Still, it needn’t be taken quite so literally.’ And Bürgel looked at K. inquiringly and cheerfully, for despite his complaint he seemed to be well rested, and probably had never been as tired as K. was just now. ‘Where are you going?’ asked Bürgel. ‘It’s four in the morning. You’d have to wake up anyone you wanted to see now; not every-one’s as used to being disturbed as I am, not everyone will take it so patiently, the secretaries are a highly strung lot. So stay here for a while. They begin to get up about five o’clock in this place, and then you’ll be able to comply with your summons better. So please let go of that handle and sit down somewhere, not that there’s much room, to be sure. You’d better sit on the edge of this bed. Are you surprised that I have neither a chair nor a table in here? Well, I had the choice of either a completely furnished room with a narrow hotel bed, or this big bed and nothing else but the washstand. I chose the big bed; after all, the bed is what matters most in a bedroom. Ah, this bed would be really excellent for a good sleeper, a man who could stretch out and sleep well. But it does even me good, always tired as I am without being able to sleep. I spend a large part of the day in it, I do all my correspondence here, and it’s where I conduct my hearings with members of the public. It works very well. To be sure, the members of the public have nowhere to sit, but they can manage without, and anyway it’s nicer for them to stand while the person conducting the hearing feels good than to sit comfortably while he keeps shouting at them. So I can offer only this place on the edge of the bed, but it’s not an official place, it’s just meant for nocturnal conversations. But you are so quiet, Mr Land Surveyor.’ ‘I’m very tired,’ said K., who had sat down on the bed at once on being invited, abruptly and unceremoniously, leaning against the bedpost. ‘Of course you are,’ said Bürgel, laughing. ‘Everyone here is tired. For instance, it was no small workload I dealt with both yesterday and today. It’s out of the question for me to sleep now, but if that extremely improbable event should occur, if I were to fall asleep while you’re here, then please keep perfectly still and don’t open the door. Never fear, though, I certainly won’t fall asleep, or if I do it will be at most only for a few minutes. The fact is that, probably because I am so used to the coming and going of members of the public, I always sleep most easily when I have company.’ ‘Do by all means go to sleep, Mr Secretary,’ said K., pleased to hear this announce-ment. ‘And then, if you will allow me, I will get a little sleep too.’
‘No, no,’ laughed Bürgel again. ‘I’m afraid I can’t fall asleep merely on invitation, the opportunity may come only in the course of con-versation. Yes, a conversation is the most likely thing to send me to sleep. Our business is bad for the nerves, you see. I, for instance, am a communications secretary. You don’t know what that is? Well, I am the main line of communication’—and so saying he rubbed his hands quickly with instinctive cheerfulness—‘between Friedrich and the village, I deal with communications between his castle secre-tary and his village secretary, I am generally in the village but not all the time, I have to be ready to drive up to the castle at a moment’s notice. You see that travelling-bag—ah, it’s a restless life, it’s not for everyone. On the other hand, it’s a fact that I couldn’t do without this kind of work now, any other work would seem to me dull. And what is land surveying like?’ ‘I’m not doing any of that; I’m not employed as a land surveyor here,’ said K., whose thoughts were not really on the subject. In fact he was simply longing for Bürgel to go to sleep, although even that was out of a certain sense of what he owed to himself; in the depths of his mind he thought he knew that the moment when Bürgel might fall asleep was still incalculably far away. ‘Well, that’s amazing,’ said Bürgel, throwing his head back in a lively manner and producing a notepad from under the blanket to write something down on it. ‘You are a land surveyor, and you have no surveying work to do.’ K. nodded mechanically. He had raised his left arm to the top of the bedpost and was resting his head on it. He had already tried various ways of making himself comfortable, but this was the most comfortable position of all.
Now he could pay a little more attention to what Bürgel was saying. ‘I am prepared’, Bürgel went on, ‘to pursue this question further. Matters here are certainly not in such a state that any professional skill ought to be left unused. And it must annoy you too. Don’t you suffer from it?’ ‘I do indeed suffer from it,’ said K. slowly, smiling to himself, for just now he did not suffer from it in the slightest. Moreover, Bürgel’s offer made little impression on him. It sounded thoroughly amateur-ish. Knowing nothing of the circumstances of K.’s appointment, of the difficulties put in its way in the village and the castle, of the com-plications that had already arisen or looked like arising during K.’s stay here—knowing nothing about any of that, even without giving any sign that, as might have been expected of a secretary, he had some faint idea of it all, he was proposing to put the whole thing in order with the help of his little notepad, just like that. But then Bürgel said: ‘You seem to have had several disappointments already,’ thus showing a certain understanding of human nature again, and ever since K. entered this room he had told himself from time to time not to underestimate Bürgel. However, in his present condition it was difficult to judge anything properly except his own weariness. ‘No, no,’ said Bürgel, as if replying to some thought in K.’s mind and kindly sparing him the trouble of saying it out loud. ‘You mustn’t let disappointments deter you. A good deal here seems designed for deterrence, and when you’re new to the place you feel it’s impossible to get past the obstacles. I don’t mean to try finding out how things really are, perhaps the appearance really corresponds to the reality, in my position I don’t stand at the right distance from it to establish that, but note this: opportunities sometimes arise that have hardly anything to do with the situation as a whole, opportunities when a word, a glance, a sign of trust can achieve more than tedious, life-long efforts. Yes, that’s the way of it. Of course these opportunities do agree with the situation as a whole in so far as they are never exploited. But why are they not exploited, that’s what I always won-der.’ K. didn’t know.
He did indeed realize that what Bürgel was talking about probably concerned him closely, but just now he had a great dislike for everything that concerned him closely. He moved his head a little way aside, as if he could thus leave the way clear for Bürgel’s questions to pass him by and not touch him any more. ‘It is,’ Bürgel went on, stretching his arms and yawning, in confusing contrast to the gravity of his words, ‘it is the secretaries’ constant complaint that they are obliged to hold most hearings in the village by night. And why do they complain of it? Because it puts too much strain on them? Because they’d rather use the night for sleep-ing? No, they definitely don’t complain of that. Of course there are both industrious and less industrious men among the secretaries, as everywhere, but none of them complains of being under excessive strain, certainly not in public. That is simply not our way. So far as that’s concerned, we see no difference between ordinary time and time spent working. We are strangers to such distinctions. So what do the secretaries have against hearings conducted by night? Is it perhaps consideration for the members of the public involved? No, that’s not it either. The secretaries are not at all considerate of those members of the public, although they are no more inconsiderate of the members of the public than they are of themselves, they are equally inconsiderate to both. And in fact this inconsiderate attitude, that is to say, the iron observance and performance of their duty, shows the greatest consideration that members of the public could wish for. Fundamentally—although a casual observer will not of course notice it—that is fully appreciated, and as in this case noctur-nal hearings are particularly welcome to members of the public, there is no objection to nocturnal hearings in principle. So why don’t the secretaries like them?’ K. did not know the answer to that either; he knew
