Chapter 5

The whip-man

One evening, a few days later, K. was walking along one of the
corridors that separated his office from the main stairway - he was
nearly the last one to leave for home that evening, there remained only
a couple of workers in the light of a single bulb in the dispatch
department - when he heard a sigh from behind a door which he had
himself never opened but which he had always thought just led into a
junk room. He stood in amazement and listened again to establish
whether he might not be mistaken. For a while there was silence, but
then came some more sighs. His first thought was to fetch one of the
servitors, it might well have been worth having a witness present, but
then he was taken by an uncontrollable curiosity that make him simply
yank the door open. It was, as he had thought, a junk room. Old,
unusable forms, empty stone ink-bottles lay scattered behind the
entrance. But in the cupboard-like room itself stood three men,
crouching under the low ceiling. A candle fixed on a shelf gave them
light. "What are you doing here?" asked K. quietly, but crossly and
without thinking. One of the men was clearly in charge, and attracted
attention by being dressed in a kind of dark leather costume which left
his neck and chest and his arms exposed. He did not answer. But the
other two called out, "Mr. K.! We're to be beaten because you made a
complaint about us to the examining judge." And now, K. finally
realised that it was actually the two policemen, Franz and Willem, and
that the third man held a cane in his hand with which to beat them.
"Well," said K., staring at them, "I didn't make any complaint, I only
said what took place in my home. And your behaviour was not entirely
unobjectionable, after all." "Mr. K.," said Willem, while Franz clearly
tried to shelter behind him as protection from the third man, "if you
knew how badly we get paid you wouldn't think so badly of us. I've got
a family to feed, and Franz here wanted to get married, you just have to
get more money where you can, you can't do it just by working hard, not
however hard you try. I was sorely tempted by your fine clothes,
policemen aren't allowed to do that sort of thing, course they aren't,
and it wasn't right of us, but it's tradition that the clothes go to the
officers, that's how it's always been, believe me; and it's
understandable too, isn't it, what can things like that mean for anyone
unlucky enough to be arrested? But if he starts talking about it openly
then the punishment has to follow." "I didn't know about any of this
that you've been telling me, and I made no sort of request that you be
punished, I was simply acting on principle." "Franz,"