‘Lasemann the master tanner?’ said K., and he described the bearded man he had seen at Lasemann’s house.
‘Yes, that’s him,’ said the mayor.
‘I know his wife as well,’ said K., trying a shot at random. ‘Quite possibly,’ said the mayor, and fell silent.
‘She’s beautiful,’ said K., ‘but rather pale, and ailing. I suppose she comes from the castle?’ This was said half as a question.
The mayor looked at the time, poured medicine into a small spoon, and quickly swallowed it.
‘I suppose all you know of the castle is the offices?’ asked K. brusquely.
‘Yes,’ agreed the mayor, with an ironic yet grateful smile, ‘and they’re the most important part of it. As for Brunswick: if we could keep him out of the parish council we’d nearly all of us be glad, not least Lasemann. But at that time Brunswick gained some influence. He’s not a good speaker, but he shouts, and that’s enough for many people. That’s how it happened that I was obliged to lay the whole affair before the parish council, which in fact was Brunswick’s sole success at first, for of course the great majority of the parish council wouldn’t hear of appointing a land surveyor. That was all years ago too, but the case has never really been settled all this time, partly because of the conscientious approach of Sordini, who was trying to discover the motives of both the majority and the opposition through the most careful investigation, and partly because of the stupidity and ambition of Brunswick (who has various personal links with the authorities), which set his imagination to work thinking up more and more new ideas. Sordini, however, was not to be deceived by Brunswick (and how, indeed, could Brunswick deceive Sordini?), but if he was not to be deceived new enquiries were necessary, and even before they were dealt with Brunswick had come up with something fresh. Oh yes, his mind is very quick, it’s all of a piece with his stupid-ity. And now I come to a particular feature of our official mechanism. When an affair has been under consideration for a very long time, and even before assessment of it is complete, it can happen that something occurs to settle it, like a sudden flash of lightning at some unforeseeable point, and you can’t pinpoint it later. The case is thus brought to an arbitrary, if usually quite correct, conclusion. It’s as if the official mechanism could no longer stand up to the tension and the years of attrition caused by the same factor, which in itself may be slight, and has made the decision of its own accord with no need for the officials to take a hand. Of course there has not been any miracle, and certainly some official or other made a note of the matter concluding the case, or came to an unwritten decision, but at least we here can’t find out, even from the authority, which official made the decision in this case and why. The supervisory authorities will discover that much later, but we ourselves never do, and by then hardly anyone would be interested.
Well, as I was saying, these decisions are generally excellent, and the only disruptive aspect of them is that, as it usually turns out, we learn about them too late, so passionate discussion of an affair that was set-tled long ago still goes on. I don’t know whether such a decision has been taken in your case—there is much to suggest that it has and much to suggest that it hasn’t—but if it had, then a note of your appointment would have been sent to you, and you would have set out on your long journey here. Meanwhile a lot of time would have passed, and Sordini would still have been working himself to exhaustion on the same case, Brunswick would have been plotting and intriguing, and I’d have been plagued by the pair of them. I merely suggest this possibility, but I do know the following for certain: meanwhile a supervisory authority discovered that many years ago Department A had sent an enquiry to the parish about a land surveyor, and no answer ever came back. I was asked about it recently, and then of course the whole matter was cleared up. Department A was satisfied with my answer, to the effect that no land surveyor was needed, and Sordini was obliged to realize that he had not been the person competent to deal with this case and, through no fault of his own, had done a great deal of unnecessary and nerve-racking work. If new work hadn’t been coming in from all sides, as usual, and if yours had not, after all, been a very small case—we might almost say the smallest of the small—then we would probably all have breathed a sigh of relief, all of us including even Sordini him-self, with only Brunswick still feeling ridiculously rancorous. And now, Mr Land Surveyor, imagine my dismay when, after the happy conclusion of the whole affair—and a great deal of time has passed since then too—you suddenly turn up, and it looks as if the whole thing is going to begin again. I am firmly determined not to allow this, so far as in me lies, as I am sure you will understand.’
‘To be sure,’ said K., ‘but I understand even better that I and perhaps the law too have been shockingly abused. Personally, I will know how to defend myself.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ asked the mayor. ‘I can’t tell you,’ said K.
‘I don’t wish to impose on you,’ said the mayor, ‘but I suggest you consider me as—well, I won’t say a friend, since we are total strangers—but to some extent an associate. I can’t allow you to be accepted as a land surveyor here, but otherwise you can turn to me with confidence, although only within the limits of my power, which is not large.’
‘You keep talking’, said K., ‘about the possibility of my being accepted as a land surveyor, but I have already been appointed in that capacity. Here is Klamm’s letter.’
‘Klamm’s letter’, said the mayor, ‘is valuable and deserves respect for the sake of Klamm’s signature, which does seem to be genuine, but otherwise—no, I dare not even tell you my opinion. Mizzi!’ he called, adding: ‘What on earth are you all doing?’
The assistants, who had been out of sight for some time, and Mizzi had obviously failed to find the file they were looking for, and had then tried to shut everything up in the cupboard again, but had failed in that too because of the disorganized and exorbitantly large number of files. So the assistants had thought of a plan that they were now putting into practice. They had laid the cupboard down on the floor, stuffed all the files into it, and they and Mizzi sat on the cupboard doors, thus trying to squeeze them slowly shut.
‘So the file hasn’t been found,’ said the mayor. ‘Well, that’s a pity, but you know the story now, so we don’t really need the file any more. Anyway it’s sure to be found some time, it’s probably at the teacher’s place. He has a great many files there. Now, bring the can-dle over here, Mizzi, and read this letter with me.’
Mizzi came over, looking even more grey and insignificant than before as she sat down on the edge of the bed close to her strong, vigorous husband, who put his arms around her. Only her little face showed now in the candlelight, its clear, stern features softened by the ravages of age. No sooner had she looked at the letter than she clasped her hands and said: ‘From Klamm.’ Then they read the let-ter together, whispering to each other from time to time, and finally, just as the assistants were cheering because they had finally managed to close the cupboard doors, and Mizzi was looking at them in quiet gratitude, the mayor said:
‘Mizzi thinks just as I do, and now I can venture to speak my mind. This is not an official communication at all, but a private letter. That’s clear enough even from the salutation, “Dear Sir”. What’s more, there isn’t a word in it about your being accepted as a land surveyor, it just deals in general terms with service to the castle, and even that says nothing binding, only that you have been appointed “as you know”, that is to say, the burden of proof of the fact that you have been appointed lies on you. Finally, you are officially referred to me, the village mayor, as your immediate superior, who will tell you everything else, and I’ve done most of that already. This is all as clear as day to anyone who is accustomed to reading official commu-nications, and as a consequence reads unofficial letters even better.
But I’m not surprised that you, a stranger,
