Chapter One
ArrestâConversation with Mrs. Grubachâthen Miss BĂŒrstner
Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubachâs cookâMrs. Grubach was his landladyâbut today she didnât come. That had never happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and disconcerted, rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting, with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it very clear what they were actually for. âWho are you?â asked K., sitting half upright in his bed. The man, however, ignored the question as if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, âYou rang?â âAnna should have brought me my breakfast,â said K. He tried to work out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through observation and by thinking about it, but the man didnât stay still to be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately behind it, âHe wants Anna to bring him his breakfast.â There was a little laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the sound of it whether there were several people laughing. The strange man could not have learned anything from it that he hadnât known already, but now he said to K., as if making his report âIt is not possible.â âIt would be the first time thatâs happened,â said K., as he jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his trousers. âI want to see who that is in the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be disturbed in this way.â It immediately occurred to him that he neednât have said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have acknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didnât seem important to him at the time. That, at least, is how the stranger took it, as he said, âDonât you think youâd better stay where you are?â âI want neither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until youâve introduced yourself.â âI meant it for your own good,â said the stranger and opened the door, this time without being asked. The next room, which K. entered more slowly than he had intended, looked at first glance exactly the same as it had the previous evening. It was Mrs. Grubachâs living room, over-filled with furniture, tablecloths, porcelain and photographs. Perhaps there was a little more space in there than usual today, but if so it was not immediately obvious, especially as the main difference was the presence of a man sitting by the open window with a book from which he now looked up. âYou should have stayed in your room! Didnât Franz tell you?â âAnd what is it you want, then?â said K., looking back and forth between this new acquaintance and the one named Franz, who had remained in the doorway. Through the open window he noticed the old woman again, who had come close to the window opposite so that she could continue to see everything. She was showing an inquisitiveness that really made it seem like she was going senile. âI want to see Mrs. Grubach âŠ,â said K., making a movement as if tearing himself away from the two menâeven though they were standing well away from himâand wanted to go. âNo,â said the man at the window, who threw his book down on a coffee table and stood up. âYou canât go away when youâre under arrest.â âThatâs how it seems,â said K. âAnd why am I under arrest?â he then asked. âThatâs something weâre not allowed to tell you. Go into your room and wait there. Proceedings are underway and youâll learn about everything all in good time. Itâs not really part of my job to be friendly towards you like this, but I hope no-one, apart from Franz, will hear about it, and heâs been more friendly towards you than he should have been, under the rules, himself. If you carry on having as much good luck as you have been with your arresting officers then you can reckon on things going well with you.â K. wanted to sit down, but then he saw that, apart from the chair by the window, there was nowhere anywhere in the room where he could sit. âYouâll get the chance to see for yourself how true all this is,â said Franz and both men then walked up to K. They were significantly bigger than him, especially the second man, who frequently slapped him on the shoulder. The two of them felt K.âs nightshirt, and said he would now have to wear one that was of much lower quality, but that they would keep the nightshirt along with his other underclothes and return them to him if his case turned out well. âItâs better for you if you give us the things than if you leave them in the storeroom,â they said. âThings have a tendency to go missing in the storeroom, and after a certain amount of time they sell things off, whether the case involved has come to an end or not. And cases like this can last a long time, especially the ones that have been coming up lately. Theyâd give you the money they got for them, but it wouldnât be very much as itâs not what theyâre offered for them when they sell them that counts, itâs how much they get slipped on the side, and things like that lose their value anyway when they get passed on from hand to hand, year after year.â K. paid hardly any attention to what they were saying, he did not place much value on what he may have still possessed or on who decided what happened to them. It was much more important to him to get a clear understanding of his position, but he could not think clearly while these people were here, the second policemanâs bellyâand they could only be policemenâlooked friendly enough, sticking out towards him, but when K. looked up and saw his dry, boney face it did not seem to fit with the body. His strong nose twisted to one side as if ignoring K. and sharing an understanding with the other policeman. What sort of people were these? What were they talking about? What office did they belong to? K. was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home? He was always inclined to take life as lightly as he could, to cross bridges when he came to them, pay no heed for the future, even when everything seemed under threat. But here that did not seem the right thing to do. He could have taken it all as a joke, a big joke set up by his colleagues at the bank for some unknown reason, or also perhaps because today was his thirtieth birthday, it was all possible of course, maybe all he had to do was laugh in the policemenâs face in some way and they would laugh with him, maybe they were tradesmen from the corner of the street, they looked like they might beâbut he was nonetheless determined, ever since he first caught sight of the one called Franz, not to lose any slight advantage he might have had over these people. There was a very slight risk that people would later say he couldnât understand a joke, butâalthough he wasnât normally in the habit of learning from experienceâhe might also have had a few unimportant occasions in mind when, unlike his more cautious friends, he had acted with no thought at all for what might follow and had been made to suffer for it. He didnât want that to happen again, not this time at least; if they were play-acting he would act along with them.
