Page 102 - the-trial

“Don’t listen to him,” said Willem, interrupting himself
only to quickly bring his hand to his mouth when it had re-
ceived a stroke of the cane, “we’re only being punished
because you made a complaint against us. Nothing would
have happened to us otherwise, not even if they’d found out
what we’d done. Can you call that justice? Both of us, me
especially, we’d proved our worth as good police officers
over a long period you’ve got to admit yourself that as far as
official work was concerned we did the job well things
looked good for us, we had prospects, it’s quite certain that
we would’ve been made whip-men too, like this one, only
he had the luck not to have anyone make a complaint about
him, as you really don’t get many complaints like that. Only
that’s all finished now, Mr. K., our careers are at an end,
we’re going to have to do work now that’s far inferior to po-
lice work and besides all this we’re going to get this terrible,
painful beating.” “Can the cane really cause so much pain,
then?” asked K., testing the cane that the whip-man swang
in front of him. “We’re going to have to strip off totally na-
ked,” said Willem. “Oh, I see,” said K., looking straight at
the whip-man, his skin was burned brown like a sailor’s,
and his face showed health and vigorous. “Is there then no
possibility of sparing these two their beating?” he asked
him. “No,” said the whip-man, shaking his head with a
laugh. “Get undressed!” he ordered the policemen. And to
K. he said, “You shouldn’t believe everything they tell you,
it’s the fear of being beaten, it’s already made them a bit
weak in the head. This one here, for instance,” he pointed at
Willem, “all that he told you about his career prospects, it’s

101