The Castle

the contrary from his own mouth I refuse to believe it. Besides it may possibly be greatly to your own advantage, too, if I don’t accept your notice, given so hastily.” “So you don’t accept it?” asked the teacher. K. shook his head. “Think it over carefully,” said the teacher, “your decisions aren’t always for the best; you should reflect, for instance, on yesterday afternoon, when you refused to be examined.” “Why do you bring that up now?” asked K. “Because it’s my whim,” replied the teacher, “and now I repeat for the last time, get out!” But as that too had no effect the teacher went over to the table and consulted in a whisper with Fräulein Gisa; she said something about the police, but the teacher rejected it, finally they seemed in agreement, the teacher ordered the children to go into his classroom, they would be taught there along with the other children. This change delighted everybody, the room was emptied in a moment amid laughter and shouting, the teacher and Fräulein Gisa followed last. The latter carried the class register, and on it in all its bulk the perfectly indifferent cat. The teacher would gladly have left the cat behind, but a suggestion to that effect was negatived decisively by Fräulein Gisa with a reference to K.’s inhumanity. So, in addition to all his other annoyances, the teacher blamed K. for the cat as well. And that influenced his last words to K., spoken when he reached the door: “The lady had been driven by force to leave this room with her children, because you have rebelliously refused to accept my notice, and because nobody can ask of her, a young girl, that she should teach in the middle of your dirty household affairs. So you are left to yourself, and you can spread yourself as much as you like, undisturbed by the disapproval of respectable people. But it won’t last for long, I promise you that.” With that he slammed the door.

XIII

Hardly was everybody gone when K. said to the assistants: “Clear out!” Disconcerted by the unexpectedness of the command they obeyed, but when K. locked the door behind them they tried to get in again, whimpered outside and knocked on the door. “You are dismissed,” cried K., “never again will I take you into my service!” But that, of course, was just what they did not want, and they kept hammering on the door with their hands and feet. “Let us back to you, sir!” they cried, as if they were being swept away by a flood and K. were dry land. But K. did not relent, he waited impatiently for the unbearable din to force the teacher to intervene. That soon happened. “Let your confounded assistants in!” he shouted. “I’ve dismissed them,” K. shouted back; it had the incidental effect of showing the teacher what it was to be strong enough not merely to give notice, but to enforce it. The teacher next tried to soothe the assistants by kindly assurances that they had only to wait quietly and K. would have to let them in sooner or later. Then he went away. And now things might have settled down if K. had not begun to shout at them again that they were finally dismissed once and for all, and had not the faintest hope of being taken back. Upon that they recommenced their din. Once more the teacher entered, but this time he no longer tried to reason with them, but drove them, apparently with his dreaded rod, out of the house.

Soon they appeared in front of the windows of the gymnasium, rapped on the panes and cried something, but their words could no longer be distinguished. They did not stay there long either, in the deep snow they could not be as active as their frenzy required. So they flew to the railings of the school garden and sprang on to the stone pediment, where, moreover, though only from a distance, they had a better view of the room; there they ran to and fro holding on to the railings, then remained standing and stretched out their clasped hands beseechingly towards K. They went on like this for a long time, without thinking of the uselessness of their efforts; they were as if obsessed, they did not even stop when K. drew down the window blinds so as to rid himself of the sight of them. In the now darkened room K. went over to the parallel bars to look for Frieda. On encountering his gaze she got up, put her hair in order, dried her tears and began in silence to prepare the coffee. Although she knew of everything, K. formally announced to her all the same that he had dismissed the assistants. She merely nodded. K. sat down at one of the desks and followed her tired movements. It had been her unfailing liveliness and decision that had given her insignificant physique its beauty; now that beauty was gone. A few days of living with K. had been enough to achieve this. Her work in the taproom had not been light, but apparently it had been more suited to her. Or was her separation from Klamm the real cause of her falling away? It was the nearness of Klamm that had made her so irrationally seductive; that was the seduction which had drawn K. to her, and now she was withering in his arms.

“Frieda,” said K. She put away the coffee-mill at once and went over to K. at his desk. “You’re angry with me?” asked she. “No,” replied K. “I don’t think you can help yourself. You were happy in the Herrenhof. I should have let you stay there.” “Yes,” said Frieda, gazing sadly in front