Amalia’s Secret

leapt over the shaft when he saw her; although his legs were stiff from sitting at desks he leapt right over the shaft. But Amalia’s an exception, you will say. Yes, that she is, that she has proved in refusing to go to Sortini, that’s exception enough, but if in addition she weren’t in love with Sortini, she would be too exceptional for plain human understanding. On that afternoon, I grant you, we were smitten with blindness, but the fact that in spite of our mental confusion we thought we noticed signs of Amalia’s being in love, showed at least some remnants of sense. But when all that’s taken into account, what difference is left between Frieda and Amalia? One thing only, that Frieda did what Amalia refused to do.” “Maybe,” said K. , “but for me the main difference is that I’m engaged to Frieda, and only interested in Amalia because she’s a sister of Barnabas’s, the Castle messenger, and because her destiny may be bound up with his duties. If she had suffered such a crying injustice at the hands of an official as your tale seemed to infer at the beginning, I should have taken the matter up seriously, but more from a sense of public duty than from any personal sympathy with Amalia. But what you say has changed the aspect of the situation for me in a way I don’t quite understand, but am prepared to accept, since it’s you who tell me, and therefore I want to drop the whole affair, I’m no member of the Fire Brigade, Sortini means nothing to me. But Frieda means something to me, I have trusted her completely and want to go on trusting her, and it surprises me that you go out of your way, while discussing Amalia, to attack Frieda and try to shake my confidence in her. I’m not assuming that you’re doing it with deliberate intent, far less with malicious intent, for in that case I should have left long ago. You’re not doing it deliberately, you’re betrayed into it by circumstances, impelled by your love for Amalia you want to exalt her above all other women, and since you can’t find enough virtue in Amalia herself you help yourself out by belittling the others. Amalia’s act was remarkable enough, but the more you say about it the less clearly can it be decided whether it was noble or petty, clever or foolish, heroic or cowardly;