Chapter 11 Ten endings

On the night before K.'s thirty-first birthday, at about nine o'clock, in the silence of the street, two men came to his house.They were pale and bloated in frock coats, with top hats that seemed impossible to remove.After making room for each other at the gate, they gave way to K.'s room even more politely. Unaware of their coming, K. was sitting in an armchair by the door, all dressed in black, slowly putting on a pair of new gloves; his fingers were tightly bound.He looked like he was waiting for a guest.He stood up and looked curiously at the two gentlemen who appeared before him. "So you're here to see me?" he asked.The gentlemen bowed and each pointed to the other with the top hat. K reminded himself that he was waiting for other guests.He went to the window and glanced again at the dark street.The windows opposite were also almost entirely dark, many with curtains drawn down.There was a light in the window of a room, and several children were playing behind the railing. They couldn't leave the place, so they had to stretch out their little hands towards each other. "They sent the worst, old-fashioned characters against me," muttered K to himself, looking around again to confirm this impression. "They're going to kill me casually." He turned around sharply and asked the two men who had come, "What kind of play are you playing?" "Acting?" one of them said, his The corner of his mouth twitched, and he looked at the other person, as if asking him for help.The man reacted like a mute trying to get out of an embarrassing situation. "They're not going to answer questions," thought K; he went to get his hat.

While they were still going downstairs, the two men tried to grab K.'s arms. K. said: "We'll wait until we're in the street. I'm not a patient." Once outside the gate they caught him in a way he had never seen before.Their shoulders pressed against K.'s back shoulders, but instead of bending their elbows, they stretched out their arms, pressed them against K's arm, and held K. His hands were so tightly pressed that he couldn't move. K. stood upright and walked among them; the three were united in one body, and if one fell, they all fell together.Only inanimate things can form such a whole.

Under the street lamps, K. tried again and again to see his fellow traveler clearly, although he was now very close, but this was very difficult; he had not been able to see clearly just now in the dimly lit room. "They might be tenors," he thought, looking at their bulging double chins; their faces were too clean for K.'s dislike.One could almost think that a pair of clean hands had worked their way around the corners of their eyes, massaged their upper lips, smoothed the lines on their chins. Thinking of this, K stopped, and the two stopped too; they were standing on the edge of a deserted square decorated with flower beds. "Why, out of all the others, did they send you!" he said, shouting rather than asking.Evidently there was no answer for the two gentlemen, who stood waiting with their free arms hanging down, like nurses in a ward watching over a resting patient. "I don't want to go any further," K. tried.This sentence does not require an answer.The two men did not let go, but tried to push K away. This was enough as an answer, but K resisted. "I don't have much time to exert my strength, so use up all my strength now!" He thought, thinking of flies, they tried their best to break free from the flypaper until they broke their thin legs . "Gentlemen will find me not so easy to deal with."

At this moment Miss Burstner appeared in front of them; she left a lower side street and climbed a few steps into the square.Not entirely sure it was her, but it looked a lot like her.Whether it was Miss Burstner or not K. did not care; the important thing was that he suddenly understood that it was useless to resist.Even if he resisted, created some difficulties for his companions, and fought to win the last moment of his life, he could not be called a hero.He started to move his feet, and the guards breathed a sigh of relief, and this sense of relief somehow spread to him.Now they let him lead the way, and he followed the lady who went ahead; lesson. "The only thing I can do now," he said to himself, and his steps had been in perfect sync with those of the two men, which strengthened his mind, "the only thing I can do now is to keep my head all the way, Calm and analytical. I have always wanted to grab the world with twenty hands, and my motives are not very commendable. Am I now going to make it appear that a year of trial has taught me nothing? I hope that when people talk about me after I die, they will say, I wanted the case to end when it started and I wanted it to start again when it was over? I don't want people to say that. I'm happy Having sent these two half-dumb fools to accompany me on my journey, I can say to myself whatever I need to say."

