LAWYER
MANUFACTURER
PAINTER

On a winter morning—outside, snow was falling in the dull light—K. was sitting in his office, already thoroughly fatigued in spite of the early hour. To shield himself from at least minor staff members, he had given instructions to his assistant not to let any of them in, since he was working on an important project. But instead of working he swung about in his chair, moved a few items around slowly on his desk, and then, without being aware of it, left his arm outstretched on the desktop and remained sitting motionless with bowed head.

The thought of his trial never left him now. He had often considered whether it might not be advisable to prepare a written defense and submit it to the court. In it he would offer a brief overview of his life, and for each event of any particular importance, explain why he had acted as he did, whether in his present judgment this course of action deserved approval or censure, and what reasons he could advance for the one or the other. The advantages of such a written defense over simply leaving things in the hands of his lawyer, who was far from perfect anyway, were obvious. After all, K. had no idea what action his lawyer was taking; in any case it wasn’t much, it had been over a month now since he’d summoned him, nor had any of these earlier consultations given K. the impression the man would be able to do much for him. In the first place, he scarcely asked any questions. And yet there was so much to ask. Questions were the main thing. K. had the feeling he could ask all the necessary questions on his own. His lawyer on the other hand, instead of asking questions, did all the talking, or sat across from him in silence, leaning slightly forward over the desk, probably because of his poor hearing, tugging at a strand in the middle of his beard and looking down at the carpet, perhaps at the very spot where K. had lain with Leni. Now and then he gave K. a few empty admonitions, as if talking to a child. Speeches as useless as they were boring, for which K. had no intention of paying one red cent in the final billing. When the lawyer seemed to feel he had humbled him adequately, he usually began to cheer him up a little again. He would tell him how he had already won or come close to winning many similar trials, trials which, if not quite so difficult in reality as his, appeared even more hopeless on the surface. He had a list of those trials right there in his drawer—with this he tapped some compartment or other in his desk—unfortunately he couldn’t show him the documents, since they were officially secret. Nevertheless the extensive experience he had gained in all these trials would naturally be used to K.’s benefit. He had of course set to work immediately, and the first petition was already nearly finished. It was very important, for the first impression made by the defense often influenced the whole course of the proceedings. Unfortunately, and he felt he must point this out to K., on some occasions initial petitions were not even read by the court. They were simply put in the file with a note that for the time being the hearings and surveillance of the accused were much more important than anything put in writing. If the petitioner pressed the issue, it was added that once all the evidence had been collected, and prior to the verdict, this first petition would be considered as well, together with all other documents of course. Unfortunately that wasn’t true either in most cases; the first petition was generally misplaced or completely lost, and even if it was retained to the very end, the lawyer had only heard this by way of rumor of course, it was scarcely even glanced at. All that was regrettable, but not entirely without justification; K. must not overlook the fact that the proceedings are not public, they can be made public if the court considers it necessary, but the Law does not insist upon it. As a result, the court records, and above all the writ of indictment, are not available to the accused and his defense lawyers, so that in general it’s not known, or not known precisely, what the first petition should be directed against, and for that reason it can only be by chance that it contains something of importance to the case. Truly pertinent and reasoned petitions can only be devised later, when, in the course of the defendant’s interrogations, the individual points of the indictment and its basis emerge more clearly, or may be surmised. Under these conditions the defense is naturally placed in a very unfavorable and difficult position. But that too is intentional. For the defense is not actually countenanced by the Law, but only tolerated, and there is even some controversy as to whether the relevant passages of the Law can truly be construed to include even such tolerance. In the strict sense, therefore, there are no court-recognized lawyers; all those who appear before the court as lawyers are basically shysters. Of course that has an extremely degrading effect upon the entire profession, and the next time K. went to the law court offices, he should take a look at the Lawyers’ Room, that was quite a sight too. He would probably be shocked by the lot gathered there. The narrow, low room to which they were relegated was in itself an indication of the court’s contempt for these people. Light enters the room only through a small hatch so high up that if someone wants to look out, and incidentally get a nose full of smoke and a sooty face from the chimney just outside, he first has to find a colleague who will hoist him up on his back. For over a year now—to give just one more example of the poor conditions—there’s been a hole in the floor of the room, not large enough for a person to fall through, but big enough that one whole leg can sink in. The Lawyers’ Room is in the upper level of the attic, so if someone slips through, his leg hangs down into the lower level, right into the hall where the parties are waiting. It’s no exaggeration when such conditions are described in lawyers’ circles as scandalous. Complaints to the administration don’t have the slightest effect, yet lawyers are strictly forbidden from changing anything in the room at their own expense. But there’s a reason they treat lawyers this way. They want to eliminate the defense as far as possible; everything is to be laid upon the defendant himself. Basically that’s not a bad position to take, but nothing would be more mistaken than to conclude from it that defendants have no need of lawyers before this court. On the contrary, there is no other court before which there is a greater need. For in general the proceedings are kept secret not only from the public but from the accused as well. Only insofar as possible of course, but to a very large extent it does prove possible. For even the accused has no access to the court records, and it’s very difficult to ascertain during the interrogations which documents are involved, particularly for the defendant, who after all is timid and disconcerted, and distracted by all sorts of cares. This is where the defense enters in. In general defense lawyers are not allowed to be present at the interrogations and so must question the defendant about an interrogation immediately upon its conclusion, if at all possible at the very door of the inquiry room, and deduce from the defendant’s often quite hazy accounts whatever might be of use to the defense. But that’s not what’s most important, since not much can be learned that way, though even here, as elsewhere, a skillful person can learn more than others. Nevertheless, the most important factor is still the lawyer’s personal contacts; they are the most valuable aspect of a defense. Now K. had no doubt already learned from his own experience that the lowest level of the court system is not entirely perfect, that it includes some employees who forget their duty and can be bribed, which in turn produces breaches, so to speak, in the strictly closed system of the court. Now this is where the majority of lawyers push their way in, bribing people and pumping them for information; in fact in earlier days there were even cases of stolen files. There’s no denying a few momentary and even surprisingly positive results can be achieved on the defendant’s behalf by such means, and petty lawyers parade them proudly to lure new customers, but as far as the future progress of the trial is concerned they’re meaningless or worse. Only honest personal contacts are of true value, and with higher officials, by which is meant of course higher officials from the lower ranks. This is the sole means by which the progress of the trial can be influenced, imperceptibly at first, but more and more clearly as it moves along. Only a few lawyers can do that of course, and here K.’s choice had been fortunate indeed. There were only one or two lawyers who might possibly match Dr. Huld’s contacts. Of course these paid no attention to the lot in the Lawyers’ Room and had nothing to do with them. Their ties to the court officials, however, were correspondingly stronger. It wasn’t even always necessary for Dr. Huld to go to court, wait in the outer offices for the chance appearance of examining magistrates, and then, according to their mood, achieve what was generally a merely apparent success, and perhaps not even that. No, as K. had seen himself, officials, and relatively high ones at that, came to him, offered information willingly that was clear or at least easily interpreted, discussed the recent progress of the trial, indeed in some cases even allowed themselves to be convinced, gladly taking on the other’s point of view. Of course one didn’t dare trust them too far with respect to this latter trait; no matter how decisively they state their new intent, which is favorable to the defense, they may well go straight to their office and issue a decision for the next day that conveys the exact opposite, and is perhaps even more severe with respect to the defendant than that which they had at first intended, and which they claimed to have entirely abandoned. Of course there was no way to protect oneself against that, for what was said in private conversation was exactly that, a private conversation with no public consequences, even if the defense had not been otherwise constrained to retain the favor of those gentlemen. On the other hand, of course, it was also true that these gentlemen were not moved simply by humanitarianism, or feelings of personal friendship, to establish contact with the defense, only a competent one naturally, but did so because they were in a certain sense dependent upon them. Here the disadvantage of a court system that was grounded from its very beginnings in secrecy came to the fore. The officials lack contact with the common people; they’re well prepared for the normal, average trial, which rolls along its course almost on its own and needs only a push now and then, but faced with very simple cases or with particularly complex ones, they’re often at a loss; because they’re constantly constricted by the Law both night and day, they have no proper understanding of human relationships, and in such cases they feel that lack keenly. Then they come to the lawyer for advice, and behind them comes an assistant carrying the files, which are otherwise so secret. Many a gentleman one would least expect to find in such a situation might be discovered at this very window, gazing almost hopelessly out into the street, while at his desk the lawyer studies the files to offer his advice. Moreover one could see at such times how uncommonly seriously these gentlemen took their profession, and into what great despair they were thrown when, due to the very nature of the obstacles, they could not overcome them. In other ways too their position is no easy one, nor should one do them the injustice of regarding it as such. The gradations and ranks of the court are infinite, extending beyond the ken even of initiates. The proceedings in the courts of law are generally a mystery to the lower officials as well; therefore they can almost never follow the progress of the cases they are working on throughout their course; the case enters their field of vision, often they know not whence, and continues on, they know not where. The lessons to be learned from the study of the individual stages of a trial, the final verdict and its basis, are lost to these officials. Their involvement is limited to that part of the trial circumscribed for them by the Law, and they generally know less about what follows, and thus about the results of their own efforts, than the defense, which as a rule remains in contact with the accused almost to the very end of the trial. So in this respect too, they can occasionally learn something of value from the defense. Was K. still surprised then, bearing all this in mind, at the irritability of the officials, which sometimes expressed itself—as everyone soon learned—in an insulting manner toward the parties involved? All officials are irritable, even when they appear calm. Of course the petty lawyers suffer in particular from this. For instance the following story is told, and has every appearance of truth. An elderly official, a decent, quiet gentleman, had studied a difficult case, rendered particularly complex due to the lawyer’s petitions, for one entire day and night without a break—these officials are truly the most industrious of people. Now as morning approached, after twenty-four hours of probably not very productive work, he went to the outer door, waited in ambush, and threw every lawyer who tried to enter down the steps. The lawyers gathered on the landing below and discussed what they should do; on the one hand they have no real right to be admitted, so they can hardly start legal proceedings against the official, and as already mentioned, they have to be careful not to arouse the ire of the bureaucracy. On the other hand each day missed at court is a day lost, so it was important to them to get in. Finally they decided to try to wear the old gentleman down. One lawyer at a time would rush up the stairs and, offering the greatest possible passive resistance, allow himself to be thrown back down, where he would then be caught by his colleagues. That lasted for about an hour; then the old gentleman, who was already tired from working all night, grew truly exhausted and went back into his office. At first those below could hardly believe it, so they sent someone up to check behind the door to make sure there was really no one there. Only then did they enter, probably not even daring to grumble. For the lawyers—and even the least important of them has at least a partial overview of the circumstances—are far from wishing to introduce or carry out any sort of improvement in the court system, while—and this is quite characteristic—almost every defendant, even the most simple-minded among them, starts thinking up suggestions for improvement from the moment the trial starts, and in doing so often wastes time and energy that would be better spent in other ways. The only proper approach is to learn to accept existing conditions. Even if it were possible to improve specific details—which, however, is merely an absurd superstition—one would have at best achieved something for future cases, while in the process damaging oneself immeasurably by having attracted the attention of an always vengeful bureaucracy. Just don’t attract attention! Keep calm, no matter how much it seems counter to good sense. Try to realize that this vast judicial organism remains, so to speak, in a state of eternal equilibrium, and that if you change something on your own where you are, you can cut the ground out from under your own feet and fall, while the vast organism easily compensates for the minor disturbance at some other spot—after all, everything is interconnected—and remains unchanged, if not, which is likely, even more resolute, more vigilant, more severe, more malicious. One should leave the task to the lawyers, instead of interfering with them. Reproaches are of little value, particularly when it seems the full import of what has caused them cannot be conveyed, but he must say how much K. had hurt his own affair by his behavior toward the chief clerk of the court. This influential man must almost certainly be crossed off the list of those to whom one might turn on K.’s behalf. He pointedly refused to acknowledge even passing references to K.’s trial. In many ways the officials were like children. They were often so hurt by seemingly minor matters, though K’s behavior, unfortunately, did not fall into that category, that they stopped speaking even with close friends, turning aside when they met them, and opposing them in every possible way. But then, surprisingly and for no apparent reason, they would allow themselves a laugh at some small joke attempted only because the situation seemed so hopeless, and were reconciled once more. It was both difficult and easy to relate to them; there were hardly any guidelines to go by. Sometimes it seemed amazing that an average lifetime sufficed to learn enough to work here with a modicum of success. Of course there are always dark hours, everyone has them, when it seems that one has accomplished nothing, when it seems as if the only trials that turned out well were those that were destined to do so from the very beginning, without any help at all, while all the others were lost in spite of following them so closely, in spite of all the effort, all the small apparent victories that gave such pleasure. Then of course nothing seems certain any longer, and if pressed specifically one does not even dare deny that trials that by nature should have turned out well were thrown off course precisely by the assistance offered. That too is a type of belief in oneself after all, but it is the only sort that remains. Lawyers are particularly susceptible to such attacks—they are of course mere attacks and nothing more—when a trial they have conducted satisfactorily up to a certain point is suddenly taken out of their hands. That’s probably the worst thing that can happen to a lawyer. It’s not the defendant who takes the trial from them, indeed that probably never happens; once a defendant has engaged a particular lawyer, he has to stick with him no matter what. How could he possibly sustain himself alone, once he has enlisted aid? So that doesn’t happen, but it does indeed sometimes happen that the trial takes a direction the lawyer is not permitted to follow. The trial, the defendant, everything is simply withdrawn from the lawyer; in that case the best of connections with the officials are of no use, for they themselves know nothing. The trial has entered a stage where no further assistance can be given, where it is being handled by inaccessible courts of law, where even the defendant is no longer within reach of the lawyer. Then you come home one day to find on your desk all the many petitions you submitted so diligently and with such great hopes in the case; they’ve been returned; since they can’t be transferred to the new stage of the trial, they’re worthless scraps of paper. But that doesn’t mean the trial has been lost, not by any means, or at any rate there is no definitive reason to assume so, one simply knows nothing more about the trial, and won’t learn anything more either. But fortunately such cases are exceptions, and even should K.’s trial turn out to be one of them, it was still far removed from such a stage at the moment. So there was still ample opportunity for the lawyer to take action, and K. could rest assured that those opportunities would be seized. As he had mentioned, the petition had not yet been submitted, but there was no hurry about that, the preliminary discussions with the officials in charge were of much greater importance, and those had already taken place. With varying degrees of success, it must be frankly admitted. It was far better for the time being not to reveal details which might only affect K. unfavorably and make him overly hopeful or all too anxious; suffice it to say that some of them had responded quite favorably and proved quite cooperative, while others had responded less favorably, while by no means refusing their assistance. The results were thus on the whole quite gratifying, although one mustn’t draw too many conclusions from them, since preliminary proceedings always started out that way and only further developments would reveal their true value. At any rate nothing was lost as yet, and if it still proved possible to win over the chief clerk of the court in spite of everything—various steps had already been taken toward that end—then the whole matter, as the surgeons say, was a clean wound and one could await what was to follow with confidence.

