Page 100 - the-trial

Chapter Five

The whip-man

ne evening, a few days later, K. was walking along one
Oof the corridors that separated his office from the main
stairway he was nearly the last one to leave for home that
evening, there remained only a couple of workers in the
light of a single bulb in the dispatch department when he
heard a sigh from behind a door which he had himself nev-
er opened but which he had always thought just led into a
junk room. He stood in amazement and listened again to
establish whether he might not be mistaken. For a while
there was silence, but then came some more sighs. His first
thought was to fetch one of the servitors, it might well have
been worth having a witness present, but then he was taken
by an uncontrollable curiosity that make him simply yank
the door open. It was, as he had thought, a junk room. Old,
unusable forms, empty stone ink-bottles lay scattered be-
hind the entrance. But in the cupboard-like room itself
stood three men, crouching under the low ceiling. A candle
fixed on a shelf gave them light. “What are you doing here?”
asked K. quietly, but crossly and without thinking. One of
the men was clearly in charge, and attracted attention by
being dressed in a kind of dark leather costume which left
his neck and chest and his arms exposed. He did not an-