They then sat together rather quietly over beer in the taproom, at a small table with K. in the middle and the assistants on either side.Only one other table was occupied, by peasants, as on the previous evening.“This is difficult,”said K.,comparing their faces as he had often done before,“how am I supposed to distinguish between you?Only your names are different, otherwise you're as alike as—”he hesitated, then went on involuntarily—“otherwise you're as alike as snakes.”They smiled.“People usually can distinguish quite easily between us,”they said in self defense.“I can believe that,”said K.,“for I witnessed it myself, but I can only see with my eyes and cannot distinguish between you with them.So I shall treat you as one person and call you both Artur, that's what one of you is called—you perhaps?”K.asked one.“No,”he said,“my name is Jeremias.”“Fine, it doesn't matter,”said K.,“I shall call you both Artur.When I send A.rtur somewhere, both of you must go, when I give Artur a task, both of you must do it, the great disadvantage this has for me is that I cannot use you for separate tasks, but the advantage is that the two of you bear undivided responsibility for carrying out all my instructions.How you divide up the work is immaterial to me so long as you do not try to excuse yourselves by blaming each other, I consider you one person.”They thought this over and said:“That would be quite unpleasant for us.”“Why, of course!”said K.,“it must indeed be unpleasant for you, but that's how it
s going to be.”For some time now K.had been watching one of the peasants slinking about the table;at last the peasant came to a decision, approached an assistant, and was about to whisper something in his ear.“Excuse me,”said K.,banging his hand on the table and standing up,“these are my assistants, and we are having a meeting.Nobody has the right to disturb us.”“Oh sorry, oh sorry,”the peasant said anxiously, walking backward toward his companions.“One thing above all else you must keep in mind,”said K.,sitting down again,“you're not to speak to anyone without my permission.I'm a stranger here, and if you are my old assistants, then you are strangers, too.We three strangers must stick together, give me your hands on that.”All too eagerly they stretched out their hands.“Drop your paws,”he said,“but my order stands.I shall go to bed now and suggest you do likewise.We have lost a full workday and have to start work very early tomorrow.You must get hold of a sleigh for the journey to the Castle and have it ready at the door at six o'clock.”“Fine,”said one, but the other broke in:“You say‘fine,’though you know it's impossible.”“Be quiet,”said K.,“you're simply trying to show you're different.”But now the first one, too, said:“He's right, that's impossible, no strangers are allowed into the Castle without permission.”“Where must one apply for permission?”“I don't know, at the steward's, perhaps.”“Then we shall apply there by telephone, telephone the steward at once, both of you.”They ran to the telephone, obtained a connection—how they jostled each other there, outwardly they were ridiculously obedient—and inquired whether K.could go with them tomorrow to the Castle.The“No”of the answer reached K.at his table, but the answer was more explicit, it went,“neither tomorrow nor any other time.”“I myself shall telephone,”said K.,getting up.While K.and his assistants had attracted little attention up to now, aside from the incident with the peasant, his last remark attracted general attention.They all stood up with K.,and though the landlord tried to push them back, they gathered round him in a tight half-circle at the telephone.The majority thought that K.would get no answer.K.was obliged to ask them to be quiet, he had no desire to hear their opinion.
From the mouthpiece came a humming, the likes of which K. had never heard on the telephone before.It was as though the humming of countless childlike voices—but it wasn't humming either, it was singing, the singing of the most distant, of the most utterly distant, voices—as though a single, high-pitched yet strong voice had emerged out of this humming in some quite impossible way and now drummed against one's ears as if demanding to penetrate more deeply into something other than one's wretched hearing.K.listened without telephoning, with his left arm propped on the telephone stand he listened thus.
