Chapter 2

First Cross-examination

K. was informed by telephone that there would be a small hearing
concerning his case the following Sunday. He was made aware that these
cross examinations would follow one another regularly, perhaps not every
week but quite frequently. On the one hand it was in everyone's interest
to bring proceedings quickly to their conclusion, but on the other hand
every aspect of the examinations had to be carried out thoroughly
without lasting too long because of the associated stress. For these
reasons, it had been decided to hold a series of brief examinations
following on one after another. Sunday had been chosen as the day for
the hearings so that K. would not be disturbed in his professional work.
It was assumed that he would be in agreement with this, but if he wished
for another date then, as far as possible, he would be accommodated.
Cross-examinations could even be held in the night, for instance, but K.
would probably not be fresh enough at that time. Anyway, as long as K.
made no objection, the hearing would be left on Sundays. It was a matter
of course that he would have to appear without fail, there was probably
no need to point this out to him. He would be given the number of the
building where he was to present himself, which was in a street in a
suburb well away from the city centre which K. had never been to before.

Once he had received this notice, K. hung up the receiver without giving
an answer; he had decided immediately to go there that Sunday, it was
certainly necessary, proceedings had begun and he had to face up to it,
and this first examination would probably also be the last. He was still
standing in thought by the telephone when he heard the voice of the
deputy director behind him--he wanted to use the telephone but K. stood
in his way. "Bad news?" asked the deputy director casually, not in order
to find anything out but just to get K. away from the device. "No, no,"
said K., he stepped to one side but did not go away entirely. The deputy
director picked up the receiver and, as he waited for his connection,
turned away from it and said to K., "One question, Mr. K.: Would you
like to give me the pleasure of joining me on my sailing boat on Sunday
morning? There's quite a few people coming, you're bound to know some
of them. One of them is Hasterer, the state attorney. Would you like to
come along? Do come along!" K. tried to pay attention to what the
deputy director was saying. It was of no small importance for him, as
this invitation from the deputy director, with whom he had never got on
very well, meant that he was trying to improve his relations with him.
It showed how important K. had become in the bank and how its second
most important official seemed to value his friendship, or at least his
impartiality. He was only speaking at the side of the telephone receiver
while he waited for his connection, but in giving this invitation the
deputy director was humbling himself. But K. would have to humiliate him
a second time as a result, he said, "Thank you very much, but I'm afraid
I will have no time on Sunday, I have a previous obligation." "Pity,"
said the deputy director, and turned to the telephone conversation that
had just been connected. It was not a short conversation, but K.
remained standing confused by the instrument all the time it was going
on. It was only when the deputy director hung up that he was shocked
into awareness and said, in order to partially excuse his standing there
for no reason, "I've just received a telephone call, there's somewhere I
need to go, but they forgot to tell me what time." "Ask them then," said
the deputy director. "It's not that important," said K., although in
that way his earlier excuse, already weak enough, was made even weaker.
As he went, the deputy director continued to speak about other things.
K. forced himself to answer, but his thoughts were mainly about that
Sunday, how it would be best to get there for nine o'clock in the
morning as that was the time that courts always start work on weekdays.

The weather was dull on Sunday. K. was very tired, as he had stayed out
drinking until late in the night celebrating with some of the regulars,
and he had almost overslept. He dressed hurriedly, without the time to
think and assemble the various plans he had worked out during the week.
With no breakfast, he rushed to the suburb he had been told about. Oddly
enough, although he had little time to look around him, he came across
the three bank officials involved in his case, Rabensteiner, Kullich and
Kaminer. The first two were travelling in a tram that went across K.'s
route, but Kaminer sat on the terrace of a café and leant curiously
over the wall as K. came over. All of them seemed to be looking at him,
surprised at seeing their superior running; it was a kind of pride that
made K. want to go on foot, this was his affair and the idea of any help
from strangers, however slight, was repulsive to him, he also wanted to
avoid asking for anyone's help because that would initiate them into the
affair even if only slightly. And after all, he had no wish at all to
humiliate himself before the committee by being too punctual. Anyway,
now he was running so that he would get there by nine o'clock if at all
possible, even though he had no appointment for this time.

