more insight into the workings of the Court and my own procedure than I usually give my
clients. And now I cannot help seeing that in spite of everything you haven’t enough
confidence in me. You don’t make things very easy for me.” How the lawyer was humbling
himself before K.! And without any regard for his professional dignity, which was surely
most sensitive on this very point. Why was he doing it? If appearances spoke truly he was
in great demand as a lawyer and wealthy as well, the loss of K. as a client or the loss of his
fees could not mean much to such a man. Besides, he was an invalid and should himself
have contemplated the advisability of losing clients. Yet he was clinging to K. with an
insistence! Why? Was it personal affection for K.’s uncle, or did he really regard the case
as so extraordinary that he hoped to win prestige either from defending K. or — a
possibility not to be excluded — from pandering to his friends in the Court? His face
provided no clue, searchingly as K. scrutinized it. One could almost suppose that he was
deliberately assuming a blank expression, while waiting for the effect of his words. But he
was obviously putting too favorable an interpretation on K.’s silence when he went on to
say: “You will have noticed that although my office is large enough I don’t employ any
assistants. That wasn’t so in former years, there was a time when several young students of
the Law worked for me, but today I work alone. This change corresponds in part to the
change in my practice, for I have been confining myself more and more to cases like yours,
and in part to a growing conviction that has been borne in upon me. I found that I could not
delegate the responsibility for these cases to anyone else without wronging my clients and
imperiling the tasks I had undertaken. But the decision to cover all the work myself
entailed the natural consequences: I had to refuse most of the cases brought to me and
apply myself only to those which touched me nearly — and I can tell you there’s no lack of
wretched creatures even in this very neighborhood, ready to fling themselves on any crumb
I choose to throw them. And then I broke down under stress of overwork. All the same, I
don’t regret my decision, perhaps I ought to have taken a firmer stand and refused more
cases, but the policy of devoting myself singlemindedly to the cases I did accept has
proved both absolutely necessary and has been justified by the results. I once read a very
finely worded description of the difference between a lawyer for ordinary legal rights and a
lawyer for cases like these. It ran like this: the one lawyer leads his client by a slender
thread until the verdict is reached, but the other lifts his client on his shoulders from the
start and carries him bodily without once letting him down until the verdict is reached, and
even beyond it. That is true. But it is not quite true to say that I do not at all regret devoting
myself to this great task. When, as in your case, my labors are as completely misunderstood, then, yes, then and only then, I come near to regretting it.” * This
speech, instead of convincing K., only made him impatient. He fancied that the very tone
of the lawyer’s voice suggested what was in store for him should he yield; the same old
exhortations would begin again, the same references to the progress of the petition, to the
more gracious mood of this or that official, while not forgetting the enormous difficulties
that stood in the way — in short, the same stale platitudes would be brought out again either
to delude him with vague false hopes or to torment him with equally vague menaces. That
must be stopped once and for all, so he said: “What steps do you propose to take in my
case if I retain you as my representative?” The lawyer meekly accepted even this insulting