the one remark about the doorkeepers. He may have been forbidden to do so, but there is
no mention of that either. On these grounds the conclusion is reached that he knows
nothing about the aspect and significance of the interior, so that he is in a state of delusion.
But he is deceived also about his relation to the man from the country, for he is inferior to
the man and does not know it. He treats the man instead as his own subordinate, as can be
recognized from many details that must be still fresh in your mind. But, according to this
view of the story, it is just as clearly indicated that he is really subordinated to the man. In
the first place, a bondman is always subject to a free man. Now the man from the country
is really free, he can go where he likes, it is only the Law that is closed to him, and access
to the Law is forbidden him only by one individual, the doorkeeper. When he sits down on
the stool by the side of the door and stays there for the rest of his life, he does it of his own
free will; in the story there is no mention of any compulsion. But the doorkeeper is bound
to his post by his very office, he does not dare go out into the country, nor apparently may
he go into the interior of the Law, even should he wish to. Besides, although he is in the
service of the Law, his service is confined to this one entrance; that is to say, he serves
only this man for whom alone the entrance is intended. On that ground too he is inferior to
the man. One must assume that for many years, for as long as it takes a man to grow up to
the prime of life, his service was in a sense an empty formality, since he had to wait for a
man to come, that is to say someone in the prime of life, and so he had to wait a long time
before the purpose of his service could be fulfilled, and, moreover, had to wait on the
man’s pleasure, for the man came of his own free will. But the termination of his service
also depends on the man’s term of life, so that to the very end he is subject to the man. And
it is emphasized throughout that the doorkeeper apparently realizes nothing of all this. That
is not in itself remarkable, since according to this interpretation the doorkeeper is deceived in a much more important issue, affecting his very office. At the end, for example, he says
regarding the entrance to the Law: `I am now going to shut it,’ but at the beginning of the
story we are told that the door leading into the Law always stands open, and if it always
stands open, that is to say at all times, without reference to the life or death of the man,
then the doorkeeper cannot close it. There is some difference of opinion about the motive
behind the doorkeeper’s statement, whether he said he was going to close the door merely
for the sake of giving an answer, or to emphasize his devotion to duty, or to bring the man
into a state of grief and regret in his last moments. But there is no lack of agreement that
the doorkeeper will not be able to shut the door. Many indeed profess to find that he is
subordinate to the man even in knowledge, toward the end, at least, for the man sees the
radiance that issues from the door of the Law while the doorkeeper in his official position
must stand with his back to the door, nor does he say anything to show that he has
perceived the change.” “That is well argued,” said K., after repeating to himself in a low
voice several passages from the priest’s exposition. “It is well argued, and I am inclined to
agree that the doorkeeper is deceived. But that has not made me abandon my former
opinion, since both conclusions are to some extent compatible. Whether the doorkeeper is