he said to the nurse, clasping her by the hand as if saying good-by to her for a long time,
and she went submissively enough. “So you haven’t come,” he said at last to K.’s uncle,
who was now appeased and had gone up to the bed again, “to pay me a sick visit; you’ve
come on business.” It was as if the thought of a sick visit had paralyzed him until now, so rejuvenated did he look as he supported himself on his elbow, which must itself have been
something of a strain; and he kept combing with his fingers a strand of hair in the middle
of his beard. “You look much better already,” said K.’s uncle, “since that witch went
away.” He broke off, whispered: “I bet she’s listening,” and sprang to the door. But there
was no one behind the door and he returned again, not so much disappointed, since her
failure to listen seemed to him an act of sheer malice, as embittered. “You are unjust to
her,” said the lawyer, without adding anything more in defense of his nurse; perhaps by
this reticence he meant to convey that she stood in no need of defense. Then in a much
more friendly tone he went on: “As for this case of your nephew’s I should certainly
consider myself very fortunate if my strength proved equal to such an excessively arduous
task; I’m very much afraid that it will not do so, but at any rate I shall make every effort; if
I fail, you can always call in someone else to help me. To be quite honest, the case
interests me too deeply for me to resist the opportunity of taking some part in it. If my
heart does not hold out, here at least it will find a worthy obstacle to fail against.” K. could
not fathom a single word of all this, he glanced at his uncle, hoping for some explanation,
but with the candle in his hand his uncle was sitting on the bedside table, from which a
medicine-bottle had already rolled on to the carpet, nodding assent to everything that the
lawyer said, apparently agreeing with everything and now and then casting a glance at K.
which demanded from him a like agreement. Could his uncle have told the lawyer all about
the case already? But that was impossible, the course of events ruled it out. “I don’t
understand –” he therefore began. “Oh, perhaps I have misunderstood you?” asked the
lawyer, just as surprised and embarrassed as K. “Perhaps I have been too hasty. Then what
do you want to consult me about? I thought it concerned your case?” “Of course it does,”
said K.’s uncle, turning to K. with the question: “What’s bothering you?” “Well, but how do
you come to know about me and my case?” asked K. “Oh, that’s it,” said the lawyer,
smiling. “I’m a lawyer, you see, I move in legal circles where all the various cases are
discussed, and the more striking ones are bound to stick in my mind, especially one that
concerns the nephew of an old friend of mine. Surely that’s not so extraordinary.” “What’s
bothering you?” K.’s uncle repeated. “You’re all nerves.” “So you move in those legal
circles?” asked K. “Yes,” replied the lawyer. “You ask questions like a child,” said K.’s
uncle. “Whom should I associate with if not with men of my own profession?” added the
lawyer. It sounded incontrovertible and K. made no answer. “But you’re attached to the
Court in the Palace of Justice, not to the one in the attics,” he wanted to say, yet could not
bring himself actually to say it. “You must consider,” the lawyer continued in the tone of
one perfunctorily explaining something that should be self-evident, “you must consider
that this intercourse enables me to benefit my clients in all sorts of ways, some of which
cannot even be divulged. Of course I’m somewhat handicapped now because of my illness,
but in spite of that, good friends of mine from the Law Courts visit me now and then and I
learn lots of things from them. Perhaps more than many a man in the best of health who