her part. He began
to walk up and down the room between the window and the door, thus
depriving Mrs. Grubach of the chance to leave, which she otherwise
probably would have done.
Just as K. once more reached the door, someone knocked at it. It was the
maid, to say that Miss Montag would like to have a few words with Mr.
K., and therefore requested that he come to the dining room where she
was waiting for him. K. heard the maid out thoughtfully, and then looked
back at the shocked Mrs. Grubach in a way that was almost contemptuous.
His look seemed to be saying that K. had been expecting this invitation
for Miss Montag for a long time, and that it was confirmation of the
suffering he had been made to endure that Sunday morning from Mrs.
Grubach's tenants. He sent the maid back with the reply that he was on
his way, then he went to the wardrobe to change his coat, and in answer
to Mrs. Grubach's gentle whining about the nuisance Miss Montag was
causing merely asked her to clear away the breakfast things. "But you've
hardly touched it," said Mrs. Grubach. "Oh just take it away!" shouted
K. It seemed to him that Miss Montag was mixed up in everything and made
it repulsive to him.
As he went through the hallway he looked at the closed door of Miss
Bürstner's room. But it wasn't there that he was invited, but the dining
room, to which he yanked the door open without knocking.
The room was long but narrow with one window. There was only enough
space available to put two cupboards at an angle in the corner by the
door, and the rest of the room was entirely taken up with the long
dining table which started by the door and reached all the way to the
great window, which was thus made almost inaccessible. The table was
already laid for a large number of people, as on Sundays almost all the
tenants ate their dinner here at midday.
When K. entered, Miss Montag came towards him from the window along one
side of the table. They greeted each other in silence. Then Miss Montag,
her head unusually erect as always, said, "I'm not sure whether you know
me." K. looked at her with a frown. "Of course I do," he said, "you've
been living here with Mrs. Grubach for quite some time now." "But I get
the impression you don't pay much attention to what's going on in the
lodging house," said Miss Montag. "No," said K. "Would you not like to
sit down?" said Miss Montag. In silence, the two of them drew chairs out
from the farthest end of the table and sat down facing each other. But
Miss Montag stood straight up again as she had left her handbag on the
window sill and went to fetch it; she shuffled down the whole length of
the room. When she came back, the handbag lightly swinging, she said,
"I'd like just to have a few words with you on behalf of my friend. She
would have come herself, but she's feeling a little unwell today.
Perhaps you'll be kind enough to forgive her and listen to me instead.
There's anyway nothing that she could have said that I won't. On the
contrary, in fact, I think I can say even more than her because I'm
relatively impartial. Would you not agree?" "What is there to say,
then?" answered K., who was tired of Miss Montag continuously watching
his lips. In that way she took control of what he wanted to say before
he said it. "Miss Bürstner clearly refuses to grant me the personal
meeting that I asked her for." "That's how it is," said Miss Montag, "or
rather, that's not at all how it is, the way you put it is remarkably
severe. Generally speaking, meetings are neither granted nor the
opposite. But it can be that meetings are considered unnecessary, and
that's how it is here. Now, after your comment, I can speak openly. You
asked my friend, verbally or in writing, for the chance to speak with
her. Now my friend is aware of your reasons for asking for this
meeting--or at least I suppose she is--and so, for reasons I know
nothing about, she is quite sure that it would be of no benefit to
anyone if this meeting actually took place. Moreover, it was only
yesterday, and only very briefly, that she made it clear to me that such
a meeting could be of no benefit for yourself either, she feels that it
can only have been a matter of chance that such an idea came to you, and
that even without any explanations from her, you will very soon come to
realise yourself, if you have not done so already, the futility of your
idea. My answer to that is that although it may be quite right, I
consider it advantageous, if the matter is to be made perfectly clear,
to give you an explicit answer. I offered my services in taking on the
task, and after some hesitation my friend conceded. I hope, however,
also to have acted in your interests, as even the slightest uncertainty
in the least significant of matters will always remain a cause of
suffering and if, as in this case, it can be removed without substantial
effort, then it is better if that is done without delay." "I thank you,"
said K. as soon as Miss Montag had finished. He stood slowly up, looked
at her, then across the table, then out the window--the house opposite
stood there in the sun--and went to the door. Miss Montag followed him a