He still had time. âAllow me,â he said, and hurried between the two policemen through into his room. âHe seems sensible enough,â he heard them say behind him. Once in his room, he quickly pulled open the drawer of his writing desk, everything in it was very tidy but in his agitation he was unable to find the identification documents he was looking for straight away. He finally found his bicycle permit and was about to go back to the policemen with it when it seemed to him too petty, so he carried on searching until he found his birth certificate. Just as he got back in the adjoining room the door on the other side opened and Mrs. Grubach was about to enter. He only saw her for an instant, for as soon as she recognised K. she was clearly embarrassed, asked for forgiveness and disappeared, closing the door behind her very carefully. âDo come in,â K. could have said just then. But now he stood in the middle of the room with his papers in his hand and still looking at the door which did not open again. He stayed like that until he was startled out of it by the shout of the policeman who sat at the little table at the open window and, as K. now saw, was eating his breakfast. âWhy didnât she come in?â he asked. âSheâs not allowed to,â said the big policeman. âYouâre under arrest, arenât you.â âBut how can I be under arrest? And how come itâs like this?â âNow youâre starting again,â said the policeman, dipping a piece of buttered bread in the honeypot. âWe donât answer questions like that.â âYou will have to answer them,â said K. âHere are my identification papers, now show me yours and I certainly want to see the arrest warrant.â âOh, my God!â said the policeman. âIn a position like yours, and you think you can start giving orders, do you? It wonât do you any good to get us on the wrong side, even if you think it willâweâre probably more on your side that anyone else you know!â âThatâs true, you know, youâd better believe it,â said Franz, holding a cup of coffee in his hand which he did not lift to his mouth but looked at K. in a way that was probably meant to be full of meaning but could not actually be understood. K. found himself, without intending it, in a mute dialogue with Franz, but then slapped his hand down on his papers and said, âHere are my identity documents.â âAnd what do you want us to do about it?â replied the big policeman, loudly. âThe way youâre carrying on, itâs worse than a child. What is it you want? Do you want to get this great, bloody trial of yours over with quickly by talking about ID and arrest warrants with us? Weâre just coppers, thatâs all we are. Junior officers like us hardly know one end of an ID card from another, all weâve got to do with you is keep an eye on you for ten hours a day and get paid for it. Thatâs all we are. Mind you, what we can do is make sure that the high officials we work for find out just what sort of person it is theyâre going to arrest, and why he should be arrested, before they issue the warrant. Thereâs no mistake there. Our authorities as far as I know, and I only know the lowest grades, donât go out looking for guilt among the public; itâs the guilt that draws them out, like it says in the law, and they have to send us police officers out. Thatâs the law. Where dâyou think thereâd be any mistake there?â âI donât know this law,â said K. âSo much the worse for you, then,â said the policeman. âItâs probably exists only in your heads,â said K., he wanted, in some way, to insinuate his way into the thoughts of the policemen, to re-shape those thoughts to his benefit or to make himself at home there. But the policeman just said dismissively, âYouâll find out when it affects you.â Franz joined in, and said, âLook at this, Willem, he admits he doesnât know the law and at the same time insists heâs innocent.â âYouâre quite right, but we canât get him to understand a thing,â said the other. K. stopped talking with them; do I, he thought to himself, do I really have to carry on getting tangled up with the chattering of base functionaries like this?âand they admit themselves that they are of the lowest position. Theyâre talking about things of which they donât have the slightest understanding, anyway. Itâs only because of their stupidity that theyâre able to be so sure of themselves. I just need few words with someone of the same social standing as myself and everything will be incomparably clearer, much clearer than a long conversation with these two can make it. He walked up and down the free space in the room a couple of times, across the street he could see the old woman who, now, had pulled an old man, much older than herself, up to the window and had her arms around him. K. had to put an end to this display, âTake me to your superior,â he said. âAs soon as he wants to see you. Not before,â said the policeman, the one called Willem. âAnd now my advice to you,â he added, âis to go into your room, stay calm, and wait and see whatâs to be done with you. If you take our advice, you wonât tire yourself out thinking about things to no purpose, you need to pull yourself together as thereâs a lot thatâs going to required of you. Youâve not behaved towards us the way we deserve after being so good to you, you forget that we, whatever we are, weâre still free men and youâre not, and thatâs quite an advantage. But in spite of all that weâre still willing, if youâve got the money, to go and get you some breakfast from the cafĂ© over the road.â
Without giving any answer to this offer, K. stood still for some time. Perhaps, if he opened the door of the next room or even the front door, the two of them would not dare to stand in his way, perhaps that would be the simplest way to settle the whole thing, by bringing it to a head. But maybe they would grab him, and if he were thrown down on the ground he would lose all the advantage he, in a certain respect, had over them. So he decided on the more certain solution, the way things would go in the natural course of events, and went back in his room without another word either from him or from the policemen.
