The Castle (4 page)

"Silence," said K. "You're trying already to dissociate yourselves from each other."

But then the first man broke in: "He's right, it can't be done, no stranger can get into the Castle without a permit" "Where does one apply for a permit?"

"I don't know, perhaps to the Castellan."

"Then we'll apply by telephone, go and telephone to the Castellan at once, both of you."

They rushed to the instrument, asked for the connexion - how eager they were about it!

in externals they were absurdly docile - and inquired if K. could come with them next morning into the Castle. The "No" of the answer was audible even to K. at his table. But the answer went on and was still more explicit, it ran as follows:

"Neither to-morrow nor at any other time."

"I shall telephone myself," said K., and got up.

While K. and his assistants hitherto had passed nearly unremarked except for the incident with the one peasant, his last statement aroused general attention. They all got up when K. did, and although the landlord tried to drive them away, crowded round him in a close semicircle at the telephone. The general opinion among them was that K. would get no answer at all. K. had to beg them to be quiet, saying he did not want to hear their opinion. The receiver gave out a buzz of a kind that K. had never before heard on a telephone. It was like the hum of countless children's voices - but yet not a hum, the echo rather of voices singing at an infinite distance - blended by sheer impossibility into one high but resonant sound which vibrated on the ear as if it were trying to penetrate beyond mere hearing. K. listened without attempting to telephone, leaning his left arm on the telephone shelf. He did not know how long he had stood there, but he stood until the landlord pulled at his coat saying that a messenger had come to speak with him.

"Go away!" yelled K. in an access of rage, perhaps into the mouthpiece, for someone immediately answered from the other end. The following conversation ensued: "Oswald speaking, who's there?" cried a severe arrogant voice with a small defect in its speech, as seemed to K., which its owner tried to cover by an exaggerated severity. K. hesitated to announce himself, for he was at the mercy of the telephone, the other could shout him down or hang up the receiver, and that might mean the blocking of a not unimportant way of access. K.'s hesitation made the man impatient.

"Who's there?" he repeated, adding, "I should be obliged if there was less telephoning from down there, only a minute ago somebody rang up."

K. ignored this remark, and announced with sudden decision: "The Land Surveyor's assistant speaking"

"What Land Surveyor? What assistant?"

K. recollected yesterday's telephone conversation, and said briefly, "Ask Fritz."

This succeeded, to his own astonishment But even more than at his success he was astonished at the organization of the Castle service. The answer came: "Oh, yes. That everlasting Land Surveyor. Quite so. What about it? What assistant?" 'Joseph,' said K.

He was a little put out by the murmuring of the peasants behind his back, obviously they disapproved of his ruse. He had no time to bother about them, however, for the conversation absorbed all his attention.

"Joseph?" came the question. "But the assistants arc called ..." there was a short pause, evidently to inquire the names from somebody else, "Arthur and Jeremiah."

"These are the new assistants," said K.

"No, they are the old ones."

"They are the new ones, I am the old assistant; I came to-day after the Land Surveyor."

"No," was shouted back.

"Then who am I?" asked K. as blandly as before.

And after a pause the same voice with the same defect answered him, yet with a deeper and more authoritative tone: "You are the old assistant."

K. was listening to the new note, and almost missed the question: "What is it you want?"

He felt like laying down the receiver. He had ceased to expect anything from this conversation. But being pressed, he replied quickly: "When can my master come to the Castle?"

"Never," was the answer.

"Very well," said K., and hung the receiver up.

Behind him the peasants had crowded quite close. His assistants, with many side glances in his direction, were trying to keep them back. But they seemed not to take the matter very seriously, and in any case the peasants, satisfied with the result of the conversation, were beginning to give ground. A man came cleaving his way with rapid steps through the group, bowed before K., and handed him a letter. K. took it, but looked at the man, who for the moment seemed to him the more important. There was a great resemblance between this new-comer and the assistants, he was slim like them and clad in the same tightfitting garments, had the same suppleness and agility, and yet he was quite different. How much K. would have preferred him as an assistant. He reminded K. a little of the girl with the infant whom he had seen at the tanner's. He was clothed nearly all in white, not in silk, of course; he was in winter clothes like all the others, but the material he was wearing had the softness and dignity of silk. His face was clear and frank, his eyes larger than ordinary. His smile was unusually joyous; he drew his hand over his face as if to conceal the smile, but in vain.

"Who are you?" asked K.

"My name is Barnabas," said he, "I am a messenger." His lips were strong and yet gentle as he spoke.

"Do you approve of this kind of thing?" asked K., pointing to the peasants for whom he was still an object of curiosity, and who stood gaping at him with their open mouths, coarse lips, and literally tortured faces - their heads looked as if they had been beaten flat on top and their features as if the pain of the beating had twisted them to the present shape - and yet they were not exactly gaping at him, for their eyes often flitted away and studied some indifferent object in the room before fixing on him again, and then K. pointed also to his assistants who stood linked together, cheek against cheek, and smiling, but whether submissively or mockingly could not be determined. All these he pointed out as if presenting a train of followers forced upon him by circumstances, and as if he expected Barnabas - that indicated intimacy, it occurred to K. - always to discriminate between him and them. But Barnabas - quite innocently, it was clear -

ignored the question, letting it pass as a well-bred servant ignores some remark of his master only apparently addressed to him, and merely surveyed the room in obedience to the question, greeting by a pressure of the hand various acquaintances among the peasants and exchanging a few words with the assistants, all with a free independence which set him apart from the others. Rebuffed but not mortified, K. returned to the letter in his hand and opened it.