In such and similar speeches the lawyer was inexhaustible. They were repeated at every visit. Progress had always been made, but the nature of this progress could never be specified. He was always at work on the first petition, but it was never finished, which generally proved at the next visit to have been a major advantage, since the last time, and there had been no way of foreseeing this, the circumstances had been quite unfavorable for its submission. If, on occasion, exhausted by these speeches, K. remarked that even considering all the difficulties, things seemed to be progressing quite slowly, he received the rejoinder that the progress was not at all slow but that things would doubtless be much further along had K. contacted the lawyer in a timely manner. Unfortunately he had neglected to do so, and this failure would result in further disadvantages, and not merely temporal ones.

The only welcome interruption during these visits was Leni, who always knew how to arrange things so that she served the lawyer’s tea in K.’s presence. Then she would stand behind K., apparently watching the lawyer as he bowed deeply over his cup, almost greedily, to pour his tea and drink it, while she secretly allowed K. to grasp her hand. Total silence reigned. The lawyer drank, K. squeezed Leni’s hand, and Leni sometimes dared to stroke K.’s hair softly. “You’re still here?” asked the lawyer, when he had finished. “I wanted to clear away the dishes,” said Leni, there was a last squeeze of the hand, the lawyer wiped his mouth and started speaking to K. again with renewed vigor.

Was it consolation or despair the lawyer sought to produce? K. didn’t know, but he soon held it for an established fact that his defense was not in good hands. Everything the lawyer said might be true, although it was transparently clear he was primarily interested in emphasizing his own role and had probably never had a trial as important as he considered K.’s to be. But the constant emphasis on his personal contacts with officials remained suspicious. Were they being exploited solely to K.’s advantage? The lawyer never failed to remark that these were only lower-level officials, officials who were thus themselves in a position of dependence, and for whose advancement certain developments in the trials might presumably be of importance. Were they perhaps using the lawyer to effect such developments, which would of course be to the defendant’s disadvantage? Perhaps they didn’t do so in every trial, that would be unlikely; there were probably other trials in the course of which they allowed the lawyer certain advantages in exchange for his services, since they surely wished to maintain his good reputation undamaged. If that’s how things really stood, however, what tack would they take in K.’s trial, which, as the lawyer explained, was a very difficult and important one that had excited a great deal of attention at court from the very start? There couldn’t be much doubt about what they would do. Signs of it could already be seen in the fact that the first petition had still not been submitted, although the trial had already lasted for months, and that according to the lawyer everything was still in the beginning stages, which was of course admirably suited to lull the defendant to sleep and keep him in a state of helplessness, so that they could assault him suddenly with the verdict, or at least announce that the inquiry had concluded unfavorably for him and was being passed on to higher administrative authorities.

It was absolutely necessary for K. to intervene personally. It was precisely in states of extreme fatigue, as on this winter morning, when his thoughts were drifting aimlessly, that this conclusion seemed most inescapable. The contempt he had previously borne for the trial no longer applied. If he had been alone in the world he could have easily disregarded the trial, although then the trial would surely never have occurred at all. But now his uncle had already taken him to the lawyer, and family considerations were involved; his job was no longer totally independent of the course of the trial, he himself had been incautious enough to mention the trial to a few acquaintances with a certain inexplicable feeling of self-satisfaction, others had heard about it in unknown ways, his relationship to Fräulein Bürstner seemed to fluctuate with the trial itself—in short, it was no longer a matter of accepting or rejecting the trial, he was in the midst of it and had to defend himself. If he was tired, he was in trouble.

