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Kafka, Franz - ss - The Metamorphosis.txt (1/2)
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| As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as
it were
armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his
domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the
bed quilt could hardly
stay in place and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs,
which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly
before his eyes.
What has happened to me? he thought. It was no dream. His room, a regular
human bedroom, only rather too small, lay quiet within its four familiar
walls. Above the
table on which a collection of cloth samples was unpacked and spread
out-Samsa was a traveling salesman-hung the picture which he had recently
cut out of an
illustrated magazine and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed a lady,
with a fur hat on and a fur stole, sitting upright and holding out to the
spectator a huge fur muff into
which the whole of her forearm had vanished!
Gregor's eyes turned next to the window, and the overcast sky-one could hear
raindrops beating on the window gutter-made him quite melancholy. What about
sleeping a little longer and forgetting all this nonsense, he thought, but
it could not be done, for he was accustomed to sleep on his right side and
in his present condition
he could not turn himself over. However violently he forced himself toward
his right side he always rolled onto his back again. He tried it at least a
hundred times,
shutting his eyes to keep from seeing his struggling legs, and only desisted
when he began to feel in his side a faint dull ache he had never felt
before.
Oh God, he thought, what an exhausting job I've picked out for myself! On
the road day in, day out. It's much more irritating work than doing the
actual business in the
home office, and on top of that there's the trouble of constant traveling,
of worrying about train connections, the bad food and irregular meals,
casual acquaintances that
are always new and never become intimate friends. The devil take it all! He
felt a slight itching up on his belly, slowly pushed himself on his back
nearer to the top of the
bed so that he could lift his head more easily, identified the itching place
which was surrounded by many small white spots the nature of which he could
not understand
and was about to touch it with a leg, but drew the leg back immediately, for
the contact made a cold shiver run through him.
He slid down again into his former position. This getting up early, he
thought, can make an idiot out of anyone. A man needs his sleep. Other
salesmen live like harem
women. For instance, when I come back to the hotel in the morning to write
up my orders these others are only sitting down to breakfast. Let me just
try that with my
boss; I'd be fired on the spot. Anyhow, that might be quite a good thing for
me, who can tell? If I didn't have to hold back because of my parents I'd
have given notice
long ago, I'd have gone to the boss and told him exactly what I think of
him. That would knock him right off his desk! It's a peculiar habit of his,
too, sitting on top of the
desk like that and talking down to employees, especially when they have to
come quite near because the boss is hard of hearing. Well, there's still
hope; once I've saved
enough money to pay back my parents' debts to him-that should take another
five or six years-I'll do it without fail. I'll cut my ties completely then.
For the moment,
though, I'd better get up, since my train leaves at five.
He looked at the alarm clock ticking on the chest of drawers. Heavenly
Father! he thought. It was half-past six and the hands were quietly moving
on, it was even past
the half-hour, it was getting on toward a quarter to seven. Had the alarm
clock not gone off? From the bed one could see that it had been properly set
for four o'clock;
of course it must have gone off. Yes, but was it possible to sleep quietly
through that ear-splitting noise? Well, he had not slept quietly, yet
apparently all the more
soundly for that. But what was he to do now? The next train went at seven
o'clock; to catch that he would need to hurry like mad and his samples
weren't even packed,
and he himself wasn't feeling particularly fresh and energetic. And even if
he did catch the train he couldn't avoid a tirade from the boss, since the
messenger boy must
have been waiting for the five o'clock train and must have long since
reported his failure to turn up. This messenger was a creature of the
boss's, spineless and stupid.
Well, supposing he were to say he was sick? But that would be very awkward
and would look suspicious, since during his five years' employment he had
not been ill
once. The boss himself would be sure to come with the health insurance
doctor, would reproach his parents for their son's laziness, and would cut
all excuses short by
handing the matter over to the insurance doctor, who of course regarded all
mankind as perfectly healthy malingerers. And would he be so far wrong in
this case?
Gregor really felt quite well, apart from a drowsiness that was quite
inexcusable after such a long sleep, and he was even unusually hungry.
As all this was running through his mind at top speed without his being able
to decide to leave his bed-the alarm clock had just struck a quarter to
seven-there was a
cautious tap at the door near the head of his bed. "Gregor," said a voice-it
was his mother's-"it's a quarter to seven. Didn't you have a train to
catch?" That gentle
voice! Gregor had a shock as he heard his own voice answering hers,
unmistakably his own voice, it was true, but with a persistent horrible
twittering squeak behind it
like an undertone, which left the words in their clear shape only for the
first moment and then rose up reverberating around them to destroy their
sense, so that one could
not be sure one had heard them rightly. Gregor wanted to answer at length
and explain everything, but in the circumstances he confined himself to
saying: "Yes, yes,
thank you, Mother, I'm getting up now." The wooden door between them must
have kept the change in his voice from being noticeable outside, for his
mother contented
herself with this statement and shuffled away. Yet this brief exchange of
words had made the other members of the family aware that Gregor was,
strangely, still at
home, and at one of the side doors his father was already knocking, gently,
yet with his fist. "Gregor, Gregor," he called, "What's the matter with
you?" And after a little
while he called again in a deeper voice: "Gregor! Gregor!" At the other side
door his sister was saying in a low, plaintive tone: "Gregor? Aren't you
well? Do you need
anything?" He answered them both at once: "I'm just about ready," and did
his best to make his voice sound as normal as possible by enunciating the
words very clearly
and leaving long pauses between them. So his father went back to his
breakfast, but his sister whispered: "Gregor, open the door, I beg you."
However, he was not
thinking of opening the door, and felt thankful for the prudent habit he had
acquired on the road of locking all doors during the night, even at home.
His immediate intention was to get up quietly without being disturbed, to
put on his clothes and above all eat his breakfast, and only then to
consider what else had to be
done, since he was well aware his meditations would come to no sensible
conclusion if he remained in bed. He remembered that often enough in bed he
had felt small
aches and pains, probably caused by lying in awkward positions, which had
proved purely imaginary once he got up, and he looked forward eagerly to
seeing this
morning's delusions gradually evaporate. That the change in his voice was
nothing but the precursor of a bad cold, a typical ailment of traveling
salesmen, he had not the
slightest doubt.
To get rid of the quilt was quite easy; he had only to inflate himself a
little and it fell off by itself. But the next move was difficult,
especially because he was so unusually
broad. He would have needed arms and hands to hoist himself up; instead he
had only the numerous little legs which never stopped waving in all
directions and which he
could not control in the least. When he tried to bend one of them the first
thing it did was to stretch itself out straight; and if he finally succeeded
in making it do what he
wanted, all the other legs meanwhile waved the more wildly in the most
painful anal unpleasant way. "But what's the use of lying idle in bed?" said
Gregor to himself.
He thought that he might get out of bed with the lower part of his body
first, but this lower part, which he had not yet seen and of which he could
form no clear picture,
proved too difficult to move; it shifted so slowly; and when finally, almost
wild with annoyance, he gathered his forces together and thrust out
recklessly, he had
miscalculated the direction and bumped heavily against the lower end of the
bed, and the stinging pain he felt informed him that precisely this lower
part of his body was
at the moment probably the most sensitive.
So he tried to get the top part of himself out first, and cautiously moved
his head toward the edge of the bed. That proved easy enough, and despite
its breadth and mass
the bulk of his body at last slowly followed the movement of his head.
Still, when he finally got his head free over the edge of the bed he felt
too scared to go on
advancing, for, after all, if he let himself fall in this way it would take
a miracle to keep his head from being injured. And under no circumstances
could he afford to lose
consciousness now, precisely now; he would rather stay in bed.
But when after a repetition of the same efforts he lay in his former
position again, sighing, and watched his little legs struggling against each
other more wildly than ever,
if that were possible, and saw no way of bringing any calm and order into
this senseless confusion, he told himself again that it was impossible to
stay in bed and that the
most sensible course was to risk everything for the smallest hope of getting
away from it. At the same time, however, he did not forget to remind himself
occasionally
that cool reflection, the coolest possible, was much better than desperate
resolves. At such moments he focused his eyes as sharply as possible on the
window, but,
unfortunately, the prospect of the morning fog, which enshrouded even the
other side of the narrow street, brought him little encouragement and
comfort. "Seven o'clock
already," he said to himself when the alarm clock chimed again, "seven
o'clock already and still such a thick fog." And for a little while he lay
quiet, breathing lightly as if
perhaps expecting the total silence around him to restore all things to
their real and normal condition.
But then he said to himself: "Before it strikes a quarter past seven I
absolutely must be quite out of this bed, without fail. Anyhow, by that time
someone will have come
from the office to ask for me, since it opens before seven." And he began to
rock his whole body at once in a regular rhythm, with the idea of swinging
it out of the bed.
If he tipped himself out in that way he could keep his head from injury by
lifting it at a sharp angle as he fell. His back seemed to be hard and was
not likely to suffer
from a fall on the carpet. His biggest worry was the loud crash he would not
be able to help making which would probably cause anxiety, if not terror,
behind all the
doors. Still, he must take the risk.
When he was already half out of the bed-the new method was more a game than
an effort, for he needed only to shift himself across by rocking to and
fro-it struck
him how simple it would be if he could get help. Two strong people-he
thought of his father and the maid-would be amply sufficient; they would
only have to thrust
their arms under his convex back, lever him out of the bed, bend down with
their burden, and then be patient enough to let him turn himself right over
onto the floor,
where it was to be hoped his little legs would then find their proper
function. Well, ignoring the fact that the doors were all locked, should he
really call for help? In spite
of his predicament he could not suppress a smile at the very idea of it.
He had already gotten to the point where he would lose his balance if he
rocked any harder, and very soon he would have to make up his mind once and
for all since in
five minutes it would be a quarter past seven-when the front doorbell rang.
"That's someone from the office," he said to himself, and grew almost rigid,
while his little
legs only thrashed about all the faster. For a moment everything stayed
quiet. "They're not going to open the door," said Gregor to himself,
grasping at some kind of
irrational hope. But then of course the maid went as usual to the door with
her determined stride and opened it. Gregor needed only to hear the first
good morning of the
visitor to know immediately who it was-the chief clerk himself. What a fate:
to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once
gave rise to the
gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels,
was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted
only an hour
or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as
to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?
