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<div class="container" id="pg-machine-header"><p><strong>Title</strong>: Metamorphosis</p>
<div id="pg-header-authlist">
<p><strong>Author</strong>: Franz Kafka</p>

<p><strong>Translator</strong>: David Wyllie</p>
</div>
<p><strong>Release date</strong>: August 17, 2005 [eBook #5200]<br>
                Most recently updated: April 28, 2021</p>

<p><strong>Language</strong>: English</p>


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<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK METAMORPHOSIS ***</span>
</div></section><div style="margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em"></div>
<h1>Metamorphosis</h1>
<h2 class="no-break">by Franz Kafka</h2>
<h3>Translated by David Wyllie</h3>
<hr>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>I</h2>
<p>
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself
transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back,
and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed
and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover
it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin
compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
</p>
<p>
“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream.
His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully
between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out
on the table—Samsa was a travelling salesman—and above it there
hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and
housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and
fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her
lower arm towards the viewer.
</p>
<p>
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain
could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. “How
about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense”, he
thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to
sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn’t get into that
position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back
to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that
he wouldn’t have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when
he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
</p>
<p>
“Oh, God”, he thought, “what a strenuous career it is that
I’ve chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this
takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that
there’s the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections,
bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you
can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can all go to
Hell!” He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on
his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found
where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots
which he didn’t know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the place
with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it
he was overcome by a cold shudder.
</p>
<p>
He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all the
time”, he thought, “it makes you stupid. You’ve got to get
enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance,
whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the
contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their
breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I’d get kicked out on
the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I
didn’t have my parents to think about I’d have given in my notice a
long time ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just what I
think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He’d
fall right off his desk! And it’s a funny sort of business to be sitting
up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there,
especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of
hearing. Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the money
together to pay off my parents’ debt to him—another five or six
years I suppose—that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’s
when I’ll make the big change. First of all though, I’ve got to get
up, my train leaves at five.”
</p>
<p>
And he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of drawers.
“God in Heaven!” he thought. It was half past six and the hands
were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half past, more like
quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He could see from the bed that
it had been set for four o’clock as it should have been; it certainly
must have rung. Yes, but was it possible to quietly sleep through that
furniture-rattling noise? True, he had not slept peacefully, but probably all
the more deeply because of that. What should he do now? The next train went at
seven; if he were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and the
collection of samples was still not packed, and he did not at all feel
particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch the train he would not
avoid his boss’s anger as the office assistant would have been there to
see the five o’clock train go, he would have put in his report about
Gregor’s not being there a long time ago. The office assistant was the
boss’s man, spineless, and with no understanding. What about if he
reported sick? But that would be extremely strained and suspicious as in
five years of service Gregor had never once yet been ill. His boss would
certainly come round with the doctor from the medical insurance company, accuse
his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the doctor’s recommendation
not to make any claim as the doctor believed that no-one was ever ill but that
many were workshy. And what’s more, would he have been entirely wrong in
this case? Gregor did in fact, apart from excessive sleepiness after sleeping
for so long, feel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual.
</p>
<p>
He was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide to get out
of the bed, when the clock struck quarter to seven. There was a cautious knock
at the door near his head. “Gregor”, somebody called—it was
his mother—“it’s quarter to seven. Didn’t you want to
go somewhere?” That gentle voice! Gregor was shocked when he heard his
own voice answering, it could hardly be recognised as the voice he had had
before. As if from deep inside him, there was a painful and uncontrollable
squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there
was a sort of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether
he had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full answer and
explain everything, but in the circumstances contented himself with saying:
“Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I’m getting up now.” The change
in Gregor’s voice probably could not be noticed outside through the
wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with this explanation and shuffled
away. But this short conversation made the other members of the family aware
that Gregor, against their expectations was still at home, and soon his father
came knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist.
“Gregor, Gregor”, he called, “what’s wrong?” And
after a short while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice:
“Gregor! Gregor!” At the other side door his sister came
plaintively: “Gregor? Aren’t you well? Do you need anything?”
Gregor answered to both sides: “I’m ready, now”, making an
effort to remove all the strangeness from his voice by enunciating very
carefully and putting long pauses between each, individual word. His father
went back to his breakfast, but his sister whispered: “Gregor, open the
door, I beg of you.” Gregor, however, had no thought of opening the door,
and instead congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired from his
travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was at home.
</p>
<p>
The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being disturbed,
to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast. Only then would he
consider what to do next, as he was well aware that he would not bring his
thoughts to any sensible conclusions by lying in bed. He remembered that he had
often felt a slight pain in bed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that
had always turned out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings
would slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest doubt that
the change in his voice was nothing more than the first sign of a serious cold,
which was an occupational hazard for travelling salesmen.
</p>
<p>
It was a simple matter to throw off the covers; he only had to blow himself up
a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became difficult after that,
especially as he was so exceptionally broad. He would have used his arms and
his hands to push himself up; but instead of them he only had all those little
legs continuously moving in different directions, and which he was moreover
unable to control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first
one that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do what he
wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free and would move about
painfully. “This is something that can’t be done in bed”,
Gregor said to himself, “so don’t keep trying to do it”.
</p>
<p>
The first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body out of the
bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not imagine what it
looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move; it went so slowly; and
finally, almost in a frenzy, when he carelessly shoved himself forwards with
all the force he could gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against
the lower bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower
part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.
</p>
<p>
So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed first,
carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed quite easily, and
despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of his body eventually followed
slowly in the direction of the head. But when he had at last got his head out
of the bed and into the fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself
fall it would be a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to
carry on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock himself
out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose consciousness.
</p>
<p>
It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been earlier, but when
he lay there sighing, and was once more watching his legs as they struggled
against each other even harder than before, if that was possible, he could
think of no way of bringing peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once
more that it was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible
thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at whatever
sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to remind himself that
calm consideration was much better than rushing to desperate conclusions. At
times like this he would direct his eyes to the window and look out as clearly
as he could, but unfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was
enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer to offer
him. “Seven o’clock, already”, he said to himself when the
clock struck again, “seven o’clock, and there’s still a fog
like this.” And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly as
if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real
and natural state.
</p>
<p>
But then he said to himself: “Before it strikes quarter past seven
I’ll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then
somebody will have come round from work to ask what’s happened to me as
well, as they open up at work before seven o’clock.” And so he set
himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed
all at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out of bed in this way and
kept his head raised as he did so he could probably avoid injuring it. His back
seemed to be quite hard, and probably nothing would happen to it falling onto
the carpet. His main concern was for the loud noise he was bound to make, and
which even through all the doors would probably raise concern if not alarm. But
it was something that had to be risked.
</p>
<p>
When Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bed—the new method
was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and
forth—it occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came
to help him. Two strong people—he had his father and the maid in
mind—would have been more than enough; they would only have to push their
arms under the dome of his back, peel him away from the bed, bend down with the
load and then be patient and careful as he swang over onto the floor, where,
hopefully, the little legs would find a use. Should he really call for help
though, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked? Despite all
the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile at this thought.
</p>
<p>
After a while he had already moved so far across that it would have been hard
for him to keep his balance if he rocked too hard. The time was now ten past
seven and he would have to make a final decision very soon. Then there was a
ring at the door of the flat. “That’ll be someone from work”,
he said to himself, and froze very still, although his little legs only became
all the more lively as they danced around. For a moment everything remained
quiet. “They’re not opening the door”, Gregor said to
himself, caught in some nonsensical hope. But then of course, the maid’s
firm steps went to the door as ever and opened it. Gregor only needed to hear
the visitor’s first words of greeting and he knew who it was—the
chief clerk himself. Why did Gregor have to be the only one condemned to work
for a company where they immediately became highly suspicious at the slightest
shortcoming? Were all employees, every one of them, louts, was there not one of
them who was faithful and devoted who would go so mad with pangs of conscience
that he couldn’t get out of bed if he didn’t spend at least a
couple of hours in the morning on company business? Was it really not enough to
let one of the trainees make enquiries—assuming enquiries were even
necessary—did the chief clerk have to come himself, and did they have to
show the whole, innocent family that this was so suspicious that only the chief
clerk could be trusted to have the wisdom to investigate it? And more because
these thoughts had made him upset than through any proper decision, he swang
himself with all his force out of the bed. There was a loud thump, but it
wasn’t really a loud noise. His fall was softened a little by the carpet,
and Gregor’s back was also more elastic than he had thought, which made
the sound muffled and not too noticeable. He had not held his head carefully
enough, though, and hit it as he fell; annoyed and in pain, he turned it and
rubbed it against the carpet.
</p>
<p>
“Something’s fallen down in there”, said the chief clerk in
the room on the left. Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort
that had happened to him today could ever happen to the chief clerk too; you
had to concede that it was possible. But as if in gruff reply to this question,
the chief clerk’s firm footsteps in his highly polished boots could now
be heard in the adjoining room. From the room on his right, Gregor’s
sister whispered to him to let him know: “Gregor, the chief clerk is
here.” “Yes, I know”, said Gregor to himself; but without
daring to raise his voice loud enough for his sister to hear him.
</p>
<p>
“Gregor”, said his father now from the room to his left, “the
chief clerk has come round and wants to know why you didn’t leave on the
early train. We don’t know what to say to him. And anyway, he wants to
speak to you personally. So please open up this door. I’m sure
he’ll be good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room.” Then
the chief clerk called “Good morning, Mr. Samsa”. “He
isn’t well”, said his mother to the chief clerk, while his father
continued to speak through the door. “He isn’t well, please believe
me. Why else would Gregor have missed a train! The lad only ever thinks about
the business. It nearly makes me cross the way he never goes out in the
evenings; he’s been in town for a week now but stayed home every evening.
He sits with us in the kitchen and just reads the paper or studies train
timetables. His idea of relaxation is working with his fretsaw. He’s made
a little frame, for instance, it only took him two or three evenings,
you’ll be amazed how nice it is; it’s hanging up in his room;
you’ll see it as soon as Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I’m glad
you’re here; we wouldn’t have been able to get Gregor to open the
door by ourselves; he’s so stubborn; and I’m sure he isn’t
well, he said this morning that he is, but he isn’t.”
“I’ll be there in a moment”, said Gregor slowly and
thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any word of the
conversation. “Well I can’t think of any other way of explaining
it, Mrs. Samsa”, said the chief clerk, “I hope it’s nothing
serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we people in commerce ever
become slightly unwell then, fortunately or unfortunately as you like, we
simply have to overcome it because of business considerations.”
“Can the chief clerk come in to see you now then?”, asked his
father impatiently, knocking at the door again. “No”, said Gregor.
