that his visits, which were ostensibly concerned with some message or other from Barnabas, were really intended for Olga. But now that Amalia knew all about it he need not be so strict with himself and could come oftener to see them. That was all she wanted to say. K. shook his head, and reminded her of his betrothal. Amalia seemed to set little store by this betrothal, the immediate impression she received from K. , who was after all unaccompanied, was in her opinion decisive, she only asked when K. had made the girl’s acquaintance, for he had been but a few days in the village. K. told her about his night at the Herrenhof, whereupon Amalia merely said briefly that she had been very much against his being taken to the Herrenhof.
She appealed for confirmation to Olga, who had just come in with an armful of wood, fresh and glowing from the frosty air, strong and vivid, as if transformed by the change from her usual aimless standing about inside. She threw down the wood, greeted K. frankly, and asked at once for Frieda. K. exchanged a look with Amalia, who seemed however not at all disconcerted. A little relieved, K. spoke of Frieda more freely than he would otherwise have done, described the difficult circumstances in which she was managing to keep house in a kind of way in the school, and in the haste of his narrative—for he wanted to go home at once—so far forgot himself when bidding them goodbye as to invite the sisters to come and pay him a visit. He began to stammer in confusion, however, when Amalia, giving him no time to say another word, interposed with an acceptance of the invitation; then Olga was compelled to associate herself with it. But K. , still harassed by the feeling that he ought to go at once, and becoming uneasy under Amalia’s gaze, did not hesitate any longer to confess that the invitation had been quite unpremeditated and had sprung merely from a personal impulse, but that unfortunately he could not confirm it since there was a great hostility, to him quite incomprehensible, between Frieda and their family. “It’s not hostility,” said Amalia, getting up from her couch and flinging the blanket behind her, “it’s nothing so big as that, it’s only a parrot repetition of what she