VI

VI

Before the inn the landlord was waiting for him. Without being questioned he would not have ventured to address him, accordingly K. asked what he wanted. “Have you found new lodgings yet?” asked the landlord, looking at the ground. “You were told to ask by your wife?” replied K., “you’re very much under her influence?” “No,” said the landlord, “I didn’t ask because of my wife. But she’s very bothered and unhappy on your account, can’t work, lies in bed and sighs and complains all the time.” “Shall I go and see her?” asked K. “I wish you would,” said the landlord. “I’ve been to the Superintendent’s already to fetch you. I listened at the door, but you were talking. I didn’t want to disturb you, besides I was anxious about my wife and ran back again; but she wouldn’t see me, so there was nothing for it but to wait for you.” “Then let’s go at once,” said K., “I’ll soon reassure her.” “If you could only manage it,” said the landlord.

They went through the bright kitchen where three or four maids, engaged all in different corners at the work they were happening to be doing, visibly stiffened on seeing K. From the kitchen the sighing of the landlady could already be heard. She lay in a windowless annex separated from the kitchen by thin lath boarding. There was room in it only for a huge family bed and a chest. The bed was so placed that from it one could overlook the whole kitchen and superintend the work. From the kitchen, on the other hand, hardly anything could be seen in the annex. There it was quite dark, only the faint gleam of the purple bed-coverlet could be distinguished. Not until one entered and one’s eyes became used to the darkness did one detach particular objects.

“You’ve come at last,” said the landlady feebly. She was lying stretched out on her back, she breathed with visible difficulty, she had thrown back the feather quilt. In bed she looked much younger than in her clothes, but a nightcap of delicate lacework which she wore, although it was too small and nodded on her head, made her sunk face look pitiable. “Why should I have come?” asked K. mildly. “You didn’t send for me.” “You shouldn’t have kept me waiting so long,” said the landlady with the capriciousness of an invalid. “Sit down,” she went on pointing to the bed, “and you others go away.” Meantime the maids as well as the assistants had crowded in. “I’ll go too, Gardana,” said the landlord, This was the first time that K. had heard her name. “Of course,” she replied slowly, and as if she were occupied with other thoughts she added absently: “Why should you remain any more than the others?” But when they had all retreated to the kitchen⁠—even the assistants this time went at once, besides, a maid was behind them⁠—Gardana was alert enough to grasp that everything she said could be heard in there, for the annex lacked a door, and so she commanded everyone to leave the kitchen as well. It was immediately done.

“Land Surveyor,” said Gardana, “there’s a wrap hanging over there beside the chest, will you please reach me it. I’ll lay it over me. I can’t bear the feather quilt, my breathing is so bad.” And as K. handed her the wrap, she went on: “Look, this is a beautiful wrap, isn’t it?” To K. it seemed to be an ordinary woollen wrap; he felt it with his fingers again merely out of politeness, but did not reply. “Yes, it’s a beautiful wrap,” said Gardana covering herself up. Now she lay back comfortably, all her pain seemed to have gone, she actually had enough strength to think of the state of her hair which had been disordered by her lying position; she raised herself up for a moment and rearranged her coiffure a little round the nightcap. Her hair was abundant.

K. became impatient, and began: “You asked me, madam, whether I had found other lodgings yet.” “I asked you?” said the landlady, “no, you’re mistaken.” “Your husband asked me a few minutes ago.” “That may well be,” said the landlady, “I’m at variance with him. When I didn’t want you here, he kept you here, now that I’m glad to have you here, he wants to drive you away. He’s always like that.” “Have you changed your opinion of me so greatly, then?” asked K. “In a couple of hours?” “I haven’t changed my opinion,” said the landlady more feebly again, “give me your hand. There, and now promise to be quite frank with me and I’ll be the same with you.” “Right,” said K., “but who’s to begin first?” “I shall,” said the landlady. She did not give so much the impression of one who wanted to meet K. halfway, as of one who was eager to have the first word.

