A large kitchen, dimly lit. Anyone coming in from outside could make out nothing at first. K. stumbled over a washing-tub, a woman’s hand steadied him. The crying of children came loudly from one corner. From another steam was welling out and turning the dim light into darkness. K. stood as if in the clouds. “He must be drunk,” said somebody. “Who are you?” cried a hectoring voice, and then obviously to the old man; “Why did you let him in? Are we to let in everybody that wanders about in the street?” “I am the Count’s Land Surveyor,” said K., trying to justify himself before this still invisible personage. “Oh, it’s the Land Surveyor,” said a woman’s voice, and then came a complete silence. “You know me, then?” asked K. “Of course,” said the same voice curtly. The fact that he was known did not seem to be a recommendation.
At last the steam thinned a little, and K. was able gradually to make things out. It seemed to be a general washing-day. Near the door clothes were being washed. But the steam was coming from another corner, where in a wooden tub larger than any K. had ever seen, as wide as two beds, two men were bathing in steaming water. But still more astonishing, although one could not say what was so astonishing about it, was the scene in the right-hand corner. From a large opening, the only one in the back wall, a pale snowy light came in, apparently from the courtyard, and gave a gleam as of silk to the dress of a woman who was almost reclining in a high armchair. She was suckling an infant at her breast. Several children were playing around her, peasant children, as was obvious, but she seemed to be of another class, although of course illness and weariness give even peasants a look of refinement.
“Sit down!” said one of the men, who had a full beard and breathed heavily through his mouth which always hung open, pointing—it was a funny sight—with his wet hand over the edge of the tub towards a settle, and showering drops of warm water all over K.’s face as he did so. On the settle the old man who had admitted K. was already sitting, sunk in vacancy. K. was thankful to find a seat at last. Nobody paid any further attention to him. The woman at the washing-tub, young, plump and fair, sang in a low voice as she worked, the men stamped and rolled about in the bath, the children tried to get closer to them but were constantly driven back by mighty splashes of water which fell on K., too, and the woman in the armchair lay as if lifeless staring at the roof without even a glance towards the child at her bosom.
She made a beautiful, sad, fixed picture, and K. looked at her for what must have been a long time; then he must have fallen asleep, for when a loud voice roused him he found that his head was lying on the old man’s shoulder. The men had finished with the tub—in which the children were now wallowing in charge of the fair-haired woman—and were standing fully dressed before K. It appeared that the hectoring one with the full beard was the less important of the two. The other, a still slow-thinking man who kept his head bent, was not taller than his companion and had a much smaller beard, but he was broader in the shoulders and had a broad face as well, and he it was who said, “You can’t stay here, sir. Excuse the discourtesy.” “I don’t want to stay,” said K., “I only wanted to rest a little. I have rested, and now I shall go.” “You’re probably surprised at our lack of hospitality,” said the man, “but hospitality is not our custom here, we have no use for visitors.” Somewhat refreshed by his sleep, his perceptions somewhat quickened, K. was pleased by the man’s frankness. He felt less constrained, poked with his stick here and there, approached the woman in the armchair, and noted that he was physically the biggest man in the room.
“To be sure,” said K., “what use would you have for visitors? But still you need one now and then, me, for example, the Land Surveyor.” “I don’t know about that,” replied the man slowly, “if you’ve been asked to come you’re probably needed, that’s an exceptional case, but we small people stick to our tradition, and you can’t blame us for that.” “No, no,” said K., “I am only grateful to you, to you, and everybody here.” And taking them all by surprise he made an adroit turn and stood before the reclining woman. Out of weary blue eyes she looked at him, a transparent silk kerchief hung down to the middle of her forehead, the infant was asleep on her bosom. “Who are you?” asked K., and disdainfully—whether contemptuous of K. or of her own answer was not clear—she replied: “A girl from the Castle.”
It had only taken a second or so, but already the two men were at either side of K. and were pushing him towards the door, as if there were no other means of persuasion, silently, but putting out all their strength. Something in
