The Castle (34 page)

"Well?" said K., "was Galater right, and have you carried out your task?"

"That I don't know," replied Jeremiah. "In such a short time it was hardly possible. I only know that you were very rough on us, and that's what we're complaining of. I can't understand how you, an employee yourself and not even a Castle employee, aren't able to see that a job like that is very hard work, and that it's very wrong to make the work harder for the poor workers, and wantonly, almost childishly, as you have done. Your total lack of consideration in letting us freeze at the railings, and almost felling Arthur with your fist on the straw sack - Arthur, a man who feels a single cross word for days - and in chasing me up and down in the snow all afternoon, so that it was an hour before I could recover from it t And I'm no longer young!"

"My dear Jeremiah," said K., "you're quite right about all this, only it's Galater you should complain to. He sent you here of his own accord, I didn't beg him to send you. And as I hadn't asked you it was at my discretion to send you back again, and like you, I would much rather have done it peacefully than with violence, but evidently you wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, why didn't you speak to me when you came first as frankly as you've done just now?"

"Because I was in the service," said Jeremiah, "surely that's obvious"

"And now you're in the service no longer?" asked K.

"That's so" said Jeremiah, "Arthur has given notice in the Castle that we're giving up the job, or at least proceedings have been set going that will finally set us free from it."

"But you're still looking for me just as if you were in the service," said K.

"No," replied Jeremiah, "I was only looking for you to reassure Frieda. When you forsook her for Barnabas's sister she was very unhappy, not so much because of the loss, as because of your treachery, besides she had seen it coming for a long time and had suffered a great deal already on that account. I only went up to the schoolwindow for one more look to see if you mightn't have become more reasonable. But you weren't there.

Frieda was sitting by herself on a bench crying. So then I went to her and we came to an agreement. Everything's settled. I'm to be waiter in the Herrenhof, at least until my business is settled in the Castle, and Frieda is back in the taproom again. It's better for Frieda. There was no sense in her becoming your wife. And you haven't known how to value the sacrifice that she was prepared to make for you either. But the good soul had still some scruples left, perhaps she was doing you an injustice, she thought, perhaps you weren't with the Barnabas girl after all. Although of course there could be no doubt where you were, I went all the same so as to make sure of it once and for all. For after all this worry Frieda deserved to sleep peacefully for once, not to mention myself. So I went and not only found you there, but was able to see incidentally as well that you had the girls on a string. The black one especially - a real wild-cat - she's set her cap at you. Well, everyone to his taste. But all the same it wasn't necessary for you to take the roundabout way through the next-door garden, I know that way."

So now the thing had come after all which he had been able to foresee, but not to prevent.

Frieda had left him.

It could not be final, it was not so bad as that, Frieda could be won back, it was easy for any stranger to influence her, even for those assistants who considered Frieda's position much the same as their own, and now that they had given notice had prompted Frieda to do the same, but K. would only have to show himself and remind her of all that spoke in his favour, and she would come back to him, especially if he should be in a position to justify his visit to those girls by some success due entirely to them. Yet in spite of those reflexions, by which he sought to reassure himself on Frieda's account, he was not reassured. Only a few minutes ago he had been praising Frieda up to Olga and calling her his only support. Well, that support was not of the firmest, no intervention of the mighty ones had been needed to rob K. of Frieda - even this not very savoury assistant had been enough - this puppet which sometimes gave one the impression of not being properly alive.

Jeremiah had already begun to disappear.

K. called him back.

"Jeremiah," he said, "I want to be quite frank with you. Answer one question of mine too in the same spirit. We're no longer in the position of master and servant, a matter of congratulation not only to you but to me too. We have no grounds, then, for deceiving each other. Here before your eyes I snap this switch which was intended for you, for it wasn't for fear of you that I chose the back way out, but so as to surprise you and lay it across your shoulders a few times. But don't take it badly, all that is over. If you hadn't been forced on me as a servant by the bureau, but had been simply an acquaintance, we would certainly have got on splendidly, even if your appearance might have disturbed me occasionally. And we can make up now for what we have missed in that way."

