The Castle by Bell Anthea Robertson Ritchie Kafka Franz

Author:Bell, Anthea, Robertson, Ritchie, Kafka, Franz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2009-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

14

Frieda’s Grievance

HANS had left none too soon, for next moment the teacher opened the door and cried, on seeing K. and Frieda sitting quietly at the table: ‘Oh, pray forgive me for disturbing you! But can you tell me when you are finally going to tidy this place up? We’re having to sit all cooped up together over there, and lessons are suffering from it, while you lounge around in the big gymnasium, and you’ve sent the assistants away so as to have even more room for yourselves. So kindly stand up and get moving!’ And he added, to K. alone: ‘And you, fellow, go and fetch me my buffet lunch from the Bridge Inn!’ All this was said furiously, at the top of his voice, but the words were relatively inoffensive, even the disrespectful address of K. as ‘fellow’. K. was ready to do as he was told at once, and it was only to sound the teacher out that he said: ‘But I’ve been dismissed.’ ‘Dismissed or not, fetch me my lunch,’ said the teacher. ‘Dismissed or not is what I want to know,’ said K. ‘What are you going on about?’ said the teacher. ‘You didn’t accept the dismissal.’ ‘So is that enough to cancel it out?’ asked K. ‘Not as far as I’m concerned, believe me,’ said the teacher. ‘But extraordinarily enough, the village mayor won’t hear of it. So get moving, or you really will be thrown out.’ K. was pleased; so in the interim the teacher had spoken to the village mayor, or perhaps not spoken to him but simply worked out what he expected the village mayor’s opinion would be, and it was to K.’s advantage. Now K. started straight off to fetch the buffet lunch, but the teacher called him back again from the corridor, whether because he had just wanted to test K.’s willingness to be of service with this special order, so that he could add more directions to it, or because he felt like giving orders and it pleased him to see K. running busily back and forth like a waiter at his behest. For his part, K. knew that if he gave way too far he would become the teacher’s slave and scapegoat, but he would put up with the man’s whims within limits, for if the teacher, as it transpired, could not legitimately dismiss him, he could certainly make his job unpleasant to the point of being intolerable. And now K. was much more anxious to keep the job than before. His conversation with Hans had given him new hope—admittedly improbable hope, and for no good reason at all, but hope not to be forgotten all the same. It almost put even Barnabas out of his mind. If he acted in accordance with it, and he had no alternative, then he must do everything in his power to think of nothing else, not food and lodging, not the village authorities, not even Frieda—and at bottom this was all about Frieda, for everything else concerned him only in relation to her.

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