No More Learning

" "There's no
need to be so apologetic," said the information-giver, "it's very
commendable for you to be so attentive. You are taking up space here
when you don't need to but as long as you don't get in my way I will do
nothing to stop you following the progress of your case as closely as
you like. When one has seen so many people who shamefully neglect their
cases one learns to show patience with people like you. Do sit down. "
"He's very good with the litigants," whispered the girl. K. nodded, but
started to move off again when the information-giver repeated, "Would
you not like to sit down here a while? " "No," said K. , "I don't want to
rest. " He had said that as decisively as he could, but in fact it
would have done him a lot of good to sit down. It was as if he were
suffering sea-sickness. He felt as if he were on a ship in a rough sea,
as if the water were hitting against the wooden walls, a thundering from
the depths of the corridor as if the torrent were crashing over it, as
if the corridor were swaying and the waiting litigants on each side of
it rising and sinking. It made the calmness of the girl and the man
leading him all the more incomprehensible. He was at their mercy, if
they let go of him he would fall like a board. Their little eyes
glanced here and there, K. could feel the evenness of their steps but
could not do the same, as from step to step he was virtually being
carried. He finally noticed they were speaking to him but he did not
understand them, all he heard was a noise that filled all the space and
through which there seemed to be an unchanging higher note sounding,
like a siren. "Louder," he whispered with his head sunk low, ashamed at
having to ask them to speak louder when he knew they had spoken loudly
enough, even if it had been, for him, incomprehensible. At last, a
draught of cool air blew in his face as if a gap had been torn out in
the wall in front of him, and next to him he heard someone say, "First
he says he wants to go, and then you can tell him a hundred times that
this is the way out and he doesn't move. " K. became aware that he was
standing in front of the way out, and that the young woman had opened
the door. It seemed to him that all his strength returned to him at
once, and to get a foretaste of freedom he stepped straight on to one of
the stairs and took his leave there of his companions, who bowed to him.
"Thank you very much," he repeated, shook their hands once more and did
not let go until he thought he saw that they found it hard to bear the
comparatively fresh air from the stairway after being so long used to
the air in the offices. They were hardly able to reply, and the young
woman might even have fallen over if K. had not shut the door extremely
fast. K. then stood still for a while, combed his hair with the help of
a pocket mirror, picked up his hat from the next stair - the
information-giver must have thrown it down there - and then he ran down
the steps so fresh and in such long leaps that the contrast with his
previous state nearly frightened him. His normally sturdy state of
health had never prepared him for surprises such as this. Did his body
want to revolt and cause him a new trial as he was bearing the old one
with such little effort? He did not quite reject the idea that he
should see a doctor the next time he had the chance, but whatever he did
- and this was something on which he could advise himself - he wanted to
spend all Sunday mornings in future better than he had spent this one.




Chapter Four
Miss Burstner's Friend

For some time after this, K. found it impossible to exchange even
just a few words with Miss Burstner. He tried to reach her in many and
various ways but she always found a way to avoid it. He would come
straight home from the office, remain in her room without the light on,
and sit on the sofa with nothing more to distract him than keeping watch
on the empty hallway. If the maid went by and closed the door of the
apparently empty room he would get up after a while and open it again.
He got up an hour earlier than usual in the morning so that he might
perhaps find Miss Burstner alone as she went to the office. But none of
these efforts brought any success. Then he wrote her a letter, both to
the office and the flat, attempting once more to justify his behaviour,
offered to make whatever amends he could, promised never to cross
whatever boundary she might set him and begged merely to have the chance
to speak to her some time, especially as he was unable to do anything
with Mrs. Grubach either until he had spoken with Miss Burstner, he
finally informed her that the following Sunday he would stay in his room
all day waiting for a sign from her that there was some hope of his
request being fulfilled, or at least that she would explain to him why
she could not fulfil it even though he had promised to observe whatever
stipulations she might make. The letters were not returned, but there
was no answer either. However, on the following Sunday there was a sign
that seemed clear enough. It was still early when K. noticed, through
the keyhole, that there was an unusual level of activity in the hallway
which soon abated. A French teacher, although she was German and called
Montag, a pale and febrile girl with a slight limp who had previously
occupied a room of her own, was moving into Miss Burstner's room. She
could be seen shuffling through the hallway for several hours, there was
always another piece of clothing or a blanket or a book that she had
forgotten and had to be fetched specially and brought into the new home.

