The Trial - Franz Kafka (best novels for students TXT) 📗

reports of how the documents were progressing, how the mood of the court officials had improved, as well as all the enormous difficulties - in short all that he had heard so many times before would be brought out again even more fully, he would try to mislead K. with hopes that were never specified and to make him suffer with threats that were never clear. He had to put a stop to that, so he said, “What will you undertake on my behalf if you continue to represent me?” The lawyer quietly accepted even this insulting question, and answered, “I should continue with what I’ve already been doing for you.” “That’s just what I thought,” said K., “and now you don’t need to say another word.” “I will make one more attempt,” said the lawyer as if whatever had been making K. so annoyed was affecting him too. “You see, I have the impression that you have not only misjudged the legal assistance I have given you but also that that misjudgement has led you to behave in this way, you seem, although you are the accused, to have been treated too well or, to put it a better way, handled with neglect, with apparent neglect. Even that has its reason; it is often better to be in chains than to be free. But I would like to show you how other defendants are treated, perhaps you will succeed in learning something from it. What I will do is I will call Block in, unlock the door and sit down here beside the bedside table.” “Be glad to,” said K., and did as the lawyer suggested; he was always ready to learn something new. But to make sure of himself for any event he added, “but you do realise that you are no longer to be my lawyer, don’t you?” “Yes,” said the lawyer. “But you can still change your mind today if you want to.” He lay back down in the bed, pulled the quilt up to his chin and turned to face the wall.

Then he rang.

 

Leni appeared almost the moment he had done so. She looked hurriedly at K. and the lawyer to try and find out what had happened; she seemed to be reassured by the sight of K. sitting calmly at the lawyer’s bed. She smiled and nodded to K., K. looked blankly back at her. “Fetch Block,” said the lawyer. But instead of going to fetch him, Leni just went to the door and called out, “Block! To the lawyer!”

Then, probably because the lawyer had turned his face to the wall and was paying no attention, she slipped in behind K.‘s chair. From then on, she bothered him by leaning forward over the back of the chair or, albeit very tenderly and carefully, she would run her hands through his hair and over his cheeks. K. eventually tried to stop her by taking hold of one hand, and after some resistance Leni let him keep hold of it. Block came as soon as he was called, but he remained standing in the doorway and seemed to be wondering whether he should enter or not.

He raised his eyebrows and lowered his head as if listening to find out whether the order to attend the lawyer would be repeated. K. could have encouraged to enter, but he had decided to make a final break not only with the lawyer but with everything in his home, so he kept himself motionless. Leni was also silent. Block noticed that at least no-one was chasing him away, and, on tiptoe, he entered the room, his face was tense, his hands were clenched behind his back. He left the door open in case he needed to go back again. K. did not even glance at him, he looked instead only at the thick quilt under which the lawyer could not be seen as he had squeezed up very close to the wall. Then his voice was heard: “Block here?” he asked. Block had already crept some way into the room but this question seemed to give him first a shove in the breast and then another in the back, he seemed about to fall but remained standing, deeply bowed, and said, “At your service, sir.”

“What do you want?” asked the lawyer, “you’ve come at a bad time.”

“Wasn’t I summoned?” asked Block, more to himself than the lawyer. He held his hands in front of himself as protection and would have been ready to run away any moment. “You were summoned,” said the lawyer, “but you have still come at a bad time.” Then, after a pause he added, “You always come at a bad time.” When the lawyer started speaking Block had stopped looking at the bed but stared rather into one of the corners, just listening, as if the light from the speaker were brighter than Block could bear to look at. But it was also difficult for him to listen, as the lawyer was speaking into the wall and speaking quickly and quietly. “Would you like me to go away again, sir?” asked Block.

