belonged to him. In great agitation K. approached the doorway of the room and the
Assistant Manager exclaimed: “Oh, you’re not gone yet.” He turned his face toward K. —
the deep lines scored upon it seemed to speak of power rather than old age — and
immediately resumed his search. “I’m looking for a copy of an agreement,” he said, “which
the firm’s representative says should be among your papers. Won’t you help me to look?”
K. took a step forward, but the Assistant Manager said: “Thanks, now I’ve found it,” and carrying a huge package of documents, which obviously contained not only the copy of the
agreement but many other papers as well, he returned to his office.
“I’m not equal to him just now,” K. told himself, “but once my personal difficulties
are settled he’ll be the first to feel it, and I’ll make him suffer for it, too.” Somewhat
soothed by this thought, K. instructed the attendant, who had been holding open the
corridor door for a long time, to inform the Manager at any convenient time that he had
gone out on a business call, and then, almost elated at the thought of being able to devote
himself entirely to his case for a while, he left the Bank.
“He drove at once to the address where the painter lived, in a suburb which was
almost at the diametrically opposite end of the town from the offices of the Court. This
was an even poorer neighborhood, the houses were still darker, the streets filled with
sludge oozing about slowly on top of the melting snow. In the tenement where the painter
lived only one wing of the great double door stood open, and beneath the other wing, in the
masonry near the ground, there was a gaping hole out of which, just as K. approached,
issued a disgusting yellow fluid, steaming hot, from which some rats fled into the
adjoining canal. At the foot of the stairs an infant lay face down on the ground bawling,
but one could scarcely hear its shrieks because of the deafening din that came from a
tinsmith’s workshop at the other side of the entry. The door of the workshop was open;
three apprentices were standing in a half-circle round some object on which they were
beating with their hammers. A great sheet of tin hanging on the wall cast a pallid light,
which fell between two of the apprentices and lit up their faces and aprons. K. flung only a
fleeting glance at all this, he wanted to finish off here as quickly as possible, he would
merely ask the painter a few searching questions and return at once to the Bank. His work
at the Bank for the rest of the day would benefit should he have any luck at all on this visit.
When he reached the third floor he had to moderate his pace, he was quite out of breath,
both the stairs and the stories were disproportionately high, and the painter was said to live
quite at the top, in an attic. The air was stifling; there was no well for these narrow stairs,
which were enclosed on either side by blank walls, showing only at rare intervals a tiny
window very high up. Just as K. paused to take breath, several young girls rushed out of
one of the flats and laughingly raced past him up the stairs. K. slowly followed them,
catching up with one who had stumbled and been left behind, and as they ascended
together he asked her: “Does a painter called Titorelli live here?” The girl, who was
slightly hunchbacked and seemed scarcely thirteen years old, nudged him with her elbow
and peered up at him knowingly. Neither her youth nor her deformity had saved her from
being prematurely debauched. She did not even smile, but stared unwinkingly at K. with
shrewd, bold eyes. K. pretended not to have noticed her behavior and asked: “Do you
know the painter Titorelli ?” She nodded and asked in her turn: “What do you want him
for?” K. thought it a good chance to find out a little more about Titorelli while he still had