XII
Next morning nobody awoke until the school children were there standing with gaping eyes round the sleepers. This was unpleasant, for on account of the intense heat, which now towards morning had given way, however, to a coldness which could be felt, they had all taken off everything but their shirts, and just as they were beginning to put on their clothes, Gisa, the lady teacher, appeared at the door, a fair, tall, beautiful, but somewhat stiff young woman. She was evidently prepared for the new janitor, and seemed also to have been given her instructions by the teacher, for as soon as she appeared at the door she began: “I can’t put up with this. This is a fine state of affairs. You have permission to sleep in the classroom, but that’s all; I am not obliged to teach in your bedroom. A janitor’s family that loll in their beds far into the forenoon! Faugh!” Well, something might be said about that, particularly as far as the family and the beds were concerned, thought K., while with Frieda’s help—the assistants were of no use, lying on the floor they looked in amazement at the lady teacher and the children—he dragged across the parallel bars and the vaulting horse, threw the blanket over them, and so constructed a little room in which one could at least get on one’s clothes protected from the children’s gaze. He was not given a minute’s peace, however, for the lady teacher began to scold because there was no fresh water in the washing basin—K. had just been thinking of fetching the basin for himself and Frieda to wash in, but he had at once given up the idea so as not to exasperate the lady teacher too much, but his renunciation was of no avail, for immediately afterwards there was a loud crash; unfortunately, it seemed, they had forgotten to clear away the remains of the supper from the teacher’s table, so she sent it all flying with her ruler and everything fell on the floor; she didn’t need to bother about the sardine oil and the remainder of the coffee being spilt and the coffeepot smashed to pieces, the janitor of course could soon clear that up. Clothed once more, K. and Frieda, leaning on the parallel bars, witnessed the destruction of their few things. The assistants, who had obviously never thought of putting on their clothes, had stuck their heads through a fold of the blankets near the floor, to the great delight of the children. What grieved Frieda most was naturally the loss of the coffeepot; only when K. to comfort her assured her that he would go immediately to the Village Superintendent and demand that it should be replaced, and see that this was done, was she able to gather herself together sufficiently to run out of their stockade in her chemise and skirt and rescue the table-cover at least from being stained any more. And she managed it, though the lady teacher to frighten her kept on hammering on the table with the ruler in the most nerve-racking fashion. When K. and Frieda were quite clothed they had to compel the assistants—who seemed to be struck dumb by those events—to get their clothes on as well; had not merely to order them and push them, indeed, but actually to put some of their clothes on for them. Then, when all was ready, K. shared out the remaining work; the assistants were to bring in wood and light the fire, but in the other classroom first, from which another and greater danger threatened, for the teacher himself was probably already there. Frieda was to scrub the floor and K. would fetch fresh water and set things to rights generally. For the time being breakfast could not be thought of. But so as to find out definitively the attitude of the lady teacher, K. decided to issue from their shelter himself first, the others were only to follow when he called them; he adopted this policy on the one hand because he did not want the position to be compromised in advance by any stupid act of the assistants, and on the other because he wanted Frieda to be spared as much as possible; for she had ambitions and he had none, she was sensitive and he was not, she only thought of the petty discomforts of the moment, while he was thinking of Barnabas and the future. Frieda followed all his instructions implicitly, and scarcely took her eyes from him. Hardly had he appeared when the lady teacher cried amid the laughter of the children, which from now on never stopped: “Slept well?” and as K. paid no attention—seeing that after all it was not a real question—but began to clear up the washstand, she asked: “What have you been doing to my cat?” A huge, fat old cat was lying lazily outstretched on the table, and the teacher was examining one of its paws which was evidently a little hurt. So Frieda had been right after all, this cat had not of course leapt on her, for it was past the leaping stage, but it had crawled over her, had been terrified by the presence of people in the empty house, had concealed itself hastily, and in its unaccustomed hurry had hurt itself. K. tried to explain this quietly to the lady teacher, but the only thing she had eyes for was the injury itself and she replied: “Well, then it’s your fault through coming here. Just look at this,” and she called K. over to the table, showed him the paw, and before he could get a proper look at it, gave him a whack with the tawse over the back of his hand; the tails of the tawse were blunted, it was true, but, this time without any regard for the cat, she had brought them down so sharply that they raised bloody weals. “And now go about your business,” she said impatiently, bowing herself once more over the cat. Frieda, who had been looking on with the assistants from behind the parallel bars, cried out when she saw the blood. K. held up his hand in front of the children and said: “Look, that’s what a sly, wicked cat has done to me.” He said it, indeed, not for the children’s benefit, whose shouting and laughter had become continuous, so that it needed no further occasion or incitement, and could not be pierced or influenced by any words of his. But seeing that the lady teacher, too, only acknowledged the insult by a brief side-glance, and remained still occupied with the cat, her first fury satiated by the drawing of blood, K. called Frieda and the assistants, and the work began.