In the room on his right there followed a painful silence; in the room on his
left his sister began to cry.
</p>
<p>
So why did his sister not go and join the others? She had probably only just
got up and had not even begun to get dressed. And why was she crying? Was it
because he had not got up, and had not let the chief clerk in, because he was
in danger of losing his job and if that happened his boss would once more
pursue their parents with the same demands as before? There was no need to
worry about things like that yet. Gregor was still there and had not the
slightest intention of abandoning his family. For the time being he just lay
there on the carpet, and no-one who knew the condition he was in would
seriously have expected him to let the chief clerk in. It was only a minor
discourtesy, and a suitable excuse could easily be found for it later on, it
was not something for which Gregor could be sacked on the spot. And it seemed
to Gregor much more sensible to leave him now in peace instead of disturbing
him with talking at him and crying. But the others didn’t know what was
happening, they were worried, that would excuse their behaviour.
</p>
<p>
The chief clerk now raised his voice, “Mr. Samsa”, he called to
him, “what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room, give us no more
than yes or no for an answer, you are causing serious and unnecessary concern
to your parents and you fail—and I mention this just by the way—you
fail to carry out your business duties in a way that is quite unheard of.
I’m speaking here on behalf of your parents and of your employer, and
really must request a clear and immediate explanation. I am astonished, quite
astonished. I thought I knew you as a calm and sensible person, and now you
suddenly seem to be showing off with peculiar whims. This morning, your
employer did suggest a possible reason for your failure to appear, it’s
true—it had to do with the money that was recently entrusted to
you—but I came near to giving him my word of honour that that could not
be the right explanation. But now that I see your incomprehensible stubbornness
I no longer feel any wish whatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And nor is
your position all that secure. I had originally intended to say all this to you
in private, but since you cause me to waste my time here for no good reason I
don’t see why your parents should not also learn of it. Your turnover has
been very unsatisfactory of late; I grant you that it’s not the time of
year to do especially good business, we recognise that; but there simply is no
time of year to do no business at all, Mr. Samsa, we cannot allow there to
be.”
</p>
<p>
“But Sir”, called Gregor, beside himself and forgetting all else in
the excitement, “I’ll open up immediately, just a moment. I’m
slightly unwell, an attack of dizziness, I haven’t been able to get up.
I’m still in bed now. I’m quite fresh again now, though. I’m
just getting out of bed. Just a moment. Be patient! It’s not quite as
easy as I’d thought. I’m quite alright now, though. It’s
shocking, what can suddenly happen to a person! I was quite alright last night,
my parents know about it, perhaps better than me, I had a small symptom of it
last night already. They must have noticed it. I don’t know why I
didn’t let you know at work! But you always think you can get over an
illness without staying at home. Please, don’t make my parents suffer!
There’s no basis for any of the accusations you’re making;
nobody’s ever said a word to me about any of these things. Maybe you
haven’t read the latest contracts I sent in. I’ll set off with the
eight o’clock train, as well, these few hours of rest have given me
strength. You don’t need to wait, sir; I’ll be in the office soon
after you, and please be so good as to tell that to the boss and recommend me
to him!”
</p>
<p>
And while Gregor gushed out these words, hardly knowing what he was saying, he
made his way over to the chest of drawers—this was easily done, probably
because of the practise he had already had in bed—where he now tried to
get himself upright. He really did want to open the door, really did want to
let them see him and to speak with the chief clerk; the others were being so
insistent, and he was curious to learn what they would say when they caught
sight of him. If they were shocked then it would no longer be Gregor’s
responsibility and he could rest. If, however, they took everything calmly he
would still have no reason to be upset, and if he hurried he really could be at
the station for eight o’clock. The first few times he tried to climb up
on the smooth chest of drawers he just slid down again, but he finally gave
himself one last swing and stood there upright; the lower part of his body was
in serious pain but he no longer gave any attention to it. Now he let himself
fall against the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of it
with his little legs. By now he had also calmed down, and kept quiet so that he
could listen to what the chief clerk was saying.
</p>
<p>
“Did you understand a word of all that?” the chief clerk asked his
parents, “surely he’s not trying to make fools of us”.
“Oh, God!” called his mother, who was already in tears, “he
could be seriously ill and we’re making him suffer. Grete! Grete!”
she then cried. “Mother?” his sister called from the other side.
They communicated across Gregor’s room. “You’ll have to go
for the doctor straight away. Gregor is ill. Quick, get the doctor. Did you
hear the way Gregor spoke just now?” “That was the voice of an
animal”, said the chief clerk, with a calmness that was in contrast with
his mother’s screams. “Anna! Anna!” his father called into
the kitchen through the entrance hall, clapping his hands, “get a
locksmith here, now!” And the two girls, their skirts swishing,
immediately ran out through the hall, wrenching open the front door of the flat
as they went. How had his sister managed to get dressed so quickly? There was
no sound of the door banging shut again; they must have left it open; people
often do in homes where something awful has happened.
</p>
<p>
Gregor, in contrast, had become much calmer. So they couldn’t understand
his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than
before—perhaps his ears had become used to the sound. They had realised,
though, that there was something wrong with him, and were ready to help. The
first response to his situation had been confident and wise, and that made him
feel better. He felt that he had been drawn back in among people, and from the
doctor and the locksmith he expected great and surprising
achievements—although he did not really distinguish one from the other.
Whatever was said next would be crucial, so, in order to make his voice as
clear as possible, he coughed a little, but taking care to do this not too
loudly as even this might well sound different from the way that a human coughs
and he was no longer sure he could judge this for himself. Meanwhile, it had
become very quiet in the next room. Perhaps his parents were sat at the table
whispering with the chief clerk, or perhaps they were all pressed against the
door and listening.
</p>
<p>
Gregor slowly pushed his way over to the door with the chair. Once there he let
go of it and threw himself onto the door, holding himself upright against it
using the adhesive on the tips of his legs. He rested there a little while to
recover from the effort involved and then set himself to the task of turning
the key in the lock with his mouth. He seemed, unfortunately, to have no proper
teeth—how was he, then, to grasp the key?—but the lack of teeth
was, of course, made up for with a very strong jaw; using the jaw, he really
was able to start the key turning, ignoring the fact that he must have been
causing some kind of damage as a brown fluid came from his mouth, flowed over
the key and dripped onto the floor. “Listen”, said the chief clerk
in the next room, “he’s turning the key.” Gregor was greatly
encouraged by this; but they all should have been calling to him, his father
and his mother too: “Well done, Gregor”, they should have cried,
“keep at it, keep hold of the lock!” And with the idea that they
were all excitedly following his efforts, he bit on the key with all his
strength, paying no attention to the pain he was causing himself. As the key
turned round he turned around the lock with it, only holding himself upright
with his mouth, and hung onto the key or pushed it down again with the whole
weight of his body as needed. The clear sound of the lock as it snapped back
was Gregor’s sign that he could break his concentration, and as he
regained his breath he said to himself: “So, I didn’t need the
locksmith after all”. Then he lay his head on the handle of the door to
open it completely.
</p>
<p>
Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already wide open before he
could be seen. He had first to slowly turn himself around one of the double
doors, and he had to do it very carefully if he did not want to fall flat on
his back before entering the room. He was still occupied with this difficult
movement, unable to pay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief
clerk exclaim a loud “Oh!”, which sounded like the soughing of the
wind. Now he also saw him—he was the nearest to the door—his hand
pressed against his open mouth and slowly retreating as if driven by a steady
and invisible force. Gregor’s mother, her hair still dishevelled from bed
despite the chief clerk’s being there, looked at his father. Then she
unfolded her arms, took two steps forward towards Gregor and sank down onto the
floor into her skirts that spread themselves out around her as her head
disappeared down onto her breast. His father looked hostile, and clenched his
fists as if wanting to knock Gregor back into his room. Then he looked
uncertainly round the living room, covered his eyes with his hands and wept so
that his powerful chest shook.
</p>
<p>
So Gregor did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of the other
door which was still held bolted in place. In this way only half of his body
could be seen, along with his head above it which he leant over to one side as
he peered out at the others. Meanwhile the day had become much lighter; part of
the endless, grey-black building on the other side of the street—which
was a hospital—could be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular
line of windows piercing its façade; the rain was still falling, now throwing
down large, individual droplets which hit the ground one at a time. The washing
up from breakfast lay on the table; there was so much of it because, for
Gregor’s father, breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he
would stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of different
newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was photograph of Gregor when he
was a lieutenant in the army, his sword in his hand and a carefree smile on his
face as he called forth respect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the
entrance hall was open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could
see onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down below.
</p>
<p>
“Now, then”, said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one to
have kept calm, “I’ll get dressed straight away now, pack up my
samples and set off. Will you please just let me leave? You can see”, he
said to the chief clerk, “that I’m not stubborn and I like to do my
job; being a commercial traveller is arduous but without travelling I
couldn’t earn my living. So where are you going, in to the office? Yes?
Will you report everything accurately, then? It’s quite possible for
someone to be temporarily unable to work, but that’s just the right time
to remember what’s been achieved in the past and consider that later on,
once the difficulty has been removed, he will certainly work with all the more
diligence and concentration. You’re well aware that I’m seriously
in debt to our employer as well as having to look after my parents and my
sister, so that I’m trapped in a difficult situation, but I will work my
way out of it again. Please don’t make things any harder for me than they
are already, and don’t take sides against me at the office. I know that
nobody likes the travellers. They think we earn an enormous wage as well as
having a soft time of it. That’s just prejudice but they have no
particular reason to think better of it. But you, sir, you have a better
overview than the rest of the staff, in fact, if I can say this in confidence,
a better overview than the boss himself—it’s very easy for a
businessman like him to make mistakes about his employees and judge them more
harshly than he should. And you’re also well aware that we travellers
spend almost the whole year away from the office, so that we can very easily
fall victim to gossip and chance and groundless complaints, and it’s
almost impossible to defend yourself from that sort of thing, we don’t
usually even hear about them, or if at all it’s when we arrive back home
exhausted from a trip, and that’s when we feel the harmful effects of
what’s been going on without even knowing what caused them. Please,
don’t go away, at least first say something to show that you grant that
I’m at least partly right!”
</p>
<p>
But the chief clerk had turned away as soon as Gregor had started to speak,
and, with protruding lips, only stared back at him over his trembling shoulders
as he left. He did not keep still for a moment while Gregor was speaking, but
moved steadily towards the door without taking his eyes off him. He moved very
gradually, as if there had been some secret prohibition on leaving the room. It
was only when he had reached the entrance hall that he made a sudden movement,
drew his foot from the living room, and rushed forward in a panic. In the hall,
he stretched his right hand far out towards the stairway as if out there, there
were some supernatural force waiting to save him.
