The Castle (10 page)

"No," replied K. coolly, "they only ran into me here."

"Ran into you," said he, "you mean, of course, were assigned to you."

"All right then, were assigned to me," said K., "but they might as well have fallen from the sky, for all the thought that was spent in choosing them."

"Nothing here is done without taking thought," said the Superintendent, actually forgetting the pain in his foot and sitting up.

"Nothing!" said K., "and what about my being summoned here then?"

"Even your being summoned was carefully considered," said the Superintendent, "it was only certain auxiliary circumstances that entered and confused the matter. I'll prove it to you from the official papers."

"The papers will not be found," said K.

"Not be found?" said the Superintendent. "Mizzi, please hurry up a bit! Still I can tell you the story even without the papers. We replied with thanks to the order that I've mentioned already, saying that we didn't need a Land Surveyor. But this reply doesn't appear to have reached the original department - I'll call it A - but by mistake went to another department, B. So Department A remained without an answer, but unfortunately our full reply didn't reach B either. Whether it was that the order itself was not enclosed by us, or whether it got lost on the way - it was certainly not lost in my department, that I can vouch for - in any case all that arrived at Department B was the covering letter, in which was merely noted that the enclosed order, unfortunately an impracticable one, was concerned with the engagement of a Land Surveyor. Meanwhile Department A was waiting for our answer, they had, of course, made a memorandum of the case, but as excusably enough often happens and is bound to happen even under the most efficient handling, our correspondent trusted to the fact that we would answer him, after which he would either summon the Land Surveyor, or else if need be write us further about the matter. As a result he never thought of referring to his memorandum and the whole thing fell into oblivion. But in Department B the covering letter came into the hands of a correspondent, famed for his conscientiousness, Sordini by name, an Italian. It is incomprehensible even to me, though I am one of the initiated, why a man of his capacities is left in an almost subordinate position. This Sordini naturally sent the unaccompanied covering letter for completion.

Now months, if not years, had passed by this time since that first communication from Department A, which is understandable enough] for when - which is the rule - a document goes the proper rout it reaches the department at the outside in a day and is settled that day, but when it once in a while loses its way then in an organization so efficient as ours its proper destination must be sought for literally with desperation, otherwise it mightn't be found; and then, well then the search may last really for a long time.

Accordingly, when we got Sordini's note we had only a vague memory of the affair, there were only two of us to do the work at that time, Mizzi and myself, the teacher hadn't yet been assigned to us, we only kept copies in the most important instances, so we could only reply in the most vague terms that we knew nothing of this engagement of a Land Surveyor and that as far as we knew there was no need for one."

"But," here the Superintendent interrupted himself as if, carried on by his tale, he had gone too far, or as if at least it were possible that he had gone too far, "doesn't the story bore you?"

"No," said K., "it amuses me."

Thereupon the Superintendent said: "I'm not telling it to amuse you."

"It only amuses me," said K., "because it gives me an insight into the ludicrous bungling which in certain circumstances may decide the life of a human being."

"You haven't been given any insight into that yet," replied the Superintendent gravely,

"and I can go on with my story. Naturally Sordini was not satisfied with our reply. I admire the man, although he is a plague to me. He literally distrusts everyone. Even if, for instance, he has come to know somebody, through countless circumstances, as the most reliable man in the world, he distrusts him as soon as fresh circumstances arise, as if he didn't want to know him, or rather as if he wanted to know that he was a scoundrel. I consider that right and proper, an official must behave like that. Unfortunately with my nature I can't follow out this principle; you see yourself how frank I am with you, a stranger, about those things, I can't act in any other way. But Sordini, on the contrary, was seized by suspicion when he read our reply. Now a large correspondence began to grow.

Sordini inquired how I had suddenly recalled that a Land Surveyor shouldn't be summoned.

I replied, drawing on Mizzi's splendid memory, that the first suggestion had come from the chancellery itself (but that it had come from a different department we had of course forgotten long before this).

