turn K. expected the road to double back to the Castle, and only because of this expectation did he go on; he was flatly unwilling, tired as he was, to leave the street, and he was also amazed at the length of the village, which seemed to have no end, again and again the same little houses, and frost-bound windowpanes and snow and the entire absence of human beings—but at last he tore himself away from the obsession of the street and escaped into a small side-lane, where the snow was still deeper and the exertion of lifting one’s feet clear was fatiguing; he broke into a sweat, suddenly came to a stop, and could not go on.
Well, he was not on a desert island, there were cottages to right and left of him. He made a snowball and threw it at a window. The door opened immediately—the first door that had opened during the whole length of the village—and there appeared an old peasant in a brown fur jacket, with his head cocked to one side, a frail and kindly figure. “May I come into your house for a little?” asked K. , “I’m very tired.” He did not hear the old man’s reply, but thankfully observed that a plank was pushed out towards him to rescue him from the snow, and in a few steps he was in the kitchen.