The Castle

entirely right nor entirely wrong in their hopes, and I think, too, I can see the mistake that they made. In appearance, of course, everything seems to have succeeded. Hans is well provided for, he has a handsome wife, is looked up to, and the inn is free of debt. Yet in reality everything has not succeeded, he would certainly have been much happier with a simple girl who gave him her first love, and if he sometimes stands in the inn there as if lost, as you complain, and because he really feels as if he were lost⁠—without being unhappy over it, I grant you, I know that much about him already⁠—it’s just as true that a handsome, intelligent young man like him would be happier with another wife, and by happier I mean more independent, industrious, manly. And you yourself certainly can’t be happy, seeing you say you wouldn’t be able to go on without these three keepsakes, and your heart is bad, too. Then were Hans’ relatives mistaken in their hopes? I don’t think so. The blessing was over you, but they didn’t know how to bring it down.”

“Then what did they miss doing?” asked the landlady. She was lying outstretched on her back now gazing up at the ceiling.

“To ask Klamm,” said K.

“So we’re back at your case again,” said the landlady.

“Or at yours,” said K. “Our affairs run parallel.”

“What do you want from Klamm?” asked the landlady. She had sat up, had shaken out the pillows so as to lean her back against them, and looked K. full in the eyes. “I’ve told you frankly about my experiences, from which you should have been able to learn something. Tell me now as frankly what you want to ask Klamm. I’ve had great trouble in persuading Frieda to go up to her room and stay there, I was afraid you wouldn’t talk freely enough in her presence.”

“I have nothing to hide,” said K. “But first of all I want to draw your attention to something. Klamm forgets immediately, you say. Now in the first place that seems very improbable to me, and secondly it is indemonstrable, obviously nothing more than legend, thought out moreover by the flapperish minds of those who have been in Klamm’s favour. I’m surprised that you believe in such a banal invention.”

“It’s no legend,” said the landlady, “it’s much rather the result of general experience.”

“I see, a thing then to be refuted by further experience,” said K. “Besides there’s another distinction still between your case and Frieda’s. In Frieda’s case it didn’t happen that Klamm never summoned her again, on the contrary he summoned her but she didn’t obey. It’s even possible that he’s still waiting for her.”

The landlady remained silent, and only looked K. up and down with a considering stare. At last she said: “I’ll try to listen quietly to what you have to say. Speak frankly and don’t spare my feelings. I’ve only one request. Don’t use Klamm’s name. Call him ‘him’ or something, but don’t mention him by name.”

“Willingly,” replied K., “but what I want from him is difficult to express. Firstly, I want to see him at close quarters; then I want to hear his voice; then I want to get from him what his attitude is to our marriage. What I shall ask from him after that depends on the outcome of our interview. Lots of things may come up in the course of talking, but still the most important thing for me is to be confronted with him. You see I haven’t yet spoken with a real official. That seems to be more difficult to manage than I had thought. But now I’m put under the obligation of speaking to him as a private person, and that, in my opinion, is much easier to bring about. As an official I can only speak to him in his bureau in the Castle, which may be inaccessible, or⁠—and that’s questionable, too⁠—in the Herrenhof. But as a private person I can speak to him anywhere, in a house, in the street, wherever I happen to meet him. If I should find the official in front of me, then I would be glad to accost him as well, but that’s not my primary object.”

“Right,” said the landlady pressing her face into the pillows as if she were uttering something shameful, “if by using my influence I can manage to get your request for an interview passed on to Klamm, promise me to do nothing on your own account until the reply comes back.”

“I can’t promise that,” said K., “glad as I would be to fulfil your wishes or your whims. The matter is urgent, you see, especially after the unfortunate outcome of my talk with the Superintendent.”

“That excuse falls to the ground,” said the landlady, “the Superintendent is a person of no importance. Haven’t you found that out? He couldn’t remain another day in his post if it weren’t for his wife, who runs everything.”

“Mizzi!” asked K. The landlady nodded. “She was present,” said K. “Did she express her opinion?” asked the landlady.

“No,” replied K., “but I didn’t get the impression that she could.”

“There,” said the landlady, “you see how distorted your view of everything here is. In any case: the Superintendent’s arrangements for you are of no importance, and I’ll talk to his wife when I have time. And if I promise now in addition that Klamm’s answer will come in a week at latest, you can’t surely have any further grounds for not obliging me.”

“All that is not enough to influence me,” said K. “My decision is made, and I would try to carry it out even if an unfavourable answer were to come. And seeing that this is my fixed intention, I can’t very well ask for an interview beforehand. A thing that would remain a daring