Wouldn't it really have
been sufficient to send an office boy to inquire-if indeed any inquiry were
necessary-did the chief clerk himself have to come and thus indicate to the
entire innocent
family that this suspicious circumstance could be investigated by no one
less versed in affairs than himself? And more through the agitation caused
by these reflections
than through any act of will Gregor swung himself out of bed with all his
strength. There was a loud thump, but it was not really a crash. His fall
was broken to some
extent by the carpet, his back, too, was less stiff than he had thought, and
so there was merely a dull thud, not so very startling. Only he had not
lifted his head carefully
enough and had hit it; he turned it and rubbed it on the carpet in pain and
irritation.
"Something fell in there," said the chief clerk in the adjacent room to the
left. Gregor tried to suppose to himself that something like what had
happened to him today
might someday happen to the chief clerk; one really could not deny that it
was possible. But, as if in brusque reply to this supposition, the chief
clerk took a couple of firm
steps in the next door room and his patent leather boots creaked. From the
right-hand room his sister was whispering to inform him of the situation:
"Gregor, the chief
clerk's here." "I know," muttered Gregor to himself; but he didn't dare to
make his voice loud enough for his sister to hear it.
"Gregor," said his father now from the room on the left, "the chief clerk
has come and wants to know why you didn't catch the early train. We don't
know what to say to
him. Besides, he wants to talk to you in person. So open the door, please.
He will be good enough to excuse the mess in your room." "Good morning, Mr.
Samsa," the
chief clerk was calling amiably meanwhile. "He's not well," said his mother
to the visitor, while his father was still speaking through the door, "he's
not well, sir, believe
me. What else would make him miss a train! The boy thinks about nothing but
his work. It makes me almost cross the way he never goes out in the evening;
he's been
here all last week and has stayed at home every single evening. He just sits
there quietly at the table reading a newspaper or looking through railroad
timetables. The
only amusement he gets is working with his jigsaw. For instance, he spent
two or three evenings cutting out a little picture frame; you would be
surprised to see how
pretty it is; it's hanging in his room; you'll see it in a minute when
Gregor opens the door. I must say I'm glad you've come, sir; we should never
have gotten him to unlock
the door by ourselves; he's so obstinate; and I'm sure he's unwell, even if
he denied it earlier this morning." "I'll be right there," said Gregor
slowly and carefully, not
moving an inch for fear of losing one word of the conversation. "I can't
think of any other explanation, madam," said the chief clerk, "I hope it's
nothing serious. Although
on the other hand I must say that we men of business-unfortunately or
perhaps fortunately-very often simply have to ignore any slight
indisposition, since business
must be attended to." "Well, can the chief clerk come in now?" asked Gregor'
s father impatiently, again knocking on the door. "No," said Gregor. In the
left-hand room a
painful silence followed this refusal; in the right-hand room his sister
began to sob.
Why didn't his sister join the others? She had probably just gotten out of
bed and hadn't even begun to put on her clothes yet. Well, why was she
crying? Because he
wouldn't get up and let the chief clerk in, because he was in danger of
losing his job, and because the head of the firm would begin dunning his
parents again for the old
debts? Surely these were things one didn't need to worry about for the
present. Gregor was still at home and not in the least thinking of deserting
the family. At the
moment, true, he was lying on the carpet and no one who knew the condition
he was in could seriously expect him to admit the chief clerk. But for such
a small
discourtesy, which could plausibly be explained away somehow later on,
Gregor could hardly be fired on the spot. And it seemed to Gregor that it
would be much more
sensible to leave him in peace for the present than to trouble him with
tears and entreaties. Still, of course, their uncertainty bewildered them
all and excused their
behavior.
"Mr. Samsa," the chief clerk called now in a louder voice, "what's the
matter with you? Here you are, barricading yourself in your room, giving
only 'yes' and 'no' for
answers, causing your parents a lot of unnecessary trouble and neglecting-I
mention this only in passing-neglecting your business duties in an
incredible fashion. I am
speaking here in the name of your parents and of your employer, and I beg
you quite seriously to give me an immediate and precise explanation. You
amaze me, you
amaze me. I thought you were a quiet, dependable person, and now all at once
you seem bent on making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself. The boss did
hint to me
early this morning a possible explanation for your disappearance-with
reference to the cash payments that were entrusted to you recently-but I
almost pledged my
solemn word of honor that this could not be so. But now that I see how
incredibly obstinate you are. I no longer have the slightest desire to take
your part at all. And
your position in the firm is not exactly unassailable. I came with the
intention of telling you all this in private, but since you are wasting my
time so needlessly I don't see
why your parents shouldn't hear it too. For some time now your work has been
most unsatisfactory; this is not the best time of the year for business, of
course, we admit
that, but a time of the year for doing no business at all, that does not
exist, Mr. Samsa, must not exist."
"But, sir," cried Gregor, beside himself and in his agitation forgetting
everything else, "I'm just about to open the door this very minute. A slight
illness, an attack of
dizziness, has kept me from getting up. I'm still lying in bed. But I feel
all right again. I'm getting out of bed right now. Just give me a moment or
two longer! It's not
going as well as I thought. But I'm all right, really. How such a thing can
suddenly strike one down! Only last night I was quite well, my parents can
tell you, or rather I
did have a slight presentiment. I must have showed some sign of it. Why
didn't I mention it at the office! But we always think we can get over any
illness without having
to stay at home. Oh sir, do spare my parents! All that you're reproaching me
with now has no foundation; no one has ever said a word to me about it.
Perhaps you
haven't looked at the last orders I sent in. Anyway, I can still catch the
eight o'clock train, I'm much the better for my few extra hours' rest. Don't
let me detain you here,
sir; I'll be attending to business very soon, and do be good enough to tell
the boss so and to give him my best regards!"
And while all this was tumbling out in a rush and Gregor hardly knew what he
was saying, he had reached the chest of drawers quite easily, perhaps
because of the
practice he had had in bed, and was now trying to get himself upright by
means of it. He actually meant to open the door, actually meant to show
himself and speak to
the chief clerk; he was eager to find out what the others, after all their
insistence, would say at the sight of him. If they were horrified then the
responsibility was no
longer his and he could relax. But if they took it in stride, then he had no
reason either to be upset, and could actually get to the station for the
eight o'clock train if he
hurried. At first he slipped down a few times from the polished surface of
the chest, but finally with one last heave he stood upright; he paid no more
attention to the
pains in the lower part of his body, no matter how much they smarted. Then
he let himself fall against the back of a nearby chair, and clung to its
frame with his little
legs. With that he regained control over himself and he stopped speaking,
for now he could hear that the chief clerk was saying something.
"Did you understand one single word of that?" the chief clerk was asking;
"surely he can't be trying to make fools of us?" "Oh, dear God," cried his
mother, in tears,
"perhaps he's terribly ill and we're tormenting him. Grete! Grete!" she
called out then. "Yes, Mother?" called his sister from the other side. They
were calling to each
other through Gregor's room. "You must go this minute for the doctor. Gregor
is ill. Go for the doctor, quick. Did you hear how he was speaking?" "That
was the voice
of an animal," said the chief clerk in a voice conspicuously soft compared
to the shrillness of the mother's. "Anna! Anna!" his father was calling
through the hall to the
kitchen, clapping his hands, "get a locksmith at once!" And the two girls
were already running through the hall with a swish of skirts-how could his
sister have gotten
dressed so quickly?-and were tearing the front door open. There was no sound
of its closing again; they had evidently left it open, as one does in homes
where some
great misfortune has happened.
But Gregor was now much calmer. The words he uttered could no longer be
understood apparently, although they seemed clear enough to him, even
clearer than before,
perhaps because his ear had grown accustomed to the sound of them. Yet at
any rate people now believed that something was wrong with him, and were
ready to help.
The positive certainty with which these first measures had been taken
comforted him. He felt himself drawn once more into the human circle and
hoped for great and
remarkable results from both the doctor and the locksmith, without really
distinguishing precisely between them. To make his voice as clear as
possible for the crucial
consultations that were soon to take place he cleared his throat a little,
as quietly as he could, of course, since this noise too might not sound
human for all he was able to
judge. In the next room meanwhile there was complete silence. Perhaps his
parents were sitting at the table with the chief clerk, whispering, perhaps
they were all
leaning against the door and listening.
Slowly Gregor pushed the chair toward the door, then let go of it, caught
hold of the door for support-the pads at the ends of his little legs were
somewhat sticky-and
rested against it for a moment after his efforts. Then he set himself to
turning the key in the lock with his mouth. It seemed, unfortunately, that
he didn't really have any
teeth-what was he supposed to grip the key with?-but on the other hand his
jaws were certainly very strong; with their help he did manage to get the
key turning,
heedless of the fact that he was undoubtedly damaging himself, since a brown
fluid issued from his mouth, flowed over the key, and dripped onto the
floor. "Just listen to
that," said the chief clerk in the next room, "he's turning the key." That
was a great encouragement to Gregor; but they should all have shouted
encouragement to him, his
father and mother too: "Come on, Gregor," they should have called out, "keep
going, get a good grip on that key!" And in the belief that they were all
following his efforts
intently, he bit down frantically on the key with all the force at his
command. As the turning of the key progressed he circled around the lock,
holding on now only with
his mouth, pushing on the key, as required, or pulling it down again with
all the weight of his body. The louder click of the finally yielding lock
literally quickened Gregor.
With a deep breath of relief he said to himself: "So I didn't need the
locksmith," and laid his head on the handle to open the door wide.
Since he had to pull the door toward him, he was still invisible even when
it was really wide open. He had to edge himself slowly around the near half
of the double door,
and to do it very carefully if he was not to fall flat on his back before he
even got inside. He was still carrying out this difficult maneuver, with no
time to observe
anything else, when he heard the chief clerk utter a loud "Oh!"-it sounded
like a gust of wind-and now he could see the man, standing as he was nearest
to the door,
clapping one hand over his open mouth and slowly backing away as if he were
being repelled by some unseen but inexorable force. His mother-in spite of
the chief
clerk's presence her hair was still undone and sticking out in all
directions-first clasped her hands and looked at his father, then took two
steps toward Gregor and fell
on the floor among her outspread skirts, her face completely hidden on her
breast. His father clenched one fist with a fierce expression on his face as
if he meant to
knock Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly around the living
room, covered his eyes with his hands, and wept until his great chest
heaved.
