i gave it to him yesterday.
no, i left it in his office.
i've never seen him. i don't believe there is a keeper of the files.
he has it, he just hasn't noticed it yet, all right?
burgel, i thought it would be easier, as long as i was passing --
your credibility -- yes, it's well known.
i'll commit that to memory.
has one more look over at the empty desk before returning to his work.
i'm sorry to disturb you -- i wonder if you know where my friend eduard is?
-- i didn't want to bother you.
my friend eduard, i wonder if you've seen him? he hasn't been in to work, i thought he might be ill.
you didn't have to get out of bed -- i could have taken the key.
well, he's not here.
do you think you ought to do that?
miss rossmann?
i'm kafka -- i work upstairs in accident --
you're a friend of eduard raban's.
oh -- well, i thought he once mentioned --
i'm sorry, but i just wondered --
hello.
i'd like to hear them.
i've lived all my life in this city -- it frightens me. as it draws me closer into its web.
no, but do you realize why? -- it has no present.
even the so-called new town isn't so new. only the people. people of the future living in buildings of the past. has anyone seen eduard?
what d'you mean, oh him? he's a perfectly nice person, he's never missed a day before.
no, it's me who always wanted to run away with them -- except that that life would be far too hectic for me. i'm worried about him, no one's seen him.
when you work for a medical firm you can't call in sick. they know malingerers like a dog knows fleas.
you have been hearing the sordid side then.
my father always said i had no ambition.
i've never seen you here before.
well -- nice to know life exists outside the office.
no, really, i have to go home too.
up there.
it's only majestic from here. when you get closer you see it for what it really is.
a glorified office block. they keep all the old records there -- the final resting place for facts and figures that have ceased to matter in the world of the living.
it's more than hollow. it's stillborn. for all its size it serves no purpose. it's just there -- like death -- hovering over a breathing city.
i'm writing a story about a man who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect.
turns to go -- when he notices bizzlebek leaning listlessly in the coffee house doorway. a figure in the shadows.
i don't know what you could have read.
-- in magazines nobody reads.
did you?
"as gregor samsa awoke one morning from disturbing dreams he .  from unsettling dreams .  uneasy dreams .  gregor samsa .  gregor ?" carl. george. rudolf .
 yes.
 yes.
yes. yes, of course -- why wouldn't it be?
wednesday. we left the office together.
no, we said goodbye outside the building. he went off, as usual, toward his house.
-- accident and compensation association.
eight -- and seven months.
well -- other departments are, yes.
yes. since he came to the office, almost three years ago, we've been quite good friends. how was eduard .
i don't know.
no. he didn't seem to be. do you think he drowned himself?
no, i suppose not.
can i ask -- how you found me?
i don't think he really had any. he had no family either.
he wasn't a lonely man, though.
 just a perception.
probably not.
i'll bear that in mind.
the noise causes him to turn around. he watches the trolley as it's pushed past.
edges out of the way to let it by, feeling as though it has been made for him, is waiting for him.
you wanted to see me, sir.
 my .  social situation?
to do my work well, i have little time for --
i usually take lunch by the river.
i did not realize it was obligatory.
no, sir.
well, i --
-- eduard --
in a small way.
as startled as the rest of the office by the incident.
coming this way, has paused, having spotted the weird duo.
my assistants, i presume.
i'm kafka.
you look like brothers.
have you worked here long?
well, we'd better move things from my old desk.
on the embankment.
no.
i suspected that he -- well.
that he was -- satisfied in that regard. i didn't want to pry.
this morning it was suggested to me that my own sense of office fellowship could bear improving.
how long were you and eduard --
no, i don't. i'm amazed that anyone is able to bear life with any assurance at all.
the police would know the difference, wouldn't they?
he wasn't robbed. he was identified by his wallet.
when i have no reason to doubt.
-- what could he have done to warrant that?
tonight?
 all right.
last year. i -- it was broken off.
and you ?
stays where he is a moment, watching her. he may have found his ideal woman.