Miss Bürstner had turned into a side street at this moment, and K. had no need for her at that moment, and obediently followed his captors.In the moonlight, the three walked in unison; they walked onto a bridge; whatever K. did, the two immediately agreed.When K. turned slightly sideways towards the bridge railing, they turned around and stopped as if they were one with him.The moonlight is bright and sparkling, and the flowing water is separated on both sides of the island. The trees on the island are forested, with dense branches and leaves, as if bound together.Several gravel paths—which are now invisible—went through the woods, and there were several comfortable benches along the road, on which K. had often rested comfortably during the summer. "I don't want to stop," he told his fellow travelers, embarrassed by their politeness and submissiveness.One of them seemed to gently reproach the other behind K.'s back for not stopping.So the three of them continued on.

They crossed several steep uphill roads, on which several policemen stood at regular intervals, or patrolled back and forth; sometimes far away from them, sometimes right next to them.A bearded police officer, holding a knife handle, appeared to approach the not entirely harmless-looking group deliberately.The gentlemen stopped; the policeman seemed to be about to speak, but K. dragged them on with force.He kept looking back cautiously to see if the policeman was following.He turned a corner, got rid of the policeman, and immediately started running, and the two companions had to run beside him panting.

In this way they passed quickly out of the city; in this place the city adjoins the fields almost directly, with no transitional zone in between.Next to a house that was still purely urban, there was a small, deserted, deserted quarry.Those two people stood here, I don't know if it was because they chose this place from the beginning, or because they were too tired to go any further.Now they let go of K.'s hand; K. stood there waiting in silence; they took off their top hats, wiped the sweat from their brows with handkerchiefs, and at the same time looked at the quarry.The light of the moon is illuminating everything with a purity and serenity that no other light has.

Who will be first on the next task?They pushed each other back and forth, politely—these two men who were assigned to the task seemed to have no special division of labor when accepting the task. One of them went up to K. and took off K.'s overcoat. and vest, and finally took off his shirt. K. shuddered involuntarily.The man reassured him with a pat on the back, and then neatly folded K.'s clothes, as if they would be needed sometime, not right away, of course.In order not to let K stand still in the cool night wind, the man took K's arm and led him back and forth for a while; the man's companion searched for a suitable spot on the quarry, and when he found it, He called them over; the man who was with K. took him away.The place is on the edge of a cliff with a large solitary boulder next to it.The two made K. sit on the ground with his back against the boulder and his head resting on it.But no matter how hard they tried, and no matter how submissive K. was, his posture was always staggering and looking awkward.One of them then begged the other to leave K. alone, but even this was of no avail.In the end they left K. alone, in even worse positions than the ones they had just assumed.Immediately one of them undid his overcoat, drew a long, thin double-edged butcher's knife from the scabbard that hung on the belt of his vest, held it up, and tested the edge in the moonlight.Again they yielded hatefully, the first handed the knife over K.'s head to the second, and the second returned the knife over K.'s head to the first. K. realized clearly now that when the knife was being passed around his head, he should have taken it and stuck it in his chest.But instead of doing that, he just turned his head and looked around—his head was still free to turn.He can't completely take over and complete all their tasks for these two people.This final defeat was his own to blame, for he was not strong enough to do it.His eyes fell on the top floor of the house next to the quarry.There was a flash of light, as if someone had switched on a light, and a window was flung open.A person's body suddenly leaned out of the window, and his hands were stretched far out of the window; because he was far away and stood high, his image was blurred and could not be seen clearly.Who is this guy?a friend?A good man?a sympathizer?Someone willing to help?Is it just him?Or the whole human race?Will someone be here to help right away?Are arguments in his favor that had been ignored before being brought up again?Of course, such arguments should have.Logic is undoubtedly unshakable, but it cannot stop a man who wants to live.Where was the judge he had never met?Where is the Supreme Court that he never got access to?He raised his hands and spread his fingers.

But one of the companions had already grasped K.'s throat with both hands, and the other plunged the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice. K.'s vision was gradually blurring, but he could still see the two people in front of him; they were watching the last scene, face to face. "Like a dog!" he said; what he seemed to mean was that he was dead, but the shame would live on.