Gregor did not go now into the living room, but leaned against the inside of
the firmly shut wing of the door, so that only half his body was visible and
his head above it
tilted sideways to look at the others. It had meanwhile become much brighter
outside; on the other side of the street one could see clearly a section of
the endlessly long,
dark gray building opposite-it was a hospital-its facade relentlessly
punctuated by evenly spaced windows; the rain was still falling, but only in
large, singly discernible
drops, each one of which, it seemed, was literally being hurled to the
ground below. The breakfast dishes were set out on the table in great
number, for breakfast was
the most important meal of the day for Gregor's father, who stretched it out
for hours over various newspapers. Right opposite Gregor on the wall hung a
photograph of
himself in military service, as a lieutenant, hand on sword, a carefree
smile on his face, inviting respect for his uniform and military bearing.
The door leading to the hall
was open, and one could see that the front door stood open too, showing the
landing beyond and the beginning of the stairs going down.
"Well," said Gregor, knowing perfectly that he was the only one who had
retained any composure, "I'll get dressed right away, pack up my samples,
and start off. Will
you, will you be willing to let me go? You see, sir, I'm not stubborn, and I
like my work; traveling is a hard life, but I couldn't live without it.
Where are you going now,
sir? To the office? Yes? Will you give an honest account of all this? One
can be temporarily incapacitated, but that's just the moment for remembering
former services
and for bearing in mind that later on, when the problem has been resolved,
one will certainly work all the harder and with all the more concentration.
I'm so indebted to
the head of the firm, you know that very well. On the other hand, I have my
parents and my sister to worry about. I'm in great difficulties, but I'll
get out of them again.
Don't make things any worse for me than they already are. Stand up for me in
the firm. Salesmen are not popular there, I know. People think they earn
piles of money
and just have a good time. A prejudice there's no particular reason to
correct. But you, sir, have a better view of the situation than the rest of
the staff, yes, let me tell
you in confidence, a better view than the boss himself, who, being the
owner, lets his judgment be easily swayed against one of his employees. And
you know very well
that a traveling salesman, who is almost never seen in the office all year
long, can so easily fall victim to gossip and bad luck and unfair
accusations he can't defend
himself against because he generally knows nothing about them and only finds
out when he comes back exhausted from one of his trips and then has to
suffer the
terrible consequences in some mysterious personal way. Sir, sir, don't go
away without a word to me to show that you think me in the right at least to
some extent!"
But at Gregor's very first words the chief clerk had already backed away and
only stared at him with parted lips over one twitching shoulder. And while
Gregor was
speaking he did not stand still one moment but inched toward the door, yet
without taking his eyes off Gregor, as if obeying some mysterious order not
to leave the room.
He was already in the hall, and to judge from the suddenness with which he
took his last step out of the living room one could easily have thought he
had burned the sole
of his foot. Once in the hall he stretched his right arm before him toward
the staircase as if some supernatural power were waiting there to deliver
him.
Gregor realized that the chief clerk must on no account be allowed to go
away in this frame of mind if his position in the firm were not to be
endangered to the utmost.
His parents did not understand this so well; they had convinced themselves
in the course of years that Gregor was settled for life in this firm, and,
besides, they were so
preoccupied with their immediate troubles that all foresight had forsaken
them. But Gregor had this foresight. The chief clerk must be detained,
soothed, persuaded, and
finally won over; the whole future of Gregor and his family depended on it!
If only his sister were here! She was intelligent; she had begun to cry even
while Gregor was
still lying quietly on his back. And no doubt the chief clerk, so partial to
ladies, would have been guided by her; she would have shut the door to the
apartment and in the
hall talked him out of his horror. But she was not there, and Gregor would
have to handle the situation himself. And without remembering that he was
still unaware what
powers of movement he possessed, without even remembering that his words in
all possibility, indeed in all likelihood, would again be unintelligible, he
let go the wing of
the door, pushed himself through the opening, and started to walk toward the
chief clerk, who was already clinging ridiculously with both hands to the
railing on the
landing; but immediately, as he was feeling for a support, he fell down with
a little cry upon all his numerous legs. Hardly was he down when he
experienced for the first
time this morning a sense of physical well-being; his legs had firm ground
under them; they were completely obedient, as he noted with joy; they even
strove to carry him
along in whatever direction he chose; and he was inclined to believe that a
final relief from all his sufferings was at hand. But at the same moment as
he found himself
on the floor, not far from his mother, indeed just in front of her, rocking
with pent-up eagerness to move, she, who had seemed so completely crushed,
sprang all at once
to her feet, her arms and fingers spread wide, cried: "Help, for God's sake,
help!" bent her head down as if to see Gregor better, yet on the contrary
kept backing
senselessly away; had quite forgotten that the breakfast table stood behind
her; sat down upon it abruptly and with a confused look on her face when she
bumped into it;
and seemed altogether unaware that the big coffeepot beside her had been
tipped over and that coffee was gushing all over the carpet.
"Mother, Mother," said Gregor in a low voice, and looked up at her. The
chief clerk had for the moment quite slipped from his mind; instead, he
could not resist snapping
his jaws together a couple of times at the sight of the streaming coffee.
That made his mother scream again; she fled from the table and fell into the
arms of his father,
who rushed to catch her. But Gregor had no time now to spare for his
parents; the chief clerk was already on the stairs; with his chin on the
banister he was taking one
last backward look. Gregor made a dash forward, to be as sure as possible of
overtaking him; the chief clerk must have suspected what he was up to, for
he leaped
down several steps at once and vanished. "Aieee!" he yelled; it was the last
sound heard from him, and it echoed through the whole stairwell.
Unfortunately, the flight of the chief clerk seemed completely to unhinge
Gregor's father, who had remained relatively calm until now, for instead of
running after the
man himself, or at least not hindering Gregor in his pursuit, he seized in
his right hand the walking stick that the chief clerk had left behind on a
chair, together with his hat
and overcoat, snatched in his left hand a large newspaper from the table,
and began stamping his feet and flourishing the cane and the newspaper to
drive Gregor back
into his room. No entreaty of Gregor's was of any use, indeed no entreaty
was even understood; no matter how humbly he inclined his head his father
only stamped on
the floor the more forcefully. Over there his mother had thrown open a
window, despite the cold weather, and was leaning far out of it with her
face in her hands. A
powerful draft set in from the street to the staircase, the window curtains
blew in, the newspapers on the table fluttered, stray pages sailed across
the floor. Pitilessly
Gregor's father drove him back, making hissing sounds like a savage. But
Gregor had had no practice yet in walking backward, it really was a slow
business. If only he
had a chance to turn around he could get back to his room at once, but he
was afraid of exasperating his father with such a time-consuming maneuver
and at any
moment the stick in his father's hand might strike him a fatal blow on the
back or the head. In the end, however nothing else was left for him to do
since to his horror he
realized that in moving backward he could not even control the direction he
took; and so, keeping an anxious eye on his father all the time over his
shoulder, he began to
turn around as quickly as he could, which was in reality very slowly.
Perhaps his father noticed his good intentions, for he did not interfere;
instead, every now and then
he even directed the maneuver like a conductor from a distance with the
point of the stick. If only he would stop making that unbearable hissing
noise! It drove Gregor
out of his mind. By the time he managed to turn almost completely around,
the hissing noise so distracted him that he even turned a little too far.
But when he finally
succeeded in getting his head right up in front of the doorway, it was clear
that his body was too broad to fit easily through the opening. His father,
of course, in his
present mood was far from thinking of such a thing as opening the other half
of the door, to let Gregor have enough space. The only thought in his head
was that Gregor
should get back into his room as quickly as possible. He would never have
allowed Gregor to make the complicated preparations needed for standing
upright again and
perhaps slipping through the door that way. On the contrary, the father was
now making more noise than ever in an effort to drive Gregor forward, as if
there were no
obstacle in the way at all; to Gregor, though, the noise at his rear no
longer sounded like the voice of one single father; this was really no joke,
and Gregor thrust
himself-come what might- into the doorway. One side of his body rose up, he
was tilted at an angle in the doorway, his flank was scraped raw; horrid
blotches
stained the white door, soon he was stuck fast and, left to himself, could
not have moved at all; his little legs on one side fluttered trembling in
the air, those on the other
were crushed painfully to the floor-when from behind his father gave him a
strong push which was literally a deliverance and he flew far into the room,
bleeding
violently. The door was slammed behind him with the stick, and then at last
there was silence.
II
Not until it was twilight did Gregor awake out of a deep sleep, more like a
swoon than a sleep. He would certainly have awoken of his own accord not
much later, for
he felt himself sufficiently well rested, but it seemed to him as if a
fleeting step and a cautious shutting of the door leading into the hall had
aroused him. The electric
lights in the street cast a pale sheen here and there on the ceiling and the
upper surfaces of the furniture, but down below, where he lay, it was dark.
Slowly, awkwardly
trying out his feelers, which he now first learned to appreciate, he pushed
his way to the door to see what had been happening there. His left side felt
like one single long,
unpleasantly tense scar, and he had actually to limp on his two rows of
legs. One little leg, moreover, had been severely damaged in the course of
that morning's
events-it was almost a miracle that only one had been damaged-and trailed
uselessly behind him.
He had reached the door before he discovered what had really drawn him to
it: the smell of food. For there stood a bowl filled with fresh milk in
which floated little slices
of white bread. He could almost have laughed with joy, since he was now far
hungrier than in the morning, and he dipped his head almost up to his eyes
in the milk. But
soon in disappointment he withdrew it again; not only did he find it
difficult to eat because of his tender left side-and he could only eat with
the cooperation of his whole
snorting body-he did not like the milk either, although milk had been his
favorite drink and that was certainly why his sister had set it there for
him; indeed it was almost
with repulsion that he turned away from the bowl and crawled back to the
middle of the room.
He could see through the crack of the door that the gas was turned on in the
living room, but while usually at this time his father made a habit of
reading the afternoon
newspaper in a loud voice to his mother and occasionally to his sister as
well, not a sound was now to be heard. Well, perhaps his father had recently
given up this habit
of reading aloud, which his sister had mentioned so often in conversation
and in her letters. But there was the same silence all around, although the
apartment was
certainly not empty of occupants. "What a quiet life our family leads," said
Gregor to himself, and as he sat there motionless staring into the darkness
he felt great pride
in the fact that he had been able to provide such a life for his parents and
sister in such a fine apartment. But what if all the quiet, the comfort, the
contentment were
now to end in horror? To keep himself from being lost in such thoughts
Gregor took refuge in movement and crawled back and forth in the room.