</p>
<p>
Gregor realised that it was out of the question to let the chief clerk go away
in this mood if his position in the firm was not to be put into extreme danger.
That was something his parents did not understand very well; over the years,
they had become convinced that this job would provide for Gregor for his entire
life, and besides, they had so much to worry about at present that they had
lost sight of any thought for the future. Gregor, though, did think about the
future. The chief clerk had to be held back, calmed down, convinced and finally
won over; the future of Gregor and his family depended on it! If only his
sister were here! She was clever; she was already in tears while Gregor was
still lying peacefully on his back. And the chief clerk was a lover of women,
surely she could persuade him; she would close the front door in the entrance
hall and talk him out of his shocked state. But his sister was not there,
Gregor would have to do the job himself. And without considering that he still
was not familiar with how well he could move about in his present state, or
that his speech still might not—or probably would not—be
understood, he let go of the door; pushed himself through the opening; tried to
reach the chief clerk on the landing who, ridiculously, was holding on to the
banister with both hands; but Gregor fell immediately over and, with a little
scream as he sought something to hold onto, landed on his numerous little legs.
Hardly had that happened than, for the first time that day, he began to feel
alright with his body; the little legs had the solid ground under them; to his
pleasure, they did exactly as he told them; they were even making the effort to
carry him where he wanted to go; and he was soon believing that all his sorrows
would soon be finally at an end. He held back the urge to move but swayed from
side to side as he crouched there on the floor. His mother was not far away in
front of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but then she
suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her fingers spread shouting:
“Help, for pity’s sake, Help!” The way she held her head
suggested she wanted to see Gregor better, but the unthinking way she was
hurrying backwards showed that she did not; she had forgotten that the table
was behind her with all the breakfast things on it; when she reached the table
she sat quickly down on it without knowing what she was doing; without even
seeming to notice that the coffee pot had been knocked over and a gush of
coffee was pouring down onto the carpet.
</p>
<p>
“Mother, mother”, said Gregor gently, looking up at her. He had
completely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not help himself
snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the flow of coffee. That set
his mother screaming anew, she fled from the table and into the arms of his
father as he rushed towards her. Gregor, though, had no time to spare for his
parents now; the chief clerk had already reached the stairs; with his chin on
the banister, he looked back for the last time. Gregor made a run for him; he
wanted to be sure of reaching him; the chief clerk must have expected
something, as he leapt down several steps at once and disappeared; his shouts
resounding all around the staircase. The flight of the chief clerk seemed,
unfortunately, to put Gregor’s father into a panic as well. Until then he
had been relatively self controlled, but now, instead of running after the
chief clerk himself, or at least not impeding Gregor as he ran after him,
Gregor’s father seized the chief clerk’s stick in his right hand
(the chief clerk had left it behind on a chair, along with his hat and
overcoat), picked up a large newspaper from the table with his left, and used
them to drive Gregor back into his room, stamping his foot at him as he went.
Gregor’s appeals to his father were of no help, his appeals were simply
not understood, however much he humbly turned his head his father merely
stamped his foot all the harder. Across the room, despite the chilly weather,
Gregor’s mother had pulled open a window, leant far out of it and pressed
her hands to her face. A strong draught of air flew in from the street towards
the stairway, the curtains flew up, the newspapers on the table fluttered and
some of them were blown onto the floor. Nothing would stop Gregor’s
father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at him like a wild man.
Gregor had never had any practice in moving backwards and was only able to go
very slowly. If Gregor had only been allowed to turn round he would have been
back in his room straight away, but he was afraid that if he took the time to
do that his father would become impatient, and there was the threat of a lethal
blow to his back or head from the stick in his father’s hand any moment.
Eventually, though, Gregor realised that he had no choice as he saw, to his
disgust, that he was quite incapable of going backwards in a straight line; so
he began, as quickly as possible and with frequent anxious glances at his
father, to turn himself round. It went very slowly, but perhaps his father was
able to see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact now
and then he used the tip of his stick to give directions from a distance as to
which way to turn. If only his father would stop that unbearable hissing! It
was making Gregor quite confused. When he had nearly finished turning round,
still listening to that hissing, he made a mistake and turned himself back a
little the way he had just come. He was pleased when he finally had his head in
front of the doorway, but then saw that it was too narrow, and his body was too
broad to get through it without further difficulty. In his present mood, it
obviously did not occur to his father to open the other of the double doors so
that Gregor would have enough space to get through. He was merely fixed on the
idea that Gregor should be got back into his room as quickly as possible. Nor
would he ever have allowed Gregor the time to get himself upright as
preparation for getting through the doorway. What he did, making more noise
than ever, was to drive Gregor forwards all the harder as if there had been
nothing in the way; it sounded to Gregor as if there was now more than one
father behind him; it was not a pleasant experience, and Gregor pushed himself
into the doorway without regard for what might happen. One side of his body
lifted itself, he lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the
white door and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it, soon he
was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all by himself, the
little legs along one side hung quivering in the air while those on the other
side were pressed painfully against the ground. Then his father gave him a
hefty shove from behind which released him from where he was held and sent him
flying, and heavily bleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut
with the stick, then, finally, all was quiet.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2>II</h2>
<p>
It was not until it was getting dark that evening that Gregor awoke from his
deep and coma-like sleep. He would have woken soon afterwards anyway even if he
hadn’t been disturbed, as he had had enough sleep and felt fully rested.
But he had the impression that some hurried steps and the sound of the door
leading into the front room being carefully shut had woken him. The light from
the electric street lamps shone palely here and there onto the ceiling and tops
of the furniture, but down below, where Gregor was, it was dark. He pushed
himself over to the door, feeling his way clumsily with his antennae—of
which he was now beginning to learn the value—in order to see what had
been happening there. The whole of his left side seemed like one, painfully
stretched scar, and he limped badly on his two rows of legs. One of the legs
had been badly injured in the events of that morning—it was nearly a
miracle that only one of them had been—and dragged along lifelessly.
</p>
<p>
It was only when he had reached the door that he realised what it actually was
that had drawn him over to it; it was the smell of something to eat. By the
door there was a dish filled with sweetened milk with little pieces of white
bread floating in it. He was so pleased he almost laughed, as he was even
hungrier than he had been that morning, and immediately dipped his head into
the milk, nearly covering his eyes with it. But he soon drew his head back
again in disappointment; not only did the pain in his tender left side make it
difficult to eat the food—he was only able to eat if his whole body
worked together as a snuffling whole—but the milk did not taste at all
nice. Milk like this was normally his favourite drink, and his sister had
certainly left it there for him because of that, but he turned, almost against
his own will, away from the dish and crawled back into the centre of the room.
</p>
<p>
Through the crack in the door, Gregor could see that the gas had been lit in
the living room. His father at this time would normally be sat with his evening
paper, reading it out in a loud voice to Gregor’s mother, and sometimes
to his sister, but there was now not a sound to be heard. Gregor’s sister
would often write and tell him about this reading, but maybe his father had
lost the habit in recent times. It was so quiet all around too, even though
there must have been somebody in the flat. “What a quiet life it is the
family lead”, said Gregor to himself, and, gazing into the darkness, felt
a great pride that he was able to provide a life like that in such a nice home
for his sister and parents. But what now, if all this peace and wealth and
comfort should come to a horrible and frightening end? That was something that
Gregor did not want to think about too much, so he started to move about,
crawling up and down the room.
</p>
<p>
Once during that long evening, the door on one side of the room was opened very
slightly and hurriedly closed again; later on the door on the other side did
the same; it seemed that someone needed to enter the room but thought better of
it. Gregor went and waited immediately by the door, resolved either to bring
the timorous visitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it
was; but the door was opened no more that night and Gregor waited in vain. The
previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had wanted to get in
there to him, but now, now that he had opened up one of the doors and the other
had clearly been unlocked some time during the day, no-one came, and the keys
were in the other sides.
</p>
<p>
It was not until late at night that the gaslight in the living room was put
out, and now it was easy to see that his parents and sister had stayed awake
all that time, as they all could be distinctly heard as they went away together
on tip-toe. It was clear that no-one would come into Gregor’s room any
more until morning; that gave him plenty of time to think undisturbed about how
he would have to re-arrange his life. For some reason, the tall, empty room
where he was forced to remain made him feel uneasy as he lay there flat on the
floor, even though he had been living in it for five years. Hardly aware of
what he was doing other than a slight feeling of shame, he hurried under the
couch. It pressed down on his back a little, and he was no longer able to lift
his head, but he nonetheless felt immediately at ease and his only regret was
that his body was too broad to get it all underneath.
</p>
<p>
He spent the whole night there. Some of the time he passed in a light sleep,
although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of his hunger, and some of
the time was spent in worries and vague hopes which, however, always led to the
same conclusion: for the time being he must remain calm, he must show patience
and the greatest consideration so that his family could bear the unpleasantness
that he, in his present condition, was forced to impose on them.
</p>
<p>
Gregor soon had the opportunity to test the strength of his decisions, as early
the next morning, almost before the night had ended, his sister, nearly fully
dressed, opened the door from the front room and looked anxiously in. She did
not see him straight away, but when she did notice him under the couch—he
had to be somewhere, for God’s sake, he couldn’t have flown
away—she was so shocked that she lost control of herself and slammed the
door shut again from outside. But she seemed to regret her behaviour, as she
opened the door again straight away and came in on tip-toe as if entering the
room of someone seriously ill or even of a stranger. Gregor had pushed his head
forward, right to the edge of the couch, and watched her. Would she notice that
he had left the milk as it was, realise that it was not from any lack of hunger
and bring him in some other food that was more suitable? If she didn’t do
it herself he would rather go hungry than draw her attention to it, although he
did feel a terrible urge to rush forward from under the couch, throw himself at
his sister’s feet and beg her for something good to eat. However, his
sister noticed the full dish immediately and looked at it and the few drops of
milk splashed around it with some surprise. She immediately picked it
up—using a rag, not her bare hands—and carried it out. Gregor was
extremely curious as to what she would bring in its place, imagining the
wildest possibilities, but he never could have guessed what his sister, in her
goodness, actually did bring. In order to test his taste, she brought him a
whole selection of things, all spread out on an old newspaper. There were old,
half-rotten vegetables; bones from the evening meal, covered in white sauce
that had gone hard; a few raisins and almonds; some cheese that Gregor had
declared inedible two days before; a dry roll and some bread spread with butter
and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water into the dish, which
had probably been permanently set aside for Gregor’s use, and placed it
beside them. Then, out of consideration for Gregor’s feelings, as she
knew that he would not eat in front of her, she hurried out again and even
turned the key in the lock so that Gregor would know he could make things as
comfortable for himself as he liked. Gregor’s little legs whirred, at
last he could eat. What’s more, his injuries must already have completely
healed as he found no difficulty in moving. This amazed him, as more than a
month earlier he had cut his finger slightly with a knife, he thought of how
his finger had still hurt the day before yesterday. “Am I less sensitive
than I used to be, then?”, he thought, and was already sucking greedily
at the cheese which had immediately, almost compellingly, attracted him much
more than the other foods on the newspaper. Quickly one after another, his eyes
watering with pleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables and the sauce;
the fresh foods, on the other hand, he didn’t like at all, and even
dragged the things he did want to eat a little way away from them because he
couldn’t stand the smell. Long after he had finished eating and lay
lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly turned the key in the lock as a
sign to him that he should withdraw. He was immediately startled, although he
had been half asleep, and he hurried back under the couch. But he needed great
self-control to stay there even for the short time that his sister was in the
room, as eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he could
hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he watched with bulging
eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a broom and swept up the left-overs,
mixing them in with the food he had not even touched at all as if it could not
be used any more. She quickly dropped it all into a bin, closed it with its
wooden lid, and carried everything out. She had hardly turned her back before
Gregor came out again from under the couch and stretched himself.
