The Castle (45 page)

and is it such a great and glorious honour to associate with me? Well, it seems so to you, and perhaps you have your reasons for thinking so. But precisely that makes you unfitted. It is a job like any other, but for you it is heaven, consequently you set about everything with exaggerated eagerness, trick yourself out as in your opinion the angels are tricked out - but in reality they are different - tremble for the job, feel you are constantly being persecuted, try by means of being excessively pleasant to win over everyone who in your opinion might be a support to you, but in this way bother them and repel them, for what they want at the inn is peace and quiet and not the barmaid's worries on top of their own.

It is just possible that after Frieda left none of the exalted guests really noticed the occurrence, but to-day they know of it and are really longing for Frieda, for Frieda doubtless did manage everything quite differently. Whatever she may be like otherwise and however much she valued her job, in her work she was greatly experienced, cool, and composed, you yourself stress that, though admittedly without learning anything from it.

Did you ever notice the way she looked at things?

That was not merely a barmaid's way of looking at things, it was almost the way a landlady looks around. She saw everything, and every individual person into the bargain, and the glance that was left for each individual person was still intense enough to subdue him.

What did it matter that she was perhaps a little skinny, a little oldish, that one could imagine cleaner hair?

Those are trifles compared with what she really had, and anyone whom these deficiencies disturbed would only have shown that he lacked any appreciation of greater things. One can certainly not charge Klamm with that, and it is only the wrong point of view of a young, inexperienced girl that makes you unable to believe in Klamm's love for Frieda.

Klamm seems to you - and this rightly - to be out of reach, and that is why you believe Frieda could not have got near to him either.

You are wrong.

I should take Frieda's own word for this, even if I had not infallible evidence for it.

However incredible it seems to you and however little you can reconcile it with your notions of the world and officialdom and gentility and the effect a woman's beauty has, still, it is true, just as we are sitting here beside each other and I take your hand between my hands, so too, I dare say, and as though it were the most natural thing in the world, did Klamm and Frieda sit beside each other, and he came down of his own free will, indeed he came hurrying down, nobody was lurking in the passage waiting for him and neglecting the rest of the work, Klamm had to bestir himself and come downstairs, and the faults in Frieda's way of dressing, which would have horrified you, did not disturb him at all.

You won't believe her!

And you don't know how you give yourself away by this, how precisely in this you show your lack of experience!

Even someone who knew nothing at all about the affair with Klamm could not fail to see from her bearing that someone had moulded her, someone who was more than you and I and all the people in the village and that their conversations went beyond the jokes that are usual between customers and waitresses and which seem to be your aim in life.

But I am doing you an injustice. You can see Frieda's merits very well for yourself, you notice her power of observation, her resolution, her influence on people, only you do, of course, interpret it all wrongly, believing she turns everything self-seekingly to account only for her own benefit and for evil purposes, or even as a weapon against you.

No, Pepi, even if she had such arrows, she could not shoot them at such short range.

And self-seeking?

One might rather say that by sacrificing what she had and what she was entitled to expect she has given us both the opportunity to prove our worth in higher positions, but that we have both disappointed her and are positively forcing her to return here. I do not know whether it is like this, and my own guilt is by no means clear to me, only when I compare myself with you something of this kind dawns on me: it is as if we had both striven too intensely, too noisily, too childishly, with too little experience, to get something that for instance with Frieda's calm and Frieda's matter-of-factness can be got easily and without much ado.

We have tried to get it by crying, by scratching, by tugging-just as a child tugs at the tablecloth, gaining nothing, but only bringing all the splendid things down on the floor and putting them out of its reach for ever. I don't know whether it is like that, but what I am sure of is that it is more likely to be so than the way you describe it as being."

"Oh well," Pepi said, "you are in love with Frieda because she's run away from you, it isn't hard to be in love with her when she's not there. But let it be as you like, and even if you are right in everything, even in making me ridiculous, what are you going to do now? Frieda has left you, neither according to my explanation nor according to your own have you any hope of her coming back to you, and even if she were to come back, you have to stay somewhere in the meantime, it is cold, and you have neither work nor a bed, come to us, you will like my girl friends, we shall make you comfortable, you will help us with our work, which is really too hard for girls to do all by themselves, we girls will not have to rely only on ourselves and won't be frightened any more in the night!

Come to us!

My girl friends also know Frieda, we shall tell you stories about her till you are sick and tired of it.

Do come!

We have pictures of Frieda too and we'll show them to you. At that time Frieda was more modest than she is to-day, you will scarcely recognize her, only perhaps by her eyes, which even then had a suspicious, watchful expression.

Well now, are you coming?"

"But is it permitted? Only yesterday there was that great scandal because I was caught in your passage."

"Because you were caught, but when you are with us you won't be caught. Nobody will know about you, only the three of us. Oh, it will be jolly. Even now life there seems much more bearable to me than only a little while ago. Perhaps now I shall not lose so very much by having to go away from here.

Listen, even with only the three of us we were not bored, one has to sweeten the bitterness of one's life, it's made bitter for us when we're still young, well, the three of us stick together, we live as nicely as is possible there, you'll like Henriette particularly, but you'll like Emilie too, I've told them about you, there one listens to such tales without believing them, as though outside the room nothing could really happen, it's warm and snug and tight there, and we press together still more tightly.

