No More Learning

K. took
hold of the book that lay on top and threw it open, an indecent picture
appeared. A man and a woman sat naked on a sofa, the base intent of
whoever drew it was easy to see but he had been so grossly lacking in
skill that all that anyone could really make out were the man and the
woman who dominated the picture with their bodies, sitting in overly
upright postures that created a false perspective and made it difficult
for them to approach each other. K. didn't thumb through that book any
more, but just threw open the next one at its title page, it was a novel
with the title, What Grete Suffered from her Husband, Hans. "So this is
the sort of law book they study here," said K. , "this is the sort of
person sitting in judgement over me. " "I can help you," said the woman,
"would you like me to? " "Could you really do that without placing
yourself in danger? You did say earlier on that your husband is wholly
dependent on his superiors. " "I still want to help you," said the
woman, "come over here, we've got to talk about it. Don't say any more
about what danger I'm in, I only fear danger where I want to fear it.
Come over here. " She pointed to the podium and invited him to sit down
on the step with her. "You've got lovely dark eyes," she said after
they had sat down, looking up into K. 's face, "people say I've got nice
eyes too, but yours are much nicer. It was the first thing I noticed
when you first came here. That's even why I came in here, into the
assembly room, afterwards, I'd never normally do that, I'm not really
even allowed to. " So that's what all this is about, thought K. , she's
offering herself to me, she's as degenerate as everything else around
here, she's had enough of the court officials, which is understandable I
suppose, and so she approaches any stranger and makes compliments about
his eyes. With that, K. stood up in silence as if he had spoken his
thoughts out loud and thus explained his action to the woman. "I don't
think you can be of any assistance to me," he said, "to be of any real
assistance you would need to be in contact with high officials. But I'm
sure you only know the lower employees, and there are crowds of them
milling about here. I'm sure you're very familiar with them and could
achieve a great deal through them, I've no doubt of that, but the most
that could be done through them would have no bearing at all on the
final outcome of the trial. You, on the other hand, would lose some of
your friends as a result, and I have no wish of that. Carry on with
these people in the same way as you have been, as it does seem to me to
be something you cannot do without. I have no regrets in saying this
as, in return for your compliment to me, I also find you rather
attractive, especially when you look at me as sadly as you are now,
although you really have no reason to do so. You belong to the people I
have to combat, and you're very comfortable among them, you're even in
love with the student, or if you don't love him you do at least prefer
him to your husband. It's easy to see that from what you've been
saying. " "No! " she shouted, remained sitting where she was and grasped
K. 's hand, which he failed to pull away fast enough. "You can't go away
now, you can't go away when you've misjudged me like that! Are you
really capable of going away now? Am I really so worthless that you
won't even do me the favour of staying a little bit longer? " "You
misunderstand me," said K. , sitting back down, "if it's really important
to you for me to stay here then I'll be glad to do so, I have plenty of
time, I came here thinking there would be a trial taking place. All I
meant with what I said just now was to ask you not to do anything on my
behalf in the proceedings against me. But even that is nothing for you
to worry about when you consider that there's nothing hanging on the
outcome of this trial, and that, whatever the verdict, I will just laugh
at it. And that's even presupposing it ever even reaches any
conclusion, which I very much doubt. I think it's much more likely that
the court officials will be too lazy, too forgetful, or even to fearful
ever to continue with these proceedings and that they will soon be
abandoned if they haven't been abandoned already. It's even possible
that they will pretend to be carrying on with the trial in the hope of
receiving a large bribe, although I can tell you now that that will be
quite in vain as I pay bribes to no-one. Perhaps one favour you could
do me would be to tell the examining judge, or anyone else who likes to
spread important news, that I will never be induced to pay any sort of
bribe through any stratagem of theirs - and I'm sure they have many
stratagems at their disposal. There is no prospect of that, you can
tell them that quite openly. And what's more, I expect they have
already noticed themselves, or even if they haven't, this affair is
really not so important to me as they think. Those gentlemen would only
save some work for themselves, or at least some unpleasantness for me,
which, however, I am glad to endure if I know that each piece of
unpleasantness for me is a blow against them. And I will make quite
sure it is a blow against them. Do you actually know the judge? "
"Course I do," said the woman, "he was the first one I thought of when I
offered to help you. I didn't know he's only a minor official, but if
you say so it must be true. Mind you, I still think the report he gives
to his superiors must have some influence. And he writes so many
reports. You say these officials are lazy, but they're certainly not
all lazy, especially this examining judge, he writes ever such a lot.
