No More Learning

stood in his way. "Bad news? " asked the deputy director casually, not
in order to find anything out but just to get K. away from the device.
"No, no," said K. , he stepped to one side but did not go away entirely.
The deputy director picked up the receiver and, as he waited for his
connection, turned away from it and said to K. , "One question, Mr. K. :
Would you like to give me the pleasure of joining me on my sailing boat
on Sunday morning? There's quite a few people coming, you're bound to
know some of them. One of them is Hasterer, the state attorney. Would
you like to come along? Do come along! " K. tried to pay attention to
what the deputy director was saying. It was of no small importance for
him, as this invitation from the deputy director, with whom he had never
got on very well, meant that he was trying to improve his relations with
him. It showed how important K. had become in the bank and how its
second most important official seemed to value his friendship, or at
least his impartiality. He was only speaking at the side of the
telephone receiver while he waited for his connection, but in giving
this invitation the deputy director was humbling himself. But K. would
have to humiliate him a second time as a result, he said, "Thank you
very much, but I'm afraid I will have no time on Sunday, I have a
previous obligation. " "Pity," said the deputy director, and turned to
the telephone conversation that had just been connected. It was not a
short conversation, but K. , remained standing confused by the instrument
all the time it was going on. It was only when the deputy director hung
up that he was shocked into awareness and said, in order to partially
excuse his standing there for no reason, "I've just received a telephone
call, there's somewhere I need to go, but they forgot to tell me what
time. " "Ask them then," said the deputy director. "It's not that
important," said K. , although in that way his earlier excuse, already
weak enough, was made even weaker. As he went, the deputy director
continued to speak about other things. K. forced himself to answer, but
his thoughts were mainly about that Sunday, how it would be best to get
there for nine o'clock in the morning as that was the time that courts
always start work on weekdays.

The weather was dull on Sunday. K. was very tired, as he had
stayed out drinking until late in the night celebrating with some of the
regulars, and he had almost overslept. He dressed hurriedly, without
the time to think and assemble the various plans he had worked out
during the week. With no breakfast, he rushed to the suburb he had been
told about. Oddly enough, although he had little time to look around
him, he came across the three bank officials involved in his case,
Rabensteiner, Kullich and Kaminer. The first two were travelling in a
tram that went across K. 's route, but Kaminer sat on the terrace of a
cafe and leant curiously over the wall as K. came over. All of them
seemed to be looking at him, surprised at seeing their superior running;
it was a kind of pride that made K. want to go on foot, this was his
affair and the idea of any help from strangers, however slight, was
repulsive to him, he also wanted to avoid asking for anyone's help
because that would initiate them into the affair even if only slightly.
And after all, he had no wish at all to humiliate himself before the
committee by being too punctual. Anyway, now he was running so that he
would get there by nine o'clock if at all possible, even though he had
no appointment for this time.

He had thought that he would recognise the building from a
distance by some kind of sign, without knowing exactly what the sign
would look like, or from some particular kind of activity outside the
entrance. K. had been told that the building was in Juliusstrasse, but
when he stood at the street's entrance it consisted on each side of
almost nothing but monotonous, grey constructions, tall blocks of flats
occupied by poor people. Now, on a Sunday morning, most of the windows
were occupied, men in their shirtsleeves leant out smoking, or carefully
and gently held small children on the sills. Other windows were piled
up with bedding, above which the dishevelled head of a woman would
briefly appear. People called out to each other across the street, one
of the calls provoked a loud laugh about K. himself. It was a long
street, and spaced evenly along it were small shops below street level,
selling various kinds of foodstuffs, which you reached by going down a
few steps. Women went in and out of them or stood chatting on the
steps. A fruitmonger, taking his goods up to the windows, was just as
inattentive as K. and nearly knocked him down with his cart. Just then,
a gramophone, which in better parts of town would have been seen as worn
out, began to play some murderous tune.