Sordini countered: "Why had I only mentioned this official order now?"

I replied: "Because I had just remembered it."

Sordini: "That was very extraordinary."

Myself: "It was not in the least extraordinary in such a long-drawn-out business."

Sordini: "Yes, it was extraordinary, for the order that I remembered didn't exist."

Myself: "Of course it didn't exist, for the whole document had gone missing."

Sordini: "But there must be a memorandum extant relating to this first communication, and there wasn't one extant."

That drew me up, for that an error should happen in Sordini's department I neither dared to maintain nor to believe. Perhaps, my dear Land Surveyor, you'll make the reproach against Sordini in your mind, that in consideration of my assertion he should have been moved at least to make inquiries in the other departments about the affair. But that is just what would have been wrong; I don't want any blame to attach to this man, no, not even in your thoughts. It's a working principle of the Head Bureau that the very possibility of error must be ruled out of account. This ground principle is justified by the consummate organization of the whole authority, and it is necessary if the maximum speed in transacting business is to be attained. So it wasn't within Sordini's power to make inquiries in other departments, besides they simply wouldn't have answered, because they would have guessed at once that it was a case of hunting out a possible error."

"Allow me, Superintendent, to interrupt you with a question," said K. "Did you not mention once before a Control Authority? From your description the whole economy is one that would rouse one's apprehension if onecould imagine the control failing."

"You're very strict," said the Superintendent, "but multiply your strictness a thousand times and it would still be nothing compared with the strictness which the Authority imposes on itself. Only a total stranger could ask a question like yours. Is there a Control Authority? There are only control authorities. Frankly it isn't their function to hunt out errors in the vulgar sense, for errors don't happen, and even when once in a while an error does happen, as in your case, who can say finally that it's an error?"

"This is news indeed!" cried K.

"It's very old news to me," said the Superintendent. "Not unlike yourself I'm convinced that an error has occurred, and as a result Sordini is quite ill with despair, and the first Control Officials, whom we have to thank for discovering the source of error, recognize that there is an error. But who can guarantee that the second Control Officials will decide in the same way and the third lot and all the others?"

"That may be," said K. "I would much rather not mix in these speculations yet, besides this is the first mention I've heard of these Control Officials and naturally I can't understand them yet. But I fancy that two things must be distinguished here: firstly, what is transacted in the offices and can be construed again officially this way or that, and secondly, my own actual person, me myself, situated outside of the offices and threatened by their encroachments, which are so meaningless that I can't even yet believe in the seriousness of the danger. The first evidently is covered by what you, Superintendent, tell me in such extraordinary and disconcerting detail. All the same I would like to hear a word now about myself."

"Ìm coming to that too," said the Superintendent, "but you couldn't understand it without my giving a few more preliminary details. My mentioning the Control Officials just now was premature. So I must turn back to the discrepancies with Sordini. As I said, my defence gradually weakened. But whenever Sordini has in his hands even the slightest hold against anyone, he has as good as won, for then his vigilance, energy, and alertness are actually increased and it's a terrible moment for the victim, and a glorious one for the victim's enemies. It's only because in other circumstances I have experienced this last feeling that I'm able to speak of him as I do. All the same I have never managed yet to come within sight of him. He can't get down here, he's so overwhelmed with work. From the descriptions I've heard of his room every wail is covered with columns of documents tied together, piled on top of one another. Those are only the documents that Sordini is working on at the time, and as bundles of papers are continually being taken away and brought in, and all in great haste, those columns are always falling on the floor, and it's just those perpetual crashes, following fast on one another, that have come to distinguish Sordini's workroom. Yes, Sordini is a worker and he gives the same scrupulous care to the smallest case as to the greatest."

