The Castle

by Franz Kafka

seemed to K. as if they had broken off all contact with him, but as if he were freer than ever and could wait as long as he wanted here in this place where he was generally not allowed, and as if he had fought for this freedom for himself in a manner nobody else could have done and as if nobody could touch him or drive him away, or even speak to him, yet—and this conviction was at least equally strong—as if there were nothing more senseless, nothing more desperate, than this freedom, this waiting, this invulnerability.

For they were discussing the merits of a man from Klamm’s immediate entourage in front of K., who wasn’t even sufficiently worthy to be seen by Klamm, not even by chance, and they did so with the unconcealed intention of provoking K.’s recognition and praise.

may have overestimated you a little. Your quick victory over Frieda frightened me, I didn’t know what you might still be capable of, I wanted to ward off additional misfortunes and thought the only way I could bring this about was by shocking you with pleas and threats. Meanwhile I have learned to think about everything more calmly.

Distorts the information given to him, then claims he’s been given the wrong information. I

When a child asks in such a way, one laughs, when an adult does so, it’s an insult to the office; except the secretary has graciously concealed this through the delicacy of his reply.

“If only you didn’t always, like a child, insist on having everything served up right away in edible form,”

Then he is an instrument upon which Klamm’s hand lies, and woe betide anybody who will not submit to him.”

he simply resorted to a kind of silent resistance that was impossible to overcome, for he was quite defenseless, all that glittered at such moments was his smile, but it was about as effective as the stars above against the gale down here.

Besides, it hasn’t been stipulated that I should take every message there at once; had it been stipulated, I would naturally go at once, but it wasn’t stipulated, and if I never went, nobody would admonish me because of that. Whenever I take a message, I do so voluntarily.”

But that is why he was making an effort to find all of this bearable, which was not all that difficult, for in thought he was walking alongside Barnabas, repeating the message word for word, not as he had told it to Barnabas but as he thought it would sound in front of Klamm.

To the best of her knowledge, it was K. who requested them and now he had them and must keep them. It would be best to accept them lightheartedly as the lighthearted sort they were; that was the easiest way to put up with them.

men, she had learned to see them through his eyes.

he was not, her thoughts centered exclusively on the minor abominations of the present, his on Barnabas and the future.

In reality Hans was looking for K.’s help against his father, it was as if he had deceived himself, for he had thought that he wanted to help K. whereas what he had truly wanted, since nobody in their old circle could help them, was to determine whether this stranger, whose sudden appearance even Mother had noted, might perhaps be able to help them.

perhaps there was some other misunderstanding that could be resolved in a few words.

Then, when everything had been thus considered, insofar as one could see, and the possibility of success could at least no longer be ruled out,

This contradiction led him to believe that K., low and frightening though he was right now, would, if only in the almost inconceivably distant future, outstrip everyone else.

knew that by giving in too much he would turn himself into the teacher’s slave and whipping boy, but he intended to accept the teacher’s moods, patiently, up to a certain point,

If he tried to pursue them, and he had no other choice, then he would have to gather all his strength and not worry about anything else, about food, housing, the village authorities, not even about Frieda, and this was essentially all about Frieda, because everything else mattered to him only with regard to her. So he would have to try to hold on to this position which gave Frieda some security, and he ought not to regret that with this goal in mind he would have to put up with more of the teacher than he could have forced himself to put up with otherwise. All this wasn’t too painful, it was part of the series of life’s endless little sufferings, it was nothing in comparison with what K. was striving for, he had not come here in order to lead a life in honor and peace.

you are childishly open but by nature so different from us that even when you’re speaking openly we can barely bring ourselves to believe you, and if a certain good friend of ours doesn’t rescue us first, we will have to find out how true this is through bitter experience.

make an effort sometime to listen to him properly, not just superficially, no, really listen to him.’

it’s only since getting to know me that you have become conscious of your goal.

the only value I have in your eyes is that I was Klamm’s mistress, in your ignorance you try to ensure that I do not forget Klamm, so that in the end I don’t put up too much resistance when the decisive moment arrives, but you also fight with the landlady, the only person you think capable of tearing me from you, and that’s why you carry the fight with her to such extremes, in order to make it necessary for you to leave the Bridge Inn with me; you have absolutely no doubt that I am—insofar as it’s simply a question of me and no matter what happens—your property.