few paces, as if she did not quite trust him. At the door, however, both
of them had to step back as it opened and Captain Lanz entered. This was
the first time that K. had seen him close up. He was a large man of
about forty with a tanned, fleshy face. He bowed slightly, intending it
also for K., and then went over to Miss Montag and deferentially kissed
her hand. He was very elegant in the way he moved. The courtesy he
showed towards Miss Montag made a striking contrast with the way she had
been treated by K. Nonetheless, Miss Montag did not seem to be cross
with K. as it even seemed to him that she wanted to introduce the
captain. K. however, did not want to be introduced, he would not have
been able to show any sort of friendliness either to Miss Montag or to
the captain, the kiss on the hand had, for K., bound them into a group
which would keep him at a distance from Miss Bürstner whilst at the same
time seeming to be totally harmless and unselfish. K. thought, however,
that he saw more than that, he thought he also saw that Miss Montag had
chosen a means of doing it that was good, but two-edged. She exaggerated
the importance of the relationship between K. and Miss Bürstner, and
above all she exaggerated the importance of asking to speak with her and
she tried at the same time to make out that K. was exaggerating
everything. She would be disappointed, K. did not want to exaggerate
anything, he was aware that Miss Bürstner was a little typist who would
not offer him much resistance for long. In doing so he deliberately took
no account of what Mrs. Grubach had told him about Miss Bürstner. All
these things were going through his mind as he left the room with hardly
a polite word. He wanted to go straight to his room, but a little laugh
from Miss Montag that he heard from the dining room behind him brought
him to the idea that he might prepare a surprise for the two of them,
the captain and Miss Montag. He looked round and listened to find out if
there might be any disturbance from any of the surrounding rooms,
everywhere was quiet, the only thing to be heard was the conversation
from the dining room and Mrs. Grubach's voice from the passage leading
to the kitchen. This seemed an opportune time, K. went to Miss
Bürstner's room and knocked gently. There was no sound so he knocked
again but there was still no answer in reply. Was she asleep? Or was
she really unwell? Or was she just pretending as she realised it could
only be K. knocking so gently? K. assumed she was pretending and
knocked harder, eventually, when the knocking brought no result, he
carefully opened the door with the sense of doing something that was not
only improper but also pointless. In the room there was no-one. What's
more, it looked hardly at all like the room K. had known before. Against
the wall there were now two beds behind one another, there were clothes
piled up on three chairs near the door, a wardrobe stood open. Miss
Bürstner must have gone out while Miss Montag was speaking to him in the
dining room. K. was not greatly bothered by this, he had hardly expected
to be able to find Miss Bürstner so easily and had made this attempt for
little more reason than to spite Miss Montag. But that made it all the
more embarrassing for him when, as he was closing the door again, he saw
Miss Montag and the captain talking in the open doorway of the dining
room. They had probably been standing there ever since K. had opened the
door, they avoided seeming to observe K. but chatted lightly and
followed his movements with glances, the absent minded glances to the
side such as you make during a conversation. But these glances were
heavy for K., and he rushed alongside the wall back into his own room.
Chapter Five
The whip-man
One evening, a few days later, K. was walking along one of the corridors
that separated his office from the main stairway--he was nearly the last
one to leave for home that evening, there remained only a couple of
workers in the light of a single bulb in the dispatch department--when
he heard a sigh from behind a door which he had himself never opened but
which he had always thought just led into a junk room. He stood in
amazement and listened again to establish whether he might not be
mistaken. For a while there was silence, but then came some more sighs.
His first thought was to fetch one of the servitors, it might well have
been worth having a witness present, but then he was taken by an
uncontrollable curiosity that make him simply yank the door open. It
was, as he had thought, a junk room. Old, unusable forms, empty stone
ink-bottles lay scattered behind the entrance. But in the cupboard-like
room itself stood three men, crouching under the low ceiling. A candle
fixed on a shelf gave them light. "What are you doing here?" asked K.
quietly, but crossly and without thinking. One of the men was clearly in
charge, and attracted attention by being dressed in a kind of dark
leather costume which left his neck and chest and his arms exposed. He
did not answer. But the other two called out, "Mr. K.! We're to be
beaten because you made a complaint about us to the examining judge."
