62
" But under the beards--and this was K.'s real discovery --badges of various sizes and colors gleamed on their coat collars. They all wore those badges as far he could see. They were all colleagues, these ostensible parties of the right and left, and as he turned round suddently he saw the same badges on the coat collar of the Examining Magistrate, who was sitting quietly watching the scene with his hands on his knees. "So!" cried K. flinging his arms in the air, his sudden enlightenment had to break out, "every man jack of you is an official, I see, you are yourselves the corrupt agents of whom I have been speaking, you've all come rushing here to listen and nose out what you can about me, making a pretense of party divisions, and half of you applauded merely to lead me on, you wanted some practice in fooling an innocent man. "
― Franz Kafka , The Trial
73
" The books were old
and well worn, the cover of one of them had nearly broken through in its
middle, and it was held together with a few threads. "Everything is so
dirty here," said K., shaking his head, and before he could pick the
books up the woman wiped some of the dust off with her apron. K. took
hold of the book that lay on top and threw it open, an indecent picture
appeared. A man and a woman sat naked on a sofa, the base intent of
whoever drew it was easy to see but he had been so grossly lacking in
skill that all that anyone could really make out were the man and the
woman who dominated the picture with their bodies, sitting in overly
upright postures that created a false perspective and made it difficult
for them to approach each other. K. didn't thumb through that book any
more, but just threw open the next one at its title page, it was a novel
with the title, What Grete Suffered from her Husband, Hans. "So this is
the sort of law book they study here," said K., "this is the sort of
person sitting in judgement over me. "
― Franz Kafka , The Trial
75
" The only thing I can do now,” he said to himself, and his thought was confirmed by the equal length of his own steps with the steps of the two others, “the only thing I can
do now is keep my common sense and do what’s needed right till the end. I always wanted to go at the world and try and do too much, and even to do it for something that was not too cheap. That was wrong of me. Should I now show them I learned nothing from facing trial for a year? Should
I go out like someone stupid? Should I let anyone say, after I’m gone, that at the start of the proceedings I wanted to end them, and that now that they’ve ended I want to start them again? I don’t want anyone to say that. I’m grateful they sent these unspeaking, uncomprehending men to go with me on this journey, and that it’s been left up to me to say what’s necessary "
― Franz Kafka , The Trial