“No!” interrupted the landlady furiously, “Frieda’s position in this respect has nothing at all to do with yours. Frieda belongs to my house, and nobody is entitled to call her position here uncertain.”
“All right, all right,” said K. , “I’ll grant you that too, especially since Frieda for some reason I’m not able to fathom seems to be too afraid of you to interrupt. Stick to me then for the present. My position is quite uncertain, you don’t deny that, indeed you rather go out of your way to emphasise it. Like everything else you say, that has a fair proportion of truth in it, but it isn’t absolutely true. For instance, I know where I could get a very good bed if I wanted it.”
“Where? Where?” cried Frieda and the landlady simultaneously and so eagerly that they might have had the same motive for asking.
“At Barnabas’s,” said K.
“That scum!” cried the landlady. “That rascally scum! At Barnabas’s! Do you hear—” and she turned towards the corner, but the assistants had long quitted it and were now