And now, K. finally realised that it was actually the two policemen,
Franz and Willem, and that the third man held a cane in his hand with
which to beat them. "Well," said K., staring at them, "I didn't make any
complaint, I only said what took place in my home. And your behaviour
was not entirely unobjectionable, after all." "Mr. K.," said Willem,
while Franz clearly tried to shelter behind him as protection from the
third man, "if you knew how badly we get paid you wouldn't think so
badly of us. I've got a family to feed, and Franz here wanted to get
married, you just have to get more money where you can, you can't do it
just by working hard, not however hard you try. I was sorely tempted by
your fine clothes, policemen aren't allowed to do that sort of thing,
course they aren't, and it wasn't right of us, but it's tradition that
the clothes go to the officers, that's how it's always been, believe me;
and it's understandable too, isn't it, what can things like that mean
for anyone unlucky enough to be arrested. But if he starts talking about
it openly then the punishment has to follow." "I didn't know about any
of this that you've been telling me, and I made no sort of request that
you be punished, I was simply acting on principle." "Franz," said
Willem, turning to the other policeman, "didn't I tell you that the
gentleman didn't say he wanted us to be punished. Now you can hear for
yourself, he didn't even know we'd have to be punished." "Don't you let
them persuade you, talking like that," said the third man to K., "this
punishment is both just and unavoidable." "Don't listen to him," said
Willem, interrupting himself only to quickly bring his hand to his mouth
when it had received a stroke of the cane, "we're only being punished
because you made a complaint against us. Nothing would have happened to
us otherwise, not even if they'd found out what we'd done. Can you call
that justice? Both of us, me especially, we'd proved our worth as good
police officers over a long period--you've got to admit yourself that as
far as official work was concerned we did the job well--things looked
good for us, we had prospects, it's quite certain that we would've been
made whip-men too, like this one, only he had the luck not to have
anyone make a complaint about him, as you really don't get many
complaints like that. Only that's all finished now, Mr. K., our careers
are at an end, we're going to have to do work now that's far inferior to
police work and besides all this we're going to get this terrible,
painful beating." "Can the cane really cause so much pain, then?" asked
K., testing the cane that the whip-man swang in front of him. "We're
going to have to strip off totally naked," said Willem. "Oh, I see,"
said K., looking straight at the whip-man, his skin was burned brown
like a sailor's, and his face showed health and vigour. "Is there then
no possibility of sparing these two their beating?" he asked him. "No,"
said the whip-man, shaking his head with a laugh. "Get undressed!" he
ordered the policemen. And to K. he said, "You shouldn't believe
everything they tell you, it's the fear of being beaten, it's already
made them a bit weak in the head. This one here, for instance," he
pointed at Willem, "all that he told you about his career prospects,
it's just ridiculous. Look at him, look how fat he is--the first strokes
of the cane will just get lost in all that fat. Do you know what it is
that's made him so fat. He's in the habit of, everyone that gets
arrested by him, he eats their breakfast. Didn't he eat up your
breakfast? Yeah, I thought as much. But a man with a belly like that
can't be made into a whip-man and never will be, that is quite out of
the question." "There are whip-men like that," Willem insisted, who had
just released the belt of this trousers. "No," said the whip-man,
striking him such a blow with the cane on his neck that it made him
wince, "you shouldn't be listening to this, just get undressed." "I
would make it well worth your while if you would let them go," said K.,
and without looking at the whip-man again--as such matters are best
carried on with both pairs of eyes turned down--he pulled out his
wallet. "And then you'd try and put in a complaint against me, too,"
said the whip-man, "and get me flogged. No, no!" "Now, do be
reasonable," said K., "if I had wanted to get these two punished I would
not now be trying to buy their freedom, would I? I could simply close
the door here behind me, go home and see or hear nothing more of it. But
that's not what I'm doing, it really is of much more importance to me to
let them go free; if I had realised they would be punished, or even that
they might be punished, I would never have named them in the first place
as they are not the ones I hold responsible. It's the organisation
that's to blame, the high officials are the ones to blame." "That's how
it is!" shouted the policemen, who then immediately received another
blow on their backs, which were by now exposed. "If you had a senior
judge here beneath your stick," said K., pressing down the cane as he
spoke to stop it being raised once more, "I really would do nothing to
