too. Now this humming and singing transmitted by our telephones is the only real and reliable thing you’ll hear, everything else is deceptive. There’s no fixed connection with the Castle, no central exchange which transmits our calls further. When anybody calls up the Castle from here the instruments in all the subordinate departments ring, or rather they would all ring if practically all the departments—I know it for a certainty—didn’t leave their receivers off. Now and then, however, a fatigued official may feel the need of a little distraction, especially in the evenings and at night, and may hang the receiver on. Then we get an answer, but an answer of course that’s merely a practical joke. And that’s very understandable too. For who would take the responsibility of interrupting, in the middle of the night, the extremely important work up there that goes on furiously the whole time, with a message about his own little private troubles? I can’t comprehend how even a stranger can imagine that when he calls up Sordini, for example, it’s really Sordini that answers. Far more probably it’s a little copying clerk from an entirely different department. On the other hand, it may certainly happen once in a blue moon that when one calls up the little copying clerk Sordini will answer himself. Then finally the best thing is to fly from the telephone before the first sound comes through.”
“I didn’t know it was like that, certainly,” said K. “I couldn’t know of all these peculiarities, but I didn’t put much confidence in those telephone conversations and I was always aware that the only things of real importance were those that happened in the Castle itself.”
“No,” said the Superintendent, holding firmly on to the word, “these telephone replies certainly have a meaning, why shouldn’t they? How could a message given by an official from the Castle be unimportant? As I remarked before apropos Klamm’s letter. All these utterances have no official significance; when you attach official significance to them you go astray. On the other hand, their private significance in a friendly or hostile sense is very great, generally greater than an official communication could ever have.”