There was of course no reason to be overly concerned for the time being. He had managed to work his way up to a high position in the bank in a relatively short period of time, and, respected by all, maintain that position; all he had to do now was turn the abilities that had made that possible partially toward his trial and there was no doubt everything would turn out well. Above all, if he wanted to get anywhere, he had to reject the notion of any possible guilt right from the start. There was no guilt. The trial was no different than a major business deal of the sort he had often concluded advantageously for the bank, a deal in which, as was customary, various dangers lurked that must be avoided. To accomplish this, no notion of any sort of guilt dared be entertained of course, all thought must be focused as clearly as possible on one’s own advantage. From this point of view it was also unavoidable that the lawyer be dismissed as soon as possible, preferably that very evening. It’s true that was unheard of according to his stories, and no doubt quite insulting, but K. couldn’t allow his own efforts in the case to run into hindrances that were perhaps occasioned by his own lawyer. Once he had shaken off his lawyer, however, he would need to submit the petition immediately, and to keep pressuring them, daily if possible, to consider it. To accomplish this K. would obviously have to do more than simply sit in the hall with the others and place his hat beneath the bench. He, or the women, or some other messengers, would have to besiege the officials day after day and force them to sit down at their desks and study K.’s petition, instead of staring through the grille into the hall. These efforts must be continuous, with everything organized and supervised; for once the court was going to run into a defendant who knew how to stand up for his rights.

But even though K. felt he could handle all this, the difficulty of composing the petition was overwhelming. At one point, about a week ago, it was only with a sense of shame that he could even contemplate having to prepare such a petition some day; that it might be difficult had not even occurred to him. He recalled how one morning, when he was inundated with work, he had suddenly shoved everything aside and taken out his notepad to have a try at drafting the general outlines of such a petition and perhaps making it available to his slow-witted lawyer, and how at that very moment the door of the head office had opened and the vice president had entered laughing heartily. That had been very embarrassing for K., even though the vice president was not, of course, laughing at the petition, of which he knew nothing, but at a stock market joke he’d just heard, a joke that could only be fully appreciated by means of a drawing, which, bending over K.’s desk and taking K.’s pencil from his hand, he sketched upon the notepad intended for the petition.

Today K. no longer thought of shame; the petition had to be written. If he couldn’t find time for it at the office, which was quite likely, he would have to do it nights at home. And if the nights weren’t sufficient, he would have to take a leave of absence. Anything but stop halfway, that was the most senseless course of all, not only in business, but anywhere, at any time. Admittedly, the petition meant an almost endless task. One needn’t be particularly faint of heart to be easily persuaded of the impossibility of ever finishing the petition. Not because of laziness or deceit, the only things that kept the lawyer from finishing, but because without knowing the nature of the charge and all its possible ramifications, his entire life, down to the smallest actions and events, would have to be called to mind, described, and examined from all sides. And what a sad job that was. Perhaps, someday after retirement, it might provide a suitable occupation for a mind turned childish, and help to while away the lengthening days. But now, when K. needed all his wits for his work, when, given that he was still on the rise and already a threat to the vice president, every hour went speeding by, and when he wished to enjoy the brief evenings and nights as a young man, now he was supposed to start writing his petition. Once more his thoughts ended in lament. Almost involuntarily, simply to put an end to them, he felt for the button of the buzzer connected to the waiting room. As he pressed it he looked up at the clock. It was eleven o’clock; he had been daydreaming for two hours, a long and valuable stretch of time, and was of course even wearier than before. Nevertheless the time had not been wasted, he had reached decisions that might prove of value. Along with assorted mail, the assistant brought in two business cards from gentlemen who had been waiting to see K. for some time. They were in fact very important customers of the bank, who should not have been left waiting on any account. Why had they shown up at such an inopportune time, and why, the gentlemen seemed to respond in turn from behind the closed door, did the industrious K. use prime business time for his private affairs. Tired from what he had already gone through, and tiredly awaiting what was yet to come, K. rose to greet the first of them.

He was a short, jovial gentleman, a manufacturer K. knew well. He apologized for interrupting K. in the midst of important work, while K. apologized in turn for keeping the manufacturer waiting so long. But even this apology was delivered so mechanically and with such false emphasis that the manufacturer, had he not been entirely engrossed in the business at hand, would surely have noticed it. Instead he hurriedly pulled figures and tables from every pocket, spread them before K., explained various entries, corrected a small error in the calculations that he’d caught in even this hasty survey, reminded K. of a similar transaction he had concluded with him around a year ago, mentioned in passing that this time another bank was making great sacrifices to secure the deal, and finally fell silent to hear K.’s reaction. K. had actually followed the manufacturer’s explanations closely at first and had been caught up by the thought of a major business deal, but unfortunately not for long; he soon stopped listening, nodded a while longer at the more emphatic exclamations of the manufacturer, but in the end abandoned even that and limited himself to staring at the bald head bent over the papers, wondering when the manufacturer would finally realize that his entire presentation was in vain. As he now fell silent, K. actually believed at first it was meant to give him an opportunity to confess he could no longer listen. But to his regret he saw from the expectant gaze of the manufacturer, who was obviously prepared for any possible rejoinder, that the business conference was going to continue. So he ducked his head as if at an order and began moving his pencil back and forth above the papers, stopping here and there to stare at a number. The manufacturer sensed objections: perhaps the figures weren’t really firm, perhaps they weren’t truly conclusive, in any case the manufacturer placed his hand on the papers and, drawing right up against K., launched once more into a general description of the project. “It’s complicated,” K. said, pursing his lips, and since the papers, the only thing he could grasp, were covered, he slumped against the arm of his chair. He glanced up only weakly even when the door to the head office opened and, somewhat blurred, as if behind a gauzy veil, the figure of the vice president appeared. K. gave this no further thought, but simply observed the result, which pleased him greatly. For the manufacturer immediately jumped up from his chair and rushed toward the vice president; K. would have had him move ten times faster however, for he feared the vice president might disappear. His fear was unwarranted: the gentlemen met, shook hands, and walked together toward K.’s desk. The manufacturer complained because the financial officer had shown so little inclination for the project and pointed toward K. who, beneath the vice president’s gaze, bent over the papers once more. As the two leaned against the desk and the manufacturer now began to try to win over the vice president, it seemed to K. as if the two men, whose size he mentally exaggerated, were negotiating with each other about him. Slowly he tried to ascertain with cautiously upturned eyes what was happening above him, took one of the sheets of paper from the desk without looking at it, placed it on the palm of his hand, and lifted it at last to the men as he himself stood up. He had nothing in particular in mind as he did so, but simply acted in the belief that he would have to behave thus when he finally prepared the grand petition that would totally exonerate him. The vice president, who had followed the conversation with the closest attention, simply glanced at the sheet, not even bothering to read it, since whatever was of importance to the financial officer was of no importance to him, took it from K.’s hand, said: “Thanks, I already know all about it,” and laid it back calmly on the desk. K. gave him a bitter sidelong glance. But the vice president didn’t notice at all, or if he did notice, it only amused him; he laughed aloud several times, put the manufacturer at an obvious loss once with a shrewd reply, but quickly smoothed things over by raising an objection to his own position, and finally invited him to join him in his office, where they could bring the matter to a close. “It’s a very important project,” he said to the manufacturer, “I see that quite clearly. And our chief financial officer”—even this remark was actually addressed only to the manufacturer—“will certainly be pleased if we take it off his hands. It’s a matter that requires calm consideration. But he appears overburdened today, and a number of people have already been waiting hours for him in the outer office.” K. retained just enough self-control to turn away from the vice president and direct his friendly but rigid smile solely to the manufacturer; otherwise he made no attempt to intervene, leaned forward slightly with both hands propped on his desk like a clerk at his station, and looked on as the two men continued talking, picked up the papers from the desk, and disappeared into the head office. While still in the doorway the manufacturer turned, said he wouldn’t take his leave as yet, but would of course inform the financial officer of the outcome of the discussion, and that he still had one other small matter to mention to him.

At last K. was alone. He had no intention of admitting any other clients, and he was only vaguely conscious of how pleasant it was that the people outside believed he was still dealing with the manufacturer, so that no one, not even his assistant, could enter. He went to the window, sat down on the broad sill, held on tightly to the handle with one hand, and looked out onto the square. The snow was still falling; the day had not yet brightened.

He sat like that for a long time, without knowing what was actually troubling him, just glancing over his shoulder with a start from time to time at the door to the waiting room, where he mistakenly thought he heard a noise. But when no one arrived, he relaxed, went to the washbasin, washed his face with cold water, and returned to his place at the window with a clearer head. The decision to take charge of his own defense appeared more momentous now than he had originally assumed. So long as he had shifted the burden of his defense to his lawyer the trial had not affected him all that much; he had observed it from afar and could scarcely be touched by it directly; he could check up on his case whenever he wished, but he could also pull his head back whenever he wanted to. Now, on the other hand, if he intended to undertake his own defense, he would have to expose himself fully to the court for the moment; the result would eventually be his full and definitive release, but in order to achieve this, he must temporarily place himself in far greater danger than before. If he had any doubts on that score, today’s meeting with the vice president and the manufacturer offered ample proof. How could he have just sat there, totally paralyzed by the mere decision to defend himself? What would things be like later? The days that lay ahead! Would he find the path that led through it all to a favorable end? Didn’t a painstaking defense—and any other kind would be senseless—didn’t a painstaking defense simultaneously imply the necessity of cutting himself off as far as possible from everything else? Would he successfully survive that? And how was he supposed to do that here at the bank? It wasn’t just a matter of the petition, for which a leave might perhaps suffice, although requesting one just now would be taking a great chance; it was a matter of an entire trial, the length of which was unforeseeable. What an obstacle had suddenly been thrown in the path of K.’s career!

