Chapter 4 four friends of miss burrstner

During the next few days K. found it difficult to speak to Miss Burstner; it was impossible even to say a word.He tried everything possible to find her, but she always managed to avoid him.After he left the office, he went straight home, sat on the sofa in the house, turned off the lights, opened the door, and looked at the hall intently.If the maid passed by here and found that there seemed to be no one in his room, and closed the door casually, he would stand up after a while and open the door again.He got up an hour earlier than usual these days, hoping to be alone with Miss Burstner before she went to work.But none of these strategies worked.So, he wrote her a letter, sent it to her office, and also sent it to her home.In the letter, he tried to justify his behavior again, expressed his willingness to do anything to remedy it, promised that he would never go beyond the boundary set by her in the future, and asked her to give him a chance to talk to her: because he didn't want to discuss it with her first. Nothing can be settled with Mrs. Grubach.At last he told the young lady that he would wait all day next Sunday in the house, hoping that she would bring a message, or grant his request, or at least explain why she would not, even though he had promised to obey her. meet him.His letter was not returned, but neither did he hear back.On Sunday, however, he got a message with a clear enough meaning.In the morning K. looked through the keyhole in his door and noticed an unusual movement in the hall.Things quickly figured out.A French teacher seems to have moved into Miss Burstner's room, a German girl named Montag, sickly, pale, with a limp, who has hitherto had a room to herself.For hours she walked up and down the hall.It seemed that she was always losing things, forgetting some underwear, or a piece of cloth, or a book, and had to run again and put it in a new room.

When Frau Grubach came in to bring him his breakfast—she had served K. with every possible care since she had annoyed him that time—he had first to break the silence between them. "Why is there such a commotion in the hall today!" he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Can't we move it to another time? Does the place have to be cleaned up on Sunday?" Although K. did not look at Frau Grubach, But he knew she breathed a sigh of relief.Severe as these questions were, she took them to imply tolerance, or something close to tolerance. "Nobody's cleaning the place thoroughly, Mr. K.," she said. "Miss Montag is moving in with Miss Burstner, and she's busy moving things." She didn't go on, but Wait and see how K will react and let her continue talking.But K tortured her on purpose, stirring the coffee, silently, thinking about things for himself.After a while he looked up at her and said: "Have you cleared up your earlier doubts about Miss Bürstner?" Together, they stretched out towards K. "You take my casual remarks too seriously. It never occurred to me to offend you or anyone else. You must have known me long ago, Mr. K. You should believe this." You can't even imagine how miserable I've been these days! I said bad things about the tenant! And you, Mr. K., believed it! And you said, I should let you out! Let you out!" Her last outburst of emotion was stifled by sobs, and she lifted her apron over her face, and burst into tears.

