Here K., who had listened with absorption hitherto, interrupted Olga’s narrative with the question: “And don’t you think he was right?” Although his question would have answered itself in the course of the narrative he wanted to know at once.
“No,” said Olga, “there could be no question of sympathy or anything of the kind. Young and inexperienced as we were, we knew that, and father knew it too, of course, but he had forgotten it like nearly everything else. The plan he had hit on was to plant himself on the main road near the Castle, where the officials pass in their carriages, and seize any opportunity of putting up his prayer for forgiveness. To be honest, it was a wild and senseless plan, even if the impossible should have happened, and his prayer have really reached an official’s ear. For how could a single official give a pardon? That could only be done at best by the whole authority, and apparently even the authority can only condemn and not pardon. And in any case even if an official stepped out of his carriage and was willing to take up the matter, how could he get any clear idea of the affair from the mumblings of a poor, tired, ageing man like father? Officials are highly educated, but one-sided; in his own department an official can grasp whole trains of thought from a single word, but let him have something from another department explained to him by the hour, he may nod politely, but he won’t understand a word of it. That’s quite natural, take even the small official affairs that concern the ordinary person—trifling things that an official disposes of with a shrug—and try to understand one of them through and through, and you’ll waste a whole lifetime on it without result. But even if father had chanced on a responsible official, no official can settle anything without the necessary documents, and certainly not on the main road; he can’t pardon anything, he can only settle it officially, and he would simply refer to the official procedure, which had already been a complete failure for father. What a pass father must have been in to think of insisting on such a plan! If there were even the faintest possibility of getting anything in that way, that part of the road would be packed with petitioners; but since it’s a sheer impossibility, patent to the youngest schoolboy, the road is absolutely empty. But maybe even that strengthened father in his hopes, he found food for them everywhere. He had great need to find it, for a sound mind wouldn’t have had to make such complicated calculations, it would have realised from external evidence that the thing was impossible. When officials travel to the village or back to the Castle it’s not for pleasure, but because there’s work waiting for them in the village or in the Castle, and so they travel at a great pace. It’s not likely to occur to them to look out of the carriage windows in search of petitioners, for the carriages are crammed with papers which they study on the way.”
“But,” said K., “I’ve seen the inside of an official sledge in which there weren’t any papers.” Olga’s story was opening for him such a great and almost incredible world that he could not help trying to put his own small experiences in relation to it, as much to convince himself of its reality as of his own existence.
“That’s possible,” said Olga, “but in that case it’s even worse, for that means that the official’s business is so important that the papers are too precious or too numerous to be taken with him, and those officials go at a gallop. In any case, none of them can spare time for father. And besides, there are several roads to the Castle. Now one of them is in fashion, and most carriages go by that, now it’s another and everything drives pell-mell there. And what governs this change of fashion has never yet been found out. At one morning they’ll all be on another road, on a third, and on the first road again, and then they may stick to that road all day, but every minute there’s the possibility of a change. Of course all the roads join up near the village, but by that time all the carriages are racing like mad, while nearer the Castle the pace isn’t quite so fast. And the amount of traffic varies just as widely and incomprehensibly as the choice of roads. There are often days when there’s not a carriage to be seen, and others when they travel in crowds. Now, just think of all that in relation to father. In his best suit, which soon becomes his only suit, off he goes every morning from the house with our best wishes. He takes with him a small Fire Brigade badge, which he has really no business to keep, to stick in his coat once he’s out of the village, for in the village itself he’s afraid to let it be seen, although it’s so small that it can hardly be seen two paces away, but father insists that it’s just the thing