</p>
<p>
This was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the morning while
his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the second time after everyone
had eaten their meal at midday as his parents would sleep for a little while
then as well, and Gregor’s sister would send the maid away on some
errand. Gregor’s father and mother certainly did not want him to starve
either, but perhaps it would have been more than they could stand to have any
more experience of his feeding than being told about it, and perhaps his sister
wanted to spare them what distress she could as they were indeed suffering
enough.
</p>
<p>
It was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the doctor and the
locksmith that first morning to get them out of the flat. As nobody could
understand him, nobody, not even his sister, thought that he could understand
them, so he had to be content to hear his sister’s sighs and appeals to
the saints as she moved about his room. It was only later, when she had become
a little more used to everything—there was, of course, no question of her
ever becoming fully used to the situation—that Gregor would sometimes
catch a friendly comment, or at least a comment that could be construed as
friendly. “He’s enjoyed his dinner today”, she might say when
he had diligently cleared away all the food left for him, or if he left most of
it, which slowly became more and more frequent, she would often say, sadly,
“now everything’s just been left there again”.
</p>
<p>
Although Gregor wasn’t able to hear any news directly he did listen to
much of what was said in the next rooms, and whenever he heard anyone speaking
he would scurry straight to the appropriate door and press his whole body
against it. There was seldom any conversation, especially at first, that was
not about him in some way, even if only in secret. For two whole days, all the
talk at every mealtime was about what they should do now; but even between
meals they spoke about the same subject as there were always at least two
members of the family at home—nobody wanted to be at home by themselves
and it was out of the question to leave the flat entirely empty. And on the
very first day the maid had fallen to her knees and begged Gregor’s
mother to let her go without delay. It was not very clear how much she knew of
what had happened but she left within a quarter of an hour, tearfully thanking
Gregor’s mother for her dismissal as if she had done her an enormous
service. She even swore emphatically not to tell anyone the slightest about
what had happened, even though no-one had asked that of her.
</p>
<p>
Now Gregor’s sister also had to help his mother with the cooking;
although that was not so much bother as no-one ate very much. Gregor often
heard how one of them would unsuccessfully urge another to eat, and receive no
more answer than “no thanks, I’ve had enough” or something
similar. No-one drank very much either. His sister would sometimes ask his
father whether he would like a beer, hoping for the chance to go and fetch it
herself. When his father then said nothing she would add, so that he would not
feel selfish, that she could send the housekeeper for it, but then his father
would close the matter with a big, loud “No”, and no more would be
said.
</p>
<p>
Even before the first day had come to an end, his father had explained to
Gregor’s mother and sister what their finances and prospects were. Now
and then he stood up from the table and took some receipt or document from the
little cash box he had saved from his business when it had collapsed five years
earlier. Gregor heard how he opened the complicated lock and then closed it
again after he had taken the item he wanted. What he heard his father say was
some of the first good news that Gregor heard since he had first been
incarcerated in his room. He had thought that nothing at all remained from his
father’s business, at least he had never told him anything different, and
Gregor had never asked him about it anyway. Their business misfortune had
reduced the family to a state of total despair, and Gregor’s only concern
at that time had been to arrange things so that they could all forget about it
as quickly as possible. So then he started working especially hard, with a
fiery vigour that raised him from a junior salesman to a travelling
representative almost overnight, bringing with it the chance to earn money in
quite different ways. Gregor converted his success at work straight into cash
that he could lay on the table at home for the benefit of his astonished and
delighted family. They had been good times and they had never come again, at
least not with the same splendour, even though Gregor had later earned so much
that he was in a position to bear the costs of the whole family, and did bear
them. They had even got used to it, both Gregor and the family, they took the
money with gratitude and he was glad to provide it, although there was no
longer much warm affection given in return. Gregor only remained close to his
sister now. Unlike him, she was very fond of music and a gifted and expressive
violinist, it was his secret plan to send her to the conservatory next year
even though it would cause great expense that would have to be made up for in
some other way. During Gregor’s short periods in town, conversation with
his sister would often turn to the conservatory but it was only ever mentioned
as a lovely dream that could never be realised. Their parents did not like to
hear this innocent talk, but Gregor thought about it quite hard and decided he
would let them know what he planned with a grand announcement of it on
Christmas day.
</p>
<p>
That was the sort of totally pointless thing that went through his mind in his
present state, pressed upright against the door and listening. There were times
when he simply became too tired to continue listening, when his head would fall
wearily against the door and he would pull it up again with a start, as even
the slightest noise he caused would be heard next door and they would all go
silent. “What’s that he’s doing now”, his father would
say after a while, clearly having gone over to the door, and only then would
the interrupted conversation slowly be taken up again.
</p>
<p>
When explaining things, his father repeated himself several times, partly
because it was a long time since he had been occupied with these matters
himself and partly because Gregor’s mother did not understand everything
the first time. From these repeated explanations Gregor learned, to his
pleasure, that despite all their misfortunes there was still some money
available from the old days. It was not a lot, but it had not been touched in
the meantime and some interest had accumulated. Besides that, they had not been
using up all the money that Gregor had been bringing home every month, keeping
only a little for himself, so that that, too, had been accumulating. Behind the
door, Gregor nodded with enthusiasm in his pleasure at this unexpected thrift
and caution. He could actually have used this surplus money to reduce his
father’s debt to his boss, and the day when he could have freed himself
from that job would have come much closer, but now it was certainly better the
way his father had done things.
</p>
<p>
This money, however, was certainly not enough to enable the family to live off
the interest; it was enough to maintain them for, perhaps, one or two years, no
more. That’s to say, it was money that should not really be touched but
set aside for emergencies; money to live on had to be earned. His father was
healthy but old, and lacking in self confidence. During the five years that he
had not been working—the first holiday in a life that had been full of
strain and no success—he had put on a lot of weight and become very slow
and clumsy. Would Gregor’s elderly mother now have to go and earn money?
She suffered from asthma and it was a strain for her just to move about the
home, every other day would be spent struggling for breath on the sofa by the
open window. Would his sister have to go and earn money? She was still a child
of seventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable, consisting of
wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the business, joining in
with a few modest pleasures and most of all playing the violin. Whenever they
began to talk of the need to earn money, Gregor would always first let go of
the door and then throw himself onto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he
became quite hot with shame and regret.
</p>
<p>
He would often lie there the whole night through, not sleeping a wink but
scratching at the leather for hours on end. Or he might go to all the effort of
pushing a chair to the window, climbing up onto the sill and, propped up in the
chair, leaning on the window to stare out of it. He had used to feel a great
sense of freedom from doing this, but doing it now was obviously something more
remembered than experienced, as what he actually saw in this way was becoming
less distinct every day, even things that were quite near; he had used to curse
the ever-present view of the hospital across the street, but now he could not
see it at all, and if he had not known that he lived in Charlottenstrasse,
which was a quiet street despite being in the middle of the city, he could have
thought that he was looking out the window at a barren waste where the grey sky
and the grey earth mingled inseparably. His observant sister only needed to
notice the chair twice before she would always push it back to its exact
position by the window after she had tidied up the room, and even left the
inner pane of the window open from then on.
</p>
<p>
If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for all that
she had to do for him it would have been easier for him to bear it; but as it
was it caused him pain. His sister, naturally, tried as far as possible to
pretend there was nothing burdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of
course, the better she was able to do so, but as time went by Gregor was also
able to see through it all so much better. It had even become very unpleasant
for him, now, whenever she entered the room. No sooner had she come in than she
would quickly close the door as a precaution so that no-one would have to
suffer the view into Gregor’s room, then she would go straight to the
window and pull it hurriedly open almost as if she were suffocating. Even if it
was cold, she would stay at the window breathing deeply for a little while. She
would alarm Gregor twice a day with this running about and noise making; he
would stay under the couch shivering the whole while, knowing full well that
she would certainly have liked to spare him this ordeal, but it was impossible
for her to be in the same room with him with the windows closed.
</p>
<p>
One day, about a month after Gregor’s transformation when his sister no
longer had any particular reason to be shocked at his appearance, she came into
the room a little earlier than usual and found him still staring out the
window, motionless, and just where he would be most horrible. In itself, his
sister’s not coming into the room would have been no surprise for Gregor
as it would have been difficult for her to immediately open the window while he
was still there, but not only did she not come in, she went straight back and
closed the door behind her, a stranger would have thought he had threatened her
and tried to bite her. Gregor went straight to hide himself under the couch, of
course, but he had to wait until midday before his sister came back and she
seemed much more uneasy than usual. It made him realise that she still found
his appearance unbearable and would continue to do so, she probably even had to
overcome the urge to flee when she saw the little bit of him that protruded
from under the couch. One day, in order to spare her even this sight, he spent
four hours carrying the bedsheet over to the couch on his back and arranged it
so that he was completely covered and his sister would not be able to see him
even if she bent down. If she did not think this sheet was necessary then all
she had to do was take it off again, as it was clear enough that it was no
pleasure for Gregor to cut himself off so completely. She left the sheet where
it was. Gregor even thought he glimpsed a look of gratitude one time when he
carefully looked out from under the sheet to see how his sister liked the new
arrangement.
</p>
<p>
For the first fourteen days, Gregor’s parents could not bring themselves
to come into the room to see him. He would often hear them say how they
appreciated all the new work his sister was doing even though, before, they had
seen her as a girl who was somewhat useless and frequently been annoyed with
her. But now the two of them, father and mother, would often both wait outside
the door of Gregor’s room while his sister tidied up in there, and as
soon as she went out again she would have to tell them exactly how everything
looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time and whether,
perhaps, any slight improvement could be seen. His mother also wanted to go in
and visit Gregor relatively soon but his father and sister at first persuaded
her against it. Gregor listened very closely to all this, and approved fully.