She drew a photograph from under the pillow and held it out to K. “Look at that portrait,” she said eagerly. To see it better K. stepped into the kitchen, but even there it was not easy to distinguish anything on the photograph, for it was faded with age, cracked in several places, crumpled and dirty. “It isn’t in very good condition,” said K. “Unluckily, no,” said the landlady, “when one carries a thing about with one for years it’s bound to be the case. But if you look at it carefully, you’ll be able to make everything out, you’ll see. But I can help you; tell me what you see, I like to hear anyone talk about the portrait. Well, then?” “A young man,” said K. “Right,” said the landlady, “and what is he doing?” “It seems to me he’s lying on a board stretching himself and yawning.” The landlady laughed. “Quite wrong,” she said. “But here’s the board and here he is lying on it,” persisted K. on his side. “But look more carefully,” said the landlady in annoyance, “is he really lying down?” “No,” said K. now, “he’s floating, and now I can see it, it’s not a board at all, but probably a rope, and the young man is taking a high leap.” “You see!” replied the landlady triumphantly, “he’s leaping, that’s how the official messengers practise. I knew quite well that you would make it out. Can you make out his face, too?” “I can only make out his face very dimly,” said K., “he’s obviously making a great effort, his mouth is open, his eyes tightly shut and his hair fluttering.” “Well done,” said the landlady appreciatively, “nobody who never saw him could have made out more than that. But he was a beautiful young man. I only saw him once for a second and I’ll never forget him.” “Who was he then?” asked K. “He was the messenger that Klamm sent to call me to him the first time.”

K. could not hear properly, his attention was distracted by the rattling of glass. He immediately discovered the cause of the disturbance. The assistants were standing outside in the yard hopping from one foot to the other in the snow, behaving as if they were glad to see him again; in their joy they pointed each other out to him and kept tapping all the time on the kitchen window. At a threatening gesture from K. they stopped at once, tried to pull one another away, but the one would slip immediately from the grasp of the other and soon they were both back at the window again. K. hurried into the annex where the assistants could not see him from outside and he would not have to see them. But the soft and as it were beseeching tapping on the windowpane followed him there too for a long time.

“The assistants again,” he said apologetically to the landlady and pointed outside. But she paid no attention to him, she had taken the portrait from him, looked at it, smoothed it out and pushed it again under her pillow. Her movements had become slower, but not with weariness, but with the burden of memory. She had wanted to tell K. the story of her life and had forgotten about him in thinking of the story itself. She was playing with the fringe of her wrap. A little time went by before she looked up, passed her hand over her eyes, and said: “This wrap was given me by Klamm. And the nightcap, too. The portrait, the wrap and the nightcap, these are the only three things of his I have as keepsakes. I’m not young like Frieda, I’m not so ambitious as she is, nor so sensitive either, she’s very sensitive; to put it bluntly, I know how to accommodate myself to life, but one thing I must admit, I couldn’t have held out so long here without these three keepsakes. Perhaps these three things seem very trifling to you, but let me tell you, Frieda, who has had relations with Klamm for a long time, doesn’t possess a single keepsake from him. I have asked her, she’s too fanciful, and too difficult to please besides; I, on the other hand, though I was only three times with Klamm⁠—after that he never asked me to come again, I don’t know why⁠—I managed to bring three presents back with me all the same, having a premonition that my time would be short. Of course one must make a point of it, Klamm gives nothing of himself, but if one sees something one likes lying about there, one can get it out of him.”

K. felt uncomfortable listening to these tales, much as they interested him. “How long ago was all that, then?” he asked with a sigh.

“Over twenty years ago,” replied the landlady, “considerably over twenty years.”

“So one remains faithful to Klamm as long as that,” said K. “But are you aware, madam, that these stories give me grave alarm when I think of my future married life?”

The landlady seemed to consider this intrusion of his own affairs unseasonable and gave him an angry sidelook.

“Don’t be angry, madam,” said K., “I’ve nothing at all to say against Klamm. All the same by force of circumstances I have come in a sense in contact with Klamm; that can’t be gainsaid even by his greatest admirer. Well, then. As a result of that I am forced whenever Klamm is mentioned to think of myself as well, that can’t be altered. Besides, madam,” here K. took hold of her reluctant hand, “reflect how badly our last talk turned out and that this time we want to part in peace.”

“You’re right,” said the landlady bowing her head, “but spare me. I’m not more touchy than other people; on the contrary, everyone has his sensitive spots, and I have only this one.”

“Unfortunately it happens to be mine too,” said K., “but I promise to control myself. Now tell me, madam, how I am to put up with my married life in face of this terrible fidelity, granted that Frieda, too, resembles you in that?”

“Terrible fidelity!” repeated the landlady with a growl. “Is it a question of fidelity? I’m faithful to my husband⁠—but Klamm? Klamm once chose me as his mistress, can I ever lose that honour? And you ask how you are to put up with Frieda? Oh, Land Surveyor, who are you after all, that you dare to ask such things?”

“Madame,” said K. warningly.

