After a few minutes of silent work Frieda asked K. why he submitted so humbly to the teacher now. The question was asked in a sympathetic, anxious tone, but K. , who was thinking how little Frieda had succeeded in keeping her original promise to shield him from the teacher’s orders and insults, merely replied shortly that since he was the janitor he must fulfil the janitor’s duties. Then there was silence again until K. , reminded vividly by this short exchange of words that Frieda had been for a long time lost in anxious thought⁠—and particularly through almost the whole conversation with Hans⁠—asked her bluntly while he carried in the firewood what had been troubling her. Slowly turning her eyes upon him she replied that it was nothing definite, she had only been thinking of the landlady and the truth of much of what she said. Only when K. pressed her did she reply more consecutively after hesitating several times, but without looking up from her work⁠—not that she was thinking of it, for it was making no progress, but simply so that she might not be compelled to look at K. And now she told him that during his talk with Hans she had listened quietly at first, that then she had been startled by certain words of his, then had begun to grasp the meaning of them more clearly, and that ever since she had not been able to cease reading into his words a confirmation of a warning which the landlady had once given her, and which she had always refused to believe. Exasperated by all this circumlocution, and more irritated than touched by Frieda’s tearful complaining voice⁠—but annoyed above all because the landlady was coming into his affairs again, though only as a recollection, for in person she had had little success up till now⁠— K. flung the wood he was carrying in his arms on to the floor, sat down on it, and in tones which were now serious demanded the whole truth. “More than once,” began Frieda, “yes, since the beginning, the landlady has tried to make me doubt you, she didn’t hold that you were lying, on the contrary she said that you were childishly open, but your character was so different from ours, she said, that, even when you spoke frankly, it was bound to be difficult for us to believe you; and if we did not listen to good advice