As for apparent acquittals: it’s clear that these cover a vast share of the possibilities — and Titorelli lets it be understood that the most congenial solution for Josef K. lies in this area. Apparent acquittal is characterized by its tendency to grant the relief of temporary victory, but only in the context of ongoing anxiety. One who obtains an apparent acquittal and returns contentedly home can never be sure he won’t find someone waiting for him there, ready to arrest him again on the same charge. The charge, by its nature, tends to remain “alive” and “continues to hover over” the defendant like a dark bird. It’s no surprise that, “as soon as the high order comes,” the charge can “immediately take effect” again. And here Titorelli touches on a crucial point: a trial may lead to a verdict, but “the proceeding remains active.” The trial is only a temporary dramatization of something that never ceases but rather “continues pendulum-like, with larger or smaller oscillations, with longer or shorter interruptions”—and that’s the “proceeding.” Titorelli’s meticulous description only confirms Josef K.’s recent insight: “A single executioner could take the place of the entire court.” Behind all its imposing apparatus, the court “serves no purpose.” It certainly doesn’t serve to determine guilt, given that in every case “the court is firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt” from the start. Why, then, does the court continue to exist? Couldn’t a single executioner eliminate the interminable series of acts, all of which have a predetermined outcome? And isn’t this like saying that every life could be immediately ended by death, without having to develop through all manner of branching and leafing? Maybe Titorelli would have hinted at an answer had Josef K. not been in such a hurry to get out of that stifling garret. But where would he go to breathe easier? Into the hallways of the court, with which that room communicates via the door behind the painter’s bed.
In his work at the bank, Josef K. deals with laws and courts of every kind. And that multiplicity comforts him, because it seems to limit each individual power. Speaking with Titorelli, however, he realizes that his convictions are mistaken. Everything converges toward a single court — and that court extends everywhere. More disconcerting even than its omnipresence is its talent for mimicry. The court is pervasive, yet it can pass unnoticed or be confused with other courts. The court’s activities are widely known, but at the same time one isn’t bound to be aware of them. Many people are familiar with Josef K.’s trial, but only because they have something to do with the court. Otherwise his trial would be a secret. This is the real terror: that some normal life may exist, that it may be proceeding smoothly along, but that it may contain within it another life, one with radically different aims, working quietly, as if protected by the sheath of the normal life. If that’s true, it will no longer be possible to appeal to normality, and even less to nature, for both will be suspected of serving as mere covers for another process, which proceeds along a completely different course. And whose proceedings have a completely different meaning.
“No acts get lost, the court doesn’t forget anything”: this is still Titorelli speaking. Everything piles up and coalesces. But, in the course of this vast procession of proceedings, does anything final, transparent, or unquestionable manage to survive? It would seem not. The real acquittals are destroyed the moment they are pronounced. And the convictions? There are none. Beyond the void left by the destruction of the real acquittals, there remain only cases of apparent acquittal — which are by their nature never final, since “the proceeding remains active,” like an ember beneath ash — and cases of protraction, where the trial is cunningly kept “at the lowest stage,” so that it never gets as far as a verdict and a possible conviction. The procession of proceedings seems in the end unable to produce not only acquittals but convictions as well. Yet Josef K. will be convicted and killed in the most atrocious manner: “like a dog.” One day the secretary Bürgel, who is the prison chaplain’s secular counterpart, will explain to Josef K. that “there are things that founder for no other reason than themselves.”
Even if “everything belongs to the court,” only in two cases are particular people said to belong to the court: Titorelli says this about the corrupt girls who surround him, and the priest says it about himself in the cathedral. The girls mock Josef K., and the priest is more “friendly” toward him than anyone else has been. In both cases, we’re dealing with manifestations of the court, which must be compatible with each other, or else the entire construction would collapse. At most, they may play different roles within the same “great organism,” where we know that “everything is interconnected” and effortlessly “remains unchanged” even in the presence of disturbances. Perhaps now we can begin to grasp the words the chaplain will eventually say to Josef K.: “You don’t have to regard everything as true, you only have to regard it as necessary.” Nothing is stranger, or more misleading, or more deceptive, than necessity. In this sense, Josef K. has grounds for declaring: “The lie becomes the order of the world.” But as soon as it becomes such, it spreads out over every manifestation, and hence even over the judgment that condemns it. Without knowing it, Josef K. himself belongs in that moment to the court and to its lie.
There are always at least two worlds, and between them no direct contact is permitted. It’s rumored, however, that such contact does occasionally take place, in violation of every rule. And it is always looming, like a threat or an omen, discernible even in a door set into a wall. Josef K. noticed that door in Titorelli’s garret and immediately wondered what it was for. Later someone told him that the court offices were in communication with the painter’s room. That door was the thinnest interspace between the two worlds. Speaking with Titorelli, Josef K. had come as close as possible to the court. But he didn’t trust what he heard, just as K., late one night, hesitated to believe what Bürgel was saying. A door like the one in Titorelli’s studio might look something like this:
In my apartment there’s a door I’ve never paid attention to. It’s in my bedroom, in the wall shared with the house next door. I’ve never thought anything of it, indeed I never even realized it was there. And yet it’s quite visible; the lower part is blocked by the beds, but it rises high above them, it’s not like a regular door, it’s more like a main entryway. Yesterday it was opened. I was in the dining room, which is separated by another room from the bedroom. I had come home very late for lunch, no one else was home, only the maid working in the kitchen. Then the racket began in the bedroom. I rush over there at once and see that the door, the door I’ve been unaware of until this moment, is being slowly opened and at the same time, with gigantic strength, the beds are being pushed out of the way. I yelclass="underline" “Who is it? What do you want? Easy! Careful!” and I expect to see a swarm of violent men come bursting in, but instead it’s just a skinny young man who, as soon as the gap is wide enough for him to pass, slips through and greets me cheerfully.