i know.
why would you suppose so?
one of you must be mistaken.
excuse me, i have to copy this for central docketing by 2:30.
--on the other hand, is an enticement. kafka can't help walking towards her. sitting with her own friends, though there is something less than friendly about them. two men, two women.
hello again.
have you looked?
yes.
she looks distressed, walking tall as if to bolster her composure. sneaky burgel does not help matters by characteristically appearing from the sidelines.
say what you like -- no one pays the least attention.
not today, burgel. send one of your memos, write up one of your communiques, but for god's sake don't bother me today.
you're just doing your job.
you're detestable.
eduard and i had lunch together one day .  and you saw us.
i was having an affair with eduard. he didn't tell you?
he would have. you were his best friend. a better friend than me.
what?
it's not that we wanted to deceive anyone -- but you know how these things are looked upon at the office.
what's funny?
as long as it's on their terms. if your work and your private life don't correspond to their specifications you're labelled a dangerous agitator -- with no recourse whatsoever.
two or three months, that's all. -- i seduced him.
you know as well as i do that he didn't commit suicide.
eduard didn't see it as something that needed bearing.
do you think people in the new town care what happens over here? this will always be the ghetto.
and you believe everything the authorities tell you.
the very fact that they're authorities should give you reason. people will do anything to protect their own interests. for all you know he was killed at the hands of the police.
turns back to kafka.
are you free tonight?
there are some people i'd like you to meet. can you come to the musil district at eight o'clock?
you almost married recently, didn't you?
eduard wanted to marry me.
i'm suspicious of men who want to marry. i believe they think it's the only thing that will make them equal to their fathers.
you won't have any trouble finding it.
they're ubiquitous. what we try to do .  is make them a little less so.
i nominated you as a possible candidate. you were eduard's good friend. he read me some of your work.
you strike me as a man with a defined notion of injustice -- a high concern for the lot of your fellow men. and yet you're able to remain an outsider. with the concomitant air of .  superiority?
the day he died, eduard was called up to the castle. did you know that?
he was summoned to help correct a minor discrepancy of some sort in the medical records division. apparently one of his claims was relevant.
he was never seen alive again.
he was murdered.
you're shocked at the thought of eduard tossing a bomb through a window.
when you only see someone sitting at a desk all day, it's liable to create a false impression.
as the bomb never went off, we can only assume he was caught with it -- and summarily executed.
you think what we're doing is so wrong? and what are you doing? pursuing goodness? for what? to answer to some supreme tribunal?
yes -- which is why "quiet, dependable people" have to take charge of their own lives.
your human tribunal will betray you. just as its members will be betrayed when they find no supreme one
join us, kafka.
it's sheer folly for anyone to try to pull through alone.
i'm collecting eduard's things. if there's anything you want, take it or i'll give it to charity.
burgel! -- i didn't leave it with him.
they're not obliged to tell.
of course it could -- burgel's been trying to get me thrown out as long as i can remember. he could've killed eduard.
i wouldn't put it past him.
you might think -- i thought so myself at first -- that burgel's too insignificant to be dangerous. but that's the very reason to beware! it's the small men to watch out for -- the ones who substitute method for character.
it's still easier for you to understand suicide, isn't it.
burgel hated eduard. and me. i'm sure he knew about us -- and i'm sure it drove him mad.
he used to like me -- very much more than i liked him.
of course he is -- the castle precincts are not the safest part of the city after dark. people disappear up there regularly. if you want to lie in wait for someone, that's the place to do it.
how often does one of our clerks have business in the house of records?
and burgel is the bringer of messages, isn't he?
or what if there really was an error? -- i don't know what kind -- any kind that needed correcting -- and what if burgel was responsible for it? one mistake -- even a small one in a firm like ours -- it could cost him a promotion.
what seems important to these people is not determined by the amount of work it entails -- you're far from understanding the authorities if you believe that.
for all his big talk he is. does he really have access to the directors of the firm as he always claims? -- or only the deputy managers -- people of no importance whatsoever. someone ought to follow him for a change.
burgel is only there for one purpose -- to spy on the employees and report any and all indiscretions, real or imagined. if he didn't send eduard to the castle, you can be damn sure he's in league with whoever greeted him there. all those bastards are in league with each other -- why can't you see that!
eduard .
your ignorance of the way things are here is so appalling that it makes my head spin to listen to you and compare what you say and have in mind with the real situation!
rushing down the stairs in anger, tearing open the door at the middle landing and slamming that one too once past it.
coming down the final flight of stairs, disappearing through the door at the bottom, slamming that one as well.
standing there, half in shadow, in profile. her glorious profile.
i knew you walked this way to work. i wanted to find you before they did.
over? it's only over when you can crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines and you can warm yourself a bit.
should i tell you why i joined our late lamented nihilists? why i became a murderer? because murder .  is bliss. it's easier than you might think to absorb and assimilate evil -- once you've adopted its procedure.
have you ever watched a person deteriorate? day by day. i don't mean in a spiritual sense.
only two steps back? even the man they left to guard me retreated further than that.
this is the result of their elixir of youth. they were to come and check on it during the night. i contrived to miss the appointment.
i know how they reward failure. if they saw this i'd be rotting in the quarries by the afternoon -- with all the others.
i know there is. and you're what i have to bargain with. for now you're the last one in their way.
why should i believe a man who never believed me? they're absolutely right, you know -- guilt should never be doubted. it's easier that way.
i think you've just escaped for the moment. just as i did. as eduard did. as they let us do. but only for the moment.
i know better than you what people will say when they have to. when they brought me in for questioning i informed on my friends the very first day.
i do. always. you understand the world better than any of us, kafka. and what it's becoming. i've always held you in the highest regard.