Later, though, she had to be held back by force, which made her call out:
“Let me go and see Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can’t you
understand I have to see him?”, and Gregor would think to himself that
maybe it would be better if his mother came in, not every day of course, but
one day a week, perhaps; she could understand everything much better than his
sister who, for all her courage, was still just a child after all, and really
might not have had an adult’s appreciation of the burdensome job she had
taken on.
</p>
<p>
Gregor’s wish to see his mother was soon realised. Out of consideration
for his parents, Gregor wanted to avoid being seen at the window during the
day, the few square meters of the floor did not give him much room to crawl
about, it was hard to just lie quietly through the night, his food soon stopped
giving him any pleasure at all, and so, to entertain himself, he got into the
habit of crawling up and down the walls and ceiling. He was especially fond of
hanging from the ceiling; it was quite different from lying on the floor; he
could breathe more freely; his body had a light swing to it; and up there,
relaxed and almost happy, it might happen that he would surprise even himself
by letting go of the ceiling and landing on the floor with a crash. But now, of
course, he had far better control of his body than before and, even with a fall
as great as that, caused himself no damage. Very soon his sister noticed
Gregor’s new way of entertaining himself—he had, after all, left
traces of the adhesive from his feet as he crawled about—and got it into
her head to make it as easy as possible for him by removing the furniture that
got in his way, especially the chest of drawers and the desk. Now, this was not
something that she would be able to do by herself; she did not dare to ask for
help from her father; the sixteen year old maid had carried on bravely since
the cook had left but she certainly would not have helped in this, she had even
asked to be allowed to keep the kitchen locked at all times and never to have
to open the door unless it was especially important; so his sister had no
choice but to choose some time when Gregor’s father was not there and
fetch his mother to help her. As she approached the room, Gregor could hear his
mother express her joy, but once at the door she went silent. First, of course,
his sister came in and looked round to see that everything in the room was
alright; and only then did she let her mother enter. Gregor had hurriedly
pulled the sheet down lower over the couch and put more folds into it so that
everything really looked as if it had just been thrown down by chance. Gregor
also refrained, this time, from spying out from under the sheet; he gave up the
chance to see his mother until later and was simply glad that she had come.
“You can come in, he can’t be seen”, said his sister,
obviously leading her in by the hand. The old chest of drawers was too heavy
for a pair of feeble women to be heaving about, but Gregor listened as they
pushed it from its place, his sister always taking on the heaviest part of the
work for herself and ignoring her mother’s warnings that she would strain
herself. This lasted a very long time. After labouring at it for fifteen
minutes or more his mother said it would be better to leave the chest where it
was, for one thing it was too heavy for them to get the job finished before
Gregor’s father got home and leaving it in the middle of the room it
would be in his way even more, and for another thing it wasn’t even sure
that taking the furniture away would really be any help to him. She thought
just the opposite; the sight of the bare walls saddened her right to her heart;
and why wouldn’t Gregor feel the same way about it, he’d been used
to this furniture in his room for a long time and it would make him feel
abandoned to be in an empty room like that. Then, quietly, almost whispering as
if wanting Gregor (whose whereabouts she did not know) to hear not even the
tone of her voice, as she was convinced that he did not understand her words,
she added “and by taking the furniture away, won’t it seem like
we’re showing that we’ve given up all hope of improvement and
we’re abandoning him to cope for himself? I think it’d be best to
leave the room exactly the way it was before so that when Gregor comes back to
us again he’ll find everything unchanged and he’ll be able to
forget the time in between all the easier”.
</p>
<p>
Hearing these words from his mother made Gregor realise that the lack of any
direct human communication, along with the monotonous life led by the family
during these two months, must have made him confused—he could think of no
other way of explaining to himself why he had seriously wanted his room emptied
out. Had he really wanted to transform his room into a cave, a warm room fitted
out with the nice furniture he had inherited? That would have let him crawl
around unimpeded in any direction, but it would also have let him quickly
forget his past when he had still been human. He had come very close to
forgetting, and it had only been the voice of his mother, unheard for so long,
that had shaken him out of it. Nothing should be removed; everything had to
stay; he could not do without the good influence the furniture had on his
condition; and if the furniture made it difficult for him to crawl about
mindlessly that was not a loss but a great advantage.
</p>
<p>
His sister, unfortunately, did not agree; she had become used to the idea, not
without reason, that she was Gregor’s spokesman to his parents about the
things that concerned him. This meant that his mother’s advice now was
sufficient reason for her to insist on removing not only the chest of drawers
and the desk, as she had thought at first, but all the furniture apart from the
all-important couch. It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the
unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist; she had
indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the
furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all. Girls of
that age, though, do become enthusiastic about things and feel they must get
their way whenever they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make
Gregor’s situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could
do even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would dare enter
a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls by himself.
</p>
<p>
So she refused to let her mother dissuade her. Gregor’s mother already
looked uneasy in his room, she soon stopped speaking and helped Gregor’s
sister to get the chest of drawers out with what strength she had. The chest of
drawers was something that Gregor could do without if he had to, but the
writing desk had to stay. Hardly had the two women pushed the chest of drawers,
groaning, out of the room than Gregor poked his head out from under the couch
to see what he could do about it. He meant to be as careful and considerate as
he could, but, unfortunately, it was his mother who came back first while Grete
in the next room had her arms round the chest, pushing and pulling at it from
side to side by herself without, of course, moving it an inch. His mother was
not used to the sight of Gregor, he might have made her ill, so Gregor hurried
backwards to the far end of the couch. In his startlement, though, he was not
able to prevent the sheet at its front from moving a little. It was enough to
attract his mother’s attention. She stood very still, remained there a
moment, and then went back out to Grete.
</p>
<p>
Gregor kept trying to assure himself that nothing unusual was happening, it was
just a few pieces of furniture being moved after all, but he soon had to admit
that the women going to and fro, their little calls to each other, the scraping
of the furniture on the floor, all these things made him feel as if he were
being assailed from all sides. With his head and legs pulled in against him and
his body pressed to the floor, he was forced to admit to himself that he could
not stand all of this much longer. They were emptying his room out; taking away
everything that was dear to him; they had already taken out the chest
containing his fretsaw and other tools; now they threatened to remove the
writing desk with its place clearly worn into the floor, the desk where he had
done his homework as a business trainee, at high school, even while he had been
at infant school—he really could not wait any longer to see whether the
two women’s intentions were good. He had nearly forgotten they were there
anyway, as they were now too tired to say anything while they worked and he
could only hear their feet as they stepped heavily on the floor.
</p>
<p>
So, while the women were leant against the desk in the other room catching
their breath, he sallied out, changed direction four times not knowing what he
should save first before his attention was suddenly caught by the picture on
the wall—which was already denuded of everything else that had been on
it—of the lady dressed in copious fur. He hurried up onto the picture and
pressed himself against its glass, it held him firmly and felt good on his hot
belly. This picture at least, now totally covered by Gregor, would certainly be
taken away by no-one. He turned his head to face the door into the living room
so that he could watch the women when they came back.
</p>
<p>
They had not allowed themselves a long rest and came back quite soon; Grete had
put her arm around her mother and was nearly carrying her. “What shall we
take now, then?”, said Grete and looked around. Her eyes met those of
Gregor on the wall. Perhaps only because her mother was there, she remained
calm, bent her face to her so that she would not look round and said, albeit
hurriedly and with a tremor in her voice: “Come on, let’s go back
in the living room for a while?” Gregor could see what Grete had in mind,
she wanted to take her mother somewhere safe and then chase him down from the
wall. Well, she could certainly try it! He sat unyielding on his picture. He
would rather jump at Grete’s face.
</p>
<p>
But Grete’s words had made her mother quite worried, she stepped to one
side, saw the enormous brown patch against the flowers of the wallpaper, and
before she even realised it was Gregor that she saw screamed: “Oh God, oh
God!” Arms outstretched, she fell onto the couch as if she had given up
everything and stayed there immobile. “Gregor!” shouted his sister,
glowering at him and shaking her fist. That was the first word she had spoken
to him directly since his transformation. She ran into the other room to fetch
some kind of smelling salts to bring her mother out of her faint; Gregor wanted
to help too—he could save his picture later, although he stuck fast to
the glass and had to pull himself off by force; then he, too, ran into the next
room as if he could advise his sister like in the old days; but he had to just
stand behind her doing nothing; she was looking into various bottles, he
startled her when she turned round; a bottle fell to the ground and broke; a
splinter cut Gregor’s face, some kind of caustic medicine splashed all
over him; now, without delaying any longer, Grete took hold of all the bottles
she could and ran with them in to her mother; she slammed the door shut with
her foot. So now Gregor was shut out from his mother, who, because of him,
might be near to death; he could not open the door if he did not want to chase
his sister away, and she had to stay with his mother; there was nothing for him
to do but wait; and, oppressed with anxiety and self-reproach, he began to
crawl about, he crawled over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and finally
in his confusion as the whole room began to spin around him he fell down into
the middle of the dinner table.
</p>
<p>
He lay there for a while, numb and immobile, all around him it was quiet, maybe
that was a good sign. Then there was someone at the door. The maid, of course,
had locked herself in her kitchen so that Grete would have to go and answer it.
His father had arrived home. “What’s happened?” were his
first words; Grete’s appearance must have made everything clear to him.
She answered him with subdued voice, and openly pressed her face into his
chest: “Mother’s fainted, but she’s better now. Gregor got
out.” “Just as I expected”, said his father, “just as I
always said, but you women wouldn’t listen, would you.” It was
clear to Gregor that Grete had not said enough and that his father took it to
mean that something bad had happened, that he was responsible for some act of
violence. That meant Gregor would now have to try to calm his father, as he did
not have the time to explain things to him even if that had been possible. So
he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself against it so that his
father, when he came in from the hall, could see straight away that Gregor had
the best intentions and would go back into his room without delay, that it
would not be necessary to drive him back but that they had only to open the
door and he would disappear.