He had no idea how long, not until the landlord tugged at his coat, saying that a messenger had come for him.“Go,”shouted K.,beside himself, perhaps into the telephone, for now someone answered. The following conversation came about:“Oswald here, who's there?”said a severe, arrogant voice with a slight speech defect, for which, it seemed to K.,the speaker tried to compensate by sounding even more severe.K.was hesitant to give his name, against the telephone he was defenseless, the person could shout him down, lay down the mouthpiece, and K.would have blocked a path that was perhaps not insignificant.K.'s hesitation made the man impatient.“Who's there?”he repeated, adding,“I should be greatly pleased if less use were made of the telephone there, someone telephoned only a moment ago.”K.did not reply to this remark and announced with sudden resolve:“This is the assistant of the gentleman who came as surveyor.”“What assistant?What gentleman?What surveyor?”K.recalled yesterday's telephone conversation.“Ask Fritz,”he said curtly.It worked, to his own astonishment.Yet what amazed him even more than its working was the consistency of the official service there.The response was:“I know.The eternal land surveyor.Yes, yes.Go on?What assistant?”“Josef,”said K.Having the peasants mumbling behind his back was somewhat annoying, they evidently disapproved of his not giving his right name.But K.had no time to deal with them, for the conversation required all his attention.“Josef?”came the reply.“The assistants are called—”a short pause, he was apparently asking somebody else for their names—”Artur and Jeremias.”“Those are the new assistants,”said K.“No, those are the old ones.”“Those are the new ones, I'm the old one who came today to join the surveyor.”“No,”the voice was now shouting.“Who am I, then?”K.asked as calmly as before.And after a pause, the same voice, which had the same speech defect but sounded like a different, deeper, more imposing voice, said:“You're the old assistant.”
K. was still listening to the sound of the voice and almost missed the next question:“What do you want?”Most of all he would have liked to put down the receiver.He was no longer expecting anything from this conversation.Only under pressure did he quickly add:“When can my master come to the Castle?”“Never,”came the answer.“Fine,”said K.,replacing the receiver.
Behind him the peasants had already edged up extremely close to him. The assistants, who kept casting side glances at him, were busy keeping the peasants away.But this seemed no more than a comedy, and the peasants, satisfied with the outcome of the conversation, gradually yielded.Just then their group was divided in two by a man who came from behind in rapid stride, bowed before K.,and handed him a letter.K.held the letter in his hand and looked at the man, who seemed more important to him just then.He greatly resembled the assistants, was as slender as they, just as lightly dressed, had the same quickness and agility, and yet he was quite different.If only K.could have had him as an assistant!He reminded K.somewhat of the woman with the infant whom he had seen at the master tanner's.He was dressed almost entirely in white, the material could scarcely be silk, it was winter clothing like all the rest, but it had the delicacy and formality of silk.His face was bright and open, with enormous eyes.His smile was uncommonly encouraging;he brushed his hand across his face as though trying to chase away the smile, but he didn't succeed.“Who are you?”asked K.“My name is Barnabas,”he said,“I am a messenger.”As he spoke, his lips opened and closed in a masculine but gentle way.“How do you like it here?”asked K.,pointing to the peasants, who still hadn't lost interest in him and who, with their bulging lips, open mouths, and almost tortured faces—their heads looked as if they had been beaten flat on top and their features shaped in the pain of the beating—were staring at him but then again not staring at him since their eyes sometimes wandered off and rested a while on some indifferent object before returning to him, and then K.pointed to the assistants, who were embracing each other, cheek to cheek, and smiling, whether in humility or mockery one could not tell, he pointed all this out as if introducing an entourage forced on him by special circumstances in the hope—this suggested familiarity, which was what mattered to K.—that Barnabas had the sense to tell the difference between these people and K.Yet Barnabas completely ignored this, though in all innocence as one could see, letting the question pass, just like a well-trained servant faced with a comment only seemingly addressed to him by his master, and in response to the question merely looked about, greeting his acquaintances among the peasants with a wave and exchanging a few words with the assistants, all this freely and independently, without mingling with them.Rejected but not abashed, K.turned to the letter in his hand and opened it.It read as follows:“Dear Sir!As you know, you have been accepted into the Count's service.Your immediate superior is the village council chairman, he will furnish you with all further details concerning your work and terms of employment, and you, in turn, will be accountable to him.Nevertheless, I too shall keep you in mind.Barnabas, who brings you this letter, will occasionally call on you to ascertam your wishes and relay them to me.You will find that I am always ready, insofar as possible, to oblige you.Having satisfied workers is important to me.”The signature wasn't legible, but printed beside it were the words:The Director of Bureau No.10.“Wait!”K.told Barnabas, who was bowing, then he asked the landlord to show him his room, since he wanted to spend some time alone with the letter.At the same time it occurred to him that regardless of his affection for Barnabas he was merely a messenger, so he had them bring him a beer.He observed him to see how he would accept it;he accepted it with seeming eagerness and drank it right away.Then K.left with the landlord.In that little house they had only been able to prepare a small attic room for K.,and even that had caused problems, for the two maids who had slept there until then had had to be lodged elsewhere.Actually, they had only moved out the maids, aside from that the room was probably unchanged, there were no sheets on the one bed, just a few pillows and a horse blanket left in the same state as everything else after last night, on the wall there were a few Saints’pictures and photographs of soldiers, the room hadn't even been aired, they were evidently hoping the new guest wouldn't stay long and did nothing to keep him.Yet K.agreed to everything, wrapped himself in the blanket, sat down at the table and in the light of a candle began to read the letter again.