When Mrs. Grubach brought K. his breakfast - ever since the time
when she had made K. so cross she didn't trust the maid to do the
slightest job - he had no choice but to speak to her, for the first time
in five days. "Why is there so much noise in the hallway today? " he
asked as she poured his coffee out, "Can't something be done about it?
Does this clearing out have to be done on a Sunday? " K. did not look up
at Mrs. Grubach, but he saw nonetheless that she seemed to feel some
relief as she breathed in. Even sharp questions like this from Mr. K.
she perceived as forgiveness, or as the beginning of forgiveness.
"We're not clearing anything out, Mr. K. ," she said, "it's just that
Miss Montag is moving in with Miss Burstner and is moving her things
across. " She said nothing more, but just waited to see how K. would
take it and whether he would allow her to carry on speaking. But K.
kept her in uncertainty, took the spoon and pensively stirred his coffee
while he remained silent. Then he looked up at her and said, "What
about the suspicions you had earlier about Miss Burstner, have you given
them up? " "Mr. K. ," called Mrs. Grubach, who had been waiting for this
very question, as she put her hands together and held them out towards
him. "I just made a chance remark and you took it so badly. I didn't
have the slightest intention of offending anyone, not you or anyone
else. You've known me for long enough, Mr. K. , I'm sure you're
convinced of that. You don't know how I've been suffering for the past
few days! That I should tell lies about my tenants! And you, Mr. K. ,
you believed it! And said I should give you notice! Give you notice! "
At this last outcry, Mrs. Grubach was already choking back her tears,
she raised her apron to her face and blubbered out loud.

"Oh, don't cry Mrs. Grubach," said K. , looking out the window, he
was thinking only of Miss Burstner and how she was accepting an unknown
girl into her room. "Now don't cry," he said again as he turned his
look back into the room where Mrs. Grubach was still crying. "I meant
no harm either when I said that. It was simply a misunderstanding
between us. That can happen even between old friends sometimes. " Mrs.
Grubach pulled her apron down to below her eyes to see whether K. really
was attempting a reconciliation. "Well, yes, that's how it is," said
K. , and as Mrs. Grubach's behaviour indicated that the captain had said
nothing he dared to add, "Do you really think, then, that I'd want to
make an enemy of you for the sake of a girl we hardly know? " "Yes,
you're quite right, Mr. K. ," said Mrs. Grubach, and then, to her
misfortune, as soon as she felt just a little freer to speak, she added
something rather inept. "I kept asking myself why it was that Mr. K.
took such an interest in Miss Burstner. Why does he quarrel with me
over her when he knows that any cross word from him and I can't sleep
that night? And I didn't say anything about Miss Burstner that I hadn't
seen with my own eyes. " K. said nothing in reply, he should have chased
her from the room as soon as she had opened her mouth, and he didn't
want to do that. He contented himself with merely drinking his coffee
and letting Mrs. Grubach feel that she was superfluous. Outside, the
dragging steps of Miss Montag could still be heard as she went from one
side of the hallway to the other. "Do you hear that? " asked K. pointing
his hand at the door. "Yes," said Mrs. Grubach with a sigh, "I wanted
to give her some help and I wanted the maid to help her too but she's
stubborn, she wants to move everything in herself. I wonder at Miss
Burstner. I often feel it's a burden for me to have Miss Montag as a
tenant but Miss Burstner accepts her into her room with herself. "
"There's nothing there for you to worry about" said K. , crushing the
remains of a sugar lump in his cup. "Does she cause you any trouble? "
"No," said Mrs. Grubach, "in itself it's very good to have her there, it
makes another room free for me and I can let my nephew, the captain,
occupy it. I began to worry he might be disturbing you when I had to
let him live in the living room next to you over the last few days.
He's not very considerate. " "What an idea! " said K. standing up,
"there's no question of that. You seem to think that because I can't
stand this to-ing and fro-ing of Miss Montag that I'm over-sensitive -
and there she goes back again. " Mrs. Grubach appeared quite powerless.
"Should I tell her to leave moving the rest of her things over till
later, then, Mr. K. ? If that's what you want I'll do it immediately. "
"But she has to move in with Miss Burstner! " said K. "Yes," said Mrs.
Grubach, without quite understanding what K. meant. "So she has to take
her things over there. " Mrs. Grubach just nodded. K. was irritated all
the more by this dumb helplessness which, seen from the outside, could
have seemed like a kind of defiance on her part. He began to walk up
and down the room between the window and the door, thus depriving Mrs.
Grubach of the chance to leave, which she otherwise probably would have
done.