And now he was expected to work for the bank?—He glanced over at the desk.—Now he was supposed to admit clients and deal with them? While his trial rolled on, while the officials of the court were up there in the attic going over the trial documents, he was supposed to conduct bank business? Didn’t that seem like a form of torture, sanctioned by the court, a part of the trial itself, accompanying it? And would anyone in the bank take his special situation into account when judging his work? No one, not ever. His trial was not entirely unknown, although it wasn’t quite clear who knew about it and how much. He hoped, however, that the rumor had not yet reached the vice president; otherwise there would have already been some clear sign of how, without the least regard for collegiality or common decency, he would use it against K. And the president? There was no doubt that he was favorably inclined toward K., and if he were to learn about the trial, he would probably try to make things easier for K. as far as he could, but with little success to be sure, since now that the counterweight K. had offered up to this point was starting to weaken, he was falling increasingly under the influence of the vice president, who was also taking advantage of the president’s precarious state of health to strengthen his own position. Then what hope was there for K.? Perhaps he weakened his own resistance by such reflections, and yet it was also necessary to avoid self-deception and to see everything as clearly as possible at that moment.

For no particular reason, simply to avoid returning to his desk for the time being, he opened the window. It was hard to open; he had to use both hands to turn the handle. Then fog mingled with smoke blew in through the window from top to bottom and filled the room with the faint smell of burning. A few flakes of snow drifted in as well. “A nasty autumn,” the manufacturer said behind him, having entered the room unnoticed after leaving the vice president. K. nodded and looked nervously at the manufacturer’s briefcase, from which he would now no doubt pull the papers to report the results of his discussion with the vice president. The manufacturer, however, followed K.’s gaze, tapped his briefcase, and said without opening it: “You want to hear how it turned out. Not too badly. I’ve practically got a signed contract in my pocket. A charming man, your vice president, but not without his dangerous side.” He laughed, shook K.’s hand, and tried to get him to laugh as well. But now it struck K. as suspicious that the manufacturer didn’t want to show him the papers, and he found nothing in the manufacturer’s remarks to laugh about. “My dear sir,” said the manufacturer, “you’re probably suffering from the weather. You look so dejected today.” “Yes,” said K. and pressed his hand to his forehead, “a headache, family problems.” “Yes, indeed,” said the manufacturer, who was always in a hurry and could listen to no one patiently, “each of us has his cross to bear.” K. had instinctively taken a step toward the door, as if he wished to see the manufacturer out, but the latter said: “I had one other small matter to mention, my dear sir. I’m afraid I may perhaps be adding to your burdens today with this, but I’ve already been here twice in the recent past and forgot it both times. If I put it off any longer it will probably lose its point altogether. But that would be too bad, since my information is perhaps not entirely without value.” Before K. had time to reply, the manufacturer stepped up close to him, tapped him on the chest with his knuckle, and said quietly: “You’re involved in a trial, right?” K. stepped back and exclaimed at once: “The vice president told you that.” “Oh, no,” said the manufacturer, “how would the vice president know?” “And you?” asked K., immediately calmer. “I find out things about the court now and then,” said the manufacturer. “Such as the information I wanted to pass on to you.” “So many people are connected with the court!” said K. with bowed head and led the manufacturer over to the desk. They sat down again as before and the manufacturer said: “I don’t have much information to offer, unfortunately. But you shouldn’t neglect even the smallest item in these matters. And I feel an urge to help you somehow, no matter how modest that help might be. We’ve been good business friends up to now, haven’t we? Well, then.” K. started to beg his pardon for the way he had behaved at that day’s conference, but the manufacturer would not be interrupted; he shoved his briefcase high under his arm to show he was in a hurry and went on: “I know about your trial from a certain Titorelli. He’s a painter; Titorelli is just the name he goes by as an artist, I don’t know his real one. He’s been coming to my office off and on for years, bringing small paintings for which I always give him a sort of alms—he’s almost a beggar. They’re pretty pictures by the way, landscapes of heaths and the like. These sales—we’re both long since used to them—go smoothly enough. But at one point he started repeating his visits too often, I raised objections, we started talking; I was interested in how he managed to support himself on his art alone and learned to my astonishment that his major source of income was portrait painting. He said he worked for the court. For which court, I asked. And then he told me about the court. You can no doubt well imagine how astonished I was at his stories. Since then, whenever he visits, I hear some item of news about the court, and so I’ve gradually gained a certain insight into the matter. Of course Titorelli gossips a lot, and I often have to turn him off, not simply because he surely lies as well, but above all because a businessman like myself, almost collapsing beneath the burdens of his own affairs, can’t spend too much time worrying about those of others. But that’s beside the point. Perhaps—it occurred to me now—Titorelli could be of some help to you; he knows several judges, and even if he doesn’t have much influence himself, he could still advise you on how to gain access to various influential people. And even if this sort of advice is not in and of itself crucial, in my opinion it might take on great importance in your possession. After all, you’re practically a lawyer. I always say: Chief Financial Officer K. is practically a lawyer. Oh, I have no worries about your trial. But would you like to visit Titorelli? With my recommendation he’ll certainly try to do everything he can. I really think you should go. It doesn’t have to be today of course, some time or other, at your convenience. Of course—let me add this—you mustn’t feel obliged to actually visit Titorelli just because I’m the one who advised you to do so. No, if you think you can get along without him, it would be better to leave him out of it entirely. Perhaps you already have some precise plan Titorelli might disturb. Then no, you most assuredly shouldn’t go. A person is naturally reluctant to allow himself to be advised by a fellow like that. As you wish, then. Here’s the letter of introduction and here’s the address.”

Disappointed, K. took the letter and stuck it in his pocket. Even in the most favorable of cases, any advantage he might gain from the recommendation was small compared to the harm that lay in the fact that the manufacturer knew about his trial, and that the painter was spreading the news about. He could hardly force himself to offer a few words of thanks to the manufacturer, who was already on his way to the door. “I’ll go there,” he said, as he saw the manufacturer off at the door, “or, since I’m so busy right now, I’ll write to say he should come to my office sometime.” “I knew you’d figure out how best to handle it,” said the manufacturer. “Of course I thought you’d prefer to avoid inviting people like this Titorelli to the bank to discuss your trial. It’s not always a good idea to send letters to such people either. But you’ve no doubt thought everything over carefully and know what to do.” K. nodded and accompanied the manufacturer on through the waiting room. In spite of his calm exterior, he was shocked at himself. He’d only said he would write Titorelli to show the manufacturer that he appreciated his recommendation and that he would seriously consider the possibility of getting together with Titorelli, but if he had thought that Titorelli’s assistance might be of use, he would not have hesitated to actually write to him. The resulting danger, however, had not occurred to him until the manufacturer made his remark. Could he really rely so little on his own judgment already? If he could allow himself to send an explicit letter of invitation to a man of questionable character to come to the bank, in order, separated only by a door from the vice president, to seek his advice on his trial, was it not possible, and even probable, that he was overlooking other dangers, or heading straight for them? There wouldn’t always be someone standing at his side to warn him. And now of all times, when he should be gathering all his strength to act, previously unknown doubts about his own judgment had to arise. Were the difficulties he was having carrying out his office work going to begin in his trial as well? Certainly now he no longer understood how he could ever have considered writing to Titorelli and inviting him to the bank.

He was still shaking his head about it when the assistant stepped up beside him and pointed out three gentlemen sitting there in the outer room on a bench. They had been waiting to see K. for some time. Now that the assistant was speaking to K. they stood up, each seeking a favorable opportunity to approach K. before the others. Since the bank had been inconsiderate enough to waste their time in the waiting room, they were not about to show any further consideration themselves. “Sir,” one of them was saying. But K. had asked the assistant to bring him his winter coat and, as the assistant helped him on with it, said to all three: “Pardon me, gentlemen, but unfortunately I have no time to receive you now. I do beg your pardon, but I have an urgent business errand to attend to and have to leave immediately. You see how long I’ve been tied up. Would you be so kind as to come again tomorrow, or some other time? Or could we possibly handle the matter by phone? Or could you tell me briefly now what it is you wanted and I’ll give you a full reply in writing. Of course the best thing would be to come again soon.” K.’s suggestions so astonished the gentlemen, who had evidently waited entirely in vain, that they stared at each other in total speechlessness. “It’s settled then?” asked K., turning to the assistant, who now brought him his hat as well. Through the open door of K.’s office one could see that the snow was falling much more heavily outside. Therefore K. turned up his coat collar and buttoned it up to his neck.

Just at that moment the vice president stepped out of the adjoining room, smiled as he saw K. in his winter coat conferring with the men, and asked: “Are you on your way out, Herr K.?” “Yes,” said K., drawing himself up, “I have a business errand to attend to.” But the vice president had already turned to the other men. “And these gentlemen?” he asked. “I believe they’ve been waiting a long time.” “We’ve already worked that out,” said K. But now the men could be held back no longer; they surrounded K. and declared that they wouldn’t have waited all these hours if they hadn’t had important business that needed to be discussed at once, in detail and privately, person to person. The vice president listened to them for a while, regarded K., who held his hat in his hand and was wiping a few spots of dust off it, and then said: “Gentlemen there’s a simple solution. If you’ll be kind enough to come along with me, I will gladly confer with you in place of the financial officer. Of course your business must be discussed at once. We’re businessmen like yourselves, and we know how valuable a businessman’s time is. Won’t you come in?” And he opened the door that led into the waiting room of his office.

How good the vice president was at appropriating everything K. was forced to relinquish! But wasn’t K. relinquishing more than was really necessary? While he was running off to an unknown painter with vague and, he must admit, quite slender hopes, his reputation here was suffering irreparable damage. It would probably have been much better to remove his winter coat and try to win back at least the two gentlemen who were still waiting in the next room. And K. might have tried to do so, had he not seen the vice president in his office, searching through the bookcase as if it were his own. As K. approached the door in agitation, the vice president exclaimed: “Oh, you haven’t left yet.” He turned his face toward him, its many deeply scored lines seeming to signal strength rather than age, and immediately renewed his search. “I was looking for the copy of a contract,” he said, “that the firm’s representative says you’re supposed to have. Won’t you help me look?” K. took a step, but the vice president said: “Thanks, I’ve just found it,” and turned back into his office with a thick stack of documents that obviously contained much more than just the copy of the contract.

