K., and without glancing at the Whipper again — such things should be done with averted
eyes on both sides — he drew out his pocketbook. “So you want to lay a complaint against
me too,” said the Whipper, “and get me a whipping as well? No, no!” “Do be reasonable,”
said K. “If I had wanted these two men to be punished, I shouldn’t be trying to buy them
off now. I could simply leave, shut this door after me, close my eyes and ears, and go
home; but I don’t want to do that, I really want to see them set free; if I had known that
they would be punished or even that they could be punished, I should never have
mentioned their names. For in my view they are not guilty. The guilt lies with the
organization. It is the high officials who are guilty.” “That’s so,” cried the warders and at
once got a cut of the switch over their backs, which were bare now. “If it was one of the
high Judges you were flogging,” said K., and as he spoke he thrust down the rod which the
Whipper was raising again, “I certainly wouldn’t try to keep you from laying on with a
will, on the contrary I would pay you extra to encourage you in the good work.” “What you
say sounds reasonable enough,” said the man, “but I refuse to be bribed. I am here to whip
people, and whip them I shall.” The warder Franz, who, perhaps hoping that K.’s
intervention might succeed, had thus far kept as much as possible in the background, now
came forward to the door clad only in his trousers, fell on his knees, and clinging to K.’s
arm whispered: “If you can’t get him to spare both of us, try to get me off at least. Willem
is older than I am, and far less sensitive too, besides he’s had a small whipping already,
some years ago, but I’ve never been in disgrace yet, and I was only following Willem’s
lead in what I did, he’s my teacher, for better or worse. My poor sweetheart is awaiting the
outcome at the door of the Bank. I’m so ashamed and miserable.” He dried his tear-wet
face on K.’s jacket. “I can’t wait any longer,” said the Whipper, grasping the rod with both hands and making a cut at Franz, while Willem cowered in a corner and secretly watched
without daring to turn his head. Then the shriek rose from Franz’s throat, single and
irrevocable, it did not seem to come from a human being but from some martyred
instrument, the whole corridor rang with it, the whole building must hear it. “Don’t,” cried
K.; he was beside himself, he stood staring in the direction from which the clerks must
presently come running, but he gave Franz a push, not a violent one but violent enough
nevertheless to make the half-senseless man fall and convulsively claw at the floor with his
hands; but even then Franz did not escape his punishment, the birch-rod found him where
he was lying, its point swished up and down regularly as he writhed on the floor. And now
a clerk was already visible in the distance and a few paces behind him another. K. quickly
slammed the door, stepped over to a window close by, which looked out on the courtyard,
and opened it. The shrieks had completely stopped. To keep the clerks from approaching
any nearer, K. cried: “It’s me.” “Good evening, Sir,” they called back. “Has anything
happened?” “No, no,” replied K. “It was only a dog howling in the courtyard.” As the
clerks still did not budge, he added: “You can go back to your work.” And to keep himself
from being involved in any conversation he leaned out of the window. When after a while
he glanced into the corridor again, they were gone. But he stayed beside the window, he
did not dare to go back into the lumber-room, and he had no wish to go home either. It was
a little square courtyard into which he was looking down, surrounded by offices, all the
windows were dark now, but the topmost panes cast back a faint reflection of the moon. K.