THE TRIAL

By Franz Kafka

Synopsis

The novel opens with Josef K.'s sudden arrest in his room at his lodging house on the morning of his birthday. Two guards inform him that he is under arrest, but they don't tell him on what charges, nor do they know what the charges are. K. is then taken next door to the room of another tenant, Fraülein Bürstner, who happens to be absent at the time. There, he is subjected to an equally puzzling and brief interrogation by the inspector. The inspector informs K. that he is under arrest, but is free to go to work at his bank and otherwise live life as usual.

After work, K. returns back to his lodgings. He apologizes to his landlady for the inconvenience of his arrest that morning, but his landlady doesn't seem to mind. He then waits for Fraülein Bürstner in order to apologize for the disruption to her room that morning. Fraülein Bürstner is at first startled by K.'s explanation, but then permits him to dramatize the morning's events for her in her room. K.'s theatrics awaken the landlady's nephew who is sleeping in the living room. Fraülein Bürstner begs K. to leave, but, before he does, he embraces Fraülein Bürstner.

K. is told that an inquiry into his arrest will be held the following Sunday. When he arrives at the court's address, he is puzzled by the fact that the court seems to be located in an apartment building in an impoverished neighborhood. Since he wasn't given a precise address, K. wanders through the apartment buildings until he comes upon a washerwoman, who lets him into the court, which is convened in a large, cramped hall.

An excerprt from Chapter One

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. Every day at eight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by Mrs. Grubach's cook - Mrs. Grubach was his landlady - but today she didn't come. That had never happened before. K. waited a little while, looked from his pillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with an inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and disconcerted, rang the bell. There was immediately a knock at the door and a man entered. He had never seen the man in this house before. He was slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting, with many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of which gave the impression of being very practical but without making it very clear what they were actually for. "Who are you?" asked K., sitting half upright in his bed. The man, however, ignored the question as if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, "You rang?" "Anna should have brought me my breakfast," said K. He tried to work out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through observation and by thinking about it, but the man didn't stay still to be looked at for very long. Instead he went over to the door, opened it slightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately behind it, "He wants Anna to bring him his breakfast." There was a little laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the sound of it whether there were several people laughing. The strange man could not have learned anything from it that he hadn't known already, but now he said to K., as if making his report "It is not possible." "It would be the first time that's happened," said K., as he jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on his trousers. "I want to see who that is in the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be disturbed in this way." It immediately occurred to him that he needn't have said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have acknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didn't seem important to him at the time. That, at least, is how the stranger took

File information:

File size (Digital) (282KB)

Books (1)

Biography (Yes)

Working table of contents (Yes)

Page count (8.5x11) (174)

Word count (86,025)

Font size (12pt)

Originally published (1928)

Republished 92019)