It wasn't consistent, some passages treated him as a free man and conceded that he had a will of his own, such as the initial greeting and the passage concerning his wishes. There were other passages, though, that treated him openly or indirectly as a lowly worker who was barely noticeable from the director's post, the director had to make an effort to“keep him in mind,”his superior was only the village chairman, to whom he was even accountable, his only colleague was perhaps the village policeman.Undoubtedly these were contradictions, so obvious they must be intentional.The thought—a crazy one in the case of such authorities—that indecision might have played a role here, scarcely occurred to K.He saw it more as a choice that had been freely offered him, it had been left up to him to decide what he wanted to make of the provisions in the letter, whether he wanted to be a village worker with a distinctive but merely apparent connection to the Castle, or an apparent village worker who in reality allowed the messages brought by Barnabas to define the terms of his position.K.did not hesitate to choose, nor would he have hesitated to do so even if he had never had certain experiences here.It was only as a village worker, as far from the Castle gentlemen as possible, that he could achieve anything at the Castle, these people in the village who were so distrustful of him would start talking as soon as he had become if not their friend then their fellow citizen, and once he had become indistinguishable from, say, Gerst?cker or Lasemann—this must happen very quickly, everything depended on it—all those paths would suddenly open up, which if he were to rely solely on the gentlemen above, on their good graces, would always remain blocked off and invisible too.Yet there was certainly a risk, and the letter stressed this and even dwelled on it with a certain delight, as though it were inevitable:it was his status as a worker.“Service,”“superior,”“work,”“terms of employment,”“accountable,”“workers,”the letter was crammed with such terms and even if it referred to other, more personal matters, it did so from the same point of view.If K.wanted to become a worker, he could become one, but then only in dreadful earnest, without any prospects anywhere else.K.knew that there was no threat of actual compulsion, he had no fear of that, especially not here, but the force of these discouraging surroundings and of the increasing familiarity with ever more predictable disappointments, the force of scarcely perceptible influences at every moment, these he certainly did fear, but even in the face of this danger he had to risk taking up the struggle.Indeed, the letter made no secret of the fact that if it came to a struggle, K.was the one who had been reckless enough to start, this was delicately put and could only have been noticed by a troubled conscience—troubled, not bad—namely, the three words“as you know,”concerning his being accepted into the Castle's service.K.had announced his presence and ever since then he had known, as the letter put it, that he was accepted.
K. took a picture from the wall and hung the letter on the nail, this is where he would be living, so the letter should hang here.