“I know,” said the landlady controlling herself, “but my husband never put such questions. I don’t know which to call the unhappier, myself then or Frieda now. Frieda who saucily left Klamm, or myself whom he stopped asking to come. Yet it is probably Frieda, though she hasn’t even yet guessed the full extent of her unhappiness, it seems. Still, my thoughts were more exclusively occupied by my unhappiness then, all the same, for I had always to be asking myself one question, and in reality haven’t ceased to ask it to this day: Why did this happen? Three times Klamm sent for me, but he never sent a fourth time, no, never a fourth time! What else could I have thought of during those days? What else could I have talked about with my husband, whom I married shortly afterwards? During the day we had no time⁠—we had taken over this inn in a wretched condition and had to struggle to make it respectable⁠—but at night! For years all our nightly talks turned on Klamm and the reason for his changing his mind. And if my husband fell asleep during those talks I woke him and we went on again.”

“Now,” said K., “if you’ll permit me, I’m going to ask a very rude question.”

The landlady remained silent.

“Then I mustn’t ask it,” said K. “Well, that serves my purpose as well.”

“Yes,” replied the landlady, “that serves your purpose as well, and just that serves it best. You misconstrue everything, even a person’s silence. You can’t do anything else. I allow you to ask your question.”

“If I misconstrue everything, perhaps I misconstrue my question as well, perhaps it’s not so rude after all. I only want to know how you came to meet your husband and how this inn came into your hands.”

The landlady wrinkled her forehead, but said indifferently: “That’s a very simple story. My father was the blacksmith, and Hans, my husband, who was a groom at a big farmer’s place, came often to see him. That was just after my last meeting with Klamm. I was very unhappy and really had no right to be so, for everything had gone as it should, and that I wasn’t allowed any longer to see Klamm was Klamm’s own decision. It was as it should be then, only the grounds for it were obscure. I was entitled to enquire into them, but I had no right to be unhappy; still I was, all the same, couldn’t work, and sat in our front garden all day. There Hans saw me, often sat down beside me. I didn’t complain to him, but he knew how things were, and as he is a good young man, he wept with me. The wife of the landlord at that time had died and he had consequently to give up business⁠—besides he was already an old man. Well, once as he passed our garden and saw us sitting there, he stopped, and without more ado offered us the inn to rent, didn’t ask for any money in advance, for he trusted us, and set the rent at a very low figure. I didn’t want to be a burden on my father, nothing else mattered to me, and so thinking of the inn and of my new work that might perhaps help me to forget a little, I gave Hans my hand. That’s the whole story.”

There was silence for a little, then K. said: “The behaviour of the landlord was generous, but rash, or had he particular grounds for trusting you both?”

“He knew Hans well,” said the landlady; “he was Hans’ uncle.”

“Well then,” said K., “Hans’ family must have been very anxious to be connected with you?”

“It may be so,” said the landlady, “I don’t know. I’ve never bothered about it.”

“But it must have been so all the same,” said K., “seeing that the family was ready to make such a sacrifice and to give the inn into your hands absolutely without security.”

“It wasn’t imprudent, as was proved later,” said the landlady. “I threw myself into the work, I was strong, I was the blacksmith’s daughter, I didn’t need maid or servant. I was everywhere, in the taproom, in the kitchen, in the stables, in the yard. I cooked so well that I even enticed some of the Herrenhof’s customers away. You’ve never been in the inn yet at lunchtime, you don’t know our day customers; at that time there were more of them, many of them have stopped coming since. And the consequence was that we were able not merely to pay the rent regularly, but that after a few years we bought the whole place and today it’s practically free of debt. The further consequence, I admit, was that I ruined my health, got heart’s disease, and am now an old woman. Probably you think that I’m much older than Hans, but the fact is that he’s only two or three years younger than me and will never grow any older either, for at his work⁠—smoking his pipe, listening to the customers, knocking out his pipe again and fetching an occasional pot of beer⁠—at that sort of work one doesn’t grow old.”

“What you’ve done has been splendid,” said K. “I don’t doubt that for a moment, but we were speaking of the time before your marriage, and it must have been an extraordinary thing at that stage for Hans’ family to press on the marriage⁠—at a money sacrifice, or at least at such a great risk as the handing over of the inn must have been⁠—and without trusting in anything but your powers of work, which besides nobody knew of then, and Hans’ powers of work, which everybody must have known beforehand were nil.”