Last Sunday, for instance, that session went on till the evening.
Everyone had gone, but the examining judge, he stayed in the hall, I had
to bring him a lamp in, all I had was a little kitchen lamp but he was
very satisfied with it and started to write straight away. Meantime my
husband arrived, he always has the day off on Sundays, we got the
furniture back in and got our room sorted out and then a few of the
neighbours came, we sat and talked for a bit by a candle, in short, we
forgot all about the examining judge and went to bed. All of a sudden
in the night, it must have been quite late in the night, I wakes up,
next to the bed, there's the examining judge shading the lamp with his
hand so that there's no light from it falls on my husband, he didn't
need to be as careful as that, the way my husband sleeps the light
wouldn't have woken him up anyway. I was quite shocked and nearly
screamed, but the judge was very friendly, warned me I should be
careful, he whispered to me he's been writing all this time, and now
he's brought me the lamp back, and he'll never forget how I looked when
he found me there asleep. What I mean, with all this, I just wanted to
tell you how the examining judge really does write lots of reports,
especially about you as questioning you was definitely one of the main
things on the agenda that Sunday. If he writes reports as long as that
they must be of some importance. And besides all that, you can see
from what happened that the examining judge is after me, and it's right
now, when he's first begun to notice me, that I can have a lot of
influence on him. And I've got other proof I mean a lot to him, too.
Yesterday, he sent that student to me, the one he really trusts and who
he works with, he sent him with a present for me, silk stockings. He
said it was because I clear up in the courtroom but that's only a
pretence, that job's no more than what I'm supposed to do, it's what my
husband gets paid for. Nice stockings, they are, look," - she stretched
out her leg, drew her skirt up to her knee and looked, herself, at the
stocking - "they are nice stockings, but they're too good for me,
really. "

She suddenly interrupted herself and lay her hand on K. 's as if
she wanted to calm him down, and whispered, "Be quiet, Berthold is
watching us. " K. slowly looked up. In the doorway to the courtroom
stood a young man, he was short, his legs were not quite straight, and
he continually moved his finger round in a short, thin, red beard with
which he hoped to make himself look dignified. K. looked at him with
some curiosity, he was the first student he had ever met of the
unfamiliar discipline of jurisprudence, face to face at least, a man who
would even most likely attain high office one day. The student, in
contrast, seemed to take no notice of K. at all, he merely withdrew his
finger from his beard long enough to beckon to the woman and went over
to the window, the woman leant over to K. and whispered, "Don't be cross
with me, please don't, and please don't think ill of me either, I've got
to go to him now, to this horrible man, just look at his bent legs. But
I'll come straight back and then I'll go with you if you'll take me,
I'll go wherever you want, you can do whatever you like with me, I'll be
happy if I can be away from here for as long as possible, it'd be best
if I could get away from here for good. " She stroked K. 's hand once
more, jumped up and ran over to the window. Before he realised it, K.
