free, he could have carried on walking, through one of three dark
little wooden doors not far in front of him and away from there. It
would simply mean he had not understood, or that he had understood but
chose not to pay attention to it. But if he once turned round he would
be trapped, then he would have acknowledged that he had understood
perfectly well, that he really was the Josef K. the priest had called
to and that he was willing to follow. If the priest had called out
again K. would certainly have carried on out the door, but everything
was silent as K. also waited, he turned his head slightly as he wanted
to see what the priest was doing now. He was merely standing in the
pulpit as before, but it was obvious that he had seen K. turn his head.
If K. did not now turn round completely it would have been like a child
playing hide and seek. He did so, and the priest beckoned him with his
finger. As everything could now be done openly he ran--because of
curiosity and the wish to get it over with--with long flying leaps
towards the pulpit. At the front pews he stopped, but to the priest he
still seemed too far away, he reached out his hand and pointed sharply
down with his finger to a place immediately in front of the pulpit. And
K. did as he was told, standing in that place he had to bend his head a
long way back just to see the priest. "You are Josef K.," said the
priest, and raised his hand from the balustrade to make a gesture whose
meaning was unclear. "Yes," said K., he considered how freely he had
always given his name in the past, for some time now it had been a
burden to him, now there were people who knew his name whom he had
never seen before, it had been so nice first to introduce yourself and
only then for people to know who you were. "You have been accused,"
said the priest, especially gently. "Yes," said K., "so I have been
informed." "Then you are the one I am looking for," said the priest. "I
am the prison chaplain." "I see," said K. "I had you summoned here,"
said the priest, "because I wanted to speak to you." "I knew nothing of
that," said K. "I came here to show the cathedral to a gentleman from
Italy." "That is beside the point," said the priest. "What are you
holding in your hand? Is it a prayer book?" "No," answered K., "it's an
album of the city's tourist sights." "Put it down," said the priest. K.
threw it away with such force that it flapped open and rolled across
the floor, tearing its pages. "Do you know your case is going badly?"
asked the priest. "That's how it seems to me too," said K. "I've
expended a lot of effort on it, but so far with no result. Although I do
still have some documents to submit." "How do you imagine it will end?"
asked the priest. "At first I thought it was bound to end well," said
K., "but now I have my doubts about it. I don't know how it will end. Do
you know?" "I don't," said the priest, "but I fear it will end badly.
You are considered guilty. Your case will probably not even go beyond a
minor court. Provisionally at least, your guilt is seen as proven."
"But I'm not guilty," said K., "there's been a mistake. How is it even
possible for someone to be guilty? We're all human beings here, one
like the other." "That is true," said the priest, "but that is how the
guilty speak." "Do you presume I'm guilty too?" asked K. "I make no
presumptions about you," said the priest. "I thank you for that," said
K. "but everyone else involved in these proceedings has something
against me and presumes I'm guilty. They even influence those who
aren't involved. My position gets harder all the time." "You don't
understand the facts," said the priest, "the verdict does not come
suddenly, proceedings continue until a verdict is reached gradually."
"I see," said K., lowering his head. "What do you intend to do about
your case next?" asked the priest. "I still need to find help," said
K., raising his head to see what the priest thought of this. "There are
still certain possibilities I haven't yet made use of." "You look for
too much help from people you don't know," said the priest
disapprovingly, "and especially from women. Can you really not see
that's not the help you need?" "Sometimes, in fact quite often, I could
believe you're right," said K., "but not always. Women have a lot of
power. If I could persuade some of the women I know to work together
with me then I would be certain to succeed. Especially in a court like
this that seems to consist of nothing but woman-chasers. Show the
examining judge a woman in the distance and he'll run right over the
desk, and the accused, just to get to her as soon as he can." The
priest lowered his head down to the balustrade, only now did the roof
over the pulpit seem to press him down. What sort of dreadful weather
could it be outside? It was no longer just a dull day, it was deepest
night. None of the stained glass in the main window shed even a flicker
of light on the darkness of the walls. And this was the moment when the
man in the cassock chose to put out the candles on the main altar, one
by one. "Are you cross with me?" asked K. "Maybe you don't know what
sort of court it is you serve." He received no answer. "Well, it's just
my own experience," said K. Above him there was still silence. "I didn't
mean to insult you," said K. At that, the priest screamed down at K.:
"Can you not see two steps in front of you?" He shouted in anger, but it
was also the scream of one who sees another fall and, shocked and
without thinking, screams against his own will.