He had thought that he would recognise the building from a distance by
some kind of sign, without knowing exactly what the sign would look
like, or from some particular kind of activity outside the entrance. K.
had been told that the building was in Juliusstrasse, but when he stood
at the street's entrance it consisted on each side of almost nothing but
monotonous, grey constructions, tall blocks of flats occupied by poor
people. Now, on a Sunday morning, most of the windows were occupied, men
in their shirtsleeves leant out smoking, or carefully and gently held
small children on the sills. Other windows were piled up with bedding,
above which the dishevelled head of a woman would briefly appear. People
called out to each other across the street, one of the calls provoked a
loud laugh about K. himself. It was a long street, and spaced evenly
along it were small shops below street level, selling various kinds of
foodstuffs, which you reached by going down a few steps. Women went in
and out of them or stood chatting on the steps. A fruitmonger, taking
his goods up to the windows, was just as inattentive as K. and nearly
knocked him down with his cart. Just then, a gramophone, which in better
parts of town would have been seen as worn out, began to play some
murderous tune.

K. went further into the street, slowly, as if he had plenty of time
now, or as if the examining magistrate were looking at him from one of
the windows and therefore knew that K. had found his way there. It was
shortly after nine. The building was quite far down the street, it
covered so much area it was almost extraordinary, and the gateway in
particular was tall and long. It was clearly intended for delivery
wagons belonging to the various warehouses all round the yard which were
now locked up and carried the names of companies some of which K. knew
from his work at the bank. In contrast with his usual habits, he
remained standing a while at the entrance to the yard taking in all
these external details. Near him, there was a bare-footed man sitting on
a crate and reading a newspaper. There were two lads swinging on a hand
cart. In front of a pump stood a weak, young girl in a bedjacket who, as
the water flowed into her can, looked at K. There was a piece of rope
stretched between two windows in a corner of the yard, with some washing
hanging on it to dry. A man stood below it calling out instructions to
direct the work being done.

K. went over to the stairway to get to the room where the hearing was to
take place, but then stood still again as besides these steps he could
see three other stairway entrances, and there also seemed to be a small
passageway at the end of the yard leading into a second yard. It
irritated him that he had not been given more precise directions to the
room, it meant they were either being especially neglectful with him or
especially indifferent, and he decided to make that clear to them very
loudly and very unambiguously. In the end he decided to climb up the
stairs, his thoughts playing on something that he remembered the
policeman, Willem, saying to him; that the court is attracted by the
guilt, from which it followed that the courtroom must be on the stairway
that K. selected by chance.

As he went up he disturbed a large group of children playing on the
stairs who looked at him as he stepped through their rows. "Next time I
come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with me to
make them like me or a stick to hit them with." Just before he reached
the first landing he even had to wait a little while until a ball had
finished its movement, two small lads with sly faces like grown-up
scoundrels held him by his trouser-legs until it had; if he were to
shake them off he would have to hurt them, and he was afraid of what
noise they would make by shouting.

On the first floor, his search began for real. He still felt unable to
ask for the investigating committee, and so he invented a joiner called
Lanz--that name occurred to him because the captain, Mrs. Grubach's
nephew, was called Lanz--so that he could ask at every flat whether Lanz
the joiner lived there and thus obtain a chance to look into the rooms.
It turned out, though, that that was mostly possible without further
ado, as almost all the doors were left open and the children ran in and
out. Most of them were small, one-windowed rooms where they also did the
cooking. Many women held babies in one arm and worked at the stove with
the other. Half grown girls, who seemed to be dressed in just their
pinafores worked hardest running to and fro. In every room, the beds
were still in use by people who were ill, or still asleep, or people
stretched out on them in their clothes. K. knocked at the flats where
the doors were closed and asked whether Lanz the joiner lived there. It
was usually a woman who opened the door, heard the enquiry and turned to
somebody in the room who would raise himself from the bed. "The
gentleman's asking if a joiner called Lanz, lives here." "A joiner,
called Lanz?" he would ask from the bed." "That's right," K. would say,
although it was clear that the investigating committee was not to be
found there, and so his task was at an end. There were many who thought
it must be very important for K. to find Lanz the joiner and thought
long about it, naming a joiner who was not called Lanz or giving a name
that had some vague similarity with Lanz, or they asked neighbours or
accompanied K. to a door a long way away where they thought someone of
that sort might live in the back part of the building or where someone
would be who could advise K. better than they could themselves. K.
eventually had to give up asking if he did not want to be led all round
from floor to floor in this way. He regretted his initial plan, which
had at first seemed so practical to him. As he reached the fifth floor,
he decided to give up the search, took his leave of a friendly, young
worker who wanted to lead him on still further and went down the stairs.
But then the thought of how much time he was wasting made him cross, he
went back again and knocked at the first door on the fifth floor. The
first thing he saw in the small room was a large clock on the wall which
already showed ten o'clock. "Is there a joiner called Lanz who lives
here?" he asked. "Pardon?" said a young woman with black, shining eyes
who was, at that moment, washing children's underclothes in a bucket.
She pointed her wet hand towards the open door of the adjoining room.

