a joke, but he had in mind — though it was not usual with him to learn from experience —
several occasions, of no importance in themselves, when against all his friends’ advice he
had behaved with deliberate recklessness and without the slightest regard for possible
consequences, and had had in the end to pay dearly for it. That must not happen again, at
least not this time; if this was a comedy he would insist on playing it to the end.
But he was still free. “Allow me,” he said, passing quickly between the warders to his
room. “He seems to have some sense,” he heard one of them saying behind him. When he
reached his room he at once pulled out the drawer of his desk. Everything lay there in
perfect orders but in his agitation he could not find at first the identification papers for
which he was looking. At last he found his bicycle license and was about to start off with it
to the warders, but then it seemed too trivial a thing, and he searched again until he found
his birth certificate. As he was re-entering the next room the opposite door opened and
Frau Grubach showed herself. He saw her only for an instant, for no sooner did she
recognize him than she was obviously overcome by embarrassment, apologized for
intruding, vanished, and shut the door again with the utmost care. “Come in, do,” he would
just have had time to say. But he merely stood holding his papers in the middle of the
room, looking at the door, which did not open again, and was only recalled to attention by
a shout from the warders, who were sitting at a table by the open window and, as he now
saw, devouring his breakfast. “Why didn’t she come in?” he asked. “She isn’t allowed to,”
said the tall warder, “since you’re under arrest.” “But how can I be under arrest? And
particularly in such a ridiculous fashion ?” “So now you’re beginning it all over again?”
said the warder, dipping a slice of bread and butter into the honey-pot. “We don’t answer
such questions.” “You’ll have to answer them,” said K. “Here are my papers, now show me
yours, and first of all your warrant for arresting me.” “Oh, good Lord,” said the warder. “If
you would only realize your position, and if you wouldn’t insist on uselessly annoying us
two, who probably mean better by you and stand closer to you than any other people in the
world.” “That’s so, you can believe that,” said Franz, not raising to his lips the coffee-cup
he held in his hand, but instead giving K. a long, apparently significant, yet
incomprehensible look. Without wishing it K. found himself decoyed into an exchange of
speaking looks with Franz, none the less he tapped his papers and repeated: “Here are my
identification papers.” “What are your papers to us?” cried the tall warder. “You’re
behaving worse than a child. What are you after? Do you think you’ll bring this fine case of
yours to a speedier end by wrangling with us, your warders, over papers and warrants? We
are humble subordinates who can scarcely find our way through a legal document and have
nothing to do with your case except to stand guard over you for ten hours a day and draw
our pay for it. That’s all we are, but we’re quite capable of grasping the fact that the high
authorities we serve, before they would order such an arrest as this, must be quite well
informed about the reasons for the arrest and the person of the prisoner. There can be no
mistake about that. Our officials, so far as I know them, and I know only the lowest grades
among them, never go hunting for crime in the populace, but, as the Law decrees, are
drawn toward the guilty and must then send out us warders. That is the Law. How could there be a mistake in that?” “I don’t know this Law,” said K. “All the worse for you,”
replied the warder. “And it probably exists nowhere but in your own head,” said K.; he