him, or rather as if he wanted to know that he was a scoundrel. I consider that right and proper, an official must behave like that. Unfortunately with my nature I can't follow out this principle; you see yourself how frank I am with you, a stranger, about those things, I can't act in any other way. But Sordini, on the contrary, was seized by suspicion when he read our reply. Now a large correspondence began to grow.
Sordini inquired how I had suddenly recalled that a Land Surveyor shouldn't be summoned.
I replied, drawing on Mizzi's splendid memory, that the first suggestion had come from the chancellery itself (but that it had come from a different department we had of course forgotten long before this).
Sordini countered: "Why had I only mentioned this official order now?"
I replied: "Because I had just remembered it."
Sordini: "That was very extraordinary."
Myself: "It was not in the least extraordinary in such a long-drawn-out business."
Sordini: "Yes, it was extraordinary, for the order that I remembered didn't exist."
Myself: "Of course it didn't exist, for the whole document had gone missing."
Sordini: "But there must be a memorandum extant relating to this first communication, and there wasn't one extant."
That drew me up, for that an error should happen in Sordini's department I neither dared to maintain nor to believe. Perhaps, my dear Land Surveyor, you'll make the reproach against Sordini in your mind, that in consideration of my assertion he should have been moved at least to make inquiries in the other departments about the affair. But that is just what would have been wrong; I don't want any blame to attach to this man, no, not even in your thoughts. It's a working principle of the Head Bureau that the very possibility of error must be ruled out of account. This ground principle is justified by the consummate organization of the whole authority, and it is necessary if the maximum speed in transacting business is to be attained. So it wasn't within Sordini's power to make inquiries in other departments, besides they simply wouldn't have answered, because they would have guessed at once that it was a case of hunting out a possible error."
"Allow me, Superintendent, to interrupt you with a question," said K. "Did you not mention once before a Control Authority? From your description the whole economy is one that would rouse one's apprehension if onecould imagine the control failing."
"You're very strict," said the Superintendent, "but multiply your strictness a thousand times and it would still be nothing compared with the strictness which the Authority imposes on itself. Only a total stranger could ask a question like yours. Is there a Control Authority? There are only control authorities. Frankly it isn't their function to hunt out errors in the vulgar sense, for errors don't happen, and even when once in a while an error does happen, as in your case, who can say finally that it's an error?"
"This is news indeed!" cried K.
"It's very old news to me," said the Superintendent. "Not unlike yourself I'm convinced that an error has occurred, and as a result Sordini is quite ill with despair, and the first Control Officials, whom we have to thank for discovering the source of error, recognize that there is an error. But who can guarantee that the second Control Officials will decide in the same way and the third lot and all the others?"
"That may be," said K. "I would much rather not mix in these speculations yet, besides this is the first mention I've heard of these Control Officials and naturally I can't understand them yet. But I fancy that two things must be distinguished here: firstly, what is transacted in the offices and can be construed again officially this way or that, and secondly, my own actual person, me myself, situated outside of the offices and threatened by their encroachments, which are so meaningless that I can't even yet believe in the seriousness of the danger. The first evidently
Sordini inquired how I had suddenly recalled that a Land Surveyor shouldn't be summoned.
I replied, drawing on Mizzi's splendid memory, that the first suggestion had come from the chancellery itself (but that it had come from a different department we had of course forgotten long before this).
Sordini countered: "Why had I only mentioned this official order now?"
I replied: "Because I had just remembered it."
Sordini: "That was very extraordinary."
Myself: "It was not in the least extraordinary in such a long-drawn-out business."
Sordini: "Yes, it was extraordinary, for the order that I remembered didn't exist."
Myself: "Of course it didn't exist, for the whole document had gone missing."
Sordini: "But there must be a memorandum extant relating to this first communication, and there wasn't one extant."
That drew me up, for that an error should happen in Sordini's department I neither dared to maintain nor to believe. Perhaps, my dear Land Surveyor, you'll make the reproach against Sordini in your mind, that in consideration of my assertion he should have been moved at least to make inquiries in the other departments about the affair. But that is just what would have been wrong; I don't want any blame to attach to this man, no, not even in your thoughts. It's a working principle of the Head Bureau that the very possibility of error must be ruled out of account. This ground principle is justified by the consummate organization of the whole authority, and it is necessary if the maximum speed in transacting business is to be attained. So it wasn't within Sordini's power to make inquiries in other departments, besides they simply wouldn't have answered, because they would have guessed at once that it was a case of hunting out a possible error."
"Allow me, Superintendent, to interrupt you with a question," said K. "Did you not mention once before a Control Authority? From your description the whole economy is one that would rouse one's apprehension if onecould imagine the control failing."
"You're very strict," said the Superintendent, "but multiply your strictness a thousand times and it would still be nothing compared with the strictness which the Authority imposes on itself. Only a total stranger could ask a question like yours. Is there a Control Authority? There are only control authorities. Frankly it isn't their function to hunt out errors in the vulgar sense, for errors don't happen, and even when once in a while an error does happen, as in your case, who can say finally that it's an error?"
"This is news indeed!" cried K.
"It's very old news to me," said the Superintendent. "Not unlike yourself I'm convinced that an error has occurred, and as a result Sordini is quite ill with despair, and the first Control Officials, whom we have to thank for discovering the source of error, recognize that there is an error. But who can guarantee that the second Control Officials will decide in the same way and the third lot and all the others?"
"That may be," said K. "I would much rather not mix in these speculations yet, besides this is the first mention I've heard of these Control Officials and naturally I can't understand them yet. But I fancy that two things must be distinguished here: firstly, what is transacted in the offices and can be construed again officially this way or that, and secondly, my own actual person, me myself, situated outside of the offices and threatened by their encroachments, which are so meaningless that I can't even yet believe in the seriousness of the danger. The first evidently
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