K. thought he had stepped into a meeting. A medium sized, two windowed
room was filled with the most diverse crowd of people--nobody paid any
attention to the person who had just entered. Close under its ceiling it
was surrounded by a gallery which was also fully occupied and where the
people could only stand bent down with their heads and their backs
touching the ceiling. K., who found the air too stuffy, stepped out
again and said to the young woman, who had probably misunderstood what
he had said, "I asked for a joiner, someone by the name of Lanz." "Yes,"
said the woman, "please go on in." K. would probably not have followed
her if the woman had not gone up to him, taken hold of the door handle
and said, "I'll have to close the door after you, no-one else will be
allowed in." "Very sensible," said K., "but it's too full already." But
then he went back in anyway. He passed through between two men who were
talking beside the door--one of them held both hands far out in front of
himself making the movements of counting out money, the other looked him
closely in the eyes--and someone took him by the hand. It was a small,
red-faced youth. "Come in, come in," he said. K. let himself be led by
him, and it turned out that there was--surprisingly in a densely packed
crowd of people moving to and fro--a narrow passage which may have been
the division between two factions; this idea was reinforced by the fact
that in the first few rows to the left and the right of him there was
hardly any face looking in his direction, he saw nothing but the backs
of people directing their speech and their movements only towards
members of their own side. Most of them were dressed in black, in old,
long, formal frock coats that hung down loosely around them. These
clothes were the only thing that puzzled K., as he would otherwise have
taken the whole assembly for a local political meeting.

At the other end of the hall where K. had been led there was a little
table set at an angle on a very low podium which was as overcrowded as
everywhere else, and behind the table, near the edge of the podium, sat
a small, fat, wheezing man who was talking with someone behind him. This
second man was standing with his legs crossed and his elbows on the
backrest of the chair, provoking much laughter. From time to time he
threw his arm in the air as if doing a caricature of someone. The youth
who was leading K. had some difficulty in reporting to the man. He had
already tried twice to tell him something, standing on tiptoe, but
without getting the man's attention as he sat there above him. It was
only when one of the people up on the podium drew his attention to the
youth that the man turned to him and leant down to hear what it was he
quietly said. Then he pulled out his watch and quickly looked over at K.
"You should have been here one hour and five minutes ago," he said. K.
was going to give him a reply but had no time to do so, as hardly had
the man spoken than a general muttering arose all over the right hand
side of the hall. "You should have been here one hour and five minutes
ago," the man now repeated, raising his voice this time, and quickly
looked round the hall beneath him. The muttering also became immediately
louder and, as the man said nothing more, died away only gradually. Now
the hall was much quieter than when K. had entered. Only the people up
in the gallery had not stopped passing remarks. As far as could be
distinguished, up in the half-darkness, dust and haze, they seemed to be
less well dressed than those below. Many of them had brought pillows
that they had put between their heads and the ceiling so that they would
not hurt themselves pressed against it.

K. had decided he would do more watching than talking, so he did not
defend himself for supposedly having come late, and simply said, "Well
maybe I have arrived late, I'm here now." There followed loud applause,
once more from the right hand side of the hall. Easy people to get on
your side, thought K., and was bothered only by the quiet from the left
hand side which was directly behind him and from which there was
applause from only a few individuals. He wondered what he could say to
get all of them to support him together or, if that were not possible,
to at least get the support of the others for a while.

"Yes," said the man, "but I'm now no longer under any obligation to hear
your case"--there was once more a muttering, but this time it was
misleading as the man waved the people's objections aside with his hand
and continued--"I will, however, as an exception, continue with it
today. But you should never arrive late like this again. And now, step
forward!" Someone jumped down from the podium so that there would be a
place free for K., and K. stepped up onto it. He stood pressed closely
against the table, the press of the crowd behind him was so great that
he had to press back against it if he did not want to push the judge's
desk down off the podium and perhaps the judge along with it.

