out: “Sir!” At once K. slammed the door shut and then beat on it with his fists, as if that
would shut it more securely. He ran almost weeping to the clerks, who were quietly
working at the copying-presses and looked up at him in surprise. “Clear that lumber-room
out, can’t you?” he shouted. “We’re being smothered in dirt !” The clerks promised to do so
next day. K. nodded, he could hardly insist on their doing it now, so late in the evening, as
he had originally intended. He sat down for a few moments, for the sake of their company,
shuffled through some duplicates, hoping to give the impression that he was inspecting
them, and then, seeing that the men would scarcely venture to leave the building along
with him, went home, tired, his mind quite blank. Chapter 6
K’s Uncle / Leni
ONE afternoon — it was just before the day’s letters went out and K. was very busy — two
clerks bringing him some papers to sign were thrust aside and his Uncle Karl, a small
landowner from the country, came striding into the room. K. was the less alarmed by the
arrival of his uncle since for a long time he had been shrinking from it in anticipation. His
uncle was bound to turn up, he had been convinced of that for about a month past. He had
often pictured him just as he appeared now, his back slightly bent, his panama hat crushed
in his left hand, stretching out his right hand from the very doorway, and then thrusting it
recklessly across the desk, knocking over everything that came in its way. His uncle was
always in a hurry, for he was harassed by the disastrous idea that whenever he came to
town for the day he must get through all the program he had drawn up for himself, and
must not miss either a single chance of a conversation or a piece of business or an
entertainment. In all this K., who as his former ward was peculiarly obliged to him, had to
help him as best he could and also sometimes put him up for the night. “A ghost from the
past,” he was in the habit of calling him.
Immediately after his first greetings — he had no time to sit down in the chair which
K. offered him — he begged K. to have a short talk with him in strict privacy. “It is
necessary,” he said, painfully gulping, “it is necessary for my peace of mind.” K. at once
sent his clerks out of the room with instructions to admit no one. “What is this I hear,
Joseph?” cried his uncle when they were alone, sitting down on the desk and making
himself comfortable by stuffing several papers under him without looking at them. K. said
nothing, he knew what was coming, but being suddenly released from the strain of
exacting work, he resigned himself for the moment to a pleasant sense of indolence and
gazed out through the window at the opposite side of the street, of which only a small
triangular section could be seen from where he was sitting, a slice of empty house-wall
between two shop windows. “You sit there staring out of the window!” cried his uncle,
flinging up his arms. “For God’s sake, Joseph, answer me. Is it true? Can it be true?” “Dear
Uncle,” said K., tearing himself out of his reverie. “I don’t know in the least what you
mean.” “Joseph,” said his uncle warningly, “you’ve always told the truth, as far as I know.
Am I to take these words of yours as a bad sign?” “I can guess, certainly, what you’re
after,” said K. accommodatingly. “You’ve probably heard something about my trial.” “That
is so,” replied his uncle, nodding gravely. “I have heard about your trial.” “But from whom
?” asked K. “Erna wrote to me about it,” said his uncle. “She doesn’t see much of you, I
know, you don’t pay much attention to her, I regret to say, and yet she heard about it. I got
the letter this morning and of course took the first train here. I had no other reason for