Digested classics: The Trial by Franz Kafka

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested on the morning of his 30th birthday. "You don't seem to be taking this very seriously," said the Inspector as the warders looked on. "I won't say I regard it as a joke," K replied dismissively, "but it must be a matter of unimportance because I cannot recall the slightest offence that might be charged against me." "We are mere servants of the Law," the Inspector said, "so I can't confirm if you are charged with an offence; only that you are under arrest. Proclaiming your innocence does not redound well upon you. Now I suggest you go about your business at the Bank." K stared helplessly as the warders left his neighbour's room in disarray. "I can explain everything," K said, smothering a receptive Fraülein Bürstner in passionate kisses, pleased to have explained nothing.

K was informed a short inquiry into his case would take place the next Sunday. The caller had not specified a time, and K had not seen fit to ask for fear of lessening the sense of alienation. He entered the building and turned towards the stairs to take him to the interrogation chamber, and was annoyed to find there were three further staircases leading to the attic. "You are one hour and five minutes late," the Examining Magistrate said. "I recognise there is a great organisation behind you," K cried, "but the warders are corrupt and this trial is unjust." "Bravo!" a voice shouted from the gallery and K was pleased to see he had some support. "Don't count on it," the Examining Magistrate cried, " for in this dystopian world nothing is at it seems and even the gallery are Court Officials."

During the next week K waited for a new summons that never came. Pausing only for solipsistic paragraphs of ever greater length to mark his gradual mental disintegration and a lingering sense that everyone might be guilty of something even if it was only to be alive, he presented himself at the Court once more. "Why have you come on a day when there's no one sitting?" the wife of the Law-Court Attendant inquired, throwing herself at K rapaciously. K accepted her advances, not questioning why every woman seemed to find his self-congratulation so irresistible. "I have come to prove my innocence," he said for the umpteenth time. "But no one is ever innocent," the woman replied.

In the next few days, K found it impossible to exchange even a word with Fraülein Bürstner, though he did contrive an elliptical exchange with her friend Fraülein Montag. "How would it be if Fraülein Bürstner were to vanish as mysteriously as she appeared?" she inquired. "The great advantage of an unfinished novel stitched together after your death," said K, "is that everything can seem far more symbolic than you intended and generations of critics can read almost anything they like into it."

K looked on with distaste as the Whipper beat the warders. "It's your fault!" the Whipper cried. "If you hadn't spoken out against them in Court, I wouldn't have to punish them." "I acknowledge my culpability," K said, "and I understand the futility of fighting the System. If I wasn't in such a hurry to feel alienated by the Deputy Manager of the Bank, I would offer to be birched in their place."

"You need an Advocate," said K's uncle, taking him away from further digressions on futility at the Bank and leading him across the City. "You must be Joseph K," said Leni, the Advocate's housekeeper. "And as I'm a woman, I must find you so bewitching that I have to have sex with you immediately." "You have not created a good impression," the Advocate observed, when K eventually appeared several hours later. "I was discussing your case with the Examining Magistrate and your failure to join us did not go unnoticed."

With episodic inevitability, K went to visit Titorelli, the Court Painter. "I have been told you can help me," he said. "It is true that I too can go on for pages about the opacity of the Law," Titorelli replied, "and I may be able to put in a good word with a Lower Judge. But my real function is to discourse wryly on the three possible acquittal verdicts, none of which will offer you satisfaction." Struggling for breath and crushed by symbolism, K ran out saying: "You too are a Court Official and every building is a Court Building."

As the winter dragged on, K decided he no longer wanted the Advocate to represent him. "That's not a good idea," the Advocate said. "As I have described for the best part of 30 pages, the Law is infinitely serpentine and you cannot hope to win without me. And don't be disturbed by Leni making eyes at that man pretending to be a dog. He's a client of mine called Block, whose case has been going on for five years, and Leni adores the accused."

"If you go to the Cathedral to meet a client who is not going to turn up," said the Deputy Manager, "you can meet a Priest instead, who will deliver yet another tangential parable on the implacability of the Law." "Enough!" cried K. "I know that I really ought to be drawing the whole thing out for another four years or so and that the legal Process has barely got under way, but I can't stand it a moment longer. Just allow me one last fleeting reference to Fraülein Bürstner and let the warders stab me through the heart. Let me feel the point of pointlessness."

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