Since the door leading into the Law stands open as usual and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man bends down to peer through the entrance. When the doorkeeper sees that, he laughs and says: 'If you are so strongly tempted, try to get in without my permission. But note that I am powerful. And I am only the lowest doorkeeper. From hall to hall, keepers stand at every door, one more powerful than the other. And the sight of the third man is already more than even I can stand.'

　  当时法律之门开着，门一直开着，守门人走到另一侧，所以乡下人弯腰往门里看。“如果那么吸引你，就别把我的禁止当回事，试着进去。不过请注意：我是强而有力的。我只不过是最下层的守门人。每个房间都有守门人，一个比一个更强更有力。我甚至不敢看第三个守门人一眼。”

These are difficulties which the man from the country has not expected to meet, the Law, he thinks, should be accessible to every man at all times, but when he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his furred robe, with his huge pointed nose and long thin Tartar beard, he decides that he had better wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at the side of the door. There he sits waiting for days and years. 

　　乡下人没有料到这些困难：法律本应是所有人可以接近的，他想，但是当他现在更近距离地看这穿着皮衣的守门人，看他的大鼻子和又长又厚又黑的鞑靼人胡须，他决定等，等到他被允许入内，这更合适些。守门人给了他一个凳子，让他在门前坐下。他坐在那里，日复一日，年复一年。 

He makes many attempts to be allowed in and wearies the doorkeeper with his importunity. The doorkeeper often engages him in brief conversation, asking him about his home and about other matters, but the questions are put quite impersonally, as great men put questions, and always conclude with the statement that the man cannot be allowed to enter yet. 

    他多次尝试征得允许进入，他的请求使守门人磨得没脾气。守门人经常简短地问他一些关于他家乡和其他的事情，但那都是些无趣的问题，那种大人物问的问题，而最后守门人总是告诉他他不允许进入。

The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, parts with all he has, however valuable, in the hope of bribing the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts it all, saying, however, as he takes each gift: 'I take this only to keep you from feeling that you have left something undone.' During all these long years the man watches the doorkeeper incessantly. He forgets about the other doorkeepers, and this one seems to him the only barrier between himself and the Law. 

    乡下人旅行中带了很多东西，为了赢得守门人的允许，他花光了这些不管多么宝贵的东西。守门人接受了一切，在接受这些时，他说“我接受这些，仅仅是为了不让你认为你没有能做一些事。”这些年里，乡下人一直几乎不间断地观察着守门人，似乎这个人是他进入法律的唯一障碍。

In the first years he curses his evil fate aloud; later, as he grows old, he only mutters to himself. He grows childish, and since in his prolonged study of the doorkeeper he has learned to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the very fleas to help him and to persuade the doorkeeper to change his mind. Finally his eyes grow dim and he does not know whether the world is really darkening around him or whether his eyes are only deceiving him.

　　开始的几年里他不假思索地大声诅咒不幸的环境，后来他慢慢变老，就独自咕噜。他变得孩子气了，因为长时间端详守门人，他连守门人皮衣领上的跳蚤都熟悉了，他甚至请跳蚤帮他劝说守门人。最后，他眼力不济了，不知道周围的东西是不是真的那么暗或者他的眼睛欺骗了他。

 But in the darkness he can now perceive a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the door of the Law. Now his life is drawing to a close. Before he dies, all that he has experienced during the whole time of his sojourn condenses in his mind into one question, which he has never put to the doorkeeper. He beckons the doorkeeper, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend far down to hear him, for the difference in size between them has increased very much to the man's disadvantage.

　　但是现在，在黑暗中他发现了一丝亮光，从法律之门不可阻挡地射出来的亮光。现在他活着的日子不多了。临终前他将整个时间的全部体验在脑海中归集成了一个问题，这个问题他还没有告诉守门人。他向他挥挥手，他僵硬的躯体无法抬起了。守门人只好向他弯下腰，因为全然不同的际遇已经将事情变得不利于他了。 

 'What do you want to know now?' asks the doorkeeper, 'you are insatiable.' 'Everyone strives to attain the Law,' answers the man, 'how does it come about, then, that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?' The doorkeeper perceives that the man is nearing his end and his hearing is failing, so he bellows in his ear: 'No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended for you. I am now going to shut it.'"