I mean fully occupied of course as members of the public would understand it, which of course is far from being the same as fully occupied in the sense in which the secretaries would do so.’ K. nodded with a smile. He thought he understood all about it, not because it troubled him but because he was now convinced that he would fall properly asleep in the next few minutes, and this time without any dream or other disturbance; between the secretaries responsible on one side and those not responsible on the other, and in view of the whole crowd of fully occupied members of the public, he would fall into a deep sleep and thus escape it all. By now he was so used to Bürgel’s quiet, self-satisfied voice, as he obviously endeavoured in vain to fall asleep himself, that it was more likely to send him to sleep than disturb his slumbers. Clatter, mill-wheel, clatter, he thought, clatter on for me. ‘So where,’ said Bürgel, two fingers toying with his lower lip, his eyes wide, craning his neck, as if he were approaching a delightful viewing-point after an arduous walk, ‘so where is that elusive oppor-tunity I mentioned, the one that almost never comes? The secret lies in the way responsibility is regulated. For it is not possible, nor in a large and living organization can it be, for only a certain secretary to be responsible for every case. It is simply that one secretary has the main responsibility, but many others have responsibility, even if less responsibility, for certain parts of it. Who, however hard a worker, could accommodate all the papers relating to even the smallest inci-dent on his desk? Even what I have said about the main responsibility is going too far. Is not the whole thing also contained in the smallest responsibility? Is not the ardour with which one approaches the case a crucial point? And is not that always the same, always present at full strength? There may be differences between the secretaries in everything, and there are countless such differences, but not in the matter of ardour, none of them will be able to hold back if he receives an invitation to take part in a case for which he has only the slightest responsibility.
Outwardly, however, an ordered opportunity for negotiation must be created, and so a certain secretary comes to the fore where the members of the public are concerned, and it is to him that they must officially turn. However, he does not have to be the one who bears the greatest responsibility for the case; the organiza-tion and its particular needs at the time influence the decision here. Such is the state of affairs. And now, Mr Land Surveyor, judge what chance there is for a member of the public, through circumstances of some kind and despite the obstacles already described to you (which in general are perfectly adequate), to take a secretary with a certain responsibility for the case by surprise in the middle of the night after all. I suppose you haven’t thought of such a thing yet? I’m happy to believe you. But it isn’t necessary to think of it, because it almost never happens. What a strange little grain of matter, formed in a certain special way, how very small and clever such a member of the public must be if it’s to slip through such a perfect sieve. You think it can’t happen? You are right, it can’t. But then—and who can guar-antee everything?—one night it does happen. To be sure, I know of no one among my acquaintances to whom it has happened, but that doesn’t prove much. By comparison with the numbers involved here, my own acquaintance is limited, and anyway it isn’t certain that a secretary to whom such a thing has happened will admit it. It is always a very personal matter, and to some extent carries the stigma of official shame. However, my experience may prove that it is such a rare event, really known only by rumour and with nothing else to con-firm it, that it would be going much too far to fear it. Even if it ever really happened you can—or so I should think—render it entirely harmless by proving, which is easily done, that there is no place for it in this world. Anyway, it is morbid to hide under the bedclothes for fear of such a thing, never venturing to look out. And even if that total improbability were suddenly to assume real form, is all lost? Far from it. The fact that all is lost is even more improbable than that most improbable of events. To be sure, if the member of the public is in the room, that is very bad. It inhibits you. How long will you be able to resist? you ask yourself. But you know there will be no resist-ance. You just have to picture the situation in the right way. There sits the member of the public, whom you have never seen before, whom you have always awaited, positively thirsting to see him, but whom you have always, and reasonably, considered inaccessible. His mere silent presence invites you to enter into his poor life, to move around there as if it were your own property, to feel sympathy for its vain demands. This invitation in the silence of the night is captivating.
You accept it, and now you have in fact stopped being an official. It is a situation in which it will soon become impossible to refuse a request. Strictly speaking you are desperate, but even more strictly speaking you are very happy. Desperate because the defence-lessness with which you sit there waiting for the member of the public’s request, knowing that once it is made you must grant it, even if, at least so far as you can see, it positively wrecks the official organization—well, I suppose it is the worst thing that can happen to you in practice. One reason above all—and apart from everything else—is that it entails your forcibly claiming a higher rank for your-self at this moment, higher than any you can conceive of. Our posi-tions do not authorize us to grant requests such as those I am talking about, but what with the nocturnal proximity of the member of the public our official powers seem to grow, we pledge ourselves to do things outside our sphere of responsibility, indeed, we will even do them in practice. Like a robber in the forest, a member of the public surprising us by night forces us to make sacrifices of which we would never otherwise be capable—well, that’s how it is if the member of the public is still there, encouraging us and forcing us to do so and spurring us on, and we set it all in train half unconsciously. But how will it be later, when that’s all over, when the member of the public goes away, satisfied and free of care, and we are left alone, defenceless in the face of our abuse of office? It doesn’t bear thinking of. Yet all the same we are happy. How suicidal happiness can be! We could make an effort to keep the true situation secret from the member of the public. The member of the public himself will hardly notice anything of his own accord.
As he sees it, he went into a room which wasn’t the one he wanted, probably quite by chance, tired out, disap-pointed, feeling dull and indifferent from weariness and disillusion-ment, he is sitting there knowing nothing and deep in thoughts, if he is thinking anything, of his mistake or his weariness. Couldn’t we leave it at that? No, we can’t. With the loquacity of the happy man, we must explain it all. Without sparing ourselves in the slightest, we must show at length what has happened and why, how extraordinar-ily rare and uniquely great the opportunity is, we must show how the member of the public who, with all the helplessness of which only a member of the public can be capable, has walked by chance into his opportunity, we must show him, Mr Land Surveyor, how the member of