</p>
<p>
His father, though, was not in the mood to notice subtleties like that;
“Ah!”, he shouted as he came in, sounding as if he were both angry
and glad at the same time. Gregor drew his head back from the door and lifted
it towards his father. He really had not imagined his father the way he stood
there now; of late, with his new habit of crawling about, he had neglected to
pay attention to what was going on the rest of the flat the way he had done
before. He really ought to have expected things to have changed, but still,
still, was that really his father? The same tired man as used to be laying
there entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business trips, who
would receive him sitting in the armchair in his nightgown when he came back in
the evenings; who was hardly even able to stand up but, as a sign of his
pleasure, would just raise his arms and who, on the couple of times a year when
they went for a walk together on a Sunday or public holiday wrapped up tightly
in his overcoat between Gregor and his mother, would always labour his way
forward a little more slowly than them, who were already walking slowly for his
sake; who would place his stick down carefully and, if he wanted to say
something would invariably stop and gather his companions around him. He was
standing up straight enough now; dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold
buttons, the sort worn by the employees at the banking institute; above the
high, stiff collar of the coat his strong double-chin emerged; under the bushy
eyebrows, his piercing, dark eyes looked out fresh and alert; his normally
unkempt white hair was combed down painfully close to his scalp. He took his
cap, with its gold monogram from, probably, some bank, and threw it in an arc
right across the room onto the sofa, put his hands in his trouser pockets,
pushing back the bottom of his long uniform coat, and, with look of
determination, walked towards Gregor. He probably did not even know himself
what he had in mind, but nonetheless lifted his feet unusually high. Gregor was
amazed at the enormous size of the soles of his boots, but wasted no time with
that—he knew full well, right from the first day of his new life, that
his father thought it necessary to always be extremely strict with him. And so
he ran up to his father, stopped when his father stopped, scurried forwards
again when he moved, even slightly. In this way they went round the room
several times without anything decisive happening, without even giving the
impression of a chase as everything went so slowly. Gregor remained all this
time on the floor, largely because he feared his father might see it as
especially provoking if he fled onto the wall or ceiling. Whatever he did,
Gregor had to admit that he certainly would not be able to keep up this running
about for long, as for each step his father took he had to carry out countless
movements. He became noticeably short of breath, even in his earlier life his
lungs had not been very reliable. Now, as he lurched about in his efforts to
muster all the strength he could for running he could hardly keep his eyes
open; his thoughts became too slow for him to think of any other way of saving
himself than running; he almost forgot that the walls were there for him to use
although, here, they were concealed behind carefully carved furniture full of
notches and protrusions—then, right beside him, lightly tossed, something
flew down and rolled in front of him. It was an apple; then another one
immediately flew at him; Gregor froze in shock; there was no longer any point
in running as his father had decided to bombard him. He had filled his pockets
with fruit from the bowl on the sideboard and now, without even taking the time
for careful aim, threw one apple after another. These little, red apples rolled
about on the floor, knocking into each other as if they had electric motors. An
apple thrown without much force glanced against Gregor’s back and slid
off without doing any harm. Another one however, immediately following it, hit
squarely and lodged in his back; Gregor wanted to drag himself away, as if he
could remove the surprising, the incredible pain by changing his position; but
he felt as if nailed to the spot and spread himself out, all his senses in
confusion. The last thing he saw was the door of his room being pulled open,
his sister was screaming, his mother ran out in front of her in her blouse (as
his sister had taken off some of her clothes after she had fainted to make it
easier for her to breathe), she ran to his father, her skirts unfastened and
sliding one after another to the ground, stumbling over the skirts she pushed
herself to his father, her arms around him, uniting herself with him
totally—now Gregor lost his ability to see anything—her hands
behind his father’s head begging him to spare Gregor’s life.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2>III</h2>
<p>
No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor’s flesh, so it remained
there as a visible reminder of his injury. He had suffered it there for more
than a month, and his condition seemed serious enough to remind even his father
that Gregor, despite his current sad and revolting form, was a family member
who could not be treated as an enemy. On the contrary, as a family there was a
duty to swallow any revulsion for him and to be patient, just to be patient.
</p>
<p>
Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility—probably
permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid and it
took him long, long minutes to crawl across his room—crawling over the
ceiling was out of the question—but this deterioration in his condition
was fully (in his opinion) made up for by the door to the living room being
left open every evening. He got into the habit of closely watching it for one
or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room
where he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the family in
the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversation—with
everyone’s permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before.
</p>
<p>
They no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of course, the
ones that Gregor always thought about with longing when he was tired and
getting into the damp bed in some small hotel room. All of them were usually
very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, his father would go to sleep in his
chair; his mother and sister would urge each other to be quiet; his mother,
bent deeply under the lamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his
sister, who had taken a sales job, learned shorthand and French in the evenings
so that she might be able to get a better position later on. Sometimes his
father would wake up and say to Gregor’s mother “you’re doing
so much sewing again today!”, as if he did not know that he had been
dozing—and then he would go back to sleep again while mother and sister
would exchange a tired grin.
</p>
<p>
With a kind of stubbornness, Gregor’s father refused to take his uniform
off even at home; while his nightgown hung unused on its peg Gregor’s
father would slumber where he was, fully dressed, as if always ready to serve
and expecting to hear the voice of his superior even here. The uniform had not
been new to start with, but as a result of this it slowly became even shabbier
despite the efforts of Gregor’s mother and sister to look after it.
Gregor would often spend the whole evening looking at all the stains on this
coat, with its gold buttons always kept polished and shiny, while the old man
in it would sleep, highly uncomfortable but peaceful.
</p>
<p>
As soon as it struck ten, Gregor’s mother would speak gently to his
father to wake him and try to persuade him to go to bed, as he couldn’t
sleep properly where he was and he really had to get his sleep if he was to be
up at six to get to work. But since he had been in work he had become more
obstinate and would always insist on staying longer at the table, even though
he regularly fell asleep and it was then harder than ever to persuade him to
exchange the chair for his bed. Then, however much mother and sister would
importune him with little reproaches and warnings he would keep slowly shaking
his head for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed and refusing to get up.
Gregor’s mother would tug at his sleeve, whisper endearments into his
ear, Gregor’s sister would leave her work to help her mother, but nothing
would have any effect on him. He would just sink deeper into his chair. Only
when the two women took him under the arms he would abruptly open his eyes,
look at them one after the other and say: “What a life! This is what
peace I get in my old age!” And supported by the two women he would lift
himself up carefully as if he were carrying the greatest load himself, let the
women take him to the door, send them off and carry on by himself while
Gregor’s mother would throw down her needle and his sister her pen so
that they could run after his father and continue being of help to him.
</p>
<p>
Who, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to give more
attention to Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The household budget became
even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed; an enormous, thick-boned charwoman
with white hair that flapped around her head came every morning and evening to
do the heaviest work; everything else was looked after by Gregor’s mother
on top of the large amount of sewing work she did. Gregor even learned,
listening to the evening conversation about what price they had hoped for, that
several items of jewellery belonging to the family had been sold, even though
both mother and sister had been very fond of wearing them at functions and
celebrations. But the loudest complaint was that although the flat was much too
big for their present circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was
no imaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new address. He could see quite
well, though, that there were more reasons than consideration for him that made
it difficult for them to move, it would have been quite easy to transport him
in any suitable crate with a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the
family back from their decision to move was much more to do with their total
despair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune unlike
anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related to. They carried
out absolutely everything that the world expects from poor people,
Gregor’s father brought bank employees their breakfast, his mother
sacrificed herself by washing clothes for strangers, his sister ran back and
forth behind her desk at the behest of the customers, but they just did not
have the strength to do any more. And the injury in Gregor’s back began
to hurt as much as when it was new. After they had come back from taking his
father to bed Gregor’s mother and sister would now leave their work where
it was and sit close together, cheek to cheek; his mother would point to
Gregor’s room and say “Close that door, Grete”, and then,
when he was in the dark again, they would sit in the next room and their tears
would mingle, or they would simply sit there staring dry-eyed at the table.
</p>
<p>
Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would think of
taking over the family’s affairs, just like before, the next time the
door was opened; he had long forgotten about his boss and the chief clerk, but
they would appear again in his thoughts, the salesmen and the apprentices, that
stupid teaboy, two or three friends from other businesses, one of the
chambermaids from a provincial hotel, a tender memory that appeared and
disappeared again, a cashier from a hat shop for whom his attention had been
serious but too slow,—all of them appeared to him, mixed together with
strangers and others he had forgotten, but instead of helping him and his
family they were all of them inaccessible, and he was glad when they
disappeared. Other times he was not at all in the mood to look after his
family, he was filled with simple rage about the lack of attention he was
shown, and although he could think of nothing he would have wanted, he made
plans of how he could get into the pantry where he could take all the things he
was entitled to, even if he was not hungry. Gregor’s sister no longer
thought about how she could please him but would hurriedly push some food or
other into his room with her foot before she rushed out to work in the morning
and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away again with the broom,
indifferent as to whether it had been eaten or—more often than
not—had been left totally untouched. She still cleared up the room in the
evening, but now she could not have been any quicker about it. Smears of dirt
were left on the walls, here and there were little balls of dust and filth. At
first, Gregor went into one of the worst of these places when his sister
arrived as a reproach to her, but he could have stayed there for weeks without
his sister doing anything about it; she could see the dirt as well as he could
but she had simply decided to leave him to it. At the same time she became
touchy in a way that was quite new for her and which everyone in the family
understood—cleaning up Gregor’s room was for her and her alone.
Gregor’s mother did once thoroughly clean his room, and needed to use
several bucketfuls of water to do it—although that much dampness also
made Gregor ill and he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But his
mother was to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly had his
sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the change in
Gregor’s room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living room where,
despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she broke into convulsive
tears. Her father, of course, was startled out of his chair and the two parents
looked on astonished and helpless; then they, too, became agitated;
Gregor’s father, standing to the right of his mother, accused her of not
leaving the cleaning of Gregor’s room to his sister; from her left,
Gregor’s sister screamed at her that she was never to clean
Gregor’s room again; while his mother tried to draw his father, who was
beside himself with anger, into the bedroom; his sister, quaking with tears,
thumped on the table with her small fists; and Gregor hissed in anger that
no-one had even thought of closing the door to save him the sight of this and
all its noise.
</p>
<p>
Gregor’s sister was exhausted from going out to work, and looking after
Gregor as she had done before was even more work for her, but even so his
mother ought certainly not to have taken her place. Gregor, on the other hand,
ought not to be neglected. Now, though, the charwoman was here. This elderly
widow, with a robust bone structure that made her able to withstand the hardest
of things in her long life, wasn’t really repelled by Gregor. Just by
chance one day, rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to
Gregor’s room and found herself face to face with him. He was taken
totally by surprise, no-one was chasing him but he began to rush to and fro
while she just stood there in amazement with her hands crossed in front of her.
From then on she never failed to open the door slightly every evening and
morning and look briefly in on him. At first she would call to him as she did
so with words that she probably considered friendly, such as “come on
then, you old dung-beetle!”, or “look at the old dung-beetle
there!” Gregor never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just
remained where he was without moving as if the door had never even been opened.
If only they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every day instead of
letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt like it! One day, early
in the morning while a heavy rain struck the windowpanes, perhaps indicating
that spring was coming, she began to speak to him in that way once again.
