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an apparent acquittal it’s different. When that happens,
nothing has changed except that the case for your inno-
cence, for your acquittal and the grounds for the acquittal
have been made stronger. Apart from that, proceedings go
on as before, the court offices continue their business and
the case gets passed to higher courts, gets passed back down
to the lower courts and so on, backwards and forwards,
sometimes faster, sometimes slower, to and fro. It’s impos-
sible to know exactly what’s happening while this is going
on. Seen from outside it can sometimes seem that every-
thing has been long since forgotten, the documents have
been lost and the acquittal is complete. No-one familiar
with the court would believe it. No documents ever get lost,
the court forgets nothing. One day no-one expects it some
judge or other picks up the documents and looks more
closely at them, he notices that this particular case is still
active, and orders the defendant’s immediate arrest. I’ve
been talking here as if there’s a long delay between apparent
acquittal and re-arrest, that is quite possible and I do know
of cases like that, but it’s just as likely that the defendant
goes home after he’s been acquitted and finds somebody
there waiting to re-arrest him. Then, of course, his life as a
free man is at an end.” “And does the trial start over again?”
asked K., finding it hard to believe. “The trial will always
start over again,” said the painter, “but there is, once again
as before, the possibility of getting an apparent acquittal.
Once again, the accused has to muster all his strength and
mustn’t give up.” The painter said that last phrase possibly
as a result of the impression that K., whose shoulders had

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