K. visits the Castle Inn and sees Klamm through the peephole

K. visits the Castle Inn with Olga, where he sees Klamm through a peephole, meets the barmaid Frieda, and learns she is Klamm's lover, setting the stage for their subsequent relationship.

Arrival at the Castle Inn

K. walked with Olga to the Castle Inn, a short journey during which she explained that this inn was reserved for gentlemen from the castle, who ate and sometimes spent the night there when they had business in the village. Olga spoke quietly and familiarly, and K. found it pleasant to walk with her, just as he had with her brother Barnabas, though he fought against this sense of pleasure. The inn outwardly resembled the Bridge Inn where K. was staying, but had small differences: the front steps had a handrail, a handsome lantern hung over the door, and a banner in the count's colours fluttered overhead. The landlord greeted them in the front hall, his small eyes examining K. in passing, and stated that the land surveyor was not allowed anywhere but the bar. Olga answered for K., saying he was just keeping her company. K., ungratefully, let go of Olga's arm and took the landlord aside, asking to spend the night there. The landlord refused, explaining that the inn was exclusively for the use of the gentlemen from the castle, who were extremely sensitive and could not tolerate the sight of a stranger without being prepared in advance. K. argued that he had valuable connections in the castle, but the landlord, though courteous, remained firm. When K. learned that the only gentleman staying that night was Klamm, his own superior, he felt unable to press the matter further, realizing that being found there by Klamm would be an embarrassing impropriety, as if he were thoughtlessly planning to upset someone to whom he owed gratitude. He stood biting his lip until Olga led him away.

The Peephole and Frieda

In the bar, a large room with several men sitting quietly around the walls, K. took Olga's arm again to explain his presence. The beer was poured by a young woman named Frieda, a small blonde with a sad face and thin cheeks, but with a surprising expression of conscious superiority in her eyes. When her gaze fell on K., it seemed to him that she had already discovered things about him of which he knew nothing. K. asked Frieda if she knew Klamm, and Olga laughed. Frieda, ignoring Olga, quietly asked K. if he would like to see Klamm, and when he said yes, she pointed to a door on her left with a little peephole. She led K. over to the door, and through the small hole he could see almost the whole of the next room. Klamm sat at a desk in the middle of the room, in a comfortable round armchair, brightly illuminated by an electric light-bulb. He was a stout, ponderous man of middle height, with a smooth face, drooping cheeks, a long black moustache, and a pair of pince-nez set crookedly on his nose. Klamm was resting his left elbow on the desk, his right hand holding a Virginia cigarette lying on his knee. A beer glass stood on the desktop, which had a raised rim, and K. thought it was empty; Frieda confirmed there were no papers there. K. asked if he had to leave the peephole, but Frieda said he could look as long as he liked.

Frieda's Revelation

Now alone with K., as Olga had moved away to an acquaintance, K. whispered to Frieda, asking if she knew Klamm very well. She said yes, very well, and leaned close to him, playfully adjusting her cream-coloured blouse, which was cut rather low at the neck. She then revealed that she was Klamm's lover. K., smiling to keep the conversation from getting too serious, said that as far as he was concerned she was someone worthy of respect. Frieda responded in friendly tones but without returning his smile. K. asked if she had ever been in the castle, but she replied that she had not, and asked if it was not enough that she was there in the bar. She seemed to have a raging thirst for praise, and appeared to want to slake it on K. When K. remarked on her soft hands, she said no one had noticed them when she was a dairymaid at the Bridge Inn. K. suggested she had her secrets, but this seemed the wrong thing to say, as if he had woken her from a slumber in which she liked him. She took a small piece of wood from her leather bag, stopped up the peephole, and said she knew everything about him—that he was the land surveyor—and then went back behind the counter to work.

K.'s Bold Proposal

K. wanted another quiet word with Frieda, so he took an empty glass and went over to her. He told her it was extraordinary to have worked her way up from dairymaid to barmaid, but asked if that was the height of ambition for a person like her, noting that her eyes spoke of struggles yet to come. He suggested she might need the help of a man who was small and uninfluential but ready to fight, and proposed they talk quietly some time. Frieda, her tone speaking of endless disappointments, asked if he was trying to take her away from Klamm. K. replied that she saw right through him, and that he secretly intended to do just that—to have her leave Klamm and become his lover instead. He then called for Olga, saying they were going home. Frieda, with a dark glance, asked when she could speak to him. K. asked if he could stay the night there, and she said yes, but told him to go out with Olga first so she could get the men in the bar to leave, after which he could come back. K. waited impatiently for Olga, who was being drawn into a dance by Klamm's servants, whom Frieda described as the most contemptible and repulsive people she knew. Frieda, picking up a whip, drove the servants out into the stables in the name of Klamm. In the sudden silence, K. heard footsteps and hid behind the bar counter. When the landlord came in looking for him, Frieda, who had returned, planted her foot on K.'s chest and said the land surveyor must have left long ago. After the landlord left to search the rest of the house, Frieda turned off the electric light and joined K. under the bar, whispering, "My darling! My sweet darling!" They embraced and rolled together, bumping into Klamm's door, and lay there in the puddles of beer and rubbish covering the floor for hours, breathing together and their hearts beating in unison. K. felt he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before.