The Castle by Franz Kafka, Willa Muir, Edwin Muir Read Free Book Online

descend. In jumping down he had hurt his knee and had found some difficulty in getting home, but still he had been on the top of the wall. The sense of that triumph had seemed to him then a victory for life, which was not altogether foolish, for now so many years later on the arm of Barnabas in the snowy night the memory of it came to succour him.
    He took a firmer hold, Barnabas was almost dragging him along, the silence was unbroken. Of the road they were following all that K. knew was that to judge from its surface they had not yet turned aside into a by-street. He vowed to himself that, however difficult the way and however doubtful even the prospect of his being able to get back, he would not cease from going on. He would surely have strength enough to let himself be dragged. And the road must come to an end some time. By day the Castle had looked within easy reach, and, of course, the messenger would take the shortest cut. At that moment Barnabas stopped.
    Where were they?
    Was this the end?
    Would Barnabas try to leave him?
    He wouldn't succeed. K. clutched his arm so firmly that it almost made his hand ache.
    Or had the incredible happened, and were they already in the Castle or at its gates? But they had not done any climbing so far as K. could tell. Or had Barnabas taken him up by an imperceptibly mounting road?
    "Where are we?" said K. in a low voice, more to himself than to Barnabas.
    "At home," said Barnabas in the same tone.
    "At home?"
    "Be careful now, sir, or you'll slip. We go down here."
    "Down?"
    "Only a step or two," added Barnabas, and was already knocking at a door. A girl opened it, and they were on the threshold of a large room almost in darkness, for there was no light save for a tiny oil lamp hanging over a table in the background.
    "Who is with you, Barnabas?" asked the girl.
    "The Land Surveyor," said he.
    "The Land Surveyor," repeated the girl in a louder voice, turning towards the table.
    Two old people there rose to their feet, a man and a woman, as well as another girl.
    They greeted K. Barnabas introduced the whole family, his parents and his sisters Olga and Amalia. K. scarcely glanced at them and let them take his wet coat off to dry at the stove. So it was only Barnabas who was at home, not he himself. But why had they come here? K. drew Barnabas aside and asked:
    "Why have you come here? Or do you live in the Castle precincts?"
    "The Castle precincts?" repeated Barnabas, as if he did not understand.
    "Barnabas," said K., "you left the inn to go to the Castle."
    "No," said Barnabas, "I left it to come home, I don't go to the Castle till the early morning, I never sleep there." "Oh," said K., "so you weren't going to the Castle, but only here" - the man's smile seemed less brilliant, and his person more insignificant -
    "Why didn't you say so?"

    "You didn't ask me, sir," said Barnabas, "you only said you had a message to give me, but you wouldn't give it in the inn parlour, or in your room, so I thought you could speak to me quietly here in my parents' house. The others will all leave us if you wish -
    and, if you prefer, you could spend the night here. Haven't I done the right thing?"
    K. could not reply. It had been simply a misunderstanding, a common, vulgar misunderstanding, and K. had been completely taken in by it. He had been bewitched by Barnabas's closefitting, silken-gleaming jacket, which, now that it was unbuttoned, displayed a coarse, dirty grey shirt patched all over, and beneath that the huge muscular chest of a labourer. His surroundings not only corroborated all this but even emphasized it, the old gouty father who progressed more by the help of his groping hands than by the slow movements of his stiff legs, and the mother with her hands folded on her bosom, who was equally incapable of any but the smallest steps by reason of her stoutness. Both of them, father and mother, had been advancing from their corner towards K. ever since he had come in, and were still a long way