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CHAPTER II.
Gregor first woke up from his heavy swoon- like sleep in the evening twilight.
He would certainly have woken up soon afterwards without any disturbance, for he
felt himself sufficiently rested and wide awake, although it appeared to him as if a
hurried step and a cautious closing of the door to the hall had aroused him.
Light from the electric streetlamps lay pale here and there on the ceiling and on
the higher parts of the furniture, but underneath around Gregor it was dark.
He pushed himself slowly toward the door, still groping awkwardly with his feelers,
which he now learned to value for the first time, to check what was happening there.
His left side seemed one single long unpleasantly stretched scar, and he really
had to hobble on his two rows of legs.
In addition, one small leg had been seriously wounded in the course of the
morning incident--it was almost a miracle that only one had been hurt--and dragged
lifelessly behind.
By the door he first noticed what had really lured him there: it was the smell of
something to eat.
A bowl stood there, filled with sweetened milk, in which swam tiny pieces of white
bread.
He almost laughed with joy, for he now had a much greater hunger than in the morning,
and he immediately dipped his head almost up to and over his eyes down into the milk.
But he soon drew it back again in disappointment, not just because it was
difficult for him to eat on account of his delicate left side--he could eat only if
his entire panting body worked in a
coordinated way--but also because the milk, which otherwise was his favourite drink and
which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason, did not appeal to him at
all.
He turned away from the bowl almost with aversion and crept back into the middle of
the room.
In the living room, as Gregor saw through the crack in the door, the gas was lit, but
where, on other occasions at this time of day, his father was accustomed to read the
afternoon newspaper in a loud voice to his
mother and sometimes also to his sister, at the moment no sound was audible.
Now, perhaps this reading aloud, about which his sister had always spoken and
written to him, had recently fallen out of their general routine.
But it was so still all around, in spite of the fact that the apartment was certainly
not empty.
"What a quiet life the family leads," said Gregor to himself and, as he stared fixedly
out in front of him into the darkness, he felt a great pride that he had been able to
provide such a life in a beautiful
apartment like this for his parents and his sister.
But how would things go if now all tranquillity, all prosperity, all
contentment should come to a horrible end?
In order not to lose himself in such thoughts, Gregor preferred to set himself
moving, so he moved up and down in his room.
Once during the long evening one side door and then the other door was opened just a
tiny crack and quickly closed again. Someone presumably needed to come in but
had then thought better of it.
Gregor immediately took up a position by the living room door, determined to bring
in the hesitant visitor somehow or other or at least to find out who it might be.
But now the door was not opened any more, and Gregor waited in vain.
Earlier, when the door had been barred, they had all wanted to come in to him; now,
when he had opened one door and when the others had obviously been opened during the
day, no one came any more, and the keys were stuck in the locks on the outside.
The light in the living room was turned off only late at night, and now it was easy to
establish that his parents and his sister had stayed awake all this time, for one
could hear clearly as all three moved away on tiptoe.
Now it was certain that no one would come into Gregor any more until the morning.
Thus, he had a long time to think undisturbed about how he should reorganize
his life from scratch.
But the high, open room, in which he was compelled to lie flat on the floor, made
him anxious, without his being able to figure out the reason, for he had lived in
the room for five years.
With a half unconscious turn and not without a slight shame he scurried under
the couch, where, in spite of the fact that his back was a little cramped and he could
no longer lift up his head, he felt very
comfortable and was sorry only that his body was too wide to fit completely under
it.
There he remained the entire night, which he spent partly in a state of semi-sleep,
out of which his hunger constantly woke him with a start, but partly in a state of
worry and murky hopes, which all led to the
conclusion that for the time being he would have to keep calm and with patience and the
greatest consideration for his family tolerate the troubles which in his present
condition he was now forced to cause them.
Already early in the morning--it was still almost night--Gregor had an opportunity to
test the power of the decisions he had just made, for his sister, almost fully dressed,
opened the door from the hall into his room and looked eagerly inside.
