The Castle (44 page)

And then what was perhaps the greatest misfortune: in these four days, although he had been in the village during the first two, Klamm did not come down into the saloon. Had he come, that would have been Pepi's most decisive test, a test, incidentally, that she was least afraid of, one to which she was more inclined to look forward.

She would - though it is, of course, best not to touch on such things in words at all -

not have become Klamm's mistress, nor would she have promoted herself to that position by telling lies, but she would have been able to put the beer-glass on the table at least as nicely as Frieda, have said good-day and good-bye prettily without Frieda's officiousness, and if Klamm did look for anything in any girl's eyes at all, he would have found it to his entire satisfaction in Pepi's eyes. But why did he not come? Was it chance? That was what Pepi had thought at the time, too. All those two days she had expected him at any moment, and in the night she waited too.

"Now Klamm is coming," she kept on thinking, and dashed to and fro for no other reason than the restlessness of expectation and the desire to be the first to see him, immediately on his entry.

This continual disappointment made her very tired.

Perhaps that was why she did not get so much as she could have got done. Whenever she had a little time she crept up into the passage that the staff was strictly forbidden to enter, there she would squeeze into a recess and wait.

"If only Klamm would come now," she thought, "if only I could take the gentleman out of his room and carry him down into the saloon on my arms. I should not collapse under that burden, however great it might be."

But he did not come.

In that passage upstairs it was so quiet that one simply couldn't imagine it if one hadn't been there. It was so quiet that one couldn't stand being there for very long, the quietness drove one away.

But over and over again: driven away ten times, ten times again Pepi went up there.

It was senseless, of course. If Klamm wanted to come, he would come, but if he did not want to come, Pepi would not lure him out, even if the beating of her heart half suffocated her there in the recess. It was senseless, but if he did not come, almost everything was senseless.

And he did not come.

To-day Pepi knew why Klamm did not come.

Frieda would have found it wonderfully amusing if she had been able to see Pepi up there in the passage, in the recess, both hands on her heart.

Klamm did not come down because Frieda did not allow it.

It was not by means of her pleading that she brought this about, her pleading did not penetrate to Klamm. But - spider that she was - she had connections of which nobody knew.

If Pepi said something to a guest, she said it openly, the next table could hear it too.

Frieda had nothing to say, she put the beer on the table and went. There was only the rustling of her silk petticoat, the only thing on which she spent money. But if she did for once say something, then not openly, then she whispered it to the guest, bending low so that people at the next table pricked up their ears. What she said was probably quite trivial, but still, not always, she had connections, she supported the ones by means of the others, and if most of them foiled - who would keep on bothering about Frieda? -

still, here and there one did hold firm.

These connections she now began to exploit.

K. gave her the chance to do this.

Instead of sitting with her and keeping a watch on her, he hardly stayed at home at all, wandering, having discussions here and there, paying attention to everything, only not to Frieda, and finally, in order to give her still more freedom, he moved out of the Bridge Inn into the empty school.

A very nice beginning for a honeymoon all this was.

Well, Pepi was certainly the last person to reproach K. for not having been able to stand living with Frieda. Nobody could stand living with her. But why then did he not leave her entirely, why did he time and again return to her, why did he cause the impression, by his roaming about, that he was fighting for her cause?

It really looked as though it were only through his contact with Frieda that he had discovered what a nonentity he in fact was, that he wished to make himself worthy of Frieda, wished to make his way up somehow, and for that reason was for the time being sacrificing her company in order to be able later to compensate himself at leisure for these hardships.

Meanwhile Frieda was not wasting her time, she sat tight in the school, where she had probably led K., and kept the Herrenhof and K. under observation.

She had excellent messengers at her disposal: K.'s assistants, whom - one couldn't understand it, even if one knew K. one couldn't understand it - K. left entirely to her.

She sent them to her old friends, reminded people of her existence, complained that she was kept a prisoner by a man like K., incited people against Pepi, announced her imminent arrival, begged for help, implored them to betray nothing to Klamm, behaved as if Klamm's feelings had to be spared and as if for this reason he must on no account be allowed to come down into the taproom. What she represented to one as a way of sparing Klamm's feelings she successfully turned to account where the landlord was concerned, drawing attention to the fact that Klamm did not come any more. How could he come when downstairs there was only a Pepi serving?

True, it wasn't the landlord's fault, this Pepi was after all the best substitute that could be found, only the substitute wasn't good enough, not even for a few days. All this activity of Frieda's was something of which K. knew nothing, when he was not roaming about he was lying at her feet, without an inkling of it, while she counted the hours still keeping her from the taproom. But this running of errands was not the only thing the assistants did, they also served to make K. jealous, to keep him interested in Frieda had known the assistants since her childhood, they certainly had no secrets from each other now, but in K.'s honour they were beginning to have a yearning for each other, and for K. there arose the danger that it would turn out to be a great love. And K. did everything Frieda wanted, even what was contradictory and senseless, he let himself be made jealous by the assistants, at the same time allowing all three to remain together while he went on his wanderings alone. It was almost as though he were Frieda's third assistant.

And so, on the basis of her observations, Frieda at last decided to make her great coup: she made up her mind to return. And it was really high time, it was admirable how Frieda, the cunning creature, recognized and exploited this fact. This power of observation and this power of decision were Frieda's inimitable art. If Pepi had it, how different the course of her life would be. If Frieda had stayed one or two days longer in the school, it would no longer be possible to drive Pepi out, she would be barmaid once and for all, loved and supported by all, having earned enough money to replenish her scanty wardrobe in the most dazzling style, only one or two more days and Klamm could not be kept out of the saloon by any intrigues any longer, would come, drink, feel comfortable and, if he noticed Frieda's absence at all, would be highly satisfied with the change, only one or two more days and Frieda, with her scandal, with her connections, with the assistants, with everything, would be utterly and completely forgotten, never would she come out into the open again. Then perhaps she would be able to cling all the more tightly to K. and, assuming that she were capable of it, would really learn to love him?

