K walked off, back up the many flights of stairs to his room in the officials’ wing, more thoughtful than usual. He was dog-tired, his heavy shoes hitting the stairs on his way up, weighed down from a long and laborious day, but as exhausted as he felt physically, his mind was wide awake. The estate! What a strange, perplexing place it was. He had been filled with one stark impression to begin with, paradoxical in itself, and then Macarius had gone and flipped his ideas on their head in a single conversation! Was this a place of extravagant absurdities or flagrant injustice? Why shouldn’t both be true? What on Earth could he, Joseph, do about it? He remembered the kindly, pitying look that the old man had given him when he’d expressed his outrage; his desire to put things to rights. Was he wrong to want to make a difference? True, he’d been there only a few hours; he was an outsider; he was fresh-faced young man with no achievements to speak of, but such trifling details shouldn’t put him off the idea of changing things!
The lad was full of goodwill, daring, and much wine, too.
‘I feel fine, considering how much I’ve had to drink.’ he thought to himself, as he staggered and swayed down the corridor to his room.
‘I’m practically sober’ as he tipped over his bag and landed face-first in bed.
He dreamed that he was back in the law-courts, observing as he had as a student, only this time he was standing in the dock, and it was Tollswhip wielding the gavel. The man’s beaky nose and jutting chin leered at him menacingly as he pronounced the sentence: ‘You, sir, are drunk, and on your first day! I am thus revoking your rights to remain here – you will hand over your papers to be burned at the soonest possible moment. Court adjourned!’ BANG, went the gavel – loud enough to wake Joseph with a start, but it was already morning, and someone was really knocking on the door to his room.
Light was streaming in through the window, and Joseph sat upright, shaking off the last traces of his dream. He was in the estate – it all came back to him now. Had it only been one – no, just half a day? He looked around the room sleepily – there wasn’t much to look at but his mind needed steadying. Then – again – the rap at the door, sounding (if possible) impatient. K forced himself out of the bunk and threw his overcoat on before sneaking a peek through a hole in the door. A small, liveried servant was standing outside, an impassive expression on his pinched face. K drew open the door, satisfied that he was not being harassed by Tollswhip.
‘A message for Joseph K.’ The little man squeaked.
K held out a hand to receive it.
‘Mr. K is to come to the kitchens after breakfast to see Mrs. Gunnering on an important matter.’ The servant continued, ignoring the outstretched hand.
‘Mrs. Who? Gunnering? In the kitchens?’ K asked, running a hand over his brow, but the servant, having said his piece, was already moving off. K watched him for a moment, before calling after him:
‘What time is breakfast, anyway?’
‘It started half an hour ago.’ A voice answered, from the other direction. One of his neighbours, whom he hadn’t yet seen, was standing around, shuffling his feet; waiting for someone.
‘Is that right? Are you going there?’ K asked the man.
He shrugged, and gave a knock on the door opposite them both. There was an answering grunt from within. A moment later another gentleman – tall, nondescript, and dressed identically to K’s neighbour – came out of the room, and, with a nod to his friend, went strolling off briskly down the hall. The more talkative one dashed after him, until they were abreast, and remained so, practically arm in arm, all the way to the breakfast table. K followed them at a respectful distance.
It was a different route to breakfast than the one he’d taken to dinner, and he found himself in some familiar parts of the building along the way. Eventually, they reached their destination, and K recognised the long, high-windowed room from the previous afternoon; freshly swept clean of all its dead leaves and litter, and housing a great many residents of the estate – albeit not a quarter as many as there’d been at dinner. This breakfast room, it appeared, catered to the middle ranks of officers and officials of the estate – K’s equals – though within that cross section there was a great deal of variety. As he arrived, K found the place only about half-full, and many of the workers were leaving to go about their day.
