the celebration. Only when the Bridge Inn landlady came to see us in the morning⁠—” “The Bridge Inn landlady?” asked K. “Yes,” said Olga, “she was a great friend of ours, well, she came and had to admit that Amalia was the finer, so to console me she lent me her own necklace of Bohemian garnets. When we were ready to go and Amalia was standing beside me and we were all admiring her, my father said: ‘Today, mark my words, Amalia will find a husband’; then, I don’t know why, I took my necklace, my great pride, and hung it round Amalia’s neck, and wasn’t jealous any longer. I bowed before her triumph and I felt that everyone must bow before her, perhaps what amazed us so much was the difference in her appearance, for she wasn’t really beautiful, but her sombre glance, and it has kept the same quality since that day, was high over our heads and involuntarily one had almost literally to bow before her. Everybody remarked on it, even Lasemann and his wife who came to fetch us.” “Lasemann?” asked K. “Yes, Lasemann,” said Olga, “we were in high esteem, and the celebration couldn’t well have begun without us, for my father was the third in command of the Fire Brigade.” “Was your father still so active?” asked K. “Father?” returned Olga, as if she did not quite comprehend, “three years ago he was still relatively a young man, for instance when a fire broke out at the Herrenhof he carried an official, Galater, who is a heavy man, out of the house on his back at a run. I was there myself, there was no real danger, it was only some dry wood near a stove which had begun to smoke, but Galater was terrified and cried for help out of the window, and the Fire Brigade turned out, and father had to carry him out although the fire was already extinguished. Of course Galater finds it difficult to move and has to be careful in circumstances like that. I’m telling you this only on father’s account; not much more than three years have passed since then, and look at him now.” Only then did K. become aware that Amalia was again in the room, but she was a long way off at the table where her parents sat, she was feeding her mother who could not move her rheumaticky arms, and admonishing her father meanwhile to wait in patience for a little, it would soon be his