That’s clear enough too, it’s beyond all doubt. But if he doesn’t believe me and goes on and on hoping, don’t ask me why, that he will be able to see Klamm, then in view of the way his mind works nothing can help him but that one and only real official connection with Klamm, namely these records. That’s all I said, and anyone who claims anything different is mali-ciously distorting my words.’ ‘If that’s the case, madam,’ said K., ‘then I must apologize to you, and I’ve misunderstood you, for I thought, mistakenly as it now turns out, I had gathered from your earlier remarks that there was in fact some kind of hope for me, how-ever small.’ ‘Exactly,’ said the landlady, ‘just as I was saying. You’re twisting my words again, only this time in the opposite direction. In my view such a hope for you does exist, and it is indeed to be found solely in these records. But it is not the case that you can simply ask Mr Secretary Momus aggressively: “If I answer your questions, can I see Klamm?” If a child says something like that we laugh at it; if an adult does so, it is an insult to Klamm’s office, and the secretary kindly covered up for the insult with the elegance of his reply.
However, the hope I mean lies in the fact that through the records you have, or perhaps you may have, a kind of connection with Klamm. Isn’t that hope enough? If you were asked what merits you possess to make you worthy of the gift of such a hope, could you come up with the slightest thing? To be sure, nothing more precise can be said about that hope, and Mr Secretary Momus in particular will never be able to give the faintest hint of such a thing in his official capacity. For him, as he said, it is merely a matter of an account of this afternoon, to make sure that everything’s in order, and he will say no more even if you ask him here and now about it with reference to my remarks.’ ‘Very well, Mr Secretary,’ said K., ‘will Klamm read these records?’ ‘No,’ said Momus, ‘why would he? Klamm can’t read all the records, in fact he never reads any of them. “Oh, don’t come pestering me with your records!” he often says.’ ‘Mr Land Surveyor,’ wailed the landlady, ‘you really are exhausting me with such ques-tions. Is it necessary, is it even desirable, for Klamm to read the records and have a word-by-word account of the petty details of your life? Would you not rather beg humbly for the records to be kept from Klamm, although that request would be as unreasonable as the first, for who can keep anything from Klamm, but at least it would be evidence of a change of heart in you? And is it necessary for what you call your hope? Haven’t you said yourself that you would be happy if you just had a chance to speak in front of Klamm, even if he didn’t look at you or listen to you?
And will you not at least achieve that through these records, and perhaps much more?’ ‘Much more?’ asked K. ‘How?’ ‘If only’, cried the landlady, ‘you weren’t forever wanting to have everything presented to you ready on a plate, like a child! Who can answer such questions? The records go into Klamm’s village registry, as you’ve heard, no more can be said about the matter for certain. I mean, do you know the whole significance of the records, of Mr Secretary Momus, of the village registry? Do you know what it means for Mr Secretary Momus to question you? It’s possible, even probable, that he doesn’t know himself. He sits quietly here doing his duty to make sure, as he said, that everything is in order. You should remember that Klamm has appointed him, that he works in Klamm’s name, that what he does, even if it never reaches Klamm, is approved by Klamm from the first. And how can something be approved by Klamm from the first if it isn’t imbued with his own spirit? Far be it from me to offer Mr Secretary Momus blatant flattery, he himself would deplore it, I am not talking of his individual personality but of what he is when acting with Klamm’s approval, as he is now. He is a tool in Klamm’s hand, and if someone won’t do as he wants, well, that’s just too bad.’
K. was not afraid of the landlady’s threats, and he was tired of the hopes in which she was trying to entangle him. Klamm was far away; the landlady had once compared Klamm to an eagle, which had struck K. as ridiculous at the time, but not any more; he thought of Klamm’s remote distance, his impregnable residence, his silence, perhaps interrupted only by such screams as K. had never heard. He thought of Klamm’s piercing glance from on high that would brook no contradiction and couldn’t be tested either, of the immutable circles in which he soared, free from any interference by the likes of K. down below, moving by inscrutable laws and visible only for brief moments—Klamm and the eagle had all this in common. It was a fact, however, that the records over which Momus was crumbling a salted pretzel at this moment had nothing to do with any of this. He was enjoying the pretzel with his beer, scattering salt and crumbs all over the papers.
‘Well, good night,’ said K. ‘I have a rooted dislike of any kind of questioning.’ And he was on his way to the door. ‘Is he going, then?’ Momus asked the landlady, almost anxiously. ‘He’ll never dare,’ said the landlady. But K. heard no more; he was already out in the entrance hall. It was cold, and there was a strong wind blowing. The landlord, who seemed to have been keeping watch on the hall through some peephole, came through a doorway. Even here in the front hall the wind was tearing so hard at his coat-tails that he had to clutch them tightly around him. ‘So you’re off already, Mr Land Surveyor?’ he said. ‘Are you surprised?’ asked K. ‘Well, yes,’ said the landlord. ‘Haven’t you been questioned?’ ‘No,’ said K. ‘I wasn’t letting anyone question me.’ ‘Why not?’ asked the landlord. ‘I really don’t know why I should let myself be questioned,’ said K., ‘why I should go along with a joke or some official whim. And perhaps I’d have dismissed it as just a joke or a whim another time, but not today.’
‘Why no, to be sure,’ said the landlord, but he was agreeing only out of civility, not from conviction. ‘Well, I must let the servants into the bar now,’ he added. ‘They were supposed to start serving there long ago, I just didn’t want to disturb the hearing.’ ‘You thought it so important?’ asked K. ‘Oh yes,’ said the landlord. ‘Then you think I ought not to have refused to answer questions?’ asked K. ‘No,’ said the landlord, ‘you ought not.’ And as K. said nothing, he added, whether to console K. or to get on with the work in the bar more quickly: ‘Well, well, that doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily see fire and brimstone* raining down from the sky.’ ‘No, to be sure,’ K. agreed. ‘The weather doesn’t look like that at all.’ And they parted, laughing.
10
On the Road
K. went out on the steps up to the inn, where the wind was blowing wildly, and peered into the darkness. It was appalling weather. The thought of that somehow made him remember how hard the land-lady had tried to make him comply and help to complete the records, and how he had stood up to her. She hadn’t, of course, been making an honest effort; secretly she had been dissuading him at the same time, so after all he didn’t really know whether he had stood fi rm or given in. Hers was a nature made for intrigue, apparently working for no purpose, like the wind, according to strange and distant orders of which no one ever got a sight.
No sooner had he taken a few steps along the road than he saw two lights swaying in the distance. This sign of life cheered him, and he hurried towards the lights, which themselves were moving towards him. He didn’t know why he was so disappointed when he recognized the assistants; however, there they were coming his way, probably sent by Frieda, and he supposed the lanterns that freed him from the darkness in which the wind roared all around him were his own property. All the same, he was disappointed, for he had expected someone new, not these old acquaintances who were such a nuisance to him. But the assistants were not on their own; walking between them, Barnabas emerged from the darkness. ‘Barnabas,’ cried K., offering his hand. ‘Were you coming to find me?’ The surprise of this meeting at first made K. forget all the trouble that Barnabas had caused him. ‘Yes, indeed I was coming to find you,’ said Barnabas, with his old friendly manner, ‘with a letter from Klamm.’ ‘A letter from Klamm!’ said K., putting his head back and taking it swiftly from Barnabas’s hand. ‘Give me some light!’ he told
