Page 114 - the-trial

need whatever to do so. K. stood in front of the desk and ex-
plained to the young man, who listened calm and attentive,
what would need to be done that day in his absence, speak-
ing in a calm voice and making use of various documents.
The presence of K.’s uncle while this was going on was quite
disturbing; he did not listen to what was being said, but at
first he stood there with eyes wide open and nervously bit-
ing his lips. Then he began to walk up and down the room,
stopped now and then at the window, or stood in front of a
picture always making various exclamations such as, “That
is totally incomprehensible to me!” or “Now just tell me,
what are you supposed to make of that?!” The young man
pretended to notice nothing of this and listened to K.’s in-
structions through to the end, he made a few notes, bowed
to both K. and his uncle and then left the room. K.’s uncle
had turned his back to him and was looking out the win-
dow, bunching up the curtains with his outstretched hands.
The door had hardly closed when he called out, “At last!
Now that he’s stopped jumping about we can go too!” Once
they were in the front hall of the bank, where several mem-
bers of staff were standing about and where, just then, the
deputy director was walking across, there was unfortunate-
ly no way of stopping K.’s uncle from continually asking
questions about the trial. “Now then, Josef,” he began, light-
ly acknowledging the bows from those around them as they
passed, “tell me everything about this trial; what sort of tri-
al is it?” K. made a few comments which conveyed little
information, even laughed a little, and it was only when
they reached the front steps that he explained to his uncle

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