grasped for her hand but failed to catch it. He really was attracted
to the woman, and even after thinking hard about it could find no good
reason why he should not give in to her allure. It briefly crossed his
mind that the woman meant to entrap him on behalf of the court, but that
was an objection he had no difficulty in fending off. In what way could
she entrap him? Was he not still free, so free that he could crush the
entire court whenever he wanted, as least where it concerned him? Could
he not have that much confidence in himself? And her offer of help
sounded sincere, and maybe it wasn't quite worthless. And maybe there
was no better revenge against the examining judge and his cronies than
to take this woman from him and have her for himself. Maybe then, after
much hard work writing dishonest reports about K. , the judge would go to
the woman's bed late one night and find it empty. And it would be empty
because she belonged to K. , because this woman at the window, this lush,
supple, warm body in its sombre clothes of rough, heavy material
belonged to him, totally to him and to him alone. Once he had settled
his thoughts towards the woman in this way, he began to find the quiet
conversation at the window was taking too long, he rapped on the podium
with his knuckles, and then even with his fist. The student briefly
looked away from the woman to glance at K. over his shoulder but did
allow himself to be disturbed, in fact he even pressed himself close to
the woman and put his arms around her. She dropped her head down low as
if listening to him carefully, as she did so he kissed her right on the
neck, hardly even interrupting what he was saying. K. saw this as
confirmation of the tyranny the student held over the woman and which
she had already complained about, he stood up and walked up and down the
room. Glancing sideways at the student, he wondered what would be the
quickest possible way to get rid of him, and so it was not unwelcome to
him when the student, clearly disturbed by K. 's to-ing and fro-ing which
K. had now developed into a stamping up and down, said to him,
"You don't have to stay here, you know, if you're getting impatient.
You could have gone earlier, no-one would have missed you. In fact you
should have gone, you should have left as quickly as possible as soon as
I got here. " This comment could have caused all possible rage to break
out between them, but K. also bore in mind that this was a prospective
court official speaking to a disfavoured defendant, and he might well
have been taking pride in speaking in this way. K. remained standing
quite close to him and said with a smile, "You're quite right, I am
impatient, but the easiest way to settle this impatience would be if you
left us. On the other hand, if you've come here to study - you are a
student, I hear - I'll be quite happy to leave the room to you and go
away with the woman. I'm sure you'll still have a lot of study to do
before you're made into a judge. It's true that I'm still not all that
familiar with your branch of jurisprudence but I take it it involves a
lot more than speaking roughly - and I see you have no shame in doing
that extremely well. " "He shouldn't have been allowed to move about so
freely," said the student, as if he wanted to give the woman an
explanation for K. 's insults, "that was a mistake. I've told the
examining judge so. He should at least have been detained in his room
between hearings. Sometimes it's impossible to understand what the
judge thinks he's doing. "
"You're wasting your breath," said K. , then he reached his hand out
towards the woman and said, "come with me. " "So that's it," said the
student, "oh no, you're not going to get her," and with a strength you
would not have expected from him, he glanced tenderly at her, lifted her
up on one arm and, his back bent under the weight, ran with her to the
door. In this way he showed, unmistakeably, that he was to some extent
afraid of K. , but he nonetheless dared to provoke him still further by
stroking and squeezing the woman's arm with his free hand. K. ran the
few steps up to him, but when he had reached him and was about to take
hold of him and, if necessary, throttle him, the woman said, "It's no
good, it's the examining judge who's sent for me, I daren't go with you,
this little bastard. . . " and here she ran her hand over the student's
face, "this little bastard won't let me. " "And you don't want to be set
free! " shouted K. , laying his hand on the student's shoulder, who then
snapped at it with his teeth. "No! " shouted the woman, pushing K. away
with both hands, "no, no don't do that, what d'you think you're doing! ?
That'd be the end of me. Let go of him, please just let go of him.
He's only carrying out the judge's orders, he's carrying me to him. "
"Let him take you then, and I want to see nothing more of you," said K. ,
enraged by his disappointment and giving the student a thump in the back
so that he briefly stumbled and then, glad that he had not fallen,
immediately jumped up all the higher with his burden. K. followed them
slowly. He realised that this was the first unambiguous setback he had
suffered from these people. It was of course nothing to worry about, he
accepted the setback only because he was looking for a fight. If he
stayed at home and carried on with his normal life he would be a
thousand times superior to these people and could get any of them out of
his way just with a kick. And he imagined the most laughable scene
possible as an example of this, if this contemptible student, this
inflated child, this knock-kneed redbeard, if he were kneeling at Elsa's
bed wringing his hands and begging for forgiveness. K. so enjoyed
imagining this scene that he decided to take the student along to Elsa
with him if ever he should get the opportunity.

