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dependent on her as if she were the eldest, and if she were to advise us in our affairs we should certainly follow her advice, only she doesn’t do it, she’s different from us. You have experience of people, you come from a strange land, don’t you think, too, that she’s extraordinarily clever?” “Extraordinarily unhappy is what she seems to me,” said K. , “but how does it go with your respect for her that Barnabas, for example, takes service as a messenger, in spite of Amalia’s evident disapproval, and even her scorn?” “If he knew what else to do he would give up being a messenger at once, for it doesn’t satisfy him.” “Isn’t he an expert shoemaker?” asked K. “Of course he is,” said Olga, “and in his spare time he does work for Brunswick, and if he liked he could have enough work to keep him going day and night and earn a lot of money.” “Well then,” said K. “That would be an alternative to his service as a messenger.” “An alternative?” asked Olga in astonishment, “do you think he does it for the money?” “Maybe he does,” said K. , “but didn’t you say he was discontented?” “He’s discontented, and for various reasons,” said Olga, “but it’s Castle service, anyhow a kind of Castle service, at least one would suppose so.” “What!” said K. , “do you even doubt that?” “Well,” said Olga, “not really, Barnabas goes into the bureaux and is accepted by the attendants as one of themselves, he sees various officials, too, from the distance, is entrusted with relatively important letters, even with verbally delivered messages, that’s a good deal, after all, and we should be proud of what he has achieved for a young man of his years.” K. nodded and no longer thought of going home. “He has a uniform of his own, too?” he asked. “You mean the jacket?” said Olga, “no, Amalia made that for him long before he became a messenger. But you’re touching on a sore spot now. He ought long ago to have had, not a uniform, for there aren’t many in the Castle, but a suit provided by the department, and he has been promised one, but in things of that kind the Castle moves slowly, and the worst of it is that one never knows what this slowness means; it can mean that the matter’s being considered, but it can also mean that it hasn’t yet been taken up, that Barnabas for instance is still