Page 249 - the-trial

very slightly, so that K. crossed himself and genuflected as
he should have done earlier. With a little swing, the priest
went up into the pulpit with short fast steps. Was there re-
ally a sermon about to begin? Maybe the man in the cassock
had not been really so demented, and had meant to lead K.’s
way to the preacher, which in this empty church would
have been very necessary. And there was also, somewhere
in front of a picture of the Virgin Mary, an old woman who
should have come to hear the sermon. And if there was to
be a sermon why had it not been introduced on the organ?
But the organ remained quiet and merely looked out weakly
from the darkness of its great height.
K. now considered whether he should leave as quickly as
possible, if he did not do it now there would be no chance of
doing so during the sermon and he would have to stay there
for as long as it lasted, he had lost so much time when he
should have been in his office, there had long been no need
for him to wait for the Italian any longer, he looked at his
watch, it was eleven. But could there really be a sermon giv-
en? Could K. constitute the entire congregation? How could
he when he was just a stranger who wanted to look at the
church? That, basically, was all he was. The idea of a sermon,
now, at eleven o’clock, on a workday, in hideous weather,
was nonsense. The priest there was no doubt that he was a
priest, a young man with a smooth, dark face was clearly
going up there just to put the lamp out after somebody had
lit it by mistake.
But there had been no mistake, the priest seemed rather
to check that the lamp was lit and turned it a little higher,

The Trial