“Kafka’s Castle” in brief summary
The action takes place in Austria-Hungary, before the November Revolution of 1918
K., a young man of about thirty years, arrives in the Village on a late winter night. He settles down for the night at an inn, in a common room among the peasants, noticing that the owner is extremely embarrassed by the arrival of an unfamiliar guest. The son of the caretaker of the Castle, Schwartzer, wakes up, and politely explains that without the permission of the earl-owner of the Castle and the Village, no one here is allowed to live or spend the night. K. at first perplexes and does not take this statement seriously, but seeing that he is going to be kicked out in the middle of the night, with irritation explains that he came here on the call of the count, to work as a surveyor. Soon his assistants with instruments should drive up. Schwartzer calls the Central Chancellery of the Castle and receives confirmation of the words of K. The young man notes for himself that they work in the Castle,
In the morning, K. goes to the Castle, located on the mountain. The road is long, the main street does not lead, but only approaches the Castle, and then somewhere turns off.
K. returns to the inn, where he is waiting for two “assistant”, unfamiliar to him young guys. They call themselves his “old” assistants, although they acknowledge that they do not know the land surveying work. K. clearly, they are attached to it by the Castle for observation. K. wants to go with them on a sleigh to the Castle, but his assistants say that without permission, there is no access to the Castle for strangers. Then K. tells his assistants to call the Castle and seek permission. Assistants call and instantly receive a negative response. K. himself lifts the receiver and for a long time hears incomprehensible sounds and
At this moment the messenger Barnabas, a young boy with a bright open face, different from the faces of local peasants with their “as if deliberately warped faces,” K. transmits a letter from the Castle. In a letter signed by the chief of the chancellery, it is reported that K. was employed by the Castle’s owner, and his immediate superior is the village elder. K. decides to work in the Village, away from officials, hoping to become “his” among the peasants and thus at least something to achieve from the Castle. Between the lines he reads out in the letter a certain threat, a challenge to the fight, if K. agrees to the role of a simple worker in the Village. K. understands that everyone around him already knows about his arrival, peeks and looks at him.
Through Barnabas and his older sister, Olga K. goes to a hotel intended for gentlemen from the Castle who come to the Village on business. To spend the night in a hotel to strangers is forbidden, a place for K, only in the buffet. This time, an important official Klamm sleeps here, whose name is known to all the inhabitants of the Village, although few can boast that he saw it with their own eyes,
The barmaid Frida, who serves beer to the masters and peasants, is an important person in the hotel. This is a plain-looking girl with sad eyes and a “pitiful calf.” K. is struck by her look, full of special superiority, capable of solving many complex issues. Her view persuades K. that such questions concerning him personally exist.
Frieda suggests K. to look at Klamm, located in the adjacent room with a cupboard, through a secret eye. K. sees a fat, clumsy gentleman with cheeks hanging under the weight of years. Frida is the mistress of this influential official, therefore she herself has great influence in the Village. As a barmaid, she made her way straight from the cattle, and K. admires her willpower. He offers Frida to leave Clamma and become his mistress. Frida agrees, and K. spends the night under the counter of the buffet in her arms. When the “imperiously indifferent” call of Clamma is heard from the wall in the morning, Frieda twice with a challenge answers him that she is busy with a land surveyor.
The next night K. spent with Frida in a little room in an inn, almost in the same bed with assistants, from whom he could not get rid of. Now K. wants to quickly marry Frida, but before, through it, intends to talk with Clam. Frida, and then the hostess of Gardner’s inn, convince him that it’s impossible that Klamm will not, can not even talk to K., because Mr. Clam is a man from the Castle, and K. is not from the Castle and not from the Village, he is ” nothing “, alien and superfluous. The hostess regrets that Frida “left the eagle” and “contacted the blind mole”.
Gardena admits to K. that more than twenty years ago Klamm called her to him three times, the fourth time did not follow. She keeps the most expensive relics of the cap and the handkerchief given to her by Clam, and the photo of the courier through which the first time was called. Gardena married with the knowledge of Klamm and for many years at night talked to her husband only about Clamma. K. has never seen such an intertwining of official and personal life, as here.
From the elders K. learns that the order to prepare for the arrival of the surveyor was received to them many years ago. The headman immediately sent an answer to the Chancellery’s office that the surveyor was not needed by anyone in the Village. Apparently, this answer fell into the wrong department, there was an error, which could not be recognized, because the possibility of errors in the office is excluded altogether, However, the supervisory authorities later acknowledged a mistake, and one official fell ill. Shortly before the arrival of K. history finally came to a happy end, that is – to abandon the surveyor. The unexpected appearance of K. now nullifies all long-term work. In the house of the elders and in the barns the correspondence of the Castle is kept. The elder’s wife and K.’s assistants shake out all the folders from the cabinets, but they can not find the necessary order, and it is impossible to fold the folders into place.
Under the pressure of Frida K. accepts the offer of the elders to take the place of the school watchman, although from the teacher he learns that the watchman needs the village no more than a surveyor. K. and his future wife have nowhere to live, Frida tries to create a semblance of family comfort in one of the school classes.
K. comes to the hotel to find Klamma there. In the buffet he gets acquainted with the successor of Frida, the blooming maid of Pepi, and finds out from her where Klamm is. K. long wait for an official in the yard in the cold, but Klamm still eludes. His secretary requires K. to undergo the procedure of “interrogation”, to answer a number of questions for drawing up a protocol to be attached to the office. Learning that Klamm himself does not read the protocols for lack of time, K. runs away.