"Please don't cry, Frau Grubach," said K., looking out of the window, thinking of Frau Bürstner and how she had let a strange girl live in her room. "Please don't cry," he repeated, for when he turned away he found Frau Grubach still crying. "I'm not talking so terrible, so serious. We misunderstood each other, as it sometimes happens between old friends." Frau Grubach took her apron from her eyes to see if K. 's appeased. "Well, it's nothing special, that's all," said K.; and he added abruptly, because he judged from Frau Grubach's expression that her nephew—the captain—hadn't asked She reveals anything. "Do you really believe that I would be against you for a strange girl?" "That's exactly what I thought," said Frau Grubach; It was her misfortune, "I kept asking myself: why does Mr. K. worry so much about Miss Burstner? He knows that every bad word that comes out of his mouth will make me Insomnia, why did you insist on quarreling with me about Miss Bürstner? Besides, about this girl, I only told the facts I saw with my own eyes." K. did not answer this, and when she spoke the first sentence He should have coaxed her out of the house, but he didn't want to.He was content to drink his coffee to himself: let Mrs. Grubach understand for herself that she was a nuisance here.Again he heard Miss Montag scurrying to and fro outside as she limped from one end of the hall to the other. "Did you hear that?" said K., pointing to the door. "Yes," said Mrs. Grubach with a sigh. "I offered to help her, and I asked the maid to come too, but she was very stubborn and insisted on moving everything by herself. I really appreciate Burstner The young lady was puzzled by her behavior: I often regret renting a room to Miss Montag, but Miss Burstner let her move into her own." "You don't have to worry about that," said K. The small spoon crushed the lump of sugar at the bottom of the glass, "Does this mean that you have suffered some kind of loss?" "No," said Mrs. I got a room where I could accommodate my nephew - the captain. I've been worried that he might have been bothering you the last two days because I had to have him in the living room next door. He's not big Knows how to think about others." "What are you talking about!" said K., standing up, "it's all right. You probably think I'm nervous, because I can't stand Miss Montag walking around—see, she Started moving again, this time back." Frau Grubach felt that there was little hope. "Shall I tell her, Mr. K., to move the rest of the things at a later date? If you like, I can do so right away." "But she has to move into Miss Burstner's." to the room!" cried K. "Yes," said Frau Grubach, who could hardly understand what K. meant. "Anyway," said K., "she should be allowed to move her things there." Frau Grubach merely nodded.She was silent, and her disappointment expressed itself in a childish obstinacy, which aggravated K. even more.He paced up and down, from the window to the door and back again, in such a way that Frau Grubach could not slip out of the room, which she probably wanted to leave.

There was a knock at the door when K. was pacing up to the door again.It's the maid, she said, and Miss Montag would like to have a word or two with Mr K. to ask him to come to the dining room, where she was waiting.After hearing this message, he pondered for a while, then turned his head and looked at the startled Frau Grubach with an almost ironic look.His look seemed to say that he had long expected Miss Montag's invitation, which had something to do with his being so harassed by Mrs. Grubach's lodger on Sunday morning.He sent the maid back to report that he would be there in a minute, then went to the wardrobe and changed his coat.Mrs. Grubach complained softly to Miss Montag that she was not interested, and K. said nothing after hearing this, but asked Mrs. Grubach to take the breakfast away. "Why? You hardly moved," said Frau Grubach. "Oh, take it away," cried K., who felt that Miss Montag had mixed up with the breakfast somehow, making it disgusting too.

As he passed through the hall, he glanced at Miss Burstner's closed door.Miss Montag did not invite him in, but into the dining room; he pushed the dining room door open without knocking. It was a long and narrow room with a large window, and the space was so small that two cupboards could barely fit in the two corners near the door; One head was close to the door, and the other end stretched out to the window, making it almost impossible to go to the window.The table was set and ready to serve many people, for on Sunday nearly all the lodgers were at home for lunch. When K. entered the dining room, Montag came towards him from the window, along the side of the table.They greeted each other silently.Then Miss Montag began to speak, her head held up as usual: "I don't know, do you know who I am?" K. frowned at her. "Of course I know," he said, "you've lived with Mrs. Grubach a long time, haven't you?" "But I don't think you're much interested in tenants," said Miss Montag. "Yes," said K. "Don't you want to sit down?" asked Miss Montag.Without a word they drew two chairs from the end of the table and sat down facing each other.But Miss Montag got up again at once, for she had left her handbag on the windowsill.She went across the dining room to get her bag from the window; when she came back, she shook the bag in her hand and said to K.: "My friend asked me to tell you a few words, and that's what happened. She I wanted to come here by myself, but today I feel a little uncomfortable. She begs you to forgive me, and I will tell you instead of her. Anyway, she can't tell you more than I tell you. On the contrary, I think I'm okay Can tell you a little more, because I'm more impartial. Don't you think so?"

