Page 67 - the-trial

there’s the examining judge shading the lamp with his hand
so that there’s no light from it falls on my husband, he didn’t
need to be as careful as that, the way my husband sleeps the
light wouldn’t have woken him up anyway. I was quite
shocked and nearly screamed, but the judge was very friend-
ly, warned me I should be careful, he whispered to me he’s
been writing all this time, and now he’s brought me the
lamp back, and he’ll never forget how I looked when he
found me there asleep. What I mean, with all this, I just
wanted to tell you how the examining judge really does
write lots of reports, especially about you as questioning
you was definitely one of the main things on the agenda that
Sunday. If he writes reports as long as that they must be of
some importance. And besides all that, you can see from
what happened that the examining judge is after me, and it’s
right now, when he’s first begun to notice me, that I can
have a lot of influence on him. And I’ve got other proof I
mean a lot to him, too. Yesterday, he sent that student to me,
the one he really trusts and who he works with, he sent him
with a present for me, silk stockings. He said it was because
I clear up in the courtroom but that’s only a pretence, that
job’s no more than what I’m supposed to do, it’s what my
husband gets paid for. Nice stockings, they are, look,” she
stretched out her leg, drew her skirt up to her knee and
looked, herself, at the stocking “they are nice stockings, but
they’re too good for me, really.”
She suddenly interrupted herself and lay her hand on
K.’s as if she wanted to calm him down, and whispered, “Be
quiet, Berthold is watching us.” K. slowly looked up. In the

The Trial