He threw himself down on his bed, and from the dressing table he took the nice apple that he had put there the previous evening for his breakfast. Now it was all the breakfast he had and anyway, as he confirmed as soon as he took his first, big bite of it, it was far better than a breakfast he could have had through the good will of the policemen from the dirty cafĂ©. He felt well and confident, he had failed to go into work at the bank this morning but that could easily be excused because of the relatively high position he held there. Should he really send in his explanation? He wondered about it. If nobody believed him, and in this case that would be understandable, he could bring Mrs. Grubach in as a witness, or even the old pair from across the street, who probably even now were on their way over to the window opposite. It puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemenâs point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast, perhaps? It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. Maybe, if the policemen had not been so obviously limited in their mental abilities, it could have been supposed that they had come to the same conclusion and saw no danger in leaving him alone because of it. They could watch now, if they wanted, and see how he went over to the cupboard in the wall where he kept a bottle of good schnapps, how he first emptied a glass of it in place of his breakfast and how he then took a second glassful in order to give himself courage, the last one just as a precaution for the unlikely chance it would be needed.
Then he was so startled by a shout to him from the other room that he struck his teeth against the glass. âThe supervisor wants to see you!â a voice said. It was only the shout that startled him, this curt, abrupt, military shout, that he would not have expected from the policeman called Franz. In itself, he found the order very welcome. âAt last!â he called back, locked the cupboard and, without delay, hurried into the next room. The two policemen were standing there and chased him back into his bedroom as if that were a matter of course. âWhat dâyou think youâre doing?â they cried. âThink youâre going to see the supervisor dressed in just your shirt, do you? Heâd see to it you got a right thumping, and us and all!â âLet go of me for Godâs sake!â called K., who had already been pushed back as far as his wardrobe, âif you accost me when Iâm still in bed you canât expect to find me in my evening dress.â âThat wonât help you,â said the policemen, who always became very quiet, almost sad, when K. began to shout, and in that way confused him or, to some extent, brought him to his senses. âRidiculous formalities!â he grumbled, as he lifted his coat from the chair and kept it in both his hands for a little while, as if holding it out for the policemenâs inspection. They shook their heads. âItâs got to be a black coat,â they said. At that, K. threw the coat to the floor and saidâwithout knowing even himself what he meant by itââWell itâs not going to be the main trial, after all.â The policemen laughed, but continued to insist, âItâs got to be a black coat.â âWell thatâs alright by me if it makes things go any faster,â said K. He opened the wardrobe himself, spent a long time searching through all the clothes, and chose his best black suit which had a short jacket that had greatly surprised those who knew him, then he also pulled out a fresh shirt and began, carefully, to get dressed. He secretly told himself that he had succeeded in speeding things up by letting the policemen forget to make him have a bath. He watched them to see if they might remember after all, but of course it never occurred to them, although Willem did not forget to send Franz up to the supervisor with the message saying that K. was getting dressed.
Once he was properly dressed, K. had to pass by Willem as he went through the next room into the one beyond, the door of which was already wide open. K. knew very well that this room had recently been let to a typist called âMiss BĂŒrstnerâ. She was in the habit of going out to work very early and coming back home very late, and K. had never exchanged more than a few words of greeting with her. Now, her bedside table had been pulled into the middle of the room to be used as a desk for these proceedings, and the supervisor sat behind it. He had his legs crossed, and had thrown one arm over the backrest of the chair.