The two men, then, remained silent for a long time. In the darkness
beneath him, the priest could not possibly have seen K. distinctly,
although K. was able to see him clearly by the light of the little
lamp. Why did the priest not come down? He had not given a sermon, he
had only told K. a few things which, if he followed them closely, would
probably cause him more harm than good. But the priest certainly seemed
to mean well, it might even be possible, if he would come down and
co-operate with him, it might even be possible for him to obtain some
acceptable piece of advice that could make all the difference, it
might, for instance, be able to show him not so much to influence the
proceedings but how to break free of them, how to evade them, how to
live away from them. K. had to admit that this was something he had had
on his mind quite a lot of late. If the priest knew of such a
possibility he might, if K. asked him, let him know about it, even
though he was part of the court himself and even though, when K. had
criticised the court, he had held down his gentle nature and actually
shouted at K.
"Would you not like to come down here?" asked K. "If you're not going
to give a sermon come down here with me." "Now I can come down," said
the priest, perhaps he regretted having shouted at K. As he took down
the lamp from its hook he said, "to start off with I had to speak to
you from a distance. Otherwise I'm too easily influenced and forget my
duty."
K. waited for him at the foot of the steps. While he was still on one
of the higher steps as he came down them the priest reached out his
hand for K. to shake. "Can you spare me a little of your time?" asked
K. "As much time as you need," said the priest, and passed him the
little lamp for him to carry. Even at close distance the priest did not
lose a certain solemnity that seemed to be part of his character. "You
are very friendly towards me," said K., as they walked up and down
beside each other in the darkness of one of the side naves. "That makes
you an exception among all those who belong to the court. I can trust
you more than any of the others I've seen. I can speak openly with you."
"Don't fool yourself," said the priest. "How would I be fooling myself?"
asked K. "You fool yourself in the court," said the priest, "it talks
about this self-deceit in the opening paragraphs to the law. In front of
the law there is a doorkeeper. A man from the countryside comes up to
the door and asks for entry. But the doorkeeper says he can't let him in
to the law right now. The man thinks about this, and then he asks if
he'll be able to go in later on. 'That's possible,' says the doorkeeper,
'but not now.' The gateway to the law is open as it always is, and the
doorkeeper has stepped to one side, so the man bends over to try and
see in. When the doorkeeper notices this he laughs and says, 'If you're
tempted give it a try, try and go in even though I say you can't.
Careful though: I'm powerful. And I'm only the lowliest of all the
doormen. But there's a doorkeeper for each of the rooms and each of
them is more powerful than the last. It's more than I can stand just to
look at the third one.' The man from the country had not expected
difficulties like this, the law was supposed to be accessible for
anyone at any time, he thinks, but now he looks more closely at the
doorkeeper in his fur coat, sees his big hooked nose, his long thin
tartar-beard, and he decides it's better to wait until he has
permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit
down to one side of the gate. He sits there for days and years. He tries
to be allowed in time and again and tires the doorkeeper with his
requests. The doorkeeper often questions him, asking about where he's
from and many other things, but these are disinterested questions such
as great men ask, and he always ends up by telling him he still can't
let him in. The man had come well equipped for his journey, and uses
everything, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. He accepts
everything, but as he does so he says, 'I'll only accept this so that
you don't think there's anything you've failed to do.' Over many years,
the man watches the doorkeeper almost without a break. He forgets about
the other doormen, and begins to think this one is the only thing
stopping him from gaining access to the law. Over the first few years he
curses his unhappy condition out loud, but later, as he becomes old, he
just grumbles to himself. He becomes senile, and as he has come to know
even the fleas in the doorkeeper's fur collar over the years that he has
been studying him he even asks them to help him and change the
doorkeeper's mind. Finally his eyes grow dim, and he no longer knows
whether it's really getting darker or just his eyes that are deceiving
him. But he seems now to see an inextinguishable light begin to shine
from the darkness behind the door. He doesn't have long to live now.
