“Perhaps I wasn’t at the keyhole just then,” said the landlady presently, to back up the gentleman, but then she felt compelled to give Klamm his due as well, and added: “All the same, I can’t believe in this terrible sensitiveness of Klamm. We are anxious about him and try to guard him, and so go on to infer that he’s terribly sensitive. That’s as it should be and it’s certainly Klamm’s will. But how it is in reality we don’t know. Certainly, Klamm will never speak to anybody that he doesn’t want to speak to, no matter how much trouble this anybody may take, and no matter how insufferably forward he may be; but that fact alone, that Klamm will never speak to him, never allow him to come into his presence, is enough in itself: why after all should it follow that he isn’t able to endure seeing this anybody? At any rate, it can’t be proved, seeing that it will never come to the test.” The gentleman nodded eagerly. “That is essentially my opinion too, of course,” he said, “if I expressed myself a little differently, it was to make myself comprehensible to the Land Surveyor. All the same it’s a fact that when Klamm stepped out of the doorway he looked round him several times.” “Perhaps he was looking for me,” said K. “Possibly,” said the gentleman, “I hadn’t thought of that.” They all laughed, Pepi, who hardly understood anything that was being said, loudest of all.
“Seeing we’re all so happy here now,” the gentleman went on, “I want to beg you very seriously, Land Surveyor, to enable me to complete my papers by answering a few questions.” “There’s a great deal of writing there,” said K. glancing at the papers from where he was standing. “Yes, a wretched bore,” said the gentleman laughing again, “but perhaps you don’t know yet who I am. I’m Momus, the village secretary.” At these words seriousness descended on the room; although the landlady and Pepi knew quite well who the gentleman was, yet they seemed staggered by the utterance of his name and rank. And even the gentleman himself, as if he had said more than his judgment sanctioned, and as if he were resolved to escape at least from any aftereffects of the solemn import implicit in his own words, buried himself in his papers and began to