It was a bright, attractive place. Several of the windows were open to air the room, affording glimpses of the grounds, through which K had stumbled blindly the day before. Today, by contrast, the sky was clear of clouds, and there was no mist on the gardens; instead they shone in glorious sunshine in all their magnificence.
K took a seat by one of these attractive vistas, rubbing his eyes in the bright light that poured in, reflected off plates and cutlery. The table before him was laid with dishes of various breakfast foods – porridge, eggs, bacon, toast and rye bread, pots of jam and honey, and steaming jugs of coffee and tea. His mouth watered at the sight and smell of all these things, but manners dictated he should show some restraint (in not eating it all at once).
He was just getting started on the eggs when he caught sight of something funny going on in the garden. Through the open window before him, he had a view of the odd arrangement of shrubs on the lawn, and weaving madly among them was Macarius. The old fellow looked as if he were fighting off seven demons, swinging his arms about and raving; he didn’t seem to care where he was or whither he was going, but danced in circles without rhyme or reason, moving gradually away until he was out of K’s field of view.
‘What the–?’ K thought, laying down his fork. ‘Have I just dreamed this? Is that the same gentleman I sat down to dinner with last night, or am I losing the plot?’
Other, pressing matters forced their way into his thoughts, however, as he faced the day ahead of him. He’d be expected in the office, where he’d need to make a start brushing up on the work his predecessor had left behind. Yes, there was much he could be doing, and time was getting on. Rising to his feet, he realised with a start that he was still in his underclothes, with only his overcoat covering him. He’d have to get dressed and presentable, meaning a return to his room before work… would he be able to find his way? Then, while he was wondering whom to ask for directions, he was pleased to see the messenger from before coming back his way – directly approaching him, in fact.
But before he could open his mouth to ask anything, the messenger spoke out in a disapproving tone:
‘What? Still here? Haven’t you seen Mrs. Gunnering yet? It’s that way.’ He pointed to a door, half hidden in the wall of the dining hall, made visible only by the seams around its edges. There appeared to be a glow of light coming from within those cracks, and as K approached the door (with a sense of apprehension as a newcomer to a strange land) he was hit by a delicious smell of cooking. In fact, he could hardly contain his excitement as he wrenched open the door and staggered down a few steps into a vast, sunken kitchen.
The ceilings were very low in here – as in so many of the estate’s working quarters – so that the room was engulfed in the steam and smoke of a long row of cookers all simmering away. It took a minute or so before K’s eyes could adjust, and for the air to clear enough for him to make out the people in there – though from the instant he’d entered he’d had his arm pinched in a vice-like grip that showed no sign of slackening, and only after a time was he able to look his assailant in the face. As if she were waiting for some sign of acknowledgement, upon first glance the woman burst out with a great flood of words. Indeed, she went so long without stemming the flow of speech that it later struck him as showing remarkable restraint that she had given him a moment to come to his senses before beginning her harangue. K took her to be Mrs. Gunnering, by deduction, for she passed over introductions and flew straight into the middle of things.
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‘You’re looking peaky, my dear, well, and thin too – sit down over there, no, there – on the stool, yes that’s it. Go on, eat that, you’ll need to keep your strength up.’ She thrust a bowl of porridge into his hands, having pushed him into a seat by a long, high table at which several harried-looking assistants were chopping herbs.
‘Well, I don’t know what they’re thinking hiring an outsider in this place, and a darling little boy like you what’s scarcely passed his 16th year I shouldn’t wonder.’ Joseph opened his mouth to object to this assessment, but the woman was far too worked up to pay him any heed; she bustled about with a dirty rag of a dishcloth in her hands which she wrung and flapped about periodically, in-between tasting various of the simmering pots and snapping instructions to her assistants. Judging by what he could see of her face, which was screwed up in anxiety and half-covered by strands of dirty, greyish-blonde hair, Joseph guessed she was only about 50, possibly younger, but worn down by worry, and constant, nervous activity, for she appeared much older, at a glance.