She did not find him immediately, but when she noticed him under the couch--God, he
had to be somewhere or other, for he could hardly fly away--she got such a shock that,
without being able to control herself, she
slammed the door shut once again from the outside.
However, as if she was sorry for her behaviour, she immediately opened the door
again and walked in on her tiptoes, as if she was in the presence of a serious
invalid or a total stranger.
Gregor had pushed his head forward just to the edge of the couch and was observing
her.
Would she really notice that he had left the milk standing, not indeed from any lack
of hunger, and would she bring in something else to eat more suitable for him?
If she did not do it on her own, he would sooner starve to death than call her
attention to the fact, although he had a really powerful urge to move beyond the
couch, throw himself at his sister's feet,
and beg her for something or other good to eat.
But his sister noticed right away with astonishment that the bowl was still full,
with only a little milk spilled around it.
She picked it up immediately, although not with her bare hands but with a rag, and
took it out of the room.
Gregor was extremely curious what she would bring as a substitute, and he pictured to
himself different ideas about it.
But he never could have guessed what his sister out of the goodness of her heart in
fact did.
She brought him, to test his taste, an entire selection, all spread out on an old
newspaper.
There were old half-rotten vegetables, bones from the evening meal, covered with a
white sauce which had almost solidified, some raisins and almonds, cheese which
Gregor had declared inedible two days
earlier, a slice of dry bread, and a slice of salted bread smeared with butter.
In addition to all this, she put down a bowl--probably designated once and for all
as Gregor's--into which she had poured some water.
And out of her delicacy of feeling, since she knew that Gregor would not eat in front
of her, she went away very quickly and even turned the key in the lock, so that Gregor
would now observe that he could make himself as comfortable as he wished.
Gregor's small limbs buzzed now that the time for eating had come.
His wounds must, in any case, have already healed completely.
He felt no handicap on that score.
He was astonished at that and thought about how more than a month ago he had cut his
finger slightly with a knife and how this wound had hurt enough even the day before
yesterday.
"Am I now going to be less sensitive," he thought, already sucking greedily on the
cheese, which had strongly attracted him right away, more than all the other foods.
Quickly and with his eyes watering with satisfaction, he ate one after the other
the cheese, the vegetables, and the sauce. The fresh food, by contrast, didn't taste
good to him.
He couldn't bear the smell and even carried the things he wanted to eat a little
distance away.
By the time his sister slowly turned the key as a sign that he should withdraw, he
was long finished and now lay lazily in the same spot.
The noise immediately startled him, in spite of the fact that he was already
almost asleep, and he scurried back again under the couch.
But it cost him great self-control to remain under the couch, even for the short
time his sister was in the room, because his body had filled out somewhat on account
of the rich meal and in the narrow space there he could scarcely breathe.
In the midst of minor attacks of asphyxiation, he looked at her with
somewhat protruding eyes, as his unsuspecting sister swept up with a broom,
not just the remnants, but even the foods
which Gregor had not touched at all, as if these were also now useless, and as she
dumped everything quickly into a bucket, which she closed with a wooden lid, and
then carried all of it out of the room.
She had hardly turned around before Gregor had already dragged himself out from the
couch, stretched out, and let his body expand.
In this way Gregor got his food every day, once in the morning, when his parents and
the servant girl were still asleep, and a second time after the common noon meal, for
his parents were, as before, asleep then
for a little while, and the servant girl was sent off by his sister on some errand
or other.
They certainly would not have wanted Gregor to starve to death, but perhaps they could
not have endured finding out what he ate other than by hearsay.
Perhaps his sister wanted to spare them what was possibly only a small grief, for
they were really suffering quite enough already.
What sorts of excuses people had used on that first morning to get the doctor and
the locksmith out of the house Gregor was completely unable to ascertain.
Since they could not understand him, no one, not even his sister, thought that he
might be able to understand others, and thus, when his sister was in her room, he
had to be content with listening now and
then to her sighs and invocations to the saints.
Only later, when she had grown somewhat accustomed to everything--naturally there
could never be any talk of her growing completely accustomed to it--Gregor
sometimes caught a comment which was
intended to be friendly or could be interpreted as such.
