time I had protection. And the landlord was glad I had protection, which made it easy for him to take me back. It was almost as if they had to press me to take the job, and if you stop to think what the bar reminds me of you’ll understand why. But in the end I accepted. I’m just helping out as a chambermaid. Pepi asked them not to shame her by making her leave the bar at once, so since she’s been working hard, and done everything as well as she was able, we’ve given her twenty-four hours’ grace.’ ‘That’s all very efficiently arranged,’ said K., ‘but you once left the bar for my sake, and are you going back there now just before our wedding?’ ‘There isn’t going to be any wedding,’ said Frieda. ‘Because you think I was unfaithful?’ asked K. Frieda nodded. ‘Look here, Frieda,’ said K., ‘we’ve often talked about this supposed unfaithfulness of mine, and in the end you always had to acknowledge that your suspicions were unjust. Nothing has changed since then so far as I’m concerned, everything is as innocent as ever, and that can’t change either. So there must have been some change on your part, because of rumours whispered by other people, or perhaps another reason. You do me wrong anyway, for what do you think my feelings are for those two girls? One of them, the dark one—I am almost ashamed to have to defend myself in such detail, but you make me—I probably find the dark girl’s company as awkward as you do; if I can avoid her then I do, and that suits her as well.

No one could be more reserved.’ ‘Yes,’ cried Frieda, and the words burst out as if against her will. K. was glad to see her mind diverted from the subject. She wasn’t acting as she had intended. ‘You may think her reserved, you call that most shameless of all women reserved, and incredible as it may be you mean it; you are not pretending, I know that. The landlady of the Bridge Inn says of you: “I can’t stand the man, but I can’t leave him to his fate either; when you see a small child who can’t walk very well yet venturing too far you can’t help yourself, you have to do some-thing about it.” ’ ‘Well, take her advice this time, then,’ said K., smil-ing. ‘We can leave that girl right out of it—whether she’s reserved or shameless, I don’t want to know about her.’ ‘But why do you call her reserved?’ Frieda persisted. K. thought this attitude of hers a good sign for him. ‘Have you tried making approaches, or do you want to run others down by saying so?’ ‘Neither,’ said K. ‘I’m just glad I can describe her as reserved, because she makes it easy for me to ignore her, and if she were to accost me frequently I couldn’t bring myself to go back there, which would be unfortunate, since I have to go there on account of our joint future, as you know. That’s why I have to talk to the other girl, and while I appreciate her efficiency, circum-spection, and lack of egotism, no one can call her a temptress.’ ‘The servants think otherwise,’ said Frieda. ‘In that and in much else,’ said K. ‘Are you going to conclude that I’m unfaithful because the servants give their lust free rein?’ Frieda did not reply, and allowed K. to take the tray from her, put it on the floor, link arms with her, and begin slowly walking up and down the small space in her com-pany. ‘You don’t know what it means to be faithful,’ she said, pulling slightly away from him. ‘The way you may behave with those girls isn’t the main thing; your going to see that family at all and coming back with the smell of their living-room on your clothes shames me beyond bearing. And then you leave the school without a word. And you stay half the night with them, and when someone comes looking for you, you get the girls to deny that you are there, to deny it pas-sionately, especially the one who’s so wonderfully reserved. You slink out of the house by a secret way, perhaps to spare the reputation of those girls. The reputation of those girls, indeed! No, let’s not talk about it any more.’ ‘No, let’s not talk about that,’ agreed K., ‘but about something else. You’re right, there’s no more to be said on that subject.

You know why I have to go there. It isn’t easy for me, but I overcome my feelings. You shouldn’t make it harder for me than it is already. Today I meant to call just for a minute and ask whether Barnabas was home at last, because for a long time he’s been sup-posed to be bringing me an important message. He hadn’t returned, but I was credibly assured that he was bound to be home soon. I didn’t want to have him following me back to the school, in order to spare you his presence. Well, the hours passed by, and I’m afraid he didn’t come. But someone else did, someone I hate. I didn’t want to have him spying on me, so I left through the garden of the house next door, but I wasn’t going to hide from him either, and instead I went openly out on the road, carrying, I admit, a very flexible willow switch. That’s all, so there’s no more to be said about that either, although again there is something else to add. What about those assistants, mention of whom I find almost as repellent as mention of that family is to you? Compare your relationship with them and my conduct towards that family. I understand your dislike of the family, and can share it. I visit them only for the sake of our cause, and sometimes I almost feel that I’m exploiting them and doing them wrong. But what about you and the assistants? You don’t deny that they are pursuing you, and you’ve admitted that you are attracted to them. I wasn’t angry with you for that, I saw that there are forces beyond your control at work here, I was happy to think that at least you were resisting, I helped to defend you, and just because I neglected to do so for a couple of hours, trusting in your constancy and, moreover, in the hope that the place was firmly locked up and the assistants finally put to flight—I’m afraid I keep underestimating them—just because I neglected our defence for a couple of hours, and that man Jeremias, who when you look at him closely is not very healthy and is getting on in years, had the gall to go up to the window—am I to lose you just for that, Frieda, and be greeted with the news that “there isn’t going to be any wedding”? Shouldn’t I be the one to feel I might reproach you? But I don’t, no, I still don’t reproach you.’ Once again, it seemed a good idea to K. to take Frieda’s mind off the subject, so he asked her to bring him something to eat, since he hadn’t eaten anything since midday. Obviously relieved by such a request, Frieda nodded and went off to fetch something, going not further along the corridor in what K. expected to be the direction of the kitchen, but down a couple of steps to one side. She soon brought back a plate of sliced cold meats and a bottle of wine, but these looked like the remains of someone else’s supper. The slices of meat had been rearranged in a hurry to disguise the fact, but there were even some sausage-skins left on the plate, and the bottle was three-quarters empty.

However, K. said nothing about that, and set about his meal with a hearty appetite. ‘Did you go to the kitchen?’ he asked. ‘No, to my room,’ she said. ‘I have a room down here.’ ‘Well, you might have taken me with you,’ said K. ‘I’ll go along there now so that I can sit down while I eat.’ ‘I’ll bring you a chair,’ said Frieda, and was on her way again. ‘No, thank you,’ said K., hold-ing her back. ‘I won’t go down there after all, nor do I need a chair now.’ Frieda bore his grip on her with an expression of defiance, with her head bent and biting her lip. ‘Very well, yes, he’s down there,’ she said. ‘What else did you expect? He’s lying in my bed, he caught a chill outside, he’s freezing, he could hardly eat a thing. Basically it’s all your fault. If you hadn’t chased the assistants away and gone run-ning after those people, we could be sitting peacefully in the school-house now. You’re the one who’s destroyed our happiness. Do you think that as long as he was in your service Jeremias would have dared to run off with me? If so, you don’t understand the way things work here in the slightest. He wanted to be near me, he was in torments, he lay in wait for me, but that was just a game, like a hungry dog playing about yet not daring to jump on the table. And it was the same with me. I was attracted to him, he was my playmate in our childhood days—we played together on the slopes of Castle Mount, ah, happy days! You’ve never asked me about