“I’m coming to that too,” said the Superintendent, “but you couldn’t understand it without my giving a few more preliminary details. My mentioning the Control Officials just now was premature. So I must turn back to the discrepancies with Sordini. As I said, my defence gradually weakened. But whenever Sordini has in his hands even the slightest hold against anyone, he has as good as won, for then his vigilance, energy and alertness are actually increased and it’s a terrible moment for the victim, and a glorious one for the victim’s enemies. It’s only because in other circumstances I have experienced this last feeling that I’m able to speak of him as I do. All the same I have never managed yet to come within sight of him. He can’t get down here, he’s so overwhelmed with work; from the descriptions I’ve heard of his room every wall is covered with columns of documents tied together, piled on top of one another; those are only the documents that Sordini is working on at the time, and as bundles of papers are continually being taken away and brought in, and all in great haste, those columns are always falling on the floor, and it’s just those perpetual crashes, following fast on one another, that have come to distinguish Sordini’s workroom. Yes, Sordini is a worker and he gives the same scrupulous care to the smallest case as to the greatest.”
“Superintendent,” said K., “you always call my case one of the smallest, and yet it has given hosts of officials a great deal of trouble, and if, perhaps, it was unimportant at the start, yet through the diligence of officials of Sordini’s type it has grown into a great affair. Very much against my will, unfortunately, for my ambition doesn’t run to seeing columns of documents, all about me, rising and crashing together, but to working quietly at my drawing-board as a humble Land Surveyor.”
“No,” said the Superintendent, “it’s not at all a great affair, in that respect you’ve no ground for complaint—it’s one of the least important among the least important. The importance of a case is not determined by the amount of work it involves, you’re far from understanding the authorities if you believe that. But even if it’s a question of the amount of work, your case would remain one of the slightest; ordinary cases, those without any so-called errors I mean, provide far more work and far more profitable work as well. Besides you know absolutely nothing yet of the actual work which was caused by your case. I’ll tell you about that now. Well, presently Sordini left me out of count, but the clerks arrived, and every day a formal enquiry involving the most prominent members of the community was held in the Herrenhof. The majority stuck by me, only a few held back—the question of a Land Surveyor appeals to peasants—they scented secret plots and injustices and whatnot, found a leader, no less, and Sordini was forced by their assertions to the conviction that if I had brought the question forward in the Town Council, every voice wouldn’t have been against the summoning of a Land Surveyor. So a commonplace—namely that a Land Surveyor wasn’t needed—was turned after all into a doubtful matter at least. A man called Brunswick distinguished himself especially, you don’t know him, of course; probably he’s not a bad man, only stupid and fanciful, he’s a son-in-law of Lasemann’s.”
“Of the Master Tanner?” asked K., and he described the full-bearded man whom he had seen at Lasemann’s.
“Yes, that’s the man,” said the Superintendent.
“I know his wife, too,” said K. a little at random.
“That’s possible,” replied the Superintendent briefly.
“She’s beautiful,” said K., “but rather pale and sickly. She comes, of course, from the Castle?” It was half a question.
The Superintendent looked at the clock, poured some medicine into a spoon, and gulped at it hastily.
“You only know the official side of the Castle?” asked K. bluntly.
“That’s so,” replied the Superintendent, with an ironical and yet grateful smile, “and it’s the most important. And as for Brunswick; if we could exclude him from the council we would almost all be glad, and Lasemann not least. But at that time Brunswick gained some influence, he’s not an orator of course, but a shouter; but even that can do a lot. And so it came about that I was forced to lay the matter before the Town Council; however, it was Brunswick’s only immediate triumph, for of course the Town Council refused by a large majority to hear anything about a Land Surveyor. That too was a long time ago, but the whole time since, the matter has never been allowed to rest, partly owing to Sordini’s conscientiousness, who by the most painful sifting of data sought to fathom the motives of the majority no less than the opposition, partly owing to Brunswick’s stupidity and ambition, who had several personal acquaintances among the authorities whom he set working with fresh inventions of his fancy. Sordini, at any rate, didn’t let himself be deceived by Brunswick—how could Brunswick deceive Sordini?—but simply to prevent himself from being deceived a new sifting of data was necessary, and long before it was ended Brunswick had already thought out something new; he’s very very versatile, no doubt of it, that goes with his stupidity. And now I come to a peculiar characteristic of our administrative apparatus. Along with its precision it’s extremely sensitive as well. When an affair has been weighed for a very long time, it may happen, even before the matter has been fully considered, that suddenly in a flash the decision comes in some unforeseen place that, moreover, can’t be found any longer later on, a decision that settles the matter, if in most cases justly, yet all the same arbitrarily. It’s as if the administrative apparatus