Once during the long evening one of the side doors was opened a little and
quickly shut again, later the other side door too; someone had apparently
wanted to come in
and then thought better of it. Gregor now stationed himself immediately
before the living room door, determined to persuade any hesitating visitor
to come in or at least to
discover who it might be; but the door was not opened again and he waited in
vain. In the early morning, when the doors were locked, they had all wanted
to come in,
now that he had opened one door and the others had apparently been opened
during the day, no one came in and even the keys were on the other side of
the doors.
It was late at night before the gaslights were extinguished in the living
room, and Gregor could easily tell that his parents and his sister had all
stayed awake until then, for
he could clearly hear the three of them stealing away on tiptoe. No one was
likely to visit him, not until the morning, that was certain; so he had
plenty of time to
meditate at his leisure on how he was to rearrange his life. But the lofty,
empty room in which he had to lie flat on the floor filled him with an
apprehension he could not
account for, since it had been his very own room for the past five years-and
half-unconsciously, not without a slight feeling of shame, he turned from
the door and
scuttled under the sofa, where he felt comfortable at once, although his
back was a little cramped and he could not lift his head up, and his only
regret was that his body
was too broad to get all of it under the sofa.
He stayed there all night, spending the time partly in a light slumber, from
which his hunger kept waking him up with a start, and partly in worrying and
sketching vague
hopes, which all led to the same conclusion, that he must lie low for the
present and, by exercising patience and the utmost consideration, help the
family to bear the
inconvenience he was bound to cause them in his present condition.
Very early in the morning-it was still almost night-Gregor had the chance to
test the strength of his new resolutions, for his sister, nearly fully
dressed, opened the
door from the hall and peered in apprehensively. She did not see him at
once, yet when she caught sight of him under the sofa-well, he had to be
somewhere, he
couldn't have flown away, could he?-she was so startled that without being
able to help it she slammed the door shut again. But as if regretting her
behavior she
opened the door again immediately and came in on tiptoe, as if she were
visiting an invalid or even a stranger. Gregor had pushed his head forward
to the very edge of
the sofa and watched her. Would she notice that he had left the milk
standing, and not for lack of hunger, and would she bring in some other kind
of food more to his
taste? If she did not do it of her own accord, he would rather starve than
draw her attention to the fact, although he felt a wild impulse to dart out
from under the sofa,
throw himself at her feet, and beg her for something to eat. But his sister
at once noticed, with surprise, that the bowl was still full, except for a
little milk that had been
spilled all around it, she lifted it immediately, not with her bare hands,
true, but with a cloth and carried it away. Gregor was extremely curious to
know what she would
bring instead, and imagined all sorts of possibilities. Yet what she
actually did next, in the goodness of her heart, he could never have
guessed. To find out what he liked
she brought him a whole selection of food, all set out on an old newspaper.
There were old, half decayed vegetables, bones from last night's supper
covered with a white
sauce that had congealed, some raisins and almonds; a piece of cheese that
Gregor would have pronounced inedible two days ago; a plain piece of bread,
a buttered
piece, and a piece both buttered and salted. Besides all that, she set down
again the same bowl, into which she had poured some water, and which was
apparently to be
reserved for his exclusive use. And with great tact, knowing that Gregor
would not eat in her presence, she withdrew quickly and even turned the key,
to let him
understand that he could make himself as comfortable as he liked. Gregor's
little legs all whirred in his rush to get to the food. His wounds must have
healed completely,
moreover, for he no longer felt incapacitated, which amazed him and made him
reflect how more than a month ago he had cut one finger a little with a
knife and was still
suffering from the wound only the day before yesterday. Might it be that I
am less sensitive now? he thought, and sucked greedily at the cheese, which
more than any of
the other delicacies attracted him at once, and strongly. One after another,
and with tears of satisfaction in his eyes, he quickly devoured the cheese,
the vegetables, and
the sauce; the fresh food, on the other hand, had no charm for him, he could
not even stand the smell of it and actually dragged away to some little
distance the things he
wanted to eat. He had long since finished his meal and was only lying lazily
on the same spot when his sister turned the key slowly as a sign for him to
retreat. That
roused him at once, although he was nearly asleep, and he hurried under the
sofa again. But it took considerable self-control for him to stay under the
sofa, even for the
short time his sister was in the room, since the large meal had swollen his
body somewhat and he was so cramped he could hardly breathe. Slight attacks
of
breathlessness afflicted him and his eyes were bulging a little from their
sockets as he watched his unsuspecting sister sweeping together with a broom
not only the
remains of what he had eaten but even the things he had not touched, as if
these were now of no use to anyone, and hastily shoveling it all into a
bucket, which she
covered with a wooden lid and carried away. Hardly had she turned her back
when Gregor came from under the sofa and stretched and puffed himself out.
In this manner Gregor was fed, once in the early morning while his parents
and the maid were still asleep, and a second time after they had all had
their midday meal, for
then his parents took a short nap and the girl could be sent out on some
errand or other by his sister. Not that they would have wanted him to
starve, of course, but
perhaps they could not have endured learning more about his feeding than
from hearsay; perhaps too his sister wanted to spare them such little
anxieties wherever
possible, since they had quite enough to bear as it was.
Under what pretext the doctor and the locksmith had been gotten rid of on
that first morning Gregor could not discover, for since what he said was not
understood by the
others it never occurred to any of them, not even his sister, that he could
understand what they said, and so whenever his sister came into his room he
had to content
himself with hearing her utter only a sigh now and then and an occasional
appeal to the saints. Later on, when she had gotten a little used to the
situation-of course she
could never get completely used to it-Gregor would occasionally catch a
remark which was kindly meant or could be so interpreted. "Well, he liked
his dinner today,"
she would say when Gregor had gobbled down all of his food; and when he had
not eaten, which gradually happened more and more often, she would say
almost sadly:
"Everything's been left untouched again."
But although Gregor could get no news directly, he overheard a lot from the
neighboring rooms, and as soon as voices were audible, he would run to the
door of
whichever room it was and press his whole body against it. In the first few
days especially there was no conversation that did not concern him somehow,
even if only
indirectly. For two whole days there were family consultations at every
mealtime about what should be done; but also between meals the same subject
was discussed,
for there were always at least two members of the family at home, since no
one wanted to be alone in the apartment and to leave it altogether empty was
unthinkable.
And on the very first of these days the cook-it was not quite clear what and
how much she knew of the situation-fell on her knees before his mother and
begged
permission to leave, and when she departed a quarter of an hour later gave
thanks for her release with tears in her eyes as if this were the greatest
blessing that could
ever be conferred on her, and without any prompting swore a solemn oath that
she would never say a single word to anyone about what had happened.
Now Gregor's sister had to do the cooking too with her mother's help; true,
this did not amount to much, for they ate scarcely anything. Gregor was
always hearing one
of the family vainly urging another to eat and getting no answer but
"Thanks, I've had all I want," or something similar. Nor did they seem to be
drinking anything either.
Time and again his sister kept asking his father if he wouldn't like some
beer and kindly offered to go and fetch it herself, and when he didn't
answer suggested that she
could ask the concierge to fetch it, so that he need feel no sense of
obligation, but then a loud "No" came from his father and no more was said
about it.
In the course of that very first day Gregor's father explained the family's
financial position and prospects to both his mother and his sister. Now and
then he rose from
the table to get some document or notebook out of the small safe he had
rescued from the collapse of his business five years earlier. One could hear
him opening the
complicated lock and taking papers out and shutting it again. These
explanations were the first cheerful information Gregor had heard since his
imprisonment. He had
been of the opinion that nothing at all was left over from his father's
business, at least his father had never said anything to the contrary, and
of course he had not asked
him directly. At that time Gregor's sole desire was to do his utmost to help
the family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe that had
overwhelmed the business
and thrown them all into a state of complete despair. And so he had set to
work with unusual ardor and almost overnight had become a traveling salesman
instead of a
little clerk, with of course much greater chances of earning money, and his
success was immediately transformed into hard cash which he could lay on the
table before
his amazed and happy family. These had been fine times, and they had never
recurred, at least not with the same sense of glory, although later on
Gregor had earned so
much money that he was able to meet the expenses of the whole household and
did so. They had simply gotten used to it, both the family and Gregor; the
money was
gratefully accepted and gladly given, but there was no special outpouring of
warm feeling. With his sister alone had he remained intimate, and it was a
secret plan of his
that she, who, unlike himself, loved music and could play the violin
movingly, should be sent next year to study at the Conservatory, despite the
great expense that would
entail and which would have to be made up in some other way. During his
brief visits home the Conservatory was often mentioned in the talks he had
with his sister, but
always merely as a beautiful dream which could never come true, and his
parents discouraged even these innocent references to it; yet Gregor had
made up his mind
firmly about it and meant to announce the fact with due solemnity on
Christmas Day.
Such were the thoughts, completely futile in his present condition, that
went through his head as he stood glued upright to the door and listening.
Sometimes out of sheer
weariness he could no longer pay attention and accidentally let his head
fall against the door, but he always pulled himself together again at once,
for even the slight
sound his head made was audible next door and brought all conversation to a
stop. "What can he be doing now?" his father would say after a while,
obviously turning
toward the door, and only then would the interrupted conversation gradually
start up again.
Gregor was now informed as amply as he could wish-for his father tended to
repeat himself in his explanations, partly because it was a long time since
he had dealt
with such matters and partly because his mother could not always grasp
things at once-that a certain amount of money, not all that much really, had
survived the wreck
of their fortunes and had even increased a little because the dividends had
not been touched meanwhile. And besides that, the money Gregor brought home
every
month-he had kept only a few thalers for himself-had never been quite used
up and now amounted to a substantial sum. Behind the door Gregor nodded his
head
eagerly, delighted by this evidence of unexpected thrift and foresight.
True, he could really have paid off some more of his father's debts to the
head of his firm with this
extra money, and thus brought much nearer the day on which he could quit his
job, but doubtless it was better the way his father had arranged it.
Yet this capital was by no means sufficient to let the family live on the
interest from it; for one year, perhaps, or at the most two, they could live
on the principal, that
was all. It was simply a sum that ought not to be touched and should be kept
for a rainy day; money for living expenses would have to be earned. Now his
father was
still healthy enough but an old man, and he had done no work for the past
five years and could not be expected to exert himself; during these five
years, the first years of
leisure in his laborious though unsuccessful life, he had put on a lot of
weight and become sluggish. And Gregor's old mother, how was she to earn a
living with her
asthma, which troubled her even when she walked through the apartment and
kept her lying on a sofa every other day panting for breath beside an open
window? And
was his sister to earn her bread, she who was still a child of seventeen and
whose life hitherto had been so pleasant, consisting as it did in dressing
herself nicely,
sleeping long, helping with the housework, going out to a few modest
entertainments, and above all playing the violin? At first whenever the need
for earning money was
mentioned Gregor let go of the door and threw himself down on the cool
leather sofa beside it, he felt so hot with shame and grief.