K. was curious to see where the woman would be taken and he
hurried over to the door, the student was not likely to carry her
through the streets on his arm. It turned out that the journey was far
shorter. Directly opposite the flat there was a narrow flight of wooden
steps which probably led up to the attic, they turned as they went so
that it was not possible to see where they ended. The student carried
the woman up these steps, and after the exertions of running with her he
was soon groaning and moving very slowly. The woman waved down at K.
and by raising and lowering her shoulders she tried to show that she was
an innocent party in this abduction, although the gesture did not show a
lot of regret. K. watched her without expression like a stranger, he
wanted to show neither that he was disappointed nor that he would easily
get over his disappointment.

The two of them had disappeared, but K. remained standing in the
doorway. He had to accept that the woman had not only cheated him but
that she had also lied to him when she said she was being taken to the
examining judge. The examining judge certainly wouldn't be sitting and
waiting in the attic. The wooden stairs would explain nothing to him
however long he stared at them. Then K. noticed a small piece of paper
next to them, went across to it and read, in a childish and unpractised
hand, "Entrance to the Court Offices". Were the court offices here, in
the attic of this tenement, then? If that was how they were
accommodated it did not attract much respect, and it was some comfort
for the accused to realise how little money this court had at its
disposal if it had to locate its offices in a place where the tenants of
the building, who were themselves among the poorest of people, would
throw their unneeded junk. On the other hand, it was possible that the
officials had enough money but that they squandered it on themselves
rather than use it for the court's purposes. Going by K. 's experience
of them so far, that even seemed probable, except that if the court were
allowed to decay in that way it would not just humiliate the accused but
also give him more encouragement than if the court were simply in a
state of poverty. K. also now understood that the court was ashamed to
summon those it accused to the attic of this building for the initial
hearing, and why it preferred to impose upon them in their own homes.
What a position it was that K. found himself in, compared with the judge
sitting up in the attic! K. , at the bank, had a big office with an
ante-room, and had an enormous window through which he could look down
at the activity in the square. It was true, though, that he had no
secondary income from bribes and fraud, and he couldn't tell a servant
to bring him a woman up to the office on his arm. K. , however, was
quite willing to do without such things, in this life at least. K. was
still looking at the notice when a man came up the stairs, looked
through the open door into the living room where it was also possible to
see the courtroom, and finally asked K. whether he had just seen a woman
there. "You're the court usher, aren't you? " asked K. "That's right,"
said the man, "oh, yes, you're defendant K. , I recognise you now as
well. Nice to see you here. " And he offered K. his hand, which was far
from what K. had expected. And when K. said nothing, he added, "There's
no court session planned for today, though. " "I know that," said K. as
he looked at the usher's civilian coat which, beside its ordinary
buttons, displayed two gilded ones as the only sign of his office and
seemed to have been taken from an old army officer's coat. "I was
speaking with your wife a little while ago. She is no longer here. The
student has carried her off to the examining judge. " "Listen to this,"
said the usher, "they're always carrying her away from me. It's Sunday
today, and it's not part of my job to do any work today, but they send
me off with some message which isn't even necessary just to get me away
from here. What they do is they send me off not too far away so that I
can still hope to get back on time if I really hurry. So off I go
running as fast as I can, shout the message through the crack in the
door of the office I've been sent to, so out of breath they'll hardly be
able to understand it, run back here again, but the student's been even
faster than I have - well he's got less far to go, he's only got to run
down the steps. If I wasn't so dependent on them I'd have squashed the
student against the wall here a long time ago. Right here, next to the
sign. I'm always dreaming of doing that.
Just here, just above the
floor, that's where he's crushed onto the wall, his arms stretched out,
his fingers spread apart, his crooked legs twisted round into a circle
and blood squirted out all around him. It's only ever been a dream so
far, though. " "Is there nothing else you do? " asked K. with a smile.
"Nothing that I know of," said the usher. "And it's going to get even
worse now, up till now he's only been carrying her off for himself, now
he's started carrying her off for the judge and all, just like I'd
always said he would. " "Does your wife, then, not share some of the
responsibility? " asked K. He had to force himself as he asked this
question, as he, too, felt so jealous now. "Course she does," said the
usher, "it's more her fault than theirs. It was her who attached
herself to him. All he did, he just chases after any woman. There's
five flats in this block alone where he's been thrown out after working
his way in there. And my wife is the best looking woman in the whole
building, but it's me who's not even allowed to defend himself. " "If
that's how things are, then there's nothing that can be done," said K.