K. went further into the street, slowly, as if he had plenty of
time now, or as if the examining magistrate were looking at him from one
of the windows and therefore knew that K. had found his way there. It
was shortly after nine. The building was quite far down the street, it
covered so much area it was almost extraordinary, and the gateway in
particular was tall and long. It was clearly intended for delivery
wagons belonging to the various warehouses all round the yard which were
now locked up and carried the names of companies some of which K. knew
from his work at the bank. In contrast with his usual habits, he
remained standing a while at the entrance to the yard taking in all
these external details. Near him, there was a bare-footed man sitting
on a crate and reading a newspaper. There were two lads swinging on a
hand cart. In front of a pump stood a weak, young girl in a bedjacket
who, as the water flowed into her can, looked at K. There was a piece
of rope stretched between two windows in a corner of the yard, with some
washing hanging on it to dry. A man stood below it calling out
instructions to direct the work being done.

K. went over to the stairway to get to the room where the hearing
was to take place, but then stood still again as besides these steps he
could see three other stairway entrances, and there also seemed to be a
small passageway at the end of the yard leading into a second yard. It
irritated him that he had not been given more precise directions to the
room, it meant they were either being especially neglectful with him or
especially indifferent, and he decided to make that clear to them very
loudly and very unambiguously. In the end he decided to climb up the
stairs, his thoughts playing on something that he remembered the
policeman, Willem, saying to him; that the court is attracted by the
guilt, from which it followed that the courtroom must be on the stairway
that K. selected by chance.

As he went up he disturbed a large group of children playing on
the stairs who looked at him as he stepped through their rows. "Next
time I come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with
me to make them like me or a stick to hit them with. " Just before he
reached the first landing he even had to wait a little while until a
ball had finished its movement, two small lads with sly faces like
grown-up scoundrels held him by his trouser-legs until it had; if he
were to shake them off he would have to hurt them, and he was afraid of
what noise they would make by shouting.

On the first floor, his search began for real. He still felt
unable to ask for the investigating committee, and so he invented a
joiner called Lanz - that name occurred to him because the captain, Mrs.
Grubach's nephew, was called Lanz - so that he could ask at every flat
whether Lanz the joiner lived there and thus obtain a chance to look
into the rooms. It turned out, though, that that was mostly possible
without further ado, as almost all the doors were left open and the
children ran in and out. Most of them were small, one-windowed rooms
where they also did the cooking. Many women held babies in one arm and
worked at the stove with the other. Half grown girls, who seemed to be
dressed in just their pinafores worked hardest running to and fro. In
every room, the beds were still in use by people who were ill, or still
asleep, or people stretched out on them in their clothes. K. knocked at
the flats where the doors were closed and asked whether Lanz the joiner
lived there. It was usually a woman who opened the door, heard the
enquiry and turned to somebody in the room who would raise himself from
the bed. "The gentleman's asking if a joiner called Lanz, lives here. "
"A joiner, called Lanz? " he would ask from the bed. " "That's right," K.
would say, although it was clear that the investigating committee was
not to be found there, and so his task was at an end. There were many
who thought it must be very important for K. to find Lanz the joiner and
thought long about it, naming a joiner who was not called Lanz or giving
a name that had some vague similarity with Lanz, or they asked
neighbours or accompanied K. to a door a long way away where they
thought someone of that sort might live in the back part of the building
or where someone would be who could advise K. better than they could
themselves. K. eventually had to give up asking if he did not want to
be led all round from floor to floor in this way. He regretted his
initial plan, which had at first seemed so practical to him. As he
reached the fifth floor, he decided to give up the search, took his
leave of a friendly, young worker who wanted to lead him on still
further and went down the stairs. But then the thought of how much time
he was wasting made him cross, he went back again and knocked at the
first door on the fifth floor. The first thing he saw in the small room
was a large clock on the wall which already showed ten o'clock. "Is
there a joiner called Lanz who lives here? " he asked. "Pardon? " said a
young woman with black, shining eyes who was, at that moment, washing
children's underclothes in a bucket. She pointed her wet hand towards
the open door of the adjoining room.

