All was quiet except for the heavy and sometimes stertorous breathing of her parents. K. simply said, in a non-committal tone, as if expanding Olga’s story: ‘So you’ve all been pretending to me. Barnabas brought me the letter, acting like a busy, experienced messenger, and both you yourself and Amalia, who was obviously in league with you and Barnabas this time, made out that his work as a messenger and the letters themselves were nothing much to speak of.’ ‘You must distinguish between us,’ said Olga. ‘Those two letters made Barnabas a happy child again, in spite of all his doubts about what he is doing. He entertains those doubts only so far as he and I are concerned; in your case his honour requires him to figure as a real messenger, just like his own idea of real messengers. For instance, although his hopes of getting an official suit are now rising, within two hours I had to alter his trousers so that they would at least look like the close-fitting trousers worn by the castle employ-ees, and as of course it’s easy to deceive you in such things, he can hold his own in front of you. That’s just like Barnabas. Amalia, how-ever, really does despise his work as a messenger, and now that he seems to be having a little success, as she can easily tell from the way Barnabas and I sit together whispering, she despises it even more. She is speaking the truth, never let yourself be so far deceived as to doubt that. But if I have sometimes belittled the work of a messen-ger, K., it was not with any intention of deceiving you, it was out of fear. Those two letters brought by Barnabas are the only sign of grace, doubtful as it may be, that our family has had in three years. This turn in our fortunes, if it really is a turn in our fortunes and not another deception—for deceptions are more common than such a happy turn of events—is connected with your arrival here, and our fate now depends on you to some extent. Perhaps those two letters are just a start, and Barnabas’s activities will extend far beyond carrying messages to you—we’ll hope for that as long as we can—but for the time being it all points to you. As for the castle up there, we must content ourselves with what they give us, but down here we may perhaps be able to do something ourselves, that’s to say make sure of your favour, or at least preserve ourselves from your dislike, or, and this is the main point, protect you as far as our powers and experience allow, so that you don’t lose your connection with the castle, which might be a lifeline to us too. But how best to do that? How to ensure that you would have no suspicion of us when we approach you, because you’re a stranger here and so you nurture certain well-justified suspicions of everyone? In addition we are gen-erally disdained, and you are influenced by the general opinion, particularly your fiancée’s, so how can we approach you without, for instance, being at odds with your fiancée even if we didn’t intend it, and thus hurting your feelings?
And the messages, which I read closely before you got them—Barnabas hasn’t read them, as a mes-senger he isn’t allowed to—at first sight they don’t seem very import-ant, they’re old, they diminished any importance of their own by referring you to the village mayor. How are we to behave to you in view of that? If we made much of their importance, we’d be suspect for overestimating something so obviously unimportant, vaunting our merits as the ones who brought those messages to you, pursuing our own ends and not yours. Why, in that way we could belittle the messages themselves in your eyes and deceive you, which is the last thing we want to do. But if we suggest that the messages aren’t very important then we’re suspect too, because why in that case would we bother about delivering these unimportant letters, why would our actions and our words contradict each other, why would we deceive not only you, to whom they are addressed, but our employer, who certainly didn’t give us the letters to have our explanations devalue them in the eyes of the person who received them? And treading the middle line between these extremes, I mean assessing the letters cor-rectly, is impossible because they keep changing their own value, they give rise to endless considerations, and only chance decides where we stop, that’s to say, opinion is a matter of chance. Then bring our fear of you into it as well, oh, it all gets so confused, and you mustn’t judge what I say too severely. For instance, if as it hap-pened Barnabas came home with the news that you weren’t satisfied with his work as a messenger, and in his first alarm, unfortunately showing something of a messenger’s sensitivity, offered to resign, I’d be in a position to retrieve his mistake by practising deception, by telling lies, by betrayal, anything bad so long as it will help. Yet then I’d be doing it, or at least I think I would, as much for your sake as for ours.’
There was a knock. Olga went to the door and opened it. A strip of light fell into the darkness from a dark lantern. The late visitor asked whispered questions and was given whispered answers, but he wasn’t satisfied with that, and tried coming into the room. It seemed that Olga couldn’t stop him, so she called Amalia, obviously hoping that to protect her parents’ sound sleep Amalia would do all in her power to make the visitor go away. Sure enough she came hurrying up, pushed Olga aside, stepped out into the road, and closed the door behind her. It took her only a minute, and she was back as soon as she had done what Olga couldn’t.
K. then heard from Olga that the visitor had come about him; it had been one of the assistants looking for him on behalf of Frieda. Olga had wanted to protect K. from the attentions of the assistants; if K. was going to tell Frieda about his visit here later, then well and good, but it ought not to be the assistants who found out that he had been to see them, as K. agreed. However, he declined Olga’s sugges-tion that he might stay the night here and wait for Barnabas; so far as he was concerned he might have accepted, for it was late, and it seemed to him that now, whether he liked it or not, he was so bound to this family that even if it might be awkward for other reasons, staying the night here was the most natural thing in the world for him because of the bond between them. However, he still declined, made uneasy by the assistant’s visit; he could not understand how Frieda, who knew his mind, and the assistants, who had learnt to fear him, were now so much in league again that Frieda didn’t shrink from sending one of the assistants to find him, and only one at that. The other must have stayed with her. He asked Olga if she had a whip; she did not, but she had a good willow switch, which he took. Then he asked if there was another way out of this house. Yes, there was a second way out through the yard, only you had to climb over the garden fence and go through the garden next door before you came to the road. K. decided to do that. While Olga showed him the way across the yard to the fence, K. quickly tried to calm her fears, saying that he was not at all angry with her for giving the story her own little twist, but understood her very well, he thanked her for the confidence in him that she had shown, and proved by telling her story, and told her to send Barnabas to the school as soon as he came home, even if it was still night.
It was true that the messages brought by Barnabas were not his only hope, or he would be in a bad way, but he certainly didn’t want to try coping without them, he wanted to keep a good hold on them, but at the same time he wasn’t going to forget Olga, for with her courage, her circumspection, her clever mind, and the way she sacrificed herself for her family, Olga herself was almost more important to him than the messages. If he had to choose between Olga and Amalia, it wouldn’t take him much thought to make the choice. And he pressed her hand with heartfelt emotion as he swung himself up on the fence of the garden next door.
When he was out in the road, as far as the gloomy night would allow he could still see
