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this false path until the end of his case should come in sight. The
client ceased to be a client and became the lawyer’s dog.152
The initial insight that Joseph K. has ( italicized above) conflicts with his ultimate conclusion. Block has followed a false path that leads
him to become the Lawyer’s dog. However, K. makes the mistake of
forgetting the great difference between himself and Block, especial y
in Leni’s eyes. Leni would never treat K. in the humiliating manner
that Block is being treated in this spectacle of psychological torture and subjugation. K. does not listen well when she tel s him that
Block “is a miserable creature”, and that it would be absurd for K. to be jealous of him. She may have performed sexual acts with Block,
but they would have been as rehearsed and as professional as K.
observes the dialogue in the Lawyer’s sadomasochistic drama to
be. In the horrifying scene above, Leni is actual y in the dominant
position. The sick and withering old Lawyer is in bed, Block is
152 Ibid., 193 – emphasis mine.
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cowering on the floor like a miserable creature, while “displaying the fine lines of her taught figure” Leni towers above and ‘nurses’ both
of them. The “rehearsed” nature of Leni’s relationship with Block,
and even with the Lawyer himself, presents a stark contrast to the
magical spontaneity of the encounter between her and Joseph K. in
the study – an encounter wherein, as we have seen, ordinary space
and time were transcended.
Block pursues his case much more aggressively than K. We
hear that the Lawyer has given Block certain ‘scriptures of the Law’,
and that Block studies these day and night though he can barely
understand them.153 He carries these studies out in Leni’s room. Leni
is aware of his diligence and cites this ‘good behavior’ in her mock
defense of him to the Lawyer. This must be viewed in the context of
Leni’s advisory comments to K., during their very first encounter in
the Lawyer’s study. It is not an accident that the transcendence of
space-time by Leni and K. on this occasion, takes place during an
ongoing discussion between the Lawyer and a Court Official, whose
aid Joseph’s uncle has enlisted. From the moment when the latter
meets K. at the Bank, we are told that he favors an overbearingly
active approach to Joseph’s case. Yet, in her advisement of K., Leni
says: “But must you eternal y be brooding over your case?” To which
K. responds: “In fact I probably brood far too little over it.” The
rejoinder by Leni is key:
“That isn’t the mistake you make,” said Leni. “You’re too
unyielding, that’s what I’ve heard.” “Who told you that?” asked K.;
he could feel her body against his breast and gazed down at her
rich, dark firmly knotted hair. “I should give away too much if I
told you that,” replied Leni. “Please don’t ask me for names, take
my warning to heart instead, and don’t be so unyielding in future,
you can’t fight against this Court, you must confess to guilt. Make
your confession at the first chance you get. Until you do that,
there’s no possibility of getting out of their clutches, none at al .
Yet even then you won’t manage it without help from outside,
153 Ibid., 194.
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but you needn’t trouble your head about that, I’ll see to it myself.”
“You know a great deal about this Court and the intrigues that
prevail in it!” said K… Then she clasped both her hands around
his neck, leaned back, and looked at him for a long time.154
Whereas Leni encourages Block’s day and night study of the false
scriptures, feeding him a few scraps of food and a few sips of water
along the way, she is telling K. to do just the opposite. The truth about her intentional y misleading Block, is probably what she would have
revealed to K. if he had agreed to accompany her to the study where
she would “explain everything.” This would also have given him
profound insight regarding his own ‘case’. The clear implication in
the passage above, is that despite the ignorance of Joseph’s uncle –
who cares only for the “good name” of his family, Leni can actual y
help K. more than the old men discussing his case in the next room.
She refuses to tell him who it was that told her that K. needs to be
less unyielding because it would reveal too much. This person could
not have been the Lawyer, because taking such a view would put
him out of business.
Rather, we should read this mysterious comment in light of the
fact that Leni is privy to the information that the ‘High Judge’ in the painting on the wall of the study is actual y an Examining Magistrate
seated on a “kitchen chair, with an old horse-rug doubled under
him”.155 We later find out that Titorelli paints all of the court officials’
portraits in his own studio, which is appended to their Law offices.156
This means that Leni knows Titorelli. She has been to his studio, and
was probably there even while the Examining Magistrate was having
his portrait painted. Kafka’s hint here offers a rare glimpse into the workings of the Court behind the scenes, at a level higher than that
of the Lawyer or the Chief Clerk of the Court, who K. impolitely
– but wisely – abandons in the room down the hall during his first meeting with Leni.