"Do you think so?" asked the assistant, yawning and closing his eyes wearily. "I could of course explain the matter more at length, but I have no time, I must go to Frieda, the poor child is waiting for me, she hasn't started on her job yet, at my request the landlord has given her a few hours' grace - she wanted to fling herself into the work at once probably to help her to forget - and we want to spend that little time at least together. As for your proposal, I have no cause, certainly, to deceive you, but I have just as little to confide anything to you. My case, in other words, is different from yours. So long as my relation to you was that of a servant, you were naturally a very important person in my eyes, not because of your own qualities, but because of my office, and I have done anything for you that you wanted, but now you're of no importance to me.

Even your breaking the switch doesn't affect me, it only reminds me what a rough master I had, it is not calculated to prejudice me in your favour."

"You talk to me," said K, "as if it were quite certain that you'll never have to feL

anything from me again. But that isn't really so. From all appearances you're not free from me, things aren't settled here so quickly as that -"

"Sometimes even more quickly," Jeremiah threw in.

"Sometimes," said K, "but nothing points to the fact that it's so this time, at least neither you nor I have anything that we can show in black and white. The proceedings are only started, it seems, and I haven't used my influence yet to intervene, but I will. If the affair turns out badly for you, you'll find that you haven't exactly endeared yourself to your master, and perhaps it was superfluous after all to break the hazel switch. And then you have abducted Frieda, and that has given you an inflated notion of yourself, but with all the respect that I have for your person, even if you have none for me any longer, a few words from me to Frieda will be enough - I know it - to smash up the lies that you've caught her with. And only lies could have estranged Frieda from me."

"These threats don't frighten me," replied Jeremiah, "you don't in the least want me as an assistant, you were afraid of me even as an assistant, you're afraid of assistants in any case, it was only fear that made you strike poor Arthur."

"Perhaps," said K., "but did it hurt the less for that? Perhaps I'll be able to show my fear of you in that way many times yet. Once I see that you haven't much joy in an assistant's work, it'll give me great satisfaction again, in spite of all my fear, to keep you at it. And moreover I'll do my best next time to see that you come by yourself, without Arthur, I'll be able then to devote more attention to you."

"Do you think," asked Jeremiah, "that I have even the slightest fear of all this?"

"I do think so," said K., "you're a little afraid, that's certain, and if you're wise, very much afraid. If that isn't so why didn't you go straight back to Frieda? Tell me, are you in love with her, then?"

"In love!" said Jeremiah. "She's a nice clever girl, a former sweetheart of Klamm's, so respectable in any case. And as she kept on asking me to save her from you. Why shouldn't I do her the favour, particularly as I wasn't doing you any harm, seeing that you've consoled yourself with these damned Barnabas girls?"

"Now I can see how frightened you are," said K., "frightened out of your wits. You're trying to catch me with lies. All that Frieda asked for was to be saved from those filthy swine of assistants, who were getting past bounds, but unfortunately I hadn't time to fulfil her wish completely, and now this is the result of my negligence."

"Land Surveyor, Land Surveyor!" someone shouted down the street.

It was Barnabas.

He came up breathless with running, but did not forget to greet K. with a bow.

"It's done!" he said.

"What's done?" asked K. "You've laid my request before Klamm?"

"That didn't come off," said Barnabas, "I did my best, but it was impossible, I was urgent, stood there all day without being asked and so close to the desk that once a clerk actually pushed me away, for I was standing in his light, I reported myself when Klamm looked up - and that's forbidden - by lifting my hand, I was the last in the bureau, was left alone there with only the servants, but had the luck all the same to see Klamm coming back again, but it was not on my account, he only wanted to have another hasty glance at something in a book and went away immediately. Finally, as I still made no move, the servants almost swept me out of the door with the broom. I tell you all this so that you need never complain of my efforts again."

"What good is all your zeal to me, Barnabas," said K., "when it hasn't the slightest success?"

