It was neither an old-style knight’s stronghold, nor a modern palace, but an extended complex consisting of a few two-storeyed but a great many lower buildings set close together; had you not known it was a castle, you might have taken it for a small town. K. saw only one tower, there was no telling whether it belonged to a residential building or to a church. Flocks of crows wheeled around it.

His eyes fixed on the castle, K. walked on, nothing else concerned him. As he came closer, however, the castle disappointed him, it really was just a wretched-looking small town, a collection of rustic hovels, its only distinction being that, possibly, everything was built of stone, though the paint had peeled off long since and the stone looked as if it was crumbling away. K. had a fleeting memory of his own home town, it was scarcely inferior to this so-called castle, if K. had been interested only in sightseeing it would have been a waste of all the travelling, he would have done better to revisit his old home, where he had not been for so long. And he drew a mental comparison between the church tower of his home town and the tower above him. The tower at home, neatly, unhesitatingly tapering straight upward, ending below in a red-tiled expanse of roof, an earthly building – what other kind can we build? – yet with a loftier goal than the squat jumble of houses and making a clearer statement than the drab working day. The tower up above – it was the only one visible – the tower of a dwelling, as could now be seen, possibly the main body of the castle, was a uniform, circular structure, part cloaked in ivy, with small windows that gleamed in the sun – there was a crazy quality about this – and a balcony-like rim with battlements that jutted uncertainly, unevenly, brittlely, as if drawn by the timid or slapdash hand of a child, up into the blue sky. It was as if some gloomy inmate, who by rights should have remained locked away in the farthest room in the house, had burst through the roof and raised himself high in order to be seen by the world.

Once again K. stood still, as if standing still sharpened his judgement. But he was interrupted. Round the back of the village church, beside which he had come to a halt – it was only a chapel, actually, enlarged like a barn to accommodate the congregation – was the school. A long low building, oddly blending characteristics of the temporary and of the very old, it lay beyond a fenced garden that was now an expanse of snow. The children were just emerging with the schoolmaster. They surrounded the schoolmaster in a dense mass, all eyes fixed on him, chattering incessantly from all sides, K. understood nothing of their rapid speech. The schoolmaster, a young, short, narrow-shouldered man who, without appearing ridiculous, nevertheless held himself very straight, had already spotted K. from a distance, true, apart from his own group, K. was the only person about. K., as the stranger, gave his greeting first, particularly to so commanding a little man. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. At a stroke the children stopped their chatter, the abrupt silence was no doubt pleasing to the schoolmaster as a prelude to his words. ‘You’re here to view the castle?’ he asked, more gently than K. had expected yet in a tone that suggested disapproval of what K. was doing. ‘Yes,’ said K., ‘I’m a stranger here, I only arrived last night.’ ‘You don’t like the castle?’ the schoolmaster asked quickly.