"Well why not? " asked the usher. "He's a coward that student, if he
wants to lay a finger on my wife all you'd have to do is give him such a
good hiding he'd never dare do it again. But I'm not allowed to do
that, and nobody else is going to do me the favour as they're all afraid
of his power. The only one who could do it is a man like you. " "What,
how could I do it? " asked K. in astonishment.
"Well you're facing a charge, aren't you," said the usher. "Yes, but
that's all the more reason for me to be afraid. Even if he has no
influence on the outcome of the trial he probably has some on the
initial examination. " "Yes, exactly," said the usher, as if K. 's view
had been just as correct as his own. "Only we don't usually get any
trials heard here with no hope at all. " "I am not of the same opinion",
said K. , "although that ought not to prevent me from dealing with the
student if the opportunity arises. " "I would be very grateful to you,"
said the usher of the court, somewhat formally, not really seeming to
believe that his highest wish could be fulfilled. "Perhaps," continued
K. , "perhaps there are some other officials of yours here, perhaps all
of them, who would deserve the same. " "Oh yes, yes," said the usher, as
if this was a matter of course. Then he looked at K. trustingly which,
despite all his friendliness, he had not done until then, and added,
"they're always rebelling. " But the conversation seemed to have become
a little uncomfortable for him, as he broke it off by saying, "now I
have to report to the office. Would you like to come with me? "
"There's nothing for me to do there," said K.
"You'd be able to have a look at it. No-one will take any notice of
you. " "Is it worth seeing then? " asked K. hesitatingly, although he
felt very keen to go with him. "Well," said the usher, "I thought you'd
be interested in it. " "Alright then," said K. finally, "I'll come with
you. " And, quicker than the usher himself, he ran up the steps.

At the entrance he nearly fell over, as behind the door there was
another step. "They don't show much concern for the public," he said.
"They don't show any concern at all," said the usher, "just look at the
waiting room here. " It consisted of a long corridor from which roughly
made doors led out to the separate departments of the attic. There was
no direct source of light but it was not entirely dark as many of the
departments, instead of solid walls, had just wooden bars reaching up to
the ceiling to separate them from the corridor. The light made its way
in through them, and it was also possible to see individual officials
through them as they sat writing at their desks or stood up at the
wooden frameworks and watched the people on the corridor through the
gaps. There were only a few people in the corridor, probably because it
was Sunday. They were not very impressive. They sat, equally spaced,
on two rows of long wooden benches which had been placed along both
sides of the corridor. All of them were carelessly dressed although the
expressions on their faces, their bearing, the style of their beards and
many details which were hard to identify showed that they belonged to
the upper classes. There were no coat hooks for them to use, and so
they had placed their hats under the bench, each probably having
followed the example of the others. When those who were sitting nearest
the door saw K. and the usher of the court they stood up to greet them,
and when the others saw that, they also thought they had to greet them,
so that as the two of them went by all the people there stood up. None
of them stood properly upright, their backs were bowed, their knees
bent, they stood like beggars on the street. K. waited for the usher,
who was following just behind him. "They must all be very dispirited,"
he said. "Yes," said the usher, "they are the accused, everyone you see
here has been accused. " "Really! " said K. "They're colleagues of mine
then. " And he turned to the nearest one, a tall, thin man with hair
that was nearly grey. "What is it you are waiting for here? " asked K. ,
politely, but the man was startled at being spoken to unexpectedly,
which was all the more pitiful to see because the man clearly had some
experience of the world and elsewhere would certainly have been able to
show his superiority and would not have easily given up the advantage he
had acquired. Here, though, he did not know what answer to give to such
a simple question and looked round at the others as if they were under
some obligation to help him, and as if no-one could expect any answer
from him without this help. Then the usher of the court stepped forward
to him and, in order to calm him down and raise his spirits, said, "The
gentleman here's only asking what it is you're waiting for. You can
give him an answer. " The voice of the usher was probably familiar to
him, and had a better effect than K. 's. "I'm . . . I'm waiting . . . " he
began, and then came to a halt. He had clearly chosen this beginning so
that he could give a precise answer to the question, but now he didn't
know how to continue. Some of the others waiting had come closer and
stood round the group, the usher of the court said to them, "Get out the
way, keep the gangway free. " They moved back slightly, but not as far
as where they had been sitting before. In the meantime, the man whom K.
had first approached had pulled himself together and even answered him
with a smile.
