The Castle (3 page)

The men had finished with the tub-in which the children were now wallowing in charge of the fair-haired woman-and were standing fully dressed before K. It appeared that the hectoring one with the full beard was the less important of the two. The other, a still, slow-thinking man who kept his head bent, was not taller than his companion and had a much smaller beard, but he was broader in the shoulders and had a broad face as well, and he it was who said:

"You can't stay here, sir. Excuse the discourtesy."

"I don't want to stay," said K, "I only wanted to rest a little. I have rested, and now I shall go."

"You're probably surprised at our lack of hospitality," said the man, "but hospitality is not our custom here, we have no use for visitors."

Somewhat refreshed by his sleep, his perceptions somewhat quickened, K. was pleased by the man's frankness. He felt less constrained, poked with his stick here and there, approached the woman in the arm-chair, and noted that he was physically the biggest man in the room.

"To be sure," said K., "what use would you have for visitors? But still you need one now and then, me, for example, the Lane Surveyor."

"I don't know about that," replied the man slowly.

"If you've been asked to come you're probably needed, that's an exceptional case, but we small people stick to our tradition, and you can't blame us for that."

"No, no," said K., "I am only grateful to you and everybody here."

And taking them all by surprise he made an adroit turn and stood before the reclining woman. Out of weary blue eyes she looked at him, a transparent silk kerchief hung down to the middle of her forehead, die infant was asleep on her bosom. "Who are you?" asked K., and disdainfully - whether contemptuous of K. or her own answer was not clear - she replied:

"A girl from the Castle."

It had only taken a second or so, but already the two men were at either side of K. and were pushing him towards the door, as if there were no other means of persuasion, silently, but putting out all their strength. Something in this procedure delighted the old man, and he clapped his hands. The woman at the bath-tub laughed too, and the children suddenly shouted like mad. K. was soon out in the street, and from the threshold the two men surveyed him. Snow was again falling, yet the sky seemed a little brighter.

The bearded man cried impatiently:

"Where do you want to go? This is the way to the Castle, and that to the village."

K. made no reply to him, but turned to the other, who in spite of his shyness seemed to him the more amiable of the two, and said:

"Who are you? Whom have I to thank for sheltering me?"

"I am the tanner Lasemann," was the answer, "but you owe thanks to nobody."

"All right," said K., "perhaps we'll meet again."

"I don't suppose so," said the man.

At that moment the other cried, with a wave of his hand: "Good morning, Arthur; good morning, Jeremiah!"

K. turned round; so there were really people to be seen in the village streets. From the direction of the Castle came two young men of medium height, both very slim, in tight-fitting clothes, and like each other in their features. Although their skin was a dusky brown the blackness of their little pointed beards was actually striking by contrast. Considering the state of the road, they were walking at a great pace, their slim legs keeping time.

"Where are you off to?" shouted the bearded man.

One had to shout to them, they were going so fast and they would not stop.

"On business," they shouted back, laughing.

"Where?"

"At the inn." T

"Ìm going there too," yelled K. suddenly, louder than all the rest; he felt a strong desire to accompany them, not that he expected much from their acquaintance, but they were obviously good and jolly companions. They heard him, but only nodded, and were already out of sight. K. was still standing in the snow, and was little inclined to extricate his feet only for the sake of plunging them in again; the tanner and his comrade, satisfied with having finally got rid of him, edged slowly into the house through the door which was now barely ajar, casting backward glances at K., and he was left alone in the falling snow.

"A fine setting for a fit of despair," it occurred to him, "if I were only standing here by accident instead of design." Just then in the hut on his left hand a tiny window was opened, which had seemed quite blue when shut, perhaps from the reflexion of the snow, and was so tiny that when opened it did not permit the whole face of the person behind it to be seen, but only the eyes, old brown eyes.

"There he is," K. heard a woman's trembling voice say.

"It's the Land Surveyor," answered a man's voice.

Then the man came to the window and asked, not unamiably, but still as if he were anxious to have no cornplications in front of his house:

"Are you waiting for somebody?"

"For a sledge, to pick me up," said K.

"No sledges will pass here," said the man, "there's no traffic here."

"But it's the road leading to the Castle," objected K.

"All the same, all the same," said the man with a certain finality, "there's no traffic here."

Then they were both silent. But the man was obviously thinking of something, for he kept the window open.

"It's a bad road," said K., to help him out.

The only answer he got, however, was: "Oh yes."

But after a little the man volunteered: "If you like, I'll take you in my sledge."

"Please do,' said K. delighted, "what is your charge?"

"Nothing," said the man. K. was very surprised.

"Well, you're the Land Surveyor," explained the man, "and you belong to the Castle.

Where do you want to be taken?"

"To the Castle," returned K. quickly.

"I won't take you there," said the man without hesitation.

"But I belong to the Castle," said K., repeating the other's very words.

"Maybe," said the man shortly.

"Oh, well, take me to the inn," said K.

"All right," said the man, "Ì`ll be out with the sledge in a moment"

His whole behaviour had the appearance of springing not from any special desire to be friendly but rather from a kind of selfish, worried, and almost pedantic insistence on shifting K. away from the front of the house. The gate of the courtyard opened, and a small light sledge, quite flat, without a seat of any kind, appeared, drawn by a feeble little horse, and behind it limped the man, a weakly stooped figure with a gaunt red snuffling face that looked peculiarly small beneath a tightly swathed woollen scarf. He was obviously ailing, and yet only to transport K. he had dragged himself out K. ventured to mention it, but the man waved him aside. All that K. elicited was that he was a coachman called Gerstacker, and that he had taken this uncomfortable sledge because it was standing ready, and to get out one of the others would have wasted too much time.

"Sit down," he said, pointing to the sledge.

"Ìll sit beside you," said K.

