stayed as he was, not even turning round, seemingly quite incurious, just looking. Schwarzer’s account, a blend of malice and circumspection, gave him some idea of the almost diplomatic training, as it were, that even people as unimportant as Schwarzer could easily possess in the castle. Nor was there any lack of diligence there, the main office had a night shift. And evidently replied very promptly, because Fritz was already ringing back. This report seemed to be a very brief one, though, since Schwarzer immediately slammed the receiver down in a fury. ‘Didn’t I say so?’ he cried. ‘Land surveyor? – nothing of the sort, a common, lying vagrant, probably worse.’ For a moment K. was sure all of them, Schwarzer, peasants, landlord, and landlady, were about to fall on him, and to escape at least the initial onslaught he was crawling right under the blanket when – as he slowly poked his head out again – the bell rang a second time, particularly shrilly, K. thought. Although this was unlikely to concern K. again, everyone fell silent and Schwarzer returned to the telephone. There he listened to a lengthy explanation, then said quietly: ‘A mistake, you say? This puts me in a most embarrassing position. The office manager phoned in person? Odd, very odd. Yes, but how am I going to explain that to the land surveyor?’

K. began to take notice. So the castle had appointed him land surveyor. On the one hand that was to his disadvantage, since it showed they knew all they needed to know about him at the castle, had weighed up the balance of forces, and were entering the fray with a smile. But on the other hand it was also to his advantage, because it showed, he felt, that they underestimated him and that he was going to have more freedom than he might have hoped for at the outset. And if they thought that with this intellectually no doubt superior recognition of his land-surveyorship they could keep him in a permanent state of fright, then they were wrong, it sent a little shiver down his spine, that was all.

As Schwarzer tentatively approached, K. waved him away; he declined to move into the landlord’s room, as he was urged to do, he simply accepted a nightcap from the landlord and a washbasin with soap and towel from the landlady and had no need even to ask for the lounge to be vacated because they were all pushing through the door with faces averted, possibly to avoid being recognized by him in the morning, the lamp was extinguished and he was finally left in peace. He slept well, only fleetingly disturbed by the occasional rat scurrying past, until morning.

After breakfast, which like all K.’s board was (said the landlord) to be paid for by the castle, he wanted to go straight into the village. However, since the landlord, with whom in the light of his behaviour the previous day K. had so far exchanged only the most essential remarks, persisted in hovering about him, mutely pleading, he took pity on the man and made him sit down beside him for a moment.

‘I’ve not met the count before,’ said K. ‘He’s said to pay well for good work, is that right? When you travel as far from wife and child as I’ve done, you want to have something to bring home.’

‘Sir need have no worries on that score, you hear no complaints about poor pay.’

‘Well,’ said K., ‘I’m not a shy man and can speak my mind even to a count, but it’s far better, of course, to deal with the gentlemen in peace.’

The landlord sat on the edge of the windowseat facing K., not daring to make himself more comfortable, and he spent the whole time looking at K. with large brown, fearful eyes. Initially he had thrust himself on K., and now it seemed he wanted nothing so much as to run away. Was he afraid of being questioned about the count? Did he fear the untrustworthiness of the ‘gentleman’ he took K. to be? K. needed to distract him. He glanced at the clock and said, ‘My assistants will be arriving soon, will you be able to put them up here?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ he said, ‘but won’t they be staying with you in the castle?’

Was he so ready and willing to turn away guests and particularly to turn away K., whom he was urgently referring to the castle?

‘That’s not certain yet,’ said K., ‘I first have to find out what sort of job they have for me.