With his lips tightly compressed K. had listened intently, the wood he was sitting on had rolled asunder though he had not noticed it, he had almost slid on to the floor, and now at last he got up, sat down on the dais, took Frieda’s hand, which she feebly tried to pull away, and said: “In what you’ve said I haven’t always been able to distinguish the landlady’s sentiments from your own.” “They’re the landlady’s sentiments purely,” said Frieda, “I heard her out because I respected her, but it was the first time in my life that I completely and wholly refused to accept her opinion. All that she said seemed to me so pitiful, so far from any understanding of how things stood between us. There seemed actually to be more truth to me in the direct opposite of what she said. I thought of that sad morning after our first night together. You kneeling beside me with a look as if everything were lost. And how it really seemed then that in spite of all I could do, I was not helping you but hindering you. It was through me that the landlady had become your enemy, a powerful enemy, whom even now you still undervalue; it was for my sake that you had to take thought, that you had to fight for your post, that you were at a disadvantage before the Superintendent, that you had to humble yourself before the teacher and were delivered over to the assistants, but worst of all for my sake you had perhaps lost your chance with Klamm. That you still went on trying to reach Klamm was only a kind of feeble endeavour to propitiate him in some way. And I told myself that the landlady, who certainly knew far better that I, was only trying to shield me by her suggestions from bitter self-reproach. A well-meant but superfluous attempt. My love for you had helped me through everything, and would certainly help you on too, in the long run, if not here in the village, then somewhere else; it had already given a proof of its power, it had rescued you from Barnabas’ family.” “That was your opinion, then, at the time,” said K. , “and has it changed since?” “I don’t know,” replied Frieda, glancing down at K. ’s hand which still held hers, “perhaps nothing has changed; when you’re so close to me and question me so calmly, then I think that nothing has changed. But in reality”⁠—she drew