In one corner of the room there were three young people looking at the photographs belonging to Miss BĂŒrstner that had been put into a piece of fabric on the wall. Hung up on the handle of the open window was a white blouse. At the window across the street, there was the old pair again, although now their number had increased, as behind them, and far taller than they were, stood a man with an open shirt that showed his chest and a reddish goatee beard which he squeezed and twisted with his fingers. âJosef K.?â asked the supervisor, perhaps merely to attract K.âs attention as he looked round the room. K. nodded. âI daresay you were quite surprised by all thatâs been taking place this morning,â said the supervisor as, with both hands, he pushed away the few items on the bedside tableâthe candle and box of matches, a book and a pin cushion which lay there as if they were things he would need for his own business. âCertainly,â said K., and he began to feel relaxed now that, at last, he stood in front of someone with some sense, someone with whom he would be able to talk about his situation. âCertainly Iâm surprised, but Iâm not in any way very surprised.â âYouâre not very surprised?â asked the supervisor, as he positioned the candle in the middle of the table and the other things in a group around it. âPerhaps you donât quite understand me,â K. hurriedly pointed out. âWhat I mean is âŠâ here K. broke off what he was saying and looked round for somewhere to sit. âI may sit down, maynât I?â he asked. âThatâs not usual,â the supervisor answered. âWhat I mean isâŠ,â said K. without delaying a second time, âthat, yes, I am very surprised but when youâve been in the world for thirty years already and had to make your own way through everything yourself, which has been my lot, then you become hardened to surprises and donât take them too hard. Especially not whatâs happened today.â âWhy especially not whatâs happened today?â âI wouldnât want to say that I see all of this as a joke, you seem to have gone to too much trouble making all these arrangements for that. Everyone in the house must be taking part in it as well as all of you, that would be going beyond what could be a joke. So I donât want to say that this is a joke.â âQuite right,â said the supervisor, looking to see how many matches were left in the box. âBut on the other hand,â K. went on, looking round at everyone there and even wishing he could get the attention of the three who were looking at the photographs, âon the other hand this really canât be all that important. That follows from the fact that Iâve been indicted, but canât think of the slightest offence for which I could be indicted. But even that is all beside the point, the main question is: Who is issuing the indictment? What office is conducting this affair? Are you officials? None of you is wearing a uniform, unless what you are wearingââhere he turned towards Franzââis meant to be a uniform, itâs actually more of a travelling suit. I require a clear answer to all these questions, and Iâm quite sure that once things have been made clear we can take our leave of each other on the best of terms.â The supervisor slammed the box of matches down on the table. âYouâre making a big mistake,â he said. âThese gentlemen and I have got nothing to do with your business, in fact we know almost nothing about you. We could be wearing uniforms as proper and exact as you like and your situation wouldnât be any the worse for it. As to whether youâre on a charge, I canât give you any sort of clear answer to that, I donât even know whether you are or not. Youâre under arrest, youâre quite right about that, but I donât know any more than that. Maybe these officers have been chit-chatting with you, well if they have thatâs all it is, chit-chat. I canât give you an answer to your questions, but I can give you a bit of advice: Youâd better think less about us and whatâs going to happen to you, and think a bit more about yourself. And stop making all this fuss about your sense of innocence; you donât make such a bad impression, but with all this fuss youâre damaging it. And you ought to do a bit less talking, too. Almost everything youâve said so far has been things we could have taken from your behaviour, even if youâd said no more than a few words. And what you have said has not exactly been in your favour.â
K. stared at the supervisor. Was this man, probably younger than he was, lecturing him like a schoolmaster? Was he being punished for his honesty with a telling off? And was he to learn nothing about the reasons for his arrest or those who were arresting him? He became somewhat cross and began to walk up and down. No-one stopped him doing this and he pushed his sleeves back, felt his chest, straightened his hair, went over to the three men, said, âIt makes no sense,â at which these three turned round to face him and came towards him with serious expressions. He finally came again to a halt in front of the supervisorâs desk. âState Attorney Hasterer is a good friend of mine,â he said, âcan I telephone him?â âCertainly,â said the supervisor, âbut I donât know what the point of that will be, I suppose you must have some private matter you want to discuss with him.â âWhat the point is?â shouted K., more disconcerted that cross. âWho do you think you are? You want to see some point in it while youâre carrying out something as pointless as it could be? Itâs enough to make you cry! These gentlemen first accost me, and now they sit or stand about in here and let me be hauled up in front of you. What point there would be, in telephoning a state attorney when Iâm osten...