第21章 Jeremias

Well, so it had actually happened, as one could have foreseen, but there was no way it could have been prevented. Frieda had abandoned him.This wouldn't have to be final, it wasn't that bad, Frieda could be won back, she was easily influenced by strangers, even by those assistants, who thought that Frieda's position resembled their own and who, since they had given notice, caused Frieda to do so too, but K.need only go up to her, remind her of everything that spoke in his favor, and she would once again be his, would even be full of remorse, especially if he could justify the visit to the girls with a success that he owed to them.But despite these thoughts with which he sought to calm himself with regard to Frieda, he was not calm.Just a little while ago he had boasted to Olga about Frieda, calling her his only support, well, it was not the most stable kind of support;stealing Frieda from K.did not require the intervention of some powerful figure, all it took was this not particularly appetizing assistant, whose flesh sometimes gave one the impression that it wasn't quite alive. Jeremias had already begun to leave, K. called him back.“Jeremias,”he said,“I want to be very open with you, and so do answer the question I have honestly asked.Our relationship is no longer that of master and servant, and I'm as pleased by that as you are, and so we don't have any reason to deceive each other.And now before your very eyes I will break this switch which was meant for you, for it wasn't out of fear of you that I chose the path through the garden but in order to surprise you and to take a few swipes at you with the switch.Well, don't hold it against me anymore, that's all over;if you weren't a servant imposed on me by the authorities but simply an acquaintance of mine we would certainly have got along extremely well, though your appearance sometimes bothers me a little.And we could certainly make up for all the things of that sort that we've neglected.”“You think so?”said the assistant and, yawning, he rubbed his weary eyes,“well, I could tell you about it in greater detail, but I haven't time, I must go to Frieda, the dear child is waiting for me, she hasn't begun her duties yet, for at my request the landlord gave her a little time to recuperate—she wanted to throw herself into the work right away, no doubt so as to forget everything—and that time at least we want to spend together.As for your proposal, I certainly have no reason for lying to you, but just as little reason for confiding anything in you.You see, the situation is different for me than it is for you.As long as my relationship to you was an official one, you were of course a very important person to me, not because of your own qualities but because of my official instructions, and I would have done anything for you at the time, but now I couldn't care less about you.I'm not moved by your having broken the willow switch either, that only reminds me what a callous master I had, it's hardly likely to win me over.”“You speak to me,”said K.,“as though it were very certain that you need never fear anything from me again.But that is not so.You're probably not rid of me yet, they don't reach decisions that quick here—”“Sometimes even quicker,”Jeremias threw in.“Sometimes,”said K.,“but nothing points to that having happened this time, at any rate neither of us has a written decision.So the proceedings have only just begun, and I haven't even intervened in them yet with the help of my connections, but I will do so.If the results are not in your favor then you certainly won't have done much to predispose your master in your favor and perhaps there was no need for me to break the willow switch.True, you carried off Frieda, and that especially is what has given you a swollen head, but I must say, despite all my respect for you as a person, even if you no longer have any for me, that if I addressed a few words to Frieda it would be enough, I'm sure, to rip apart the lies with which you've ensnared her.And only lies could draw Frieda away from me.”“Threats like that don't frighten me,”said Jeremias,“you don't want me as an assistant, you even fear me as an assistant, you are particularly fearful of assistants, it was only out of fear that you hit dear Artur.”“Perhaps,”said K.,“but did it hurt any less because of that?Perhaps I will often be able to show my fear of you in the same way.If I see that your assistantship isn't giving you much joy, I will, despite all that fear, take the greatest pleasure in forcing you to do your duty.And indeed this time I shall make a point of getting hold of you alone, without Artur, and then I can devote special attention, to you.”“Do you really think,”said Jeremias,“that I have even the slightest fear of any of that?”“I certainly do,”said K.,“you certainly fear me a little, and, if you're clever, a great deal.If not, why haven't you gone to Frieda?Tell me, are you fond of her?”“Fond?”said Jeremias,“she's a good and also clever girl, a former mistress of Klamm's, so she's definitely respectable.And if she keeps asking me to rescue her from you, why shouldn't I oblige her, especially since it doesn't do any harm to you, who consoled yourself with the accursed Barnabases.”“I see your fear now,”said K.,“what a miserable fear it is, you're trying to ensnare me with your lies.Frieda asked only one thing of me, that I should rescue her from those frenzied and doggishly licentious assistants, unfortunately I didn't have time to do all she asked and the consequences of my omission are now there.” “Surveyor!Surveyor!”someone was shouting up the street. It was Barnabas.He was out of breath but did not forget to bow before K.“I succeeded,”he said.“What did you succeed in doing?”asked K.“You have presented my request to Klamm?”