Its contents were as follows: "My dear Sir, As you know, you have been engaged for the Count's service. Your immediate superior is the Superintendent of the village, who will give you all particulars about your work and the terms of your employment, and to whom you are responsible. I myself, however, will try not to lose sight of you. Barnabas, the bearer of this letter, will report himself to you from rime to time to learn your wishes and communicate them to me. You will find me always ready to oblige you, in so far as that is possible. I desire my workers to be contented."

The signature was illegible, but stamped beside it was "Chief of Department X."

"Wait a little!" said K. to Barnabas, who bowed before him, then he commanded the landlord to show him to his room, for he wanted to be alone with the letter for a while.

At the same time he reflected that Barnabas, although so attractive, was still only a messenger, and ordered a mug of beer for him. He looked to see how Barnabas would take it, but Barnabas was obviously quite pleased and began to drink the beer at once. Then K.

went off with the landlord.

The house was so small that nothing was available for K. but a little attic room, and even that had caused some difficulty, for two maids who had hitherto slept in it had had to be quartered elsewhere. Nothing indeed had been done but to clear the maids out, the room was otherwise quite unprepared, no sheets on the single bed, only some pillows and a horse-blanket still in the same rumpled state as in the morning. A few sacred pictures and photographs of soldiers were on the walls, the room had not even been aired; obviously they hoped that the new guest would not stay long, and were doing nothing to encourage him. K. felt no resentment, however, wrapped himself in the blanket, sat down at the table, and began to read the letter again by the light of a candle. It was not a consistent letter, in part it dealt with him as with a free man whose independence was recognized, the mode of address, for example, and the reference to his wishes. But there were other places in which he was directly or indirectly treated as a minor employee, hardly visible to the Heads of Departments; the writer would try to make an effort "not to lose sight" of him, his superior was only the village Superintendent to whom he was actually responsible, probably his sole colleague would be the village policeman. These were inconsistencies, no doubt about it. They were so obvious that they had to be faced.

It hardly occurred to K. that they might be due to indecision; that seemed a mad idea in connexion with such an organization. He was much more inclined to read into them a frankly offered choice, which left it to him to make what he liked out of the letter, whether he preferred to become a village worker with a distinctive but merely apparent connexion with the Castle, or an ostensible village worker whose real occupation was determined through the medium of Barnabas. K. did not hesitate in his choice, and would not have hesitated even had he lacked the experience which had befallen him since his arrival. Only as a worker in the village, removed as far as possible from the sphere of the Castle, could he hope to achieve anything in the Castle itself; the village folk, who were now so suspicious of him, would begin to talk to him once he was their fellow-citizen, if not exactly their friend; and if he were to become indistinguishable from Gerstacker or Lasemann - and that must happen as soon as possible, everything depended on that - then all kinds of paths would be thrown open to him, which would remain not only for ever closed to him but quite invisible were he to depend merely on the favour of the gentlemen in the Castle.

There was of course a danger, and that was sufficiently emphasized in the letter, even elaborated with a certain satisfaction, as if it were unavoidable. That was sinking to the workman's level - service, superior work, terms of employment, responsible workers -

the letter fairly reeked of it, and even though more personal messages were included they were written from the standpoint of an employer. If K. were willing to become a workman he could do so, but he would have to do it in grim earnest, without any other prospect.

K. knew that he had no real compulsory discipline to fear, he was not afraid of that, and in this case least of all, but the pressure of a discouraging environment, of a growing resignation to disappointment, the pressure of the imperceptible influences of every moment, these things he did fear, but that was a danger he would have to guard against.

Nor did the letter pass over the fact that if it should come to a struggle K. had had the hardihood to make the first advances; it was very subtly indicated and only to be sensed by an uneasy conscience - an uneasy conscience, not a bad one - it lay in the three words, "as you know", referring to his engagement in the Count's service. K. had reported his arrival, and only after that, as the letter pointed out, had he known that he was engaged. K. took down a picture from the wall and stuck the letter on the nail, this was the room he was to live in and the letter should hang there. Then he went down to the inn parlour. Barnabas was sitting at a table with the assistants.

"Oh, there you are," said K. without any reason, only because he was glad to see Barnabas, who jumped to his feet at once. Hardly had K. shown his face when the peasants got up and gathered round him - it had become a habit of theirs to follow him around.

"What are you always following me about for?" cried K.

They were not offended, and slowly drifted back to their seats again. One of them in passing said casually in apology, with an enigmatic smile which was reflected on several of the others' faces:

"There's always something new to listen to," and he licked his lips as if news were meat and drink to him.

K. said nothing conciliatory, it was good for them to have a little respect for him, but hardly had he reached Barnabas when he felt a peasant breathing down the back of his neck. He had only come, he said, for the salt-cellar, but K. stamped his foot with rage and the peasant scuttled away without the salt-cellar. It was really easy to get at K., all one had to do was to egg on the peasants against him, their persistent interference seemed much more objectionable to him than the reserve of the others, nor were they free from reserve either, for if he had sat down at their table they would not have stayed.

Only the presence of Barnabas restrained him from making a scene.

But he turned round to scowl at them, and found that they, too, were all looking at him. When he saw them sitting like that, however, each man in his own place, not speaking to one another and without any apparent mutual understanding, united only by the fact that they were all gazing at him, he concluded that it was not out of malice that they pursued him, perhaps they really wanted something from him and were only incapable of expressing it, if not that, it might be pure childishness, which seemed to be in fashion at the inn; was not the landlord himself childish, standing there stock-still gazing at K. with a glass of beer in his hand which he should have been carrying to a customer, and oblivious of his wife, who was leaning out of the kitchen hatch calling to him? With a quieter mind K. turned to Barnabas; he would have liked to dismiss his assistants, but could not think of an excuse. Besides, they were brooding peacefully over their beer.

"The letter," began K., "I have read it. Do you know the contents?"