Then he went down to the taproom, Barnabas was sitting at a small table with the assistants.“Ah, there you are,”said K.,for no reason, simply because he was glad to see Barnabas. He jumped up at once.K.had no sooner entered than the peasants rose to get close to him, they had already formed the habit of following him about constantly.“What is it you always want from me?”cried K.They did not take offense and slowly withdrew to their places.As one of them walked off, he said casually with an indecipherable smile, which several others adopted:“One always gets to hear some news”and he licked his lips as if the news were edible.K.didn't say anything conciliatory to him, it was good if they learned to respect him, but no sooner was he seated beside Barnabas than he felt a peasant's breath down the back of his neck, the peasant said he had come for the salt shaker, but K.stomped his foot in anger, and the peasant ran off without the salt shaker.It was really easy to get the better of K.;one simply needed, say, to set the peasants on him, their stubborn concern seemed more malicious to him than the aloofness of the others and it, too, was a form of aloofness, for if K.had sat down at their table, they would certainly not have remained seated.Only Barnabas's presence prevented him from making a commotion.Nonetheless, he swung around menacingly toward them, they were also facing him.Yet seeing them sitting there like that, each one on his own chair, neither conversing with one another nor visibly connected, connected only because all of them were staring at him, it seemed to him that they weren't pursuing him out of malice, perhaps they really wanted something from him but just couldn't say what it was, and if that wasn't it, perhaps it was merely childlike behavior on their part, the childlike quality that seemed very much at home here;wasn't it also childlike of the landlord to be standing there, holding in both hands a glass of beer, which he should have taken to some guest, gazing at K.and missing a cry from the landlady, who had leaned out of the kitchen hatch.
Calmer now, K. turned to Barnabas, he would have liked to remove the assistants but couldn't find a pretext, besides they were staring silently at their beer.“I have read the letter,”K.began.“Do you know the contents?”“No,”said Barnabas.His expression seemed to convey more than his words.Perhaps K.was being mistakenly positive now, just as he had been mistakenly negative with the peasants, but the presence of Barnabas remained a source of comfort.“There is also talk of you in the letter, you must carry messages back and forth between me and the director, that's why I assumed you knew the contents.”“I was simply instructed,”Barnabas said,“to hand you the letter, wait until you had read it, and bring back a verbal or written reply, should you find this necessary.”“Fine,”said K.,“no letter is required, convey to the director—but what's his name?I couldn't read his signature.”“Klamm,”said Barnabas.“Well then convey my thanks to Mr.Klamm for the acceptance and also for his exceptional kindness, which I, as one who still hasn't proved himself here, certainly appreciate.I shall act entirely in accordance with his intentions.I have no special wishes for today.”Barnabas, who had followed this closely, asked whether he could repeat the message in K.'s presence, K.gave permission, and Barnabas repeated everything word for word.Then he stood up in order to take his leave.
Throughout all this K. had been examining his face and now did so one last time.Though Barnabas was about as tall as K.,his eyes seemed to look down on K.,but almost deferentially;it was inconceivable that this man could ever put anybody to shame.Of course, he was only a messenger and wasn't familiar with the contents of the letters he had to deliver, but his expression, his smile, his gait, seemed to bear a message, even if he himself was unaware of it.And K.stretched out his hand, which clearly surprised Barnabas, for he had merely intended to bow.
As soon as he had left—before opening the door he had leaned against the door with his shoulder for a moment and looked around the taproom, with a glance no longer directed at anyone in particular—K. said to the assistants:“I shall get my notes from my room, then we'll discuss the next project.”They wanted to go with him.“Stay here!”said K.They still wanted to go with him.K.had to repeat the command in a more severe tone of voice.Barnabas was no longer in the corridor.But he had just left.And yet outside the inn—it was snowing again—K.could not see him.He cried:“Barnabas!”No answer.Could he still be in the building?This seemed the only possibility.Nevertheless, with full force K.shouted out the name, the name thundered through the night.And from a distance a faint answer came, so Barnabas had already gone that far.K.called him back as he went toward him;where they met, they were no longer visible from the inn.
