The Castle

resources would be put at his disposal in spite of the Superintendent; who could tell what he might not be able to achieve by those means, and in any case he would often be in the lady’s company⁠—so he played with his dreams and they with him, while Hans, thinking only of his mother, painfully watched K.’s silence, as one watches a doctor who is sunk in reflection while he tries to find the proper remedy for a grave case. With K.’s proposal to speak to Brunswick about his post as Land Surveyor Hans was in agreement, but only because by means of this his mother would be shielded from his father, and because in any case it was only a last resort which with good luck might not be needed. He merely asked further how K. was to explain to his father the lateness of the visit, and was content at last, though his face remained a little overcast, with the suggestion that K. would say that his unendurable post in the school and the teacher’s humiliating treatment had made him in sudden despair forget all caution.

Now that, so far as one could see, everything had been provided for, and the possibility of success at least conceded, Hans, freed from his burden of reflection, became happier, and chattered for some time longer with K. and afterwards with Frieda⁠—who had sat for a long time as if absorbed by quite different thoughts, and only now began to take part in the conversation again. Among other things she asked him what he wanted to become; he did not think long but said he wanted to be a man like K. When he was asked next for his reasons he really did not know how to reply, and the questions whether he would like to be a janitor he answered with a decided negative. Only through further questioning did they perceive by what roundabout ways he had arrived at his wish. K.’s present condition was in no way enviable, but wretched and humiliating; even Hans saw this clearly without having to ask other people; he himself would have certainly preferred to shield his mother from K.’s slightest word, even from having to see him. In spite of this, however, he had come to K. and had begged to be allowed to help him, and had been delighted when K. agreed; he imagined too that other people felt the same; and most important of all, it had been his mother herself who had mentioned K.’s name. These contradictions had engendered in him the belief that though for the moment K. was wretched and looked down on, yet in an almost unimaginable and distant future he would excel everybody. And it was just this absurdly distant future and the glorious developments which were to lead up to it that attracted Hans; that was why he was willing to accept K. even in his present state. The peculiar childish-grown-up acuteness of this wish consisted in the fact that Hans looked on K. as on a younger brother whose future would reach further than his own, the future of a very little boy. And it was with an almost troubled seriousness that, driven into a corner by Frieda’s questions, he at last confessed those things. K. only cheered him up again when he said that he knew what Hans envied him for; it was for his beautiful walking-stick, which was lying on the table and with which Hans had been playing absently during the conversation. Now K. knew how to produce sticks like that, and if their plan were successful he would make Hans an even more beautiful one. It was no longer quite clear now whether Hans had not really meant merely the walking-stick, so happy was he made by K.’s promise; and he said goodbye with a glad face, not without pressing K.’s hand firmly and saying: “The day after tomorrow, then.”

It had been high time for Hans to go, for shortly afterwards the teacher flung open the door and shouted when he saw K. and Frieda sitting idly at the table: “Forgive my intrusion! But will you tell me when this place is to be finally put in order? We have to sit here packed like herring, so that the teaching can’t go on. And there are you lolling about in the big gymnasium, and you’ve even sent away the assistants to give yourselves more room. At least get on to your feet now and get a move on!” Then to K. “Now go and bring me my lunch from the Bridge Inn.” All this was delivered in a furious shout, though the words were comparatively inoffensive. K. was quite prepared to obey, but to draw the teacher he said: “But I’ve been given notice.” “Notice or no notice, bring me my lunch,” replied the teacher. “Notice or no notice, that’s just what I want to be sure about,” said K. “What nonsense is this?” asked the teacher. “You know you didn’t accept the notice.” “And is that enough to make it invalid?” asked K. “Not for me,” said the teacher, “you can take my word for that, but for the Superintendent, it seems, though I can’t understand it. But take to your heels now, or else I’ll fling you out in earnest.” K. was content, the teacher then had spoken with the Superintendent, or perhaps he hadn’t spoken after all, but had merely thought over carefully the Superintendent’s probable intentions, and these had weighed in K.’s favour. Now K. was setting out hastily to get the lunch, but the teacher called him back from the very doorway, either because he wanted by this counter order to test K.’s willingness to serve, so that he might know how far he could go