their pronunciation, and finally trying to learn them by heart. His once excellent memory seemed to have deserted him, and every now and then he grew so furious with the Italian
who was causing him all this trouble that he stuffed the dictionary beneath a pile of papers
with the firm intention of preparing himself no further, yet he could not help seeing that it
would not do to march the Italian round the art treasures of the Cathedral in dumb silence,
and so with even greater rage he took the dictionary out again.
Just at half past nine, as he was rising to go, the telephone rang; Leni bade him good
morning and asked how he was; K. thanked her hastily and said he had no time to talk to
her, since he must go to the Cathedral. “To the Cathedral?” asked Leni. “Yes, to the
Cathedral.” “But why the Cathedral?” asked Leni. K. tried to explain briefly to her, but
hardly had he begun when Leni suddenly said: “They’re goading you.” Pity which he had
not asked for and did not expect was more than K. could bear, he said two words of
farewell, but even as he hung up the receiver he murmured half to himself and half to the
faraway girl who could no longer hear him: “Yes, they’re goading me”
By now it was growing late, he was already in danger of not being in time for the
appointment. He drove off in a taxicab; at the last moment he remembered the album
which he had found no opportunity of handing over earlier, and so took it with him now.
He laid it on his knees and drummed on it impatiently with his fingers during the whole of
the journey. The rain had slackened, but it was a raw, wet, murky day, one would not be
able to see much in the Cathedral, and there was no doubt that standing about on the cold
stone flags would make K.’s chill considerably worse.
The Cathedral Square was quite deserted, and K. recollected how even as a child he
had been struck by the fact that in the houses of this narrow square nearly all the window
blinds were invariably drawn down. On a day like this, of course, it was more
understandable. The Cathedral seemed deserted too, there was naturally no reason why
anyone should visit it at such a time. K. went through both of the side aisles and saw no
one but an old woman muffled in a shawl who was kneeling before a Madonna with
adoring eyes. Then in the distance he caught sight of a limping verger vanishing through a
door in the wall. K. had been punctual, ten o’clock was striking just as he entered, but the
Italian had not yet arrived. He went back to the main entrance, stood there undecidedly for
a while and then made the circuit of the building in the rain, to make sure that the Italian
was perhaps not waiting at some side door. He was nowhere to be seen. Could the
Manager have made some mistake about the hour? How could anyone be quite sure of
understanding such a man? Whatever the circumstances, K. would at any rate have to wait
half an hour for him. Since he was tired he felt like sitting down, went into the Cathedral
again, found on a step a remnant of carpet-like stuff, twitched it with his toe toward a nearby
bench, wrapped himself more closely in his greatcoat, turned up his collar, and sat
down. By way of filling in time he opened the album and ran idly through it, but he soon
had to stop, for it was growing so dark that when he looked up he could distinguish
scarcely a single detail in the neighboring aisle. Away in the distance a large triangle of candle flames glittered on the high altar; K.
could not have told with any certainty whether he had noticed them before or not. Perhaps
they had been newly kindled. Vergers are by profession stealthy-footed, one never notices
them. K. happened to turn round and saw not far behind him the gleam of another candle, a