Page 21 - the-trial

that K. had left his hat in his room so they all dashed, one
after another, into the room to fetch it, which caused a cer-
tain amount of embarrassment. K. stood where he was and
watched them through the open double doorway, the last to
go, of course, was the apathetic Rabensteiner who had bro-
ken into no more than an elegant trot. Kaminer got to the
hat and K., as he often had to do at the bank, forcibly re-
minded himself that the grin was not deliberate, that he in
fact wasn’t able to grin deliberately. At that moment Mrs.
Grubach opened the door from the hallway into the living
room where all the people were. She did not seem to feel
guilty about anything at all, and K., as often before, looked
down at the belt of her apron which, for no reason, cut so
deeply into her hefty body. Once downstairs, K., with his
watch in his hand, decided to take a taxi he had already
been delayed by half an hour and there was no need to make
the delay any longer. Kaminer ran to the corner to summon
it, and the two others were making obvious efforts to keep
K. diverted when Kullich pointed to the doorway of the
house on the other side of the street where the large man
with the blonde goatee beard appeared and, a little embar-
rassed at first at letting himself be seen in his full height,
stepped back to the wall and leant against it. The old couple
were probably still on the stairs. K. was cross with Kullich
for pointing out this man whom he had already seen him-
self, in fact whom he had been expecting. “Don’t look at
him!” he snapped, without noticing how odd it was to speak
to free men in this way. But there was no explanation need-
ed anyway as just then the taxi arrived, they sat inside and

0 The Trial