No, although we have only each other to rely on, we have not become tired of each other. On the contrary, when I think of my girl friends, I am almost glad that I am going back. Why should I get on better than they do? For that was just what held us together, the fact that the future was barred to all three of us in the same way, and now I have broken through after all and was separated from them. Of course I have not forgotten them, and my first concern was how I could do something for them. My own position was still insecure - how insecure it was, I did not even realize - and I was already talking to the landlord about Henriette and Emilie. So far as Henriette was concerned the landlord was not quite unrelenting, but for Emilie, it must be confessed, who is much older than we are, she's about as old as Frieda, he gave me no hope.

But only think, they don't want to go away, they know it's a miserable life they lead there, but they have resigned themselves to it, good souls, I think their tears as we said goodbye were mostly because they were sad about my having to leave our common room, going out into the cold - to us there everything seems cold that is outside the room -

and having to make my way in the big strange rooms with big strange people, for no other purpose than to earn a living, which after all I had managed to do up to now in the life we led together. They probably won't be at all surprised when now I come back, and only in order to indulge me will they weep a little and bemoan my fate. But then they will see you and notice that it was a good thing after all that I went away. It will make them happy that now we have a man as a helper and protector, and they will be absolutely delighted that it must all be kept a secret and that through this secret we shall be still more tightly linked with each other than before.

Come, oh please come to us!

No obligation will arise so far as you are concerned, you will not be bound to our room for ever, as we are. When the spring comes and you find a lodging somewhere else and if you don't like being with us any more, then you can go if you want to.

Only, of course, you must keep the secret even then and not go and betray us, for that would mean our last hour in the Herrenhof had come, and in other respects too, naturally, you must be careful when you are with us, not showing yourself anywhere unless we regard it as safe, and altogether take our advice. That is the only thing that ties you, and this must count just as much with you as with us, but otherwise you are completely free, the work we shall share out to you will not be too hard, you needn't be afraid of that.

Well then, are you coming?"

"How much longer is it till spring?" K. asked.

"Till spring?" Pepi repeated. "Winter is long here, a very long winter, and monotonous.

But we don't complain about that down there, we are safe from the winter. Well yes, some day spring comes too, and summer, and there's a time for that too, I suppose. But in memory, now, spring and summer seem as short as though they didn't last much longer than two days, and even on those days, even during the most beautiful day, even then sometimes snow falls."

At this moment the door opened.

Pepi started, in her thoughts she had gone too far away from the taproom, but it was not Frieda, it was the landlady. She pretended to be amazed at finding K. still here. K.

excused himself by saying that he had been waiting for her, and at the same time he expressed his thanks for having been allowed to stay here overnight. The landlady could not understand why K. had been waiting for her. K. said he had had the impression that she wanted to speak to him again, he apologized if that had been a mistake, and for the rest he must go now anyway, he had left the school, where he was a caretaker, to itself much, too long, yesterday's summons was to blame for everything, he still had too little experience of these matters, it would certainly not happen again that he would cause the landlady such inconvenience and bother as yesterday.

And he bowed, on the point of going.

The landlady looked at him as though she were dreaming. This gaze kept K. longer than was his intention. Now she smiled a little, and it was only the amazement on K.'s face that, as it were, woke her up. It was as though she had been expecting an answer to her smile and only now, since none came, did she wake up.

"Yesterday, I think, you had the impudence to say something about my dress."

K. could not remember.

"You can't remember? Then it's not only impudence, but afterwards cowardice into the bargain."

By way of excuse K. spoke of his fatigue of the previous day, saying it was quite possible that he had talked some nonsense, in any case he could not remember now. And what could he have said about the landlady's clothes? That they were more beautiful than any he had ever seen in his life. At least he had never seen any landlady at her work in such clothes.

"That's enough of these remarks!" the landlady said swiftly. "I don't want to hear another word from you about my clothes. My clothes are none of your business. Once and for all, I forbid you to talk about them."

K. bowed again and went to the door.

"What do you mean," the landlady shouted after him, "by saying you've never before seen any landlady at work in such clothes? What do you mean by making such senseless remarks?

It's simply quite senseless. What do you mean by it?"

K. turned round and begged the landlady not to get excited.

Of course the remark was senseless. After all, he knew nothing at all about clothes. In his situation any dress that happened to be clean and not patched seemed luxurious. He had only been amazed at the landlady's appearing there, in the passage, at night, among all those scantily dressed men, in such a beautiful evening-dress, that was all.

"Well now," the landlady said, "at last you seem to have remembered the remark you made yesterday, after all. And you put the finishing touch to it by some more nonsense. It's quite true you don't know anything about clothes. But then kindly refrain - this is a serious request I make to you - from setting yourself up as a judge of what are luxurious dresses or unsuitable evening-dresses, and the like ... And let me tell you" -here it seemed as if a cold shudder went through her - "you've no business to interfere with my clothes in any way at all, do you hear?"

And as K. was about to turn away again in silence, she asked: "Where did you get your knowledge of clothes, anyway?"

K. shrugged his shoulders, saying he had no knowledge.

"You have none," the landlady said. "Very well then, don't set up to have any, either.

Come over to the office, I'll show you something, then I hope you'll stop your impudent remarks for good."

She went through the door ahead of him. Pepi rushed forward to K., on the pretext of settling the bill. They quickly made their plans, it was very easy, since K. knew the courtyard with the gate opening into the side-street, beside the gate there was a little door behind which Pepi would stand in about an hour and open it on hearing a threefold knock.

The private office was opposite the taproom, they only had to cross the hall, the landlady was already standing in the lighted office and impatiently looking towards K.

But there was yet another disturbance. Gerstacker had been waiting in the hall and wanted to talk to K. It was not easy to shake him off, the landlady also joined in and rebuked Gerstacker for his intrusiveness.