before, several hooks were lying. “May I glance at the books?” asked K., not out of any
particular curiosity, but merely that his visit here might not be quite pointless. “No,” said
the woman, shutting the door again, “that isn’t allowed. The books belong to the
Examining Magistrate.” “I see,” said K., nodding, “these books are probably law books,
and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not
only in innocence but also in ignorance.” “That must be it,” said the woman, who had not
quite understood him. “Well, in that case I had better go again,” said K. “Shall I give the
Examining Magistrate a message?” asked the woman. “Do you know him?” asked K. “Of
course,” replied the woman, “my husband is an usher, you see.” Only then did K. notice
that the anteroom, which had contained nothing but a washtub last Sunday, now formed a
fully furnished living room. The woman remarked his surprise and said: “Yes, we have
free house-room here, but we must clear the room on the days when the Court is sitting.
My husband’s post has many disadvantages.” “I’m not so much surprised at the room,” said
K., looking at her severely, “as at the fact that you’re married.” “Perhaps you’re hinting at
what happened during the last sitting, when I caused a disturbance while you were
speaking,” said the woman. “Of course I am,” said K. “It’s an old story by this time, and
almost forgotten, but at the moment it made me quite furious. And now you say yourself
that you’re a married woman.” “It didn’t do you any harm to have your speech interrupted;
what you said made a bad enough impression, to judge from the discussion afterwards.”
“That may be,” said K., evading that issue, “but it does not excuse you.” “I stand excused
in the eyes of everyone who knows me,” said the woman. “The man you saw embracing
me has been persecuting me for a long time. I may not be a temptation to most men, but I
am to him. There’s no way of keeping him off, even my husband has grown reconciled to it
now; if he isn’t to lose his job he must put up with it, for that man you saw is one of the students and will probably rise to great power yet. He’s always after me, he was here today,
just before you came.” “It is all on a par,” said K., “it doesn’t surprise me.” “You are
anxious to improve things here, I think,” said the woman slowly and watchfully, as if she
were saying something which was risky both to her and to K., “I guessed that from your
speech, which personally I liked very much. Though, of course, I only heard part of it, I
missed the beginning and I was down on the floor with the student while you were
finishing. It’s so horrible here,” she said after a pause, taking K.’s hand. “Do you think
you’ll manage to improve things?” K. smiled and caressed her soft hands. “Actually,” he
said, “it isn’t my place to improve things here, as you put it, and if you were to tell the
Examining Magistrate so, let us say, he would either laugh at you or have you punished.
As a matter of fact, I should never have dreamed of interfering of my own free will, and
shouldn’t have lost an hour’s sleep over the need for reforming the machinery of justice
here. But the fact that I am supposed to be under arrest forces me to intervene — I am under
arrest, you know — to protect my own interests. But if I can help you in any way at the
same time, I shall be very glad, of course. And not out of pure altruism, either, for you in
turn might be able to help me.” “How could I do that?” asked the woman. “By letting me
look at the books on the table there, for instance.” “But of course!” cried the woman,
dragging him hastily after her. They were old dog-eared volumes, the cover of one was
almost completely split down the middle, the two halves were held together by mere