‘O-oh what have they got you into? Poor thing won’t last a week. It’s the blacksmith’s boy all over again – came up on the Tuesday and went down again by the Thursday – couldn’t take his stripes, and they worked the poor thing too hard, and he was all of 18, mind you!’
‘Ahem.’ Joseph cleared his throat, as loudly as he could for all the noise and chatter in that crowded, steamy kitchen. ‘Mrs. Gunnering, is there something you wanted to say to me?’ he asked in a loud voice, thinking: ‘or are you just going to prattle on at me and make me late for work on my first day?’
‘I’ve got to start in half an hour, you see, and I’m not yet properly dressed.’
‘Not dressed? I don’t doubt that, my dear – there’s nothing they’ll provide for you in this place that they won’t charge you 9 times over for, make no mistake – they’ll take the clothes off your very back, mind.’
‘Are you just hoping to frighten me away, is that it? Did you do the same act on the… butcher’s boy, was it?’
But the woman appeared not to hear this challenge – she was bending down to peer into one of the ovens with great interest, muttering under her breath all the time.
‘Mrs. Gunnering, if you have nothing to say to me directly, I’m afraid I’ll be leaving. Thank you for the second helping of breakfast, but I’m not hungry – you see, they’ve been very generous with clothes, food and drink et cetera so far.’ He placed the bowl of porridge – untouched – on the table beside one of the assistants, where it was showered at once with little flecks of sage or parsley that were flying out from under their knives.
‘Now look here young man!’ Mrs. Gunnering’s voice rose after him as he made to leave. ‘Oh, you will tell me my own mind, won’t you.’ She spat, indignantly. ‘These young people always know better than their elders, don’t they? If I don’t leap to the point it’s for your benefit, not mine, sunshine, and you ought to be thankful for that since there’s plenty as will tell it to you straighter than you’d like, with all your high manners and uppity attitude, that I will say. What I was meaning to tell you was – is – that you need to watch yourself, young man – no! don’t interrupt – listen! You need to watch who you’re hanging around with and speaking to – it’ll be your undoing, see, if you get in with the wrong sort, and then you will be sorry. Our blacksmith’s boy was a damn sight sharper than you, for he smelled the smoke before he felt the flames if you take my meaning, and he got up and bolted before he was too far in. Bless him, for there’s not a whole lot you can do to escape once they really get you in their clutches round here.’ But K could bear the onslaught no longer, standing up to shout her down in that confined space.
‘Mrs. Gunnering, if I listened to your counsels I’d only end up caving in to a million unfounded fears – that would get me nowhere, neither here nor back home. Now excuse me (and my ‘high manners’!) but I must go now.’ And, despite the stormy hail of words that rained upon his back, Joseph emerged from that cramped and close kitchen unscathed, if a little sweaty from the steam and smokey heat.
‘I must have been a good quarter of an hour listening to that worrisome old ninny – damn! So much for good first impressions, I’ll never make it to the office for 9.’
But just as he was striding along bemoaning these things, K caught a glimpse of Travis, the footman, milling about in a small crowd ahead of him – glancing at his pocket watch and tapping his foot impatiently. There was evidently some kind of hold-up. After a final, sullen glance at the wall of bodies barring his way, Travis heaved a sigh and strode back along the corridor, took a sharp turn, and began examining the wall to his left. K saw how unpromising the hold-up looked, and was on the point of turning back when he drew level with Travis and noticed what he was up to.
What appeared to to be a blank stretch of wall had in fact certain indentations which only the most observant passer-by could have noticed. Travis had pulled a key out of his pocket and was fiddling with some kind of hidden lock. Sure enough, with a little jiggle, a section of the wall swung open to reveal a secret passageway – dark, and dreary, for it was unlit from within. Travis looked over his shoulder quickly, to see if anyone in the crowd had seen him, and, satisfied that they were all too preoccupied to look back, he dashed into the passage. Yet before he could slam the door shut behind him, K had crept up and thrust his foot in the door-jamb.
