Roberto Calasso - K.

Between Amalia’s gesture of shredding Sortini’s letter and her father’s grueling attempts to make his petitions heard sprawls the gamut of situations that accompanied the persecution of central Europe’s Jews. What happened later, in the Hitler years, was first and foremost a literalization of this process, as Karl Kraus warned when he wrote that “to pour salt in open wounds” had ceased to be a metaphor, for the metaphor had been “reabsorbed by its reality.” Now the word was etched directly into the flesh, as with the machine in “In the Penal Colony.”

The story of Barnabas’s family shows what can happen when individuals take themselves out of the game of customs and unspoken precepts. The punishment is archaic and ferocious; it strikes not only the ones who have acted, but all their relatives as well. The Castle doesn’t require specific acts of devotion. But it presupposes unquestioning assent to its order. And it avenges itself like nature when one of its equations is questioned.

In addition to her gaze, Amalia has another peculiarity, which K. observes immediately — and it alarms him: she is so “imperious that not only did she appropriate everything said in her presence, but it was all spontaneously conceded to her.” It’s as if Amalia knows how to take possession of other people’s words and turn them inside out until she reaches an ulterior meaning, the only one that matters. Whoever spoke the words meant them in just that way but doesn’t dare admit it, even to himself. Thus to converse with Amalia implies offering up one’s own hidden thoughts.

In her brief exchanges with K., this happens twice. First, K. says to her, giving his words their most common meaning: “Perhaps you are not initiated into Barnabas’s affairs, in which case all’s well and I’ll drop the matter, but perhaps you are initiated — and this, rather, is my impression — and in that case it’s an ugly business, because it would mean your brother is deceiving me.” K. seems to focus only on his captious and insinuating distinctions. But for Amalia, it’s as if K. has said one word only: “initiated.” She responds: “Calm down, I’m not initiated, nothing could induce me to allow myself to be initiated, nothing, not even my regard for you, though I would do many things for you, since we are, as you said, good-natured.” With these words, Amalia allows K. to glimpse her secret: she doesn’t want to be initiated, at any cost. She’s the only person in the village who doesn’t want to know what even K. longs to know. One might think that’s because she already knows it — and refuses to accept it. There’s something stony in her, something impervious to the emanations of the Castle, to its power to ensnare. Perhaps Amalia is mistaken in what she thinks she knows, and yet she’s the only person, among all those K. encounters, who is capable of remaining “face to face with the truth.” There’s no doubt that she clearly understands the causes of the horrible events that, because of her, have befallen her family. And it’s easy to imagine her standing “quietly in the background, observing the devastation.”

The second instance is less obvious. K. begins: “‘You are’—K. was searching for the right word, didn’t immediately find it, and made do with a vaguer one—‘perhaps the most good-natured ( gutmütig ) people I’ve met so far in the village.’” In his clumsy attempt to maintain distances, K. chooses the most inappropriate word. Especially as regards Amalia. As Olga informs him a few moments later, “Amalia was many things, but ‘good-natured’ wasn’t one of them.” Amalia herself is very careful not to say this. Instead she immediately subjects K.’s word to her process of appropriation, pretending to accept it (“since we are, as you said, good-natured”). Here we are witnessing a superior and severe marivaudage . First of all, Amalia uses the inappropriate word, which K. has chosen, as a pretext for telling him that she will do “many things” for him. For someone like Amalia, who doesn’t waste words, this is like a fiery confession of love. At the same time, with her perennial irony, Amalia makes it clear to K. that his discordant “good-natured” ought to be replaced by another adjective. Perhaps good , a term not apparently in common use in the village.

The verbal exchanges between Amalia and K. are scanty; they get straight to the bottom of things — and then stop there. Olga, on the other hand, speaks continuously. At times one gets the feeling she could go on forever. But Amalia suddenly enters and interrupts her: “Telling Castle stories? Still sitting here together? And you, K., who wanted to take your leave at once — and now it’s nearly ten. So these stories worry you, do they? There are people here who feed on such stories, they sit around together, like you two, and take turns tormenting each other, but you don’t strike me as one of those people.” Amalia’s every word is charged with meaning, but — as Olga will explain later—“it’s not easy to understand exactly what she means, since often you can’t tell if she’s speaking ironically or seriously, mostly she’s serious, but sounds ironic.” That’s the case here with K.: irony is attending her last, profoundly serious, almost desperate attempt to wrest K. away from what Amalia calls “the Castle’s influence.” But K. doesn’t follow her, and instead goes on the offensive with hard words directed at Amalia herself: “I am indeed one of those people, whereas those who don’t concern themselves with these stories, leaving them for others to worry about, do not greatly impress me.” Words spoken to wound, and well aimed. But Amalia is quick on her feet and replies with a fable in which, if only he wanted to, K. might recognize his own story, held up to the light and sketched with cruel, wise, sarcastic strokes. Amalia says: “I once heard of a young man who devoted his days and nights to contemplating the Castle, neglecting everything else. People feared he might lose his mind because he always kept it up at the Castle, but in the end it turned out that he hadn’t really been eyeing the Castle at all, just the daughter of a woman who washed floors in the offices. When he managed to get her, everything went back to normal.” Those words are coded. Only K. can know how close they are to the mark — and how full of scorn.

The last completed scene from the incomplete Castle features K. and the landlady of the Gentlemen’s Inn in the office next to the barroom. The landlady is annoyed by K.s impertinence — a few hours earlier he dared to comment on her clothes. She reminds him of that, and he pretends not to remember. But his remark was undeniably cheeky: “I’m not looking at you, I’m looking at your dress.” Their conversation becomes heated, with K. on the defensive and the landlady on the attack. But what do the landlady’s dresses have to do with the complex, ramifying adventure of a land surveyor who has now been reduced to the rank of janitor? We don’t know and we aren’t told. But we hear in this conversation, as in other episodes, the flutter of something that might be vitally important — and that continues to elude us. The reader’s uncertainty here is shared by K., who is sure of only one thing, which he dares to assert: “You’re not merely a landlady, as you claim.” And a little later he affirms again: “You’re not merely a landlady, you have other goals.” But what disguised power might the landlady represent? And why the disguise? And to what heights might that power reach?

But all this would remain pointless and abstract, were it not for the landlady’s dresses. Put on the spot like a child caught in the act, K. defines them thus: “Made of good material, expensive, but outmoded, overdone, often mended, and threadbare.” Furthermore, he tells the landlady, “they’re not suitable for a woman of your age, figure, or position.” Insolent janitor. But, once again, perceptive.