The judge, however, paid no attention to that but sat very comfortably
on his chair and, after saying a few words to close his discussion with
the man behind him, reached for a little note book, the only item on his
desk. It was like an old school exercise book and had become quite
misshapen from much thumbing. "Now then," said the judge, thumbing
through the book. He turned to K. with the tone of someone who knows his
facts and said, "you are a house painter?" "No," said K., "I am the
chief clerk in a large bank." This reply was followed by laughter among
the right hand faction down in the hall, it was so hearty that K.
couldn't stop himself joining in with it. The people supported
themselves with their hands on their knees and shook as if suffering a
serious attack of coughing. Even some of those in the gallery were
laughing. The judge had become quite cross but seemed to have no power
over those below him in the hall, he tried to reduce what harm had been
done in the gallery and jumped up threatening them, his eyebrows, until
then hardly remarkable, pushed themselves up and became big, black and
bushy over his eyes.

The left hand side of the hall was still quiet, though, the people stood
there in rows with their faces looking towards the podium listening to
what was being said there, they observed the noise from the other side
of the hall with the same quietness and even allowed some individuals
from their own ranks, here and there, to go forward into the other
faction. The people in the left faction were not only fewer in number
than the right but probably were no more important than them, although
their behaviour was calmer and that made it seem like they were. When K.
now began to speak he was convinced he was doing it in the same way as
them.

"Your question, My Lord, as to whether I am a house painter--in fact
even more than that, you did not ask at all but merely imposed it on
me--is symptomatic of the whole way these proceedings against me are
being carried out. Perhaps you will object that there are no proceedings
against me. You will be quite right, as there are proceedings only if I
acknowledge that there are. But, for the moment, I do acknowledge it,
out of pity for yourselves to a large extent. It's impossible not to
observe all this business without feeling pity. I don't say things are
being done without due care but I would like to make it clear that it is
I who make the acknowledgement."

K. stopped speaking and looked down into the hall. He had spoken
sharply, more sharply than he had intended, but he had been quite right.
It should have been rewarded with some applause here and there but
everything was quiet, they were all clearly waiting for what would
follow, perhaps the quietness was laying the ground for an outbreak of
activity that would bring this whole affair to an end. It was somewhat
disturbing that just then the door at the end of the hall opened, the
young washerwoman, who seemed to have finished her work, came in and,
despite all her caution, attracted the attention of some of the people
there. It was only the judge who gave K. any direct pleasure, as he
seemed to have been immediately struck by K.'s words. Until then, he had
listened to him standing, as K.'s speech had taken him by surprise while
he was directing his attention to the gallery. Now, in the pause, he sat
down very slowly, as if he did not want anyone to notice. He took out
the notebook again, probably so that he could give the impression of
being calmer.

"That won't help you, sir," continued K., "even your little book will
only confirm what I say." K. was satisfied to hear nothing but his own
quiet words in this room full of strangers, and he even dared casually
to pick up the examining judge's notebook and, touching it only with the
tips of his fingers as if it were something revolting, lifted it in the
air, holding it just by one of the middle pages so that the others on
each side of it, closely written, blotted and yellowing, flapped down.
"Those are the official notes of the examining judge," he said, and let
the notebook fall down onto the desk. "You can read in your book as much
as you like, sir, I really don't have anything in this charge book to be
afraid of, even though I don't have access to it as I wouldn't want it
in my hand, I can only touch it with two fingers." The judge grabbed the
notebook from where it had fallen on the desk--which could only have
been a sign of his deep humiliation, or at least that is how it must
have been perceived--tried to tidy it up a little, and held it once more
in front of himself in order to read from it.

The people in the front row looked up at him, showing such tension on
their faces that he looked back down at them for some time. Every one of
them was an old man, some of them with white beards. Could they perhaps
be the crucial group who could turn the whole assembly one way or the
other. They had sunk into a state of motionlessness while K. gave his
oration, and it had not been possible to raise them from this passivity
even when the judge was being humiliated. "What has happened to me,"
continued K., with less of the vigour he had had earlier, he continually
scanned the faces in the first row, and this gave his address a somewhat
nervous and distracted character, "what has happened to me is not just
an isolated case. If it were it would not be of much importance as it's
not of much importance to me, but it is a symptom of proceedings which
are carried out against many. It's on behalf of them that I stand here
now, not for myself alone."

Without having intended it, he had raised his voice. Somewhere in the
hall, someone raised his hands and applauded him shouting, "Bravo! Why
not then? Bravo! Again I say, Bravo!" Some of the men in the first row
groped around in their beards, none of them looked round to see who was
shouting. Not even K. thought him of any importance but it did raise his
spirits; he no longer thought it at all necessary that all of those in
the hall should applaud him, it was enough if the majority of them began
to think about the matter and if only one of them, now and then, was
persuaded.