154 Ibid., 109.
155 Ibid., 108.
156 Ibid., 156.
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Like the Usher’s wife, Leni is one of the promiscuous women of
the Law. Perhaps she was once in training, in a manner akin to one
of the three adolescent girls that K. encounters when he visits the
Painter. Titorelli is “on the friendliest terms” with them, and informs K. that they “belong to the Court too.”157 The Painter tel s K. that he painted one of the girls who “belong to the Court” once, but not
one of the three he sees on the stairway. Perhaps it is Leni who was
painted, on the occasion of her graduation, as part of an earlier group of three women. Titorelli also mentions that he brings ladies to his studio to be painted, in addition to the male officials of the Court.
Titorelli informs K. that he is “in the confidence of the Court” and
says that K. is right when he intimates that “such unrecognized posts
often carry more influence with them than the official ones.”158 The
three women that offer to help K. all hold, or will hold (in the case
of Fraulein Burstner), such unofficial positions of higher authority
than that of the Laywers, Chief Clerks, or Examining Magistrates.
Note how the words of Titorelli’s description of the portrait of the
vain Judge that he is painting echo Leni’s description of the artifice of the portrait in the Lawyer’s study as a testimony to the vanity of
the Court officials:
“Of course,” said K., who had not wished to give any offense by
his remark. “You have painted the figure as it actual y stands
above the high seat.” “No,” said the painter, “I have neither seen
the figure nor the high seat, that is all invention, but I am told
what
to paint and I paint it.” “How do you mean?” asked K.,
deliberately pretending that he did not understand. “It’s surely a
Judge sitting on his seat of justice?” “Yes,” said the painter, “but it is by no means a high Judge and he has never sat on such a seat in
his life.” “And yet he has himself painted in that solemn posture?
Why, he sits there as if he were the actual President of the Court.”
“Yes, they’re very vain, these gentlemen,” said the painter. “But
their superiors give them permission to get themselves painted
157 Ibid., 150.
158 Ibid., 148.
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like that. Each one of them gets precise instructions how he
may have his portrait painted. Only you can’t judge the detail of
the costume and the seat itself from this picture, unfortunately
pastel is real y unsuited for this kind of thing.” “Yes,” said K., “it’s curious that you should have used pastel.” “My client wished it,”
said the painter, “he intends the picture for a lady.”159
Leni also tel s K. that the portraits are “all invention” and then
proceeds to tell him that she is as “madly vain” as the court officials who are painted in this ridiculously pompous manner. Could it be
that the “superiors” of the “vain…gentlemen”, who are the ones that
determine how each official is to be painted, are actual y women?
Is one of these women the lady for whom the portrait above is
intended? Kafka is certainly drawing our attention to some link
between the scene where Leni explains the portrait in the study to K.
and the scene of Titorelli explaining a similar portrait that is being painted for a lady, by a painter of the Court who occasional y paints
women.
It is very interesting that a Court official would give his
commissioned formal portrait to a woman. She must be a woman of
some importance. Perhaps the portrait in the Lawyer’s study belongs
not to the Lawyer, but to Leni. She claims to know the “dwarf” of a
man who is depicted in it.160 Perhaps the portrait was the dwarf’s gift to her, just as the portrait in Titorelli’s office will be given to another Lady of the Court. It makes a great deal of sense that such women
would invent the metaphor of the Great Goddess of Witchcraft
standing above all of the seats in which the male Judges sit – as
if to mock their judgments and intimate the hidden dominion of
The Craft over their ‘Court of Justice.’ The Judges and all of the
male orderlies beneath them may, in fact, be servants of the Triune
Goddess as embodied by Her High Priestesses.
On more than one occasion, K. momentarily realizes despite
himself that these women who are in some way involved with ‘the
159 Ibid., 146-147.
160 Ibid., 108.
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Law’ can help him with his case, especial y during his encounter
with Leni, when he thinks to himself:
I seem to recruit women helpers, he thought almost in surprise;
first Fraulein Burstner, then the wife of the usher, and now this
little nurse [Leni] who appears to have some incomprehensible
desire for me. “And if I don’t make a confession of guilt, then
you can’t help me?” K. asked experimental y… “No,” said Leni,
shaking her head slowly, “then I can’t help you. But you don’t
in the least want my help, it doesn’t matter to you, you’re stiff-
necked and never will be convinced.” After a while she asked:
“Have you got a sweetheart?” “No,” said K. “Oh, yes, you have,”
she said.”161
Leni’s claim that K. is “too stiff-necked” to accept her help is
immediately followed by her insistence that he must have a
sweetheart. The implication is that the two are related. As we see a few lines down, what Leni means by “a sweetheart” is someone to whom
one is bound, one with whom one has a possessive relationship that
excludes others. Leni takes Joseph’s stubbornness and refusal to
accept her help, as evidence that he is possessive. It ultimately turns out that she is right in this assessment, but for the time being her
hope in helping him is restored by his lightheartedness in respect
to exchanging Elsa for her, and by the intimate manner in which he
holds her and cherishes the oddity of her “pretty paw” (as discussed
above). Even when K. himself realizes that such women have decisive
influence over the malleable male officials who maintain the façade
of the Court, he cannot conceive of their help in any other terms
than their being employed by him as his servants: “Women have
great influence. If I could move some women I know to join forces
in working for me, I couldn’t help winning through. Especial y before this Court, which consists almost entirely of petticoat-hunters. Let
