same it wasn’t necessary for you to take the roundabout way through the next door garden, I know that way.”
So now the thing had come after all which he had been able to foresee, but not to prevent. Frieda had left him. It could not be final, it was not so bad as that, Frieda could be won back, it was easy for any stranger to influence her, even for those assistants who considered Frieda’s position much the same as their own, and now that they had given notice had prompted Frieda to do the same, but K. would only have to show himself and remind her of all that spoke in his favour, and she would rue it and come back to him, especially if he should be in a position to justify his visit to these girls by some success due entirely to them. Yet in spite of those reflections, by which he sought to reassure himself on Frieda’s account, he was not reassured. Only a few minutes ago he had been praising Frieda up to Olga and calling her his only support; well, that support was not of the firmest, no intervention of the mighty ones had been needed to rob K. of Frieda—even this not very savoury assistant had been enough—this puppet which sometimes gave one the impression of not being properly alive.