“Barnabas,”said K.,unable to suppress a tremor in his voice,“there is something else I must tell you. I see now that this is actually quite a bad arrangement, my having to depend entirely on your chance appearances whenever I need anything from the Castle.If I hadn't managed to catch you just now by chance—the speed at which you fly, I thought you were still at the inn—who knows how long I should have had to wait before you came again.”“Well,”said Barnabas,“you can ask the director to ensure that I always come at times set by you.”“But that wouldn't do either,”said K.,“perhaps for a whole year I won't want to send any messages, and then only fifteen minutes after you're gone, something that cannot be delayed.”“Should I report to the director, then,”said Barnabas,“that there needs to be another means of communication between him and you, other than through me.”“No, no,”said K.,“absolutely not, I'm only mentioning this in passing, for I had the good fortune to catch you just now.”“Should we go back to the inn,”said Barnabas,“so that you can give me the new instructions?”He already had taken a step toward the inn.“Barnabas,”said K.,“that isn't necessary, I shall go part of the way with you.”“Why don't you want to go to the inn?”asked Barnabas.“Those people there keep disturbing me,”said K.,“you yourself have seen how intrusive those peasants are.”“We can go to your room,”said Barnabas.“It's the maids’room,”said K.,“it's dirty and dank, I wanted to go a bit of the way with you so I wouldn't have to stay there, only,”K.added in an attempt to overcome Barnabas's hesitation,“you must let me take your arm, your footing is surer than mine.”K.took his arm.It was quite dark, K.couldn't see his face, his form was indistinct, a little while ago he had tried to grope about for his arm.
Barnabas gave in, they moved away from the inn. Still, K.felt that however hard he tried he couldn't keep up with Barnabas and was restricting his freedom of movement and that a little thing like that could ruin everything even under ordinary conditions, let alone in side streets like the one where K.had sunk into the snow that morning and from which he could extricate himself only if Barnabas lifted him out.Yet he put aside those worries for now, besides he found Barnabas's silence comforting;if they went on like this in silence, it meant that for Barnabas, too, the only reason for being together was to keep going.
They went on, where to K. had no idea, he couldn't recognize anything, didn't even know whether they had passed the church.Due to the sheer effort of walking he could no longer control his thoughts.Rather than remaining fixed on the goal, they became confused.His homeland kept surfacing, filling him with memories.On its main square, too, was a church, partly surrounded by an old cemetery, and it, in turn, by a high wall.Only very few boys had ever climbed this wall, K.still hadn't succeeded either.It wasn't curiosity that drove them, the cemetery no longer held any secrets for them, they had often enough gone in through the small wrought-iron gate and had merely wanted to conquer the smooth high wall.And then one morning—the calm, empty square was flooded with light, when before or since had K.ever seen it like this?—.he succeeded with surprising ease;at a spot where he had been often rebuffed, with a small flag clenched between his teeth, he climbed the wall on the first attempt.Pebbles were still trickling down, but he was on top.He rammed in the flag, the wind filled out the cloth, he looked down, all around, even over his shoulder at the crosses sinking into the earth;there was nobody here, now, bigger than he.By chance the teacher came by and with an angry look drove K.down, in jumping off K.hurt his knee and only with difficulty reached home, but still he had been up on the wall, it had seemed to him then that this feeling of victory would sustain him throughout a long life, and this hadn't been entirely foolish, for now, after many years, on the arm of Barnabas in this snowy night it came to his aid.
He tightened his grip, Barnabas almost dragged him, the silence was not broken;of this particular route K. could say only that judging by the state of the road they had not yet turned off into a side street.He vowed not to let any difficulties along the way or worries about the way back keep him from going on, for after all he surely had sufficient strength for being dragged along.And could this path be endless?All day the Castle had lain before him like an easy goal, and this messenger certainly knew the shortest way.
Just then Barnabas stopped. Where were they?Couldn't they go on?Would Barnabas send K.on his way?He wouldn't succeed.K.gripped Barnabas's arm so tightly that he almost hurt himself.Or might the incredible have happened and they were already in the Castle or at its gates?Yet, so far as K.knew, they still hadn't gone uphill.Or had Barnabas led him along such an imperceptibly rising path?“Where are we?”K.asked quietly, more to himself than to Barnabas.“Home,”said Barnabas in the same tone.“Home?”“Now take care, sir, that you don't slip.The path goes downhill.”“Downhill?”“Only another step or two,”he added, and he was already knocking on a door.
A girl opened it, they were now standing on the threshold of a large room that lay almost in darkness, for there was only a tiny oil lamp hanging over a table on the left toward the back.“Who is with you, Barnabas?”the girl asked.“The surveyor,”he said.“The surveyor,”said the girl, repeating his answer more loudly in the direction of the table. At that, two old people, a man and his wife, stood up, and a girl as well.They greeted K.Barnabas introduced him to everyone, it was his parents and his sisters, Olga and Amalia.K.scarcely looked at them, they removed his wet coat to dry it by the stove, K.let this happen.