“Well you’re here now,” said the lawyer. “Stay!” It was as if the lawyer had not done as Block had wanted but instead threatened him with a stick, as now Block really began to shake. “I went to see,” said the lawyer, “the third judge yesterday, a friend of mine, and slowly brought the conversation round to the subject of you. Do you want to know what he said?” “Oh, yes please,” said Block. The lawyer did not answer immediately, so Block repeated his request and lowered his head as if about to kneel down. But then K. spoke to him: “What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. Leni had wanted to stop him from calling out and so he took hold of her other hand. It was not love that made him squeeze it and hold on to it so tightly, she sighed frequently and tried to disengage her hands from him. But Block was punished for K.‘s outburst, as the lawyer asked him, “Who is your lawyer?” “You are, sir,” said Block. “And who besides me?” the lawyer asked. “No-one besides you, sir,” said Block. “And let there be no-one besides me,”

said the lawyer. Block fully understood what that meant, he glowered at K., shaking his head violently. If these actions had been translated into words they would have been coarse insults. K. had been friendly and willing to discuss his own case with someone like this! “I won’t disturb you any more,” said K., leaning back in his chair. “You can kneel down or creep on all fours, whatever you like. I won’t bother with you any more.” But Block still had some sense of pride, at least where K. was concerned, and he went towards him waving his fists, shouting as loudly as he dared while the lawyer was there. “You shouldn’t speak to me like that, that’s not allowed. Why are you insulting me? Especially here in front of the lawyer, where both of us, you and me, we’re only tolerated because of his charity. You not a better person than me, you’ve been accused of something too, you’re facing a charge too. If, in spite of that, you’re still a gentleman then I’m just as much a gentleman as you are, if not even more so. And I want to be spoken to as a gentleman, especially by you. If you think being allowed to sit there and quietly listen while I creep on all fours as you put it makes you something better than me, then there’s an old legal saying you ought to bear in mind: If you’re under suspicion it better to be moving than still, as if you’re still you can be in the pan of the scales without knowing it and be weighed along with your sins.”

K. said nothing. He merely looked in amazement at this distracted being, his eyes completely still. He had gone through such changes in just the last few hours! Was it the trial that was throwing him from side to side in this way and stopped him knowing who was friend and who was foe? Could he not see the lawyer was deliberately humiliating him and had no other purpose today than to show off his power to K., and perhaps even thereby subjugate K.? But if Block was incapable of seeing that, or if he so feared the lawyer that no such insight would even be of any use to him, how was it that he was either so sly or so bold as to lie to the lawyer and conceal from him the fact that he had other lawyers working on his behalf? And how did he dare to attack K., who could betray his secret any time he liked? But he dared even more than this, he went to the lawyer’s bed and began there to make complaints about K. “Dr. Huld, sir,” he said, “did you hear the way this man spoke to me? You can count the length of his trial in hours, and he wants to tell me what to do when I’ve been involved in a legal case for five years. He even insults me. He doesn’t know anything, but he insults me, when I, as far as my weak ability allows, when I’ve made a close study of how to behave with the court, what we ought to do and what the court practices are.” “Don’t let anyone bother you,” said the lawyer, “and do what seems to you to be right.” “I will,” said Block, as if speaking to himself to give himself courage, and with a quick glance to the side he kneeled down close beside the bed. “I’m kneeling now Dr.

Huld, sir,” he said. But the lawyer remained silent. With one hand, Block carefully stroked the bed cover. In the silence while he did so, Leni, as she freed herself from K.‘s hands, said, “You’re hurting me.

Let go of me. I’m going over to Block.” She went over to him and sat on the edge of the bed. Block was very pleased at this and with lively, but silent, gestures he immediately urged her to intercede for him with the lawyer. It was clear that he desperately needed to be told something by the lawyer, although perhaps only so that he could make use of the information with his other lawyers. Leni probably knew very well how the lawyer could be brought round, pointed to his hand and pursed her lips as if making a kiss. Block immediately performed the hand-kiss and, at further urging from Leni, repeated it twice more. But the lawyer continued to be silent. Then Leni leant over the lawyer, as she stretched out, the attractive shape of her body could be seen, and, bent over close to his face, she stroked his long white hair. That now forced him to give an answer. “I’m rather wary of telling him,” said the lawyer, and his head could be seen shaking slightly, perhaps so that he would feel the pressure of Leni’s hand better. Block listened closely with his head lowered, as if by listening he were breaking an order. “What makes you so wary about it?” asked Leni. K. had the feeling he was listening to a contrived dialogue that had been repeated many times, that would be repeated many times more, and that for Block alone it would never lose its freshness. “What has his behaviour been like today?” asked the lawyer instead of an answer. Before Leni said anything she looked down at Block and watched him a short while as he raised his hands towards her and rubbed them together imploringly.

Finally she gave a serious nod, turned back to the lawyer and said, “He’s been quiet and