K. turned round. The thing he had been fearing all morning had come. In the door stood the teacher; in each hand the little man held an assistant by the scruff of the neck. He had caught them, it seemed, while they were fetching wood, for in a mighty voice he began to shout, pausing after every word: “Who has dared to break into the wood shed? Where is the villain, so that I may annihilate him?” Then Frieda got up from the floor, which she was trying to clean near the feet of the lady teacher, looked across at
K. as if she were trying to gather strength from him, and said, a little of her old superciliousness in her glance and bearing: “I did it,
Mr. Teacher. I couldn’t think of any other way. If the classrooms were to be heated in time, the woodshed had to be opened; I didn’t dare to ask you for the key in the middle of the night, my fiancé was at the Herrenhof, it was possible that he might stay there all night, so I had to decide for myself. If I have done wrongly, forgive my inexperience; I’ve been scolded enough already by my fiancé, after he saw what had happened. Yes, he even forbade me to light the fires early, because he thought that you had shown by locking the woodshed that you didn’t want them to be put on before you came yourself. So it’s his fault that the fires are not on, but mine that the shed has been broken into.” “Who broke open the door?” asked the teacher, turning to the assistants, who were still vainly struggling to escape from his grip. “The gentleman,” they both replied, and, so that there might be no doubt, pointed at
K. Frieda laughed, and her laughter seemed to be still more conclusive than her words; then she began to wring out into the pail the rag with which she had been scrubbing the floor, as if the episode had been closed with her declaration, and the evidence of the assistants were merely a belated jest. Only when she was at work on her knees again did she add: “Our assistants are mere children who in spite of their age should still be at their desks in school. Last evening I really did break open the door myself with the axe, it was quite easy, I didn’t need the assistants to help me, they would only have been a nuisance. But when my fiancé arrived later in the night and went out to see the damage and if possible put it right, the assistants ran out after him, likely because they were afraid to stay here by themselves, and saw my fiancé working at the broken door, and that’s why they say now—but they’re only children—” True, the assistants kept on shaking their heads during Freida’s story, pointed again at
K. and did their best by means of dumb show to deflect her from her story; but as they did not succeed they submitted at last, took Frieda’s words as a command, and on being questioned anew by the teacher made no reply. “So,” said the teacher, “you’ve been lying? Or at least you’ve groundlessly accused the janitor?” They still remained silent, but their trembling and their apprehensive glances seemed to indicate guilt. “Then I’ll give you a sound thrashing straight away,” he said, and he sent one of the children into the next room for his cane. Then as he was raising it, Freida cried: “The assistants have told the truth!” flung her scrubbing-cloth in despair into the pail, so that the water splashed up on every side, and ran behind the parallel bars, where she remained concealed. “A lying crew!” remarked the lady teacher, who had just finished bandaging the paw, and she took the beast into her lap, for which it was almost too big.
“So it was the janitor,” said the teacher, pushing the assistants away and turning to K., who had been listening all the time leaning on the handle of his broom: “This fine janitor who out of cowardice allows other people to be falsely accused of his own villainies.” “Well,” said K. who had not missed the fact that Frieda’s intervention had appeased the first uncontrollable fury of the teacher, “if the assistants had got a little taste of the rod I shouldn’t have been sorry; if they get off ten times when they should justly be punished, they can well afford to pay for it by being punished unjustly for once. But besides that it would have been very welcome to me if a direct quarrel between me and you, Mr. Teacher, could have been avoided; perhaps you would have liked it as well yourself too. But seeing that Frieda has sacrificed me to the assistants now—” here K. paused, and in the silence Frieda’s sobs could be heard behind the screen—“of course a clean breast must be made of the whole business.” “Scandalous!” said the lady teacher. “I am entirely of your opinion, Fräulein Gisa,” said the teacher. “You, janitor, are of course dismissed from your post for those scandalous doings. Your further punishment I reserve meantime, but now clear yourself and your belongings out of the house at once. It will be a genuine relief to us, and the teaching will manage to begin at last. Now quick about it!” “I shan’t move a foot from here,” said K. “You’re my superior, but not the person who engaged me for this post; it was the Superintendent who did that, and I’ll only accept notice from him. And he certainly never gave me this post so that I and my dependants should freeze here, but—as you told me yourself—to keep me from doing anything thoughtless or desperate. To dismiss me suddenly now would therefore be absolutely against his intentions; till I hear