Just as K. once more reached the door, someone knocked at it. It
was the maid, to say that Miss Montag would like to have a few words
with Mr. K. , and therefore requested that he come to the dining room
where she was waiting for him. K. heard the maid out thoughtfully, and
then looked back at the shocked Mrs. Grubach in a way that was almost
contemptuous. His look seemed to be saying that K. had been expecting
this invitation for Miss Montag for a long time, and that it was
confirmation of the suffering he had been made to endure that Sunday
morning from Mrs. Grubach's tenants. He sent the maid back with the
reply that he was on his way, then he went to the wardrobe to change his
coat, and in answer to Mrs. Grubach's gentle whining about the nuisance
Miss Montag was causing merely asked her to clear away the breakfast
things. "But you've hardly touched it," said Mrs. Grubach. "Oh just
take it away! " shouted K. It seemed to him that Miss Montag was mixed
up in everything and made it repulsive to him.

As he went through the hallway he looked at the closed door of
Miss Burstner's room. But it wasn't there that he was invited, but the
dining room, to which he yanked the door open without knocking.

The room was long but narrow with one window. There was only
enough space available to put two cupboards at an angle in the corner by
the door, and the rest of the room was entirely taken up with the long
dining table which started by the door and reached all the way to the
great window, which was thus made almost inaccessible. The table was
already laid for a large number of people, as on Sundays almost all the
tenants ate their dinner here at midday.

