‘You interpret the letter so well, Mr Mayor,’ said K., ‘that in the end there’s nothing left of it but the signature on a blank sheet of paper. Don’t you think that in doing so you are belittling Klamm’s name, which you claim to respect?’
‘You misunderstand me,’ said the mayor. ‘I don’t mistake the meaning of the letter, I don’t belittle it with my interpretation, quite the contrary. A private letter from Klamm naturally means much more than an official communication. It just doesn’t mean what you think it means.’
‘Do you know Schwarzer?’ asked K.
‘No,’ said the mayor. ‘Do you, Mizzi? No, she doesn’t either. We don’t know him.’
‘That’s strange,’ said K. ‘He’s the son of one of the deputy wardens.’
‘My dear sir,’ said the mayor, ‘how can I be expected to know all the sons of all the deputy wardens?’
‘Very well,’ said K., ‘then you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that he is. I had a difference of opinion with this man Schwarzer on the day of my arrival. He then spoke on the telephone to a deputy warden called Fritz and was told that I had indeed been appointed land surveyor. How do you explain that, Mr Mayor?’
‘Very easily,’ said the mayor. ‘You have never really been in con-tact with our authorities. All your contacts are only apparent, but as a result of your ignorance you think that they are real. And as for the telephone: look, there’s no telephone here in my house, and I cer-tainly have plenty to do with the authorities. Telephones may come in useful at inns and so on, rather like a musical box, but that’s all. Have you ever telephoned anyone here? Well, then perhaps you’ll see what I mean. The telephone obviously works very well in the castle, I’ve been told that they are telephoning all the time there, which of course speeds the work up a great deal. Down here, we hear that constant telephoning as a rushing, singing sound on the line, and I’m sure you’ve heard it too. But that rushing, singing sound is the only real, trustworthy information that the telephone conveys to us down here, and everything else is just an illusion. There is no telephone connection to the castle, there’s no switchboard passing on our calls; if we call someone in the castle from here, the telephones ring in all the lower departments, or perhaps they would if, as I know for a fact, the sound was not turned off on nearly all of them. Now and then a tired official feels the need to amuse himself a little—especially in the evening or at night—and switches the sound back on, and then we get an answer, but an answer that is only a joke. It’s very understand-able. Who has the right to disturb such important work, always going full steam ahead, with his own little private worries? I really don’t understand how even a stranger can believe that if he calls, say, Sordini, it will really be Sordini who answers him. More likely it will be some little clerk in quite a different department. Although then again, a wonderful moment might come when you call the little clerk and Sordini himself answers. In that case, of course, it’s advisable to hurry away from the telephone before the first sound is heard.’
‘Well, that’s not how I saw it,’ said K. ‘I wasn’t to know these details, but it’s true that I didn’t have much confidence in those telephone calls. I was always aware that only something experienced or achieved in the castle itself has any real significance.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said the mayor, pouncing on one part of this, ‘of course these telephone calls have real significance, why not? How could a message passed on from the castle by an official be insignifi-cant? I said so just now, in connection with Klamm’s letter. None of what it says has any official meaning, if you ascribe official meaning to it you are wrong; on the other hand its private significance, whether friendly or hostile, is very great, generally greater than an official mean-ing can ever be.’
‘Very well,’ said K. ‘Assuming it’s all as you say, then I must have a number of good friends in the castle; in fact look at it properly, and when that department thought, many years ago, of sending for a land surveyor it was an act of friendship to me, and act after act of friend-ship followed, until at last I was enticed here to no good purpose and then threatened with expulsion.’
‘There’s something in what you say,’ said the mayor. ‘You’re right to think that communications from the castle mustn’t be taken liter-ally. But caution is necessary in general, not just here, and the more important the communication concerned, the more necessary it is to be cautious. I don’t understand what you say about being enticed here. If you had followed what I was saying better, you would surely realize that the question of your appointment is far too difficult for us to be able to answer it in the course of a little conversation.’
‘So the outcome is’, said K., ‘that everything is very confused and nothing can be solved, and I’m being thrown out.’
‘Who would venture to throw you out, my dear sir?’ said the mayor. ‘The very lack of clarity in the earlier questions assures you of the most civil treatment, but you appear to be over-sensitive. No one is keeping you here, but that doesn’t amount to being thrown out.’
‘Oh, Mr Mayor, sir,’ said K., ‘now you’re the one seeing all this too clearly again. Let me tell you some of the things that keep me here: the sacrifices I made to leave my home; my long and difficult journey; my well-founded hopes of my appointment here; my com-plete lack of means; the impossibility of finding suitable work at home now; and last but not least my fiancée, who comes from this village.’
‘Ah, yes, Frieda!’ said the mayor, not surprised. ‘I know about that. But Frieda will follow you anywhere. As for the rest of it, cer-tain considerations will be necessary, and I will speak to the castle about that. Should a decision come, or should it be necessary to question you again first, I’ll send for you. Does that suit you?’
‘No, not at all,’ said K. ‘I don’t want any tokens of favour from the castle, I want my rights.’
‘Mizzi,’ said the mayor to his wife, who was still sitting close to him toying dreamily with Klamm’s letter, which she had folded into a paper boat. In alarm, K. took it from her. ‘Mizzi, my leg is begin-ning to hurt badly again, we’ll have to change the compress.’
K. rose to his feet. ‘Then I’ll say goodbye,’ he said. ‘Yes, do,’ said Mizzi, who was already preparing some ointment, ‘there’s a nasty draught.’ K. turned. The assistants, in their ever-inappropriate readiness to make themselves useful, had opened both sides of the double door as soon as they heard K.’s remark. If he was to keep the penetrating cold out of the sickroom, K. could only bow fleetingly to the mayor. Then, taking the assistants with him, he went out of the room and was quick to close the door.
6
Second Conversation with the Landlady
The landlord was waiting outside the inn for him. He would not have ventured to speak without being asked first, so K. asked what he wanted. ‘Have you found new lodgings?’ asked the landlord, his eyes bent on the ground. ‘I think you must be asking on behalf of your wife,’ said K. ‘You seem to be extremely dependent on her.’ ‘No,’ said the landlord, ‘I’m not asking on her behalf. But she is very upset and unhappy about you, she can’t work, she lies in bed sighing and complaining all the time.’ ‘Shall I go and see her?’ asked K. ‘I wish you would,’ said the landlord. ‘I came to fetch you from the village mayor’s house, but listening at the door I heard the two of you in conversation and didn’t like to disturb you. I was worried about my wife too, so I came straight back, but she wouldn’t let me in to see her, so all I could do was wait for you.’ ‘Come along then, let’s be quick about it,’ said K. ‘I’ll soon set her mind at rest.’
‘I only hope so,’ said the landlord.
They went through the well-lit kitchen, where three or four maids, all keeping some distance from each other, positively froze in the midst of whatever they were doing at the sight of K. The land-lady’s sighs could be heard even here in the kitchen. She was lying in a little room without any windows, divided from the kitchen by a thin wooden partition. There was space only for a big double bed and a wardrobe. The bed was placed so that its occupant could keep an eye on the entire kitchen and what was going on there. On the other hand, hardly anything of the little room could be seen from the kitchen; it was dark inside, and only the red-and-white bedclothes stood out a little. You couldn’t make out any details until you had gone in and your eyes became used to the dim light.
‘Here you are at last,’ said the landlady faintly. She lay stretched full-length on her back, and obviously had some difficulty in breath-ing;