"I'm not trying to be a successful orator," said K. after this thought,
"that's probably more than I'm capable of anyway. I'm sure the examining
judge can speak far better than I can, it is part of his job after all.
All that I want is a public discussion of a public wrong. Listen: ten
days ago I was placed under arrest, the arrest itself is something I
laugh about but that's beside the point. They came for me in the morning
when I was still in bed. Maybe the order had been given to arrest some
house painter--that seems possible after what the judge has
said--someone who is as innocent as I am, but it was me they chose.
There were two police thugs occupying the next room. They could not have
taken better precautions if I had been a dangerous robber. And these
policemen were unprincipled riff-raff, they talked at me till I was sick
of it, they wanted bribes, they wanted to trick me into giving them my
clothes, they wanted money, supposedly so that they could bring me my
breakfast after they had blatantly eaten my own breakfast in front of my
eyes. And even that was not enough. I was led in front of the supervisor
in another room. This was the room of a lady who I have a lot of respect
for, and I was forced to look on while the supervisor and the policemen
made quite a mess of this room because of me, although not through any
fault of mine. It was not easy to stay calm, but I managed to do so and
was completely calm when I asked the supervisor why it was that I was
under arrest. If he were here he would have to confirm what I say. I can
see him now, sitting on the chair belonging to that lady I mentioned--a
picture of dull-witted arrogance. What do you think he answered? What
he told me, gentlemen, was basically nothing at all; perhaps he really
did know nothing, he had placed me under arrest and was satisfied. In
fact he had done more than that and brought three junior employees from
the bank where I work into the lady's room; they had made themselves
busy interfering with some photographs that belonged to the lady and
causing a mess. There was, of course, another reason for bringing these
employees; they, just like my landlady and her maid, were expected to
spread the news of my arrest and damage my public reputation and in
particular to remove me from my position at the bank. Well they didn't
succeed in any of that, not in the slightest, even my landlady, who is
quite a simple person--and I will give you here her name in full
respect, her name is Mrs. Grubach--even Mrs. Grubach was understanding
enough to see that an arrest like this has no more significance than an
attack carried out on the street by some youths who are not kept under
proper control. I repeat, this whole affair has caused me nothing but
unpleasantness and temporary irritation, but could it not also have had
some far worse consequences?"

K. broke off here and looked at the judge, who said nothing. As he did
so he thought he saw the judge use a movement of his eyes to give a sign
to someone in the crowd. K. smiled and said, "And now the judge, right
next to me, is giving a secret sign to someone among you. There seems to
be someone among you who is taking directions from above. I don't know
whether the sign is meant to produce booing or applause, but I'll resist
trying to guess what its meaning is too soon. It really doesn't matter
to me, and I give his lordship the judge my full and public permission
to stop giving secret signs to his paid subordinate down there and give
his orders in words instead; let him just say 'Boo now!,' and then the
next time 'Clap now!'"

Whether it was embarrassment or impatience, the judge rocked backwards
and forwards on his seat. The man behind him, whom he had been talking
with earlier, leant forward again, either to give him a few general
words of encouragement or some specific piece of advice. Below them in
the hall the people talked to each other quietly but animatedly. The two
factions had earlier seemed to hold views strongly opposed to each other
but now they began to intermingle, a few individuals pointed up at K.,
others pointed at the judge. The air in the room was fuggy and extremely
oppressive, those who were standing furthest away could hardly even be
seen through it. It must have been especially troublesome for those
visitors who were in the gallery, as they were forced to quietly ask
the participants in the assembly what exactly was happening, albeit
with timid glances at the judge. The replies they received were just as
quiet, and given behind the protection of a raised hand.

"I have nearly finished what I have to say," said K., and as there was
no bell available he struck the desk with his fist in a way that
startled the judge and his advisor and made them look up from each
other. "None of this concerns me, and I am therefore able to make a calm
assessment of it, and, assuming that this so-called court is of any real
importance, it will be very much to your advantage to listen to what I
have to say. If you want to discuss what I say, please don't bother to
write it down until later on, I don't have any time to waste and I'll
soon be leaving."

There was immediate silence, which showed how well K. was in control of
the crowd. There were no shouts among them as there had been at the
start, no-one even applauded, but if they weren't already persuaded they
seemed very close to it.

