You imagine that an interview with Klamm is a matter of doing a deal, cash down for cash down. You reckon on all possibil-ities; just so long as you get the price you want you’re ready to do anything; if Klamm wants me, you will give me to him; if he wants you to stay with me, you will stay with me; if he wants you to reject me you’ll reject me, but you’re ready for pretence too if it’s to your advantage, you will pretend to love me, you will try to counter his indifference by emphasizing your own low worth, shaming him by the fact that you are his successor, or by telling him of my confes-sions of love for him, which I really did make, and asking him to take me back again, after paying the price, of course; and if there is noth-ing else for it, then you will simply beg in the name of Mr and Mrs K. But, the landlady concluded, if you then see that you have been wrong in every way, in your assumptions and in your hopes, in your idea of Klamm and his relationship with me, then my torments will really begin, for then more than ever I will be all you have, some-thing on which you rely although at the same time it has proved worthless, and you will treat me accordingly, since you have no feeling for me but a sense of ownership.’
K. had listened intently, his mouth firmly closed. The wood under him had started shifting so that he almost slipped and fell on the floor, but he took no notice of that. Only now did he stand up, sit down on the podium, take Frieda’s hand, which she feebly tried to withdraw from his, and said: ‘I wasn’t always able to tell your own opinion and the landlady’s apart in what you said.’ ‘It was only the landlady’s opinion,’ said Frieda. ‘I listened to it all because I respect the landlady, but it was the first time in my life that I’d ever entirely dismissed her opinion. Everything she said seemed to me so pitiful, so far from any understanding of how matters really stood between the two of us. In fact the truth seemed to be the complete opposite of what she said. I thought of that gloomy morning after our first night. How you knelt beside me, with a look that seemed to say all was lost. And then it really did turn out that, much as I tried, I didn’t help you, I was a hindrance to you. Through me the landlady became your enemy, a powerful enemy and one you still underestimate. It was for my sake, because you have to provide for me, that you had to fight for your job, you were at a disadvantage with the village mayor, you had to submit to the teacher, you were at the mercy of the assist-ants, and the worst of it is that for my sake you may even have offend-ed Klamm. The fact that you kept wanting to see Klamm was only a useless attempt to be reconciled with him somehow. And I told myself that the landlady, who must know all this much better than I did, was only trying to keep me from reproaching myself too much with her whispered insinuations.
It was well-meant but unnecessary trouble. My love for you would have helped me to get over anything, it would finally have buoyed you up too, if not here in the village then somewhere else, it had already given proof of its power in saving you from Barnabas and his family.’ ‘So that was your opinion at the time,’ said K. ‘And what has changed since then?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Frieda, looking at K.’s hand holding her own. ‘Perhaps nothing has changed; when you are so close to me, and you ask so calmly, I think nothing has changed. But in reality,’ she added, withdrawing her hand, sitting up straight opposite him, and shedding tears openly, holding her tear-stained face up to him as if she were not crying over herself and so had nothing to hide, as if she were in tears over K.’s betrayal and the misery of the sight was meant for him, ‘in reality everything changed when I heard you talking to that boy. How inno-cently you began, asking about his life at home, about this, that, and the other, I felt as if you were just coming into the bar, so trusting, so open-hearted, seeking to meet my eyes in such a childlike, eager way. There was no difference between then and now, I only wished the landlady were here listening to you, and I tried to stick to that opinion. But then suddenly, I don’t know just how, I noticed why you were talking to the boy like that.
Your words of sympathy won his trust, which is not easily given, so that you could make straight for your goal, which I saw more and more clearly. Your goal was that woman. Your apparent concern for her now openly showed that you were thinking only of your own affairs. You are betraying the woman before you’ve even won her. I heard not only my past but my future in your words, it was as if the landlady were sitting beside me explaining it all, and I was trying to argue against her with all my might, but clearly seeing the hopelessness of any such thing, and yet it was not really I who was being deceived now, it was the other woman. And when I pulled myself together and asked Hans what he wanted to be, and he said a man like you, he was so utterly devoted to you, oh, what a difference was there between him now, that good boy whose trust you have abused so badly, and me then in the bar of the inn?’
‘Everything you say,’ said K., who had managed to pull himself together as he grew used to her reproachful tone, ‘everything you say has something in it, it is not untrue, only hostile. Those are the thoughts of the landlady, my enemy, even if you believe they are your own, and that’s a comfort to me. But they are instructive; there’s a lot to be learnt from the landlady. She didn’t say all this to me herself, although she hasn’t spared me otherwise; obviously she handed you this weapon hoping that you would use it at a particu-larly bad or crucial time for me. If I am abusing your trust, then so is she. But now, think, Frieda: even if it were all exactly as the landlady says, it would be very bad only in one event, which is to say if you don’t love me.
Then and only then would I really have won your heart by calculation and cunning for the sake of advantage. Perhaps it would even have been part of my plan to make you feel sorry for me, and that was why I appeared in front of you arm in arm with Olga, and the landlady has simply forgotten to add that to the list of my misdeeds. But if that’s not the case, and no cunning beast of prey snatched you away, but instead you came to me as I went to you and we found each other, forgetting ourselves, tell me, Frieda, then what? Then I am backing your cause as well as mine, there’s no difference, and only an enemy like the landlady can separate the two. That’s true in general, and it also applies to Hans. And in judging my conversation with Hans your tender feelings lead you to exaggerate wildly, for if what Hans and I want is not entirely the same, no actual conflict of interests is involved, and what’s more, our own difference of opinion was no secret from Hans. If you think so, then you under-estimate that cautious little fellow, and even if he didn’t notice any-thing, I hope no harm would come to anyone because of that.’
‘It’s so difficult to know what to think, K.,’ said Frieda, sighing. ‘I certainly didn’t feel any distrust of you, and if I caught something of the kind from the landlady I will gladly dismiss it and beg you on my knees to forgive me, which is really what I am doing constantly, even if I say nasty things. But it is still true that you’ve kept a good deal secret from me. You come and go, and I don’t know where to and where from. When Hans knocked on the door you even called out the name of Barnabas. If only you had ever just once uttered my name as lovingly, as for some reason I don’t understand you uttered that hated name! If you don’t trust me, how can I feel no distrust myself ? And then I’m left to the landlady, and your conduct seems to confirm what she says. Not
