The Superintendent Scene:What It Throws Up
By Roderick Millar
Intro
The story of The Castle proper begins with the scene with the Superintendent, who is known in some translations as the Mayor. It is in this chapter, it seems to me, that the story really starts. From here come many of the images and exchanges which people associate with the book. It occurs a few chapters in, just after K. has met Frieda and is ensconced with her at the Bridge Inn.
The scene sets up the plot of The Castle, in so far as there is one. K. is living with Frieda and pursuing official recognition through Klamm. It is in relation to this set-up that everything happens. K. seems to be at his happiest at this point, although married life with Frieda is never exactly happy, and he does not make any headway with Klamm. It is the inaccessibility of Klamm that makes him so important to K.
But this scene is also in its way a distraction. The Superintendent is K.'s immediate superior, according to the letter, and yet the meeting with him does not get K. any closer to Klamm. If anything it leads directly to the offer of employment at the school, which the Superintendent alights on as a way of keeping K. out of mischief.
Incompetence
The Superintendent cannot find the original letter which dealt with the summoning of a land surveyor-this document is unnecessarily pursued during the chapter-and indeed he appears somewhat weighed down by the sheer volume of administration with which he has to deal. He is very ill, and this illness is clearly brought on by the mountain of work with which he has to cope. The Bridge Inn landlady observes subsequently that it is only down to Mizzi that the Superintendent has his job. K.'s reaction to her is to note how insignificant she looks, the relevant point is that he notices her insignificance, which implies that she is not insignificant at all. Unlike the Superintendent who just lets her look after him while he lies in bed, she is very busy.
We can compare the Superintendent with Bürgel, who features later in the book. Bürgel despite his complaints about the amount of work he has to do nevertheless keeps his work in order and is up-to-date with it. This is because he is very hard working, but also as we can surmise because he organises it intelligently. The Superintendent lets it get out of hand by being over-pedantic and getting bogged down in detail. To him being Superintendent is a way of being important, as he loses no opportunity to make clear to K.
The story he tells is an illustration of this point. His attempt to scupper the attempt to appoint a land surveyor from the start, no doubt because it will mean more work, is precisely the reason why the question grows out of all proportion. His pompousness and exaggerated view of his position leads him to send a covering letter with the letter, and it is the covering letter arriving without the original letter that engenders the long correspondence with Sordini.
Gardena
Bürgel is healthier than the Superintendent probably because he willingly throws himself into his work, because he regards the work as important in itself. Another point of contrast with the Superintendent is Gardena, the Bridge Inn landlady, who also throws herself into her work but grows prematurely old because of it. The reason why she grows old is that for her the work and the great effort she puts into it are ways of forgetting about frustrated love.
The scenes with the Superintendent and Gardena form a pair. They come back to back and have similar structures. One is about the official side of the Castle; the other about the personal. In both a person in bed tells K. a story from their past that has led to their being ill in bed. (Sordini has undoubtedly exhausted the Superintendent.) The landlady's is twenty years old; the Superintendent's only six months. Both scenes are interrupted by the assistants and conclude with K. asking about Klamm in other respects and being rebuffed. In both cases the interlocutors are opening themselves up to K. as a way of stopping him from doing anything.
The story of the landlady is interesting because of what she inadvertently reveals. She spends much time talking with Hans about Klamm and the reason for his not summoning her a fourth time. But it is clear if we read between the lines why Klamm stopped seeing her. The three mementoes by which she holds such store are the reason. She observes that Klamm gives nothing of his own accord but if one sees something lying around one can get it out of him. She let the mementoes come in the way of the relationship. This is also the reason why she is so tied to them and why she is not strong enough to get over the ending of the relationship.
Her language also makes this clear. She speaks of being summoned by Klamm as an honour. She thinks in terms of honour, not of love. That Klamm summoned her is an honour no one can deprive her of. She has to make it important. The idea of honour and status helps her forget the real significance of what she has done-she makes a routine out of something that for her went badly wrong. This is why she hates Amalia so much. Amalia has punctured this bubble and acted as she sees it dishonourably. Because Gardena has not respected love she resents Amalia's doing so, since that reminds her of what she really did.
One interesting aspect which K. brings out is the influence of Klamm. She is at pains to refute the view that Klamm used his influence to help her, but what K. is saying is that Klamm's influence lies in the personal power he had over her, as evinced by all the subsequent events such as marrying Hans. This is the power that love has, a theme that is developed elsewhere in The Castle.
Before the Superintendent scene
The scene with Gardena marks the point at which K.'s last hour in the Bridge Inn has come. That happens because he refuses to wait for a week while the landlady tries to arrange an audience with Klamm for him.
The scene with the Superintendent is K.'s first proper contact with the authorities, and it is the only one he has while living at the Bridge Inn. As his first proper contact it is very important for him. When he first meets the Superintendent both engage in what sounds like a rehearsed exchange. K. had expected something like the response he gets, we are told.
Schwarzer
This is a little like his attitude to the authorities in the scene with Schwarzer. There K. clearly sees himself as playing a game rather than pursuing his rights. He does not at first know that there is a castle there; and his stories about an assistant coming along later with the apparatus and not wanting to miss the chance of a walk through the snow are clearly made up: the assistant does not appear, and who would want to walk through snow that deep? When Schwarzer hears on the 'phone that there is no trace of a land surveyor, K. instead of protesting that there is a land surveyor and that is him, expects everyone in the inn to descend upon him angrily. His response to the news that in fact a land surveyor is expected is to conclude that the authorities are taking up the challenge with a smile, and he thinks they hope to cow him by loftily recognising him: he is not simply relieved that the truth of his claim has been acknowledged.
Indeed K. in that scene is only reacting to Schwarzer, who for some reason, perhaps at the behest of the landlady, who acts always contrarily to the landlord we later learn, takes it upon himself to try to throw K. out. He uses somewhat disingenuous language in order to do so:
This village belongs to the Castle, and whoever lives here or spends a night here does so in a manner of speaking in the Castle itself. Nobody may do that without the permission of the Count. But you have no such permit, or at least you have produced none.
These three statements do not follow directly on, one from the other. It is only in a manner of speaking that K. is spending the night in the Castle itself, and his staying in the village surely does not require the Count's permission. Further, the phrase 'the permission of the Count' does not necessarily indicate a permit. The German word 'Erlaubnis', which translates both as permit and as permission is ambiguous, and Schwarzer deliberately uses the ambiguity. 'Authorisation' might solve the problem of retaining the ambiguity in translation.
When K. challenges Schwarzer, asking if one requires a permit, the latter insists, "One must have a permit," but then turns to the throng and wonders, "Or must one not have a permit?" This has the effect of qualifying his insistence, while seeming to reinforce it. It is similar to Frieda kissing K. below the counter at the Herrenhof, while cheekily asking the Herrenhof landlord if he thinks the Land Surveyor is hiding there. Kafka is very aware, for example, of the distortions and evasions people engage in, when they want to avoid telling the truth, without telling outright lies. This has to do with the games they are playing.
Set up 26 October 1998
Last updated 29 March 1999
© Roderick Millar 1998-1999