When K. had carried out the pail with the dirty water, fetched fresh water and was beginning to turn out the classroom, a boy of about twelve stepped out from his desk, touched K.’s hand, and said something which was quite lost in the general uproar. Then suddenly every sound ceased and K. turned round. The thing he had been fearing all morning had come. In the door stood the teacher; in each hand the little man held an assistant by the scruff of the neck. He had caught them, it seemed, while they were fetching wood, for in a mighty voice he began to shout, pausing after every word: “Who has dared to break into the wood shed? Where is the villain, so that I may annihilate him?” Then Frieda got up from the floor, which she was trying to clean near the feet of the lady teacher, looked across at K. as if she were trying to gather strength from him, and said, a little of her old superciliousness in her glance and bearing: “I did it, Mr. Teacher. I couldn’t think of any other way. If the classrooms were to be heated in time, the woodshed had to be opened; I didn’t dare to ask you for the key in the middle of the night, my fiancé was at the Herrenhof, it was possible that he might stay there all night, so I had to decide for myself. If I have done wrongly, forgive my inexperience; I’ve been scolded enough already by my fiancé, after he saw what had happened. Yes, he even forbade me to light the fires early, because he thought that you had shown by locking the woodshed that you didn’t want them to be put on before you came yourself. So it’s his fault that the fires are not on, but mine that the shed has been broken into.” “Who broke open the door?” asked the teacher, turning to the assistants, who were still vainly struggling to escape from his grip. “The gentleman,” they both replied, and, so that there might be no doubt, pointed at K. Frieda laughed, and her laughter seemed to be still more conclusive than her words; then she began to wring out into the pail the rag with which she had been scrubbing the floor, as if the episode had been closed with her declaration, and the evidence of the assistants were merely a belated jest. Only when she was at work on her knees again did she add: “Our assistants are mere children who in spite of their age should still be at their desks in school. Last evening I really did break open the door myself with the axe, it was quite easy, I didn’t need the assistants to help me, they would only have been a nuisance. But when my fiancé arrived later in the night and went out to see the damage and if possible put it right, the assistants ran out after him, likely because they were afraid to stay here by themselves, and saw my fiancé working at the broken door, and that’s why they say now—but they’re only children—” True, the assistants kept on shaking their heads during Freida’s story, pointed again at K. and did their best by means of dumb show to deflect her from her story; but as they did not succeed they submitted at last, took Frieda’s words as a command, and on being questioned anew by the teacher made no reply. “So,” said the teacher, “you’ve been lying? Or at least you’ve groundlessly accused the janitor?” They still remained silent, but their trembling and their apprehensive glances seemed to indicate guilt. “Then I’ll give you a sound thrashing straight away,” he said, and he sent one of the children into the next room for his cane. Then as he was raising it, Freida cried: “The assistants have told the truth!” flung her scrubbing-cloth in despair into the pail, so that the water splashed up on every side, and ran behind the parallel bars, where she remained concealed. “A lying crew!” remarked the lady teacher, who had just finished bandaging the paw, and she took the beast into her lap, for which it was almost too big.
“So it was the janitor,” said the teacher, pushing the assistants away and turning to K., who had been listening all the time leaning on the handle of his broom: “This fine janitor who out of cowardice allows other people to be falsely accused of his own villainies.” “Well,” said K. who had not missed the fact that Frieda’s intervention had appeased the first uncontrollable fury of the teacher, “if the assistants had got a little taste of the rod I shouldn’t have been sorry; if they get off ten times when they should justly be punished, they can well afford to pay for it by being punished unjustly for once. But besides that it would have been very welcome to me if a direct quarrel between me and you, Mr. Teacher, could have been avoided; perhaps you would have liked it as well yourself too. But seeing that Frieda has sacrificed me to the assistants now—” here K. paused, and in the silence Frieda’s sobs could be heard behind the screen—“of course a clean breast must be made of the whole business.” “Scandalous!” said the lady teacher. “I am entirely of your opinion, Fräulein Gisa,” said the teacher. “You, janitor, are of course dismissed from your post for those scandalous doings. Your further punishment I reserve meantime, but now clear yourself and your belongings out of the house at once. It will be a genuine relief to us, and the teaching will manage to begin at last. Now quick about it!” “I shan’t move a foot from here,” said K. “You’re my superior, but not the person who engaged me for this post; it was the Superintendent who did that, and I’ll only accept notice from him. And he certainly never gave me this post so that I and my dependants should freeze here, but—as you told me yourself—to keep me from doing anything thoughtless or desperate. To dismiss me suddenly now would therefore be absolutely against his intentions; till I hear the contrary from his own mouth I refuse to believe it. Besides it may possibly be greatly to your own advantage, too, if I don’t accept your notice, given so hastily.” “So you don’t accept it?” asked the teacher. K. shook his head. “Think it over carefully,” said the teacher, “your decisions aren’t always for the best; you should reflect, for instance, on yesterday afternoon, when you refused to be examined.” “Why do you bring that up now?” asked K. “Because it’s my whim,” replied the teacher, “and now I repeat for the last time, get out!” But as that too had no effect the teacher went over to the table and consulted in a whisper with Fräulein Gisa; she said something about the police, but the teacher rejected it, finally they seemed in agreement, the teacher ordered the children to go into his classroom, they would be taught there along with the other children. This change delighted everybody, the room was emptied in a moment amid laughter and shouting, the teacher and Fräulein Gisa followed last. The latter carried the class register, and on it in all its bulk the perfectly indifferent cat. The teacher would gladly have left the cat behind, but a suggestion to that effect was negatived decisively by Fräulein Gisa with a reference to K.’s inhumanity. So, in addition to all his other annoyances, the teacher blamed K. for the cat as well. And that influenced his last words to K., spoken when he reached the door: “The lady had been driven by force to leave this room with her children, because you have rebelliously refused to accept my notice, and because nobody can ask of her, a young girl, that she should teach in the middle of your dirty household affairs. So you are left to yourself, and you can spread yourself as much as you like, undisturbed by the disapproval of respectable people. But it won’t last for long, I promise you that.” With that he slammed the door.