When K. entered, Miss Montag came towards him from the window
along one side of the table. They greeted each other in silence. Then
Miss Montag, her head unusually erect as always, said, "I'm not sure
whether you know me. " K. looked at her with a frown. "Of course I do,"
he said, "you've been living here with Mrs. Grubach for quite some time
now. " "But I get the impression you don't pay much attention to what's
going on in the lodging house," said Miss Montag. "No," said K.
"Would you not like to sit down? " said Miss Montag. In silence, the two
of them drew chairs out from the farthest end of the table and sat down
facing each other. But Miss Montag stood straight up again as she had
left her handbag on the window sill and went to fetch it; she shuffled
down the whole length of the room. When she came back, the handbag
lightly swinging, she said, "I'd like just to have a few words with you
on behalf of my friend. She would have come herself, but she's feeling
a little unwell today. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to forgive her and
listen to me instead. There's anyway nothing that she could have said
that I won't. On the contrary, in fact, I think I can say even more
than her because I'm relatively impartial. Would you not agree? " "What
is there to say, then? " answered K. , who was tired of Miss Montag
continuously watching his lips. In that way she took control of what he
wanted to say before he said it. "Miss Burstner clearly refuses to
grant me the personal meeting that I asked her for. " "That's how it
is," said Miss Montag, "or rather, that's not at all how it is, the way
you put it is remarkably severe. Generally speaking, meetings are
neither granted nor the opposite. But it can be that meetings are
considered unnecessary, and that's how it is here. Now, after your
comment, I can speak openly.
You asked my friend, verbally or in
writing, for the chance to speak with her. Now my friend is aware of
your reasons for asking for this meeting - or at least I suppose she is
- and so, for reasons I know nothing about, she is quite sure that it
would be of no benefit to anyone if this meeting actually took place.
Moreover, it was only yesterday, and only very briefly, that she made it
clear to me that such a meeting could be of no benefit for yourself
either, she feels that it can only have been a matter of chance that
such an idea came to you, and that even without any explanations from
her, you will very soon come to realise yourself, if you have not done
so already, the futility of your idea. My answer to that is that
although it may be quite right, I consider it advantageous, if the
matter is to be made perfectly clear, to give you an explicit answer. I
offered my services in taking on the task, and after some hesitation my
friend conceded. I hope, however, also to have acted in your interests,
as even the slightest uncertainty in the least significant of matters
will always remain a cause of suffering and if, as in this case, it can
be removed without substantial effort, then it is better if that is done
without delay. " "I thank you," said K. as soon as Miss Montag had
finished. He stood slowly up, looked at her, then across the table,
then out the window - the house opposite stood there in the sun - and
went to the door. Miss Montag followed him a few paces, as if she did
not quite trust him. At the door, however, both of them had to step
back as it opened and Captain Lanz entered. This was the first time
that K. had seen him close up. He was a large man of about forty with a
tanned, fleshy face. He bowed slightly, intending it also for K. , and
then went over to Miss Montag and deferentially kissed her hand. He was
very elegant in the way he moved. The courtesy he showed towards Miss
Montag made a striking contrast with the way she had been treated by K.
Nonetheless, Miss Montag did not seem to be cross with K. as it even
seemed to him that she wanted to introduce the captain. K. however, did
not want to be introduced, he would not have been able to show any sort
of friendliness either to Miss Montag or to the captain, the kiss on the
hand had, for K. , bound them into a group which would keep him at a
distance from Miss Burstner whilst at the same time seeming to be
totally harmless and unselfish. K. thought, however, that he saw more
than that, he thought he also saw that Miss Montag had chosen a means of
doing it that was good, but two-edged. She exaggerated the importance
of the relationship between K. and Miss Burstner, and above all she
exaggerated the importance of asking to speak with her and she tried at
the same time to make out that K. was exaggerating everything. She
would be disappointed, K. did not want to exaggerate anything, he was
aware that Miss Burstner was a little typist who would not offer him
much resistance for long. In doing so he deliberately took no account
of what Mrs. Grubach had told him about Miss Burstner. All these things
were going through his mind as he left the room with hardly a polite
word. He wanted to go straight to his room, but a little laugh from
Miss Montag that he heard from the dining room behind him brought him to
the idea that he might prepare a surprise for the two of them, the
captain and Miss Montag. He looked round and listened to find out if
there might be any disturbance from any of the surrounding rooms,
everywhere was quiet, the only thing to be heard was the conversation
from the dining room and Mrs. Grubach's voice from the passage leading
to the kitchen. This seemed an opportune time, K. went to Miss
Burstner's room and knocked gently. There was no sound so he knocked
again but there was still no answer in reply. Was she asleep? Or was
she really unwell? Or was she just pretending as she realised it could
only be K. knocking so gently? K. assumed she was pretending and
knocked harder, eventually, when the knocking brought no result, he
carefully opened the door with the sense of doing something that was not
only improper but also pointless. In the room there was no-one. What's
more, it looked hardly at all like the room K. had known before.
Against the wall there were now two beds behind one another, there were
clothes piled up on three chairs near the door, a wardrobe stood open.
Miss Burstner must have gone out while Miss Montag was speaking to him
in the dining room. K. was not greatly bothered by this, he had hardly
expected to be able to find Miss Burstner so easily and had made this
attempt for little more reason than to spite Miss Montag. But that made
it all the more embarrassing for him when, as he was closing the door
again, he saw Miss Montag and the captain talking in the open doorway of
the dining room. They had probably been standing there ever since K.
had opened the door, they avoided seeming to observe K. but chatted
lightly and followed his movements with glances, the absent minded
glances to the side such as you make during a conversation. But these
glances were heavy for K. , and he rushed alongside the wall back into
his own room.




