about the clothes is that they’re mostly close-fitting, a peasant or a handworker couldn’t do with them. Well, a suit like that hasn’t been given to Barnabas, and it’s not merely the shame of it or the disgrace—one could put up with that—but the fact that in moments of depression—and we often have such moments, none too rarely, Barnabas and I—it makes us doubt everything. Is it really Castle service Barnabas is doing, we ask ourselves then; granted, he goes into the bureaux, but are the bureaux part of the real Castle? And even if there are bureaux actually in the Castle, are they the bureaux that Barnabas is allowed to enter?
“He’s admitted into certain rooms, but they’re only a part of the whole, for there are barriers behind which there are more rooms. Not that he’s actually forbidden to pass the barriers, but he can’t very well push past them once he has met his chiefs and been dismissed by them. Besides, everybody is watched there, at least so we believe. And even if he did push on further what good would it be to him, if he had no official duties to carry out and were a mere intruder? And you mustn’t imagine that these barriers are a definite dividing-line; Barnabas is always impressing that on me. There are barriers even at the entrance to the rooms where he’s admitted, so you see there are barriers he can pass, and they’re just the same as the ones he’s never yet passed, which looks as if one oughtn’t to suppose that behind the ultimate barriers the bureaux are any different from those Barnabas has already seen. Only that’s what we do suppose in moments of depression. And the doubt doesn’t stop there, we can’t keep it within bounds. Barnabas sees officials, Barnabas is given messages. But who are those officials, and what are the messages? Now, so he says, he’s assigned to Klamm, who gives him his instructions in person. Well, that would be a great favour, even higher-grade servants don’t get so far as that, it’s almost too much to believe, almost terrifying. Only think, directly assigned to Klamm, speaking with him face to face! But is it really the case? Well, suppose it is so, then why does Barnabas doubt that the official who is referred to as Klamm is really Klamm?”