Then someone called out in the side corridor. It was Jeremias; he stood there on the bottom step in nothing but his shirt, but with a shawl of Frieda’s wrapped around him. As he stood there, hair tou-sled, his thin beard looking drenched as if with rain, keeping his eyes open with difficulty, pleading and reproachful, his dark cheeks red-dened but the flesh of them sagging, his bare legs trembling with cold, so that the long fringe of the shawl trembled too, he looked like a patient escaped from the hospital, and setting eyes on him you could think of nothing but getting him back to bed. That was how Frieda herself saw it. She moved away from K. and was beside him in a minute. Having her near him, the careful way with which she drew the shawl more closely around him, her haste in trying to make him go straight back into the room, seemed to make Jeremias a little stronger already. It was as if only now did he recognize K. ‘Ah, the land surveyor,’ he said, while Frieda, who didn’t want any more talk, patted his cheek soothingly. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you, but I don’t feel at all well, so you’ll excuse me. I think I’m running a tem-perature, I need an infusion to make me sweat. Those damned rail-ings in the school garden, I still think of them, and now, with a chill already, I’ve been running around all night. A man sacrifices his health, without even noticing at once, for things that really aren’t worth it. But as for you, Mr Land Surveyor, please don’t let me disturb you. Come into our room with us, come and visit the sick, and tell Frieda what else you have to say to her in there. If two people who are well known to each other part, of course they have so much to say in those last moments that a third person, even if he is lying in bed waiting for the promised infusion, can’t possibly understand it.
But do come in, and I’ll keep perfectly quiet.’ ‘Hush, hush,’ said Frieda, pulling at his arm. ‘He’s feverish and doesn’t know what he’s saying. But please don’t go with him, K. It is my and Jeremias’s room, or rather just my room, and I am forbidding you to go into it. You are persecuting me, oh K., why are you persecuting me? I will never, never come back to you; I shudder at the mere thought of it. Go to those girls of yours; they sit on the bench with you beside their stove in nothing but their shifts, as I’ve been told, and if someone comes looking for you they spit and hiss at him. I’m sure you feel very much at home there if you are so drawn to the place. I have always tried to keep you away from it, with little success, but I did try to keep you from it. Well, that’s over now. You are free. You have a fine life before you—you may have to fight the servants a little over one of them, but as for the second girl, no one on earth will grudge her to you. Your union is already blessed. Say nothing against it, I’m sure you’ll try to refute it all, but in the end it’s not to be denied. Just think, Jeremias, he denied it all!’ And they nodded and smiled at each other. ‘But,’ Frieda went on, ‘supposing he had refuted it all, what good would that have done, what do I care? As for what may happen to someone visiting those folk, that’s their business and his, not mine. It is my business to nurse you until you’re as healthy as you were before K. started tormenting you on my account.’ ‘So you really won’t come with us, Mr Land Surveyor?’ asked Jeremias, but Frieda, who wouldn’t even turn to look at K. any more, led him away. Down below K. could see a small door, even lower than the doors here in the corridor. Not only Jeremias but Frieda too had to bend her head as she went in. It looked bright and warm inside. There was still a little whispering to be heard, probably Frieda lovingly persuading Jeremias to go back to bed, and then the door was closed.
23
Only now did K. notice how quiet it had become in the corridor—not just in this part of the corridor, where he had been standing with Frieda and which seemed to be part of the domestic staff ’s quarters, but also in the long corridor with the rooms that had earlier sounded so lively leading off it. So the gentlemen had finally gone to sleep. K. himself was very tired, perhaps so weary that he hadn’t defended himself against Jeremias as he should have done. It might have been cleverer to take his cue from Jeremias himself, who was obviously exaggerating his chill—his pitiful state was not the result of a chill but was innate in him, not to be cured by any healthy herbal infu-sion—yes, to take his cue from Jeremias, make a great spectacle of his very real weariness, collapse here in the corridor, which would surely feel good, sleep for a while, and then perhaps enjoy a little nursing. Only it wouldn’t have turned out as well as it did for Jeremias, who would certainly and probably rightly have won in any such competition for sympathy, and no doubt any other contest too. K. was so tired that he wondered whether he might not try getting into one of these rooms, many of which must be empty, and have a good long sleep in a fine bed. He thought that might compensate for a good deal. He had a nightcap ready to hand too. There had been a small carafe of rum on the tray of china that Frieda had left lying on the floor. K. did not shrink from the effort of going back to it, and emptied the little flask.
Now at least he felt strong enough to appear before Erlanger. He looked for the door of Erlanger’s room, but as the servant and Gerstäcker were no longer to be seen, and all the doors looked the same, he couldn’t find it. However, he thought he remembered roughly whereabouts in the corridor the door was, and decided to try opening a door that in his opinion was probably the one he wanted. The ven-ture couldn’t be too risky; if the door led to Erlanger’s room, he supposed Erlanger would see him now; if it was someone else’s room he could apologize and leave again, and if the guest in the room was asleep, which was the most likely outcome, K.’s visit wouldn’t even be noticed. It could be unfortunate only if the room was empty, for then K. would hardly be able to resist the temptation of lying down on the bed and getting some sleep at last. He looked to right and left down the corridor again, to see whether, after all, anyone was coming who could give him information and make his daring venture unne-cessary, but the long corridor was quiet and empty. Then K. listened at the door, but again there was no noise. He knocked so softly that the sound could not have woken anyone sleeping inside, and when still nothing happened he very cautiously opened the door. However, a slight scream came to his ears. It was a small room, more than half filled by a broad bed, the electric light on the bedside table was on, and there was a small travelling-bag beside it. In the bed, but entirely hidden under the covers, someone moved uneasily and whispered, through a gap between the blanket and the sheet: ‘Who’s there?’ K. couldn’t simply leave again now, and he looked unhappily at the handsome but occupied bed, then remembered the question and gave his name. This seemed to make a good impression. The man in the bed drew the blanket back from his face a little way, but in alarm, ready to disappear again if anything was wrong out there.
But then, making up his mind, he turned the blanket right back and sat upright. He certainly wasn’t Erlanger. He was a small gentleman, evidently in good health, whose features didn’t quite fit with each other by virtue of the fact that the cheeks were childishly plump and the eyes childishly merry, but the high forehead, the sharp nose, the narrow mouth with lips that would hardly stay closed, and the almost receding chin were not childish at all, but indicated a capacity for deep thought. It was probably his self-satisfaction with that which had helped him to preserve a pronounced streak of healthy childish-ness. ‘Do you know Friedrich?’ he asked. K. said he did not. ‘But he knows you,’ said the gentleman, smiling. K. nodded; there were plenty of people who knew him, in fact it was one of the chief obs-tacles in his path. ‘I’m his secretary,’ said the gentleman, ‘and my name is Bürgel.’* ‘I’m sorry,’ said K., reaching for the door-handle. ‘I’m afraid I mixed your door up with another one. I was summoned to see Mr Secretary Erlanger.’ ‘What a pity!’ said Bürgel. ‘Not that you’re summoned to see someone else, it’s a pity
