“That won’t help you, sir,” continued K., “even your little book will only confirm what I say.” K. was satisfied to hear nothing but his own quiet words in this room full of strangers, and he even dared casually to pick up the examining judge’s notebook and, touching it only with the tips of his fingers as if it were something revolting, lifted it in the air, holding it just by one of the middle pages so that the others on each side of it, closely written, blotted and yellowing, flapped down. “Those are the official notes of the examining judge,” he said, and let the notebook fall down onto the desk. “You can read in your book as much as you like, sir, I really don’t have anything in this charge book to be afraid of, even though I don’t have access to it as I wouldn’t want it in my hand, I can only touch it with two fingers.” The judge grabbed the notebook from where it had fallen on the desk—which could only have been a sign of his deep humiliation, or at least that is how it must have been perceived—tried to tidy it up a little, and held it once more in front of himself in order to read from it.

The people in the front row looked up at him, showing such tension on their faces that he looked back down at them for some time. Every one of them was an old man, some of them with white beards. Could they perhaps be the crucial group who could turn the whole assembly one way or the other? They had sunk into a state of motionlessness while K. gave his oration, and it had not been possible to raise them from this passivity even when the judge was being humiliated. “What has happened to me,” continued K., with less of the vigour he had had earlier, he continually scanned the faces in the first row, and this gave his address a somewhat nervous and distracted character, “what has happened to me is not just an isolated case. If it were it would not be of much importance as it’s not of much importance to me, but it is a symptom of proceedings which are carried out against many. It’s on behalf of them that I stand here now, not for myself alone.”