I shall be your only possession, on which you are dependent, but at the same time a possession that has proved to be worthless and that you’ll treat accordingly, since the only feeling you have for me is as proprietor.”

With your sympathetic words you gained his confidence, which isn’t easy to do, so that you could quietly pursue your goal, which had become increasingly clear to me. That woman was your goal. The only thing that emerged clearly from your remarks, seemingly so full of concern for her, was your devotion to your own affairs. You deceived that woman even before you won her. In your words I heard not only my past but also my future,

“everything you say is in a sense right, it is not wrong, only it is hostile. Those are the landlady’s thoughts, those of my enemy, even if you think they’re your own, which I find reassuring.

Then I am after all not only furthering my own cause but yours too, there’s no difference between them, and only a certain enemy of ours can distinguish between them.

“It’s so difficult, K., to get one’s bearings,”

It’s true, though, that you keep many secrets from me; you come and you go, I don’t know where from and where to.

my happiness, my questionable but nonetheless very real happiness, would end on the day you finally realized that your hope for Klamm was futile.

But do you think your entire earlier life is so submerged (except of course for the landlady, who won’t let herself be forced down with it) that you no longer know how hard one must fight to get ahead, especially if one is coming up from the depths?

diffidence—

It was a serious, silent love that united the two, its tone in fact set by Gisa, whose lethargic being sometimes went wild and broke all bounds but who on any other occasion would never have tolerated anything of the sort from others, and so even the lively Schwarzer was obliged to comply and to walk slowly, speak slowly, be silent much of the time; but for all this he was, as one could see, amply rewarded with Gisa’s simple calm presence.

she certainly didn’t know how to appreciate the honor of being loved by the son of a steward

the messengers from his father who often came to pick him up he dismissed with great anger, as if such brief reminders of the Castle and of his duty as a son were seriously, irreparably compromising his happiness.

and if one cannot avoid despising him for reasons of social class, then one should at least make one’s disdain more tolerable by providing him with something suitable in return.

This is what would have happened, or something of that sort, had it not been for Schwarzer.

Well of course K. was innocent in all this, the guilt lay with Schwarzer, but Schwarzer was the son of a steward, and outwardly he had indeed behaved correctly, so they could make K. alone pay for it.

But that was a terrible gift; true, it spared K. a great many lies and deceptions, but it also deprived him of almost all his defenses, hampered him in the struggle and would have made him despair if he had not been obliged to tell himself that the difference between himself and the authorities in terms of power was so enormous that all the lies and cunning he would have been capable of wouldn’t have produced any significant reduction of that difference to his advantage and would necessarily have had to remain more or less negligible.

And precisely this absence of jealousy and thus of any trace of severity did K. good, he liked looking into those blue, not enticing, not domineering, but shyly tranquil, shyly steadfast eyes.

Amalia was so domineering that she not only appropriated everything said in her presence but that one was even willing to let her have all of it.

as if she were the eldest, and if she gave us advice about our affairs we would certainly follow it, but she doesn’t; to her we are strangers.

‘Official decisions are as shy as young girls.’

There are obstacles, questionable matters, disappointments, but this merely shows, as we already knew, that nothing is given to you on a platter, that you yourself have to fight for every trifle, another reason for being proud, not dejected.

Respect for the authorities is innate here, and then it’s instilled in you throughout your lives in many different ways and from all sides, and you yourselves help this along as best you can.

there are doors there that lead farther, barriers one can cross if one has the skill to do so.

Barnabas is being offered something, and that it is only Barnabas’s fault if he can achieve nothing with that other than doubt, fear, and hopelessness.

“encouraging him now means telling him that he’s right, that he need only carry on in the same way as before, but that way he’ll never accomplish anything; no matter how much you keep encouraging someone who is blindfolded to stare through the cloth, he still won’t see a thing; it’s only when you take off the blindfold that he can see. It is help that Barnabas needs, not encouragement.

we have very clever lawyers here who know how to transform a mere trifle into anything one cares for it to be,

That’s how the gentlemen are when they stand up from their desks; they cannot get their bearings in the world; in their absentmindedness they say the coarsest things, not everyone does, but many do.