K. thought he had stepped into a meeting. A medium sized, two
windowed room was filled with the most diverse crowd of people - nobody
paid any attention to the person who had just entered. Close under its
ceiling it was surrounded by a gallery which was also fully occupied and
where the people could only stand bent down with their heads and their
backs touching the ceiling. K. , who found the air too stuffy, stepped
out again and said to the young woman, who had probably misunderstood
what he had said, "I asked for a joiner, someone by the name of Lanz. "
"Yes," said the woman, "please go on in. " K. would probably not have
followed her if the woman had not gone up to him, taken hold of the door
handle and said, "I'll have to close the door after you, no-one else
will be allowed in. " "Very sensible," said K. , "but it's too full
already. " But then he went back in anyway. He passed through between
two men who were talking beside the door - one of them held both hands
far out in front of himself making the movements of counting out money,
the other looked him closely in the eyes - and someone took him by the
hand. It was a small, red-faced youth. "Come in, come in," he said.
K. let himself be led by him, and it turned out that there was -
surprisingly in a densely packed crowd of people moving to and fro - a
narrow passage which may have been the division between two factions;
this idea was reinforced by the fact that in the first few rows to the
left and the right of him there was hardly any face looking in his
direction, he saw nothing but the backs of people directing their speech
and their movements only towards members of their own side. Most of
them were dressed in black, in old, long, formal frock coats that hung
down loosely around them. These clothes were the only thing that
puzzled K. , as he would otherwise have taken the whole assembly for a
local political meeting.

At the other end of the hall where K. had been led there was a
little table set at an angle on a very low podium which was as
overcrowded as everywhere else, and behind the table, near the edge of
the podium, sat a small, fat, wheezing man who was talking with someone
behind him. This second man was standing with his legs crossed and his
elbows on the backrest of the chair, provoking much laughter. From time
to time he threw his arm in the air as if doing a caricature of someone.
The youth who was leading K. had some difficulty in reporting to the
man. He had already tried twice to tell him something, standing on tip-
toe, but without getting the man's attention as he sat there above him.
It was only when one of the people up on the podium drew his attention
to the youth that the man turned to him and leant down to hear what it
was he quietly said. Then he pulled out his watch and quickly looked
over at K. "You should have been here one hour and five minutes ago,"
he said. K. was going to give him a reply but had no time to do so, as
hardly had the man spoken than a general muttering arose all over the
right hand side of the hall. "You should have been here one hour and
five minutes ago," the man now repeated, raising his voice this time,
and quickly looked round the hall beneath him. The muttering also
became immediately louder and, as the man said nothing more, died away
only gradually. Now the hall was much quieter than when K. had entered.
Only the people up in the gallery had not stopped passing remarks. As
far as could be distinguished, up in the half-darkness, dust and haze,
they seemed to be less well dressed than those below. Many of them had
brought pillows that they had put between their heads and the ceiling so
that they would not hurt themselves pressed against it.

K. had decided he would do more watching than talking, so he did
not defend himself for supposedly having come late, and simply said,
"Well maybe I have arrived late, I'm here now. " There followed loud
applause, once more from the right hand side of the hall. Easy people
to get on your side, thought K. , and was bothered only by the quiet from
the left hand side which was directly behind him and from which there
was applause from only a few individuals. He wondered what he could say
to get all of them to support him together or, if that were not
possible, to at least get the support of the others for a while.

"Yes," said the man, "but I'm now no longer under any obligation
to hear your case" - there was once more a muttering, but this time it
was misleading as the man waved the people's objections aside with his
hand and continued - "I will, however, as an exception, continue with it
today. But you should never arrive late like this again. And now, step
forward! " Someone jumped down from the podium so that there would be a
place free for K. , and K. stepped up onto it. He stood pressed closely
against the table, the press of the crowd behind him was so great that
he had to press back against it if he did not want to push the judge's
desk down off the podium and perhaps the judge along with it.

The judge, however, paid no attention to that but sat very
comfortably on his chair and, after saying a few words to close his
discussion with the man behind him, reached for a little note book, the
only item on his desk. It was like an old school exercise book and had
become quite misshapen from much thumbing. "Now then," said the judge,
thumbing through the book. He turned to K. with the tone of someone who
knows his facts and said, "you are a house painter? " "No," said K. , "I
am the chief clerk in a large bank. " This reply was followed by
laughter among the right hand faction down in the hall, it was so hearty
that K. couldn't stop himself joining in with it. The people supported
themselves with their hands on their knees and shook as if suffering a
serious attack of coughing. Even some of those in the gallery were
laughing. The judge had become quite cross but seemed to have no power
over those below him in the hall, he tried to reduce what harm had been
done in the gallery and jumped up threatening them, his eyebrows, until
then hardly remarkable, pushed themselves up and became big, black and
bushy over his eyes.