Gregor was so resentful of it that he started to move toward her, he was slow
and infirm, but it was like a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the
charwoman just lifted up one of the chairs from near the door and stood there
with her mouth open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the chair
in her hand had been slammed down into Gregor’s back. “Aren’t
you coming any closer, then?”, she asked when Gregor turned round again,
and she calmly put the chair back in the corner.
</p>
<p>
Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to find himself
next to the food that had been prepared for him he might take some of it into
his mouth to play with it, leave it there a few hours and then, more often than
not, spit it out again. At first he thought it was distress at the state of his
room that stopped him eating, but he had soon got used to the changes made
there. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room that they
had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many such things as one of
the rooms in the flat had been rented out to three gentlemen. These earnest
gentlemen—all three of them had full beards, as Gregor learned peering
through the crack in the door one day—were painfully insistent on
things’ being tidy. This meant not only in their own room but, since they
had taken a room in this establishment, in the entire flat and especially in
the kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate,
especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their own
furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many things had become
superfluous which, although they could not be sold, the family did not wish to
discard. All these things found their way into Gregor’s room. The
dustbins from the kitchen found their way in there too. The charwoman was
always in a hurry, and anything she couldn’t use for the time being she
would just chuck in there. He, fortunately, would usually see no more than the
object and the hand that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the
things back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw
everything out in one go, but what actually happened was that they were left
where they landed when they had first been thrown unless Gregor made his way
through the junk and moved it somewhere else. At first he moved it because,
with no other room free where he could crawl about, he was forced to, but later
on he came to enjoy it although moving about in that way left him sad and tired
to death, and he would remain immobile for hours afterwards.
</p>
<p>
The gentlemen who rented the room would sometimes take their evening meal at
home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so the door to this room
was often kept closed in the evening. But Gregor found it easy to give up
having the door open, he had, after all, often failed to make use of it when it
was open and, without the family having noticed it, lain in his room in its
darkest corner. One time, though, the charwoman left the door to the living
room slightly open, and it remained open when the gentlemen who rented the room
came in in the evening and the light was put on. They sat up at the table
where, formerly, Gregor had taken his meals with his father and mother, they
unfolded the serviettes and picked up their knives and forks. Gregor’s
mother immediately appeared in the doorway with a dish of meat and soon behind
her came his sister with a dish piled high with potatoes. The food was
steaming, and filled the room with its smell. The gentlemen bent over the
dishes set in front of them as if they wanted to test the food before eating
it, and the gentleman in the middle, who seemed to count as an authority for
the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of meat while it was still in its
dish, clearly wishing to establish whether it was sufficiently cooked or
whether it should be sent back to the kitchen. It was to his satisfaction, and
Gregor’s mother and sister, who had been looking on anxiously, began to
breathe again and smiled.
</p>
<p>
The family themselves ate in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor’s father
came into the living room before he went into the kitchen, bowed once with his
cap in his hand and did his round of the table. The gentlemen stood as one, and
mumbled something into their beards. Then, once they were alone, they ate in
near perfect silence. It seemed remarkable to Gregor that above all the various
noises of eating their chewing teeth could still be heard, as if they had
wanted to show Gregor that you need teeth in order to eat and it was not
possible to perform anything with jaws that are toothless however nice they
might be. “I’d like to eat something”, said Gregor anxiously,
“but not anything like they’re eating. They do feed themselves. And
here I am, dying!”
</p>
<p>
Throughout all this time, Gregor could not remember having heard the violin
being played, but this evening it began to be heard from the kitchen. The three
gentlemen had already finished their meal, the one in the middle had produced a
newspaper, given a page to each of the others, and now they leant back in their
chairs reading them and smoking. When the violin began playing they became
attentive, stood up and went on tip-toe over to the door of the hallway where
they stood pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in the
kitchen, as Gregor’s father called out: “Is the playing perhaps
unpleasant for the gentlemen? We can stop it straight away.” “On
the contrary”, said the middle gentleman, “would the young lady not
like to come in and play for us here in the room, where it is, after all, much
more cosy and comfortable?” “Oh yes, we’d love to”,
called back Gregor’s father as if he had been the violin player himself.
The gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited. Gregor’s father soon
appeared with the music stand, his mother with the music and his sister with
the violin. She calmly prepared everything for her to begin playing; his
parents, who had never rented a room out before and therefore showed an
exaggerated courtesy towards the three gentlemen, did not even dare to sit on
their own chairs; his father leant against the door with his right hand pushed
in between two buttons on his uniform coat; his mother, though, was offered a
seat by one of the gentlemen and sat—leaving the chair where the
gentleman happened to have placed it—out of the way in a corner.
</p>
<p>
His sister began to play; father and mother paid close attention, one on each
side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the playing, Gregor had dared
to come forward a little and already had his head in the living room. Before,
he had taken great pride in how considerate he was but now it hardly occurred
to him that he had become so thoughtless about the others. What’s more,
there was now all the more reason to keep himself hidden as he was covered in
the dust that lay everywhere in his room and flew up at the slightest movement;
he carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on his back and sides; he
was much too indifferent to everything now to lay on his back and wipe himself
on the carpet like he had used to do several times a day. And despite this
condition, he was not too shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate
floor of the living room.
</p>
<p>
No-one noticed him, though. The family was totally preoccupied with the violin
playing; at first, the three gentlemen had put their hands in their pockets and
come up far too close behind the music stand to look at all the notes being
played, and they must have disturbed Gregor’s sister, but soon, in
contrast with the family, they withdrew back to the window with their heads
sunk and talking to each other at half volume, and they stayed by the window
while Gregor’s father observed them anxiously. It really now seemed very
obvious that they had expected to hear some beautiful or entertaining violin
playing but had been disappointed, that they had had enough of the whole
performance and it was only now out of politeness that they allowed their peace
to be disturbed. It was especially unnerving, the way they all blew the smoke
from their cigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses. Yet Gregor’s
sister was playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side, following
the lines of music with a careful and melancholy expression. Gregor crawled a
little further forward, keeping his head close to the ground so that he could
meet her eyes if the chance came. Was he an animal if music could captivate him
so? It seemed to him that he was being shown the way to the unknown nourishment
he had been yearning for. He was determined to make his way forward to his
sister and tug at her skirt to show her she might come into his room with her
violin, as no-one appreciated her playing here as much as he would. He never
wanted to let her out of his room, not while he lived, anyway; his shocking
appearance should, for once, be of some use to him; he wanted to be at every
door of his room at once to hiss and spit at the attackers; his sister should
not be forced to stay with him, though, but stay of her own free will; she
would sit beside him on the couch with her ear bent down to him while he told
her how he had always intended to send her to the conservatory, how he would
have told everyone about it last Christmas—had Christmas really come and
gone already?—if this misfortune hadn’t got in the way, and refuse
to let anyone dissuade him from it. On hearing all this, his sister would break
out in tears of emotion, and Gregor would climb up to her shoulder and kiss her
neck, which, since she had been going out to work, she had kept free without
any necklace or collar.
</p>
<p>
“Mr. Samsa!”, shouted the middle gentleman to Gregor’s
father, pointing, without wasting any more words, with his forefinger at Gregor
as he slowly moved forward. The violin went silent, the middle of the three
gentlemen first smiled at his two friends, shaking his head, and then looked
back at Gregor. His father seemed to think it more important to calm the three
gentlemen before driving Gregor out, even though they were not at all upset and
seemed to think Gregor was more entertaining than the violin playing had been.
He rushed up to them with his arms spread out and attempted to drive them back
into their room at the same time as trying to block their view of Gregor with
his body. Now they did become a little annoyed, and it was not clear whether it
was his father’s behaviour that annoyed them or the dawning realisation
that they had had a neighbour like Gregor in the next room without knowing it.
They asked Gregor’s father for explanations, raised their arms like he
had, tugged excitedly at their beards and moved back towards their room only
very slowly. Meanwhile Gregor’s sister had overcome the despair she had
fallen into when her playing was suddenly interrupted. She had let her hands
drop and let violin and bow hang limply for a while but continued to look at
the music as if still playing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together,
lay the instrument on her mother’s lap who still sat laboriously
struggling for breath where she was, and ran into the next room which, under
pressure from her father, the three gentlemen were more quickly moving toward.
Under his sister’s experienced hand, the pillows and covers on the beds
flew up and were put into order and she had already finished making the beds
and slipped out again before the three gentlemen had reached the room.
Gregor’s father seemed so obsessed with what he was doing that he forgot
all the respect he owed to his tenants. He urged them and pressed them until,
when he was already at the door of the room, the middle of the three gentlemen
shouted like thunder and stamped his foot and thereby brought Gregor’s
father to a halt. “I declare here and now”, he said, raising his
hand and glancing at Gregor’s mother and sister to gain their attention
too, “that with regard to the repugnant conditions that prevail in this
flat and with this family”—here he looked briefly but decisively at
the floor—“I give immediate notice on my room. For the days that I
have been living here I will, of course, pay nothing at all, on the contrary I
will consider whether to proceed with some kind of action for damages from you,
and believe me it would be very easy to set out the grounds for such an
action.” He was silent and looked straight ahead as if waiting for
something. And indeed, his two friends joined in with the words: “And we
also give immediate notice.” With that, he took hold of the door handle
and slammed the door.
</p>
<p>
Gregor’s father staggered back to his seat, feeling his way with his
hands, and fell into it; it looked as if he was stretching himself out for his
usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way his head kept nodding it could
be seen that he was not sleeping at all. Throughout all this, Gregor had lain
still where the three gentlemen had first seen him. His disappointment at the
failure of his plan, and perhaps also because he was weak from hunger, made it
impossible for him to move. He was sure that everyone would turn on him any
moment, and he waited. He was not even startled out of this state when the
violin on his mother’s lap fell from her trembling fingers and landed
loudly on the floor.
</p>
<p>
“Father, Mother”, said his sister, hitting the table with her hand
as introduction, “we can’t carry on like this. Maybe you
can’t see it, but I can. I don’t want to call this monster my
brother, all I can say is: we have to try and get rid of it. We’ve done
all that’s humanly possible to look after it and be patient, I
don’t think anyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong.”
</p>
<p>
“She’s absolutely right”, said Gregor’s father to
himself. His mother, who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to
cough dully, her hand held out in front of her and a deranged expression in her
eyes.
</p>
<p>
Gregor’s sister rushed to his mother and put her hand on her forehead.
Her words seemed to give Gregor’s father some more definite ideas. He sat
upright, played with his uniform cap between the plates left by the three
gentlemen after their meal, and occasionally looked down at Gregor as he lay
there immobile.
</p>
<p>
“We have to try and get rid of it”, said Gregor’s sister, now
speaking only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with coughing to
listen, “it’ll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming. We
can’t all work as hard as we have to and then come home to be tortured
like this, we can’t endure it. I can’t endure it any more.”