"So, what do you want to say?" said K., not feeling well at finding Miss Montag fixedly on his lips.Her gaze seemed to control every word he was about to say. "Miss Burstner has evidently declined my request to see me in person." "That's right," said Miss Montag, "but perhaps that's not the case at all, and you're taking it too seriously yourself." Generally speaking, when someone asks you to talk, you can neither agree to nor refuse casually. But there may also be situations where you don’t see the need to talk, and this is the case today. Since you just said I will have to be frank about that. You asked my friend to talk to you, either by letter or in person. My friend, at least as far as I presume, knew what was going to be talked about; For reasons I don't know, she was convinced that if it did talk, it wouldn't do anyone any good. To be honest, it was only yesterday that she brought it up to me in passing. She also said, neither do you will take this conversation very seriously, because you must have stumbled upon it by chance; and you'll see at once, if you haven't already, how stupid it was to do it, without even having to explain it. That is quite possible, she said; but I think that to make the matter fully clear it is better for you to have a definite answer. I offered to be intermediary, and my friend, after some hesitation, followed my advice. I hope this will do you good, too, because even the slightest bit of ambiguity, no matter how small, is worrying; it would be best if the ambiguity could be clarified as easily as this time. Make a quick decision." "Thank you," said K.; getting up slowly, he looked first at Miss Montag, then at the dining table, then out of the window; the sun was shining on the house opposite; he went towards the door.Miss Montag followed him a few steps, seeming to trust him less.However, when they reached the door, they both had to retreat, because Captain Lanz pushed the door and walked in. For the first time K saw him so close.The captain was tall, in his early forties, with a fat, tanned face.With a slight bow, he greeted K. and Miss Montag, went up to her, and respectfully kissed her hand.His movements are free and easy.The captain's politeness to Miss Montag was in stark contrast to K.'s attitude towards her.Nevertheless, Miss Montag did not appear to be angry with K. because she still wanted to introduce him to the captain, or so K. thought.But K. did not want to be introduced, he did not want to be courteous to either the captain or Miss Montag, and the gesture of kissing his hand seemed to him to imply that they were in collusion in order to, under the guise of the most polite altruism, Prevent him from going to Miss Burstner.He also thought he saw more tricks, and he saw that Miss Montag had chosen a weapon that was handy and could, in a sense, kill two birds with one stone.She exaggerated the importance of the relationship between Miss Burstner and K., first of all the importance of his request to see Miss Burstner; .She would find out that she was wrong, because K. did not want to exaggerate anything; he knew that Miss Burstner was just an ordinary typist and would not resist him for long.Having come to this conclusion, he resolved to disregard what Frau Grubach had said about Miss Burstner.He bade them a hasty farewell; that was what was on his mind as he left the dining room.He went straight to his room, but Miss Montag's sneer from the dining room behind him gave him a flash of thought that he might take the opportunity to do something different from either of them—the Captain and Montag. Miss Tugg—unexpected event.He glanced around and listened carefully, making sure that everything in the adjacent rooms was peaceful and that nothing was going to disturb him.Except for the muttering in the dining room and Frau Grubach's voice in the passage leading to the kitchen, everything was quiet.The chance seemed perfect, so K. turned and went to Miss Burstner's door and knocked lightly: nothing happened.He knocked again: still no answer.is she sleepingOr is she really uncomfortable?Perhaps she knew that only K could knock on the door so lightly, so she pretended not to be at home! K. thought she was pretending not to be at home, so he knocked harder; finally, as the knocking was fruitless, he opened the door quietly; he knew it was wrong, not only wrong, but also useless.There was no one in the room.Besides, it was almost completely different from what K had seen a few days ago.Two beds were side by side against the wall, three chairs by the door were piled with coats and underwear, and a wardrobe was open.It appeared that while Miss Montag was eloquent in the dining room, Miss Burstner took the opportunity to slip out. K. was not very surprised, he did not expect at this stage that Miss Bürstner would be easy to get; he had tried, yes, but mainly to impress Miss Montag.When he closed the door again, he was shocked to find that the dining-room door was open, and that Miss Montag and the Captain were standing there talking together.They had probably stood there all the time, so that K. would not notice that they were looking at him; they spoke in low voices and followed K.'s every movement with indifferent eyes—when the talkative people surveyed the passers-by, It is this kind of vision that is used.In spite of this, their gaze exerted a great pressure on K; he walked towards his room as fast as he could, leaning against the wall.