the Examining Magistrate see a woman in the distance and he knocks
down his desk and the defendant in his eagerness to get at her.”162
161 Ibid., 109.
162 Ibid., 211 – emphasis mine.
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5. Two Trinities
K. ultimately prefers to forsake the help of the Three Witches of the
Triune Goddess, rather than abandon his aspirations of possessing
them. In his final, brief, conversation with Leni, over the telephone, she is concerned that he has been called to the Cathedral. As the
priest there later confirms, she suggests that it is an act of the Court and that they are goading K. on, in other words, that he should not
go. However: “Pity which he had not asked for and did not expect
was more than K. could bear, he said two words of farewel , but even
as he hung up the receiver he murmured half to himself and half to
the faraway girl who could no longer hear him: ‘Yes, they’re goading
me.’”163 Despite the admission that Leni is right in believing that the Court has called him to the Cathedral, he acts surprised when the
‘Prison Chaplain’ later tel s him the same thing.
This attests to the fact that the division between the conscious
and unconscious aspects of Joseph K. persists until the very end
of his case. Leni offers K. a way to circumvent a Law that cannot
be fought against head-on, but only if he confesses to his guilt. It
should be clear by now that Joseph K. is indeed guilty, at least in as much as he possesses two aspects to his character, each with a
different ethos. In so far as his calculative, stubborn and possessive conscious self is not reconciled to his unconsciously free-spirited
nature, each of these aspects must always view the other as wrong.
The guilt of Joseph K. lies in the unacknowledged duality of his
persona. An admission of guilt would thus be a means whereby
the two conflicting aspects would have to be acknowledged from
a third vantage point of observation, one which encompasses the
opposition of the conscious and unconscious mind within its
horizon. K. is never able to bring these into the spiritual harmony of such a Trinity. Instead, the deadly duality of their opposition draws
him towards his execution.
We should not mistake the three men walking to the execution
as such a Trinity. The two executioners, whom K. is awaiting with
163 Ibid
., 203.
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the self-condemnation of a guilty man, are two men. Just as the warders who arrest him are two men. K. is not the reconciling third term between them, though the speaking looks he exchanges with
the warder Franz are a subtle invitation to become that. Rather,
the two men taking him off to be executed stand one on each of
his two sides, representing the continuing and ever more deadly
strife of duality within Joseph K. Instead of each supporting and
making the other stronger, as in a genuine Trinity, “the three of
them were interlocked in a unity which would have brought all
three down together had one of them been knocked over.”164 They
form only “a unity such as can hardly be formed except by lifeless
matter.”165 Physis was a lower aspect of Hecate, the functioning of the material world that theurgists sought to overcome.166 In this
guise as Physis, she sent forth deceptive, earthly daimones whose task it was to persuade people to be dragged down into the mindset
of materialism.167 The two Visitors who come for K. are men in
black, and with great relevance to the Dionysian persona masks
of tragic drama at its origins, K. even asks them whether they are
(cheap) actors from a theater. Though he takes their response as an
unpreparedness to answer questions (as if they are preprogrammed
automata), the gestures involved in their reaction to this question
suggest something more like a mime performance.168 Significantly,
K. has also dressed himself all in black and is just slipping on a pair of gloves as he waits for the unannounced Visitors. There are always
three men in black. Even at the outset of The Trial, the warders insist on K. donning a black coat to appear before the first of the officials he is to encounter.169 What is it with black?
A variety of classical literary and historical sources attest to black stones of volcanic obsidian, with their inhumanly primordial and
164 Ibid., 224.
165 Ibid.
166 D’Este,
Hekate, 174.
167 Ibid., 174-175.
168 Kafka,
The Trial, 224.
169 Ibid., 9.
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terrifyingly abstract and reflective aspect, being the earliest idols
of the Amazon lunar goddess.170 Most interestingly, the Ka’aba at