“Oh, well,” said the landlady wearily, “I know what you’re getting at and how wide you are of the mark. Klamm had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. Why should he have concerned himself about me, or better, how could he in any case have concerned himself about me? He knew nothing about me by that time. The fact that he had ceased to summon me was a sign that he had forgotten me. When he stops summoning people, he forgets them completely. I didn’t want to talk of this before Frieda. And it’s not mere forgetting, it’s something more than that. For anybody one has forgotten can come back to one’s memory again, of course. With Klamm that’s impossible. Anybody that he stops summoning he has forgotten completely, not only as far as the past is concerned, but literally for the future as well. If I try very hard I can of course think myself into your ideas, valid, perhaps, in the very different land you come from. But it’s next thing to madness to imagine that Klamm could have given me Hans as a husband simply that I might have no great difficulty in going to him if he should summon me sometime again. Where is the man who could hinder me from running to Klamm if Klamm lifted his little finger? Madness, absolute madness, one begins to feel confused oneself when one plays with such mad ideas.”

“No,” said K., “I’ve no intention of getting confused; my thoughts hadn’t gone so far as you imagined, though, to tell the truth, they were on that road. For the moment the only thing that surprises me is that Hans’ relations expected so much from his marriage and that these expectations were actually fulfilled, at the sacrifice of your sound heart and your health, it is true. The idea that these facts were connected with Klamm occurred to me I admit, but not with the bluntness, or not till now with the bluntness that you give it⁠—apparently with no object but to have a dig at me, because that gives you pleasure. Well, make the most of your pleasure! My idea, however, was this: first of all Klamm was obviously the occasion of your marriage. If it hadn’t been for Klamm you wouldn’t have been unhappy and wouldn’t have been sitting doing nothing in the garden, if it hadn’t been for Klamm Hans wouldn’t have seen you sitting there, if it hadn’t been that you were unhappy a shy man like Hans would never have ventured to speak, if it hadn’t been for Klamm Hans would never have found you in tears, if it hadn’t been for Klamm the good old uncle would never have seen you sitting there together peacefully, if it hadn’t been for Klamm you wouldn’t have been indifferent to what life still offered you, and therefore would never have married Hans. Now in all this there’s enough of Klamm already, it seems to me. But that’s not all. If you hadn’t been trying to forget, you certainly wouldn’t have overtaxed your strength so much and done so splendidly with the inn. So Klamm was there too. But apart from that Klamm is also the root cause of your illness, for before your marriage your heart was already worn out with your hopeless passion for him. The only question that remains now is, what made Hans’ relatives so eager for the marriage? You yourself said just now that to be Klamm’s mistress is a distinction that can’t be lost, so it may have been that that attracted them. But besides that, I imagine, they had the hope that the lucky star that led you to Klamm⁠—assuming that it was a lucky star, but you maintain that it was⁠—was your star and so would remain constant to you and not leave you quite so quickly and suddenly as Klamm did.”

“Do you mean all this in earnest?” asked the landlady.

“Yes, in earnest,” replied K. immediately, “only I consider Hans’ relations were neither entirely right nor entirely wrong in their hopes, and I think, too, I can see the mistake that they made. In appearance, of course, everything seems to have succeeded. Hans is well provided for, he has a handsome wife, is looked up to, and the inn is free of debt. Yet in reality everything has not succeeded, he would certainly have been much happier with a simple girl who gave him her first love, and if he sometimes stands in the inn there as if lost, as you complain, and because he really feels as if he were lost⁠—without being unhappy over it, I grant you, I know that much about him already⁠—it’s just as true that a handsome, intelligent young man like him would be happier with another wife, and by happier I mean more independent, industrious, manly. And you yourself certainly can’t be happy, seeing you say you wouldn’t be able to go on without these three keepsakes, and your heart is bad, too. Then were Hans’ relatives mistaken in their hopes? I don’t think so. The blessing was over you, but they didn’t know how to bring it down.”

“Then what did they miss doing?” asked the landlady. She was lying outstretched on her back now gazing up at the ceiling.

“To ask Klamm,” said K.

“So we’re back at your case again,” said the landlady.

“Or at yours,” said K. “Our affairs run parallel.”

“What do you want from Klamm?” asked the landlady. She had sat up, had shaken out the pillows so as to lean her back against them, and looked K. full in the eyes. “I’ve told you frankly about my experiences, from which you should have been able to learn something. Tell me now as frankly what you want to ask Klamm. I’ve had great trouble in persuading Frieda to go up to her room and stay there, I was afraid you wouldn’t talk freely enough in her presence.”

