Page 52 - the-trial

or at least that is how it must have been perceived tried to
tidy it up a little, and held it once more in front of himself in
order to read from it.
The people in the front row looked up at him, show-
ing such tension on their faces that he looked back down
at them for some time. Every one of them was an old man,
some of them with white beards. Could they perhaps be the
crucial group who could turn the whole assembly one way
or the other? They had sunk into a state of motionlessness
while K. gave his oration, and it had not been possible to
raise them from this passivity even when the judge was be-
ing humiliated. “What has happened to me,” continued K.,
with less of the vigour he had had earlier, he continually
scanned the faces in the first row, and this gave his address a
somewhat nervous and distracted character, “what has hap-
pened to me is not just an isolated case. If it were it would
not be of much importance as it’s not of much importance
to me, but it is a symptom of proceedings which are carried
out against many. It’s on behalf of them that I stand here
now, not for myself alone.”
Without having intended it, he had raised his voice.
Somewhere in the hall, someone raised his hands and ap-
plauded him shouting, “Bravo! Why not then? Bravo! Again
I say, Bravo!” Some of the men in the first row groped
around in their beards, none of them looked round to see
who was shouting. Not even K. thought him of any impor-
tance but it did raise his spirits; he no longer thought it at all
necessary that all of those in the hall should applaud him,
it was enough if the majority of them began to think about

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