files and the castle; Chapter 5, chapter 24

The woman opened the cupboard at once, while K. and the mayor watched. It was stuffed with papers, and when it was opened two large bundles of files fell out, tied up as you might tie up bundles of firewood. The woman flinched in alarm. ‘Try lower down, lower down,’ said the mayor, directing operations from his bed. The woman, gathering up the files in her arms, obediently cleared everything out of the cupboard to get to the papers at the bottom. The room was already half full of papers. ‘Oh, there’s been a lot of work done,’ said the mayor, nodding, ‘and this is only a small part of it. I keep the larger part of what I have here in the barn, but most of it has been lost. How can anyone keep all this together? But there’s still plenty in the barn. Will you be able to find the decree?’ he asked, turning to his wife again. ‘You must look for a file with the words Land Surveyor underlined in blue on it.’ ‘It’s too dark in here,’ said his wife. ‘I’ll fetch a candle.’ And she walked over the papers and out of the room. ‘My wife is a great help to me,’ said the village mayor, ‘with the burden of all this official stuff, which I have to do as a sideline. I do have another assistant for the written work, that’s the schoolteacher, but all the same no one can ever get through it, there’s always a great deal left undone, and it’s in that cupboard.’ He pointed to another cupboard. ‘And when I’m ill, as I am now, it really gets the upper hand,’ he said, lying back wearily, but with an expression of pride on his face. ‘Couldn’t I help your wife to search?’ asked K., when the woman had come back with the candle and was kneeling in front of the cupboard, looking for the decree. Smiling, the mayor shook his head. ‘As I said just now, I’m keeping no official secrets from you, but I can’t go so far as to let you search the files yourself.’ All was still in the room now, only the rustle of the papers was to be heard, and the mayor may even have dropped off to sleep for a moment