I am Momus,* Klamm’s village secretary.’ At these words the whole room turned very serious; although the landlady and Pepi of course knew the gentleman well, they were still impressed by the mention of his name and dignified office. And the gentleman buried himself in the files and began writing, as if he had said too much even for himself to take in and wanted to avoid any extra solemnity implied by his words, so there was nothing to be heard in the room but the scratching of his pen. ‘What does village secretary mean?’ K. asked after a while. Speaking for Momus, who didn’t think it appro-priate to give such explanations after introducing himself, the land-lady said: ‘Mr Momus is a secretary to Klamm like any of Klamm’s other secretaries, but his office, and if I am not wrong also his official sphere of influence—’ here Momus shook his head vigorously as he wrote, and the landlady corrected herself—‘well, only his office and not his official sphere of influence is restricted to the village. Mr Momus deals with all Klamm’s written work that may be necessary in the village, and is the first to receive all petitions to Klamm coming from the village.’ And as K., still not much impressed by all this, looked blankly at the landlady, she added, almost awkwardly: ‘That’s the way it’s organized; all the gentlemen from the castle have their village secretaries.’ Momus, who in fact had been listening much more attentively than K., added, to the landlady: ‘Most of the village secretaries work only for one master, but I work for two, Klamm and Vallabene.’ ‘Yes,’ said the landlady now, also remember-ing, and turned to K. ‘Mr Momus works for two masters, for Klamm and for Vallabene, so he is village secretary twice over.’ ‘Twice over—fancy that,’ said K., nodding as you might nod to a child whom you have just heard praised and addressing Momus, who now, leaning forward, looked up at him. If there was a certain disdain in that nod, it either went unnoticed or actually seemed requisite. The merits of a man from Klamm’s close circle were being presented at length to K. of all people, deemed unworthy even to have Klamm set eyes on him by chance, and it was done with the unconcealed inten-tion of demanding K.’s recognition and praise. Yet K. was not in the mood for it; having tried with all his might to get a glimpse of Klamm, he did not rate the position of a man like Momus who could always see Klamm particularly highly, and admiration, even envy, were far from his mind. Klamm’s proximity in itself was not so very much worth striving for; the point was that he, K., he alone and no one else, was trying to get to Klamm with his own requests, not for the sake of lingering with him but in order to get past him and go on into the castle.
So he looked at his watch and said: ‘Well, I must be going home now.’ Immediately the footing they were on changed in favour of Momus. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘Your duties as school janitor call you. But you must give me a moment longer. Just a few brief ques-tions.’ ‘I don’t feel like it,’ said K., moving towards the door. Momus slammed a file down on the table and stood up. ‘In Klamm’s name, I command you to answer my questions.’ ‘In Klamm’s name?’ repeated K. ‘Why, is he interested in my affairs, then?’ ‘On that point,’ said Momus, ‘I have no authority to judge, and I suppose you have much less. We will both of us leave that to him. However, I com-mand you, in the position entrusted to me by Klamm, to stay here and answer me.’ ‘Mr Land Surveyor,’ said the landlady, joining in, ‘I won’t advise you any further. You have rejected my advice so far, the best-meant advice that could ever be given, in the most outra-geous manner, and I came here to see this gentleman, Mr Secretary Momus—I have nothing to hide—only to inform his office in a fitting manner of your conduct and your intentions, and to protect myself forever from any possibility of your being lodged with me again. That’s how matters stand between us, and nothing about it will change now. If I tell you my opinion at this point, it is not to help you but to give Mr Secretary Momus here some slight assistance in the onerous task of dealing with a man like you. All the same, on account of my total candour—and I cannot be other than candid with you, reluctant as I am to talk to you at all—all the same, you may derive some benefit from my remarks if you like.
I will therefore point out that the only way leading you to Klamm will be through Secretary Momus’s records here. However, I don’t want to exagger-ate; perhaps the path does not lead to Klamm at all, perhaps it will come to an end long before reaching him, it all depends on the good-will of Mr Secretary Momus. But in any case it’s the only way lead-ing in the direction of Klamm, for you at least. And are you going to refrain from taking that one and only path solely out of defiance?’ ‘Oh, madam,’ said K., ‘it is not the only way to Klamm, nor is it worth more than any other. So do you, Mr Secretary, decide whether what I choose to say here may come to Klamm’s ears or not?’ ‘Yes, indeed I do,’ said Momus, lowering his eyes proudly and looking to left and to right, where there was nothing to be seen. ‘Why else would I be his secretary?’ ‘There, you see, madam,’ said K. ‘I don’t need a way to Klamm, only to Mr Secretary Momus.’ ‘I was going to open that way up for you,’ said the landlady. ‘Didn’t I offer, yester-day afternoon, to see that your request reached Klamm? That would have been done through Mr Momus. But you turned my offer down, and yet there won’t be any other way for you, only that one. To be sure, after your performance today, after your attempt to accost Klamm, you’ll have even less chance of success. But this last small, vanishingly small, almost non-existent hope is the only hope you have.’ ‘How is it, madam,’ said K., ‘that at first you tried so hard to keep me away from Klamm, and now you take my request seriously, and seem to consider me lost, so to speak, if my plans fail? If you could once advise me not to try seeing Klamm at all, and do so hon-estly, how can you now, and equally honestly, positively urge me forward on the path to Klamm, even if admittedly it may not lead to him?’ ‘Urge you forward?’ said the landlady. ‘Is it urging you for-ward if I say that your attempts are hopeless? How brazen you would be to go palming off the responsibility on me like that! Is it by any chance the presence of Mr Secretary Momus that makes you want to do it? No, Mr Land Surveyor, I am not urging you to do anything. I can confess to only one thing, that when I first saw you I may have overestimated you a little.
Your swift conquest of Frieda alarmed me; I didn’t know what else you might be capable of. I wanted to prevent further harm, and thought the only way to do it was for me to try deterring you by dint of requests and threats. But now I have learned to think about the whole affair more calmly. You may do as you wish. Perhaps you may leave deep footprints in the snow out in the yard, but that will be the only result of your actions.’ ‘The contradiction doesn’t seem to me entirely explained,’ said K., ‘but I will be satisfied with having pointed it out to you. However, now, Mr Secretary, I’ll ask you to tell me whether the landlady is right, I mean in saying that the records you want me to help you complete could result in my getting an interview with Klamm. If that is the case, then I’m prepared to answer all your questions at once. Yes, if it comes down to that I am ready for anything.’ ‘No,’ said Momus, ‘there’s no such connection. My business is only to get a precise account of this afternoon’s events down on paper for Klamm’s village registry. The account is drawn up already, there are just two or three gaps I want you to fill in to make sure it’s all in order. There is no other purpose, nor can any other purpose be achieved.’ K. looked at the landlady in silence. ‘Why are you looking at me?’ asked the land-lady. ‘Isn’t that what I said myself ? He’s always like that, Mr Secretary, he’s always like that. Falsifies the information he’s given, and then claims to have been wrongly informed. I’ve been telling him forever, I tell him today and I always will, that he hasn’t the slightest prospect of an interview with Klamm, and if there isn’t any prospect of
