Even if they are old, worthless letters picked at random out of a pile of other equally worthless letters, with no more understanding than the canaries at fairs have, pecking out people’s fortunes at random, well, even if that is so, at least those letters bear some relation to my work. They are obviously for me, if perhaps not for my own use, and as the village mayor and his wife have shown, they were written by Klamm himself and, again according to the village mayor, they have only private and rather obscure yet weighty significance.’ ‘Is that what the village mayor really said?’ asked Olga. ‘Yes, he did,’ replied K. ‘Oh, I’ll tell Barnabas,’ said Olga quickly, ‘it will encourage him so much.’ ‘He doesn’t need encouragement,’ said K. ‘Encouraging him means tell-ing him he’s right, he only has to go on as before, but that way he will never get anywhere. You can encourage someone with his eyes blind-folded to see through the blindfold as much as you like, he’ll still never see a thing. He can’t see until the blindfold is removed. Barnabas needs help, not encouragement. Think about it: up there are the authorities in their unimaginable greatness—I thought I had some approximate idea of them before I came here, but how childish that was!—well, up there are the authorities, and Barnabas comes into contact with them, all on his own, a pitiful sight. That in itself is too much honour for him, if he isn’t to spend the rest of his life cast up, adrift, in some dark corner of the offices.’ ‘Oh, K.,’ said Olga, ‘don’t think that we underestimate the heavy burden of the task that Barnabas has undertaken. We don’t fail in our awe of the authorities. You said so yourself.’ ‘But it is awe gone astray,’ said K. ‘Awe in the wrong quarters, and that dishonours its object.
Is it still worthy to be called awe if Barnabas misuses the privilege of entry to that room to spend idle days there, or if he comes down suspecting and belittling those before whom he has just been trembling? Or if, in despair or weariness, he fails to deliver letters at once, and doesn’t come straight back with messages entrusted to him? I don’t call that awe any more. But the blame for it goes further, it falls on you too, Olga, I can’t spare you that. Although you think you are in awe of the authorities, you sent Barnabas in all his youth and weakness and isolation to the castle, or at least you didn’t keep him from going.’
‘As for your reproaches,’ said Olga, ‘I have levelled them against myself for a long time. I am not to blame for sending Barnabas to the castle, I didn’t send him, he went of his own accord, but I ought perhaps to have kept him back by all possible means, by persuasion, by cunning, by main force. Yes, I ought to have kept him from it, but if today were that day of decision, if I were to feel the misery of Barnabas and our family then as I do now, if Barnabas were to move away from me again and go, gently and smiling, clearly aware of all the responsibility and danger, then even now I would not stop him, in spite of all we have gone through since then, and I think you yourself couldn’t act otherwise in my place. You don’t know our miserable situation, and so you do us, and particularly Barnabas, wrong.
We had more hope then than we do now, but even then our hope was not great, only our misery, and so it has remained. Hasn’t Frieda told you about us?’ ‘She’s only given vague hints,’ said K. ‘Nothing definite, but even the name of your family upsets her.’ ‘And the landlady too hasn’t said anything?’ ‘No, nothing.’ ‘Nobody else either?’ ‘Nobody.’ ‘Well, of course not, how could anybody say anything? Everyone knows something about us, either the truth so far as it’s available to them, or at least some kind of rumour they’ve heard or more usually invented themselves, and they all think about us more than is necessary, but no one will tell the story straight out. They’re afraid to put these things into words. And they’re right too. It’s difficult to dredge it all up, even to tell you about it, K., and isn’t it possible that when you’ve heard it you too will go away and won’t want to know any more about us, however little it seems to affect you personally? Then we’ll have lost you, and now, I confess, you mean almost more to me than all the service that Barnabas has so far ren-dered to the castle. And yet—this contradiction has been tormenting me all evening—and yet you must know about it, for otherwise you will not be able to get an idea of our situation, you will still be unjust to Barnabas, which would particularly distress me, we would lack the full agreement between ourselves that we need, and you could nei-ther help us nor accept our help, unofficial though it is. But there’s still one question. Do you want to know what it is?’ ‘Why do you ask?’ said K. ‘If it’s necessary, yes, I want to know it, but why do you ask like that?’ ‘Out of superstition,’ said Olga. ‘You will be drawn into our affairs in all innocence, and you won’t be much more to blame than Barnabas.’ ‘Go on, quick, tell me,’ said K. ‘I’m not afraid. Your feminine anxiety makes it seem even worse than it is.’
17
Amalia’s Secret
‘Judge for yourself,’ said Olga, ‘and by the way, it sounds very sim-ple, so you may not understand at once what great significance it can have. There’s an official at the castle called Sortini.’* ‘Oh, I’ve heard of him before,’ said K. ‘He had something to do with my appoint-ment.’ ‘I don’t think so,’ said Olga. ‘Sortini hardly ever appears in public. Aren’t you mixing him up with Sordini, spelt with a “d”?’ ‘You’re right,’ said K. ‘It was Sordini.’ ‘Yes,’ said Olga. ‘Sordini is very well known, he’s one of the most industrious of the officials, and there are many stories about him. Sortini, on the other hand, is extremely reserved and a stranger to most of us. It’s over three years ago that I saw him for the first and last time, on 3 July* at a fire-brigade festival. The castle joined in the festivities by donating a new fire engine. Sortini, who was said to be partly involved in the affairs of the fire brigade, or perhaps he was only deputizing for someone else—the officials very commonly deputize for each other, so it’s difficult to be sure which of them is responsible for what—anyway, Sortini took part in the presentation of the fire engine, and of course other people from the castle came too, officials and their servants, and Sortini, as suits his character, kept right in the background. He is a small, puny, thoughtful gentleman, and all who saw him noticed the frown on his brow, remarkable because all the lines in it—and there were a great many, although he can’t be over forty—fanned out over his forehead to the bridge of his nose. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, so the day of the fire-brigade festival came. We, I mean Amalia and I, had been looking forward to it for weeks. We had freshened up our Sunday best, and Amalia’s dress in particular was very fine, with her white blouse ruffled in front with row upon row of lace. Our mother had lent Amalia all her own lace. I was envious at the time and cried half the night before the party.
Only when the landlady of the Bridge Inn came to look us over in the morning—’ ‘The landlady of the Bridge Inn?’ asked K. ‘Yes,’ said Olga, ‘she was great friends with us, so she dropped in, and she had to admit that Amalia had the advantage over me, and to cheer me up she lent me her own Bohemian garnet necklace. When we were ready to go out, and Amalia was standing there in front of me, we all admired her and Father said: “Amalia will find a sweetheart today, you mark my words,” and then, I