“I’m no match for him at the moment,” K. said to himself, “but once I’ve dispensed with my personal difficulties, he’s going to get it and get it good.” Somewhat comforted by this thought, K. instructed the assistant, who had been holding the hall door open for him for some time, to inform the president when he got the chance that he was out on a business errand, then left the bank, almost happy to be able to devote himself totally to his case for a while.

He drove at once to the painter, who lived in a suburb that lay in a completely opposite direction from the one with the law court offices. It was an even poorer neighborhood; the buildings were darker, the narrow streets filled with filth floating slowly about on the melting snow. In the building where the painter lived, only one wing of the great double door stood open; at the bottom of the other wing, however, near the wall, there was a gaping hole from which, just as K. approached, a disgusting, steaming yellow fluid poured forth, before which a rat fled into the nearby sewer. At the bottom of the steps a small child was lying face down on the ground, crying, but it could hardly be heard above the noise coming from a sheet-metal shop beyond the entranceway. The door of the workshop stood open; three workers were standing around some object in a half-circle, beating on it with hammers. A great sheet of tin hanging on the wall cast a pale shimmer that flowed between two workers, illuminating their faces and work aprons. K. merely glanced at all this; he wanted to finish up here as fast as possible, just see what he could learn from the painter with a few words and go straight back to the bank. If he had even the slightest success here, it would still have a good effect on that day’s work at the bank. On the third floor he was forced to slow his pace; he was completely out of breath; the steps were unusually high and the flights unusually long, and the painter supposedly lived right at the top in an attic room. The air was oppressive as well; there was no stairwell, the narrow stairs were closed in on both sides by walls with only a few small windows here and there, high up near the ceiling. Just as K. paused for a moment, a few little girls ran out of an apartment and rushed on up the stairs laughing. K. followed them slowly, caught up with one of the girls, who had stumbled and remained behind the others, and asked as they continued to climb the stairs together: “Does a painter named Titorelli live here?” The girl, thirteen at most, and somewhat hunchbacked, poked him with her elbow and peered up at him sideways. Neither her youth nor her deformity had prevented her early corruption. She didn’t even smile, but instead stared boldly and invitingly at K. Ignoring her behavior, K. asked: “Do you know the painter Titorelli?” She nodded and asked in turn: “What do you want with him?” K. thought it would be to his advantage to pick up a little quick knowledge about Titorelli: “I want him to paint my portrait,” he said. “Paint your portrait?” she asked, opening her mouth wide and pushing K. lightly with her hand, as if he had said something extraordinarily surprising or gauche; then she lifted her little skirt, which was extremely short to begin with, with both hands and ran as fast as she could after the other girls, whose cries were already disappearing indistinctly above. At the very next landing, however, K. met up with all the girls again. They had evidently been informed of K.’s intentions by the hunchback and were waiting for him. They stood on both sides of the steps, pressed themselves against the walls so that K. could pass comfortably between them, and smoothed their smocks with their hands. Their faces as well as the guard of honor they formed conveyed a mixture of childishness and depravity. Above, at the head of the group of girls, who now closed around K. laughingly, was the hunchback, who took over the lead. It was thanks to her that K. found his way so easily. He had intended to go straight on up the stairs, but she showed him he had to take a stairway off to the side to reach Titorelli. The stairway that led to him was particularly narrow, extremely long, without a turn, visible along its entire length, and ended directly at Titorelli’s door. This door, which compared to the rest of the stairway was relatively well illuminated by a small skylight set at an angle above it, was constructed of unfinished boards, upon which the name Titorelli was painted in red with broad brushstrokes. K. was barely halfway up the stairs with his retinue when the door above them opened slightly, apparently in response to the sound of all the feet, and a man appeared in the crack of the door, seemingly dressed only in his nightshirt. “Oh!” he cried as he saw the crowd approaching, and disappeared. The hunchback clapped her hands with joy and the rest of the girls pushed behind K. to hurry him along.

They weren’t even all the way up yet, however, when the painter flung the door open wide and with a deep bow invited K. to enter. The girls, on the other hand, he fended off, he wouldn’t let a single one in, no matter how they begged, no matter how hard they tried to push their way in, if not with his permission, then against his will. Only the hunchback managed to slip under his outstretched arm, but the painter raced after her, seized her by the skirts, whirled her once around him, and then set her back down in front of the door with the other girls, who had not dared cross the threshold when the painter abandoned his post. K. didn’t know how to judge all this; it looked as if the whole thing was happening on friendly terms. The girls by the door craned their necks one after the other, called out various humorously intended remarks to the painter that K. couldn’t catch, and the painter laughed as well while the hunchback almost flew in his hands. Then he shut the door, bowed to K. again, held out his hand, and introduced himself: “I’m Titorelli, the artist.” K. pointed to the door, behind which the girls were whispering, and said: “You seem very popular here in the building.” “Oh those brats!” said the painter, and tried in vain to button his nightshirt around his neck. He was barefoot as well, and otherwise wore nothing but a pair of roomy yellow linen trousers, tied with a belt whose long end dangled loosely. “Those brats are a real burden to me,” he went on, giving up on his nightshirt, the last button of which had now come off, and fetching a chair, on which he made K. sit. “I painted one of them once—she isn’t even here today—and they’ve been pestering me ever since. If I’m here, they only come in when I let them, but if I go away, there’s always at least one of them here. They’ve had a key made to my door and lend it to each other. You can’t imagine how annoying that is. For instance I come home with a lady I’m supposed to paint, open the door with my key, and find let’s say the hunchback sitting at the little table there, painting her lips red with the brush, while her little sisters, the ones she’s supposed to be watching, wander around making a mess in every corner of the room. Or, as happened only yesterday, I come home late at night—in light of which I hope you’ll pardon my state and the disorder of the room—I come home late at night and start to get in bed when something pinches my leg; I look under the bed and pull out another one. Why they push themselves on me so I don’t know; you’ll have noticed yourself that I don’t try to lure them in. Of course they disturb my work too. If this atelier weren’t provided for me free, I would have moved out long ago.” Just then a small voice called from behind the door, softly and timidly: “Titorelli, can we come in yet?” “No,” answered the painter. “Not even just me?” it asked again. “Not even you,” said the painter, walking over to the door and locking it.

In the meantime K. had been looking around the room; he would never have imagined that anyone could refer to this miserable little room as an atelier. You could scarcely take two long strides in any direction. Everything was made of wood, the floor, the walls, the ceiling; you could see narrow cracks between the boards. A bed stood against the wall across from K., piled high with bedding of various colors. On an easel in the middle of the room stood a painting covered by a shirt with its arms dangling to the floor. Behind K. was the window, through which one could see no farther in the fog than the snow-covered roof of the neighboring building.