"Well, today it tasted good to him," she said, if Gregor had really cleaned up what
he had to eat; whereas, in the reverse situation, which gradually repeated itself
more and more frequently, she used to say sadly, "Now everything has stopped again."
But while Gregor could get no new information directly, he did hear a good
deal from the room next door, and as soon as he heard voices, he scurried right away
to the appropriate door and pressed his entire body against it.
In the early days especially, there was no conversation which was not concerned with
him in some way or other, even if only in secret.
For two days at all meal times discussions on that subject could be heard on how
people should now behave; but they also talked about the same subject in the times
between meals, for there were always at
least two family members at home, since no one really wanted to remain in the house
alone and people could not under any circumstances leave the apartment
completely empty.
In addition, on the very first day the servant girl--it was not completely clear
what and how much she knew about what had happened--on her knees had begged his
mother to let her go immediately, and when
she said good bye about fifteen minutes later, she thanked them for the dismissal
with tears in her eyes, as if she was receiving the greatest favour which people
had shown her there, and, without anyone
demanding it from her, she swore a fearful oath not to betray anyone, not even the
slightest bit.
Now his sister had to team up with his mother to do the cooking, although that
didn't create much trouble because people were eating almost nothing.
Again and again Gregor listened as one of them vainly invited another one to eat and
received no answer other than "Thank you. I've had enough" or something like that.
And perhaps they had stopped having anything to drink, too.
His sister often asked his father whether he wanted to have a beer and gladly offered
to fetch it herself, and when his father was silent, she said, in order to remove
any reservations he might have, that she could send the caretaker's wife to get it.
But then his father finally said a resounding "No," and nothing more would be
spoken about it.
Already during the first day his father laid out all the financial circumstances
and prospects to his mother and to his sister as well.
From time to time he stood up from the table and pulled out of the small lockbox
salvaged from his business, which had collapsed five years previously, some
document or other or some notebook.
The sound was audible as he opened up the complicated lock and, after removing what
he was looking for, locked it up again.
These explanations by his father were, in part, the first enjoyable thing that Gregor
had the chance to listen to since his imprisonment.
He had thought that nothing at all was left over for his father from that business; at
least his father had told him nothing to contradict that view, and Gregor in any
case hadn't asked him about it.
At the time Gregor's only concern had been to use everything he had in order to allow
his family to forget as quickly as possible the business misfortune which had brought
them all into a state of complete hopelessness.
And so at that point he'd started to work with a special intensity and from an
assistant had become, almost overnight, a travelling salesman, who naturally had
entirely different possibilities for
earning money and whose successes at work were converted immediately into the form of
cash commissions, which could be set out on the table at home in front of his
astonished and delighted family.
Those had been beautiful days, and they had never come back afterwards, at least not
with the same splendour, in spite of the fact that Gregor later earned so much money
that he was in a position to bear the
expenses of the entire family, costs which he, in fact, did bear.
They had become quite accustomed to it, both the family and Gregor as well.
They took the money with thanks, and he happily surrendered it, but the special
warmth was no longer present.
Only the sister had remained still close to Gregor, and it was his secret plan to send
her next year to the conservatory, regardless of the great expense which that
necessarily involved and which would be made up in other ways.
In contrast to Gregor she loved music very much and knew how to play the violin
charmingly.
Now and then during Gregor's short stays in the city the conservatory was mentioned in
conversations with his sister, but always only as a beautiful dream, whose
realization was unimaginable, and their
parents never listened to these innocent expectations with pleasure.
But Gregor thought about them with scrupulous consideration and intended to
explain the matter ceremoniously on Christmas Eve.
In his present situation, such futile ideas went through his head, while he pushed
himself right up against the door and listened.
Sometimes in his general exhaustion he couldn't listen any more and let his head
*** listlessly against the door, but he immediately pulled himself together, for
even the small sound which he made by this
motion was heard near by and silenced everyone.
"There he goes on again," said his father after a while, clearly turning towards the
door, and only then would the interrupted conversation gradually be resumed again.
