“Yes,” said the man, “but I’m now no longer under any obligation to hear your case”—there was once more a muttering, but this time it was misleading as the man waved the people’s objections aside with his hand and continued—“I will, however, as an exception, continue with it today. But you should never arrive late like this again. And now, step forward!” Someone jumped down from the podium so that there would be a place free for K., and K. stepped up onto it. He stood pressed closely against the table, the press of the crowd behind him was so great that he had to press back against it if he did not want to push the judge’s desk down off the podium and perhaps the judge along with it.

The judge, however, paid no attention to that but sat very comfortably on his chair and, after saying a few words to close his discussion with the man behind him, reached for a little note book, the only item on his desk. It was like an old school exercise book and had become quite misshapen from much thumbing. “Now then,” said the judge, thumbing through the book. He turned to K. with the tone of someone who knows his facts and said, “you are a house painter?” “No,” said K., “I am the chief clerk in a large bank.” This reply was followed by laughter among the right hand faction down in the hall, it was so hearty that K. couldn’t stop himself joining in with it. The people supported themselves with their hands on their knees and shook as if suffering a serious attack of coughing. Even some of those in the gallery were laughing. The judge had become quite cross but seemed to have no power over those below him in the hall, he tried to reduce what harm had been done in the gallery and jumped up threatening them, his eyebrows, until then hardly remarkable, pushed themselves up and became big, black and bushy over his eyes.

The left hand side of the hall was still quiet, though, the people stood there in rows with their faces looking towards the podium listening to what was being said there, they observed the noise from the other side of the hall with the same quietness and even allowed some individuals from their own ranks, here and there, to go forward into the other faction. The people in the left faction were not only fewer in number than the right but probably were no more important than them, although their behaviour was calmer and that made it seem like they were. When K. now began to speak he was convinced he was doing it in the same way as them.