Often he just lay there the long nights through without sleeping at all,
scrabbling for hours on the leather. Or he worked himself up to the great
effort of pushing an
armchair to the window, then crawled up over the windowsill and, braced
against the chair, leaned against the windowpanes obviously in some
recollection of the sense
of freedom that looking out of a window always used to give him. For, in
reality, day-by-day things that were only a little distance away were
growing dimmer to his
sight; the hospital across the street, which he used to curse for being all
too often before his eyes, was now quite beyond his range of vision, and if
he had not known that
he lived on Charlotte Street, a quiet street but still a city street, he
might have believed that his window looked out on a desert waste where gray
sky and gray land
blended indistinguishably into each other. His quick-witted sister only
needed to observe twice that the armchair stood by the window; after that
whenever she had tidied
the room she always pushed the chair back to the same place at the window
and even left the inner casements open.
If he could have spoken to her and thanked her for all she had to do for
him, he could have endured her ministrations better; as it was, they pained
him. She certainly
tried to make as light as possible of whatever was disagreeable in her task,
and as time went on she succeeded, of course, more and more, but time also
allowed Gregor
to see through things better too. The very way she came in distressed him.
Hardly was she in the room when she rushed straight to the window, without
even taking
time to shut the door, careful as she was usually to shield the sight of
Gregor's room from the others, and as if she were about to suffocate tore
the windows open with
impatient hands, standing then in the open draft for a while even in the
bitterest cold and drawing deep breaths. This rushing around and banging of
hers upset Gregor
twice a day; he would crouch trembling under the sofa all the while, knowing
quite well that she would certainly have spared him such a disturbance had
she found it at
all possible to stay in his presence without opening the window.
On one occasion, about a month after Gregor's metamorphosis, when there was
surely no reason for her to be still startled at his appearance, she came a
little earlier
than usual and found him gazing out of the window, quite motionless, and
thus the perfect figure of terror. Gregor would not have been surprised had
she not come in at
all, for she could not immediately open the window while he was there, but
not only did she retreat, she jumped back as if in alarm and slammed the
door shut; a stranger
might well have thought that he had been lying in wait for her there,
planning to bite her. Of course he hid himself under the sofa at once, but
he had to wait until midday
before she came again, and she seemed more ill at ease than usual. This made
him realize how repulsive the sight of him still was to her, and that it was
bound to go on
being repulsive, and what an effort it must cost her not to run away even
from the sight of the small portion of his body that stuck out from under
the sofa. In order to
spare her that, therefore, one day he carried a sheet on his back to the
sofa-it cost him four hours' labor-and arranged it there in such a way as to
hide himself
completely, so that even if she were to bend down she could not see him. Had
she considered the sheet unnecessary, she would certainly have stripped it
off the sofa
again, for it was clear enough that this total confinement of himself had
not been undertaken just for his own pleasure, but she left it where it was,
and Gregor even
imagined that he caught a grateful look in her eye when he lifted the sheet
carefully a very little with his head to see how she was taking the new
arrangement.
For the first two weeks his parents could not bring themselves to enter his
room, and he often heard them expressing their appreciation of his sister's
activities, whereas
formerly they had frequently been annoyed with her for being as they thought
a somewhat useless girl. But now both of them often waited outside the door,
his father
and his mother, while his sister tidied his room, and as soon as she came
out she had to tell them exactly how things were in the room, what Gregor
had eaten, how he
had conducted himself this time, and whether there was not perhaps some
slight improvement in his condition. His mother, moreover, began relatively
soon to want to
visit him, but his father and sister dissuaded her at first with arguments
which Gregor listened to very attentively and altogether approved. Later,
however, she had to be
held back by force, and when she cried out, "Let me in to see Gregor, he is
my unfortunate son! Can't you understand that I must go to him?" Gregor
thought that it
might be well to have her come in, not every day, of course, but perhaps
once a week; she understood things, after all, much better than his sister,
who was only a child
despite her courage and when all was said and done had perhaps taken on so
difficult a task merely out of childish frivolity.
Gregor's desire to see his mother was soon fulfilled. During the daytime he
did not want to show himself at the window, out of consideration for his
parents, but he could
not crawl very far around the few square yards of floor space he had, nor
could he bear lying quietly at rest all during the night; in addition he was
fast losing any interest
he had ever taken in food, so for mere recreation he had formed the habit of
crawling crisscross over the walls and ceiling. He especially enjoyed
hanging suspended
from the ceiling; it was altogether different from lying on the floor; one
could breathe more freely; one's body swung and rocked lightly; and in the
almost blissful
absorption induced by this suspension it could happen, to his own surprise,
that he let go and fell plop onto the floor. Yet he now had his body much
better under control
than formerly and even such a big fall did him no harm. His sister noticed
at once the new distraction Gregor had found for himself-he left behind
traces of the sticky
stuff from his pads wherever he crawled-and she got the idea in her head of
giving him as wide a field as possible to crawl around in and of removing
the pieces of
furniture that hindered him, above all the chest of drawers and the writing
desk. But that was more than she could manage all by herself; she did not
dare ask her father
to help her; and as for the maid, a girl of sixteen who had had the courage
to stay on after the cook's departure, she could not be asked to help, for
she had begged as a
special favor that she might keep the kitchen door locked and open it only
on a definite summons; so there was nothing left but to turn to her mother
one day when her
father was out. And the mother did come, with exclamations of excitement and
joy, which, however, died away at the door of Gregor's room. Gregor's
sister, of course,
went in first to see that everything was in order before letting his mother
enter. In great haste Gregor had pulled the sheet lower than usual and
arranged it more in folds
so that it really looked as if it had been thrown casually over the sofa.
And this time he did not peer out from under it; he denied himself the
pleasure of seeing his mother
on this first occasion and was only glad that she had come at all. "Come in,
he's out of sight," said his sister, obviously leading her mother in by the
hand. Gregor could
now hear the two frail women struggling to shift the heavy old chest from
its place, and his sister insisting on doing the greater part of the work
herself without listening
to the admonitions of her mother, who feared she might overstrain herself.
It took a long time. After at least a quarter of an hour's tugging his
mother said that the chest
had better be left right where they had found it, for in the first place it
was too heavy and could never be removed before his father came home, and
with the chest
halfway in the middle of the room like this it would only hamper Gregor's
movements, while in the second place it was not at all certain that removing
the furniture would
be doing Gregor a favor. She was inclined to think the contrary; the sight
of the naked wall made her own heart heavy, and why shouldn't Gregor have
the same feeling,
considering that he had been used to his furniture for so long and might
feel forlorn without it. "And doesn't it look," his mother concluded in a
low voice-in fact she had
been almost whispering all the time as if to avoid letting Gregor, whose
exact whereabouts she did not know, hear even the sounds of her voice, for
she was convinced
that he could not understand her words-"doesn't it look as if we were
showing him, by taking away his furniture, that we have given up hope of his
ever getting better
and are just thoughtlessly leaving him to himself? I think it would be best
to keep his room exactly as it has always been, so that when he comes back
to us he will find
everything unchanged and be able to forget all the more easily what has
happened in the meantime."
On hearing these words from his mother Gregor realized that the lack of all
direct human communication for the past two months together with the
monotony of family
life must have confused his mind, otherwise he could not account for the
fact that he had seriously looked forward to having his room emptied of its
furnishings. Did he
really want his cozy room, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture,
to be turned into a cave in which he would certainly be able to crawl
unhampered in all
directions but at the price of shedding instantly and totally all
recollection of his human past? He had indeed been close to the brink of
forgetfulness and only the voice of
his mother, which he had not heard for so long, had drawn him back from it.
Nothing should be taken out of his room; everything must stay as it was; he
could not
dispense with the beneficial effects of the furniture on his state of mind;
and even if the furniture did hamper him in his senseless crawling around
and around, that was
no drawback but a great advantage.
Unfortunately his sister was of the contrary opinion; she had grown
accustomed, and not without reason, to consider herself an expert in
Gregor's affairs as against her
parents, and so her mother's advice was now enough to make her determined on
the removal not only of the chest and the desk, which had been her first
intention, but of
all the furniture except the indispensable sofa. This determination was not,
of course, merely the outcome of childish recalcitrance and of the
self-confidence she had
recently developed so unexpectedly and at such cost; she had in fact
perceived that Gregor needed a lot of space to crawl around in, while on the
other hand he never
used the furniture at all, so far as could be seen. Another factor might
also have been the enthusiastic temperament of girls her age, which seeks to
indulge itself at
every opportunity and which now tempted Grete to exaggerate the horror of
her brother's circumstances in order that she might do all the more for him.
In a room
where Gregor lorded it all alone over empty walls no one except herself was
likely ever to set foot.
And so she was not to be moved from her resolve by her mother, who seemed,
moreover, to be ill at ease in Gregor's room and therefore unsure of
herself, was soon
reduced to silence and helped her daughter as best she could to push the
chest outside. Now, Gregor could do without the chest if need be, but the
desk had to stay. As
soon as the two women had gotten the chest out of his room, groaning as they
pushed it, Gregor stuck his head out from under the sofa to see how he might
intervene as
considerately and cautiously as possible. But as bad luck would have it, his
mother was the first to return, leaving Grete grappling with the chest in
the room next door
where she was trying to shift it all by herself, without of course moving it
from the spot. His mother however was not accustomed to the sight of him, it
might sicken her,
and so in alarm Gregor backed quickly to the other end of the sofa, yet
could not prevent the sheet from swaying a little in front. That was enough
to put her on the alert.
She paused, stood still for a moment, and then went back to Grete.
Although Gregor kept reassuring himself that nothing out of the ordinary was
happening, that only a few bits of furniture were being rearranged, he soon
had to admit
that all this trotting to and fro of the two women, their little shouts to
each other, and the scraping of furniture along the floor had the effect on
him of some vast
disturbance coming from all sides at once, and however much he tucked in his
head and legs and pressed his body to the floor, he had to confess that he
would not be
able to stand it much longer. They were clearing his room out, taking away
everything he loved; the chest in which he kept his jigsaw and other tools
was already
dragged off; they were now loosening the desk which had almost sunk into the
floor, the desk at which he had done all his homework when he was at the
commercial
academy, at the secondary school before that, and, yes, even at the primary
school-he had no more time to waste in weighing the good intentions of the
two women,
whose existence he had by now almost forgotten, for they were so exhausted
that they were laboring in silence and nothing could be heard but the heavy
scuffling of
their feet.