-- i don't know the musil district.
strangers make better foes than friends. will you tell me who you are altogether, if not individually?
ah -- we're back to the "authorities" you spoke of.
 was eduard one of you?
 why take me into your confidence?
i've hardly published enough for anyone to draw conclusions from.
the distance to my fellow man is for me quite a journey. as for being an outsider, it's never been a matter of choice.
what proceedings?
what of it?
and you still maintain -- what? that he was murdered.
i have no right to be, i know. my experience with real life is practically nil.
people must think the same of me -- a quiet, dependable person.
propaganda of the dead?
so that's who my foes are -- policemen and file clerks. law and order, you might say.
my only concern is the human tribunal. isn't it yours?
at the cost of others? you accuse people of murder without trial -- apparently without irony. did you go to the castle with eduard? then you have no idea what really might have happened that night at all -- even before or after he got there.
how was your evening?
what was the matter with it?
do you?
i didn't realize you'd been here that long.
you don't think it's a horrible double life from which there is probably no escape but insanity?
i'm glad for you.
stares at it -- then at the ermine mr. burgel who has once again popped up out of nowhere.
yes.
burgel gave me this -- what does it mean?
why were you given notice?
it couldn't be for that incident with burgel the other day.
you don't believe that.
it seems i knew eduard a little bit, after all.
now you've fallen into his trap. when he goes to bed at night burgel dreams of inspiring as much fear in others as they inspire in him.
that street down there -- i always used to call it the approach road for suicides. it leads straight down to the bridge and the river.
burgel doesn't like anybody!
he's jealous, yes, but that jealous? he's too cautious.
now you're saying eduard was lured there?
i've heard of it happening.
usually.
first these nameless authorities were the root of all evil, now it's insignificant burgel. if indeed there was a mistake -- and a minor one at that -- you're suggesting someone went to a lot of trouble over something so trivial as to not matter at all.
now burgel's one of the authorities?
you won't make any sense of it while you're upset.
 i don't see anything. i see a message on its way to me -- with all the right answers. only it never arrives -- it's always just on its way.
following her down.
almost caught up with her, coming down to the last door.
but that's just my point -- she was more than upset, she was livid. she slammed every door on her way downstairs -- except that one. i was just behind her and i didn't even hear that one shut -- not at all.
if someone was waiting here in the hallway to spirit her away, wouldn't they have shut the door as quietly as possible?
you told me to contact you if anything relevant came up -- gabriela is relevant. when i spoke to you before i didn't know she'd been seeing eduard.
she's missing. i went to her house and she hadn't returned there.
maybe it's true then what she said.
that the police may have allegiance to something other than truth.
-- she didn't think eduard committed suicide. any more than i do. she was convinced of it.
good question. who are my friends .  would also be of interest.
gabriela was right -- it's easier for me to understand suicide. i'm a practicing suicide.
bachelorhood is just the slow form. the bachelor doesn't sew seeds. only the moment matters. the space he occupies grows smaller and smaller -- until the only space right for him is his coffin.
naturally? -- that's not the word i would have chosen.
i haven't got the energy. i mean, i have to conserve my energy.
that would be even worse -- it would be a compromise.
no -- not even success. my writing is not for making a living -- it's for living. not for other people, it's for me.
 i'm the exile. gabriela was right about that too.
that's mad.
-- you said so yourself the firm is large and powerful. if the discrepancy really was something big, eduard's responsibility would still have to be small. no poor young clerk could find himself in such a fix.
he worked on routine claims. his visit to the castle was probably as minor a mission as he said it was.
then why haven't i been --
oh, burgel! gabriela was having an affair with eduard. they were both members of this group. if any crime's been discovered and people are paying for it, i'd look to yourselves!
it usually is.
yes. isn't it there?
he's the clerk who died last week. from the insurance department
what's the matter?
it's gone out so quickly?
-- you mean my chief has it.
excuse me, sir -- i understand you have eduard raban's file.
i wonder if i might look to see if there's an address for family -- i thought i'd like to write to them.
no -- i just -- i feel a sense of obligation. he was my friend -- if i can be of any help -- closing his affairs.
i see -- it's just the erlanger claim then.
sorry, yes -- well -- thank you, sir.
yes, sir.
orlac is an account?
all these in the last year?
i did read that. they gave him a posthumous medal.
this is the cross-reference of clerks who've worked on orlac claims?
once a file's been sent to the caste, is it possible to recall it for review?
what good are records if they're not open for public inspection?
what if i petitioned one of the directors?
where do our records go to in the castle?
i could always apply there.
looks over at the chief clerk's office -- sees him writing intently at his desk, pausing to turn on a lamp.
glances over his shoulder at them, starts to say something -- but then notices burgel, not far away, sometimes blocked by other employees, walking in the direction of the chief clerk's office.
do you mind!
you mean you've actually begun some?
my assistants! you might as well have fallen from the sky for all the thought that was spent in choosing you!
what's the matter with you?