‘What the –‘ Travis hissed, and then saw who it was who’d followed him.
‘Oh no – absolutely not! Do you want to get us both thrown out?’ but K had already forced his way in and drawn the door gently behind them. They were suddenly plunged into darkness, save for the slightest thread of light illuminating a crack in the doorway behind.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Expediency.’ said K, without quite knowing why.
‘that is,’ he added hastily, almost feeling the sour look Travis was giving him in that darkness, ‘I need to be at my office by 9, and if ever there were a shortcut through this mad jumble of an estate I’m sure it should look like this.’
‘That’s a little presumptuous of you, to say the least.’ growled Travis, but he didn’t press K to leave, or pursue the point any further. He simply strode off into the darkness, alone, carrying on with his business.
K, for want of any other ideas, rushed after the fleeting sound of his footsteps down the pitch-black corridor. The floor rose quite steeply, so that K was content to suppose he wasn’t on entirely the wrong path, but it made the going difficult, for his shoes were forever slipping or crushing his toes and ankles as he trudged onwards. It was terribly cold in the passage, after the warmth and humidity of the kitchen. K guessed that it branched off into any number of pathways all over the vast estate, and thus there was little to no opposition to any draughts or cold breezes that blew from one end to the other. Just the idea of making one false turning was enough to fill his mind with dread of losing himself in that labyrinth, so he tried not to imagine just how extensive such a complex might be – and it was well for him that he did.
‘If I weren’t so foolish as to have tried this in the first place, I’d be far too frightened to keep going’ he said to himself, focusing very hard on the sound of Travis’ footsteps as they echoed ahead of him faintly.
Since he was concentrating so hard on this, it was impossible to keep track of anything else – whether the time, or how much distance he’d travelled, or in what direction they were going – yet after a little while, he began to see cracks of light to the left and to the right of him, like that under the door they’d left behind. There wasn’t time to stop and venture a peep through one of them, for fear of falling behind, but K heard the odd sound filter through; the scratching of pens on paper, the creaking of floorboards and the shuffling of feet, or else the dreary voices of a committee. It was all so much noise to K, until at last he heard a sound he recognised – the nasal whine of Enid’s voice; more that that – it was the sound of his own name.
‘...Joseph will get here soon, it’s almost 9.’ He heard, just ahead of him, and round a corner (he supposed). It was just as well, for he’d hesitated a moment to check if it really was Enid’s voice, and in that smallest stretch of time he’d lost the sound of Travis ahead of him. He was on his own again, and now he listened.
‘Don’t worry about it, Enid, you’re always worrying about something.’ There was no mistaking Gerald’s warm, teasing voice.
‘Oho, I’m always worrying? You weren’t so cool the other day when I was...’ Enid’s voice faded.
‘She must have moved away from the doorway; perhaps here’s my chance,’ K thought, and, tip-toeing towards the source of the voices, he felt his way around a corner and beheld the beam of light – slender as a hair – under a door in the blackness; his door. He listened for one more minute at the edge, in case he was at risk of barging in. Somehow he didn’t imagine his new colleagues would approve of his subterranean slinking about. At last, he leaned gently against the door, and heard a faint ‘click’ as it swung smoothly open, and he found himself in the storage cupboard. Not that he realised it at first – instead, for one terrible instant he felt the panic of finding himself in another dark, confined space. Then he saw that the darkness was not quite as profound in there as it had been in the passage, and he began to make out shelves, and piles of books, and a broom. He’d never been so glad to see the inside of a cupboard before.
Still, there remained the issue of how to emerge from it inconspicuously. Had he been more cunning, he might have waited and tried to formulate a plan, sneaking out on all fours, as quietly as possible, but he did not possess such cunning, which is a foolishness of its own kind. Instead, he flung the door straight open, and strode into the room as casually as he dared.