"But I have had success!" replied Barnabas. "As I was leaving my bureau - I call it my bureau - I saw a gentleman coming slowly towards me along one of the passages, which were quite empty except for him. By that time in fact it was very late. I decided to wait for him. It was a good pretext to wait longer, indeed I would much rather have waited in any case, so as not to have to bring you news of failure. But apart from that it was worth while waiting, for it was Erlanger.

You don't know him?

He's one of Klamm's chief secretaries. A weakly little gentleman, he limps a little. He recognized me at once, he's famous for his splendid memory and his knowledge of people, he just draws his brows together and that's enough for him to recognize anybody, often people even that he's never seen before, that he's only heard of or read about.

For instance, he could hardly ever have seen me. But although he recognizes everybody immediately, he always asks first as if he weren't quite sure.

"Aren't you Barnabas?" he asked me.

And then he went on: "You know the Land Surveyor, don't you?"

And then he said: "That's very lucky. I'm just going to the Herrenhof. The Land Surveyor is to report to me there. I'll be in room number 15. But he must come at once.

I've only a few things to settle there and I leave again for the Castle at 5 o'clock in the morning. Tell him that it's very important that I should speak to him.'"

Suddenly Jeremiah set off at a run.

In his excitement Barnabas had scarcely noticed his presence till now and asked:

"Where's Jeremiah going?"

"To forestall me with Erlanger," said K., and set off after Jeremiah, caught him up, hung on to his arm, and said: "Is it a sudden desire for Frieda that's seized you? I've got it as well, so we'll go together side by side."

Before the dark Herrenhof a little group of men were standing, two or three had lanterns with them, so that a face here and there could be distinguished. K. recognized only one acquaintance, Gerstacker the carrier. Gerstacker greeted him with the inquiry:

"You're still in the village?"

"Yes," replied K. "I've come here for good."

"That doesn't matter to me," said Gerstacker, breaking out into a fit of coughing and turning away to the others.

It turned out that they were all waiting for Erlanger. Erlanger had already arrived, but he was consulting first with Momus before he admitted his clients. They were all complaining at not being allowed to wait inside and having to stand out there in the snow. The weather wasn't very cold, but still it showed a lack of consideration to keep them standing there in front of the house in the darkness, perhaps for hours. It was certainly not the fault of Erlanger, who was always very accommodating. He knew nothing about it, and would certainly be very annoyed if reported to him. It was the fault of the Herrenhof landlady, who in her positively morbid determination to be refined, couldn't suffer a lot of people to come into the Herrenhof at the same time.

"If it absolutely must be and they must come," she used to say, "then in Heaven's name let them come one at a time."

And she managed to arrange that the clients, who at first had waited simply in a passage, later on the stairs, then in the hall, and finally in the taproom, were at last pushed out into the street. But even that had not satisfied her. It was unendurable for her to be always "besieged", as she expressed herself, in her own house. It was incomprehensible to her why there should need to be clients waiting at all.

"To dirty the front-door steps," an official had once told her, obviously in annoyance, but to her this pronouncement had seemed very illuminating, and she was never tired of quoting it. She tried her best - and she had the approval in this case of the clients too

- to get a building set up opposite the Herrenhof where the clients could wait. She would have liked best of all if the interviews and examinations could have taken place outside the Herrenhof altogether, but the officials opposed that, and when the officials opposed her seriously the landlady naturally enough was unable to gainsay them, though in lesser matters she exercised a kind of petty tyranny, thanks to her indefatigable, yet femininely insinuating zeal.

And the landlady would probably have to endure those interviews and examinations in the Herrenhof in perpetuity, for the gentlemen from the Castle refused to budge from the place whenever they had official business in the village. They were always in a hurry, they came to the village much against their will, they had not the slightest intention of prolonging their stay beyond the time absolutely necessary, and so they could not be asked, simply for the sake of making things more pleasant in the Herrenhof, to waste time by transferring themselves with all their papers to some other house. The officials preferred indeed to get through their business in the taproom or in their rooms, if possible while they were at their food, or in bed before retiring for the night, or in the morning when they were too weary to get up and wanted to stretch themselves for a little longer.