The Castle (32 page)

The messenger of course had been in Sortini's service and Sortini had stopped coming to the "village, but the gentlemen are continually changing their servants, one might easily find our man among the servants of another gentleman, and even if he himself was not to be found, still one might perhaps get news of him from the other servants. For this purpose it was of course necessary to be in the Herrenhof every evening, and people weren't very pleased to see us anywhere, far less in a place like that. And we couldn't appear either as paying customers. But it turned out that they could put us to some use all the same.

You know what a trial the servants were to Frieda. Bottom they are mostly quiet people, but pampered by too little work - "May you be as well off as a servant" is a favourite toast among the officials - and really, as far as an easy work goes servants seem to be the real masters in the Castle, they know their own dignity too, and in the Castle, there they have to behave in accordance with their regulations, they're quiet and dignified, several times I've been assured of that, and one can find even among the servants down here some faint signs of that, but only faint signs, for usually, seeing that the Castle regulations aren't fully binding on them in the village, they seem quite changed. A wild unmanageable lot, ruled by their insatiable impulses instead of by their regulations.

Their scandalous behaviour knows no limits, it's lucky for the village that they can't leave the Herrenhof without permission, but in the Herrenhof itself one must try to get on with them somehow. Frieda, for instance, felt that very hard to do and so she was very glad to employ me to quieten the servants.

For more than two years, at least twice a week, I've spent the night with the servants in the stalls. Earlier, when father was still able to go to the Herrenhof with me, he slept somewhere in the taproom, and in that way waited for the news that I would bring in the morning. There wasn't much to bring. We've never found the messenger to this day, he must be still with Sortini who values him very highly, and he must have followed Sortini when Sortini retired to a more remote bureau. Most of the servants haven't seen him since we saw him last ourselves, and when one or other claims to have seen him it's probably a mistake. So my plan might have actually failed, and yet it hasn't failed completely. It's true we haven't found the messenger, and going to the Herrenhof and spending the night there - perhaps his pity for me, too, any pity that he's still capable of - has unfortunately ruined my father, and for two years now he has ken in the state you've seen him in, and yet things are perhaps better with him than with my mother, for we're waiting daily for her death. It has only been put off thanks to Amalia's superhuman efforts.

But what I've achieved in the Herrenhof is a certain connection with the Castle. Don't despise me when I that I don't repent what I've done. What conceivable sort a connexion with the Castle can this be, you'll no doubt be thinking. And you're right, it's not much of a connection. I know a great many of the servants now, of course, almost all the gentlemen's servants who have come to the village during the last two years, and if I should ever get into the Castle, I shan't be a stranger there. Of course, they're servants only in the village. In the Castle they're quite different, and probably wouldn't know me or anybody else there that they've had dealings with in the village, that's quite certain, even if they have sworn a hundred times in the stall that they would be delighted to see me again in the Castle. Besides, I've already had experience of how little all these promises are worth. But still that's not the really important thing.

It isn't only through the servants themselves that I have a connection with the Castle, for apart from that I hope and trust that what I'm doing is being noticed by someone up there - and the management of the staff of servants is really an extremely important and laborious official function - and that finally whoever is noticing me may perhaps arrive at a more favourable opinion of me than the others, that he may recognize that I'm fighting for my family and carrying on my father's efforts, no matter in how poor a way.

If he should see it like that, perhaps he'll forgive me too for accepting money from the servants and using it for our family. And I've achieved something more yet, which even you, I'm afraid, will blame me for. I learned a great deal from the servants about the ways in which one can get into the Castle service without going through the difficult preliminaries of official appointment lasting sometimes for years. In that case, it's true, one doesn't become an actual official employee, but only a private and semi-official one, one has neither rights nor duties - and the worst is not to have any duties - but one advantage one does have, that one is on the spot, one can watch for favourable opportunities and take advantage of them, one may not be an employee, but by good luck some work may come one's way, perhaps no real employee is handy, there's a call, one flies to answer it, and one has become the very thing that one wasn't a minute before. An employee. Only, when is one likely to get a chance like that?

At once, one has hardly arrived, one has hardly had to look round before the chance is there, and many a one hasn't even the presence of mind, being quite new to the job, seize the opportunity. But in another case one may have to wait for even more years than the official employees, and after being a semi-official servant for so long one can never be lawfully taken on afterwards as an official employee.

So there's enough here to make one pause, but it sinks to nothing when one takes into account that the test for the official appointments is very stringent and that a member of any doubtful family is turned down in advance. Let us say someone like that goes in for the examination, for years he waits in fear and trembling for the result, from the very first day everybody asks him in amazement how he could have dared to do anything so wild, but he still goes on hoping - how else could he keep alive? Then after years and years, perhaps as an old man, he learns that he has been rejected, learns that everything is lost and that all his life has been in vain. Here, too, of course there are exceptions, that's how one is so easily tempted. It happens sometimes that really shady customers are actually appointed, there are officials who, literally in spite of themselves, are attracted by those outlaws. At the entrance examinations they can't help sniffing the air, smacking their lips, and rolling their eyes towards an entrant like that, who seems in some way to be terribly appetizing to them, and they have to stick close to their books of regulations so as to withstand him.

