XV

he can’t, probably because he knows more. So I always find something or other to say to him, such as ‘What are you really aiming at, Barnabas? What kind of career, what ambition are you dreaming of? Are you thinking of climbing so high that you’ll have to leave us, to leave me, completely behind you? Is that what you’re aiming at? How can I help believing so when it’s the only possible explanation why you’re so dreadfully discontented with all you’ve done already? Only take a look round and see whether any of our neighbours has got on so well as you. I admit their situation is different from ours and they have no grounds for ambition beyond their daily work, but even without making comparisons it’s easy to see that you’re all right. Hindrances there may be, doubts and disappointments, but that only means, what we all knew beforehand, that you get nothing without paying for it, that you have to fight for every trivial point; all the more reason for being proud instead of downcast. And aren’t you fighting for us as well? Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Doesn’t that put new strength into you? And the fact that I’m happy and almost conceited at having such a brother, doesn’t that give you any confidence? It isn’t what you’ve achieved in the Castle that disappoints me, but the little that I’m able to achieve with you. You’re allowed into the Castle, you’re a regular visitor in the bureaux, you spend whole days in the same room as Klamm, you’re an officially recognised messenger, with a claim on an official suit, you’re entrusted with important commissions, you have all that to your credit, and then you come down here and instead of embracing me and weeping for joy you seem to lose all heart as soon as you set eyes on me, and you doubt everything, nothing interests you but cobbling, and you leave the letter, the pledge of our future, lying in a corner.’ That’s how I speak to him, and after I’ve repeated the same words day after day he picks up the letter at last with a sigh and goes off. Yet probably it’s not the effect of what I say that drives him out, but a desire to go to the Castle again, which he dare not do without having delivered his message.” “But you’re absolutely right in everything you say,” said K. , “it’s amazing how well