shouldn’t have been able to endure the fear of what might happen, only Amalia could have done that. For there were many ways of getting round it, another girl, for instance, might have decked herself up and wasted some time in doing it and then gone to the Herrenhof only to find that Sortini had left, perhaps to find that he had left immediately after sending the messenger, which is very probable, for the moods of the gentlemen are fleeting. But Amalia neither did that nor anything else, she was too deeply insulted, and answered without reserve. If she had only made some pretence of compliance, if she had but crossed the threshold of the Herrenhof at the right moment, our punishment could have been turned aside, we have very clever advocates here who can make a great deal out of a mere nothing, but in this case they hadn’t even the mere nothing to go on, there was, on the contrary, the disrespect to Sortini’s letter and the insult to his messenger.” “But what is all this about punishment and advocates?” said K. “Surely Amalia couldn’t be accused or punished because of Sortini’s criminal proceedings?” “Yes,” said Olga, “she could, not in a regular suit at law, of course; and she wasn’t punished directly, but she was punished all right in other ways, she and our whole family, and how heavy the punishment has been you are surely beginning to understand. In your opinion it’s unjust and monstrous, but you’re the only one in the village of that opinion, it’s an opinion favourable to us, and ought to comfort us, and it would do that if it weren’t so obviously based on error. I can easily prove that, and you must forgive me if I mention Frieda by the way, but between Frieda and Klamm, leaving aside the final outcome of the two affairs, the first preliminaries were much the same as between Amalia and Sortini, and yet, although that might have shocked you at the beginning, you accept it now as quite natural. And that’s not merely because you’re accustomed to it, custom alone couldn’t blunt one’s plain judgment, it’s simply that you’ve freed yourself from prejudice.” “No, Olga,” said K., “I don’t see why you drag in Frieda, her case wasn’t the same, don’t confuse two such different things, and now go on with your story.” “Please don’t be offended,” said Olga, “if I persist in the comparison, it’s a lingering trace of prejudice on your part, even in regard to Frieda, that makes you feel you must defend her from a comparison. She’s not to be defended, but only to be praised. In comparing the two cases I don’t say they’re exactly alike, they stand in the same relation as black to white, and the white is Frieda. The worst thing one can do to Frieda is to laugh at her, as I did in the bar very rudely—and I was sorry for it later—but even if one laughs it’s out of envy or malice, at any rate one can laugh. On the other hand, unless one is related to her by blood, one can only despise Amalia. Therefore the two cases are quite different, as you say, but yet they are alike.” “They’re not at all alike,” said K. and he shook his head stubbornly, “leave Frieda out of it, Frieda got no such fine letter as that of Sortini’s, and Frieda was really in love with Klamm, and, if you doubt that, you need only ask her, she loves him still.” “But is that really a difference?” asked Olga. “Do you imagine Klamm couldn’t have written to Frieda in the same tone? That’s what the gentlemen are like when they rise from their desks, they feel out of place in the ordinary world and in their distraction they say the most beastly things, not all of them, but many of them. The letter to Amalia may have been the thought of a moment, thrown on the paper in complete disregard for the meaning to be taken out of it. What do we know of the thoughts of these gentlemen? Haven’t you heard of, or heard yourself, the tone in which Klamm spoke to Frieda? Klamm’s notorious for his rudeness, he can apparently sit dumb for hours and then suddenly bring out something so brutal that it makes one shiver. Nothing of that kind is known of Sortini, but then very little is known of him. All that’s really known about him is that his name is like Sordini’s. If it weren’t for that resemblance between the two names probably he wouldn’t be known at all. Even as the Fire Brigade authority apparently he’s confused with Sordini, who is the real authority, and who exploits the resemblance in name to push things on to Sortini’s shoulders, especially any duties falling on him as a deputy, so that he can be left undisturbed to his work. Now when a man so unused to society as Sortini is, suddenly finds himself in love with a village girl, he’ll naturally take it quite differently from, say, the joiner’s apprentice next door. And one must remember, too, that between an official and a village cobbler’s daughter there’s a great gulf fixed which has to be somehow bridged over, and Sortini tried to do it in that way, where someone else might have acted differently. Of course we’re all supposed to belong to the Castle, and there’s supposed to be no gulf between us, and nothing to be bridged over, and that may be true enough on ordinary occasions, but we’ve had grim evidence that it’s not true when anything really important crops up. At any rate, all that should make Sortini’s methods more comprehensible to you, and less monstrous; compared with Klamm’s they’re comparatively reasonable, and even for those intimately affected by them much more endurable. When Klamm writes a loving letter it’s much more
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