clear-sighted or deceived does not dispose of the matter. I said the man is deceived. If the
doorkeeper is clear-sighted, one might have doubts about that, but if the doorkeeper
himself is deceived, then his deception must of necessity be communicated to the man.
That makes the doorkeeper not, indeed, a deceiver, but a creature so simple-minded that he
ought to be dismissed at once from his office. You mustn’t forget that the doorkeeper’s
deceptions do himself no harm but do infinite harm to the man.” “There are objections to
that,” said the priest. “Many aver that the story confers no right on anyone to pass
judgment on the doorkeeper. Whatever he may seem to us, he is yet a servant of the Law;
that is, he belongs to the Law and as such is beyond human judgment. In that case one
must not believe that the doorkeeper is subordinate to the man. Bound as he is by his
service, even only at the door of the Law, he is incomparably greater than anyone at large
in the world. The man is only seeking the Law, the doorkeeper is already attached to it. It
is the Law that has placed him at his post; to doubt his dignity is to doubt the Law itself.”
“I don’t agree with that point of view,” said K., shaking his head, “for if one accepts it, one
must accept as true everything the doorkeeper says. But you yourself have sufficiently
proved how impossible it is to do that.” “No,” said the priest, “it is not necessary to accept
everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.” “A melancholy conclusion,” said
K. “It turns lying into a universal principle.” *
K. said that with finality, but it was not his final judgment. He was too tired to survey
all the conclusions arising from the story, and the trains of thought into which it was
leading him were unfamiliar, dealing with impalpabilities better suited to a theme for
discussion among Court officials than for him. The simple story had lost its clear outline,
he wanted to put it out of his mind, and the priest, who now showed great delicacy of
feeling, suffered him to do so and accepted his comment in silence, although undoubtedly
he did not agree with it. They paced up and down for a while in silence, K. walking close beside the priest,
ignorant of his whereabouts. The lamp in his hand had long since gone out. The silver
image of some saint once glimmered into sight immediately before him, by the sheen of its
own silver, and was instantaneously lost in the darkness again. To keep himself from being
utterly dependent on the priest, K. asked: “Aren’t we near the main doorway now?” “No,”
said the priest, “we’re a long way from it. Do you want to leave already?” Although at that
moment K. had not been thinking of leaving, he answered at once: “Of course, I must go.
I’m the Chief Clerk of a Bank, they’re waiting for me, I only came here to show a business
friend from abroad round the Cathedral.” “Well,” said the priest, reaching out his hand to
K., “then go.” “But I can’t find my way alone in this darkness,” said K. “Turn left to the
wall,” said the priest, “then follow the wall without leaving it and you’ll come to a door.”
The priest had already taken a step or two away from him, but K. cried out in a loud voice,
“Please wait a moment.” “I am waiting,” said the priest. “Don’t you want anything more
from me?” asked K. “No,” said the priest. “You were so friendly to me for a time,” said K.,
“and explained so much to me, and now you let me go as if you cared nothing about me.”
“But you have to leave now,” said the priest. “Well, yes,” said K., “you must see that I can’t
help it.” “You must first see who I am,” said the priest. “You are the prison chaplain,” said
K., groping his way nearer to the priest again; his immediate return to the Bank was not so
necessary as he had made out, he could quite well stay longer. “That means I belong to the