The Castle

K. comes across Frieda in the corridor and takes her aside to talk. Frieda tells K. there will be no wedding because of his infidelity. He denies this and explains he has to visit Barnabas to receive messages and that neither of his sisters attracts him. Frieda shows some contrition, but then K. accuses her of being attracted to Jeremias, which she admits. K. claims that Jeremias’s only interest in Frieda is her connection to Klamm and that she should not take him seriously. Frieda is convinced, and the two are reconciled.

This state of affairs is very short-lived, however, as Jeremias appears from Frieda’s bedroom in a sorry state, and Frieda takes pity on him and rushes to his side. Frieda declares to K., “I will never, never go back to you, the very thought of it makes me shudder” (255). Frieda tells K. to go back to the Barnabas girls, and she and Jeremias enter their room and close the door.

It is now five o’clock in the morning, and the weary K. looks for a room in the now-quiet inn to lie down in. He takes a chance and enters the room of Bürgel, the secretary to Friedrich, who apparently knows K.. Bürgel invites K. to sleep but requires conversation first. On hearing that K. is doing a job other than land surveying, Bürgel expresses astonishment and says, “I’m willing to take the matter further. After all, the situation here isn’t such that we can afford to let a skilled employee go idle” (260). K. is skeptical that Bürgel has any serious intent; his present weariness combined with the history of disappointments that he has endured leave him unexcited about an official taking his situation seriously. Bürgel expounds at great length, using the dense bureaucratic language to which K. has become accustomed, on the reasons for the nighttime interrogations carried out by officials. K. falls asleep and dreams of battles, victories, naked officials, and champagne. He awakens to find Bürgel still narrating the incoherent workings of the interrogation procedures. Finally, Bürgel brings the monologue round to K.’s situation and his great and fortunate opportunity to tell an official of his plight. However, K. is deeply asleep. Bürgel wakes him when a call at the door proclaims that Erlanger is ready to see K. K. drags himself out of the room.

Erlanger summons K. to tell him that not even the smallest change can be permitted in the inn that may cause a disturbance to Klamm. Therefore, Frieda must return to her job in the taproom, and K. must ensure this happens. K. resigns himself to fulfilling the order. The day’s activity begins with great hustle and bustle. K. watches as a pair of servants with a cart loaded with files move back and forth down the corridor, distributing and receiving files at the doorways to the many rooms staffed by officials, but having to engage in a battle at each doorway, amid shouts and cries. The process seems interminable. Finally, a last file, a scrap of paper, remains, and K. wonders if it is his. He tries to reach it, but the attendant rips it up and pockets it before K. can take it.

A bell rings. The landlord and landlady suddenly appear and vehemently reproach K. for standing in the corridor watching the distribution of files, which is prohibited. K. is blamed for the gentlemen needing to ring the bell to summon help and for the destruction of the inn’s reputation. The landlord takes K. to the taproom, where K. apologizes for his miscreant behavior and blames his weariness on the two interrogations. He requests to be allowed to sleep in the taproom, and despite the landlady’s protests, the landlord allows it.

K. wakes up after a long sleep and finds Pepi has brought him coffee and cake. She looks attractive, and K. makes a pass at her. She proceeds to blame K. for her misfortune, though she doesn’t reproach him. She explains that in taking the devious Frieda away from the inn, he created a vacancy for Pepi. She was eager to fill it and dreamed of advancement, and for this she loved K. Pepi bemoans the difficult life of a chambermaid at the inn. One of her bugbears is the lost files that result from the officials’ frenzied work in the rooms, the loss of which is blamed on the chambermaids. Therefore, she was grateful to move from being a maid to working in the taproom, in Frieda’s place. Pepi casts aspersions on Frieda’s claim to have been Klamm’s mistress but concedes that people believed her. However, Frieda started to lose prestige among the community, and so she created a scandal for herself by going off with the first man who came her way: K.

Pepi describes K. as “nothing” (297), compares him to a lowly laborer, and claims that K. only succumbed to the unattractive Frieda because “she was Klamm’s mistress; that still struck him as a novelty at the time and so she was lost” (298). Over the following four days, Pepi did her best as a barmaid, making an effort with her appearance and pleasing many of the gentlemen without Frieda’s arrogance or tricks. Meanwhile, she waited for Klamm, who never came. This Pepi blames on Frieda as well: Through her connections, she has kept Klamm away from Pepi, only to return to the inn after her sly and manipulative treatment of K. Now Pepi is resigned to returning to her chambermaid’s role, and all this is K.’s fault. K. denies responsibility and places the blame on Pepi’s immature and uneducated imagination. Pepi pleads with K. to come and live with her and the other chambermaids until spring.

The Gentlemen’s Inn landlady appears and invites K. to her office, referring to a compliment he made about her clothes the previous day. There she shows him her wardrobe and says, “You simply know immediately what fashion demands. Then you will become indispensable to me” (315). Immediately afterward, Gerstäcker offers K. food and lodging at his house. K. says he knows why he is being offered this: “because you think I can get something out of Erlanger for you” (316). Gerstäcker admits this, and K. goes to his home. There, Gerstäcker’s mother “held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said” (316). There, the story ends.