Just before he dies, he brings together all his experience from all this
time into one question which he has still never put to the doorkeeper.
He beckons to him, as he's no longer able to raise his stiff body. The
doorkeeper has to bend over deeply as the difference in their sizes has
changed very much to the disadvantage of the man. 'What is it you want
to know now?' asks the doorkeeper, 'You're insatiable.' 'Everyone wants
access to the law,' says the man, 'how come, over all these years,
no-one but me has asked to be let in?' The doorkeeper can see the man's
come to his end, his hearing has faded, and so, so that he can be heard,
he shouts to him: 'Nobody else could have got in this way, as this
entrance was meant only for you. Now I'll go and close it.'"
"So the doorkeeper cheated the man," said K. immediately, who had been
captivated by the story. "Don't be too quick," said the priest, "don't
take somebody else's opinion without checking it. I told you the story
exactly as it was written. There's nothing in there about cheating."
"But it's quite clear," said K., "and your first interpretation of it
was quite correct. The doorkeeper gave him the information that would
release him only when it could be of no more use." "He didn't ask him
before that," said the priest, "and don't forget he was only a
doorkeeper, and as doorkeeper he did his duty." "What makes you think
he did his duty?" asked K., "He didn't. It might have been his duty to
keep everyone else away, but this man is who the door was intended for
and he ought to have let him in." "You're not paying enough attention
to what was written and you're changing the story," said the priest.
"According to the story, there are two important things that the
doorkeeper explains about access to the law, one at the beginning, one
at the end. At one place he says he can't allow him in now, and at the
other he says this entrance was intended for him alone. If one of the
statements contradicted the other you would be right and the doorkeeper
would have cheated the man from the country. But there is no
contradiction. On the contrary, the first statement even hints at the
second. You could almost say the doorkeeper went beyond his duty in
that he offered the man some prospect of being admitted in the future.
Throughout the story, his duty seems to have been merely to turn the
man away, and there are many commentators who are surprised that the
doorkeeper offered this hint at all, as he seems to love exactitude and
keeps strict guard over his position. He stays at his post for many
years and doesn't close the gate until the very end, he's very
conscious of the importance of his service, as he says, 'I'm powerful,'
he has respect for his superiors, as he says, 'I'm only the lowliest of
the doormen,' he's not talkative, as through all these years the only
questions he asks are 'disinterested,' he's not corruptible, as when
he's offered a gift he says, 'I'll only accept this so that you don't
think there's anything you've failed to do,' as far as fulfilling his
duty goes he can be neither ruffled nor begged, as it says about the
man that, 'he tires the doorkeeper with his requests,' even his
external appearance suggests a pedantic character, the big hooked nose
and the long, thin, black tartar-beard. How could any doorkeeper be
more faithful to his duty? But in the doorkeeper's character there are
also other features which might be very useful for those who seek entry
to the law, and when he hinted at some possibility in the future it
always seemed to make it clear that he might even go beyond his duty.
There's no denying he's a little simple-minded, and that makes him a
little conceited. Even if all he said about his power and the power of
the other doorkeepers and how not even he could bear the sight of
them--I say even if all these assertions are right, the way he makes
them shows that he's too simple and arrogant to understand properly.
The commentators say about this that, 'correct understanding of a matter
and a misunderstanding of the same matter are not mutually exclusive.'