“There was no way that could be done,”said Barnabas,“I tried very hard but it was impossible, I pushed my way forward, and, without being asked, spent all day standing so close to the desk that a clerk in whose light I was standing even pushed me away, each time Klamm looked up I announced my presence by raising my hand, even though that is forbidden, stayed in the office longest, was the only one left with the servants, had once again the pleasure of seeing Klamm return, but it wasn't for me, he merely wanted to check something else in a book quickly and then went away again at once, and in the end the servant, seeing that I still hadn't moved, took his broom and almost swept me out the door.I'm admitting all this so that you won't be dissatisfied with my accomplishments again.”“Barnabas, what good is all your diligence to me,”said K.,“if you had no success at all.”“But I did have some success,”said Barnabas.“As I stepped from my office—I call it my office—I see a gentleman coming from the corridors deeper inside, the entire place was already empty, it was already very late, I decided to wait for him, it was a good opportunity to stay a bit longer there, besides I would rather have stayed there than bring you the bad news.But for other reasons too the gentleman was worth waiting for, it was Erlanger.You don't know him?He's one of the first secretaries of Klamm.A short, frail gentleman with a slight limp.He recognized me at once, he's well known for his memory and for his ability to judge people, he simply knits his brow, that's all it takes for him to recognize anyone, often even people whom he's never seen before, whom he has only heard or read about, and in my case, for instance, he could hardly have seen me before.But though he recognizes everyone right away, he asks first as though he were unsure:‘Aren't you Barnabas?'he said to me.And then he asked:‘You know the surveyor, don't you?'And then he said:‘That's convenient.I'm going to the Gentlemen's Inn.The surveyor should visit me there.I'm in room 15.But he would need to come at once.I have only a few meetings there and go back tomorrow morning at five.Tell him that I set great store on speaking to him.” Suddenly Jeremias took flight. Barnabas, who in his agitation had barely noticed him, asked:“What is Jeremias up to?”“Trying to beat me to Erlanger's,”said K.,who ran after Jeremias, caught up with him, took his arm, and said:“Was it the longing for Frieda that suddenly overcame you?It's no less strong in me, so we'll go there in step.” Standing in front of the dark Gentlemen's Inn was a small group of men, two or three were holding lanterns in such a way that some faces were recognizable. K.found only a single acquaintance, Gerst?cker the coachman.Gerst?cker greeted him with a question:“You're still in the village?”“Yes,”said K.,“I came here for good.”“That's really no concern of mine,”said Gerst?cker, coughing loudly, and he turned toward the others. It became clear that they were all waiting for Erlanger. Erlanger had already come but was still negotiating with Momus before receiving the parties.The general tenor of the conversation concerned their not being allowed to wait in the building and having to stand outside in the snow.It wasn't very cold, to be sure, nevertheless it was inconsiderate to keep the parties standing in front of the house at night, perhaps for hours.That wasn't of course the fault of Erlanger, who was, on the contrary, most obliging, probably did not know about it, and would certainly have been quite annoyed had it been reported to him.It was the fault of the landlady at the Gentlemen's Inn, who in her already quite pathological striving for refinement couldn't bear to have a large number of parties coming into the Gentlemen's Inn at the same time.“If it's really necessary and they must come,”she often said,“then for heaven's sake, always only one by one.”And she had seen to it that the parties, who at first had simply waited in a corridor, later on the staircase, then in the corridor, and finally in the taproom, were ultimately pushed out onto the street.And even that wasn't enough to satisfy her.She found it unbearable being, as she put it, constantly“under siege”in her own house.She couldn't understand the point of holding office hours for the parties.“To dirty the front steps of the inn,”an official had once said in response to a question from her, most likely in anger, but to her the remark seemed very convincing and she liked to quote it often.Her goal—and here her aspirations coincided with the wishes of the parties—was to see that a building was built across from the Gentlemen's Inn, where the parties could wait.She would have much preferred that the meetings with the parties and the interrogations be held outside the Gentlemen's Inn, but the officials opposed this idea, and anything that was seriously opposed by the officials was naturally unattainable for the landlady, though in minor issues she succeeded through her indefatigable but at the same time femininely delicate zeal in exercising a kind of minor tyranny.The landlady would probably have to continue to endure the meetings and interrogations at the Gentlemen's Inn, for while in the village the Castle officials refused to leave the Gentlemen's Inn on official business.They were always in a hurry, for it was only very much against their will that they were in the village, they hadn't the slightest desire to prolong their stay here beyond what was absolutely necessary, and so it wasn't reasonable to expect that they should, simply for the sake of ensuring peace and quiet at the Gentlemen's Inn, temporarily move into some house across the street with all their writings and thereby lose time.The officials far preferred to discharge their official business in the taproom or in their own rooms, if at all possible during a meal or from their beds before going to sleep, or in the morning when they were too tired to get up and wanted to stretch out in bed a little while longer.On the other hand, the question of whether to construct a building for the waiting parties seemed about to be resolved;still, it was quite a severe punishment for the landlady—people had a good little laugh over this—that the waiting-room issue required many meetings and that the corridors of the inn were rarely empty. All these matters were discussed in a low voice by those waiting outside. K.found it remarkable that, though there was a great deal of dissatisfaction, nobody had any objection to Erlanger's