No, not that either.

For it didn't take even K. more than one day to get tired of her, to recognize how infamously she was deceiving him, with everything, with her alleged beauty, her alleged constancy, and most of all with Klamm's alleged love, it would only take him one day more, and no longer, to chase her out of the house, and together with her the whole dirty setup with the assistants.

Just think, it wouldn't take even K. any longer than that.

And now, between these two dangers, when the grave was positively beginning to close over her - K. in his simplicity was still keeping the last narrow road open for her - she suddenly bolted. Suddenly - hardly anyone expected such a thing, it was against nature-suddenly it was she who drove away K., the man who still loved her and kept on pursuing her, and, aided by the pressure of her friends and'the assistants, appeared to the landlord as the rescuer, as a result of the scandal associated with her much more alluring than formerly, demonstrably desired by the lowest as by the highest, yet having fallen a prey to the lowest only for a moment, soon rejecting him as was proper, and again inaccessible to him and to all others, as formerly. Only that formerly all this was quite properly doubted, whereas now everyone was again convinced.

So she came back, the landlord, with a sidelong glance at Pepi, hesitated - should he sacrifice her, after she had proved her worth so well? - but he was soon talked over, there was too much to be said for Frieda, and above all, of course, she would bring Klamm back to the saloon again.

That is where we stand, this evening.

Pepi is not going to wait till Frieda comes and makes a triumph out of taking over the job. She has already handed over the till to the landlady, she can go now. The bunk downstairs in the maids' room is waiting for her, she will come in, welcomed by the weeping girls, her friends, will tear the dress from her body, the ribbons from her hair, and stuff it all into a corner where it will be thoroughly hidden and won't be an unnecessary reminder of times better forgotten. Then she will take the big pail and the broom, clench her teeth, and set to work.

In the meantime, however, she had to tell K. everything so that he, who would not have realized this even now without help, might for once see clearly how horridly he had treated Pepi and how unhappy he had made her. Admittedly, he, too, had only been made use of and misused in all this.

Pepi had finished.

Taking a long breath, she wiped a few tears from her eyes and cheeks and then looked at K., nodding, as if meaning to say that at bottom what mattered was not her misfortune at all, she would bear it all right, for that she needed neither help nor comfort from anyone at all, least of all from K., even though she was so young she knew something about life, and her misfortune was only a confirmation of what she knew already, but what mattered was K., she had wanted to show him what he himself was like, even after the collapse of all her hopes she had thought it necessary to do that.

"What a wild imagination you have, Pepi," K. said. "For it isn't true at all that you have discovered all these things only now. All this is, of course, nothing but dreams out of that dark, narrow room you chambermaids have downstairs, dreams that are in their place there, but which look odd here in the freedom of the taproom. You couldn't maintain your position here with such ideas, that goes without saying. Even your dress and your way of doing your hair, which you make such a boast of, are only freaks born of that darkness and those bunks in your room, there they are very beautiful, I am sure, but here everyone laughs at them, secretly or openly.

And the rest of your story?

So I have been misused and deceived, have I?

No, my dear Pepi, I have not been misused and deceived any more than you have. It is true, Frieda has left me for the present or has, as you put it, run away with one of the assistants, you do see a glimmer of the truth, and it is really very improbable that she will ever become my wife, but it is utterly and completely untrue that I have grown tired of her and still less that I drove her out the very next day or that she deceived me, as other women perhaps deceive a man.

You chambermaids are used to spying through keyholes, and from that you get this way of thinking, of drawing conclusions, as grand as they are false, about the whole situation from some little thing you really see. The consequence of this is that I, for instance, in this case know much less than you.

I cannot explain by any means as exactly as you can why Frieda left me. The most probable explanation seems to me to be that you have touched on but not elaborated, which is that I neglected her. That is unfortunately true, I did neglect her, but there were special reasons for that, which have nothing to do with this discussion.

I should be happy if she were to come back to me, but I should at once begin to neglect her all over again. This is how it is. While she was with me I was continually out on those wanderings that you make such a mock of. Now that she is gone I am almost unemployed, am tired, have a yearning for a state of even more complete unemployment.

Have you no advice to give me, Pepi?"

"Oh yes, I have," Pepi said, suddenly becoming animated and seizing K. by the shoulders, "we have both been deceived, let us stick together. Come downstairs with me to the maids!"

"So long as you complain about being deceived," K. said, "I cannot come to an understanding with you. You are always claiming to have been deceived because you find it flattering and touching. But the truth is that you are not fitted for this job. How obvious your unfittedness must be when even I, who in your view know less about things than anyone can see that.

You are a good girl, Pepi. But it is not altogether easy to realize that, I for instance at first took you to be cruel and haughty, but you are not so, it is only this job that confuses you because you are not fitted for it, I am not going to say that the job is too grand for you. It is, after all not a very splendid job, perhaps, if one regards it closely, it is somewhat more honourable than your previous job, on the whole, however, the difference is not great, both are indeed so similar one can hardly distinguish between them. Indeed, one might almost assert that being a chambermaid is preferable to the taproom, for there one is always among secretaries, here, on the other hand, even though one is allowed to serve the secretaries' chiefs in the private rooms, still, one also has to have a lot to do with quite common people, for instance with me.

Actually I am not really supposed to sit about anywhere but right here in the taproom -