Whether they're right or not, you have to concede that his simplicity
and arrogance, however little they show, do weaken his function of
guarding the entrance, they are defects in the doorkeeper's character.
You also have to consider that the doorkeeper seems to be friendly by
nature, he isn't always just an official. He makes a joke right at the
beginning, in that he invites the man to enter at the same time as
maintaining the ban on his entering, and then he doesn't send him away
but gives him, as it says in the text, a stool to sit on and lets him
stay by the side of the door. The patience with which he puts up with
the man's requests through all these years, the little questioning
sessions, accepting the gifts, his politeness when he puts up with the
man cursing his fate even though it was the doorkeeper who caused that
fate--all these things seem to want to arouse our sympathy. Not every
doorkeeper would have behaved in the same way. And finally, he lets the
man beckon him and he bends deep down to him so that he can put his
last question. There's no more than some slight impatience--the
doorkeeper knows everything's come to its end--shown in the words,
'You're insatiable.' There are many commentators who go even further in
explaining it in this way and think the words, 'you're insatiable' are
an expression of friendly admiration, albeit with some condescension.
However you look at it the figure of the doorkeeper comes out
differently from how you might think." "You know the story better than
I do and you've known it for longer," said K. They were silent for a
while. And then K. said, "So you think the man was not cheated, do
you?" "Don't get me wrong," said the priest, "I'm just pointing out the
different opinions about it. You shouldn't pay too much attention to
people's opinions. The text cannot be altered, and the various opinions
are often no more than an expression of despair over it. There's even
one opinion which says it's the doorkeeper who's been cheated." "That
does seem to take things too far," said K. "How can they argue the
doorkeeper has been cheated?" "Their argument," answered the priest,
"is based on the simplicity of the doorkeeper. They say the doorkeeper
doesn't know the inside of the law, only the way into it where he just
walks up and down. They see his ideas of what's inside the law as
rather childish, and suppose he's afraid himself of what he wants to
make the man frightened of. Yes, he's more afraid of it than the man, as
the man wants nothing but to go inside the law, even after he's heard
about the terrible doormen there, in contrast to the doorkeeper who
doesn't want to go in, or at least we don't hear anything about it. On
the other hand, there are those who say he must have already been inside
the law as he has been taken on into its service and that could only
have been done inside. That can be countered by supposing he could have
been given the job of doorkeeper by somebody calling out from inside,
and that he can't have gone very far inside as he couldn't bear the
sight of the third doorkeeper. Nor, through all those years, does the
story say the doorkeeper told the man anything about the inside, other
than his comment about the other doorkeepers. He could have been
forbidden to do so, but he hasn't said anything about that either. All
this seems to show he doesn't know anything about what the inside looks
like or what it means, and that that's why he's being deceived. But he's
also being deceived by the man from the country as he's this man's
subordinate and doesn't know it. There's a lot to indicate that he
treats the man as his subordinate, I expect you remember, but those who
hold this view would say it's very clear that he really is his
subordinate. Above all, the free man is superior to the man who has to
serve another. Now, the man really is free, he can go wherever he wants,
the only thing forbidden to him is entry into the law and, what's more,
there's only one man forbidding him to do so--the doorkeeper. If he
takes the stool and sits down beside the door and stays there all his
life he does this of his own free will, there's nothing in the story to
say he was forced to do it. On the other hand, the doorkeeper is kept to
his post by his employment, he's not allowed to go away from it and it
seems he's not allowed to go inside either, not even if he wanted to.
Also, although he's in the service of the law he's only there for this
one entrance, therefore he's there only in the service of this one man
who the door's intended for. This is another way in which he's his
subordinate. We can take it that he's been performing this somewhat
empty service for many years, through the whole of a man's life, as it
says that a man will come, that means someone old enough to be a man.
