comfortably and yet lightly in his armchair, tugging every now and then at the sharply
peaked corners of his short little jacket, and once raising his arms with loosely fluttering hands to explain something * which K. found it impossible to understand, although he
was leaning forward to watch every gesture. In the end, as K. sat there taking no part in the
conversation, only mechanically following with his eyes the see-saw of the dialogue, his
earlier weariness made itself felt again, and to his horror, although fortunately just in time,
he caught himself absent-mindedly rising to turn round and walk away. At long last the
Italian looked at his watch and sprang to his feet. After taking leave of the Manager he
pressed up to K. so close that K. had to push his chair back in order to have any freedom of
movement. The Manager, doubtless seeing in K.’s eye that he was in desperate straits with
this unintelligible Italian, intervened so cleverly and delicately that it appeared as if he
were merely contributing little scraps of advice, while in reality he was briefly conveying
to K. the sense of all the remarks with which the Italian kept on interrupting him. In this
way K. learned that the Italian had some immediate business to attend to, that
unfortunately he was pressed for time, that he had no intention of rushing round to see all
the sights in a hurry, that he would much rather — of course only if K. agreed, the decision
lay with K. alone — confine himself to inspecting the Cathedral, but to inspect that
thoroughly. He was extremely delighted to have the chance of doing so in the company of
such a learned and amiable gentleman — this was how he referred to K., who was trying
hard to turn a deaf ear to his words and grasp as quickly as possible what the Manager was
saying — and he begged him, if it were convenient, to meet him there in a couple of hours,
say at about ten o’clock. He had hopes of being able to arrive there for certain about that
time. K. made a suitable rejoinder, the Italian pressed the Manager’s hand, then K.’s hand,
then the Manager’s hand again, and, followed by both of them, turning only half toward
them by this time but still maintaining a flow of words, departed toward the door. K.
stayed a moment or two with the Manager, who was looking particularly unwell that day.
He felt that he owed K. an apology and said — they were standing intimately together —
that he had at first intended to escort the Italian himself, but on second thoughts — he gave
no definite reason — he had decided that K. had better go. If K. found that he could not
understand the man to begin with he mustn’t let that upset him, for he wouldn’t take long to
catch the sense of what was said, and even if he didn’t understand very much it hardly
mattered, since the Italian cared little whether he was understood or not. Besides, K.’s
knowledge of Italian was surprisingly good and he would certainly acquit himself well.
With that K. was dismissed to his room. The time still at his disposal he devoted to
copying from the dictionary various unfamiliar words which he would need in his tour of
the Cathedral. It was an unusually exasperating task; attendants came in with letters, clerks
arrived with inquiries, standing in the doorway when they saw that K. was busy, yet not
removing themselves until he answered, the Assistant Manager did not miss the chance of
making a nuisance of himself and appeared several times, taking the dictionary out of K.’s
hand and with obvious indifference turning the pages over; even clients were dimly visible
in the antechamber whenever the door opened, making deprecating bows to call attention
to themselves, but uncertain whether they had been remarked or not — all this activity
rotated around K. as if he were the center of it, while he himself was occupied in collecting
the words he might need, looking them up in the dictionary, copying them out, practicing