And so he broke out-the women were just leaning against the desk in the next
room to give themselves a breather-and four times changed his direction,
since he
really did not know what to rescue first, then on the wall opposite, which
was already all but empty, he was struck by the picture of the lady muffled
in so much fur and
quickly crawled up to it and pressed himself to the glass, which was a good
surface to adhere to and soothed his hot belly. This picture at least, now
entirely hidden
beneath him, was going to be removed by nobody. He turned his head toward
the door of the living room so as to observe the women when they came back.
They had not allowed themselves much of a rest and were already returning;
Grete had twined her arm around her mother and was almost supporting her.
"Well, what
shall we take now?" said Grete, looking around. Her eyes met Gregor's from
the wall. She kept her composure, presumably because of her mother, bent her
head down
to her mother, to keep her from looking up, and said, although in a
trembling and unconvincing tone of voice: "Come, hadn't we better go back to
the living room for a
moment?" Her intentions were clear enough to Gregor, she wanted to get her
mother to safety and then drive him down from the wall. Well, just let her
try it! He clung
to his picture and would not give it up. He would rather fly in Grete's
face.
But Grete's words had succeeded in upsetting her mother, who took a step to
one side, caught sight of the huge brown mass on the flowered wallpaper, and
before she
was really aware that what she saw was Gregor, screamed in a loud, hoarse
voice, "Oh God, oh God!" fell with outspread arms over the sofa as if giving
up, and did not
move. "Gregor!" cried his sister, shaking her fist and glaring at him. This
was the first time she had directly addressed him since his metamorphosis.
She ran into the next
room for some smelling salts with which to rouse her mother from her
fainting fit. Gregor wanted to help too-there was time to rescue the picture
later-but he was
stuck fast to the glass and had to tear himself loose; he then ran after his
sister into the next room as if he could still advise her the way he used
to; but all he could do
was stand helplessly behind her; she meanwhile searched among various small
bottles and when she turned around started in alarm at the sight of him; one
bottle fell on
the floor and broke; a splinter of glass cut Gregor's face and some kind of
corrosive medicine splashed him; without pausing a moment longer Grete
gathered up all the
bottles she could carry and ran to her mother with them; she banged the door
shut with her foot. Gregor was now cut off from his mother, who was perhaps
about to die
because of him; he dared not open the door for fear of frightening away his
sister, who had to stay with her mother; there was nothing he could do but
wait; and
tormented by self-reproach and worry he began now to crawl to and fro, over
everything, walls, furniture, and ceiling, and finally in his despair, when
the whole room
seemed to be reeling around him, fell down onto the middle of the big table.
A little while elapsed, Gregor was still lying there feebly and all around
him was quiet; perhaps that was a good omen. Then the doorbell rang. The
maid was of course
locked in her kitchen, and Grete had to go and open the door. It was his
father. "What's happened?" were his first words; the look on Grete's face
must have told him
everything. Grete answered in a muffled voice, apparently hiding her head on
his chest: "Mother fainted, but she's better now. Gregor's broken loose."
"Just what I
expected," said his father, "just what I've been telling you would happen,
but you women would never listen." It was clear to Gregor that his father
had taken the worst
interpretation of Grete's all too brief statement and was assuming that
Gregor had been guilty of some violent act. Therefore Gregor must now try to
calm his father
down, since he had neither time nor means for an explanation. And so he ran
to the door of his own room and crouched against it, to let his father see
as soon as he
came in from the hall that his son had the good intention of getting back
into his room immediately and that it was not necessary to drive him there,
but that if only the
door were opened for him he would disappear at once.
Yet his father was not in the mood to perceive such fine distinctions.
"Aha!" he cried as soon as he appeared, in a tone that sounded at once angry
and exultant. Gregor
drew his head back from the door and lifted it to look at his father. Truly,
this was not the father he had imagined to himself; admittedly he had been
too absorbed of late
in his new recreation of crawling over the ceiling to take the same interest
as before in what was happening elsewhere in the apartment, and he really
should have been
prepared for some changes. And yet, and yet, could that be his father? The
man who used to lie wearily sunk in bed whenever Gregor set out on a
business trip; who on
the evenings of his return welcomed him back lying in an easy chair in his
bathrobe; who could not really rise to his feet but only lifted his arms in
greeting, and who on
the rare occasions when he did go out with his family, on one or two Sundays
a year and on the most important holidays, walked between Gregor and his
mother, who
were slow walkers themselves, even more slowly than they did, muffled in his
old overcoat, shuffling laboriously forward with the help of his
crook-handled cane, which
he set down most cautiously at every step and, whenever he wanted to say
anything, nearly always came to a full stop and gathered his escort around
him? Now he was
standing there straight as a stick, dressed in a smart blue uniform with
gold buttons, such as bank attendants wear; his strong double chin bulged
over the stiff high collar
of his jacket; from under his bushy eyebrows his black eyes darted fresh and
penetrating glances; his formerly tangled white hair had been combed flat on
either side of
a shining and carefully exact parting. He pitched his cap, which bore a gold
monogram, probably the badge of some bank, in a wide arc across the whole
room onto a
sofa and with the tail ends of his jacket thrown back, his hands in his
trouser pockets, advanced with a grim visage toward Gregor. Likely enough he
did not himself
know what he meant to do; at any rate, he lifted his feet unusually high off
the floor, and Gregor was dumbfounded at the enormous size of his shoe
soles. But Gregor
could not risk standing up to him, aware, as he had been from the very first
day of his new life, that his father believed only the severest measures
suitable for dealing
with him. And so he ran before his father, stopping when he stopped and
scuttling forward again when his father made any kind of move. In this way
they circled the
room several times without anything decisive happening, indeed the whole
operation did not even look like a pursuit because it was carried out so
slowly. And so Gregor
confined himself to the floor, for he feared that his father might interpret
any recourse to the walls or the ceiling as especially wicked behavior. All
the same, he could
not keep this race up much longer, for while his father took a single step
he had to carry out a whole series of movements. He was already beginning to
feel breathless,
just as in his former life his lungs had not been very dependable. As he was
staggering along, trying to concentrate his energy on running, hardly
keeping his eyes open,
in his dazed state never even thinking of any other escape than simply going
forward, and having almost forgotten that the walls were free to him, which
in this room, to
be sure, were obstructed by finely carved pieces of furniture full of sharp
points and jagged edges-suddenly something lightly flung landed close beside
him and rolled in
front of him. It was an apple; a second apple followed immediately; Gregor
came to a stop in alarm; there was no point in running away now, for his
father was
determined to bombard him. He had filled his pockets with fruit from the
dish on the sideboard and was now throwing apple after apple, without taking
particularly good
aim for the moment. The small red apples rolled about the floor as if
magnetized and bumped into each other. An apple thrown without much force
grazed Gregor's back
and glanced off harmlessly. But another, following immediately, landed right
on his back and got stuck in it; Gregor wanted to drag himself forward, as
if this startling,
incredible pain would disappear if he moved to a different spot; but he felt
as if he were nailed to the floor, and stretched himself out in the complete
derangement of all
his senses. With his last conscious look he saw the door of his room being
torn open and his mother rushing out ahead of his screaming sister, in her
underbodice, for her
daughter had loosened her clothing to let her breathe more freely and
recover from her swoon; he saw his mother rushing toward his father, leaving
her loosened
petticoats, one after another, behind her on the floor, stumbling over them
straight to his father and embracing him, in complete union with him-but by
now Gregor's
sight was already failing-with her hands clasped around his father's neck as
she begged for Gregor's life.
III
The serious injury done to Gregor, which disabled him for more than a
month-the apple remained stuck in his body as a visible reminder, since no
one dared to remove
it-seemed to have made even his father recollect that Gregor was a member of
the family, despite his present unfortunate and repulsive shape, and ought
not to be
treated as an enemy, that, on the contrary family duty required them to
swallow their disgust and to practice patience, nothing but patience.
And although his injury had impaired, probably forever, his powers of
movement, and for the time being it took him long, long minutes to creep
across his room like an old
invalid-there was no question now of crawling up the wall-yet in his own
opinion he was sufficiently compensated for this worsening of his condition
by the fact that
toward evening the living room door, which he used to watch intently for an
hour or two beforehand, was now always opened, so that lying in the darkness
of his room,
invisible to the family, he was permitted to see them all at the lamp-lit
table and listen to their talk by general consent, as it were, very
different from his earlier
eavesdropping.
True, their conversation lacked the lively character of former times, which
he had always called to mind with a certain wistfulness in the small hotel
bedrooms where he
so often used to throw himself down, tired out, on the damp bedding. They
were now mostly very silent. Soon after supper his father would fall asleep
in his armchair;
his mother and sister would admonish each other to be silent; his mother,
bending low under the lamp, would sew delicate undergarments for a
fashionable shop; his
sister, who had taken a job as a salesgirl, was learning shorthand and
French in the evenings in the hopes of getting a better position some day.
Sometimes his father
woke up, and as if quite unaware that he had been sleeping said to his
mother: "What a lot of sewing you're doing today!" and at once fell asleep
again, while the two
women exchanged a tired smile.
With a kind of mulishness his father persisted in keeping his uniform on
even in the house; his robe hung uselessly on its peg and he slept fully
dressed where he sat, as if
he were ready for service at any moment and even here only awaiting the call
of his superior. As a result, his uniform, which was not brand-new to start
with, began to
look dirty, despite all the loving care of the mother and sister to keep it
clean, and Gregor often spent whole evenings gazing at the many greasy spots
on the garment,
gleaming with gold buttons always in a high state of polish, in which the
old man sat sleeping in extreme discomfort and yet quite peacefully.