That means the doorkeeper will have to wait a long time before his
function is fulfilled, he will have to wait for as long as the man
liked, who came to the door of his own free will. Even the end of the
doorkeeper's service is determined by when the man's life ends, so the
doorkeeper remains his subordinate right to the end. And it's pointed
out repeatedly that the doorkeeper seems to know nothing of any of
this, although this is not seen as anything remarkable, as those who
hold this view see the doorkeeper as deluded in a way that's far worse,
a way that's to do with his service. At the end, speaking about the
entrance he says, 'Now I'll go and close it,' although at the beginning
of the story it says the door to the law is open as it always is, but if
it's always open--always--that means it's open independently of the
lifespan of the man it's intended for, and not even the doorkeeper will
be able to close it. There are various opinions about this, some say
the doorkeeper was only answering a question or showing his devotion to
duty or, just when the man was in his last moments, the doorkeeper
wanted to cause him regret and sorrow. There are many who agree that he
wouldn't be able to close the door. They even believe, at the end at
least, the doorkeeper is aware, deep down, that he's the man's
subordinate, as the man sees the light that shines out of the entry to
the law whereas the doorkeeper would probably have his back to it and
says nothing at all to show there's been any change." "That is well
substantiated," said K., who had been repeating some parts of the
priest's explanation to himself in a whisper. "It is well substantiated,
and now I too think the doorkeeper must have been deceived. Although
that does not mean I've abandoned what I thought earlier as the two
versions are, to some extent, not incompatible. It's not clear whether
the doorkeeper sees clearly or is deceived. I said the man had been
cheated. If the doorkeeper understands clearly, then there could be some
doubt about it, but if the doorkeeper has been deceived then the man is
bound to believe the same thing. That would mean the doorkeeper is not a
cheat but so simple-minded that he ought to be dismissed from his job
immediately; if the doorkeeper is mistaken it will do him no harm but
the man will be harmed immensely." "There you've found another opinion,"
said the priest, "as there are many who say the story doesn't give
anyone the right to judge the doorkeeper. However he might seem to us he
is still in the service of the law, so he belongs to the law, so he's
beyond what man has a right to judge. In this case we can't believe the
doorkeeper is the man's subordinate. Even if he has to stay at the
entrance into the law his service makes him incomparably more than if he
lived freely in the world. The man has come to the law for the first
time and the doorkeeper is already there. He's been given his position
by the law, to doubt his worth would be to doubt the law." "I can't say
I'm in complete agreement with this view," said K. shaking his head, "as
if you accept it you'll have to accept that everything said by the
doorkeeper is true. But you've already explained very fully that that's
not possible." "No," said the priest, "you don't need to accept
everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary."
"Depressing view," said K. "The lie made into the rule of the world."
K. said that as if it were his final word but it was not his
conclusion. He was too tired to think about all the ramifications of
the story, and the sort of thoughts they led him into were not familiar
to him, unrealistic things, things better suited for officials of the
court to discuss than for him. The simple story had lost its shape, he
wanted to shake it off, and the priest who now felt quite compassionate
allowed this and accepted K.'s remarks without comment, even though his
view was certainly very different from K.'s.
In silence, they carried on walking for some time, K. stayed close
beside the priest without knowing where he was. The lamp in his hand
had long since gone out. Once, just in front of him, he thought he
could see the statue of a saint by the glitter of the silver on it,
although it quickly disappeared back into the darkness. So that he would
not remain entirely dependent on the priest, K. asked him, "We're now
near the main entrance, are we?" "No," said the priest, "we're a long
way from it. Do you already want to go?" K. had not thought of going
until then, but he immediately said, "Yes, certainly, I have to go. I'm
the chief clerk in a bank and there are people waiting for me, I only
came here to show a foreign business contact round the cathedral."