And she broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down the face of her
mother, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand movements.
</p>
<p>
“My child”, said her father with sympathy and obvious
understanding, “what are we to do?”
</p>
<p>
His sister just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness and tears
that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier certainty.
</p>
<p>
“If he could just understand us”, said his father almost as a
question; his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as a sign that
of that there was no question.
</p>
<p>
“If he could just understand us”, repeated Gregor’s father,
closing his eyes in acceptance of his sister’s certainty that that was
quite impossible, “then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement
with him. But as it is ...”
</p>
<p>
“It’s got to go”, shouted his sister, “that’s the
only way, Father. You’ve got to get rid of the idea that that’s
Gregor. We’ve only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can
that be Gregor? If it were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it’s
not possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he would
have gone of his own free will. We wouldn’t have a brother any more,
then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember him with respect. As it
is this animal is persecuting us, it’s driven out our tenants, it
obviously wants to take over the whole flat and force us to sleep on the
streets. Father, look, just look”, she suddenly screamed,
“he’s starting again!” In her alarm, which was totally beyond
Gregor’s comprehension, his sister even abandoned his mother as she
pushed herself vigorously out of her chair as if more willing to sacrifice her
own mother than stay anywhere near Gregor. She rushed over to behind her
father, who had become excited merely because she was and stood up half raising
his hands in front of Gregor’s sister as if to protect her.
</p>
<p>
But Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all his sister.
All he had done was begin to turn round so that he could go back into his room,
although that was in itself quite startling as his pain-wracked condition meant
that turning round required a great deal of effort and he was using his head to
help himself do it, repeatedly raising it and striking it against the floor. He
stopped and looked round. They seemed to have realised his good intention and
had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all looked at him in unhappy silence.
His mother lay in her chair with her legs stretched out and pressed against
each other, her eyes nearly closed with exhaustion; his sister sat next to his
father with her arms around his neck.
</p>
<p>
“Maybe now they’ll let me turn round”, thought Gregor and
went back to work. He could not help panting loudly with the effort and had
sometimes to stop and take a rest. No-one was making him rush any more,
everything was left up to him. As soon as he had finally finished turning round
he began to move straight ahead. He was amazed at the great distance that
separated him from his room, and could not understand how he had covered that
distance in his weak state a little while before and almost without noticing
it. He concentrated on crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that
there was not a word, not any cry, from his family to distract him. He did not
turn his head until he had reached the doorway. He did not turn it all the way
round as he felt his neck becoming stiff, but it was nonetheless enough to see
that nothing behind him had changed, only his sister had stood up. With his
last glance he saw that his mother had now fallen completely asleep.
</p>
<p>
He was hardly inside his room before the door was hurriedly shut, bolted and
locked. The sudden noise behind Gregor so startled him that his little legs
collapsed under him. It was his sister who had been in so much of a rush. She
had been standing there waiting and sprung forward lightly, Gregor had not
heard her coming at all, and as she turned the key in the lock she said loudly
to her parents “At last!”.
</p>
<p>
“What now, then?”, Gregor asked himself as he looked round in the
darkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move at all. This
was no surprise to him, it seemed rather that being able to actually move
around on those spindly little legs until then was unnatural. He also felt
relatively comfortable. It is true that his entire body was aching, but the
pain seemed to be slowly getting weaker and weaker and would finally disappear
altogether. He could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the
inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. He thought
back of his family with emotion and love. If it was possible, he felt that he
must go away even more strongly than his sister. He remained in this state of
empty and peaceful rumination until he heard the clock tower strike three in
the morning. He watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the
window too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down completely, and
his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils.
</p>
<p>
When the cleaner came in early in the morning—they’d often asked
her not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her hurry she
still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she’d arrived and from
then on it was impossible to sleep in peace—she made her usual brief look
in on Gregor and at first found nothing special. She thought he was laying
there so still on purpose, playing the martyr; she attributed all possible
understanding to him. She happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, so
she tried to tickle Gregor with it from the doorway. When she had no success
with that she tried to make a nuisance of herself and poked at him a little,
and only when she found she could shove him across the floor with no resistance
at all did she start to pay attention. She soon realised what had really
happened, opened her eyes wide, whistled to herself, but did not waste time to
yank open the bedroom doors and shout loudly into the darkness of the bedrooms:
“Come and ’ave a look at this, it’s dead, just lying there,
stone dead!”
</p>
<p>
Mr. and Mrs. Samsa sat upright there in their marriage bed and had to make an
effort to get over the shock caused by the cleaner before they could grasp what
she was saying. But then, each from his own side, they hurried out of bed. Mr.
Samsa threw the blanket over his shoulders, Mrs. Samsa just came out in her
nightdress; and that is how they went into Gregor’s room. On the way they
opened the door to the living room where Grete had been sleeping since the
three gentlemen had moved in; she was fully dressed as if she had never been
asleep, and the paleness of her face seemed to confirm this.
“Dead?”, asked Mrs. Samsa, looking at the charwoman enquiringly,
even though she could have checked for herself and could have known it even
without checking. “That’s what I said”, replied the cleaner,
and to prove it she gave Gregor’s body another shove with the broom,
sending it sideways across the floor. Mrs. Samsa made a movement as if she
wanted to hold back the broom, but did not complete it. “Now then”,
said Mr. Samsa, “let’s give thanks to God for that”. He
crossed himself, and the three women followed his example. Grete, who had not
taken her eyes from the corpse, said: “Just look how thin he was. He
didn’t eat anything for so long. The food came out again just the same as
when it went in”. Gregor’s body was indeed completely dried up and
flat, they had not seen it until then, but now he was not lifted up on his
little legs, nor did he do anything to make them look away.
</p>
<p>
“Grete, come with us in here for a little while”, said Mrs. Samsa
with a pained smile, and Grete followed her parents into the bedroom but not
without looking back at the body. The cleaner shut the door and opened the
window wide. Although it was still early in the morning the fresh air had
something of warmth mixed in with it. It was already the end of March, after
all.
</p>
<p>
The three gentlemen stepped out of their room and looked round in amazement for
their breakfasts; they had been forgotten about. “Where is our
breakfast?”, the middle gentleman asked the cleaner irritably. She just
put her finger on her lips and made a quick and silent sign to the men that
they might like to come into Gregor’s room. They did so, and stood around
Gregor’s corpse with their hands in the pockets of their well-worn coats.
It was now quite light in the room.
</p>
<p>
Then the door of the bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his uniform with
his wife on one arm and his daughter on the other. All of them had been crying
a little; Grete now and then pressed her face against her father’s arm.
</p>
<p>
“Leave my home. Now!”, said Mr. Samsa, indicating the door and
without letting the women from him. “What do you mean?”, asked the
middle of the three gentlemen somewhat disconcerted, and he smiled sweetly. The
other two held their hands behind their backs and continually rubbed them
together in gleeful anticipation of a loud quarrel which could only end in
their favour. “I mean just what I said”, answered Mr. Samsa, and,
with his two companions, went in a straight line towards the man. At first, he
stood there still, looking at the ground as if the contents of his head were
rearranging themselves into new positions. “Alright, we’ll go
then”, he said, and looked up at Mr. Samsa as if he had been suddenly
overcome with humility and wanted permission again from Mr. Samsa for his
decision. Mr. Samsa merely opened his eyes wide and briefly nodded to him
several times. At that, and without delay, the man actually did take long
strides into the front hallway; his two friends had stopped rubbing their hands
some time before and had been listening to what was being said. Now they jumped
off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that Mr. Samsa might go
into the hallway in front of them and break the connection with their leader.
Once there, all three took their hats from the stand, took their sticks from
the holder, bowed without a word and left the premises. Mr. Samsa and the two
women followed them out onto the landing; but they had had no reason to
mistrust the men’s intentions and as they leaned over the landing they
saw how the three gentlemen made slow but steady progress down the many steps.
As they turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and would reappear a
few moments later; the further down they went, the more that the Samsa family
lost interest in them; when a butcher’s boy, proud of posture with his
tray on his head, passed them on his way up and came nearer than they were, Mr.
Samsa and the women came away from the landing and went, as if relieved, back
into the flat.
</p>
<p>
They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation and to go
for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but they were in serious
need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote three letters of excusal, Mr.
Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa to her contractor and Grete to her
principal. The cleaner came in while they were writing to tell them she was
going, she’d finished her work for that morning. The three of them at
first just nodded without looking up from what they were writing, and it was
only when the cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up
in irritation. “Well?”, asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in the
doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous good news to
report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked to. The almost vertical
little ostrich feather on her hat, which had been a source of irritation to Mr.
Samsa all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all
directions. “What is it you want then?”, asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the
cleaner had the most respect for. “Yes”, she answered, and broke
into a friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, “well
then, that thing in there, you needn’t worry about how you’re going
to get rid of it. That’s all been sorted out.” Mrs. Samsa and Grete
bent down over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were
writing; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing everything
in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite clear that she was not
to. So, as she was prevented from telling them all about it, she suddenly
remembered what a hurry she was in and, clearly peeved, called out
“Cheerio then, everyone”, turned round sharply and left, slamming
the door terribly as she went.
</p>
<p>
“Tonight she gets sacked”, said Mr. Samsa, but he received no reply
from either his wife or his daughter as the charwoman seemed to have destroyed
the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went over to the window
where they remained with their arms around each other. Mr. Samsa twisted round
in his chair to look at them and sat there watching for a while. Then he called
out: “Come here, then. Let’s forget about all that old stuff, shall
we. Come and give me a bit of attention”. The two women immediately did
as he said, hurrying over to him where they kissed him and hugged him and then
they quickly finished their letters.
</p>
<p>
After that, the three of them left the flat together, which was something they
had not done for months, and took the tram out to the open country outside the
town. They had the tram, filled with warm sunshine, all to themselves. Leant
back comfortably on their seats, they discussed their prospects and found that
on closer examination they were not at all bad—until then they had never
asked each other about their work but all three had jobs which were very good
and held particularly good promise for the future. The greatest improvement for
the time being, of course, would be achieved quite easily by moving house; what
they needed now was a flat that was smaller and cheaper than the current one
which had been chosen by Gregor, one that was in a better location and, most of
all, more practical. All the time, Grete was becoming livelier. With all the
worry they had been having of late her cheeks had become pale, but, while they
were talking, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa were struck, almost simultaneously, with the
thought of how their daughter was blossoming into a well built and beautiful
young lady. They became quieter. Just from each other’s glance and almost
without knowing it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man
for her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions, as
soon as they reached their destination Grete was the first to get up and
stretch out her young body.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
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