Poor K., poor Frieda

K., who has come to the Castle to work as a surveyor, is now working as the school janitor. K. and Frieda and K.’s two assistants are living in the schoolroom. Frieda has shown that she can make any room comfortable to live in, but there’s little she can do here.


Franz Kafka, The Castle, trans. Mark Harman (New York: Schocken, 1998).

Yes, the schoolroom doubles as a gymnasium. When K. and Frieda, sleeping late, are surprised by the arrival of schoolchildren and the schoolmistress, they throw their blankets over the parallel bars and pommel horse to make themselves a changing room.

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