You almost killed Artur with that blow of your fist in the night—it was a blow struck against our happiness too. He fled to the castle to complain, and although he may be back soon, he’s not here now. Jeremias, however, stayed. While he’s on duty he fears the merest flicker of his master’s eyes, but off duty he fears nothing. He came and took me away when you had abandoned me. Under my old friend’s influence I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t unlock the school door; he broke the window and helped me out. We fled here, the landlord respects him, and the guests will be delighted to have such a good waiter on room service, so we were taken in. He isn’t living with me, but we share the same room.’ ‘In spite of everything,’ said K., ‘I’m not sorry I drove the assistants away from my service. If the relationship was as you describe it, then it was as well for everything to come to an end. Our happiness wouldn’t have been very great, in a marriage where two beasts of prey who duck only under the lash were also present. So I am grateful to that family too, since they unintentionally played their part in separating us.’ They fell silent, and went on walking up and down. No one could have said who had begun it. Frieda, beside K., seemed cross that he did not take her arm again. ‘So everything would be all right,’ K. went on, ‘and we could part and go away, you to your new master Jeremias, who probably still has a chill from the school garden—considering that, perhaps you’ve left him alone too long—I to go back to the school on my own or, since I have no busi-ness there without you, somewhere else, anywhere they will take me in. If I hesitate all the same, it’s because I still have good reason to doubt what you’ve told me a little. I get quite the opposite impres-sion of Jeremias.
All the time he was in my service he was after you, and I don’t think being on duty would have kept him for ever from attacking you in earnest. But now that he thinks his service to me is over, it’s different. Forgive me if I put it like this: since you are not his master’s fiancée any more, you are not such a temptation to him as you were before. You may be his childhood sweetheart, but in my opinion—although I really know him only from a short conversation last night—he doesn’t place much value on such emotions. I don’t know why he seems to you passionate. His way of thinking strikes me as particularly cool. As far as I’m concerned, he was given a job by Galater which was not, perhaps, very much to my liking, he tried to carry it out, with a certain devotion to duty, yes, that I will admit—it isn’t so very rare here—and part of it was to destroy our relationship. He may have tried that in various ways, one of them being to tempt you by his lustful behaviour, another—and here the landlady sup-ported him—to tell lies about my unfaithfulness. He succeeded in his attempt; some kind of memory of Klamm clinging to him may have helped; he did lose his post, but perhaps at the very moment when he didn’t need it any more, and now he harvests the fruits of his labours by helping you out of the school window, but with that his work is over, he’s not devoted to duty any more, he feels tired. He’d rather be in Artur’s place. Artur is probably not complaining at all but is enjoying praise and new commissions, but someone has to stay behind to see how things develop now. Looking after you is his rather onerous obligation. He doesn’t feel a trace of love for you, he told me so openly, as Klamm’s former lover you seem to him, natur-ally, someone to be respected, and settling into your room and feel-ing like a little Klamm for once must be very nice, but that’s all. You yourself mean nothing to him, it is only as a small part of his main task that he has had you taken back here; he’s stayed himself so as not to make you uneasy, but only for the time being, until he gets more news from the castle and you have cured him of his chill.’ ‘How you slander him!’ said Frieda, and struck her little fists together. ‘Slander him?’ said K. ‘No, I don’t mean to slander him. But I may be doing him wrong, that’s always possible. What I have said about him isn’t clear for all to see; it may be interpreted otherwise.
But slander? The only purpose of slander could be to counter your love for him. If that were necessary, and if slander were a suitable means, I wouldn’t hesitate to slander him. No one could blame me for that; the man who sent him gave him such an advantage over me that, alone and relying only on myself, I might well try a little slander. It would be a relatively innocent, if ultimately useless, means of defence. So give those fists of yours a rest.’ And K. took Frieda’s hand in his; Frieda tried to withdraw it, but smilingly, and not exerting very much strength. ‘However, I don’t have to slander him,’ said K., ‘because you don’t love him, you only think you do, and you will be grateful to me for opening your eyes to the deception. Look, if someone wanted to separate you from me without force, but by dint of very careful calculation, then it had to be done through the two assistants. Apparently good, childish, amusing, irresponsible lads coming here from on high, from the castle, a little memory of your childhood too, that’s all very delightful, particularly if I am the opposite of all this, always out and about on business that you don’t entirely understand, that bothers you, that brings me together with people whom you dis-like, and for all my innocence perhaps you transfer some of that dis-like to me. The whole thing is just a malicious, if very clever, exploitation of the flaws in our relationship. Every relationship has its flaws, and so does ours; we came together out of two entirely different worlds, and since we have known each other both our lives have taken an entirely new turn. We still feel uncertain of ourselves; it is all too new. I am not speaking about myself, that’s not so import-ant, basically I have been given gift after gift since you first turned your eyes to mine, and it’s not very difficult to get accustomed to gifts. But you, apart from everything else, were torn away from Klamm; I can’t judge what that means, but I have gradually gained some notion of it. The ground shakes beneath your feet, you can’t find your way, and even if I was always ready to steady you I wasn’t always present, and when I was, your attention was sometimes claimed by your reveries, or a more physical presence such as the landlady—there were moments when you looked away from me, longing to be some-where else, somewhere half-unspecified, poor child, and in such interim periods suitable people had only to be brought in front of your eyes and you were lost to them, a prey to the pretence that what were only brief moments, ghosts, old memories of your past life now passing further and further away, still made up your real life in the present.
A mistake, Frieda, nothing but the last obstacle in the way of our final union, and seen in the right light it’s a pathetic one. Come to yourself, come to your senses; you may have thought that the assistants were sent by Klamm—which is not true; they come from Galater—and if they could cast such a spell on you with the help of that deception, you may then have thought you saw traces of Klamm even in their dirt and dissolute ways, just as someone may think he sees a lost jewel in a muck-heap, while he couldn’t find it there even if it were real. But they are only rough fellows like the servants who sleep in the stables, except that they don’t have the same sturdy good health; a little fresh air makes them sick and sends them to bed, although they know how to choose the bed as astutely as any of those servants.’ Frieda had laid her head on K.’s shoulder, and they walked up and down in silence, with their arms around one another. ‘If only,’ said Frieda slowly, calmly, almost contentedly, as if she knew that only a little time of peace against K.’s shoulder was granted her, but she wanted to enjoy it to the last, ‘if only we had gone away at once, that very night, we could be somewhere safe now, still together, your hand always close enough for me
