The Castle

view it was a pity to have come so far, K. would have done better to visit his native town again, which he had not seen for such a long time. And in his mind he compared the church tower at home with the tower above him. The church tower, firm in line, soaring unfalteringly to its tapering point, topped with red tiles and broad in the roof, an earthly building⁠—what else can men build?⁠—but with a loftier goal than the humble dwelling-houses, and a clearer meaning than the muddle of everyday life. The tower above him here⁠—the only one visible⁠—the tower of a house, as was now apparent, perhaps of the main building, was uniformly round, part of it graciously mantled with ivy, pierced by small windows that glittered in the sun, a somewhat maniacal glitter, and topped by what looked like an attic, with battlements that were irregular, broken, fumbling, as if designed by the trembling or careless hand of a child, clearly outlined against the blue. It was as if a melancholy-mad tenant who ought to have been kept locked in the topmost chamber of his house had burst through the roof and lifted himself up to the gaze of the world.

Again K. came to a stop, as if in standing still he had more power of judgment. But he was disturbed. Behind the village church where he had stopped⁠—it was really only a chapel widened with barn-like additions so as to accommodate the parishioners⁠—was the school. A long, low building, combining remarkably a look of great age with a provisional appearance, it lay behind a fenced-in garden which was now a field of snow. The children were just coming out with their teacher. They thronged round him, all gazing up at him and chattering without a break so rapidly that K. could not follow what they said. The teacher, a small young man with narrow shoulders and a very upright carriage which yet did not make him ridiculous, had already fixed K. with his eyes from the distance, naturally enough, for apart from the schoolchildren there was not another human being in sight. Being the stranger, K. made the first advance, especially as the other was such an authoritative-looking little man, and said, “Good morning, sir.” As if by one accord the children fell silent, perhaps the master liked to have a sudden stillness as a preparation for his words. “You are looking at the Castle?” he asked more gently than K. had expected, but with an inflection that denoted disapproval of K.’s occupation. “Yes,” said K. “I am a stranger here, I came to the village only last night.” “You don’t like the Castle?” returned the teacher quickly. “What?” countered K., a little taken aback, and repeated the question in a modified form. “Do I like the Castle? Why do you assume that I don’t like it?” “Strangers never do,” said the teacher. To avoid saying the wrong thing K. changed the subject and asked, “I suppose you know the Count?” “No,” said the teacher turning away. But K. would not be put off and asked again, “What, you don’t know the Count?” “Why should I?” replied the teacher in a low tone, and added aloud in French: “Please remember that there are innocent children present.” K. took this as a justification for asking: “Might I come to pay you a visit one day, sir? I am to be staying here for some time and already feel a little lonely. I don’t fit in with the peasants nor, I imagine, with the Castle.” “There is no difference between the peasantry and the Castle,” said the teacher. “Maybe,” said K., “that doesn’t alter my position. Can I pay you a visit one day?” “I live in Swan Street at the butcher’s.” That was assuredly more of a statement than an invitation, but K. said: “Right, I’ll come.” The teacher nodded and moved on with his batch of children, who began to scream again immediately. They soon vanished in a steeply descending by-street.

But K. was disconcerted, irritated by the conversation. For the first time since his arrival he felt really tired. The long journey he had made seemed at first to have imposed no strain upon him⁠—how quietly he had sauntered through the days, step by step!⁠—but now the consequences of his exertion were making themselves felt, and at the wrong time, too. He felt irresistibly drawn to seek out new acquaintances, but each new acquaintance only seemed to increase his weariness. If he forced himself in his present condition to go on at least as far as the Castle entrance, he would have done more than enough.

So he resumed his walk, but the way proved long. For the street he was in, the main street of the village, did not lead up to the Castle hill, it only made towards it and then, as if deliberately, turned aside, and though it did not lead away from the Castle it got no nearer to it either. At every turn K. expected the road to double back to the Castle, and only because of this expectation did he go on; he was flatly unwilling, tired as he was, to leave the street, and he was also amazed at the length of the village, which seemed to have no end, again and again the same little houses, and frost-bound windowpanes and snow and the entire absence of human beings⁠—but at last he tore himself away from the obsession of the street and escaped into a small side-lane, where the snow was still deeper and the exertion of lifting one’s feet clear was fatiguing; he broke into a sweat, suddenly came to a stop, and could not go on.

Well, he was not on a desert island, there were cottages to right and left of him. He made a snowball and threw it at