{"product_id":"2940014206662","title":"The Trial","description":"Chapter One\u003cbr\u003eArrest - Conversation with Mrs. Grubach - Then Miss Bürstner\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had\u003cbr\u003edone nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.  Every day at\u003cbr\u003eeight in the morning he was brought his breakfast by  Mrs. Grubach's\u003cbr\u003ecook - Mrs. Grubach was his landlady - but today she didn't come.  That\u003cbr\u003ehad never happened before.  K. waited a little while, looked from his\u003cbr\u003epillow at the old woman who lived opposite and who was watching him with\u003cbr\u003ean inquisitiveness quite unusual for her, and finally, both hungry and\u003cbr\u003edisconcerted, rang the bell.  There was immediately a knock at the door\u003cbr\u003eand a man entered.  He had never seen the man in this house before.  He\u003cbr\u003ewas slim but firmly built, his clothes were black and close-fitting,\u003cbr\u003ewith many folds and pockets, buckles and buttons and a belt, all of\u003cbr\u003ewhich gave the impression of being very practical but without making it\u003cbr\u003every clear what they were actually for.  \"Who are you?\" asked K.,\u003cbr\u003esitting half upright in his bed.  The man, however, ignored the question\u003cbr\u003eas if his arrival simply had to be accepted, and merely replied, \"You\u003cbr\u003erang?\"  \"Anna should have brought me my breakfast,\" said K.  He tried to\u003cbr\u003ework out who the man actually was, first in silence, just through\u003cbr\u003eobservation and by thinking about it, but the man didn't stay still to\u003cbr\u003ebe looked at for very long.  Instead he went over to the door, opened it\u003cbr\u003eslightly, and said to someone who was clearly standing immediately\u003cbr\u003ebehind it, \"He wants Anna to bring him his breakfast.\"  There was a\u003cbr\u003elittle laughter in the neighbouring room, it was not clear from the\u003cbr\u003esound of it whether there were several people laughing.  The strange man\u003cbr\u003ecould not have learned anything from it that he hadn't known already,\u003cbr\u003ebut now he said to K., as if making his report \"It is not possible.\"\u003cbr\u003e\"It would be the first time that's happened,\" said K., as he jumped out\u003cbr\u003eof bed and quickly pulled on his trousers.  \"I want to see who that is\u003cbr\u003ein the next room, and why it is that Mrs. Grubach has let me be\u003cbr\u003edisturbed in this way.\"  It immediately occurred to him that he needn't\u003cbr\u003ehave said this out loud, and that he must to some extent have\u003cbr\u003eacknowledged their authority by doing so, but that didn't seem important\u003cbr\u003eto him at the time.  That, at least, is how the stranger took it, as he\u003cbr\u003esaid, \"Don't you think you'd better stay where you are?\"  \"I want\u003cbr\u003eneither to stay here nor to be spoken to by you until you've introduced\u003cbr\u003eyourself.\"  \"I meant it for your own good,\" said the stranger and opened\u003cbr\u003ethe door, this time without being asked.  The next room, which K.\u003cbr\u003eentered more slowly than he had intended, looked at first glance exactly\u003cbr\u003ethe same as it had the previous evening.  It was Mrs. Grubach's living\u003cbr\u003eroom, over-filled with furniture, tablecloths, porcelain and\u003cbr\u003ephotographs.  Perhaps there was a little more space in there than usual\u003cbr\u003etoday, but if so it was not immediately obvious, especially as the main\u003cbr\u003edifference was the presence of a man sitting by the open window with a\u003cbr\u003ebook from which he now looked up.  \"You should have stayed in your room!\u003cbr\u003eDidn't Franz tell you?\"  \"And what is it you want, then?\" said K.,\u003cbr\u003elooking back and forth between this new acquaintance and the one named\u003cbr\u003eFranz, who had remained in the doorway.  Through the open window he\u003cbr\u003enoticed the old woman again, who had come close to the window opposite\u003cbr\u003eso that she could continue to see everything.  She was showing an\u003cbr\u003einquisitiveness that really made it seem like she was going senile. \"I\u003cbr\u003ewant to see Mrs. Grubach ...,\" said K., making a movement as if tearing\u003cbr\u003ehimself away from the two men - even though they were standing well away\u003cbr\u003efrom him - and wanted to go.  \"No,\" said the man at the window, who\u003cbr\u003ethrew his book down on a coffee table and stood up.  \"You can't go away\u003cbr\u003ewhen you're under arrest.\"  \"That's how it seems,\" said K.  \"And why am\u003cbr\u003eI under arrest?\" he then asked.  \"That's something we're not allowed to\u003cbr\u003etell you.  Go into your room and wait there.  Proceedings are underway\u003cbr\u003eand you'll learn about everything all in good time.  It's not really\u003cbr\u003epart of my job to be friendly towards you like this, but I hope no-one,\u003cbr\u003eapart from Franz, will hear about it, and he's been more friendly\u003cbr\u003etowards you than he should have been, under the rules, himself.  If you\u003cbr\u003ecarry on having as much good luck as you have been with your arresting\u003cbr\u003eofficers then you can reckon on things going well with you.\"  K. wanted\u003cbr\u003eto sit down, but then he saw that, apart from the chair by the window,\u003cbr\u003ethere was nowhere anywhere in the room where he could sit.  \"You'll get\u003cbr\u003ethe chance to see for yourself how true all this is,\" said Franz and\u003cbr\u003eboth men then walked up to K.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47080011858160,"sku":"2940014206662","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014206662_p0.jpg?v=1763603010","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014206662","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}