The Castle (Mark Harman 1998 Translation) by Franz Kafka

Author:Franz Kafka [Kafka, Franz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9780307829481
Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
Published: 1922-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

XV.

AT AMALIA’S

Finally—it was already dark, late afternoon—K. had cleared the garden path, piled the snow on both sides, beaten it down, and was now finished with the day’s work. He stood at the garden gate, the only person anywhere around. He had driven away the assistant hours ago, chased him a great distance, then the assistant had hidden himself somewhere between the little garden and the sheds, simply wasn’t to be found and hadn’t come out since. Frieda was at home, already washing the clothes or still at work on Gisa’s cat; it was a sign of great trust on Gisa’s part that she had turned this task over to Frieda, an unappetizing and unsuitable task, and K. certainly wouldn’t have tolerated Frieda’s undertaking it had it not been quite advisable, after their various derelictions of duty, to use every opportunity to make Gisa feel obliged to them. Gisa had watched with pleasure as K. carried the small children’s tub down from the attic, as water was warmed up and as, finally, with great care, they lifted the cat into the tub. And then Gisa had even left the cat entirely in Frieda’s care, since Schwarzer, K.’s acquaintance from the first evening, had appeared, greeted K. with a mixture of diffidence—for which the foundation had been laid that evening—and the unbridled contempt that befits a mere janitor, and then gone into the other schoolroom with Gisa. The two of them were still there. According to what K. had been told at the Bridge Inn, Schwarzer, who was after all the son of a steward, had, out of love for Gisa, been living for some time now in the village and had succeeded through his connections in getting the council to appoint him to the post of assistant teacher but had chiefly discharged those duties by almost never missing Gisa’s classes, where he sat on a bench between the children or, preferably, on the podium at Gisa’s feet. This was no longer a distraction, the children had long since grown used to it, perhaps all the more readily given that Schwarzer showed no affection for, nor understanding of, children, barely spoke to them, having merely taken over Gisa’s gymnastics class and being otherwise content to live in the proximity, the air, the warmth of Gisa. His greatest pleasure was to sit next to Gisa, correcting copybooks with her. Today too they were busy with the same task, Schwarzer had brought along a large pile of copybooks, the teacher always gave them his, too, and while it was still light outside K. had seen the two of them working over a small table, their heads close together, immobile, all one could see there now were two flickering candles. It was a serious, silent love that united the two, its tone in fact set by Gisa, whose lethargic being sometimes went wild and broke all bounds but who on any other occasion would never have tolerated anything of the sort from others, and

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