The key turning in the lock reminded K. that he had intended to stay only a short while. So he pulled the manufacturer’s letter from his pocket, handed it to the painter, and said: “I learned about you from this gentleman, whom you know, and I’ve come at his suggestion.” The painter skimmed through the letter and tossed it onto the bed. Had the manufacturer not clearly spoken of Titorelli as someone he knew, a poor man dependent upon his alms, one might have easily believed Titorelli had no idea who the manufacturer was, or at any rate couldn’t recall him. Moreover, the painter now asked: “Do you wish to buy paintings or to have your portrait painted?” K. looked at the painter in amazement. What was in that letter? K. had taken it for granted that the manufacturer’s letter informed the painter that K. wished only to inquire about his trial. He had rushed over too quickly, without thinking! But now he had to give the painter some sort of answer, so he said with a glance at the easel: “Are you working on a painting now?” “Yes,” said the painter and tossed the shirt that was hanging over the easel onto the bed alongside the letter. “It’s a portrait. A nice job, but it’s not quite finished yet.” Luck was on K.’s side; the opportunity to talk about the court was being handed to him on a platter, for it was clearly the portrait of a judge. Moreover it was strikingly similar to the painting in the lawyer’s study. Of course this was a completely different judge, a fat man with a black bushy beard that hung far down the sides of his cheeks, and that had been an oil painting, while this was faintly and indistinctly sketched in pastel. But everything else was similar, for here too the judge was about to rise up threateningly from his throne, gripping its arms. “That must be a judge,” K. started to say, but then held back for a moment and approached the picture as if he wanted to study it in detail. He was unable to interpret a large figure centered atop the back of the throne and asked the painter about it. “I still have some work to do on it,” answered the painter, taking a pastel crayon from the little table and adding a few strokes to the contours of the figure, without, however, making it any clearer to K. in the process. “It’s the figure of Justice,” the painter finally said. “Now I recognize it,” said K., “there’s the blindfold over her eyes and here are the scales. But aren’t those wings on her heels, and isn’t she in motion?” “Yes,” said the painter, “I’m commissioned to do it that way, it’s actually Justice and the goddess of Victory in one.” “That’s a poor combination,” said K. smiling, “Justice must remain at rest, otherwise the scales sway and no just judgment is possible.” “I’m just following the wishes of the person who commissioned it,” said the painter. “Yes, of course,” said K. who hadn’t meant to hurt anyone’s feelings by his remark. “You’ve painted the figure the way it actually appears on the throne.” “No,” said the painter, “I’ve seen neither the figure nor the throne, that’s all an invention; but I was told what to paint.” “What do you mean?” asked K., intentionally acting as if he didn’t really understand the painter; “that’s surely a judge sitting in a judge’s chair.” “Yes,” said the painter, “but it’s not a high judge, and he hasn’t ever sat in a throne like that.” “And yet he allows himself to be portrayed in such a solemn pose? He’s sitting there like the president of the court.” “Yes, the gentlemen are vain,” said the painter. “But they have higher permission to be painted that way. There are precise instructions as to how each of them may be portrayed. But unfortunately it’s impossible to judge the details of his attire and the chair in this picture; pastels aren’t really suitable for these portraits.” “Yes,” said K., “it’s strange that it’s done in pastel.” “The judge wanted it that way,” said the painter, “it’s intended for a lady.” Looking at the painting seemed to have made him want to work on it; he rolled up the sleeves of his nightshirt, picked up a few pastels, and K. watched as, beneath the trembling tips of the crayons, a reddish shadow took shape around the judge’s head and extended outward in rays toward the edges of the picture. Gradually this play of shadow surrounded the head like an ornament or a sign of high distinction. But, except for an imperceptible shading, brightness still surrounded the figure of Justice, and in this brightness the figure seemed to stand out strikingly; now it scarcely recalled the goddess of Justice, or even that of Victory, now it looked just like the goddess of the Hunt. The painter’s work attracted K. more than he wished; at last, however, he reproached himself for having been there so long without having really undertaken anything for his own case. “What’s the name of this judge?” he asked suddenly. “I’m not allowed to say,” replied the painter; he was bent low over the painting and pointedly ignoring his guest, whom he had at first received so courteously. K. assumed this was a passing mood and was annoyed because it was causing him to lose time. “I take it you’re a confidant of the court?” he asked. The painter laid aside his pastels at once, straightened up, rubbed his hands together, and looked at K. with a smile. “Just come straight out with the truth,” he said, “you want to learn something about the court, as it says in your letter of introduction, and you discussed my paintings first to win me over. But I don’t hold that against you, you had no way of knowing that doesn’t work with me. Oh, come on!” he said sharply, as K. tried to object. And then continued: “By the way, your remark was quite accurate, I am a confidant of the court.” He paused as if to allow K. time to come to terms with this fact. Now the girls could be heard again behind the door. They were probably crowding around the keyhole; perhaps they could see in through the cracks as well. K. made no attempt to excuse himself, not wishing to sidetrack the painter, but neither did he wish the painter to become too arrogant and move as it were beyond his reach, so he asked: “Is that an officially recognized position?” “No,” said the painter curtly, as if that was all he had to say about it. But K. had no wish to see him fall silent and said: “Well, such unofficial positions often carry more influence than ones that are recognized.” “That’s how it is with mine,” said the painter, and nodded with a frown. “I discussed your case yesterday with the manufacturer; he asked me whether I would be willing to help you, I replied: ‘The man can come see me sometime,’ and I’m pleased to see you here so soon. You seem to be taking the affair to heart, which doesn’t surprise me in the least, of course. But wouldn’t you like to take your coat off?” Although K. intended to stay for only a short while, the painter’s suggestion was quite welcome. The air in the room had gradually become oppressive; he had glanced over several times at a small and obviously unlit iron stove in the corner; the closeness in the room was inexplicable. As he took off his winter coat and then unbuttoned his jacket as well, the painter said apologetically: “I have to keep it warm. It’s cozy in here, isn’t it? The room is well situated in that respect.” K. did not reply to this, but actually it wasn’t the warmth that made him uncomfortable, it was the muggy atmosphere that rendered breathing difficult; the room probably hadn’t been aired for ages. This unpleasantness was intensified for K. by the fact that the painter had him sit on the bed, while he himself sat before the easel in the only chair in the room. Moreover the painter seemed to misunderstand K.’s reason for remaining perched on the edge of the bed; he even told K. to make himself comfortable and, when K. hesitated, he walked over and pressed him deep into the bedding and pillows. Then he returned to his chair and finally asked his first factual question, which made K. forget everything else. “Are you innocent?” he asked. “Yes,” said K. Answering this question was a positive pleasure, particularly since he was making the statement to a private citizen, and thus bore no true responsibility. No one had ever asked him so openly. To savor this pleasure to the full, he added: “I am totally innocent.” “Well then,” said the painter, bowing his head and apparently considering this. Suddenly he lifted his head again and said: “If you’re innocent, then the matter is really quite simple.” K.’s face clouded over; this so-called confidant of the court was talking like an ignorant child. “My innocence doesn’t simplify the matter,” said K. He had to smile in spite of himself and shook his head slowly. “A number of subtle points are involved, in which the court loses its way. But then in the end it pulls out some profound guilt from somewhere where there was originally none at all.” “Yes, yes, of course,” said the painter, as if K. were needlessly interrupting his train of thought. “But you are innocent?” “Well, yes,” said K. “That’s the main thing,” said the painter. He couldn’t be swayed by counterarguments, but in spite of his decisiveness, it wasn’t clear whether he was speaking from conviction or indifference. K. wanted to determine that first, and so he said: “You certainly know the court much better than I do; I don’t know much more about it than what I’ve heard, from all sorts of people of course. But they’re all in agreement that charges are never made frivolously, and that the court, once it brings a charge, is convinced of the guilt of the accused, and that it is difficult to sway them from this conviction.” “Difficult?” asked the painter, throwing one hand in the air. “The court can never be swayed from it. If I were to paint all the judges in a row on this canvas and you were to plead your case before them, you would have more success than before the actual court.” “Yes,” K. said to himself, forgetting that he had only intended to sound out the painter.

Behind the door a girl started asking again: “Titorelli, isn’t he going to leave pretty soon?” “Quiet,” the painter yelled at the door, “can’t you see that I’m having a conference with this gentleman?” But that didn’t satisfy the girl, who instead asked: “Are you going to paint him?” And when the painter didn’t reply she added: “Please don’t paint him; he’s so ugly.” A confusion of unintelligible cries of agreement followed. The painter sprang to the door, opened it a crack—the clasped hands of the girls could be seen stretched out imploringly—and said: “If you don’t be quiet, I’m going to throw you all down the stairs. Sit down on the steps and keep still.” Apparently they didn’t obey right away, so that he had to make it a command: “Down on the steps!” Only then was it quiet.

“Pardon me,” said the painter, turning to K. again. K. had scarcely glanced toward the door; he’d left it entirely up to the painter whether and how he was to be protected. Even now he hardly moved as the painter bent down to him and, in order not to be heard outside, whispered in his ear: “Those girls belong to the court as well.” “What?” asked K., jerking his head away and staring at the painter. But the latter sat down in his chair again and said half in jest, half in explanation: “Everything belongs to the court.” “I hadn’t noticed that,” K. said curtly; the painter’s general statement stripped the reference to the girls of any disturbing quality. Even so, K. gazed for a while at the door, behind which the girls were now sitting quietly on the steps. Only one had poked a piece of straw through a crack between the boards and was moving it slowly up and down.

“You don’t seem to have a general overview of the court yet,” said the painter; he had spread his legs wide and was tapping his toes on the floor. “But since you’re innocent, you won’t need one. I’ll get you off on my own.” “How are you going to do that?” asked K. “You said yourself just a moment ago that the court is entirely impervious to proof.” “Impervious only to proof brought before the court,” said the painter, and lifted his forefinger, as if K. had missed a subtle distinction. “But it’s another matter when it comes to behind-the-scene efforts, in the conference rooms, in the corridors, or for example even here in the atelier.” What the painter now said seemed less improbable to K.; on the contrary it stood in close agreement with what K. had heard from others as well. Yes, it was even filled with hope. If the judges could really be swayed as easily through personal contacts as the lawyer had suggested, then the painter’s contacts with vain judges were particularly important and should by no means be underestimated. The painter would fit perfectly into the circle of helpers K. was gradually assembling about him. His organizational talents had once been highly praised at the bank; here, where he was entirely on his own, he had an excellent opportunity to test them to the full. The painter observed the effect of his explanation on K. and then asked with a certain anxiety: “Have you noticed I sound almost like a lawyer? It’s constantly interacting with gentlemen of the court that influences me. Of course I profit greatly from it, but I tend to lose a good deal of artistic energy.” “How did you first come in contact with the judges?” asked K.; he wanted to win the painter’s confidence before directly enlisting his aid. “That was quite simple,” said the painter, “I inherited the connection. My father himself was a court painter. It’s one post that’s always hereditary. New people are of no use for it. The rules for painting the various levels of officials are so numerous, so varied, and above all so secret, that they simply aren’t known beyond certain families. There in that drawer, for example, I have my father’s notes, which I show to no one. But only someone who knows them is equipped to paint the judges. Nevertheless, even if I were to lose them, I still carry so many rules in my head that no one could ever dispute my right to the post. Every judge wants to be painted like the great judges of old, and only I can do that.” “That’s an enviable situation,” said K., who was thinking about his own position in the bank, “so your position is unshakable?” “Yes, unshakable,” said the painter, proudly lifting his shoulders. “And that allows me to take a chance now and then helping a poor man with his trial.” “And how do you do that?” asked K., as if he were not the one the painter had just called a poor man. But the painter wouldn’t be sidetracked, saying instead: “In your case, for example, since you’re entirely innocent, I plan to undertake the following.” This repeated reference to his innocence was beginning to annoy K. At times it seemed to him as if, by such remarks, the painter was insisting upon a favorable outcome to the trial as a precondition for his help, which thus amounted to nothing on its own of course. But in spite of these doubts, K. controlled himself and didn’t interrupt the painter. He didn’t want to do without the painter’s help, he was sure of that, and that help seemed no more questionable than the lawyer’s. In fact K. far preferred the former, because it was offered more simply and openly.

