everywhere. You’re still Klamm’s sweetheart, and not my wife yet by a long chalk. Sometimes that makes me quite dejected, I feel then as if I had lost everything, I feel as if I had only newly come to the village, yet not full of hope, as I actually came, but with the knowledge that only disappointments await me, and that I will have to swallow them down one after another to the very dregs. But that is only sometimes,” K. added smiling, when he saw Frieda’s dejection at hearing his words, “and at bottom it merely proves one good thing, that is, how much you mean to me. And if you order me now to choose between you and the assistants, that’s enough to decide the assistants’ fate. What an idea, to choose between you and the assistants! But now I want to be rid of them finally, in word and thought as well. Besides who knows whether the weakness that has come over us both mayn’t be due to the fact that we haven’t had breakfast yet?” “That’s possible,” said Frieda smiling wearily and going about her work. K. too grasped the broom again.
After a while there was a soft rap at the door. “Barnabas!” cried K. , throwing down the broom, and with a few steps he was at the door. Frieda stared at him, more terrified at the name than anything else. With his trembling hands K. could not turn the old lock immediately. “I’ll open in a minute,” he kept on repeating, instead of asking who was actually there. And then he had to face the fact that through the wide-open door came in, not Barnabas, but the little boy who had tried to speak to him before. But K. had no wish to be reminded of him. “What do you want here?” he asked, “the classes are being taught next door.” “I’ve come from there,” replied the boy looking up at K. quietly with his great brown eyes, and standing at attention, with his arms by his side. “What do you want then? Out with it!” said K. bending a little forward, for the boy spoke in a low voice. “Can I help you?” asked the boy. “He wants to help us,” said K. to Frieda, and then to the boy: “What’s your name?” “Hans Brunswick,” replied the boy, “fourth standard, son of Otto Brunswick, master cobbler in Madeleinegasse.” “I see, your name is Brunswick,” said K. now in a kinder tone. It came out that Hans had