Page 147 - the-trial

and then even contact with the court officials won’t help,
however good they are, as they don’t know anything them-
selves. The trial will have entered a stage where no more
help can be given, where it’s being processed in courts to
which no-one has any access, where the defendant cannot
even be contacted by his lawyer. You come home one day
and find all the documents you’ve submitted, which you’ve
worked hard to create and which you had the best hopes for,
lying on the desk, they’ve been sent back as they can’t be
carried through to the next stage in the trial, they’re just
worthless scraps of paper. It doesn’t meant that the case has
been lost, not at all, or at least there is no decisive reason for
supposing so, it’s just that you don’t know anything more
about the case and won’t be told anything of what’s happen-
ing. Well, cases like that are the exceptions, I’m glad to say,
and even if K.’s trial is one of them, it’s still, for the time be-
ing, a long way off. But there was still plenty of opportunity
for lawyers to get to work, and K. could be sure they would
be made use of. As he had said, the time for submitting doc-
uments was still in the future and there was no rush to
prepare them, it was much more important to start the ini-
tial discussions with the appropriate officials, and they had
already taken place. With varying degrees of success, it
must be said. It was much better not to give away any details
before their time, as in that way K. could only be influenced
unfavourably and his hopes might be raised or he might be
made too anxious, better just to say that some individuals
have spoken very favourably and shown themselves very
willing to help, although others have spoken less favour-

1 The Trial