The left hand side of the hall was still quiet, though, the people
stood there in rows with their faces looking towards the podium
listening to what was being said there, they observed the noise from the
other side of the hall with the same quietness and even allowed some
individuals from their own ranks, here and there, to go forward into the
other faction. The people in the left faction were not only fewer in
number than the right but probably were no more important than them,
although their behaviour was calmer and that made it seem like they
were. When K. now began to speak he was convinced he was doing it in
the same way as them.

"Your question, My Lord, as to whether I am a house painter - in
fact even more than that, you did not ask at all but merely imposed it
on me - is symptomatic of the whole way these proceedings against me are
being carried out. Perhaps you will object that there are no
proceedings against me. You will be quite right, as there are
proceedings only if I acknowledge that there are. But, for the moment,
I do acknowledge it, out of pity for yourselves to a large extent. It's
impossible not to observe all this business without feeling pity. I
don't say things are being done without due care but I would like to
make it clear that it is I who make the acknowledgement. "

K. stopped speaking and looked down into the hall. He had spoken
sharply, more sharply than he had intended, but he had been quite right.
It should have been rewarded with some applause here and there but
everything was quiet, they were all clearly waiting for what would
follow, perhaps the quietness was laying the ground for an outbreak of
activity that would bring this whole affair to an end. It was somewhat
disturbing that just then the door at the end of the hall opened, the
young washerwoman, who seemed to have finished her work, came in and,
despite all her caution, attracted the attention of some of the people
there. It was only the judge who gave K. any direct pleasure, as he
seemed to have been immediately struck by K. 's words. Until then, he
had listened to him standing, as K. 's speech had taken him by surprise
while he was directing his attention to the gallery. Now, in the pause,
he sat down very slowly, as if he did not want anyone to notice. He
took out the notebook again, probably so that he could give the
impression of being calmer.

"That won't help you, sir," continued K. , "even your little book
will only confirm what I say. " K. was satisfied to hear nothing but his
own quiet words in this room full of strangers, and he even dared
casually to pick up the examining judge's notebook and, touching it only
with the tips of his fingers as if it were something revolting, lifted
it in the air, holding it just by one of the middle pages so that the
others on each side of it, closely written, blotted and yellowing,
flapped down. "Those are the official notes of the examining judge," he
said, and let the notebook fall down onto the desk.
"You can read in
your book as much as you like, sir, I really don't have anything in this
charge book to be afraid of, even though I don't have access to it as I
wouldn't want it in my hand, I can only touch it with two fingers. " The
judge grabbed the notebook from where it had fallen on the desk - which
could only have been a sign of his deep humiliation, or at least that is
how it must have been perceived - tried to tidy it up a little, and held
it once more in front of himself in order to read from it.

The people in the front row looked up at him, showing such tension
on their faces that he looked back down at them for some time. Every
one of them was an old man, some of them with white beards. Could they
perhaps be the crucial group who could turn the whole assembly one way
or the other? They had sunk into a state of motionlessness while K.
gave his oration, and it had not been possible to raise them from this
passivity even when the judge was being humiliated. "What has happened
to me," continued K. , with less of the vigour he had had earlier, he
continually scanned the faces in the first row, and this gave his
address a somewhat nervous and distracted character, "what has happened
to me is not just an isolated case. If it were it would not be of much
importance as it's not of much importance to me, but it is a symptom of
proceedings which are carried out against many. It's on behalf of them
that I stand here now, not for myself alone. "

Without having intended it, he had raised his voice. Somewhere in
the hall, someone raised his hands and applauded him shouting, "Bravo!
Why not then? Bravo! Again I say, Bravo! " Some of the men in the
first row groped around in their beards, none of them looked round to
see who was shouting. Not even K. thought him of any importance but it
did raise his spirits; he no longer thought it at all necessary that all
of those in the hall should applaud him, it was enough if the majority
of them began to think about the matter and if only one of them, now
and then, was persuaded.