"A month ago I made some applications for evidence to be heard in my
case, and I'm waiting for it to be settled. " "You certainly seem to be
going to a lot of effort," said K. "Yes," said the man, "it is my
affair after all. " "Not everyone thinks the same way as you do," said
K. "I've been indicted as well but I swear on my soul that I've neither
submitted evidence nor done anything else of the sort. Do you really
think that's necessary? " "I don't really know, exactly," said the man,
once more totally unsure of himself; he clearly thought K. was joking
with him and therefore probably thought it best to repeat his earlier
answer in order to avoid making any new mistakes. With K. looking at
him impatiently, he just said, "as far as I'm concerned, I've applied to
have this evidence heard. " "Perhaps you don't believe I've been
indicted? " asked K. "Oh, please, I certainly do," said the man,
stepping slightly to one side, but there was more anxiety in his answer
than belief. "You don't believe me then? " asked K. , and took hold of
his arm, unconsciously prompted by the man's humble demeanour, and as if
he wanted to force him to believe him. But he did not want to hurt the
man and had only taken hold of him very lightly. Nonetheless, the man
cried out as if K. had grasped him not with two fingers but with red hot
tongs. Shouting in this ridiculous way finally made K. tired of him, if
he didn't believe he was indicted then so much the better; maybe he even
thought K. was a judge. And before leaving, he held him a lot harder,
shoved him back onto the bench and walked on. "These defendants are so
sensitive, most of them," said the usher of the court. Almost all of
those who had been waiting had now assembled around the man who, by now,
had stopped shouting and they seemed to be asking him lots of precise
questions about the incident. K. was approached by a security guard,
identifiable mainly by his sword, of which the scabbard seemed to be
made of aluminium. This greatly surprised K. , and he reached out for it
with his hand. The guard had come because of the shouting and asked
what had been happening. The usher of the court said a few words to try
and calm him down but the guard explained that he had to look into it
himself, saluted, and hurried on, walking with very short steps,
probably because of gout.

K. didn't concern himself long with the guard or these people,
especially as he saw a turning off the corridor, about half way along it
on the right hand side, where there was no door to stop him going that
way. He asked the usher whether that was the right way to go, the usher
nodded, and that is the way that K. went. The usher remained always one
or two steps behind K, which he found irritating as in a place like this
it could give the impression that he was being driven along by someone
who had arrested him, so he frequently waited for the usher to catch up,
but the usher always remained behind him. In order to put an end to his
discomfort, K. finally said, "Now that I've seen what it looks like
here, I'd like to go. " "You haven't seen everything yet," said the
usher ingenuously.
"I don't want to see everything," said K. , who was also feeling very
tired, "I want to go, what is the way to the exit? " "You haven't got
lost, have you? " asked the usher in amazement, "you go down this way to
the corner, then right down the corridor straight ahead as far as the
door. " "Come with me," said K. , "show me the way, I'll miss it, there
are so many different ways here. " "It's the only way there is," said
the usher, who had now started to sound quite reproachful, "I can't go
back with you again, I've got to hand in my report, and I've already
lost a lot of time because of you as it is. " "Come with me! " K.
