mention of whose name is as repulsive to me as that family is to you? Compare your relations with them with my relations with that family. I understand your antipathy to Barnabas’s family and can share it. It’s only for the sake of my affairs that I go to see them, sometimes it almost seems to me that I’m abusing and exploiting them. But you and the assistants! You’ve never denied that they persecute you, and you’ve admitted that you’re attracted by them. I wasn’t angry with you for that, I recognised that powers were at work which you weren’t equal to, I was glad enough to see that you put up a resistance at least, I helped to defend you, and just because I left off for a few hours, trusting in your constancy, trusting also, I must admit, in the hope that the house was securely locked and the assistants finally put to flight—I still underestimate them, I’m afraid—just because I left off for a few hours and this Jeremiah—who is, when you look at him closely, a rather unhealthy elderly creature—had the impudence to go up to the window; just for this, Frieda, I must lose you and get for a greeting: ‘There will be no marriage.’ Shouldn’t I be the one to cast reproaches? But I don’t, I have never done so.” And once more it seemed advisable to K. to distract Frieda’s mind a little, and he begged her to bring him something to eat for he had had nothing since midday. Obviously relieved by the request, Frieda nodded and ran to fetch something, not farther along the passage, however, where K. conjectured the kitchen was, but down a few steps to the left. In a little she brought a plate with slices of meat and a bottle of wine, but they were clearly only the remains of a meal, the scraps of meat had been hastily ranged out anew so as to hide the fact, yet whole sausage skins had been overlooked, and the bottle was three-quarters empty. However K. said nothing and fell on the food with a good appetite. “You were in the kitchen?” he asked. “No, in my own room,” she said. “I have a room down there.” “You might surely have taken me with you,” said K. “I’ll go down now, so as to sit down for a little while I’m eating.” “I’ll bring you a chair,” said Frieda already making to go. “Thanks,” replied K. holding her back, “I’m neither going down there, nor do I need a chair any longer.” Frieda endured his hand on her arm defiantly, bowed her head and bit her lip. “Well, then, he is down there,” she said, “did you expect anything else? He’s lying on my bed, he got a cold out there, he’s shivering, he’s hardly had any food. At bottom it’s all your fault, if you hadn’t driven the assistants away and run after those people, we might be sitting comfortably in the school now. You alone have destroyed our happiness. Do you think that Jeremiah, so long as he was in service, would have dared to take me away? Then you entirely misunderstood the way things are ordered here. He wanted me, he tormented himself, he lay in watch for me, but that was only a game, like the play of a hungry dog who nevertheless wouldn’t dare to leap up on the table. And just the same with me. I was drawn to him, he was a playmate of mine in my childhood—we played together on the slope of the Castle Hill, a lovely time, you’ve never asked me anything about my past—but all that wasn’t decisive as long as Jeremiah was held back by his service, for I knew my duty as your future wife. But then you drove the assistants away and plumed yourself on it besides, as if you had done something for me by it; well, in a certain sense it was true. Your plan has succeeded as far as Arthur is concerned, but only for the moment, he’s delicate, he hasn’t Jeremiah’s passion that nothing can daunt, besides you almost shattered his health for him by the buffet you gave him that night—it was a blow at my happiness as well—he fled to the Castle to complain, and even if he comes back soon, he’s gone now all the same. But Jeremiah stayed. When he’s in service he fears the slightest look of his master, but when he’s not in service there’s nothing he’s afraid of. He came and took me; forsaken by you, commanded by him, my old friend, I couldn’t resist. I didn’t unlock the school door. He smashed the window and lifted me out. We flew here, the landlord looks up to him, nothing could be more welcome to the guests, either, than to have such a waiter, so we were taken on, he isn’t living with me, but we are staying in the same room.” “In spite of everything,” said K., “I don’t regret having driven the assistants from our service. If things stood as you say, and your faithfulness was only determined by the assistants’ being in the position of servants, then it was a good thing that it came to an end. The happiness of a married life spent with two beasts of prey, who could only be kept under by the whip, wouldn’t have been very great. In that case I’m even thankful to this family who have unintentionally had some part in separating us.” They became silent and began to walk backwards and forwards again side by side, though neither this time could have told who had made the first move. Close beside him, Frieda seemed annoyed that K. did not take her arm again. “And so everything seems in order,” K. went on, “and we might as well say goodbye, and you go to your
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