"I'm not trying to be a successful orator," said K. after this
thought, "that's probably more than I'm capable of anyway. I'm sure the
examining judge can speak far better than I can, it is part of his job
after all. All that I want is a public discussion of a public wrong.
Listen: ten days ago I was placed under arrest, the arrest itself is
something I laugh about but that's beside the point. They came for me
in the morning when I was still in bed. Maybe the order had been given
to arrest some house painter - that seems possible after what the judge
has said - someone who is as innocent as I am, but it was me they chose.
There were two police thugs occupying the next room. They could not
have taken better precautions if I had been a dangerous robber. And
these policemen were unprincipled riff-raff, they talked at me till I
was sick of it, they wanted bribes, they wanted to trick me into giving
them my clothes, they wanted money, supposedly so that they could bring
me my breakfast after they had blatantly eaten my own breakfast in front
of my eyes. And even that was not enough. I was led in front of the
supervisor in another room. This was the room of a lady who I have a
lot of respect for, and I was forced to look on while the supervisor and
the policemen made quite a mess of this room because of me, although not
through any fault of mine. It was not easy to stay calm, but I managed
to do so and was completely calm when I asked the supervisor why it was
that I was under arrest. If he were here he would have to confirm what
I say. I can see him now, sitting on the chair belonging to that lady I
mentioned - a picture of dull-witted arrogance. What do you think he
answered? What he told me, gentlemen, was basically nothing at all;
perhaps he really did know nothing, he had placed me under arrest and
was satisfied. In fact he had done more than that and brought three
junior employees from the bank where I work into the lady's room; they
had made themselves busy interfering with some photographs that belonged
to the lady and causing a mess. There was, of course, another reason
for bringing these employees; they, just like my landlady and her maid,
were expected to spread the news of my arrest and damage my public
reputation and in particular to remove me from my position at the bank.
Well they didn't succeed in any of that, not in the slightest, even my
landlady, who is quite a simple person - and I will give you here her
name in full respect, her name is Mrs. Grubach - even Mrs. Grubach was
understanding enough to see that an arrest like this has no more
significance than an attack carried out on the street by some youths who
are not kept under proper control. I repeat, this whole affair has
caused me nothing but unpleasantness and temporary irritation, but could
it not also have had some far worse consequences? "

K. broke off here and looked at the judge, who said nothing. As
he did so he thought he saw the judge use a movement of his eyes to give
a sign to someone in the crowd. K. smiled and said, "And now the judge,
right next to me, is giving a secret sign to someone among you. There
seems to be someone among you who is taking directions from above. I
don't know whether the sign is meant to produce booing or applause, but
I'll resist trying to guess what its meaning is too soon. It really
doesn't matter to me, and I give his lordship the judge my full and
public permission to stop giving secret signs to his paid subordinate
down there and give his orders in words instead; let him just say "Boo
now! ," and then the next time "Clap now! ".

Whether it was embarrassment or impatience, the judge rocked
backwards and forwards on his seat. The man behind him, whom he had
been talking with earlier, leant forward again, either to give him a few
general words of encouragement or some specific piece of advice. Below
them in the hall the people talked to each other quietly but animatedly.
The two factions had earlier seemed to hold views strongly opposed to
each other but now they began to intermingle, a few individuals pointed
up at K. , others pointed at the judge. The air in the room was fuggy
and extremely oppressive, those who were standing furthest away could
hardly even be seen through it. It must have been especially
troublesome for those visitors who were in the gallery, as they were
forced to quietly ask the participants in the assembly what exactly was
happening, albeit with timid glances at the judge. The replies they
received were just as quiet, and given behind the protection of a raised
hand.

"I have nearly finished what I have to say," said K. , and as there
was no bell available he struck the desk with his fist in a way that
startled the judge and his advisor and made them look up from each
other. "None of this concerns me, and I am therefore able to make a calm
assessment of it, and, assuming that this so-called court is of any real
importance, it will be very much to your advantage to listen to what I
have to say. If you want to discuss what I say, please don't bother to
write it down until later on, I don't have any time to waste and I'll
soon be leaving. "

There was immediate silence, which showed how well K. was in
control of the crowd. There were no shouts among them as there had been
at the start, no-one even applauded, but if they weren't already
persuaded they seemed very close to it.

