XIV

Amalia screwed up her mouth silently, gave him a nod, obviously in farewell, and lay down again. From her recumbent position she let her eyes rest on him as if she were astonished to see him still there. Her gaze was cold, clear and steady as usual, it was never levelled exactly on the object she regarded but in some disturbing way always a little past it, hardly perceptibly, but yet unquestionably past it, not from weakness, apparently, nor from embarrassment, nor from duplicity, but from a persistent and dominating desire for isolation, which she herself perhaps only became conscious of in this way. K. thought he could remember being baffled on the very first evening by that look, probably even the whole hatefulness of the impression so quickly made on him by this family was traceable to that look, which in itself was not hateful but proud and upright in its reserve. “You are always so sad, Amalia,” said K. , “is anything troubling you? Can’t you say what it is? I have never seen a country girl at all like you. It never struck me before. Do you really belong to this village? Were you born here?” Amalia nodded, as if K. had only put the last of those questions, and then said: “So you’ll wait for Olga?” “I don’t know why you keep on asking me that,” said K. “I can’t stay any longer because my fiancée’s waiting for me at home.” Amalia propped herself on one elbow; she had not heard of the engagement. K. gave Frieda’s name. Amalia did not know it. She asked if Olga knew of their betrothal. K. fancied she did, for she had seen him with Frieda, and news like that was quick to fly round in a village. Amalia assured him, however, that Olga knew nothing about it, and that it would make her very unhappy, for she seemed to be in love with K. She had not directly said so, for she was very reserved, but love betrayed itself involuntarily. K. was convinced that Amalia was mistaken. Amalia smiled, and this smile of hers, although sad, lit up her gloomy face, made her silence eloquent, her strangeness intimate, and unlocked a mystery jealously guarded hitherto, a mystery which could indeed be concealed again, but never so completely. Amalia said that she was certainly not mistaken, she would even go further and affirm that K. too had an inclination for Olga, and