The painter had pulled his chair closer to the bed and continued in a low voice: “I forgot to ask first what sort of release you want. There are three possibilities: actual acquittal, apparent acquittal, and protraction. Actual acquittal is best of course, but I don’t have the slightest influence on that particular result. In my opinion there’s not a single person anywhere who could have an influence on an actual acquittal. In that case the defendant’s innocence alone is probably decisive. Since you’re innocent, it would actually be possible to rely on your innocence alone. But then you wouldn’t need help from me or anyone else.”

This orderly presentation took K. aback at first, but then he said, as quietly as the painter: “I think you’re contradicting yourself.” “How?” the painter asked patiently and leaned back with a smile. This smile made K. feel as if he were trying to reveal contradictions not so much in the words of the painter as in the legal process itself. Nevertheless he did not retreat, but said: “You remarked earlier that the court is impervious to proof; later you restricted this to the public aspect of the court, and now you even claim that an innocent man needs no help at all before the court. That’s a contradiction in itself. Moreover you also stated earlier that judges can be personally influenced, although you now deny that actual acquittal, as you call it, can ever be achieved through personal influence. That’s a second contradiction.” “These contradictions can be easily explained,” said the painter. “We’re talking about two different things here, what the Law says, and what I’ve experienced personally; you mustn’t confuse the two. In the Law, which I’ve never read, mind you, it says of course on the one hand that an innocent person is to be acquitted; on the other hand it does not say that judges can be influenced. My own experience, however, has been precisely the opposite. I know of no actual acquittals but know many instances of influence. Of course it’s possible that in the cases I’m familiar with no one was ever innocent. But doesn’t that seem unlikely? In all those cases not one single innocent person? Even as a child I listened closely to my father when he talked about trials at home, and the judges who came to his atelier discussed the court as well; in our circles no one talked of anything else; from the moment I was allowed to go to court I attended constantly, heard the crucial stages of innumerable trials, followed them insofar as they could be followed, and—I must admit—I never saw a single actual acquittal.” “Not a single acquittal then,” said K. as if speaking to himself and to his hopes. “That confirms the opinion I’ve already formed of this court. So it has no real point in that respect either. A single hangman could replace the entire court.” “You mustn’t generalize,” said the painter, displeased, “I’ve spoken only of my own experience.” “That’s quite enough,” said K., “or have you heard of acquittals in earlier times?” “Such acquittals are said to have occurred, of course,” said the painter. “But that’s extremely difficult to determine. The final verdicts of the court are not published, and not even the judges have access to them; thus only legends remain about ancient court cases. These tell of actual acquittals, of course, even in a majority of cases; you can believe them, but they can’t be proved true. Nevertheless they shouldn’t be entirely ignored; they surely contain a certain degree of truth, and they are very beautiful; I myself have painted a few pictures based on such legends.” “Mere legends can’t change my opinion,” said K., “I assume these legends can’t be cited in court?” The painter laughed. “No, they can’t,” he said. “Then it’s useless talking about them,” said K.; he was accepting all the painter’s opinions for the time being, even if he considered them improbable and they contradicted other reports. He didn’t have time right now to examine the truth of everything the painter said, let alone to disprove it; the best he could hope for was to induce the painter to help him somehow, even if it was not in any crucial way. So he said: “Let’s leave actual acquittal aside then; you mentioned two further possibilities.” “Apparent acquittal and protraction. It can only be one of those two,” said the painter. “But don’t you want to take off your jacket before we discuss them? You must be hot.” “Yes,” said K., who up to then had been concentrating solely on the painter’s explanations but whose forehead now broke out in heavy sweat as he was reminded of the heat. “It’s almost unbearable.” The painter nodded, as if he could well understand K.’s discomfort. “Couldn’t we open the window?” K. asked. “No,” said the painter. “It’s just a pane of glass set in the wall; it can’t be opened.” K. now realized that he had been hoping the whole time that either the painter or he would suddenly walk to the window and throw it open. He was prepared to inhale even the fog with an open mouth. The sense of being entirely cut off from outside air made him dizzy. He struck the featherbed beside him softly and said in a weak voice: “That’s uncomfortable and unhealthy.” “Oh, no,” said the painter in defense of his window. “Since it can’t be opened, it holds in the heat better than a double-paned window, even though it’s only a single sheet of glass. If I want to air things out, which is hardly necessary, since air comes in through all the cracks between the boards, I can open one of my doors, or even both of them.” Somewhat comforted by this explanation, K. looked around for the second door. The painter noticed this and said: “It’s behind you; I had to block it with the bed.” Only then did K. see the little door in the wall. “This room is really too small for an atelier,” said the painter, as if wishing to forestall a criticism on K.’s part. “I’ve had to arrange things as best I could. Of course the bed is very poorly situated in front of the door. That’s the door the judge I’m currently painting always uses, for example, and I’ve given him a key to it so he can wait for me here in the atelier, even when I’m not at home. But he generally arrives early in the morning while I’m still asleep. Of course I’m always awakened from a sound sleep when the door by the bed opens. You’d lose any respect you have for judges if you could hear the curses I shower on him as he climbs across my bed in the morning. Of course I could take the key away from him, but that would only make matters worse. All the doors here can be torn off their hinges with a minimum of effort.” Throughout these remarks, K. had been debating whether or not to take off his jacket; he finally realized that he wouldn’t be able to stand it much longer if he didn’t, so he removed his jacket, but laid it over his knee so that he could put it back on immediately in case the conversation came to an end. He had barely removed his jacket when one of the girls cried out: “He’s taken off his jacket now,” and they could all be heard rushing to the cracks to see the show for themselves. “The girls think I’m going to paint you and that’s why you’ve taken off your jacket,” said the painter. “I see,” said K., only slightly amused, for he didn’t feel much better than before, even though he was now sitting in his shirtsleeves. Almost grumpily, he asked: “What were the two other possibilities called?” He had already forgotten the terms. “Apparent acquittal and protraction,” said the painter. “The choice is up to you. Both can be achieved with my help, not without an effort of course, the difference in that respect being that apparent acquittal requires a concentrated but temporary effort, while protraction requires a far more modest but continuous one. First, then, apparent acquittal. If that’s what you want, I’ll write out a certification of your innocence on a sheet of paper. The text of such certification was handed down to me by my father and is totally unchallengeable. Then I’ll make the rounds of the judges I know with the certification. Let’s say I start by submitting the certification to the judge I’m painting now, this evening, when he comes for his sitting. I submit the certification to him, explain to him that you’re innocent, and act as a personal guarantor for your innocence. It’s not a mere formality, it’s a truly binding surety.” In the painter’s eyes lay something akin to reproach that K. would place the burden of such a surety upon him. “That would be very kind of you,” said K. “And the judge would believe you and still not actually acquit me?” “Just as I said,” answered the painter. “Nor is it absolutely certain that every judge would believe me; some judge or other, for example, might demand that I bring you to him personally. Then you would have to come along. In that case the battle is already half won, of course, particularly since I’d instruct you carefully in advance how to conduct yourself before the judge in question. Things are more difficult in the case of those judges who turn me away from the very start—and that will happen too. We’ll just have to give up on those, not without trying several times of course, but we can afford that, since individual judges can’t decide the issue. Now when I’ve gathered enough judges’ signatures on the certification, I take it to the judge who’s currently conducting your trial. Perhaps I have his signature already, then things go a little more quickly than usual. In general there aren’t many more obstacles then, that’s the period of highest confidence for the defendant. It’s remarkable but true that people are more confident at this stage than after the acquittal. No further special effort is required. The judge has on the certification the surety of a number of judges; he can acquit you with no second thoughts, and, after going through various formalities, will no doubt do so, to please me and his other acquaintances. You, however, leave the court a free man.” “So then I’m free,” K. said hesitantly. “Yes,” said the painter, “but only apparently free, or more accurately, temporarily free. Judges on the lowest level, and those are the only ones I know, don’t have the power to grant a final acquittal, that power resides only in the highest court, which is totally inaccessible to you and me and everyone else. We don’t know what things look like up there, and incidentally, we don’t want to know. Our judges, then, lack the higher power to free a person from the charge, but they do have the power to release them from it. When you are acquitted in this sense, it means the charge against you is dropped for the moment but continues to hover over you, and can be reinstated the moment an order comes from above. Because I have such a close relationship with the court, I can also explain how the distinction between actual and apparent acquittal reveals itself in purely formal terms in court regulations. In an actual acquittal, the files relating to the case are completely discarded, they disappear totally from the proceedings, not only the charge, but the trial and even the acquittal are destroyed, everything is destroyed. An apparent acquittal is handled differently. There is no further change in the files except for adding to them the certification of innocence, the acquittal, and the grounds for the acquittal. Otherwise they remain in circulation; following the law court’s normal routine they are passed on to the higher courts, come back to the lower ones, swinging back and forth with larger or smaller oscillations, longer or shorter interruptions. These paths are unpredictable. Externally it may sometimes appear that everything has been long since forgotten, the file has been lost, and the acquittal is absolute. No initiate would ever believe that. No file is ever lost, and the court never forgets. Someday—quite unexpectedly—some judge or other takes a closer look at the file, realizes that the case is still active, and orders an immediate arrest. I’m assuming here that a long time has passed between the apparent acquittal and the new arrest; that’s possible, and I know of such cases; but it’s equally possible that the acquitted individual leaves the court, returns home, and finds agents already there, waiting to arrest him again. Then of course his life as a