“I have nothing to hide,” said K. “But first of all I want to draw your attention to something. Klamm forgets immediately, you say. Now in the first place that seems very improbable to me, and secondly it is indemonstrable, obviously nothing more than legend, thought out moreover by the flapperish minds of those who have been in Klamm’s favour. I’m surprised that you believe in such a banal invention.”

“It’s no legend,” said the landlady, “it’s much rather the result of general experience.”

“I see, a thing then to be refuted by further experience,” said K. “Besides there’s another distinction still between your case and Frieda’s. In Frieda’s case it didn’t happen that Klamm never summoned her again, on the contrary he summoned her but she didn’t obey. It’s even possible that he’s still waiting for her.”

The landlady remained silent, and only looked K. up and down with a considering stare. At last she said: “I’ll try to listen quietly to what you have to say. Speak frankly and don’t spare my feelings. I’ve only one request. Don’t use Klamm’s name. Call him ‘him’ or something, but don’t mention him by name.”

“Willingly,” replied K., “but what I want from him is difficult to express. Firstly, I want to see him at close quarters; then I want to hear his voice; then I want to get from him what his attitude is to our marriage. What I shall ask from him after that depends on the outcome of our interview. Lots of things may come up in the course of talking, but still the most important thing for me is to be confronted with him. You see I haven’t yet spoken with a real official. That seems to be more difficult to manage than I had thought. But now I’m put under the obligation of speaking to him as a private person, and that, in my opinion, is much easier to bring about. As an official I can only speak to him in his bureau in the Castle, which may be inaccessible, or⁠—and that’s questionable, too⁠—in the Herrenhof. But as a private person I can speak to him anywhere, in a house, in the street, wherever I happen to meet him. If I should find the official in front of me, then I would be glad to accost him as well, but that’s not my primary object.”

“Right,” said the landlady pressing her face into the pillows as if she were uttering something shameful, “if by using my influence I can manage to get your request for an interview passed on to Klamm, promise me to do nothing on your own account until the reply comes back.”

“I can’t promise that,” said K., “glad as I would be to fulfil your wishes or your whims. The matter is urgent, you see, especially after the unfortunate outcome of my talk with the Superintendent.”

“That excuse falls to the ground,” said the landlady, “the Superintendent is a person of no importance. Haven’t you found that out? He couldn’t remain another day in his post if it weren’t for his wife, who runs everything.”

“Mizzi!” asked K. The landlady nodded. “She was present,” said K. “Did she express her opinion?” asked the landlady.

“No,” replied K., “but I didn’t get the impression that she could.”

“There,” said the landlady, “you see how distorted your view of everything here is. In any case: the Superintendent’s arrangements for you are of no importance, and I’ll talk to his wife when I have time. And if I promise now in addition that Klamm’s answer will come in a week at latest, you can’t surely have any further grounds for not obliging me.”

“All that is not enough to influence me,” said K. “My decision is made, and I would try to carry it out even if an unfavourable answer were to come. And seeing that this is my fixed intention, I can’t very well ask for an interview beforehand. A thing that would remain a daring attempt, but still an attempt in good faith so long as I didn’t ask for an interview, would turn into an open transgression of the law after receiving an unfavourable answer. That frankly would be far worse.”

“Worse?” said the landlady. “It’s a transgression of the law in any case. And now you can do what you like. Reach me over my skirt.”

Without paying any regard to K.’s presence she pulled on her skirt and hurried into the kitchen. For a long time already K. had been hearing noises in the dining-room. There was a tapping on the kitchen hatch. The assistants had unfastened it and were shouting that they were hungry. Then other faces appeared at it. One could even hear a subdued song being chanted by several voices.

Undeniably K.’s conversation with the landlady had greatly delayed the cooking of the midday meal, it was not ready yet and the customers had assembled. Nevertheless nobody had dared to set foot in the kitchen after the landlady’s order. But now when the observers at the hatch reported that the landlady was coming, the maids immediately ran back to the kitchen, and as K. entered the dining-room a surprisingly large company, more than twenty, men and women⁠—all attired in provincial but not rustic clothes⁠—streamed back from the hatch to the tables to make sure of their seats. Only at one little table in the corner were a married couple seated already with a few children. The man, a kindly, blue-eyed person with disordered grey hair and beard, stood bent over the children and with a knife beat time to their singing, which he perpetually strove to soften. Perhaps he was trying to make them forget their hunger by singing. The landlady threw a few indifferent words of apology to her customers, nobody complained of her conduct. She looked round for the landlord, who had fled from the difficulty of the situation, however, long ago. Then she went slowly into the kitchen; she did not take any more notice of K., who hurried to Frieda in her room.