XVI
When he reached the street he saw indistinctly in the darkness that a little farther along the assistant was still walking up and down before Barnabas’s house; sometimes he stopped and tried to peep into the room through the drawn blinds. K. called to him; without appearing visibly startled he gave up his spying on the house and came towards K. “Who are you looking for?” asked K., testing the suppleness of the hazel switch on his leg. “You,” replied the assistant as he came nearer. “But who are you?” asked K. suddenly, for this did not appear to be the assistant. He seemed older, wearier, more wrinkled, but fuller in the face, his walk too was quite different from the brisk walk of the assistants, which gave an impression as if their joints were charged with electricity; it was slow, a little halting, elegantly valetudinarian. “You don’t recognise me?” asked the man, “Jeremiah, your old assistant.” “I see,” said K. tentatively producing the hazel switch again, which he had concealed behind his back, “But you look quite different.” “It’s because I’m by myself,” said Jeremiah. “When I’m by myself then all my youthful spirits are gone.” “But where is Arthur?” asked K. “Arthur?” said Jeremiah, “the little dear? He has left the service. You were rather hard and rough on us, you know, and the gentle soul couldn’t stand it. He’s gone back to the Castle to put in a complaint.” “And you?” asked K. “I’m able to stay here,” said Jeremiah, “Arthur is putting in a complaint for me too.” “What have you to complain about, then?” asked K. “That you can’t understand a joke. What have we done? Jested a little, laughed a little, teased your fiancée a little. And all according to our instructions, too. When Galater sent us to you—” “Galater?” asked K. “Yes, Galater,” replied Jeremiah, “he was deputising for Klamm himself at the time. When he sent us to you he said—I took a good note of it, for that’s our business: You’re to go down there as assistants to the Land Surveyor. We replied: But we don’t know anything about the work. Thereupon he replied: That’s not the main point: if it’s necessary, he’ll teach you it. The main thing is to cheer him up a little. According to the reports I’ve received he takes everything too seriously. He has just got to the village, and starts off thinking that a great experience, whereas in reality it’s nothing at all. You must make him see that.” “Well?” said K., “was Galater right, and have you carried out your task?” “That I don’t know,” replied Jeremiah. “In such a short time it was hardly possible. I only know that you were very rough on us, and that’s what we’re complaining of. I can’t understand how you, an employee yourself and not even a Castle employee, aren’t able to see that a job like that is very hard work, and that it’s very wrong to make the work harder for the poor workers, and wantonly, almost childishly, as you have done. Your total lack of consideration in letting us freeze at the railings, and almost felling Arthur with your fist on the straw sack—Arthur, a man who feels a single cross word for days—and in chasing me up and down in the snow all afternoon, so that it was an hour before I could recover from it! And I’m no longer young!” “My dear Jeremiah,” said K., “you’re quite right about all this, only it’s Galater you should complain to. He sent you here of his own accord, I didn’t beg him to send you. And as I hadn’t asked for you it was at my discretion to send you back again, and like you, I would much rather have done it peacefully than with violence, but evidently you wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, why didn’t you speak to me when you came first as frankly as you’ve done just now?” “Because I was in the service,” said Jeremiah, “surely that’s obvious.” “And now you’re in the service no longer?” asked K. “That’s so,” said Jeremiah, “Arthur has given notice in the Castle that we’re giving up the job, or at least proceedings have been set going that will finally set us free from it.” “But you’re still looking for me just as if you were in the service,” said K. “No,” replied Jeremiah, “I was only looking for you to reassure Frieda. When you forsook her for Barnabas’s sister she was very unhappy, not so much because of the loss, as because of your treachery, besides she had seen it coming for a long time and had suffered a great deal already on that account. I only went up to the school-window for one more look to see if you mightn’t have become more reasonable. But you weren’t there: Frieda was sitting by herself on a bench crying. So then I went to her and we came to an
