statement made by word of mouth, was never to get as far as the highest Court, in a certain
sense the novel could never be terminated — that is to say, it could be prolonged into
infinity. At all events, the completed chapters taken in conjunction with the final chapter
which rounds them off, reveal both the meaning and the form with the most convincing
clarity; and anyone ignorant of the fact that the author himself intended to go on working
at it (he omitted to do so because his life entered another phase) would hardly be aware of
gaps. My work on the great bundle of papers which at that time represented this novel was
confined to separating the finished from the unfinished chapters. I am reserving the latter
for the final volume of the posthumous edition; they contain nothing essential to the
development of the action. One of these fragments, under the title “A Dream,” was
included by the author himself in the volume called A Country Doctor. The completed
chapters have been united here and arranged in order. Only one of the unfinished chapters,
which was obviously very nearly complete, has been inserted as Chapter viii with a slight
transposition of four lines. I have of course altered nothing in the text. I have only
expanded the numerous contractions (for instance, “Fräulein Bürstner” for “F. B.” and
“Titorelli” for “T.”), and I have corrected a few little slips which had obviously only been
left in the manuscript because the author had never subjected it to a final revision.
Max Brod
The interrogation seems to be limited to looks, thought K.; well, I’ll give him a few minutes’ grace. I wish
I knew what kind of an official body it can be which goes in for such elaborate arrangements in a case
like mine which, from the official point of view, offers no prospects of any kind. For elaborate is the only
word to use for this whole setup. Three people already wasted on me, two rooms not belonging to me
disarranged, and over there in the corner another three young men are standing and looking at Fräulein
Bürstner’s photographs.
BACK
As someone said to me — I can’t remember now who it was — it is really remarkable that when you wake
up in the morning you nearly always find everything in exactly the same place as the evening before. For
when asleep and dreaming you are, apparently at least, in an essentially different state from that of
wakefulness; and therefore, as that man truly said, it requires enormous presence of mind or rather
quickness of wit, when opening your eyes to seize hold as it were of everything in the room at exactly the
same place where you had let it go on the previous evening. That was why, he said, the moment of
waking up was the riskiest moment of the day. Once that was well over without deflecting you from your
orbit, you could take heart of grace for the rest of the day.
BACK
As you know, employees always know more than their employers.
BACK
The thought that by doing this he was perhaps making it easier for them to keep his own person under
observation, which they had possibly been instructed to do, seemed to him such a ludicrous notion, that
he buried his head in his hands and remained like that for several minutes in order to come to his senses.
“A few more ideas like that,” he said to himself, “and you really will go mad.” Then he raised his rather
grating voice all the louder.
BACK
A soldier was doing sentry duty up and down before the house. So now they had even put a watch on the
house. K. had to lean out very far to see him, for he was walking close to the wall. “Hallo !” he called out
to him, but not loud enough for the man to hear. However it soon became apparent that he was only
waiting for a servant girl who had gone across the road to a public house to fetch some beer, for she now
appeared in the lighted doorway. K. asked himself if he had believed even for a moment that the sentry