been so indignant at seeing the bloody weals which the lady teacher had raised on K. ’s hand, that he had resolved at once to stand by K. He had boldly slipped away just now from the classroom next door at the risk of severe punishment, somewhat as a deserter goes over to the enemy. It may indeed have been chiefly some such boyish fancy that had impelled him. The seriousness which he evinced in everything he did seemed to indicate it. Shyness held him back at the beginning, but he soon got used to K. and Frieda, and when he was given a cup of good hot coffee he became lively and confidential and began to question them eagerly and insistently, as if he wanted to know the gist of the matter as quickly as possible, to enable him to come to an independent decision about what they should do. There was something imperious in his character, but it was so mingled with childish innocence that they submitted to it without resistance, half-smilingly, half in earnest. In any case he demanded all their attention for himself, work completely stopped, the breakfast lingered on unconscionably. Although Hans was sitting at one of the scholars’ desks and K. in a chair on the dais with Frieda beside him, it looked as if Hans were the teacher, and as if he were examining them and passing judgment on their answers. A faint smile round his soft mouth seemed to indicate that he knew quite well that all this was only a game, but that made him only the more serious in conducting it; perhaps too it was not really a smile but the happiness of childhood that played round his lips. Strangely enough he only admitted quite late in the conversation that he had known K. ever since his visit to Lasemann’s. K. was delighted. “You were playing at the lady’s feet?” asked K. “Yes,” replied Hans, “that was my mother.” And now he had to tell about his mother, but he did so hesitatingly and only after being repeatedly asked; and it was clear now that he was only a child, out of whose mouth, it is true⁠—especially in his questions⁠—sometimes the voice of an energetic, farseeing man seemed to speak; but then all at once, without transition, he was only a schoolboy again who did not understand many of the questions, misconstrued others, and in childish