Gregor found out clearly enough--for his father tended to repeat himself often in
his explanations, partly because he had not personally concerned himself with these
matters for a long time now, and partly
also because his mother did not understand everything right away the first time--that,
in spite all bad luck, a fortune, although a very small one, was available from the
old times, which the interest, which had
not been touched, had in the intervening time gradually allowed to increase a
little.
Furthermore, in addition to this, the money which Gregor had brought home every month--
he had kept only a few florins for himself- -had not been completely spent and had
grown into a small capital amount.
Gregor, behind his door, nodded eagerly, rejoicing over this unanticipated foresight
and frugality.
True, with this excess money, he could have paid off more of his father's debt to his
employer and the day on which he could be rid of this position would have been a lot
closer, but now things were doubtless
better the way his father had arranged them.
At the moment, however, this money was not nearly sufficient to permit the family to
live on the interest payments.
Perhaps it would be enough to maintain the family for one or at most two years, that's
all.
Thus, it only added up to an amount which one should not really draw upon and which
must be set aside for an emergency. But the money to live on had to be earned.
Now, although his father was old, he was a healthy man who had not worked at all for
five years and thus could not be counted on for very much.
He had in these five years, the first holidays of his trouble-filled but
unsuccessful life, put on a good deal of fat and thus had become really heavy.
And should his old mother now perhaps work for money, a woman who suffered from
asthma, for whom wandering through the apartment even now was a great strain and
who spent every second day on the sofa by the open window labouring for breath?
Should his sister earn money, a girl who was still a seventeen-year-old child whose
earlier life style had been so very delightful that it had consisted of
dressing herself nicely, sleeping in late,
helping around the house, taking part in a few modest enjoyments and, above all,
playing the violin?
When it came to talking about this need to earn money, at first Gregor went away from
the door and threw himself on the cool leather sofa beside the door, for he was
quite hot from shame and sorrow.
Often he lay there all night long. He didn't sleep a moment and just scratched
on the leather for hours at a time. He undertook the very difficult task of
shoving a chair over to the window.
Then he crept up on the window sill and, braced in the chair, leaned against the
window to look out, obviously with some memory or other of the satisfaction which
that used to bring him in earlier times.
Actually, from day to day he perceived things with less and less clarity, even
those a short distance away: the hospital across the street, the all-too-frequent
sight of which he had previously cursed,
was not visible at all any more, and if he had not been precisely aware that he lived
in the quiet but completely urban Charlotte Street, he could have believed that from
his window he was peering out at a
featureless wasteland, in which the grey heaven and the grey earth had merged and
were indistinguishable.
His attentive sister must have observed a couple of times that the chair stood by the
window; then, after cleaning up the room, each time she pushed the chair back right
against the window and from now on she even left the inner casement open.
If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for everything
that she had to do for him, he would have tolerated her service more easily.
As it was, he suffered under it.
The sister admittedly sought to cover up the awkwardness of everything as much as
possible, and, as time went by, she naturally got more successful at it.
But with the passing of time Gregor also came to understand everything more
precisely. Even her entrance was terrible for him.
As soon as she entered, she ran straight to the window, without taking the time to shut
the door, in spite of the fact that she was otherwise very considerate in sparing
anyone the sight of Gregor's room, and
yanked the window open with eager hands, as if she was almost suffocating, and remained
for a while by the window breathing deeply, even when it was still so cold.
With this running and noise she frightened Gregor twice every day.
The entire time he trembled under the couch, and yet he knew very well that she
would certainly have spared him gladly if it had only been possible to remain with
the window closed in a room where Gregor lived.
On one occasion--about one month had already gone by since Gregor's
transformation, and there was now no particular reason any more for his sister
to be startled at Gregor's appearance--she
arrived a little earlier than usual and came upon Gregor as he was still looking
out the window, immobile and well positioned to frighten someone.
It would not have come as a surprise to Gregor if she had not come in, since his
position was preventing her from opening the window immediately.
But she not only did not step inside; she even retreated and shut the door.
