Olga’s Plans

all his life has been in vain. Here, too, of course there are exceptions, that’s how one is so easily tempted. It happens sometimes that really shady customers are actually appointed, there are officials who, literally in spite of themselves, are attracted by those outlaws; at the entrance examinations they can’t help sniffing the air, smacking their lips, and rolling their eyes towards an entrant like that, who seems in some way to be terribly appetising to them, and they have to stick close to their books of regulations so as to withstand him. Sometimes however that doesn’t help the entrant to an appointment, but only leads to an endless postponement of the preliminary proceedings, which are never really terminated, but only broken off by the death of the poor man. So official appointment no less than the other kind is full of obvious and concealed difficulties, and before one goes in for anything of the kind it’s highly advisable to weigh everything carefully. Now we didn’t fail to do that, Barnabas and I. Every time that I come back from the Herrenhof we sat down together and I told the latest news that I had gathered, for days we talked it over, and Barnabas’ work lay idle for longer spells than was good for it. And here I may be to blame in your opinion. I knew quite well that much reliance was not to be put on the servants’ stories. I knew that they never had much inclination to tell me things about the Castle, that they always changed the subject, and that every word had to be dragged out of them, and then, when they were well started, that they let themselves go, talked nonsense, bragged, tried to surpass one another in inventing improbable lies, so that in the continuous shouting in the dark stalls, one servant beginning where the other left off, it was clear that at best only a few scanty scraps of truth could be picked up. But I repeated everything to Barnabas again just as I had heard it, though he still had no capacity whatever to distinguish between what was true and what was false, and on account of the family’s position was almost famishing to hear all these things; and he drank in everything and burned with eagerness for more. And as a matter of fact the cornerstone of my new plan was Barnabas. Nothing more could be done through the servants.