Chapter Five
The whip-man

One evening, a few days later, K. was walking along one of the
corridors that separated his office from the main stairway - he was
nearly the last one to leave for home that evening, there remained only
a couple of workers in the light of a single bulb in the dispatch
department - when he heard a sigh from behind a door which he had
himself never opened but which he had always thought just led into a
junk room. He stood in amazement and listened again to establish
whether he might not be mistaken. For a while there was silence, but
then came some more sighs. His first thought was to fetch one of the
servitors, it might well have been worth having a witness present, but
then he was taken by an uncontrollable curiosity that make him simply
yank the door open. It was, as he had thought, a junk room. Old,
unusable forms, empty stone ink-bottles lay scattered behind the
entrance. But in the cupboard-like room itself stood three men,
crouching under the low ceiling. A candle fixed on a shelf gave them
light. "What are you doing here? " asked K. quietly, but crossly and
without thinking. One of the men was clearly in charge, and attracted
attention by being dressed in a kind of dark leather costume which left
his neck and chest and his arms exposed. He did not answer. But the
other two called out, "Mr. K. ! We're to be beaten because you made a
complaint about us to the examining judge. " And now, K. finally
realised that it was actually the two policemen, Franz and Willem, and
that the third man held a cane in his hand with which to beat them.
"Well," said K. , staring at them, "I didn't make any complaint, I only
said what took place in my home. And your behaviour was not entirely
unobjectionable, after all. " "Mr. K. ," said Willem, while Franz clearly
tried to shelter behind him as protection from the third man, "if you
knew how badly we get paid you wouldn't think so badly of us. I've got
a family to feed, and Franz here wanted to get married, you just have to
get more money where you can, you can't do it just by working hard, not
however hard you try. I was sorely tempted by your fine clothes,
policemen aren't allowed to do that sort of thing, course they aren't,
and it wasn't right of us, but it's tradition that the clothes go to the
officers, that's how it's always been, believe me; and it's
understandable too, isn't it, what can things like that mean for anyone
unlucky enough to be arrested? But if he starts talking about it openly
then the punishment has to follow. " "I didn't know about any of this
that you've been telling me, and I made no sort of request that you be
punished, I was simply acting on principle. " "Franz," said Willem,
turning to the other policeman, "didn't I tell you that the gentleman
didn't say he wanted us to be punished? Now you can hear for yourself,
he didn't even know we'd have to be punished. " "Don't you let them
persuade you, talking like that," said the third man to K. , "this
punishment is both just and unavoidable. " "Don't listen to him," said
Willem, interrupting himself only to quickly bring his hand to his mouth
when it had received a stroke of the cane, "we're only being punished
because you made a complaint against us. Nothing would have happened to
us otherwise, not even if they'd found out what we'd done. Can you call
that justice? Both of us, me especially, we'd proved our worth as good
police officers over a long period - you've got to admit yourself that
as far as official work was concerned we did the job well - things
looked good for us, we had prospects, it's quite certain that we
would've been made whip-men too, like this one, only he had the luck not
to have anyone make a complaint about him, as you really don't get many
complaints like that. Only that's all finished now, Mr. K. , our careers
are at an end, we're going to have to do work now that's far inferior to
police work and besides all this we're going to get this terrible,
painful beating. " "Can the cane really cause so much pain, then? " asked
K. , testing the cane that the whip-man swang in front of him. "We're
going to have to strip off totally naked," said Willem. "Oh, I see,"
said K. , looking straight at the whip-man, his skin was burned brown
like a sailor's, and his face showed health and vigour. "Is there
then no possibility of sparing these two their beating? " he asked him.
"No," said the whip-man, shaking his head with a laugh. "Get
undressed! " he ordered the policemen. And to K. he said, "You shouldn't
believe everything they tell you, it's the fear of being beaten, it's
already made them a bit weak in the head. This one here, for instance,"
he pointed at Willem, "all that he told you about his career prospects,
it's just ridiculous. Look at him, look how fat he is - the first
strokes of the cane will just get lost in all that fat. Do you know
what it is that's made him so fat? He's in the habit of, everyone that
gets arrested by him, he eats their breakfast. Didn't he eat up your
breakfast? Yeah, I thought as much. But a man with a belly like that
can't be made into a whip-man and never will be, that is quite out of
the question. " "There are whip-men like that," Willem insisted, who had
just released the belt of this trousers. "No," said the whip-man,
striking him such a blow with the cane on his neck that it made him
wince, "you shouldn't be listening to this, just get undressed. " "I
would make it well worth your while if you would let them go," said K. ,
and without looking at the whip-man again - as such matters are best
carried on with both pairs of eyes turned down - he pulled out his
wallet. "And then you'd try and put in a complaint against me, too,"
said the whip-man, "and get me flogged. No, no! " "Now, do be
reasonable," said K. , "if I had wanted to get these two punished I would
not now be trying to buy their freedom, would I. I could simply close