free man is over.” “And the trial begins all over again?” K. asked, almost incredulously. “Of course,” said the painter, “the trial begins all over again, but it is again possible, just as before, to secure an apparent acquittal. You must gather all your strength again and not give up.” Perhaps the painter added this final remark because he had noticed that K. had slumped slightly. “But isn’t effecting a second acquittal more difficult than the first?” K. said, as if he now wished to anticipate any further revelations from the painter. “That can’t be said for certain,” replied the painter. “You mean, I take it, that the judges’ judgment might be unfavorably influenced with regard to the defendant because of the second arrest. That’s not the case. The judges have foreseen this arrest from the moment of the original acquittal. So in fact it has scarcely any effect. But there are no doubt countless other reasons why the judge’s mood as well as his legal opinion on the case may differ, and the efforts for a second acquittal must therefore be adapted to the changed circumstances and be as strong in general as they were for the first acquittal.” “But this second acquittal isn’t final either,” said K., turning his head away coldly. “Of course not,” said the painter, “the second acquittal is followed by a third arrest, the third acquittal by a fourth arrest, and so on. That’s inherent in the very concept of apparent acquittal.” K. was silent. “Apparent acquittal obviously doesn’t strike you as an advantage,” said the painter, “perhaps protraction would suit you better. Shall I explain to you the nature of protraction?” K. nodded. The painter had leaned back expansively in his chair, his nightshirt gaped open, he had shoved a hand inside it and was scratching his chest and sides. “Protraction,” said the painter, gazing straight ahead for a moment, as if searching for a fully accurate explanation, “protraction is when the trial is constantly kept at the lowest stage. To accomplish this the defendant and his helper, in particular his helper, must remain in constant personal contact with the court. I repeat, this doesn’t require the same effort it takes to secure an apparent acquittal, but it does require a much higher level of vigilance. You can’t let the trial out of your sight; you have to visit the relevant judge at regular intervals, and any extra chance you get as well, and try to keep him as well disposed as possible in all ways; if you don’t know the judge personally, you have to try to influence him through judges you do know, although you still don’t dare dispense with the direct conferences. If nothing is omitted in this respect, you can be sufficiently assured that the trial will never progress beyond its initial stage. The trial doesn’t end of course, but the defendant is almost as safe from a conviction as he would be as a free man. Compared with apparent acquittal, protraction offers the advantage that the defendant’s future is less uncertain; he’s spared the shock of sudden arrests, and he doesn’t have to worry, at what may be precisely the worst time in terms of other circumstances, about taking on the stress and strain connected with securing an apparent acquittal. Of course protraction also has certain disadvantages for the accused that must not be underestimated. I don’t mean the fact that the defendant is never free; he’s not free in a true sense in the case of an apparent acquittal either. It’s a different sort of disadvantage. The trial can’t come to a standstill without some reason that’s at least plausible. So something must happen outwardly in the trial. Therefore various measures must be taken from time to time, the defendant has to be interrogated, inquiries conducted, and so forth. The trial must be kept constantly spinning within the tight circle to which it’s artificially restricted. Of course that involves certain inconveniences for the defendant, which on the other hand you mustn’t imagine as all that bad. After all, it’s a merely formal matter; for example the interrogations are quite brief; if you don’t have the time or inclination to attend you can excuse yourself; with certain judges you can even set up a long-term schedule together in advance; in essence it’s merely a matter of reporting to your judge from time to time, since you’re a defendant.” Even as these last words were being spoken, K. placed his jacket over his arm and rose. “He’s standing up already,” came an immediate cry from beyond the door. “Are you leaving so soon?” asked the painter, who had risen as well. “It must be the air here that’s driving you away. I feel terrible about that. There was more I wanted to tell you. I had to sum things up briefly. But I hope it was all clear.” “Oh, yes,” said K., whose head ached from the effort he had made to force himself to listen. In spite of this assurance, the painter summed things up again, as if offering K. a word of comfort for the journey home: “Both methods have this in common: they prevent the accused from being convicted.” “But they also prevent an actual acquittal,” said K. softly, as if ashamed of the realization. “You’ve grasped the heart of the matter,” the painter said quickly. K. placed his hand on his winter coat, but he couldn’t even make up his mind to put on his jacket. He would have preferred to bundle them both up and rush out into the fresh air with them. The girls couldn’t get him to put them on either, even though they called out to one another prematurely that he was doing so. The painter wished to get some sense of K.’s thoughts, so he said: “You probably still haven’t reached a decision with regard to my suggestions. I approve of that. In fact I would have advised against a quick decision. There’s only a hair’s difference between the advantages and disadvantages. Everything has to be weighed quite carefully. Of course you don’t want to lose too much time either.” “I’ll come again soon,” said K., who, making an abrupt decision, put on his jacket, threw his coat over his shoulders, and hastened to the door, behind which the girls now began to shriek. K. felt as if he could see the shrieking girls through the door. “But you have to keep your word,” said the painter, who hadn’t followed him, “otherwise I’ll come to the bank myself to inquire about it.” “Unlock the door, will you,” said K., pulling at the handle, which the girls, as he could tell from the counterpressure, were holding tight from the outside. “Do you want the girls bothering you?” asked the painter. “Why don’t you use this way out instead?” and he pointed to the door behind the bed. That was fine with K., and he sprang back to the bed. But instead of opening the door, the painter crawled under the bed and asked from below: “Just a minute. Wouldn’t you like to see a painting I could sell you?” K. didn’t wish to be impolite; the painter really had taken his side and promised continued help, and due to K.’s own forgetfulness there had been no discussion of how K. might reimburse him for his help, so K. couldn’t deny him now; he let him show his picture, even though he was trembling with impatience to leave the atelier. From beneath the bed the painter dragged a pile of unframed paintings so deeply covered in dust that when the painter tried to blow it away from the one on top, the dust whirled up before K.’s eyes, and for some time he could scarcely breathe. “A landscape of the heath,” said the painter, and handed K. the painting. It showed two frail trees, standing at a great distance from one another in the dark grass. In the background was a multicolored sunset. “Nice,” said K., “I’ll buy it.” K. had spoken curtly without thinking, so he was glad when, instead of taking it badly, the painter picked up another painting from the floor. “Here’s a companion piece to that picture,” said the painter. It may have been intended as a companion piece, but not the slightest difference could be seen between it and the first one: here were the trees, here was the grass, and there the sunset. But that made little difference to K. “They’re nice landscapes,” he said, “I’ll take both of them and hang them in my office.” “You seem to like the subject,” said the painter, and pulled out a third painting, “luckily enough, I have a similar one right here.” It was not merely similar, however, it was exactly the same landscape. The painter was taking full advantage of the chance to sell his old pictures. “I’ll take that one too,” said K. “What do I owe you for the three of them?” “We’ll talk about that next time,” said the painter, “you’re in a hurry now and we’ll be keeping in touch, after all. By the way, I’m glad you like the paintings; I’ll throw in all the pictures I have under here. They’re all heath landscapes, I’ve painted a lot of heath landscapes. Some people are put off by paintings like these because they’re too somber, but others, and you’re among them, have a particular love for the somber.” But K. was in no mood to discuss the mendicant artist’s professional life just then. “Pack up all the paintings,” he cried, interrupting the painter, “my assistant will come by tomorrow and pick them up.” “That’s not necessary,” said the painter. “I think I can find a porter to go with you now.” And at last he leaned across the bed and opened the door. “Don’t be shy about stepping on the bed,” said the painter, “everyone who comes in this way does.” K. wouldn’t have worried about it even without being told; he’d already put his foot in the middle of the featherbed; then he looked through the open door and drew his foot back again. “What’s that?” he asked the painter. “What do you find so surprising?” he asked, himself surprised. “Those are the law court offices. Didn’t you know there were law court offices here? There are law court offices in practically every attic, why shouldn’t they be here too? In fact my atelier is part of the law court offices too, but the court has placed it at my disposal.” K. wasn’t so shocked at having found law court offices here; he was more shocked at himself, at his ignorance when it came to the court. It seemed to him a basic rule of behavior that the defendant should always be prepared, never be caught by surprise, never be looking blankly to the right when a judge was standing on his left—and it was precisely this basic rule that he was constantly breaking. A long corridor stretched before him, from which air drifted that made the air in the atelier seem refreshing by comparison. Benches stood on both sides of the hall, just as in the waiting room of K.’s court offices. There seemed to be precise guidelines for the furnishings of these offices. There weren’t many parties there at the moment. A man sat there, half reclining; he had buried his face in his arm and seemed to be sleeping; another stood in semidarkness at the end of the hallway. K. now stepped across the bed; the painter followed him with the pictures. They soon met a court usher—K. had already learned to recognize the court ushers by the gold button they wore among the ordinary buttons on their civilian suits—and the painter instructed him to follow K. with the pictures. K. swayed rather than walked, with his handkerchief pressed to his mouth. They had almost reached the exit when the girls, from whom K. was not to be spared after all, stormed toward them. They had evidently seen the other door of the atelier being opened and had made a detour to force their way in from this side. “I can’t accompany you any farther,” said the painter, laughing beneath the press of girls. “Goodbye! And don’t take too long thinking about it!” K. didn’t even look back. On the street he took the first cab that came his way. He was anxious to be rid of the usher, whose gold button kept catching his eye, even though no one else probably noticed it. In his eagerness to serve, the usher even tried to take a seat on the coachbox, but K. chased him down. It was long past noon when K. arrived at the bank. He would have liked to leave the paintings in the cab, but he was afraid he might have to account for them to the painter at some point. So he ordered them taken into his office and locked them in the bottom drawer of his desk, to store them safely away from the vice president’s eyes for at least the next few days.