The Castle (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Franz Kafka

to the ignorant anything seems possible—’

‘Mizzi,’ said the mayor to his wife, who was still sitting close to him toying dreamily with Klamm’s letter, which she had folded into a paper boat.

‘Although I don’t believe Klamm is so very sensitive. We are anxious about him, to be sure, we try to protect him, so we start by assuming Klamm’s extreme sensitivity.

You can encourage someone with his eyes blind-folded to see through the blindfold as much as you like, he’ll still never see a thing. He can’t see until the blindfold is removed. Barnabas needs help, not encouragement.

Later, when people sometimes came to see us again, they looked down their noses at unimportant things, for instance that the little oil-lamp there hung above the table. Where else would it hang if not over the table? But to them it seemed intolerable. However, if we hung the lamp anywhere else, they disliked that just as much. Everything we were, everything we had, met with the same disdain.’

‘You none of you think of anything but yourselves. I’m not answering questions just because you’re officials, either then or now.’ ‘Well, who else would we be thinking of ?’ said Momus. ‘Who else matters here? Go along in!’

but note this: opportunities sometimes arise that have hardly anything to do with the situation as a whole, opportunities when a word, a glance, a sign of trust can achieve more than tedious, life-long efforts. Yes, that’s the way of it. Of course these opportunities do agree with the situation as a whole in so far as they are never exploited. But why are they not exploited, that’s what I always wonder.’

Night is less suitable for negotiation with members of the public because it is difficult or actually impossible to maintain the official character of negotiations at night. That is not because of out-ward details; of course the formalities can be as strictly observed by night as by day, just as one likes. So that’s not it, but on the other hand official judgement suffers by night. One is instinctively inclined to judge things from a more private point of view then, the points advanced by members of the public seem to carry more weight than they should, consideration of the further situation of those members of the public, of their sufferings and sorrows, mingles with our assessment, where it does not belong. The requisite barrier between members of the public and officials, however flawlessly it may be present to outward appearance, is relaxed, and where usually only questions and answers are exchanged, which is just as it should be, a strange and entirely unsuitable exchange between the persons sometimes seems to occur.

The fact that all is lost is even more improbable than that most improbable of events.

There sits the member of the public, whom you have never seen before, whom you have always awaited, positively thirsting to see him, but whom you have always, and reasonably, considered inaccessible. His mere silent presence invites you to enter into his poor life, to move around there as if it were your own property, to feel sympathy for its vain demands.

I don’t know whether that is so, and I am not quite clear how I am to blame, but when I compare myself with you something of the kind does appear before me; it is as if we both tried too hard, too noisily, too childishly, and with too little experience to gain something that can easily and quietly be had with, for instance, Frieda’s calm and Frieda’s objectivity, but we tried to get it by weeping and scratching and tugging, just as a child tugs at the tablecloth but cannot get it, merely sweeps all the beautiful things off the table and puts them out of reach forever—I