"Superintendent," said K., "you always call my case one of the smallest, and yet it has given hosts of officials a great deal of trouble, and if, perhaps, it was unimportant at the start, yet through the diligence of officials of Sordini's type it has grown into a great affair. Very much against my will, unfortunately, for my ambition doesn't run to seeing columns of documents, all about me, rising and crashing together, but to working quietly at my drawing-board as a humble Land Surveyor."

"No," said the Superintendent, "it's not at all a great affair, in. that respect you've no ground for complaint - it's one of the. Least important among the least important. The importance of a case is not determined by the amount of work it involves, you're far from understanding the authorities if you believe that. But even if it's a question of the amount of work, your case would remain one of the slightest. Ordinary cases, those without any so-called errors I mean, provide far more work and far more profitable work as well. Besides you know absolutely nothing yet of the actual work which was caused by your case. I'll tell you about that now. Well, presently Sordini left me out of count, but the clerks arrived, and every day a formal inquiry involving the most prominent members of the community was held in the Herrenhof. The majority stuck by me, only a few held back - the question of a Land Surveyor appeals to peasants - they scented secret plots and injustices and what not, found a leader, no less, and Sordini was forced by their assertions to the conviction that if I had brought the question forward in the Town Council, every voice wouldn't have been against the summoning of a Land Surveyor. So a commonplace - namely, a Land Surveyor wasn't needed - was turned after all into doubtful matter at least. A man called Brunswick distinguish himself especially, you don't know him, of course. Probably he's not a bad man, only stupid and fanciful, he's a son-in-law of Lasemann's."

"Of the Master Tanner?" asked K., and he described the fullbearded man whom he had seen at Lasemann's.

"Yes, that's the man," said the Superintendent.

"I know his wife, too," said K. a little at random.

"That's possible," replied the Superintendent briefly.

"She's beautiful," said K., "but rather pale and sickly. She comes, of course, from the Castle?"

It was half a question. The Superintendent looked at the clock, poured some medicine into a spoon, and gulped at it hastily.

"You only know the official side of the Castle?" asked K. bluntly.

"That's so," replied the Superintendent, with an ironical and yet grateful smile, "and it's the most important. And as for Brunswick, if we could exclude him from the Council we would almost all be glad, and Lasemann not least. But at that time Brunswick gained some influence, he's not an orator of course, but a shouter. But even that can do a lot.

And so it came about that I was forced to lay the matter before the Town Council.

However, it was Brunswick's only immediate triumph, for of course the Town Council refused by a large majority to hear anything about a Land Surveyor. That, too, was a long time ago, but the whole time since the matter has never been allowed to rest, partly owing to Sordini's conscientiousness, who by the most painful sifting of data sought to fathom the motives of the majority no less than the opposition, partly owing to Brunswick's stupidity and ambition, who had several personal acquaintances among the authorities whom he set working with fresh inventions of his fancy. Sordini, at any rate, didn't let himself be deceived by Brunswick - how could Brunswick deceive Sordini? - but simply to prevent himself from being deceived a new sifting of data was necessary, and long before it was ended Brunswick had already thought out something new. He's very, very versatile, no doubt of it, that goes with his stupidity. And now I come to a peculiar characteristic of our administrative apparatus. Along with its precision it's extremely sensitive as well. When an affair has been weighed for a very long time, it may happen, even before the matter has been fully considered, that suddenly in a flash the decision comes in some unforeseen place, that, moreover, can't be found any longer later on, a decision that settles the matter, if in most cases justly, yet all the same arbitrarily.

It's as if the administrative apparatus were unable any longer to bear the tension,the yearlong irritation caused by the same affair - probably trivial in itself-and had hit upon the decision by itself, without the assistance of the officials. Of course a miracle didn't happen and certainly it was some clerk who hit upon the solution or the unwritten decision, but in any case it couldn't be discovered by us, at least by us here, or even by the Head Bureau, which clerk had decided in this case and on what grounds. The Control Officials only discovered that much later, but we will never learn it. Besides by this time it would scarcely interest anybody.