Page 105 - the-trial

himself, and, as he looked anxiously in the direction from
which the servitor would come, he gave Franz a shove, not
hard, but hard enough for him to fall down unconscious,
clawing at the ground with his hands by reflex; he still did
not avoid being hit; the rod still found him on the floor; the
tip of the rod swang regularly up and down while he rolled
to and fro under its blows. And now one of the servitors ap-
peared in the distance, with another a few steps behind
him. K. had quickly thrown the door shut, gone over to one
of the windows overlooking the yard and opened it. The
screams had completely stopped. So that the servitor
wouldn’t come in, he called out, “It’s only me!” “Good eve-
ning, chief clerk,” somebody called back. “Is there anything
wrong?” “No, no,” answered K., “it’s only a dog yelping in
the yard.” There was no sound from the servitors so he add-
ed, “You can go back to what you were doing.” He did not
want to become involved with a conversation with them,
and so he leant out of the window. A little while later, when
he looked out in the corridor, they had already gone. Now,
K. remained at the window, he did not dare go back into the
junk room, and he did not want to go home either. The yard
he looked down into was small and rectangular, all around
it were offices, all the windows were now dark and only
those at the very top caught a reflection of the moon. K tried
hard to see into the darkness of one corner of the yard,
where a few handcarts had been left behind one another. He
felt anguish at not having been able to prevent the flogging,
but that was not his fault, if Franz had not screamed like
that clearly it must have caused a great deal of pain but it’s

10 The Trial