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by
Franz Kafka
Started reading
November 15, 2025
The man, however, ignored the question as if his arrival simply had to be accepted,
“Don’t you think you’d better stay where you are?” “I want neither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until you’ve introduced yourself.”
She was showing an inquisitiveness that really made it seem like she was going senile.
K. “And why am I under arrest?” he then asked. “That’s something we’re not allowed to tell you. Go into your room and wait there. Proceedings are underway and you’ll learn about everything all in good time.
the second policeman’s belly—and they could only be policemen—looked friendly enough, sticking out towards him, but when K. looked up and saw his dry, bony face it did not seem to fit with the body.
was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home.
He could have taken it all as a joke, a big joke set up by his colleagues at the bank for some unknown reason, or also perhaps because today was his thirtieth birthday, it was all possible of course, maybe all he had to do was laugh in the policemen’s face in some way and they would laugh with him,
“We don’t answer questions like that.” “You will have to answer them,” said K. “Here are my identification papers, now show me yours and I certainly want to see the arrest warrant.” “Oh, my God!” said the policeman. “In a position like yours, and you think you can start giving orders, do you. It won’t do you any good to get us on the wrong side, even if you think it will—we’re probably more on your side that anyone else you know!”
Our authorities as far as I know, and I only know the lowest grades, don’t go out looking for guilt among the public; it’s the guilt that draws them out,
“I don’t know this law,” said K. “So much the worse for you, then,” said the policeman. “It’s probably exists only in your heads,” said K.,
he admits he doesn’t know the law and at the same time insists he’s innocent.”
It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.
It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.
he went over to the cupboard in the wall where he kept a bottle of good schnapps, how he first emptied a glass of it in place of his breakfast and how he then took a second glassful in order to give himself courage, the last one just as a precaution for the unlikely chance it would be needed.
yes, I am very surprised but when you’ve been in the world for thirty years already and had to make your own way through everything yourself, which has been my lot, then you become hardened to surprises and don’t take them too hard. Especially not what’s happened today.”
K. stared at the supervisor. Was this man, probably younger than he was, lecturing him like a schoolmaster. Was he being punished for his honesty with a telling off.
“It’s true that you’re under arrest, but that shouldn’t stop you from carrying out your job. And there shouldn’t be anything to stop you carrying on with your usual life.”
it showed a gap in the omniscience of the supervisor,
“A woman’s hands will do many things when no-one’s looking,”
The moon shone quietly into the unlit room.
“It is odd,” said Miss Bürstner, “that I’m forced to forbid you to do something that you ought to have forbidden yourself to do, namely to come into my room when I’m not here.”
It was not as loud as he had threatened, but nonetheless, once he had suddenly called it out, the cry seemed gradually to spread itself all round the room. There was a series of loud, curt and regular knocks at the door of the adjoining room.
when he stood at the street’s entrance it consisted on each side of almost nothing but monotonous, grey constructions, tall blocks of flats occupied by poor people.
People called out to each other across the street, one of the calls provoked a loud laugh about K. himself.
Just then, a gramophone, which in better parts of town would have been seen as worn out, began to play some murderous tune.
It irritated him that he had not been given more precise directions to the room, it meant they were either being especially neglectful with him or especially indifferent, and he decided to make that clear to them very loudly and very unambiguously.
“Next time I come here,” he said to himself, “I must either bring sweets with me to make them like me or a stick to hit them with.”
Someone jumped down from the podium so that there would be a place free for K., and K. stepped up onto it. He stood pressed closely against the table, the press of the crowd behind him was so great that he had to press back against it if he did not want to push the judge’s desk down off the podium and perhaps the judge along with it.
“you are a house painter?” “No,” said K., “I am the chief clerk in a large bank.” This reply was followed by laughter among the right hand faction down in the hall, it was so hearty that K. couldn’t stop himself joining in with it.
“what has happened to me is not just an isolated case. If it were it would not be of much importance as it’s not of much importance to me, but it is a symptom of proceedings which are carried out against many. It’s on behalf of them that I stand here now, not for myself alone.”
they wanted money, supposedly so that they could bring me my breakfast after they had blatantly eaten my own breakfast in front of my eyes.
even Mrs. Grubach was understanding enough to see that an arrest like this has no more significance than an attack carried out on the street by some youths who are not kept under proper control.
and I give his lordship the judge my full and public permission to stop giving secret signs to his paid subordinate down there and give his orders in words instead; let him just say ‘Boo now!,’ and then the next time ‘Clap now!’”
How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning?
