Chapter 1

Arrest - Conversation with Mrs. Grubach - Then Miss Bürstner

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had
done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at
eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach's
cook - Mrs. Grubach was his landlady - but today she didn't come. That
had never happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his
pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with
an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and
disconcerted, rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door
and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He
was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting,
with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of
which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it
very clear what they were actually for. "Who are you?" asked K.,
sitting half upright in his bed. The man, however, ignored the question
as if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, "You
rang?" "Anna should have brought me my breakfast," said K. He tried to
work out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through
observation and by thinking about it, but the man didn't stay still to
be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it
slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately
behind it, "He wants Anna to bring him his breakfast." There was a
little laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the
sound of it whether there were several people laughing. The strange man
could not have learned anything from it that he hadn't known already,
but now he said to K., as if making his report "It is not possible."
"It would be the first time that's happened," said K., as he jumped out
of bed and quickly pulled on his trousers. "I want to see who that is
in the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be
disturbed in this way." It immediately occurred to him that he needn't
have said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have
acknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didn't seem important
to him at the time. That, at least, is how the stranger took it, as he
said, "Don't you think you'd better stay where you are?" "I want
neither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until you've introduced
yourself." "I meant it for your own good," said the stranger and opened
the door, this time without being asked. The next room, which K.
entered more slowly than he had intended, looked at first glance exactly
the same as it had the previous