repeated, now somewhat sharper as if he had finally caught the usher out
in a lie. "Don't shout like that," whispered the usher, "there's
offices all round us here. If you don't want to go back by yourself
come on a bit further with me or else wait here till I've sorted out my
report, then I'll be glad to go back with you again. " "No, no," said
K. , "I will not wait and you must come with me now. " K. had still not
looked round at anything at all in the room where he found himself, and
it was only when one of the many wooden doors all around him opened that
he noticed it. A young woman, probably summoned by the loudness of K. 's
voice, entered and asked, "What is it the gentleman wants? " In the
darkness behind her there was also a man approaching. K. looked at the
usher. He had, after all, said that no-one would take any notice of K. ,
and now there were two people coming, it only needed a few and everyone
in the office would become aware of him and asking for explanations as
to why he was there. The only understandable and acceptable thing to
say was that he was accused of something and wanted to know the date of
his next hearing, but this was an explanation he did not want to give,
especially as it was not true - he had only come out of curiosity. Or
else, an explanation even less usable, he could say that he wanted to
ascertain that the court was as revolting on the inside as it was on the
outside. And it did seem that he had been quite right in this
supposition, he had no wish to intrude any deeper, he was disturbed
enough by what he had seen already, he was not in the right frame of
mind just then to face a high official such as might appear from behind
any door, and he wanted to go, either with the usher of the court or, if
needs be, alone.

But he must have seemed very odd standing there in silence, and
the young woman and the usher were indeed looking at him as if they
thought he would go through some major metamorphosis any second which
they didn't want to miss seeing. And in the doorway stood the man whom
K. had noticed in the background earlier, he held firmly on to the beam
above the low door swinging a little on the tips of his feet as if
becoming impatient as he watched. But the young woman was the first to
recognise that K. 's behaviour was caused by his feeling slightly unwell,
she brought a chair and asked,
"Would you not like to sit down? " K. sat down immediately and, in order
to keep his place better, put his elbows on the armrests. "You're a
little bit dizzy, aren't you? " she asked him. Her face was now close in
front of him, it bore the severe expression that many young women have
just when they're in the bloom of their youth. "It's nothing for you to
worry about," she said, "that's nothing unusual here, almost everyone
gets an attack like that the first time they come here. This is your
first time is it? Yes, it's nothing unusual then. The sun burns down
on the roof and the hot wood makes the air so thick and heavy. It makes
this place rather unsuitable for offices, whatever other advantages it
might offer. But the air is almost impossible to breathe on days when
there's a lot of business, and that's almost every day. And when you
think that there's a lot of washing put out to dry here as well - and we
can't stop the tenants doing that - it's not surprising you started to
feel unwell. But you get used to the air alright in the end. When
you're here for the second or third time you'll hardly notice how
oppressive the air is. Are you feeling any better now? " K. made no
answer, he felt too embarrassed at being put at the mercy of these
people by his sudden weakness, and learning the reason for feeling ill
made him feel not better but a little worse. The girl noticed it
straight away, and to make the air fresher for K. , she took a window
pole that was leaning against the wall and pushed open a small hatch
directly above K. 's head that led to the outside. But so much soot fell
in that the girl had to immediately close the hatch again and clean the
soot off K. 's hands with her handkerchief, as K. was too tired to do
that for himself. He would have liked just to sit quietly where he was
until he had enough strength to leave, and the less fuss people made
about him the sooner that would be. But then the girl said, "You can't
stay here, we're in people's way here . . . " K. looked at her as if to
ask whose way they were impeding. "If you like, I can take you to the
sick room," and turning to the man in the doorway said, "please help
me". The man immediately came over to them, but K. did not want to go
to the sick room, that was just what he wanted to avoid, being led
further from place to place, the further he went the more difficult it
must become. So he said, "I am able to walk now," and stood up, shaking
after becoming used to sitting so comfortably. But then he was unable
to stay upright. "I can't manage it," he said shaking his head, and sat
down again with a sigh. He remembered the usher who, despite
everything, would have been able to lead him out of there but who seemed
to have gone long before. K. looked out between the man and the young
woman who were standing in front of him but was unable to find the
usher. "I think," said the man, who was elegantly dressed and whose
appearance was made especially impressive with a grey waistcoat that had
two long, sharply tailored points, "the gentleman is feeling unwell
because of the atmosphere here, so the best thing, and what he would
most prefer, would be not to take him to the sick room but get him out
of the offices altogether.