Then he was so startled by a shout to him from the other room that he
struck his teeth against the glass. "The supervisor wants to see you!" a
voice said. It was only the shout that startled him, this curt, abrupt,
military shout, that he would not have expected from the policeman
called Franz. In itself, he found the order very welcome. "At last!" he
called back, locked the cupboard and, without delay, hurried into the
next room. The two policemen were standing there and chased him back
into his bedroom as if that were a matter of course. "What d'you think
you're doing?" they cried. "Think you're going to see the supervisor
dressed in just your shirt, do you? He'd see to it you got a right
thumping, and us and all!" "Let go of me for God's sake!" called K., who
had already been pushed back as far as his wardrobe, "if you accost me
when I'm still in bed you can't expect to find me in my evening dress."
"That won't help you," said the policemen, who always became very quiet,
almost sad, when K. began to shout, and in that way confused him or, to
some extent, brought him to his senses. "Ridiculous formalities!" he
grumbled, as he lifted his coat from the chair and kept it in both his
hands for a little while, as if holding it out for the policemen's
inspection. They shook their heads. "It's got to be a black coat,"
they said. At that, K. threw the coat to the floor and said--without
knowing even himself what he meant by it--"Well it's not going to be the
main trial, after all." The policemen laughed, but continued to insist,
"It's got to be a black coat." "Well that's alright by me if it makes
things go any faster," said K. He opened the wardrobe himself, spent a
long time searching through all the clothes, and chose his best black
suit which had a short jacket that had greatly surprised those who knew
him, then he also pulled out a fresh shirt and began, carefully, to get
dressed. He secretly told himself that he had succeeded in speeding
things up by letting the policemen forget to make him have a bath. He
watched them to see if they might remember after all, but of course it
never occurred to them, although Willem did not forget to send Franz up
to the supervisor with the message saying that K. was getting dressed.
Once he was properly dressed, K. had to pass by Willem as he went
through the next room into the one beyond, the door of which was already
wide open. K. knew very well that this room had recently been let to a
typist called 'Miss Bürstner'. She was in the habit of going out to work
very early and coming back home very late, and K. had never exchanged
more than a few words of greeting with her. Now, her bedside table had
been pulled into the middle of the room to be used as a desk for these
proceedings, and the supervisor sat behind it. He had his legs crossed,
and had thrown one arm over the backrest of the chair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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