K was pleased at the tension among all the people there as they
listened to him, a rustling rose from the silence which was more
invigorating than the most ecstatic applause could have been. "There is
no doubt," he said quietly, "that there is some enormous organisation
determining what is said by this court. In my case this includes my
arrest and the examination taking place here today, an organisation that
employs policemen who can be bribed, oafish supervisors and judges of
whom nothing better can be said than that they are not as arrogant as
some others. This organisation even maintains a high-level judiciary
along with its train of countless servants, scribes, policemen and all
the other assistance that it needs, perhaps even executioners and
torturers - I'm not afraid of using those words. And what, gentlemen, is
the purpose of this enormous organisation? Its purpose is to arrest
innocent people and wage pointless prosecutions against them which, as
in my case, lead to no result. How are we to avoid those in office
becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning? That is
impossible, not even the highest judge would be able to achieve that for
himself. That is why policemen try to steal the clothes off the back of
those they arrest, that is why supervisors break into the homes of
people they do not know, that is why innocent people are humiliated in
front of crowds rather than being given a proper trial. The policemen
only talked about the warehouses where they put the property of those
they arrest, I would like to see these warehouses where the hard won
possessions of people under arrest is left to decay, if, that is, it's
not stolen by the thieving hands of the warehouse workers. "

K. was interrupted by a screeching from the far end of the hall,
he shaded his eyes to see that far, as the dull light of day made the
smoke whitish and hard to see through. It was the washerwoman whom K.
had recognised as a likely source of disturbance as soon as she had
entered. It was hard to see now whether it was her fault or not. K.
could only see that a man had pulled her into a corner by the door and
was pressing himself against her. But it was not her who was screaming,
but the man, he had opened his mouth wide and looked up at the ceiling.
A small circle had formed around the two of them, the visitors near him
in the gallery seemed delighted that the serious tone K. had introduced
into the gathering had been disturbed in this way. K. 's first thought
was to run over there, and he also thought that everyone would want to
bring things back into order there or at least to make the pair leave
the room, but the first row of people in front of him stayed were they
were, no-one moved and no-one let K. through. On the contrary, they
stood in his way, old men held out their arms in front of him and a hand
from somewhere - he did not have the time to turn round - took hold of
his collar. K. , by this time, had forgotten about the pair, it seemed
to him that his freedom was being limited as if his arrest was being
taken seriously, and, without any thought for what he was doing, he
jumped down from the podium. Now he stood face to face with the crowd.
Had he judged the people properly? Had he put too much faith in the
effect of his speech? Had they been putting up a pretence all the time
he had been speaking, and now that he come to the end and to what must
follow, were they tired of pretending? What faces they were, all around
him! Dark, little eyes flickered here and there, cheeks drooped down
like on drunken men, their long beards were thin and stiff, if they took
hold of them it was more like they were making their hands into claws,
not as if they were taking hold of their own beards. But underneath
those beards - and this was the real discovery made by K. - there were
badges of various sizes and colours shining on the collars of their
coats. As far as he could see, every one of them was wearing one of
these badges. All of them belonged to the same group, even though they
seemed to be divided to the right and the left of him, and when he
suddenly turned round he saw the same badge on the collar of the
examining judge who calmly looked down at him with his hands in his lap.
"So," called out K, throwing his arms in the air as if this sudden
realisation needed more room, "all of you are working for this
organisation, I see now that you are all the very bunch of cheats and
liars I've just been speaking about, you've all pressed yourselves in
here in order to listen in and snoop on me, you gave the impression of
having formed into factions, one of you even applauded me to test me
out, and you wanted to learn how to trap an innocent man! Well, I hope
you haven't come here for nothing, I hope you've either had some fun
from someone who expected you to defend his innocence or else - let go
of me or I'll hit you," shouted K. to a quivery old man who had pressed
himself especially close to him - "or else that you've actually learned
something. And so I wish you good luck in your trade. " He briskly took
his hat from where it lay on the edge of the table and, surrounded by a
silence caused perhaps by the completeness of their surprise, pushed his
way to the exit. However, the examining judge seems to have moved even
more quickly than K. , as he was waiting for him at the doorway. "One
moment," he said. K. stood where he was, but looked at the door with
his hand already on its handle rather than at the judge. "I merely
wanted to draw your attention," said the judge, "to something you seem
not yet to be aware of: today, you have robbed yourself of the
advantages that a hearing of this sort always gives to someone who is
under arrest. " K. laughed towards the door. "You bunch of louts," he
called, "you can keep all your hearings as a present from me," then
opened the door and hurried down the steps. Behind him, the noise of
the assembly rose as it became lively once more and probably began to
discuss these events as if making a scientific study of them.




