Page 154 - the-trial

his costly time just dreaming and his wits were, of course,
even more dulled than they had been before. But the time
had, nonetheless, not been wasted, he had come to some de-
cisions that could be of value. As well as various pieces of
mail, the servitors brought two visiting cards from gentle-
men who had already been waiting for K. for some time.
They were actually very important clients of the bank who
should not really have been kept waiting under any circum-
stances. Why had they come at such an awkward time, and
why, the gentlemen on the other side of the closed door
seemed to be asking, was the industrious K. using up the
best business time for his private affairs? Tired from what
had gone before, and tired in anticipation of what was to
follow, K. stood up to receive the first of them.
He was a short, jolly man, a manufacturer who K. knew
well. He apologised for disturbing K. at some important
work, and K., for his part, apologised for having kept the
manufacturer waiting for so long. But even this apology
was spoken in such a mechanical way and with such false
intonation that the manufacturer would certainly have
noticed if he had not been fully preoccupied with his busi-
ness affairs. Instead, he hurriedly pulled calculations and
tables out from all his pockets, spread them out in front of
K., explained several items, corrected a little mistake in the
arithmetic that he noticed as he quickly glanced over it all,
and reminded K. of a similar piece of business he’d con-
cluded with him about a year before, mentioning in passing
that this time there was another bank spending great effort
to get his business, and finally stopped speaking in order to

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