“Terrible fidelity!” repeated the landlady with a growl. “Is it a question of fidelity? I’m faithful to my husband—but Klamm? Klamm once chose me as his mistress, can I ever lose that honour? And you ask how you are to put up with Frieda? Oh, Land Surveyor, who are you after all, that you dare to ask such things?”
“Madame,” said K. warningly.
“I know,” said the landlady controlling herself, “but my husband never put such questions. I don’t know which to call the unhappier, myself then or Frieda now. Frieda who saucily left Klamm, or myself whom he stopped asking to come. Yet it is probably Frieda, though she hasn’t even yet guessed the full extent of her unhappiness, it seems. Still, my thoughts were more exclusively occupied by my unhappiness then, all the same, for I had always to be asking myself one question, and in reality haven’t ceased to ask it to this day: Why did this happen? Three times Klamm sent for me, but he never sent a fourth time, no, never a fourth time! What else could I have thought of during those days? What else could I have talked about with my husband, whom I married shortly afterwards? During the day we had no time—we had taken over this inn in a wretched condition and had to struggle to make it respectable—but at night! For years all our nightly talks turned on Klamm and the reason for his changing his mind. And if my husband fell asleep during those talks I woke him and we went on again.”
“Now,” said K. , “if you’ll permit me, I’m going to ask a very rude question.”
The landlady remained silent.
“Then I mustn’t ask it,” said K. “Well, that serves my purpose as well.”