K. heard no more. He was asleep, remote from everything that was going on. His head, which had first been laid on his left arm as it held the bedpost above, had slipped off in his sleep and now hung free, sinking gradually lower, for the prop of his arm above it was no longer enough and K. instinctively created a new one by bracing his right hand on the blanket, by chance taking hold of Bürgel’s foot just under the bedclothes. Bürgel looked that way and let him hold the foot, though it was probably tiresome for him.
Then there were several heavy knocks on the side wall. K. woke with a start and looked at the wall. ‘Isn’t the land surveyor in there?’ asked a voice. ‘Yes,’ said Bürgel, freeing his foot from K. and sud-denly stretching with a wild and wilful movement like a little boy. ‘Then tell him to hurry up and get himself in here,’ said the voice, without any consideration for Bürgel or for the fact that he might still need K. ‘That’s Erlanger,’ said Bürgel in a whisper. He did not seem at all surprised to know that Erlanger was in the next room. ‘Go straight in to him; he’s in a temper, so you’d better try to mollify him. He sleeps soundly, but our voices were too loud; when you’re speaking of certain subjects you can’t really control your voice. Go along, then, you don’t seem able to wake up properly. Go on, what more do you want in here? No, no, you don’t have to apologize for your drowsiness, why should you? Physical strength is enough only up to a certain point; who can help it if that very point is also very significant otherwise? No one can help it. That’s the way the world corrects itself in its course and keeps its balance. It’s an excellent, incredibly excellent arrangement, although dismal in other respects. Now do run along, I don’t know why you’re staring at me like that.
If you hesitate any longer Erlanger will be down on me like a ton of bricks, and that’s something I’d much rather avoid. Go on, who knows what you should expect over there, this place is full of opportunities. Well, of course there are opportunities too great, in a certain way, to be exploited; there are things that fail only of their own volition and for no other reason. Yes, amazing. Anyway, I hope I can get a little sleep now, though it’s five in the morning already and the noise will soon begin. I do wish to goodness you’d go away at last!’
Dazed from being woken suddenly from deep sleep, still in dire need of more sleep, his body hurting all over as a result of his uncom-fortable position on the bed, K. couldn’t bring himself to stand up for some time. He clutched his forehead and looked down at his lap. Even Bürgel’s repeated goodbyes couldn’t get him moving, he was induced to move only by a sense of the total futility of lingering in this room any longer. The room seemed to him indescribably bleak. Whether it had become like that, or had always been like that, he couldn’t say. He wouldn’t even manage to get to sleep again here. That conviction was in fact the deciding factor. Smiling at it slightly, he rose, propping himself against anything he could find to support him, the bed, the wall, the door, and he went out without a word, as if he had taken leave of Bürgel long ago.
24
He would probably have passed Erlanger’s door with equal indiffer-ence if Erlanger hadn’t been standing in the doorway, crooking his forefinger to beckon him in. Erlanger was already fully clothed, pre-paring to leave; he wore a black fur coat with a high-buttoned collar. A servant was just handing him his gloves, and still held a fur cap. ‘You were supposed to be here long ago,’ Erlanger said. K. was about to apologize, but by closing his eyes wearily Erlanger showed that he could do without that. ‘It’s about the following matter,’ he said. ‘There was once a girl called Frieda serving in the bar, I know only her name, I don’t know the girl herself, I’m not concerned with her. This Frieda sometimes brought Klamm his beer. There seems to be another girl there now. The change is of no significance, of course, probably not for anyone and certainly not for Klamm. But the more important a man’s work, and Klamm’s is certainly the most import-ant of all, the less strength he has left to defend himself against the outside world, and as a consequence any insignificant change in the most insignificant little things can be seriously disturbing to him. The smallest change on his desk, the removal of a dirty mark that has been there for ever, anything like that can upset a man, and so can the arrival of a new barmaid. Well, of course nothing of the kind bothers Klamm, there can be no question of that, even if it would bother anyone else in any line of work you like to mention. All the same, we are in duty bound to watch over Klamm’s comfort by removing troublesome factors if they appear to us potentially upset-ting, even if they do not, as is very probable, upset him at all. We remove these troublesome factors not for his sake, not for his work’s sake, but for our own sake, for the sake of our conscience and peace of mind. So that girl Frieda must return to the bar at once; perhaps her return will itself be disturbing, then and only then will we send her away again, but for the time being, however, she must come back. I’m told that you are living with her, so kindly make sure she comes back immediately. Personal feelings must be left out of this, that’s obvious, so I am not going to enter into any further discussion of it.
I am already doing more than is really necessary if I say that, should you be of service in this small matter, it could possibly be useful to you in your further progress. And that is all I have to say to you.’ He nodded to K. in farewell, put on the fur cap handed to him by his servant, and went down the corridor, walking fast but with a slight limp and followed by the servant. Sometimes the orders given here were very easy to carry out, but K. didn’t like the ease of this one at all. That was not just because this order concerned Frieda, and indeed, while it was intended as an order, it sounded to K. like ridi-cule, but above all because it showed K. how useless all his own efforts were. Orders were given above his head, the unfavourable and the favourable alike, and ultimately even the favourable probably had a nub of something unfavourable in them, but anyway they all went above his head, and his status was far too low for him to intervene or actually silence them and get his own voice heard. If Erlanger waves you away, what will you do, and if he were not to wave you away, what could you say to him? K. was in fact clear in his own mind that his weariness had harmed him more today than anything unfavour-able in the circumstances, but why could he, who had believed he could rely on his physical strength and would never have set out without that conviction, why could he not endure a few disturbed nights and one without any sleep at all, why was he so uncontrollably tired here, in this particular place, where no one was ever tired—or perhaps, more likely, people were always tired without its affecting their work, but instead seeming to be good for it? You could con-clude from that fact that, in its own way, it was a weariness entirely different from K.’s. Here, it was probably weariness in the midst of enjoyable work, something that from outside looked like weariness but was really unshakeable calm, unshakeable peace. If you are a little tired at noon, that’s part of the natural and happy course of the day. And for the gentlemen here, K. told himself, it’s always noon.
Very much in keeping with that idea, signs of life were now heard all over the place, on both sides of the corridor, at five in the morning. At first the babble of voices in the rooms had something extremely cheerful about it. Sometimes it sounded like the happy shouting of children getting ready for an outing, or then again like chickens waking up in the henhouse, a joyful noise just right for the dawning day. Somewhere or other, one of the gentlemen was even imitating the crowing of a cockerel. The corridor itself was still empty, but the doors were beginning to move. They kept being opened just a little way and quickly closed again, there was a positive percussion of such opening and closing of doors in the corridor, and now and