As soon as the clock struck ten his mother tried to rouse his father with
gentle words and to persuade him after that to get into bed, for sitting
there he could not have a
proper sleep and that was what he needed most, since he had to go on duty at
six. But with the mulishness he displayed since becoming a bank attendant he
always
insisted on staying longer at the table, although he regularly fell asleep
again and finally only with the greatest trouble could be persuaded to
relinquish his armchair and
go to bed. However insistently Gregor's mother and sister kept urging him
with gentle reminders, he would go on slowly shaking his head for a quarter
of an hour,
keeping his eyes shut, and refuse to get to his feet. The mother plucked at
his sleeve, whispering endearments in his ear, the sister left her lessons
to come to her
mother's help, but it all made little impression on Gregor's father. He
would only sink down deeper in his chair. Not until the two women hoisted
him up by the armpits did
he open his eyes and look at them both, one after the other, usually with
the remark, "What a life. So this is the peace and quiet of my old age." And
leaning on the two
of them he would heave himself up, with difficulty, as if he were his own
greatest burden, permit them to lead him as far as the door, and then wave
them away and go
on alone, while the mother threw down her needlework and the sister her pen
in order to run after him and be of further assistance.
Who could find time in this overworked and tired-out family to bother about
Gregor more than was absolutely necessary? The household was reduced more
and more;
the maid was now let go; a gigantic bony cleaning woman with white hair
flying around her head came in mornings and evenings to do the rough work;
Gregor's mother
did all the rest, as well as all her sewing. Even various pieces of family
jewelry, which his mother and sister had loved to wear at parties and
celebrations, had to be sold,
as Gregor discovered one evening from hearing them discuss the prices
obtained. But what they lamented most was the fact that they could not leave
the apartment,
which was much too big for their present circumstances, because they could
not think of any way to transfer Gregor. Yet Gregor saw well enough that
consideration for
him was not the main difficulty preventing the move, for they could easily
have carried him in some suitable box with a few air holes in it; what
really kept them from
moving into another apartment was rather their own complete hopelessness and
the belief that they had been singled out for a misfortune such as had never
happened to
any of their relations or acquaintances. They fulfilled to the utmost all
that the world demands of poor people: the father fetched breakfast for the
minor clerks in the
bank, the mother devoted her energy to making underwear for strangers, the
sister trotted back and forth behind the counter at the demand of her
customers, but more
than this they had not the strength to do. And the wound in Gregor's back
began to hurt him afresh when his mother and sister, after getting his
father into bed, came
back again, left their work lying, drew close to each other, and sat cheek
by cheek-when his mother, pointing toward his room, said, "Shut that door
now, Grete," and he
was left again in darkness, while next door the women mingled their tears or
perhaps sat dry-eyed, staring at the table.
Gregor hardly slept at all now, night or day. He was often haunted by the
idea that the next time the door opened he would take the family's affairs
in hand again just as
he used to do; once again after this long interval, there appeared in his
thoughts the figures of the boss and the chief clerk, the salesmen and the
apprentices, the
messenger boy who was so dull-witted, two or three friends in other firms, a
chambermaid in one of the rural hotels, a sweet and fleeting memory, a
cashier in a
milliner's shop, whom he had courted earnestly but too slowly-they all
appeared, together with strangers or people he had quite forgotten, but
instead of helping him and
his family they were all inaccessible and he was glad when they vanished. At
other times he would not be in the mood to bother about his family, he was
only filled with
rage at the way they were neglecting him, and although he could not imagine
what he might like to eat he would make plans for getting into the pantry to
take the food
that, after all, was due him, hungry or not. His sister no longer gave a
second thought now to what might especially please him, but in the morning
and at noon before she
went to work hurriedly pushed into his room with her foot any food that was
available, and in the evening cleared it out again with one sweep of the
broom, heedless of
whether it had been nibbled at, or-as most frequently happened-left
completely untouched. The cleaning of his room, which she now always did in
the evenings,
could not have been done more hastily. Streaks of dirt were smeared along
the walls, here and there lay balls of dust and filth. At first Gregor used
to station himself in
some particularly filthy corner when his sister arrived in order to reproach
her with it, so to speak. But he could have sat there for weeks without
getting her to make any
improvement; she could see the dirt as well as he did, but she had simply
made up her mind to leave it alone. And yet, with a touchiness that was new
to her, and which
seemed, moreover, to have infected the whole family, she jealously guarded
her claim to be the sole caretaker of Gregor's room. His mother once
subjected his room to
a thorough cleaning, which was achieved only by means of several buckets of
water-all this dampness of course upset Gregor too and he lay stretched out,
sulky and
motionless on the sofa-but she was well punished for it. Hardly had his
sister noticed the changed aspect of his room that evening than she rushed
mortally offended
into the living room and, despite the imploringly raised hands of her
mother, burst into a storm of weeping, while her parents-her father had of
course been startled out
of his chair-looked on at first in helpless amazement; then they too began
to go into action; the father reproached the mother on his right for not
having left the cleaning
of Gregor's room to his sister; shrieked at the sister on his left that
never again would she be allowed to clean Gregor's room; while the mother
tried to drag the father
into his bedroom since he was beside himself with agitation; the sister,
shaken with sobs, then beat upon the table with her small fists; and Gregor
hissed loudly with rage
because not one of them thought of shutting the door to spare him such a
spectacle and so much noise.
Still, even if the sister, exhausted by her daily work, had grown tired of
looking after Gregor as she formerly did, there was no need at all for his
mother's intervention or
for Gregor's being neglected. The cleaning woman was there. This old widow,
whose strong and bony frame had enabled her to survive the worst a long life
could offer,
had no particular aversion to Gregor. Without being in the least inquisitive
she had once by chance opened the door to his room and at the sight of
Gregor, who, taken by
surprise, began to rush to and fro although no one was chasing him, merely
stood there in amazement with her arms folded. From that time on she never
failed to open
his door a little for a moment, morning and evening, to have a look at him.
At first she even used to call him to her, with words which apparently she
meant to be friendly,
such as: "Come on over here, you old dung beetle!" or "Will you look at that
old dung beetle!" To such forms of address Gregor made no answer, but stayed
motionless
where he was, as if the door had never been opened. Instead of being allowed
to disturb him so senselessly whenever the whim took her, that servant
should have been
ordered instead to clean out his room daily. Once, early in the
morning-heavy rain was lashing at the windowpanes, perhaps a sign that
spring was on its way-Gregor
was so exasperated when she began addressing him again that he turned and
went toward her as if to attack her, although slowly and feebly enough. But
the cleaning
woman, instead of being afraid, merely picked up a chair that happened to be
beside the door, held it high, and as she stood there with her mouth wide
open it was clear
that she meant to shut it only after she brought the chair down on Gregor's
back. "Not coming any closer, then?" she asked, as Gregor turned away again,
and quietly put
the chair back into the corner.
Gregor was now eating hardly anything. Only when he happened to pass the
food laid out for him did he take a bit of something in his mouth as a kind
of game, kept it
there for hours at a time, and usually spat it out again. At first he
thought it was chagrin over the state of his room that prevented him from
eating, yet in fact he very
quickly got used to the various changes in his room. It had become a habit
in the family to put things into his room for which there was no space
elsewhere, and there
were plenty of these things now, since one of the rooms had been rented to
three boarders. These serious gentlemen-all three of them with full beards,
as Gregor once
observed through a crack in the door-had a passion for order, not only in
their own room but, since they were now members of the household, in all its
arrangements,
especially in the kitchen. They could not endure useless, let alone dirty,
clutter. Besides, they had brought with them most of the furnishings they
needed. For this reason
many things could be dispensed with that it was no use trying to sell but
that should not be thrown away either. All of them found their way into
Gregor's room. The ash
can likewise and the kitchen garbage can. Anything that was not needed for
the moment was simply flung into Gregor's room by the cleaning woman, who
did
everything in a hurry; fortunately Gregor usually saw only the object,
whatever it was, and the hand that held it. Perhaps she intended to take the
things away again as
time and opportunity offered, or to collect them until she could throw them
all out in a heap, but in fact they just lay wherever she happened to throw
them, except when
Gregor pushed his way through the junk heap and arranged it somewhat, at
first out of necessity because he had no room to crawl around in, but later
with increasing
enjoyment, although after such excursions, being sad and weary to death, he
would lie motionless for hours.
Since the boarders often ate their supper at home in the common living room,
the living room door stayed shut many an evening, yet Gregor reconciled
himself quite
easily to the shutting of the door, for often enough on evenings when it was
opened he had disregarded it entirely and lain in the darkest corner of his
room, quite
unnoticed by the family. On one occasion the cleaning woman had left the
door open a little and it stayed ajar even when the lodgers came in for
supper and the lamp
was lit. They sat down at the upper end of the table where formerly Gregor
and his father and mother had eaten their meals, unfolded their napkins and
took knife and
fork in hand. At once his mother appeared in the doorway with a platter of
meat and close behind her his sister with a bowl of potatoes piled high. The
food steamed
with a thick vapor. The boarders bent over the food set before them as if to
scrutinize it before eating; in fact, the man in the middle, who seemed to
pass for an
authority with the other two, cut a piece of meat as it lay on the platter,
obviously to determine if it was tender enough or should be sent back to the
kitchen. He was
satisfied, and Gregor's mother and sister, who had been watching anxiously,
breathed a sigh of relief and began to smile.
The family itself took its meals in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor's
father came into the living room before going to the kitchen and with one
prolonged bow, cap in
hand, made a round of the table. The boarders all stood up and muttered
something in their beards. When they were alone again they ate their food in
almost complete
silence. It seemed remarkable to Gregor that among the various noises coming
from the table he could always distinguish the sound of their chewing teeth,
as if this
were a sign to Gregor that one needed teeth in order to eat, and that even
with the finest of toothless jaws one could do nothing. "I'm certainly
hungry," said Gregor sadly
to himself, "but not for that kind of food. How these boarders are stuffing
themselves, and here am I dying of starvation!"
On that very evening-during all this time Gregor could not remember ever
having heard the violin-the sound of violin playing came from the kitchen.
The boarders had
already finished their supper, the one in the middle had brought out a
newspaper and given the other two a page apiece, and now they were leaning
back at ease reading
and smoking. When the violin began to play they pricked up their ears, got
to their feet, and went on tiptoe to the hall door where they stood huddled
together. Their
movements must have been heard in the kitchen, for Gregor's father called
out: "Is the violin playing disturbing you, gentlemen? It can be stopped at
once." "On the
contrary," said the middle boarder, "wouldn't the young lady like to join us
here and play where it is much more pleasant and comfortable?" "Oh
certainly," cried Gregor's
father, as if he were the violin player. The boarders returned to the living
room and waited. Soon Gregor's father arrived with the music stand, his
mother carrying the
music and his sister with the violin. His sister calmly made everything
ready to start playing; his parents, who had never let rooms before and so
had an exaggerated idea
of the courtesy due to boarders, did not venture to sit down on their own
chairs; his father leaned against the door, his right hand thrust between
two buttons of his
uniform jacket, which was formally buttoned up; but his mother was offered a
chair by one of the boarders and, since she left the chair just where he had
happened to
put it, sat down in a corner off to one side.
