The trial penguin ed, p.11
The Trial (Penguin ed.), page 11
Then a noise from the hall like a crash of china made them all listen. ‘I’ll go and see what has happened,’ said K., and he walked out slowly as if giving the others a chance to call him back. Hardly had he entered the hall and was trying to get his bearings in the darkness than the hand with which he was still holding the door was touched by a small hand, much smaller than K.’s, and the door was gently closed. It was the nurse, who had waited there. ‘Nothing’s happened,’ she whispered. ‘I threw a plate against the wall just to bring you out.’ In his embarrassment K. said: ‘I was thinking of you too.’ ‘All the better,’ said the nurse. ‘Come on.’ After a step or two they came to a door made of frosted glass which the nurse opened for him. ‘Do go in,’ she said. It was evidently the advocate’s office. As far as one could see in the moonlight, which was now illuminating only a small rectangular patch of floor by each of the two tall windows, it was fitted out with ponderous old furniture. ‘Over here,’ said the nurse, and she pointed to an old settle with a carved wooden back. K. was still looking round the room after he had sat down; it was a large, lofty room; the clients of this legal-aid lawyer must feel quite lost in it. K. imagined he could see their timid steps as they approached the enormous desk. But then he forgot all about this, he had eyes only for the nurse, who was sitting really close to him, almost pressing him against the arm of the settle. ‘I thought’, she said, ‘you would come out to me without my having to call you. Strange. When you came in you stared at me all the time, then you let me wait. By the way, call me Leni,’ she added quickly without a pause as if no instant of this conversation was to be wasted. ‘Gladly,’ said K., ‘but as far as the strangeness is concerned, Leni, that’s easily explained. First, I had to listen to the old men chattering and couldn’t just go off without giving a reason, and secondly I’m not bold, shy rather, and you, Leni, didn’t look as if you could be won just at one stroke.’ ‘It’s not that,’ said Leni, putting her arm over the side of the settle and looking at K., ‘but you didn’t like me and probably don’t like me even now.’ ‘Liking would not be saying much,’ said K. evasively. ‘Oh!’ she said and seemed to gain a certain ascendancy because of K.’s remark and this brief exclamation. So K. kept quiet for a while. Now that he had got used to the darkness in the room he could distinguish various details in the furnishings. He was especially struck by a large picture which hung to the right of the door. He leaned forward to see it better. It showed a man in the robes of a judge. He was sitting on a high throne-like chair whose gilding stood out prominently in the picture. The unusual thing about it was that this judge was not sitting in tranquil dignity but was pressing his left arm hard against the back and side of the chair and had his right arm completely free and just held the other arm of the chair with this hand as if his intention was to spring up at the next moment with a violent and perhaps outraged gesture to utter something decisive or even pronounce judgement. The defendant had to be imagined at the foot of the steps, whose upper ones, covered in yellow carpet, were visible in the picture. ‘Perhaps that is my judge,’ said K., and he pointed his finger at the picture. ‘I know him,’ said Leni, and she too looked up at the picture. ‘He often comes here. This picture was painted when he was young, but he could never have looked like that, he’s really a tiny little man. In spite of that he had himself stretched out in the picture, because he’s madly vain like everybody here. But I’m vain too and miserable because you don’t like me.’ The only reply K. made to this last remark was to put his arm round Leni and draw her towards him; she quietly put her head on his shoulder. But with reference to the rest of what she had told him he said: ‘What is his rank?’ ‘He is an examining magistrate,’ she said, taking the hand K. had put round her and playing with his fingers. ‘Again only an examining magistrate,’ said K. in disappointment, ‘the top officials keep out of sight. But he’s sitting in a judge’s chair.’ ‘That’s just make-believe,’ said Leni, bending her face over K.’s hand, ‘actually he’s sitting on a kitchen chair with an old horse-blanket thrown over it.’ And she added slowly: ‘But do you have to be thinking about your case all the time?’ ‘No, not at all,’ K. said. ‘I probably give too little thought to it.’ ‘That’s not the mistake you’re making,’ said Leni. ‘You are too obstinate, that’s what I’ve heard.’ ‘Who told you that?’ K. asked. He felt her body against his chest and looked down on her thick, firmly shaped dark hair. ‘I would give too much away if I told you that,’ answered Leni. ‘Please don’t ask for names but get rid of your failings. You can’t defend yourself against this court; you have to acknowledge your guilt. Acknowledge your guilt at the first opportunity. Only then are you given the possibility of escape, only then. But even that isn’t possible unless you get outside help, but you mustn’t worry about this help: I’ll give you that myself.’ ‘You know a lot about this court and the deceptions that go with it,’ K. said, and because she was pressing too heavily against him he lifted her on to his knee. ‘It’s nice like this,’ she said; and she made herself comfortable on his knee, smoothing her skirt down and putting her blouse straight. Then she clasped both hands round his neck, leaned back, and looked at him for a long time. ‘And if I don’t acknowledge my guilt, then you can’t help me?’ asked K. speculatively. I seem to recruit female helpers, he thought with some surprise, first Fräulein Bürstner, then the court usher’s wife, now this little nurse who seems to have an inexplicable desire for me. She’s sitting here on my knee as if it’s the only place for her! ‘No,’ answered Leni and she shook her head slowly, ‘then I can’t help you. But you don’t really want my help. It’s of no importance to you. You’re stubborn, you won’t be persuaded.’ After a while she asked: ‘Have you a girlfriend?’ ‘No,’ K. said. ‘But you must have,’ she said. ‘Yes, I have actually,’ K. said. ‘Just think – I’ve denied her existence and I even carry her photo with me.’ At her request he showed her Elsa’s photo, and curled on his knee she studied the picture. It was a snapshot of Elsa taken as she was spinning at the end of a dance she liked to perform at the wine tavern, her skirt still billowing up in folds flung out by the pirouette, her hands on her hips and head held rigidly aloft as she looked sideways, laughing. From the picture it was impossible to tell whom she was laughing at. ‘She is tightly laced,’ said Leni, and she pointed to the place where she thought this could be seen. ‘I don’t like her. She is clumsy and coarse. But perhaps she’s gentle and kind with you. Big strong girls like that often can’t be anything but gentle and kind. But could she sacrifice herself for you?’ ‘No,’ said K., ‘she is neither gentle and kind nor could she sacrifice herself for me. But so far I’ve not asked her for either one or the other. In fact, I’ve not even looked at the picture as closely as you have.’ ‘You’re not really very attached to her,’ said Leni, ‘she’s not really your girlfriend.’ ‘But she is,’ K. said, ‘I don’t take back what I said.’ ‘Even if she’s your girlfriend now,’ said Leni, ‘you wouldn’t miss her very much if you lost her or changed her for somebody else, me for instance.’ ‘Certainly’, said K. with a smile, ‘that’s conceivable, but she has one great advantage over you – she knows nothing about my case and even if she knew something about it she wouldn’t give it a thought. She wouldn’t try to persuade me to be submissive.’ ‘That’s not an advantage,’ said Leni. ‘If she has no other advantages than that, I won’t lose heart. Has she any physical defect?’ ‘A physical defect?’ K. asked. ‘Yes,’ said Leni. ‘You see, I have a little one – look.’ She stretched the middle and ring fingers of her right hand apart and revealed a connecting membrane of skin reaching nearly to the topmost joints of the stubby fingers. In the darkness K. did not immediately realize what she was trying to show him, so she moved his hand there to feel it. ‘What a freak of nature!’ said K., and he added, when he had examined the whole hand: ‘What a pretty claw!’ Leni looked on with a kind of pride as K. kept opening and closing the two fingers in amazement until finally he gave them a fleeting kiss and let them go. ‘Oh!’ she cried at once. ‘You’ve kissed me!’ With her mouth open she quickly scrambled up until she was kneeling in his lap. K. looked at her almost with consternation; now that she was so near him she gave off a bitter, provocative smell like pepper; she took his head in her hands, bent over him, and bit and kissed his neck, bit into his hair even. ‘You’ve changed her for me!’ she cried from time to time. ‘You see, you’ve changed her for me now!’ Then her knee slipped, with a stifled cry she fell almost down to the carpet, K. put his arms round her to stop her fall and was pulled down to her. ‘Now you belong to me,’ she said.
