Mr Land Surveyor,’ he said slowly, ‘you’re the stranger I spoke to a few days ago outside the church.’ ‘Yes,’ replied K. briefly; here in his own room he didn’t have to put up with what he had tolerated there when he was feeling so desolate. He turned to Frieda and told her that he had to pay an important call at once, one for which he must be as well dressed as possible. Without asking K. any further questions Frieda immediately called the assistants, who were busy investigating the new tablecloth, and told them to take K.’s clothes, and the boots he began to pull off at once, down to the yard and clean them carefully. She herself took a shirt off the washing-line and went down to the kitchen to iron it.
Now K. was alone with the teacher, who was still sitting at the table in silence, and he made him wait a little longer as he took off the shirt he was wearing and began washing at the basin. Only now, with his back to the teacher, did he wonder why the man had come.

‘I have come on behalf of the village mayor with a message,’ said the teacher. K. was ready to listen to what the mayor wanted, but as it was difficult to make himself heard through the sound of splashing water, the teacher had to come closer and lean against the wall beside K., who excused himself for washing and for his state of agitation by the urgency of the call he intended to pay. The teacher ignored this, and remarked: ‘You were uncivil to the village mayor, that meritori-ous, experienced, and highly esteemed old man.’ ‘I didn’t know I had been uncivil,’ said K., drying himself. ‘But it’s true that I had something other than elegant manners to think about, something of importance to my very existence, which is threatened by a disgrace-ful official organization the details of which I need not describe to you, since you yourself work actively for the authorities. Has the vil-lage mayor complained of me?’ ‘In what quarter would he have complained?’ said the teacher. ‘Even if he knew where to turn, would he ever complain? I have simply drawn up, at his dictation, a small memorandum about your conversation, from which I learned quite enough about the mayor’s kindness and the way you answered him back.’ As K. was looking for his comb, which Frieda must have tidied away somewhere, he said: ‘What? A memorandum? Drawn up after the event, and in my absence, by someone who wasn’t present during the conversation? Not bad, I must say. And why a memoran-dum? Was it something official?’ ‘No,’ said the teacher, ‘semi-official, and the memorandum itself is only semi-official. It was written down solely because we must observe strict protocol in everything. At least it’s down on paper now, and it does you no credit.’ K., who had finally found the comb, which had slipped into the bed, said more calmly: ‘Well, so it’s down on paper.

Did you come just to tell me that?’ ‘No,’ said the teacher, ‘but I am not an automaton, and must tell you my opinion. The message I bring, on the other hand, is further proof of the mayor’s kindness, which I’d like to point out is beyond my own comprehension, and only under the pressure of my position and out of respect for the mayor do I deliver it.’ K., now washed and with his hair combed, sat at the table waiting for the shirt and his other clothes; he was not even curious about what the teacher was telling him, and he was also influenced by the landlady’s low opinion of the mayor. ‘I suppose it’s after midday?’ he said, thinking of the long way he had to go, and then, catching himself up, added: ‘But you wanted to tell me something about the mayor.’ ‘Very well,’ said the teacher, shrugging his shoulders as if disclaiming any responsi-bility of his own. ‘The village mayor fears that, if the decision on your affairs is too long in coming, you may do something thoughtless of your own accord. For my part, I don’t know why he fears that; my own view is that you might as well do what you like. We are not your guardian angels, we’re not obliged to chase after you wherever you go. Well then. The village mayor does not share my opinion. To be sure, he cannot hasten the decision itself, that’s a matter for the count’s authorities.

But he is ready to make a provisional and truly generous decision within his own competence, and now it remains only for you to accept it: he offers you the temporary post of school janitor.’ At first K. hardly noticed exactly what he was being offered, but the mere fact that there was an offer of any kind seemed to him not insignificant. It indicated that in the mayor’s view he was in a position to do things in his own defence which justified the parish council in going to some trouble to protect itself. And how seriously everyone took all this! The teacher, who had been waiting here for some time after writing out the memorandum, must have been posi-tively driven to come here by the mayor.
When the teacher saw that he had made K. thoughtful after all, he went on: ‘I put forward my own objections. I pointed out that so far no school janitor had been necessary, the sexton’s wife tidies up from time to time, supervised by my assistant teacher Miss Gisa, and I have quite enough trouble with the children, I really don’t want a janitor giving me more. But the mayor said that in fact it was very dirty in the school. I replied, truthfully, that it wasn’t so very bad. And, I added, will it be any better if we take this man on as janitor? Certainly not. Apart from the fact that he knows nothing about such work, the schoolhouse has only two large classrooms, and no extra rooms, so the school janitor and his family would have to live in one of the classrooms, sleep in it, perhaps even cook in it, which would hardly leave the place any cleaner. But the mayor pointed out that this posi-tion was a haven for you in your time of need, and so you would do your utmost to fill it well, and in addition, said the mayor, we would also be obtaining your wife and your assistants to work for us, so that it would be possible to keep not only the school itself but the school garden in perfect order. I was easily able to disprove all this.

At last there was no more the mayor could plead in your favour, so he laughed and just said well, after all you are a land surveyor, so you’d be able to tend the beds in the school garden particularly well. No one can take exception to a joke, and so I came to see you with this offer.’ ‘You have gone to unnecessary trouble, sir,’ said K. ‘I have no intention of accepting the position.’ ‘Excellent,’ said the teacher, ‘excellent. You decline it out of hand.’ And he took his hat, bowed, and left.
In a moment Frieda came up, looking anxious; she brought back the shirt un-ironed, and wouldn’t answer any questions. To divert her mind, K. told her about the teacher and his offer, but she was hardly listening. She threw the shirt down on the bed and hurried away again. Soon she came back, but with the teacher, who looked morose and gave not a word of greeting. Frieda begged him for a little patience—obviously she had done so already on the way here—and then took K. through a side door which he had not previously noticed into the attic next to his room, where she finally, out of breath and in great agitation, told him what had happened.

The landlady, angry that she had lowered herself to make certain confessions to K., and what was even worse had condescended, yielding as her nature was, to promote the idea of a conversation between Klamm and K., and now, having achieved nothing but, as she said, a cold and moreover insincere rejection, was determined not to have K. in the house any longer. If he had connections with the castle, she said, he had better make use of them very quickly, because he must leave the inn today, this very hour, and she would not take him back except by direct order of the authorities and under coercion; but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that, for she too had connections with the castle and would make use of them. Furthermore, he was in the house now as a result of the landlord’s negligence, and was not in any other distress at all, for this very morning he had boasted of having a bed for the night available to him elsewhere. Frieda was of course to stay here; if Frieda were to move out with K. she, the landlady, would be very unhappy, in fact she had collapsed beside the stove in the kitchen shedding tears at the mere thought of it, that poor woman with her heart trouble, but what else could she do, said Frieda, now that, as the landlady saw it anyway, the honour of Klamm’s memory and his mementoes was at stake. That was the landlady’s attitude. Frieda would indeed follow him, K., wherever he went, she said, through snow and ice,