After a while there was a soft rap at the door. “Barnabas!” cried K., throwing down the broom, and with a few steps he was at the door. Frieda stared at him, more terrified at the name than anything else. With his trembling hands K. could not turn the old lock immediately. “I’ll open in a minute,” he kept on repeating, instead of asking who was actually there. And then he had to face the fact that through the wide-open door came in, not Barnabas, but the little boy who had tried to speak to him before. But K. had no wish to be reminded of him. “What do you want here?” he asked, “the classes are being taught next door.” “I’ve come from there,” replied the boy looking up at K. quietly with his great brown eyes, and standing at attention, with his arms by his side. “What do you want then? Out with it!” said K. bending a little forward, for the boy spoke in a low voice. “Can I help you?” asked the boy. “He wants to help us,” said K. to Frieda, and then to the boy: “What’s your name?” “Hans Brunswick,” replied the boy, “fourth standard, son of Otto Brunswick, master cobbler in Madeleinegasse.” “I see, your name is Brunswick,” said K. now in a kinder tone. It came out that Hans had been so indignant at seeing the bloody weals which the lady teacher had raised on K.’s hand, that he had resolved at once to stand by K. He had boldly slipped away just now from the classroom next door at the risk of severe punishment, somewhat as a deserter goes over to the enemy. It may indeed have been chiefly some such boyish fancy that had impelled him. The seriousness which he evinced in everything he did seemed to indicate it. Shyness held him back at the beginning, but he soon got used to K. and Frieda, and when he was given a cup of good hot coffee he became lively and confidential and began to question them eagerly and insistently, as if he wanted to know the gist of the matter as quickly as possible, to enable him to come to an independent decision about what they should do. There was something imperious in his character, but it was so mingled with childish innocence that they submitted to it without resistance, half-smilingly, half in earnest. In any case he demanded all their attention for himself, work completely stopped, the breakfast lingered on unconscionably. Although Hans was sitting at one of the scholars’ desks and K. in a chair on the dais with Frieda beside him, it looked as if Hans were the teacher, and as if he were examining them and passing judgment on their answers. A faint smile round his soft mouth seemed to indicate that he knew quite well that all this was only a game, but that made him only the more serious in conducting it; perhaps too it was not really a smile but the happiness of childhood that played round his lips. Strangely enough he only admitted quite late in the conversation that he had known K. ever since his visit to Lasemann’s. K. was delighted. “You were playing at the lady’s feet?” asked K. “Yes,” replied Hans, “that was my mother.” And now he had to tell about his mother, but he did so hesitatingly and only after being repeatedly asked; and it was clear now that he was only a child, out of whose mouth, it is true—especially in his questions—sometimes the voice of an energetic, farseeing man seemed to speak; but then all at once, without transition, he was only a schoolboy again who did not understand many of the questions, misconstrued others, and in childish inconsiderateness spoke too low, although he had the fault repeatedly pointed out to him, and out of stubbornness silently refused to answer some of the other questions at all, quite without embarrassment, however, as a grownup would have been incapable of doing. He seemed to feel that he alone had the right to ask questions, and that by the questions of Frieda and K. some regulation were broken and time wasted. That made him sit silent for a long time, his body erect, his head bent, his underlip pushed out. Frieda was so charmed by his expression at these moments that she sometimes put questions to him in the hope that they would evoke it. And she succeeded several times, but K. was only annoyed. All that they found out did not amount to much. Hans’s mother was slightly unwell, but what her illness was remained indefinite; the child which she had had in her lap was Hans’ sister and was called Frieda (Hans was not pleased by the fact that her name was the same as the lady’s who was questioning him), the family lived in the village, but not with Lasemann—they had only been there on a visit and to be bathed, seeing that Lasemann had the big tub in which the younger children, to whom Hans didn’t belong, loved to bathe and splash about. Of his father Hans spoke now with respect, now with fear, but only when his mother was not occupying the conversation; compared with his mother his father evidently was of little account, but all their questions about Brunswick’s family life remained, in spite of their efforts, unanswered. K. learned that the father had the biggest shoemaker’s business in the place, nobody could compete with him, in fact which quite remote questions brought out again and again; he actually gave out work to the other shoemakers, for example to Barnabas’ father; in this last case he had