the door here behind me, go home and see or hear nothing more of it.
But that's not what I'm doing, it really is of much more importance to
me to let them go free; if I had realised they would be punished, or
even that they might be punished, I would never have named them in the
first place as they are not the ones I hold responsible. It's the
organisation that's to blame, the high officials are the ones to blame. "
"That's how it is! " shouted the policemen, who then immediately received
another blow on their backs, which were by now exposed. "If you had a
senior judge here beneath your stick," said K. , pressing down the cane
as he spoke to stop it being raised once more, "I really would do
nothing to stop you, on the contrary, I would even pay you money to give
you all the more strength. " "Yeah, that's all very plausible, what
you're saying there," said the whip-man, "only I'm not the sort of
person you can bribe. It's my job to flog people, so I flog them. "
Franz, the policeman, had been fairly quiet so far, probably in
expectation of a good result from K. 's intervention, but now he stepped
forward to the door wearing just his trousers, kneeled down hanging on
to K. 's arm and whispered, "Even if you can't get mercy shown for both
of us, at least try and get me set free. Willem is older than me, he's
less sensitive than me in every way, he even got a light beating a
couple of years ago, but my record's still clean, I only did things the
way I did because Willem led me on to it, he's been my teacher both for
good and bad. Down in front of the bank my poor bride is waiting for me
at the entrance, I'm so ashamed of myself, it's pitiful. " His face was
flowing over with tears, and he wiped it dry on K. 's coat. "I'm not
going to wait any longer," said the whip-man, taking hold of the cane in
both hands and laying in to Franz while Willem cowered back in a corner
and looked on secretly, not even daring to turn his head. Then, the
sudden scream that shot out from Franz was long and irrevocable, it
seemed to come not from a human being but from an instrument that was
being tortured, the whole corridor rang with it, it must have been heard
by everyone in the building. "Don't shout like that! ", called out K. ,
unable to prevent himself, and, as he looked anxiously in the direction
from which the servitor would come, he gave Franz a shove, not hard, but
hard enough for him to fall down unconscious, clawing at the ground with
his hands by reflex; he still did not avoid being hit; the rod still
found him on the floor; the tip of the rod swang regularly up and down
while he rolled to and fro under its blows. And now one of the
servitors appeared in the distance, with another a few steps behind him.
K. had quickly thrown the door shut, gone over to one of the windows
overlooking the yard and opened it. The screams had completely stopped.
So that the servitor wouldn't come in, he called out, "It's only me! "
"Good evening, chief clerk," somebody called back. "Is there anything
wrong? " "No, no," answered K. , "it's only a dog yelping in the yard. "
There was no sound from the servitors so he added, "You can go back to
what you were doing. " He did not want to become involved with a
conversation with them, and so he leant out of the window. A little
while later, when he looked out in the corridor, they had already gone.
Now, K. remained at the window, he did not dare go back into the junk
room, and he did not want to go home either. The yard he looked down
into was small and rectangular, all around it were offices, all the
windows were now dark and only those at the very top caught a reflection
of the moon. K tried hard to see into the darkness of one corner of the
yard, where a few handcarts had been left behind one another. He felt
anguish at not having been able to prevent the flogging, but that was
not his fault, if Franz had not screamed like that - clearly it must
have caused a great deal of pain but it's important to maintain control
of oneself at important moments - if Franz had not screamed then it was
at least highly probable that K. would have been able to dissuade the
whip-man. If all the junior officers were contemptible why would the
whip-man, whose position was the most inhumane of all, be any exception,
and K. had noticed very clearly how his eyes had lit up when he saw the
banknotes, he had obviously only seemed serious about the flogging to
raise the level of the bribe a little. And K. had not been ungenerous,
he really had wanted to get the policemen freed; if he really had now
begun to do something against the degeneracy of the court then it was a
matter of course that he would have to do something here as well. But
of course, it became impossible for him to do anything as soon as Franz
started screaming. K. could not possibly have let the junior bank
staff, and perhaps even all sorts of other people, come along and catch
him by surprise as he haggled with those people in the junk room.
Nobody could really expect that sort of sacrifice of him. If that had
been his intention then it would almost have been easier, K. would have
taken his own clothes off and offered himself to the whip-man in the
policemen's place. The whip-man would certainly not have accepted this
substitution anyway, as in that way he would have seriously violated his
duty without gaining any benefit. He would most likely have violated
his duty twice over, as court employees were probably under orders not
to cause any harm to K. while he was facing charges, although there may
have been special conditions in force here. However things stood, K.
was able to do no more than throw the door shut, even though that would
still do nothing to remove all the dangers he faced. It was regrettable
that he had given Franz a shove, and it could only be excused by the
heat of the moment.

