Kafka in California (from forthcoming novel)

The things the townspeople would say to each other, Karl noticed, almost always had a practical significance. If someone remarked on the weather, it was understood that he was remarking upon either how some task should be done or on the very fact that it should be, lest anyone of them forget for more than a passing moment. It was in this environment that he began to sense that he had a remarkable intuitive power of being able to comment on what someone else was doing, or what their way of going about things seemed to say about what they wanted, and in such a way that all of this might seem curiously contingent. But along with this realization came another, less felicitious one: it seemed that whenever he would say anything to any of these good citizens of the neighborhood that had any such indicative meaning, one of them would either quickly remark that he was speaking too loud or in some other way inappropriately, or they would simply take a step forward so as to seem to form a little encircling crowd around him, the better to act decisively in his instance to wipe out the transgression. For then it was as if he had passed surreptitiously yet momentously from potentiality to act, uttering a statement that scandalously appeared apt to do something, something that alarmingly appeared liable to make some claim on the others or suggest perversely that something about the little circle of this charmed class of companions ought, that is to say could, be otherwise than as it was. The comforting thought then occurred that those who knew Karl well could predict that he would soon enough return to the general wisdom that is certified by appearing to understand all that is said and done around one while adding, that is to say saying or doing, blessedly, nothing.