stop you, on the contrary, I would even pay you money to give you all
the more strength." "Yeah, that's all very plausible, what you're saying
there," said the whip-man, "only I'm not the sort of person you can
bribe. It's my job to flog people, so I flog them." Franz, the
policeman, had been fairly quiet so far, probably in expectation of a
good result from K.'s intervention, but now he stepped forward to the
door wearing just his trousers, knelt down hanging on to K.'s arm and
whispered, "Even if you can't get mercy shown for both of us, at least
try and get me set free. Willem is older than me, he's less sensitive
than me in every way, he even got a light beating a couple of years
ago, but my record's still clean, I only did things the way I did
because Willem led me on to it, he's been my teacher both for good and
bad. Down in front of the bank my poor bride is waiting for me at the
entrance, I'm so ashamed of myself, it's pitiful." His face was flowing
over with tears, and he wiped it dry on K.'s coat. "I'm not going to
wait any longer," said the whip-man, taking hold of the cane in both
hands and laying in to Franz while Willem cowered back in a corner and
looked on secretly, not even daring to turn his head. Then, the sudden
scream that shot out from Franz was long and irrevocable, it seemed to
come not from a human being but from an instrument that was being
tortured, the whole corridor rang with it, it must have been heard by
everyone in the building. "Don't shout like that!", called out K.,
unable to prevent himself, and, as he looked anxiously in the direction
from which the servitor would come, he gave Franz a shove, not hard, but
hard enough for him to fall down unconscious, clawing at the ground with
his hands by reflex; he still did not avoid being hit; the rod still
found him on the floor; the tip of the rod swang regularly up and down
while he rolled to and fro under its blows. And now one of the servitors
appeared in the distance, with another a few steps behind him. K. had
quickly thrown the door shut, gone over to one of the windows
overlooking the yard and opened it. The screams had completely stopped.
So that the servitor wouldn't come in, he called out, "It's only me!"
"Good evening, chief clerk," somebody called back. "Is there anything
wrong?" "No, no," answered K., "it's only a dog yelping in the yard."
There was no sound from the servitors so he added, "You can go back to
what you were doing." He did not want to become involved with a
conversation with them, and so he leant out of the window. A little
while later, when he looked out in the corridor, they had already gone.
Now, K. remained at the window, he did not dare go back into the junk
room, and he did not want to go home either. The yard he looked down
into was small and rectangular, all around it were offices, all the
windows were now dark and only those at the very top caught a reflection
of the moon. K. tried hard to see into the darkness of one corner of the
yard, where a few handcarts had been left behind one another. He felt
anguish at not having been able to prevent the flogging, but that was
not his fault, if Franz had not screamed like that--clearly it must have
caused a great deal of pain but it's important to maintain control of
oneself at important moments--if Franz had not screamed then it was at
least highly probable that K. would have been able to dissuade the
whip-man. If all the junior officers were contemptible why would the
whip-man, whose position was the most inhumane of all, be any exception,
and K. had noticed very clearly how his eyes had lit up when he saw the
banknotes, he had obviously only seemed serious about the flogging to
raise the level of the bribe a little. And K. had not been ungenerous,
he really had wanted to get the policemen freed; if he really had now
begun to do something against the degeneracy of the court then it was a
matter of course that he would have to do something here as well. But of
course, it became impossible for him to do anything as soon as Franz
started screaming. K. could not possibly have let the junior bank staff,
and perhaps even all sorts of other people, come along and catch him by
surprise as he haggled with those people in the junk room. Nobody could
really expect that sort of sacrifice of him. If that had been his
intention then it would almost have been easier, K. would have taken
his own clothes off and offered himself to the whip-man in the
policemen's place. The whip-man would certainly not have accepted this
substitution anyway, as in that way he would have seriously violated his
duty without gaining any benefit. He would most likely have violated his
duty twice over, as court employees were probably under orders not to
cause any harm to K. while he was facing charges, although there may
have been special conditions in force here. However things stood, K. was
able to do no more than throw the door shut, even though that would
still do nothing to remove all the dangers he faced. It was regrettable
that he had given Franz a shove, and it could only be excused by the
heat of the moment.