In the distance, he heard the steps of the servitors; he did not
want them to be too aware of his presence, so he closed the window and
walked towards the main staircase. At the door of the junk room he
stopped and listened for a little while. All was silent. The two
policemen were entirely at the whip-man's mercy; he could have beaten
them to death. K. reached his hand out for the door handle but drew it
suddenly back. He was no longer in any position to help anyone, and the
servitors would soon be back; he did, though, promise himself that he
would raise the matter again with somebody and see that, as far as it
was in his power, those who really were guilty, the high officials whom
nobody had so far dared point out to him, received their due punishment.
As he went down the main stairway at the front of the bank, he looked
carefully round at everyone who was passing, but there was no girl to be
seen who might have been waiting for somebody, not even within some
distance from the bank. Franz's claim that his bride was waiting for
him was thus shown to be a lie, albeit one that was forgivable and
intended only to elicit more sympathy.

The policemen were still on K. 's mind all through the following
day; he was unable to concentrate on his work and had to stay in his
office a little longer than the previous day so that he could finish it.
On the way home, as he passed by the junk room again, he opened its door
as if that had been his habit. Instead of the darkness he expected, he
saw everything unchanged from the previous evening, and did not know how
he should respond. Everything was exactly the same as he had seen it
when he had opened the door the previous evening. The forms and
bottles of ink just inside the doorway, the whip-man with his cane, the
two policemen, still undressed, the candle on the shelf, and the two
policemen began to wail and call out "Mr. K. ! " K. slammed the door
immediately shut, and even thumped on it with his fists as if that would
shut it all the firmer.