already, more than that can’t be said with certainty. But do you know yet the full importance of the protocol, and of Herr Momus, and of the village register? Do you know what it means to be examined by Herr Momus? Perhaps—to all appearances at least—he doesn’t know it himself. He sits quietly there and does his duty, for the sake of order, as he says. But consider that Klamm appointed him, that he acts in Klamm’s name, that what he does, even if it never reaches Klamm, has yet Klamm’s assent in advance. And how can anything have Klamm’s assent that isn’t filled by his spirit? Far be it from me to offer Herr Momus crude flattery—besides he would absolutely forbid it himself—but I’m speaking of him not as an independent person, but as he is when he has Klamm’s assent, as at present; then he’s an instrument in the hand of Klamm, and woe to anybody who doesn’t obey him.”
The landlady’s threats did not daunt K. ; of the hopes with which she tried to catch him he was weary. Klamm was far away. Once the landlady had compared Klamm to an eagle, and that had seemed absurd in K. ’s eyes, but it did not seem absurd now; he thought of Klamm’s remoteness, of his impregnable dwelling, of his silence, broken perhaps only by cries such as K. had never yet heard, of his downward-pressing gaze, which could never be proved or disproved, of his wheelings which could never be disturbed by anything that K. did down below, which far above he followed at the behest of incomprehensible laws and which only for instants were visible—all these things Klamm and the eagle had in common. But assuredly these had nothing to do with the protocol, over which just now Momus was crumbling a roll dusted with salt, which he was eating with beer to help it out, in the process all the papers becoming covered with salt and carroway seeds.
“Good night,” said K. “I’ve an objection to any kind of examination,” and now he went at last to the door. “He’s going after all,” said Momus almost anxiously to the landlady. “He won’t dare,” said she; K. heard nothing more, he was already in the hall. It was cold and a strong wind