Chapter Three
In the empty Courtroom - The Student - The Offices

Every day over the following week, K. expected another summons to
arrive, he could not believe that his rejection of any more hearings had
been taken literally, and when the expected summons really had not come
by Saturday evening he took it to mean that he was expected, without
being told, to appear at the same place at the same time. So on Sunday,
he set out once more in the same direction, going without hesitation up
the steps and through the corridors; some of the people remembered him
and greeted him from their doorways, but he no longer needed to ask
anyone the way and soon arrived at the right door. It was opened as
soon as he knocked and, paying no attention to the woman he had seen
last time who was standing at the doorway, he was about to go straight
into the adjoining room when she said to him "There's no session today".
"What do you mean; no session? " he asked, unable to believe it. But the
woman persuaded him by opening the door to the next room. It was indeed
empty, and looked even more dismal empty than it had the previous
Sunday. On the podium stood the table exactly as it had been before
with a few books laying on it. "Can I have a look at those books? "
asked K. , not because he was especially curious but so that he would not
have come for nothing. "No," said the woman as she re-closed the door,
"that's not allowed. Those books belong to the examining judge. " "I
see," said K. , and nodded, "those books must be law books, and that's
how this court does things, not only to try people who are innocent but
even to try them without letting them know what's going on. " "I expect
you're right," said the woman, who had not understood exactly what he
meant. "I'd better go away again, then," said K.
"Should I give a message to the examining judge? " asked the woman. "Do
you know him, then? " asked K. "Of course I know him," said the woman,
"my husband is the court usher. " It was only now that K. noticed that
the room, which before had held nothing but a wash-tub, had been fitted
out as a living room. The woman saw how surprised he was and said,
"Yes, we're allowed to live here as we like, only we have to clear the
room out when the court's in session. There's lots of disadvantages to
my husband's job. " "It's not so much the room that surprises me," said
K. , looking at her crossly, "it's your being married that shocks me. "
"Are you thinking about what happened last time the court was in
session, when I disturbed what you were saying? " asked the woman. "Of
course," said K. , "it's in the past now and I've nearly forgotten about
it, but at the time it made me furious. And now you tell me yourself
that you are a married woman. " "It wasn't any disadvantage for you to
have your speech interrupted. The way they talked about you after you'd
gone was really bad. " "That could well be," said K. , turning away, "but
it does not excuse you. " "There's no-one I know who'd hold it against
me," said the woman. "Him, who put his arms around me, he's been chasing
after me for a long time. I might not be very attractive for most
people, but I am for him. I've got no protection from him, even my
husband has had to get used to it; if he wants to keep his job he's got
to put up with it as that man's a student and he'll almost certainly be
very powerful later on. He's always after me, he'd only just left when
you arrived. " "That fits in with everything else," said K. , "I'm not
surprised. " "Do you want to make things a bit better here? " the woman
asked slowly, watching him as if she were saying something that could be
as dangerous for K. as for herself. "That's what I thought when I heard
you speak, I really liked what you said. Mind you, I only heard part of
it, I missed the beginning of it and at the end I was lying on the floor
with the student - it's so horrible here," she said after a pause, and
took hold of K. 's hand. "Do you believe you really will be able to make
things better? " K. smiled and twisted his hand round a little in her
soft hands. "It's really not my job to make things better here, as you
put it," he said, "and if you said that to the examining judge he would
laugh at you or punish you for it. I really would not have become
involved in this matter if I could have helped it, and I would have lost
no sleep worrying about how this court needs to be made better. But
because I'm told that I have been arrested - and I am under arrest - it
forces me to take some action, and to do so for my own sake. However,
if I can be of some service to you in the process I will, of course, be
glad to do so. And I will be glad to do so not only for the sake of
charity but also because you can be of some help to me. " "How could I
help you, then? " said the woman. "You could, for example, show me the
books on the table there. " "Yes, certainly," the woman cried, and
pulled K. along behind her as she rushed to them. The books were old
and well worn, the cover of one of them had nearly broken through in its
middle, and it was held together with a few threads. "Everything is so
dirty here," said K. , shaking his head, and before he could pick the
books up the woman wiped some of the dust off with her apron. 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.