The Castle

I had finished telling him about it, he was convinced that his job was to go on waiting in Bertuch’s garden, and as he was in no state now to go there every day himself, we should have to push him there in a handbarrow. But I didn’t give in, and gradually he became reconciled to the idea, the only thing that disturbed him was that in this matter he was quite dependent on me, for I had been the only one who had seen the messenger, he did not know him. Actually one messenger is very like another, and I myself was not quite certain that I would know this one again. Presently we began to go to the Herrenhof and look round among the servants. The messenger of course had been in Sortini’s service and Sortini had stopped coming to the village, but the gentlemen are continually changing their servants, one might easily find our man among the servants of another gentleman, and even if he himself was not to be found, still one might perhaps get news of him from the other servants. For this purpose it was of course necessary to be in the Herrenhof every evening, and people weren’t very pleased to see us anywhere, far less in a place like that; and we couldn’t appear either as paying customers. But it turned out that they could put us to some use all the same. You know what a trial the servants were to Frieda, at bottom they are mostly quiet people, but pampered and made lazy by too little work⁠—‘May you be as well off as a servant’ is a favourite toast among the officials⁠—and really, as far as an easy life goes, the servants seem to be the real masters in the Castle, they know their own dignity too, and in the Castle, where they have to behave in accordance with their regulations, they’re quiet and dignified, several times I’ve been assured of that, and one can find even among the servants down here some faint signs of that, but only faint signs, for usually, seeing that the Castle regulations aren’t fully binding on them in the village, they seem quite changed; a wild unmanageable lot, ruled by their insatiable impulses instead of by their regulations. Their scandalous behaviour knows no limits, it’s lucky for the village that they can’t leave the Herrenhof without permission, but in the Herrenhof itself one must try to get on with them somehow; Frieda, for instance, felt that very hard to do and so she was very glad to employ me to quieten the servants. For more than two years, at least twice a week, I’ve spent the night with the servants in the stall. Earlier, when father was still able to go to the Herrenhof with me, he slept somewhere in the taproom, and in that way waited for the news that I would bring in the morning. There wasn’t much to bring. We’ve never found the messenger to this day, he must be still with Sortini who values him very highly, and he must have followed Sortini when Sortini retired to a more remote bureau. Most of the servants haven’t seen him since we saw him last ourselves, and when one or other claims to have seen him it’s probably a mistake. So my plan might have actually failed, and yet it hasn’t failed completely, it’s true we haven’t found the messenger, and going to the Herrenhof and spending the night there⁠—perhaps his pity for me, too, any pity that he’s still capable of⁠—has unfortunately ruined my father, and for two years now he has been in the state you’ve seen him in, and yet things are perhaps better with him than with my mother, for we’re waiting daily for her death; it has only been put off thanks to Amalia’s superhuman efforts. But what I’ve achieved in the Herrenhof is a certain connection with the Castle; don’t despise me when I say that I don’t repent what I’ve done. What conceivable sort of a connection with the Castle can this be, you’ll no doubt be thinking; and you’re right, it’s not much of a connection. I know a great many of the servants now, of course, almost all the gentlemen’s servants who have come to the village during the last two years, and if I should ever get into the Castle I shan’t be a stranger there. Of course they’re servants only in the village, in the Castle they’re quite different, and probably wouldn’t know me or anybody else there that they’ve had dealings with in the village, that’s quite certain, even if they have sworn a hundred times in the stall that they would be delighted to see me again in the Castle. Besides I’ve already had experience of how little all these promises are worth. But still that’s not the really important thing. It isn’t only through the servants themselves that I have a connection with the Castle, for apart from that I hope and trust that what I’m doing is being noticed by someone up there⁠—and the management of the staff of servants is really an extremely important and laborious official function⁠—and that finally whoever is noticing me may perhaps arrive at a more favourable opinion of me than the others, that he may recognise that I’m fighting for my family and carrying on my father’s efforts, no matter in how poor a way. If he should see it like that, perhaps he’ll forgive me too for accepting money from the servants and using it for our family. And I’ve achieved something more yet, which even you, I’m afraid, will blame me for. I learned a great deal from the servants about the ways in which one can get into the Castle service without going through the difficult preliminaries of official appointment lasting sometimes for years; in that case, it’s true, one doesn’t become an actual official employee, but only a