"Alright," said the priest offering him his hand, "go then." "But I
can't find my way round in this darkness by myself," said K. "Go to your
left as far as the wall," said the priest, "then continue alongside the
wall without leaving it and you'll find a way out." The priest had only
gone a few paces from him, but K. was already shouting loudly, "Please,
wait!" "I'm waiting," said the priest. "Is there anything else you want
from me?" asked K. "No," said the priest. "You were so friendly to me
earlier on," said K., "and you explained everything, but now you
abandon me as if I were nothing to you." "You have to go," said the
priest. "Well, yes," said K., "you need to understand that." "First, you
need to understand who I am," said the priest. "You're the prison
chaplain," said K., and went closer to the priest, it was not so
important for him to go straight back to the bank as he had made out, he
could very well stay where he was. "So that means I belong to the
court," said the priest. "So why would I want anything from you? The
court doesn't want anything from you. It accepts you when you come and
it lets you go when you leave."
Chapter Ten
End
The evening before K.'s thirty-first birthday--it was about nine
o'clock in the evening, the time when the streets were quiet--two men
came to where he lived. In frock coats, pale and fat, wearing top hats
that looked like they could not be taken off their heads. After some
brief formalities at the door of the flat when they first arrived, the
same formalities were repeated at greater length at K.'s door. He had
not been notified they would be coming, but K. sat in a chair near the
door, dressed in black as they were, and slowly put on new gloves which
stretched tightly over his fingers and behaved as if he were expecting
visitors. He immediately stood up and looked at the gentlemen
inquisitively. "You've come for me then, have you?" he asked. The
gentlemen nodded, one of them indicated the other with the top hat now
in his hand. K. told them he had been expecting a different visitor. He
went to the window and looked once more down at the dark street. Most
of the windows on the other side of the street were also dark already,
many of them had the curtains closed. In one of the windows on the same
floor where there was a light on, two small children could be seen
playing with each other inside a playpen, unable to move from where
they were, reaching out for each other with their little hands. "Some
ancient, unimportant actors--that's what they've sent for me," said K.
to himself, and looked round once again to confirm this to himself.
"They want to sort me out as cheaply as they can." K. suddenly turned
round to face the two men and asked, "What theatre do you play in?"
"Theatre?" asked one of the gentlemen, turning to the other for
assistance and pulling in the corners of his mouth. The other made a
gesture like someone who was dumb, as if he were struggling with some
organism causing him trouble. "You're not properly prepared to answer
questions," said K. and went to fetch his hat.
As soon as they were on the stairs the gentlemen wanted to take K.'s
arms, but K. said "Wait till we're in the street, I'm not ill." But
they waited only until the front door before they took his arms in a
way that K. had never experienced before. They kept their shoulders
close behind his, did not turn their arms in but twisted them around
the entire length of K.'s arms and took hold of his hands with a grasp
that was formal, experienced and could not be resisted. K. was held
stiff and upright between them, they formed now a single unit so that if
any one of them had been knocked down all of them must have fallen.
They formed a unit of the sort that normally can be formed only by
matter that is lifeless.
Whenever they passed under a lamp K. tried to see his companions more
clearly, as far as was possible when they were pressed so close
together, as in the dim light of his room this had been hardly
possible. "Maybe they're tenors," he thought as he saw their big double
chins. The cleanliness of their faces disgusted him. He could see the
hands that cleaned them, passing over the corners of their eyes,
rubbing at their upper lips, scratching out the creases on those chins.
When K. noticed that, he stopped, which meant the others had to stop
too; they were at the edge of an open square, devoid of people but
decorated with flower beds. "Why did they send you, of all people!" he
cried out, more a shout than a question. The two gentleman clearly knew
no answer to give, they waited, their free arms hanging down, like
nurses when the patient needs to rest. "I will go no further," said K.
as if to see what would happen. The gentlemen did not need to make any
answer, it was enough that they did not loosen their grip on K. and
tried to move him on, but K. resisted them. "I'll soon have no need of
much strength, I'll use all of it now," he thought. He thought of the
flies that tear their legs off struggling to get free of the flypaper.
"These gentleman will have some hard work to do."