On the way he meets Barnabas with a letter from Klamm, in which he approves the dredging works carried out by K. with his knowledge, K. considers this to be a misunderstanding that Barnabas should explain to Clamma. But Barnabas is sure that Klamm will not listen to him.
K. with Frida and helpers sleep in the gymnasium of the school. In the morning, the teacher Giza finds them in bed and makes a scandal, dropping the remains of dinner from the table with the ruler in front of the happy children. Giza has a fan of the Castle – Schwarzer, but she loves only cats, and admirer suffers.
K. remarks that for four days of living together with his bride there is a strange change. Closer to Clamma gave her “insane charm”, and now she “withers” in his hands. Frida suffers, seeing that K. dreams only of meeting with Klamm. She admits that K. will easily give it to Clamma, if he so requests. In addition, she is jealous of him to Olga, Barnaby’s sister.
Olga, an intelligent and selfless girl, tells K. the sad story of their family. Three years ago, on one of the village holidays, the officer Sortini could not take his eyes off the younger sister, Amalia. In the morning the courier delivered to Amalia a letter composed in “vile terms”, demanding to come to the hotel to Sortini. The indignant girl broke the letter and threw shreds in the face of the messenger, the official. She did not go to the official, and not one official in the Village was repelled. Having committed such offenses, Amalia brought a curse on her family, from which all the inhabitants recoiled. Father, the best cobbler in the village, was left without orders, lost his earnings. He ran for officials for a long time, waiting for them at the gate of the Castle, prayed for forgiveness, but nobody wanted to hear him. It was superfluous to punish the family, the atmosphere of alienation around it did its job.
Olga understood that people were afraid of the Castle, they waited. If the family had hushed up the whole story, went to the villagers and announced that everything was settled thanks to their connections, the Village would accept it. And all family members suffered and stayed at home, as a result they were excluded from all circles of society. They endure only Barnabas, as the most “innocent”. For the family, the main thing is that it should be officially registered in the service in the Castle, but even this can not be known exactly. Perhaps the decision has not been made yet, in the village there is a proverb: “Administrative decisions are timid, like young girls.” Barnabas has access to the offices, but they are part of the other offices, then there are barriers, and behind them again the offices. Barriers are around, as are officials. Barnabas and his mouth dare not open, standing in the chancery. He no longer believes, that he was really accepted to serve in the Castle, and does not show zeal in the transmission of letters from the Castle, doing so with a delay. Olga is aware of the dependence of the family on the Castle, on the service of Barnabas, and to get at least some information, she sleeps with servants of officials in the stable.
Exhausted by the uncertainty in K., tired of the unsettled life, Frida decides to return to the buffet, She takes with her Jeremiah, one of K.’s assistants, whom he knows from childhood, hoping to create a family hearth with him.
Secretary Clamma Erlanger wants to take K. at night in her hotel room. People are already waiting in the corridor, including the familiar groom Gersteker. Everybody is happy with the night call, they realize that Erlanger sacrifices his nightly sleep on his own free will, out of a sense of duty, because his time schedule for trips to the Village is not. So many officials do, taking a reception either in the buffet, or in the room, whenever possible for a meal, or even in bed.
In the corridor, K. accidentally encounters Frida and tries again to conquer it, not wanting to give “unappetizing” to Jeremiah. But Frida reproaches him for treason with the girls from the “disgraced family” and in indifference and runs away to the sick Jeremiah.
After the meeting with Frida K. can not find Erlanger’s room and goes to the nearest one in the hope of a short sleep. There is another officer slumbering there, Burgel, who is glad to listen. Inviting them to sit down, K. falls on his bed and falls asleep to the official’s reasoning about the “continuity of the official procedure.” Soon Erlanger demands it. Standing in the doorway and intending to leave, the secretary says that the Clamma, accustomed to getting beer from the hands of Frida, the appearance of a new maid Pepi hinders his responsible work. This is a habit violation, and the slightest interference in the work should be eliminated. K. should ensure the immediate return of Frieda to the buffet. If he justifies the trust in this “little businessman”, it can prove useful to his career.
Realizing the total uselessness of all his efforts, K. stands in the corridor and watches the animation, which began at five o’clock in the morning. The noisy voices of officials outside the door remind him of “awakening in the house”. The ministers dispatch a trolley with documents and distribute them along the list to their officials in the rooms. If the door does not open, the documents are folded on the floor. Some officials “fend off” from documents, others, on the contrary, “pretend”, snatch out, are nervous.
The owner of the hotel drives K., who has no right to walk around here, “like a beast in grazing.” He explains that the goal of the night calls is to listen to the visitor faster, which is unbearable to the officials of the day. Hearing that K. visited the reception of two secretaries from the castle, the owner allows him to spend the night in a beer hall.
Replacing Frieda red-cheeked Pepi laments that her happiness was so short. Klamm did not show up, and yet she would be ready to take it to her cupboard on her own hands.
K. thanks the hostess of the hotel for overnight. She starts talking to him about her dresses, remembering his casual remark, which touched her. K. shows a certain interest in the appearance of the hostess, her clothes, reveals the taste and knowledge of fashion. Arrogant, but interested the hostess admits that he can become for her an indispensable adviser. Let him wait for her to call when new clothes arrive.
The groom Gersteker offers K. work in the stable. K. guess that Gersteker with his help hopes to achieve something from Erlanger. Gersteker does not deny this and leads K. to his house for the night. Gersteker’s mother, reading a book in the light of a candle, gives K. a trembling hand and sits next to her.
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