Sometimes, however, that doesn't help the entrant to an appointment, but only leads to an endless postponement of the preliminary proceedings, which are never terminated, but only broken off by the death of the poor man. So official appointment no less than the other kind is full of obvious and concealed difficulties, and before one goes in for everything of the kind it's highly advisable to weigh everything carefully. Now, we didn't fail to do that, Barnabas and I. Every time that I came back from the Herrenhof we sat down together and I told the latest news that I had gathered, for days we talked it over, and Barnabas's work lay idle for longer spells than was good for it. And here I may be to blame in your opinion. I knew quite well that much reliance was n to be put on the servants' stories. I knew that they never had much inclination to tell me things about the Castle, that the always changed the subject, and that every word had to be dragged out of them, and then, when they were well started that they let themselves go, talked nonsense, bragged, tried to surpass one another in inventing improbable lies, so that in the continuous shouting in the dark stalls, one servant beginning where the other left off, it was clear that at best only a few scanty scraps of truth could be picked up. But I repeated everything to Barnabas again just as I had heard it, though he still had no capacity whatever to distinguish between what was true and what was false, and on account of the family's position was almost famishing to hear all these things. And he drank in everything and burned with eagerness for more. And as a matter of fact the cornerstone of my new plan was Barnabas. Nothing more could be done through the servants. Sortini's messenger was not to be found and would never be found, Sortini and his messenger with him seemed to be receding farther and farther, by many people their appearance and names were already forgotten, and often I had to describe them at length and in spite of that learn nothing more than that the servant I was speaking to could remember them with an effort, but except for that could tell nothing about them. And as for my conduct with the servants, of course I had no power to decide how it might be looked on and could only hope that the Castle would judge it in the spirit I did it in, and that in return a little of the guilt of our family would be taken away, but I've received no outward sign of that.

Still I stuck to it, for so far as I was concerned I saw no other chance of getting anything done for us in the Castle. But for Barnabas I saw another possibility. From the tales of the servants - if I had the inclination, and I had only too much inclination - I could draw the conclusion that anyone who was taken into the Castle service could do a great deal for his family. But then what was there that was worthy or belief in these tales? It was impossible to make certain of that, but that there was very little was clear. For when, say, a servant that I would never see again, or that I would hardly recognize were I to see him again, solemnly promised me to help to get my brother a post in the Castle, or at least, if Barnabas should to the Castle on other business, to support him, or at least to back him up - for according to the servants' stories it sometimes happens that candidates for posts become unconscious or deranged during the protracted waiting and then they're lost if some friend doesn't look after them - when things like that and a great many more were told to me, they were probably justified as warnings, but the promises that accompanied them were quite baseless. But not to Barnabas. It's true I warned him not to believe them, but my mere telling of them was enough to enlist him for my plan. The reasons I advanced for it myself impressed him less, the thing that chiefly influenced him was the servants' stories. And so in reality I was completely thrown back upon myself. Amalia was the only one who could make herself understood to my parents, and the more I followed, in my own way, the original plans of father, the more Amalia shut herself off from me, before you or anybody else she talks to me, but not when we're alone.

To the servants in the Herrenhof I was a plaything which in their fury they did their best to wreck, not one intimate word have I spoken with any of them during those two years, I've had only cunning or lying or silly words from them, so only Barnabas remained for me, and Barnabas was still very young. When I saw the light in his eyes as I told him those things, a light which has remained in them ever since, I felt terrified and yet I didn't stop, the things at stake seemed too great. I admit I hadn't my father's great though empty plans. I hadn't the resolution that men have. I confined myself to making good the insult to the messenger, and only asked that the actual modesty of my attempt should be put to my credit. But what I had failed to do by myself I wanted now to achieve in a different way and with certainty through Barnabas. We had insulted a messenger and driven him into a more remote bureau. What was more natural than for us to offer a new messenger in the person of Barnabas, so that the other messenger's work might be carried on by him, and the other messenger might remain quietly in retirement as long as he for as long a time as he needed to forget the insult? I was quite aware, of course, that in spite of all its modesty ther was a hint of presumption in my plan, that it might give way to the impression that we wanted to dictate to the authorities how they should decide a personal question, or that we doubted their ability to make the best arrangements, which they might have made long before we had struck upon the idea that something could be done.

But then, I thought again that it was in fact possible that the authorities should misunderstand me so grossly or if they should, that they should do so intentionally, that in other words all that I did should be turned down in advance without further examination. So I did not give in and Barnabas's ambition kept him from giving in. In this term of preparation Barnabas became so uppish that he found that cobbling was far too menial work for him, a future bureau employee, yes, he even dared to contradict Amalia, and flatly, on the few occasions that she spoke to him about it. I didn't grudge him this brief happiness, for with the first day that he went to the Castle his happiness and his arrogance would be gone, a thing easy enough to foresee.

And now began that parody of service of which I've told you already. It was amazing with what little difficulty Barnabas got into the Castle that first time, or more correctly into the bureau which in a manner of speaking has become his workroom. This success drove me almost frantic at the time, when Barnabas whispered the news to me in the evening after he came home. I ran to Amalia, seized her, drew her into a corner, and kissed her so wildly that she cried with pain and terror. I could explain nothing for excitement, and then it had been so long since we had spoken to each other, so I put off telling her until the next day or the day after. For the next few days, however, there was really nothing more to tell. After the first quick success nothing more happened. For two long years Barnabas led this heart-breaking life. The servants failed us completely, I gave Barnabas a short note to take with him recommending him to their consideration, reminding them at the same time of their promises, and Barnabas, as often as he saw a servant, drew out the note and held it up, and even if I sometimes may have presented it to someone who didn't know me, and even if those who did know me were irritated by his hand holding out the note in silence - for he didn't dare to speak up there - yet all the same it was a shame that nobody helped him, and it was a relief-which we could have secured, I must admit, by our own action and much earlier - when a servant who had probably been pestered several times already took the note, crushed it up and flung it into the wastepaper basket. Almost as if he had said: "That's just what you yourselves do with letters", it occurred to me.