College was an entirely different affair. His personal worries multiplied during the transition period. Lacking funds, he sought a scholarship. The only one tenable from his district to the state university was in ceramic engineering, and after looking up “ceramic” in the dictionary, he applied and was selected for admission. The work proved to have no particular interest for him, and his social life was even less satisfying. He was met at the college town by the members of a church group who lived together in a dormitory (some friend had written them), and he, though never devout, stopped with them during the first term. This marked him as a non-fraternity man. He waited tables in a fraternity house, and as bad luck would have it, a former teacher wrote highly recommending him to the consideration of this particular fraternity. When a committee broke the news to him, he was utterly confused and made such a lamentable impression that it was not possible to extend him the bid. One of his odd jobs was beating carpets at a sorority house, and this turned out to be the sorority that had pledged the girl with whom he had been (and still felt) in love. For relaxation K was forced into the domain of the kitchen maids. A servant girl struck up a friendship with him, and he had sexual relations with her. He had tried intercourse once during high-school days, and had a premature emission, a practice which often bothered him later, providing a permanent source of humiliation. Transferring to another college, he began his work in forestry, in which he had acquired some interest during hikes with a friendly high-school teacher. Handicapped by lack of money and worried by a mounting sense of social inadequacy, his life was no more successful than before. In high-school days he envied a talkative lad who astonished the company by glibly recounting anecdotes about Napoleon. One of his relatives whom he had known as a boy left an ideal of social charm which never was attained. K’s inner uncertainties finally reached a point which led him to resolve that he ought to discover once for all whether forestry would prove to be a proper vocation. He left college and joined the government service. This was to be the great test of his ability to master himself.