Page 259 - the-trial

this so that you don’t think there’s anything you’ve failed to
do,’ as far as fulfilling his duty goes he can be neither ruffled
nor begged, as it says about the man that, ‘he tires the door-
keeper with his requests’, even his external appearance
suggests a pedantic character, the big hooked nose and the
long, thin, black tartar-beard. How could any doorkeeper
be more faithful to his duty? But in the doorkeeper’s char-
acter there are also other features which might be very
useful for those who seek entry to the law, and when he
hinted at some possibility in the future it always seemed to
make it clear that he might even go beyond his duty. There’s
no denying he’s a little simple minded, and that makes him
a little conceited. Even if all he said about his power and the
power of the other doorkeepers and how not even he could
bear the sight of them I say even if all these assertions are
right, the way he makes them shows that he’s too simple and
arrogant to understand properly. The commentators say
about this that, ‘correct understanding of a matter and a
misunderstanding of the same matter are not mutually ex-
clusive’. Whether they’re right or not, you have to concede
that his simplicity and arrogance, however little they show,
do weaken his function of guarding the entrance, they are
defects in the doorkeeper’s character. You also have to con-
sider that the doorkeeper seems to be friendly by nature, he
isn’t always just an official. He makes a joke right at the be-
ginning, in that he invites the man to enter at the same time
as maintaining the ban on his entering, and then he doesn’t
send him away but gives him, as it says in the text, a stool to
sit on and lets him stay by the side of the door. The patience

The Trial