"Ìm going to walk," said Gerstacker.

"But why?" asked K.

"Ìm going to walk," repeated Gerstacker, and was seized with a fit of coughing which shook him so severely that he had to brace his legs in the snow and hold on to the rim of the sledge. K. said no more, but sat down on the sledge, the man's cough slowly abated, and they drove off.

The Castle above them, which K. had hoped to reach that very day, was already beginning to grow dark, and retreated again into the distance. But as if to give him a parting sign till their next encounter a bell began to ring merrily up there, a bell which for at least a second made his heart palpitate for its tone was menacing, too, as if it threatened him with the fulfilment of his vague desire. This great bell soon died away, however, and its place was taken by a feeble monotonous little tinkle which might have come from the Castle, but might have been somewhere in the village. It certainly harmonized better with the slow-going journey, with the wretched-looking yet inexorable driver.

"I say," cried K. suddenly-they were already near the church, the inn was not far oft, and K. felt he could risk something, "Ìm surprised that you have the nerve to drive me round on your own responsibility; are you allowed to do that?"

Gerstacker paid no attention, but went on walking quietly beside the little horse.

"Hi " cried K., scraping some snow from the sledge and flinging a snowball which hit Gerstacker full in the ear. That made him stop and turn round; but when K. saw him at such close quarters- the sledge had slid forward a little-this stooping and somehow ill-used figure with the thin red tired face and cheeks that were different-one being flat and the other fallen instanding listening with his mouth open, displaying only a few isolated teeth, he found that what he had just said out of malice had to be repeated out of pity, that is, whether Gerstacker was likely to be penalized for driving him about.

"What do you mean?" asked Gerstacker uncomprehendingly, but without waiting for an answer he spoke to the horse and they moved on again.

When by a turn in the road K. recognized that they were near the inn, he was greatly surprised to see that darkness had already set in. Had he been gone for such a long time?

Surely not for more than an hour or two, by his reckoning. And it had been morning when he left. And he had not felt any need of food. And just a short time ago it had been uniform daylight, and now the darkness of night was upon them.

"Short days, short days," he said to himself, slipped off the sledge, and went towards the inn.

At the top of the little flight of steps leading into the house stood the landlord, a welcome figure, holding up a lighted lantern. Remembering his conductor for a fleeting moment K. stood still, there was a cough in the darkness behind him, that was he. Well, he would see him again soon. Not until he was level with the landlord, who greeted him humbly, did he notice two men, one on either side of the doorway. He took the lantern from his host's hand and turned the light upon them; it was the men he had already met, who were called Arthur and Jeremiah. They now saluted him. That reminded him of his soldiering days, happy days for him, and he laughed.

"Who are you?" he asked, looking from one to die other.

"Your assistants," they answered.

"It's your assistants," corroborated the landlord in a low voice.

"What?" said K., "are you my old assistants whom I told to follow me and whom I am expecting?"

They answered in the affirmative.

"That's good," observed K. after a short pause. "I'm glad you've come."

"Well," he said, after another pause, "you've come very late, you're very slack."

"It was a long way to come," said one of them.

"A long way?" repeated K., "but I met you just now coming from the Castle."

"Yes," said they without further explanation.

"Where is the apparatus?" asked K.

"We haven't any," said they.

"The apparatus I gave you?" said K.

"We haven't any,' they reiterated.

"Oh, you are fine fellows, " said K., "do you know anything about surveying?"

"No," said they.

"But if you are my old assistants you must know something about it, " said K.

They made no reply.

"Well, come in," said K., pushing them before him into the house.

They sat down then all three together over their beer at a small table, saying little, K. in the middle with an assistant on each side. As on the other evening, there was only one other table occupied by a few peasants.

"You're a difficult problem," said K., comparing them, as he had already done several times. "How am I to know one of you from the other? The only difference between you is your names, otherwise you're as like as ..."

He stopped, and then went on involuntarily, "You're as like as two snakes."

They smiled.

"People usually manage to distinguish us quite well," they said in self-justification.

"I am sure they do," said K., "I was a witness of that myself, but I can only see with my own eyes, and with them I can't distinguish you. So I shall treat you as if you were one man and call you both Arthur, that's one of your names, yours, isn't it?" he asked one of them.

"No," said the man, "I'm Jeremiah."

"It doesn't matter," said K. "Ìll call you both Arthur. If I tell Arthur to go anywhere you must both go. If I give Arthur something to do you must both do it, that has the great disadvantage for me of preventing me from employing you on separate jobs, but the advantage that you will both be equally responsible for anything I tell you to do.

How you divide the work between you doesn't matter to me, only you're not to excuse yourselves by blaming each other, for me you're only one man."

They considered this, and said: "We shouldn't like that at all."

"I don't suppose so," said K., "of course you won't like it, but that's how it has to be."

For some little time one of the peasants had been sneaking round the table and K. had noticed him; now the fellow took courage and went up to one of the assistants to whisper something.

"Excuse me," said K., bringing his band down on the table and rising to his feet,

"these are my assistants and we're discussing private business. Nobody is entitled to disturb us."

"Sorry, sir, sorry," muttered the peasant anxiously, retreating backwards towards his friends.

"And this is my most important charge to you," said K., sitting down again. "You're not to speak to anyone without my permission. I am a stranger here, and if you are my old assistants you are strangers too. We three strangers must stand by each other therefore, give me your hands on that."

All too eagerly they stretched out their hands to K.

"Never mind the trimming," said he, "but remember that my command holds good. I shall go to bed now and I recommend you to do the same. To-day we have missed a day's work, and to-morrow we must begin very early. You must get hold of a sleigh for taking me to the Castle and have it ready outside the house at six o'clock."

"Very well," said one.

But the other interrupted him. "You say "very well", and yet you know it can't be done."