So it was not they who were at home, only Barnabas was at home. But why were they here?K.took Barnabas aside and said:“Why did you go home?Or do you live in the Castle precincts?”“In the Castle precincts?”Barnabas repeated, as if he did not understand K.“Barnabas,”said K.,“you wanted to go from the inn to the Castle.”“No, sir,”said Barnabas,“I wanted to go home, I only go to the Castle in the morning, I never sleep there.”“So,”said K.,“you didn't want to go to the Castle, only as far as here”—to K.his smile seemed fainter, and he himself more insignificant—”why didn't you say so?”“You never asked, sir,”said Barnabas,“you merely wanted to give me another message, but neither in the taproom nor in your own room, so I thought you could give it to me here at my parents'house without anybody disturbing you—they will go away at once, if that's the order you give—besides, if you prefer to be with us, you can spend the night here.Haven't I done the right thing?”K.was unable to answer.So it was a misunderstanding, a low vulgar misunderstanding, and K.had completely abandoned himself to it.He had let himself be spellbound by the shimmering, silky, tight-fitting jacket, which Barnabas now unbuttoned, revealing underneath a coarse, dirt-gray, often-mended shirt over the powerful square chest of a farmhand.And everything else was not only in keeping with this but even outdid it, the old gout-ridden father, who moved more with the help of his groping hands than of his stiff trailing legs, and the mother who, hands clasped on her breast, could because of her girth only take the tiniest of steps;ever since he had entered, Barnabas's father and mother had been trying to approach him from their corner, but they were still nowhere near him.The sisters, blondes, who resembled each other and Barnabas, too—though with harsher features than Barnabas—were big strong country girls;they surrounded the new arrivals, expecting some greeting from K.;yet he couldn't say a word, he had been convinced that everyone in the village mattered to him, and this was probably true, but these people in particular meant absolutely nothing to him.If he could have managed the way back to the inn alone, he would have left at once.The possibility of going to the Castle with Barnabas tomorrow morning did not tempt him at all.He had wanted to press on to the Castle, at night, unnoticed, led by Barnabas, but by Barnabas as he had struck him till now, a man who was closer to him than everyone else he had met here thus far and who, so he had also believed then, possessed close connections with the Castle far exceeding his apparent rank.But as for the son of this family, who fully belonged to it and already was sitting at the table with them, a man who significantly enough wasn't even allowed to sleep at the Castle, to go arm in arm with him to the Castle in broad daylight was impossible, a ridiculous, hopeless endeavor.
K. sat down on a window seat, determined to spend the night there and not to accept any other services from this family.The people in the village, who sent him away or at least feared him, were less dangerous, it seemed to him, since they essentially threw him back on his own resources and thus helped him to preserve his strength, whereas those seeming helpers who, instead of taking him to the Castle, led him by means of a little masquerade to their family, distracted him, whether intentionally or not, and were draining all his strength.Completely ignoring an invitation from the family table, he remained on his window seat, with his head bent.
Then Olga, the gentler of the two sisters, rose, came over, and with a touch of girlish embarrassment asked him to join them at the table, they had already put out bread and bacon, she would go to get beer.“But from where?”K. asked.“From the inn,”she said.K.was pleased to hear this, he asked that instead of getting beer she accompany him to the inn, important tasks still awaited him there.It now turned out, though, that she did not want to go to his inn, only to one much closer by, to the Gentlemen's Inn.Nonetheless, K.asked whether he could accompany her, they might have a place for the night, he thought;no matter what it was like, he would rather have it than the best bed in this house.Olga did not answer at once, she glanced back at the table.Her brother stood up, nodded eagerly, and said:“If that's what the gentleman wants—”This approval almost prompted K.to withdraw his request, anything that man could approve must be worthless.Yet when they brought up the question whether K.would be admitted to the inn and everyone doubted it, he insisted all the more urgently on going, though without troubling to invent a plausible reason for his request;this family had to accept him as he was, somehow he had no shame where they were concerned.Only Amalia shook his confidence slightly in that respect with her grave, fixed, imperturbable, and perhaps rather dull gaze.
