The consequences of this way of life did show in him some-times, but never in Gisa’s presence, only in ridiculous outbursts at moments when he once more felt wounded in his official pride, which to be sure did not suit his present situation. When such inci-dents occurred they usually turned out rather badly, as K. had dis-covered for himself.
The only surprising thing was that Schwarzer was spoken of with a certain respect, at least at the Bridge Inn, even in matters that hardly merited it but were rather ridiculous, and the respect felt for him extended to Gisa. All the same, it was not right for Schwarzer, as an assistant teacher, to feel so vastly superior to K. No such super-iority in fact existed; a school janitor is someone of great importance to the teaching staff of a school, certainly to a teacher of Schwarzer’s kind; he may not be disdained with impunity, and if such disdain is felt, if someone feels he must show it for reasons of his own status, something suitable should at least be done in recompense. K. liked to think of that now and then, and Schwarzer was still in his debt from that first evening. The debt had not been diminished by the fact that the next few days had shown Schwarzer’s reception of him to be cor-rect, for that reception, it must not be forgotten, might have deter-mined the course of all that followed it.
Because of Schwarzer, the full attention of the authorities had, nonsensically enough, been drawn to K. that very first hour, when he was still a total stranger in the village, knowing no one, with nowhere to go, worn out by his long journey on foot, helpless as he lay there on the straw mattress, at the mercy of every attack from the authorities on high. Only a night later it might all have gone differently, smoothly, and in some privacy. At least no one would have known anything about him, would have had no suspicion, would at least not have hesitated to let him spend a day with them as a travelling craftsman. They would have seen how useful and reliable he was, word of it would have gone around the neighbourhood, he would probably soon have found a job as a manservant somewhere.
Of course he would not have chal-lenged the authorities. But there was a great difference between call-ing Central Office or someone else to the telephone in the middle of the night on his account, asking an official in Central Office to make an instant decision, and moreover asking him to do this with apparent humility but irritating persistence, especially when the person doing the asking was Schwarzer, who was probably not popular up there, and going to knock on the village mayor’s door next day instead. K. could have gone there during working hours, could have said, as the situation required, that he was a stranger here, a travelling journeyman who had found a bed for the night with a certain resident of the parish, and was probably going on in the morning unless he found work here, improbable as that might be, work for only a few days, naturally, on no account would he stay any longer.
That, or something like it, was how matters would have gone but for Schwarzer. The authorities would have looked into his case all the same, but at leisure, in the line of business, undisturbed by the impatience of the party pressing them for answers, whom they prob-ably particularly disliked. Well, K. was not to blame for any of this, it was Schwarzer’s fault, but Schwarzer was the son of a castle war-den, and to outward appearance had behaved perfectly correctly, so it could only be chalked up against K. And what was the ludicrous reason for the whole thing? Perhaps a little spurt of temper on Gisa’s part that day, which had left Schwarzer wandering around at night suffering from insomnia, and taking his annoyance out on K. Looking at it from the other side, of course, you could say that K. owed a good deal to Schwarzer’s conduct. That alone had made something pos-sible that K. would never have done on his own, would never have dared to try on his own, and for their part the authorities would hardly have allowed it: from the first he had come face to face with those authorities, so far as that was possible, openly and without equivocation. But that was a poor sort of compensation; it might spare K. a good deal of lying and secretiveness, but it also left him almost defenceless, or at least put him at a disadvantage in his strug-gle, and could have cast him into despair had he not felt obliged to remember the disproportionate balance of power between the authorities and himself.
All the lies and cunning of which he might be capable could not have done much against that disproportion, but must have been only a relatively minor factor. However, this was only an idea entertained by K. to console himself. Schwarzer was still indebted to him, all the same, and if he had done K. harm at first, perhaps he could help now, for K. was going to need help in future in the slightest things, in his basic prerequisites, and Barnabas seemed to have failed him once more. For Frieda’s sake K. had hesitated all day to go to Barnabas’s home, to avoid having to receive him in front of Frieda he had worked out of doors, and after the work was done had stayed outside waiting for Barnabas, but Barnabas did not come. Now there was nothing for it but to visit the sisters, just for a little while; he would simply stand in the doorway to ask his question, and he’d soon be back. So he rammed the shovel into the snow and went off. He arrived at the Barnabas family’s house out of breath, knocked briefly, flung the door open, and asked, paying no attention to what the room looked like: ‘Hasn’t Barnabas come in yet?’ Only now did he notice that Olga wasn’t there, that once again the two old people were drowsing at the table, which was a long way from K.—they still hadn’t taken in the fact of his arrival at the door, and turned their faces to look his way only slowly—and finally that Amalia was lying under some rugs on the bench beside the stove, and in her first fright at K.’s appearance had started up and was holding her hand to her forehead to recover herself.
If Olga had been here, then she would have replied at once, and K. would have been able to leave again, but as it was he had to take at least the few steps that would bring him to Amalia. He offered her his hand, which she pressed in silence, and asked her to keep her alarmed parents from wandering off, which she did with a few words. K. learned that Olga was out in the yard chopping wood, the exhausted Amalia—she did not say why she was exhausted—had had to lie down just now, and no, Barnabas was not home yet, but he was sure to come in very soon, for he never stayed at the castle overnight. K. thanked her for the information. Now he was free to go again, but Amalia asked if he wouldn’t like to wait for Olga. He was sorry, he said, he had no time just now. Then Amalia asked if he had already spoken to Olga that day. Surprised, he answered in the negative, and asked whether there was anything in particular that Olga wanted to tell him. Amalia curled her lip as if mildly annoyed, nodded silently to K., clearly in farewell, and lay down again. From her reclining position she scrutin-ized him as if surprised to see that he was still there. Her gaze was cold, clear, fixed as ever, and was not precisely directed at what she was observing, instead passing by it almost imperceptibly, but with-out any doubt, which was