K. was pleased at the tension among all the people there as they
listened to him, a rustling rose from the silence which was more
invigorating than the most ecstatic applause could have been. "There is
no doubt," he said quietly, "that there is some enormous organisation
determining what is said by this court. In my case this includes my
arrest and the examination taking place here today, an organisation that
employs policemen who can be bribed, oafish supervisors and judges of
whom nothing better can be said than that they are not as arrogant as
some others. This organisation even maintains a high-level judiciary
along with its train of countless servants, scribes, policemen and all
the other assistance that it needs, perhaps even executioners and
torturers--I'm not afraid of using those words. And what, gentlemen, is
the purpose of this enormous organisation. Its purpose is to arrest
innocent people and wage pointless prosecutions against them which, as
in my case, lead to no result. How are we to avoid those in office
becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning? That is
impossible, not even the highest judge would be able to achieve that for
himself. That is why policemen try to steal the clothes off the back of
those they arrest, that is why supervisors break into the homes of
people they do not know, that is why innocent people are humiliated in
front of crowds rather than being given a proper trial. The policemen
only talked about the warehouses where they put the property of those
they arrest, I would like to see these warehouses where the hard won
possessions of people under arrest is left to decay, if, that is, it's
not stolen by the thieving hands of the warehouse workers."

K. was interrupted by a screeching from the far end of the hall, he
shaded his eyes to see that far, as the dull light of day made the smoke
whitish and hard to see through. It was the washerwoman whom K. had
recognised as a likely source of disturbance as soon as she had entered.
It was hard to see now whether it was her fault or not. K. could only
see that a man had pulled her into a corner by the door and was pressing
himself against her. But it was not her who was screaming, but the man,
he had opened his mouth wide and looked up at the ceiling. A small
circle had formed around the two of them, the visitors near him in the
gallery seemed delighted that the serious tone K. had introduced into
the gathering had been disturbed in this way. K.'s first thought was to
run over there, and he also thought that everyone would want to bring
things back into order there or at least to make the pair leave the
room, but the first row of people in front of him stayed were they were,
no-one moved and no-one let K. through. On the contrary, they stood in
his way, old men held out their arms in front of him and a hand from
somewhere--he did not have the time to turn round--took hold of his
collar. K., by this time, had forgotten about the pair, it seemed to him
that his freedom was being limited as if his arrest was being taken
seriously, and, without any thought for what he was doing, he jumped
down from the podium. Now he stood face to face with the crowd. Had he
judged the people properly? Had he put too much faith in the effect of
his speech? Had they been putting up a pretence all the time he had
been speaking, and now that he came to the end and to what must follow,
were they tired of pretending? What faces they were, all around him!
Dark, little eyes flickered here and there, cheeks drooped down like on
drunken men, their long beards were thin and stiff, if they took hold of
them it was more like they were making their hands into claws, not as if
they were taking hold of their own beards. But underneath those
beards--and this was the real discovery made by K.--there were badges of
various sizes and colours shining on the collars of their coats. As far
as he could see, every one of them was wearing one of these badges. All
of them belonged to the same group, even though they seemed to be
divided to the right and the left of him, and when he suddenly turned
round he saw the same badge on the collar of the examining judge who
calmly looked down at him with his hands in his lap. "So," called out
K., throwing his arms in the air as if this sudden realisation needed
more room, "all of you are working for this organisation, I see now that
you are all the very bunch of cheats and liars I've just been speaking
about, you've all pressed yourselves in here in order to listen in and
snoop on me, you gave the impression of having formed into factions, one
of you even applauded me to test me out, and you wanted to learn how to
trap an innocent man! Well, I hope you haven't come here for nothing, I
hope you've either had some fun from someone who expected you to defend
his innocence or else--let go of me or I'll hit you," shouted K. to a
quivery old man who had pressed himself especially close to him--"or
else that you've actually learned something. And so I wish you good luck
in your trade." He briskly took his hat from where it lay on the edge of
the table and, surrounded by a silence caused perhaps by the
completeness of their surprise, pushed his way to the exit. However, the
examining judge seems to have moved even more quickly than K., as he was
waiting for him at the doorway. "One moment," he said. K. stood where he
was, but looked at the door with his hand already on its handle rather
than at the judge. "I merely wanted to draw your attention," said the
judge, "to something you seem not yet to be aware of: today, you have
robbed yourself of the advantages that a hearing of this sort always
gives to someone who is under arrest." K. laughed towards the door. "You
bunch of louts," he called, "you can keep all your hearings as a present
from me," then opened the door and hurried down the steps. Behind him,
the noise of the assembly rose as it became lively once more and
probably began to discuss these events as if making a scientific study
of them.