On the short walk to the inn—K. took Olga's arm and let himself be pulled, what else could he do, much as he had done earlier with her brother—he discovered that this inn was reserved exclusively for the Castle gentlemen, who, whenever they had anything to do in the village, would eat and sometimes even spend the night there.Olga spoke with K.,softly and as if on familiar terms, it was pleasant walking with her, almost as pleasant as with her brother, K.struggled against this sense of well-being, but it persisted.
Outwardly the inn was very similar to the inn where K. was staying, there were hardly any great outward differences in the village, but one could detect certain minor differences right away, there was a balustrade on the front steps and a handsome lantern attached over the door;as they entered, a cloth fluttered over their heads, it was a flag with the Count's colors.In the hallway they immediately encountered the landlord, evidently on a tour of inspection;with small eyes he looked quizzically or sleepily at K.in passing and said:“The surveyor may go no farther than the taproom.”“Of course,”said Olga, immediately taking K.'s side,“he only came with me!”But K.,ungrateful, let go of Olga and took the landlord aside, meanwhile Olga waited patiently at the end of the corridor.“I would like to spend the night here,”said K.“Unfortunately, that's impossible,”said the landlord,“you don't seem to realize yet that this house is reserved exclusively for the gentlemen from the Castle.”“That may be the regulation,”said K.,“but you can surely let me sleep in a corner somewhere.”“I should very much like to oblige you,”said the landlord,“but, leaving aside the severity of the actual regulation, which you speak of in the manner of a stranger, that is simply impracticable since the gentlemen are extremely sensitive, I am convinced that they cannot bear the sight of a stranger, or not without forewarning at least;so if I let you spend the night here and by chance—and chance is always on the gentlemen's side—somebody were to come across you, not only would I be lost, but so too would you.This sounds ridiculous, but it's true.”This tall, rather reserved gentleman, who had one hand braced against the wall, the other on his hip, his legs crossed and body tilted slightly toward K.,and was speaking to him in confidence, no longer seemed to belong in this village, though his suit was festive only by peasant standards.“I believe you completely,”said K.,“and don't by any means underestimate the importance of the actual regulation, however clumsily I may have expressed myself.There's only one other thing to which I wish to draw your attention, I have valuable connections at the Castle and will obtain others that are even more valuable, these will shield you from any danger possibly arising from my overnight stay and guarantee that I can express fitting gratitude for this small favor.”“I know,”said the landlord, and then he repeated:“I know that.”K.could have stated his wish more emphatically, but distracted by this particular response, he merely asked:“Are many gentlemen from the Castle spending the night here?”“In that respect the situation tonight is quite favorable,”the landlord said, almost enticingly,“only one gentleman has stayed.”K.still found it impossible to insist, he was hoping that by now he almost had permission to stay, so he simply asked for the gentleman's name.“Klamm,”the landlord said casually, turning to his wife, who came rustling along dressed in clothes that were oddly threadbare, outmoded, and laden with pleats and frills, but city finery nonetheless.She came to get the landlord, the director desired something.Before he left, the landlord turned to K.,as though the decision about the overnight stay no longer rested with him but with K.K.,however, was unable to say a word;especially surprising to him was the presence of his superior;unable to explain this to himself, he felt that he couldn't deal as freely with Klamm as he generally did with the Castle, and though it wouldn't have been as terrifying as the landlord assumed if Klamm had caught him there, it would nonetheless have led to an awkward unpleasantness, as if he had, say, frivolously inflicted suffering on someone he was indebted to, yet it still oppressed him greatly to see that the consequences he feared, such as his being a subordinate, a worker, were becoming evident and that he couldn't overcome them even here, where they were so blatant.He stood thus, silently biting his lips.Before disappearing into a doorway, the landlord looked back at him again, K.stared after him and did not move from the spot until Olga came and pulled him away.“What did you want from the landlord?”asked Olga.“I wanted to spend the night here,”said K.“But you're spending the night with us,”said Olga in astonishment.“To be sure,”said K.,leaving it to her to interpret the words he had spoken.