summoning the parties in the middle of the night.He asked about this and was informed that one ought to be grateful to Erlanger for that.It's only his goodwill and the exalted idea that he has of his office that makes him come down to the village in the first place, for he certainly could, if he wanted to—and that might be more in accordance with the regulations—send some undersecretary and get him to take the depositions.But he usually refused to do that, he wanted to see and hear everything for himself, but was obliged to sacrifice his nights for that purpose, since no time was set aside in his official schedule for journeys to the village.K.objected that, after all, Klamm also came to the village during the day and even stayed for days at a time;was Erlanger, who after all was only a secretary, more indispensable up there?A few laughed good-naturedly, others remained silent out of embarrassment, the latter soon gained the upper hand, and K.barely received an answer.Only one of them responded hesitantly by saying that Klamm was naturally indispensable, in the Castle as well as in the village. Then the front door opened and Momus appeared, flanked by two servants carrying lamps.“The first to be admitted to see Secretary Erlanger,”he said,“are:Gerst?cker and K.Are those two here?”They answered, but Jeremias slipped ahead of them, saying“I work here as a room waiter,”was greeted with a smile and a slap on the shoulder by Momus, and entered the house.“I must pay closer attention to Jeremias,”K.told himself while remaining aware that Jeremias was probably far less dangerous than Artur, who was working against him at the Castle.Perhaps it was even wiser to let them torment him as his assistants rather than have them prowling about unchecked and freely engaging in intrigues, for which they seemed to have a special talent. As K. went past, Momus pretended that he had only just noticed it was the surveyor.“Oh, if it isn't the surveyor!”he said,“the gentleman who so disliked being interrogated is now pushing his way in to an interrogation.It would have been far easier with me back then.But of course it's difficult to choose the right interrogations.”K.was about to stop in response to this remark but Momus said:“Go!Go!Back then I could have used your answers, but not now.”In spite of this, K.,agitated by Momus's behavior, said:“You're thinking only of yourselves.Simply for the sake of the office I won't answer, neither then nor now.”Momus said:“Well, whom else should we be thinking of?Who else is here?Do go!” In the corridor they were received by a servant who led them along the path already known to K.,across the courtyard and then through the gate into the low, slightly sloping passageway. The upper floors were evidently occupied only by the higher officials and this corridor here only by the secretaries, including Erlanger, though he was one of the highest-ranking in their midst.The servant put out his lantern, for there was bright electric lighting in here.Everything here was small, but delicately built.Full advantage had been taken of the space.The passage barely sufficed for walking upright.On the sides, one door came immediately after the next.The side walls didn't reach the ceiling;this was probably to ensure ventilation, for the little rooms in this deep cellarlike corridor surely had no windows.The drawback of these walls that didn't quite meet the ceiling was the noise in the corridor, and therefore, inevitably, in the rooms too.Many rooms seemed occupied, in several of them people were still awake, one could hear voices, hammer blows, clinking glasses.But this didn't leave one with the impression of great merriment.The voices were hushed, one could barely understand a word every now and then, but it didn't seem like conversation, it was probably only somebody dictating something, or reading something aloud, and it was precisely from those rooms giving off the sound of clinking glasses and plates that one couldn't hear a word, and the hammer blows reminded K.of something he had been told somewhere, namely, that in order to recuperate from the constant mental effort some officials occasionally took up cabinetmaking, precision toolmaking, and the like.The actual corridor itself was empty except for a spot by a door where sat a pale, slender, tall gentleman in a fur coat with his nightclothes showing underneath, the room had probably become too stuffy for him, so he had sat down outside, where he was reading a newspaper, though not attentively, he often gave up reading with a yawn, then leaned out and looked along the corridor, perhaps he was expecting a party whom he had summoned and who had failed to come.After they had passed him, the servant said to Gerst?cker concerning the gentleman:“Pinzgauer!”Gerst?cker nodded:“He hasn't been down in a long time,”he said.“Not in a very long time,”confirmed the servant. Finally they came to a door no different from the others but behind which, so the servant reported, lived Erlanger. Having asked K.to lift him up on his shoulders, the servant looked in through the narrow opening on top.“He's lying on the bed,”he said, climbing down,“he has his clothes on, but I think he's dozing.Sometimes he is quite overcome by weariness here in the village because the way of life is so different.We will have to wait.When he wakes up, he'll ring.There have been times when he has slept through his entire stay in the village, and then when he woke up he had to go back at once to the Castle.In any case it's voluntary, the work he does here.”“If only he would choose to sleep through to the end,”said Gerst?cker,“for when he wakes up again and finds he has little time to finish his work, he's quite indignant at having slept and tries to expedite everything in a hurry, and one can hardly discuss one's concerns.”“You've come because of the assignment of haulage contracts for the building?”asked the servant.Gerst?cker nodded, pulled the servant aside, and spoke quietly to him, but the Servant was barely listening, he was looking out over Gerst?cker, whom he towered over by more than a head, while earnestly, deliberately stroking his hair.