-- you should meet my father.
he wouldn't. it's the nightmare of his life. but now he's distracted again -- noticing burgel walking away from the chief clerk's office . and burgel is carrying a parcel under his arm.
all right, you might as well go home -- go on.
following him.
pauses in some shadows. he glances up at the distance, the way burgel is going, up at --
watches -- with an expression of guilt, sadness? until a door suddenly opens at his back. a man shuffles out past him. a rather ugly woman in a dressing gown holds the door open, giving kafka a cursory look. beyond her inside, a quick glimpse of masochist yelping as he's whipped.
pretending to be one of the dead anarchists. hiding under the large body of the bearded anarchist. trying hard to emulate his lack of movement. blood from the bearded anarchist's ear drips onto kafka's face. he tries to blink it away while his other eye remains fixed on the two figures walking away to the doorway until they're through it and gone.
comes cautiously out onto the landing. he leans over the bannister, watching the two figures slowly going down the long stairs, vanishing from sight at a certain turn of the staircase on every floor and coming into view after a moment or so.
follows at a respectable distance. he pauses when he hears a wagon -- looking back at the anarchists' building to see it pulling up outside. the driver jumps to the ground.
lands at the bottom of the incline, dazed. he's still quite far away from the other end of the quarry where they are.
sees them coming. scrambles to his feet. it takes him a split second to establish his options. namely, the best route is back up the way he came. if only he can get up it again as fast.
turns another corner and finds himself at the bottom of an incredibly long flight of steps. a staired street. on and on and on. he doesn't know if he can make it.
appears over another edge. he looks over at the wagon. he sees that now the back is loaded up, and covered by a sheet of tarpaulin.
-- help! help!
so. you're the guides up there. and we thought it was burgel.
i don't want any favors from the castle -- just my rights.
for all your incompetence i was beginning to think you were at least loyal to me. you're very good ham actors.
it's a farce.
what position? being prosecuted in a case like this means having already lost it.
close only by virtue of antithesis.
my assistants. i should have known. nothing is given to me. i have to acquire everything.
it would be more accurate to say that it has pursued me.
you've dropped some money.
you work in the cemetery.
the castle cemetery.
official channels -- a lot of good they've done me. my only hope is to approach the officials personally.
the kafka men are famous for it, you know. delivering meat barefoot in the depths of winter, picking up sacks of flour with their teeth --
-- oh, yes, determination runs in the family.
i'm trying to find things out myself -- that's the whole point.
the cemetery is nearer the castle than anywhere else -- wasn't it part of the castle originally? -- i always assumed there'd be a gate or something. isn't there?
an empty tomb?
not a chance. i'm the thinnest person i know.
-- you appreciate my writing.
will you do me a favor then?
if i don't see you later -- go to my house and find my notebooks -- and destroy them. all my manuscripts -- just burn them. please.
it's my last and final one.
a true friend would do it.
i didn't --
i'm, uh, looking for the medical records section.
thank you.
no .
he stands there, a man in a suit with a briefcase in an antiseptic corridor.
 i'm new.
are you the head of medical records?
 a piece of paper .
 a piece of paper .
it only amuses me in that it gives me an insight into the ludicrous bungling that in some circumstances may decide the life of a human being.
"accident and compensation" -- no one can accuse the firm of not supplying exactly what it promises.
i had the grandest of financial plots in mind, the most malevolent of personal motives, conspiracy theories extending to every .  authority i could see. and i find you. a body snatcher.
and i suppose dr. murnau didn't die in a cave-in. you killed him to free the position of orlac medical officer for your own ends.
lying in the gutter where they belong.
the fact that it's live bodies you practice your trade on doesn't seem to matter to you.
what have you done with gabriela rossmann?
throws ekman aside and runs away.
running again, through the maze of corridors. he hears running footsteps behind him -- looks back to see ekman running after him. ekman catches up -- but runs past kafka in his panic to escape -- out onto a metal walkway around a central area of offices.
walks slowly, tiredly. he looks up at the sky, but the sky is a silver shield against anyone who looks for help from it.
gabriela! -- you did get away.
-- i've just come from the castle. it's over.
gabriela ?
i -- i found your jailer.
they're dead now. we can get help.
there's a new potion -- he said it was perfected.
i told you, they're dead. it's finished.
no -- not this time.
-- listen to me --
-- gabriela!