Gregor's sister began to play; the father and mother, from either side,
intently watched the movements of her hands. Gregor, attracted by the
playing, ventured to move
forward a little until his head was actually inside the living room. He felt
hardly any surprise at his growing lack of consideration for the others;
there had been a time
when he prided himself on being considerate. Yet on this occasion he had
more reason than ever to hide himself, since owing to the amount of dust
that lay thick in his
room and rose into the air at the slightest movement, he too was covered
with dust; fluff and hair and remnants of food trailed with him, caught on
his back and along his
sides; his indifference to everything was much too great for him to turn on
his back and scrape himself clean on the carpet, as once he had done several
times a day.
And in spite of his condition, no shame deterred him from advancing a little
over the spotless floor of the living room.
To be sure, no one paid any attention to him. The family was entirely
absorbed in the violin playing; the boarders however, who at first had
stationed themselves, hands
in pockets, much too close behind the music stand so that they could all
have read the music, something which must have bothered his sister, had soon
retreated to the
window, half whispering with bowed heads, and stayed there while his father
turned an anxious eye on them. Indeed, they were making it more than obvious
that they
had been disappointed in their expectation of hearing good or even
entertaining violin playing, that they had had more than enough of the
performance, and that they
were putting up with this disturbance of their peace only out of courtesy.
From the way they all kept blowing the smoke of their cigars high in the air
through nose and
mouth one could divine their irritation. And yet Gregor's sister was playing
so beautifully. Her face tilted to one side, intently and sadly her eyes
followed the notes of
music. Gregor crawled a little farther forward and lowered his head to the
ground so that it might be possible for his eyes to meet hers. Was he an
animal, since music
so moved him? He felt as if the way were opening before him to the unknown
nourishment he craved. He was determined to push forward until he reached
his sister, to
pull at her skirt and so let her know that she should come into his room
with her violin, for no one here appreciated her playing as he would
appreciate it. He would never
let her out of his room, at least not so long as he lived; his frightful
appearance would become, for the first time, useful to him; he would watch
over all the doors of his
room at once and hiss like a dragon at any intruders; but his sister would
not be forced to stay, she would stay with him of her own free will; she
would sit beside him on
the sofa, bend down her ear to him, and hear him confide that he had had the
firm intention of sending her to the Conservatory and that, but for his
mishap last
Christmas-surely Christmas was long past?-he would have announced it to
everybody without allowing a single objection. After this declaration his
sister would be so
touched that she would burst into tears, and Gregor would then raise himself
to her shoulder and kiss her on the neck, which, now that she was a young
working woman,
she kept free of any ribbon or collar.
"Mr. Samsa!" cried the middle boarder to Gregor's father, and pointed,
without wasting any more words, at Gregor, now working himself slowly
forward. The violin fell
silent, the middle boarder first smiled to his friends with a shake of the
head and then looked at Gregor again. Instead of driving Gregor out, his
father seemed to think it
more important to begin by soothing down the boarders, although they were
not at all agitated and apparently found Gregor more entertaining than the
violin playing. He
hurried toward them and, spreading out his arms, tried to urge them back
into their own room and at the same time to block their view of Gregor. They
now began to be
really a little angry, one could not tell whether because of the old man's
behavior or because it had just dawned on them that without knowing it they
had such a neighbor
as Gregor in the next room. They demanded explanations of his father, they
waved their arms like him, tugged uneasily at their beards, and only with
reluctance backed
toward their room. Meanwhile Gregor's sister, who stood there as if lost
when her playing was so abruptly broken off, came to life again, pulled
herself together all at
once after standing for a while holding violin and bow in her slack and
drooping hands and staring at her music, pushed her violin into the lap of
her mother, who was still
sitting in her chair fighting asthmatically for breath, and ran into the
boarders' room, to which they were now being shepherded by her father rather
more quickly than
before. One could see the pillows and blankets on the beds flying about
under her practiced fingers and being laid in order. Even before the
boarders had actually
reached their room she had finished making the beds and slipped out.
The father seemed once more to be so possessed by his mulish
self-assertiveness that he was forgetting all the respect he owed his
boarders. He kept driving them on
and driving them on until, at the very door of the bedroom, the middle
boarder stamped his foot loudly on the floor and so brought him to a halt.
"I herewith declare," said
the boarder, lifting one hand and looking also at Gregor's mother and
sister, "that because of the disgusting conditions prevailing in this
household and family"-here he
spat on the floor with emphatic brevity-"I give you notice on the spot.
Naturally I won't pay you a penny for the days I have lived here, on the
contrary I shall consider
suing you for damages, based on claims-believe me-that will be easily
substantiated." He ceased and stared straight ahead, as if he were expecting
something. In
fact, his two friends at once rushed into the breach with these words: "And
we too give notice on the spot." At that he seized the door handle and shut
the door with a
slam.
Gregor's father, groping with his hands, staggered forward and fell into his
chair; it looked as if he were stretching himself out there for his usual
evening nap, but the
powerful and uncontrolled jerking of his head showed that he was far from
asleep. Gregor had simply stayed quietly all the time on the spot where the
boarders had
caught sight of him. Disappointment at the failure of his plan, perhaps also
the weakness arising from extreme hunger, made it impossible for him to
move. He feared,
with a fair degree of certainty, that at any moment the general tension
would discharge itself in a combined attack upon him, and he lay there
waiting. He did not react
even to the noise made by the violin as it fell off his mother's lap from
under her trembling fingers and gave out a resonant sound.
"My dear parents," said his sister, slapping her hand on the table by way of
introduction "things can't go on like this. Perhaps you don't realize that,
but I do. I won't utter
my brother's name in the presence of this creature, and so all I say is: we
must try to get rid of it. We've tried to look after it and to put up with
it as far as is humanly
possible, and I don't think anyone could reproach us in the slightest."
"She is absolutely right," said Gregor's father to himself. His mother, who
was still choking for lack of breath, began to cough hollowly into her hand
with a wild look in
her eyes.
His sister rushed over to her and held her forehead. His father's thoughts
seemed to have lost their vagueness at Grete's words, he sat more upright,
fingering his service
cap, which lay among the plates still on the table from the boarders'
supper, and from time to time looked at the motionless form of Gregor.
"We must try to get rid of it," his sister now said explicitly to her
father, since her mother was coughing too much to hear a word, "it will be
the death of both of you, I
can see that coming. When one has to work as hard as we do, all of us, one
can't stand this continual torment at home on top of it. At least I can't
stand it any longer."
And she burst into such a fit of sobbing that her tears dropped onto her
mother's face, from which she wiped them with mechanical flicks of her hand.
"My child," said the old man sympathetically and with evident understanding,
"but what should we do?"
Gregor's sister merely shrugged her shoulders to indicate the feeling of
helplessness that, in contrast to her former confidence, had overtaken her
during her weeping fit.
"If only he could understand us," said her father, half questioningly;
Grete, still sobbing, vehemently waved a hand to show how unthinkable that
was.
"If he could understand us," repeated the old man, shutting his eyes to
consider his daughter's conviction that understanding was impossible, "then
perhaps we might
come to some agreement with him. But as it is . . ."
"He must go," cried Gregor's sister, "that's the only solution, Father. You
must just try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact that
we've believed it for so long
is the root of all our misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If this were
Gregor, he would have realized long ago that human beings can't live with
such a creature, and
he'd have gone away of his own accord. We wouldn't have any brother then,
but we'd be able to go on living and keep his memory in honor. As it is,
this creature
persecutes us, drives away our boarders, obviously wants the whole apartment
to himself, and would have us all sleep in the gutter. Look, Father," she
suddenly shrieked,
"he's at it again!" And in a state of panic that was quite incomprehensible
to Gregor she even left her mother's side, literally thrusting the chair
from her as if she would
rather sacrifice her mother than be anywhere near Gregor, and rushed behind
her father, who also stood up, upset by her behavior, and half spread his
arms out as if to
protect her.
Yet Gregor hadn't the slightest intention of frightening anyone, least of
all his sister. He had only begun to turn around in order to crawl back to
his room, but it was
certainly a startling operation to see, since because of his disabled
condition he could not execute the difficult turning movements except by
lifting his head and then
bracing it against the floor over and over again. He paused and looked
around. His good intentions seemed to have been recognized; the alarm had
only been
momentary. Now they were all watching him in melancholy silence. His mother
lay in her chair, her legs stiffly outstretched and pressed together, her
eyes almost
closing from sheer exhaustion; his father and his sister were sitting beside
each other, his sister's arm around the father's neck.
Now perhaps they'll let me go on turning around, thought Gregor, and began
his labors again. He could not stop himself from panting with the effort,
and had to pause
now and then to take a breath. Nor was anyone rushing him, he was left
entirely to himself. When he had completed the turn, he began at once to
crawl straight back.
He was amazed at the distance separating him from his room and could not
understand how in his weak state he had managed to accomplish the same
journey so
recently, almost without noticing it. Intent on crawling as fast as possible
he hardly realized that not a single word, not one exclamation from his
family, interfered with
his progress. Only when he was already in the doorway did he turn his head
around, not completely, for his neck muscles were getting stiff, but enough
to see that
nothing had changed behind him except that his sister had risen to her feet.
His last glance fell on his mother, who was now sound asleep.
Hardly was he inside his room when the door was hastily pushed shut, bolted,
and locked. The sudden noise behind him startled him so much that his little
legs collapsed
beneath him. It was his sister who had shown such haste. She had been
standing ready, waiting, and had made a light spring forward, Gregor had not
even heard her
coming, and she cried "At last!" to her parents as she turned the key in the
lock.
"And now?" Gregor asked himself, looking around in the darkness. Soon he
made the discovery that he was now completely unable to move. This did not
surprise him,
rather it seemed unnatural that he should ever actually have been able to
move at all on these feeble little legs. Otherwise he felt relatively
comfortable. True, his whole
body was aching, but it seemed that the pain was gradually growing less and
would finally pass away. The rotting apple in his back and the inflamed area
around it, all
covered with soft dust, already hardly troubled him. He thought of his
family with tenderness and love. The conviction that he must disappear was
one that he held even
more strongly than his sister, if that were possible. In this state of empty
and peaceful med
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