Pepi wouldn’t lure him out, even if she was half choked in the niche by the palpitations of her heart. There was no point in it, but if he didn’t come there was no point in almost anything. And he didn’t come. Today Pepi knows why Klamm didn’t come. Frieda would have been much amused if she had seen Pepi in the niche up in that corridor, both hands to her heart. Klamm didn’t come down because Frieda wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t her requests that had won the day, her requests carried no weight with Klamm. But that spider in her web has connections that nobody knows about. If Pepi says some-thing to a guest she says it openly, they can hear her at the table next to the guest’s too; Frieda has nothing to say, she just puts the beer down on the table and walks away, with only her silk petticoat rust-ling, it’s the one thing she will pay good money for. And if she does say something for once, she doesn’t say it openly, she whispers to the guest, bending down, so that they have to prick up their ears at the next table. Whatever she says is probably unimportant, but not always, she has connections, keeps some of them going through the others, and while most of them fail her—well, who would bother about Frieda in the long run?—now and then one will hold firm.

So she began exploiting these connections, K. gave her the opportunity for that, instead of staying with her and keeping watch on her he hardly goes home at all, he wanders around, talks to this person and that, watches out for everything except for Frieda, and finally, giving her yet more freedom, he moves from the Bridge Inn to the empty schoolhouse. That’s a fine start to a honeymoon! Well, Pepi is cer-tainly the last woman to blame K. for not being able to stand life with Frieda—no one can stand life with Frieda. But why didn’t he leave her entirely then, why did he keep going back to her, why did his wandering about give the impression that he was championing her? It looked as if only contact with Frieda had shown him how little he really meant, as if he wanted to make himself worthy of Frieda, as if he somehow wanted to work his way up and so, for the time being, held back from living with her so that later, in his own good time, he could make up for it. Meanwhile Frieda is not wasting time, she sits in the school to which she has probably been instrumental in bring-ing K., keeping watch on the Castle Inn and K. too. She has excellent messengers to hand, K.’s assistants, whom he leaves entirely to her—it is hard to understand that, even if you know K. you really can’t understand it. She sends them to her old friends, reminds them of what has happened, complains that she is kept captive by a man like K., stirs up bad feeling against Pepi, announces that she’ll be back any day now, asks for help, tells her friends not to say a word to Klamm, acts as if Klamm must be spared and so in no circumstances can he be allowed down into the bar. While she pretends to some that she is just being thoughtful for Klamm, she exploits her success with the landlord by pointing out that Klamm is not coming down there any more. How could he, when there’s only a girl like Pepi serving in the bar? Of course the landlord isn’t to blame, says Frieda, Pepi was just the best substitute he could find, only she’s not good enough even for a few days. K. knows nothing about all this intriguing on Frieda’s part; if he isn’t out and about he’s lying at her feet, suspect-ing nothing, while she counts the hours that still lie between her and her return to the bar. But the assistants don’t just act as messengers, they also serve to make K. jealous, to keep him on the boil. Frieda has known the assistants since her childhood, they certainly have no secrets from each other, but for K.’s benefit they start making eyes at each other, and K. is in danger of assuming it’s a great love. And K. does all he can to please Frieda, however contradictory it may be, he lets the assistants make him jealous but he allows the three of them to stay together while he goes off on long walks on his own. It’s almost as if he were Frieda’s third assistant. So on the grounds of what she’s observed, Frieda decides on her master-stroke—she decides to come back, and it is high time too, it’s remarkable how that cunning girl Frieda recognizes and exploits that fact, her power of observation and decision is Frieda’s special skill. If Pepi had it, how different would her own life be.

If Frieda had stayed at the school just one or two days longer, Pepi couldn’t have been driven away, she would have been the established barmaid at last, liked and loved by one and all, she’d have earned enough money to complete her wardrobe and fit herself out brilliantly, another two or three days and no tricks could have kept Klamm away from the bar, oh yes, he comes in, he drinks, he feels comfortable, and if he notices Frieda’s absence at all he is very happy about the change, another two or three days and Frieda, with her scandalous behaviour, with her connec-tions, with the assistants, with everything else, would be utterly forgotten, she would never surface again. Then would she perhaps cling all the more firmly to K., and at last learn to love him truly, assuming that she is capable of such a thing? No, not that either. For it wouldn’t take K. more than a day to tire of her, to realize how shamefully she is deceiving him in every way, with her supposed beauty, her supposed constancy, most of all with her supposed love for Klamm, only one day is all he’d need to chase her and those filthy assistants out of the house—you might think that not even K. would need longer. And then, between those two dangers, where the ground positively seems to be closing over Frieda, K. in his foolishness keeps the last way of escape open for her, a narrow one, and she takes it. Suddenly—hardly anyone expected it any more, it is unnatural— suddenly it is she chasing away K., who still loves her, still fol-lows her, and with the help of pressure from friends and assistants she looks to the landlord like a saviour, more enticing than before because of her scandalous behaviour, evidently desired by the lowest and the highest alike, and she fell for the lowest only briefly, soon rejected him again as was only proper, and she is now out of his reach and everyone else’s as in the old days, except that in the old days doubt, quite correctly, was cast on all that, but now her status seems to be confirmed. So she comes back, the landlord glances surreptitiously at Pepi and hesitates—is he to sacrifice her after she has proved her worth so well?—but soon he’s been persuaded. There’s too much in Frieda’s favour, and above all she will bring Klamm back to the guest-room. And that’s what this evening is all about. Pepi isn’t going to wait until Frieda comes back and makes taking over the job again into a scene of triumph.

She’s already handed the cash register over to the landlady, she can go. Her bunk bed down in the maids’ room is ready for her, she will go there, to be greeted by her friends in tears, will take the dress off her body and the ribbons out of her hair and stuff it all in a corner where it will be well hidden, and won’t unnecessarily remind her of times that are better forgotten. Then she will pick up the big bucket and the broom, grit her teeth, and set to work. But for now she simply had to tell K. everything, so that he, who wouldn’t have understood all this yet without any help, will just for once see clearly how badly he has treated Pepi and how unhappy he has made her. Although in fact he too has merely been misused.
Pepi had finished what she had to say. She mopped a few tears from her eyes and cheeks and then looked at K., nodding, as if to say it wasn’t really her own misfortune that troubled her, she would bear it, and didn’t need help or consolation from anyone, least of all K., in spite of her youth she knew life, and her unhappiness just con-firmed what she knows, no, this was about K., she wanted to hold his own picture up to him, even after the collapse of all her own hopes she thought she ought to do that.

‘What a wild imagination you have, Pepi,’ said K. ‘Why, it’s not true that you have discovered all these things only now; they’re noth-ing but dreams from the dark, cramped room you and the other chambermaids share. They may be in place there, but they look strange here in the open, in the bar. You couldn’t have held your ground here with such notions, that’s obvious. Even your dress and your hairstyle, on which you pride yourself so much, are just the fantastic outcome of that darkness