Amalia’s Secret

him in his work. Later on we pieced it all together for ourselves; evidently Sortini had intended to go straight to the Castle that evening, but on Amalia’s account had stayed in the village instead, and in the morning, being very angry because even overnight he hadn’t succeeded in forgetting her, had written the letter. One couldn’t but be furious on first reading a letter like that, even the most cold-blooded person might have been, but though with anybody else fear at its threatening tone would soon have got the upper hand, Amalia only felt anger, fear she doesn’t know, neither for herself nor for others. And while I crept into bed again repeating to myself the closing sentence, which broke off in the middle, ‘See that you come at once, or else⁠—!’ Amalia remained on the window-seat looking out, as if she was expecting further messengers and were prepared to treat them all as she had done the first.” “So that’s what the officials are like,” said K. reluctantly, “that’s the kind of type one finds among them. What did your father do? I hope he protested energetically in the proper quarter, if he didn’t prefer a shorter and quicker way of doing it at the Herrenhof. The worst thing about the story isn’t the insult to Amalia, that could easily have been made good, I don’t know why you lay such exaggerated stress upon it; why should such a letter from Sortini shame Amalia forever?⁠—which is what one would gather from your story, but that’s a sheer impossibility, it would have been easy to make up for it to Amalia, and in a few days the whole thing might have blown over, it was himself that Sortini shamed, and not Amalia. It’s Sortini that horrifies me, the possibility of such an abuse of power. The very thing that failed this one time because it came naked and undisguised and found an effective opponent in Amalia, might very well succeed completely on a thousand other occasions in circumstances just a little less favourable, and might defy detection even by its victim.” “Hush,” said Olga, “Amalia’s looking this way.” Amalia had finished giving food to her parents and was now busy taking off her mother’s clothes. She had just undone the skirt, hung her mother’s arms round her neck, lifted her a little, while she drew the skirt off, and now