house door, where the tall man with the reddish, pointed beard was emerging into sight,
and immediately, a little embarrassed at showing himself in his full height, retreated
against the wall and leaned there. The old couple must be still coming down the stairs. K.
was annoyed at Kullich for drawing his attention to the man, whom he had already
identified, indeed whom he had actually expected to see. “Don’t look across,” he said
hurriedly, without noticing how strange it must seem to speak in that fashion to grown-up
men. But no explanation proved necessary, for at that moment the taxi arrived, they took
their seats and drove off. Then K. remembered that he had not noticed the Inspector and
the warders leaving, the Inspector had usurped his attention so that he did not recognize the
three clerks, and the clerks in turn had made him oblivious of the Inspector. That did not
show much presence of mind, and K. resolved to be more careful in this respect. Yet in
spite of himself he turned round and craned from the back of the car to see if he could
perhaps catch sight of the Inspector and the warders. But he immediately turned away
again and leaned back comfortably in the corner without even having attempted to
distinguish one of them. Unlikely as it might seem, this was lust the moment when he
would have welcomed a few words from his companions, but the others seemed to be
suddenly tired: Rabensteiner gazed out to the right, Kullich to the left, and only Kaminer
faced him with his nervous grin, which, unfortunately, on grounds of humanity could not
be made a subject of conversation.
That spring K. had been accustomed to pass his evenings in this way: after work
whenever possible — he was usually in his office until nine — he would take a short walk,
alone or with some of his colleagues, and then go to a beer hall, where until eleven he sat
at a table patronized mostly by elderly men. But there were exceptions to this routine,
when, for instance, the Manager of the Bank, who highly valued his diligence and
reliability, invited him for a drive or for dinner at his villa. And once a week K. visited a
girl called Elsa, who was on duty all night till early morning as a waitress in a cabaret and during the day received her visitors in bed.
But on this evening — the day had passed quickly, filled with pressing work and many
flattering and friendly birthday wishes — K. resolved to go straight home. During every
brief pause in the day’s work he had kept this resolve in mind; without his quite knowing
why, it seemed to him that the whole household of Frau Grubach had been thrown into
great disorder by the events of the morning and that it was his task alone to put it right
again. Once order was restored, every trace of these events would be obliterated and things
would resume their old course. From the three clerks themselves nothing was to be feared,
they had been absorbed once more in the great hierarchy of the Bank, no change was to be
remarked in them. K. had several times called them singly and collectively to his room,
with no other purpose than to observe them: each time he had dismissed them again with a
quiet mind. *
When at half past nine he arrived at the house where he lived he found a young lad in
the street doorway, standing with his legs wide apart and smoking a pipe. “Who are you?”
K. asked at once, bringing his face close to the lad’s — one could not see very well in the
darkness of the entrance. “I’m the house-porter’s son, sir,” said the lad, taking the pipe from
his mouth and stepping aside. “The house-porter’s son ?” asked K., tapping his stick
impatiently on the ground. “Do you want anything, sir? Shall I fetch my father?” “No, no,”
said K., and his voice had a reassuring note, as if the lad had done something wrong but
was to be forgiven. “It’s all right,” he said and went on, yet before he climbed the stair he