A stranger really might have concluded from this that Gregor had been lying in wait for
her and wanted to bite her.
Of course, Gregor immediately concealed himself under the couch, but he had to wait
until the noon meal before his sister returned, and she seemed much less calm
than usual.
From this he realized that his appearance was still constantly intolerable to her and
must remain intolerable in future, and that she really had to exert a lot of self-
control not to run away from a glimpse of
only the small part of his body which stuck out from under the couch.
In order to spare her even this sight, one day he dragged the sheet on his back and
onto the couch--this task took him four hours--and arranged it in such a way that
he was now completely concealed and his
sister, even if she bent down, could not see him.
If this sheet was not necessary as far as she was concerned, then she could remove
it, for it was clear enough that Gregor could not derive any pleasure from
isolating himself away so completely.
But she left the sheet just as it was, and Gregor believed he even caught a look of
gratitude when, on one occasion, he carefully lifted up the sheet a little with
his head to check, as his sister took stock of the new arrangement.
In the first two weeks his parents could not bring themselves to visit him, and he
often heard how they fully acknowledged his sister's present work; whereas, earlier
they had often got annoyed at his sister
because she had seemed to them a somewhat useless young woman.
However, now both his father and his mother often waited in front of Gregor's door
while his sister cleaned up inside, and as soon as she came out, she had to explain in
detail how things looked in the room, what
Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time, and whether perhaps a slight
improvement was perceptible.
In any event, his mother comparatively soon wanted to visit Gregor, but his father and
his sister restrained her, at first with reasons which Gregor listened to very
attentively and which he completely endorsed.
Later, however, they had to hold her back forcefully, and when she then cried "Let me
go to Gregor.
He's my unlucky son! Don't you understand that I have to go to
him?"
Gregor then thought that perhaps it would be a good thing if his mother came in, not
every day, of course, but maybe once a week.
She understood everything much better than his sister, who, in spite of all her
courage, was still a child and, in the last analysis, had perhaps undertaken such a
difficult task only out of childish recklessness.
Gregor's wish to see his mother was soon realized.
While during the day Gregor, out of consideration for his parents, did not want
to show himself by the window, he couldn't crawl around very much on the few square
metres of the floor.
He found it difficult to bear lying quietly during the night, and soon eating no longer
gave him the slightest pleasure.
So for diversion he acquired the habit of crawling back and forth across the walls
and ceiling. He was especially fond of hanging from the
ceiling.
The experience was quite different from lying on the floor.
It was easier to breathe, a slight vibration went through his body, and in the
midst of the almost happy amusement which Gregor found up there, it could happen
that, to his own surprise, he let go and hit the floor.
However, now he naturally controlled his body quite differently, and he did not
injure himself in such a great fall.
His sister noticed immediately the new amusement which Gregor had found for
himself--for as he crept around he left behind here and there traces of his sticky
stuff--and so she got the idea of making
Gregor's creeping around as easy as possible and thus of removing the furniture
which got in the way, especially the chest of drawers and the writing desk.
But she was in no position to do this by herself.
She did not dare to ask her father to help, and the servant girl would certainly not
have assisted her, for although this girl, about sixteen years old, had courageously
remained since the dismissal of the
previous cook, she had begged for the privilege of being allowed to stay
permanently confined to the kitchen and of having to open the door only in answer to a
special summons.
Thus, his sister had no other choice but to involve his mother while his father was
absent.
His mother approached Gregor's room with cries of excited joy, but she fell silent
at the door. Of course, his sister first checked whether
everything in the room was in order.
Only then did she let his mother walk in. In great haste Gregor had drawn the sheet
down even further and wrinkled it more. The whole thing really looked just like a
coverlet thrown carelessly over the couch.
On this occasion, Gregor held back from spying out from under the sheet.
Thus, he refrained from looking at his mother this time and was just happy that
she had come.
"Come on; he's not visible," said his sister, and evidently led his mother by the
hand.
Now Gregor listened as these two weak women shifted the still heavy old chest of
drawers from its position, and as his sister constantly took on herself the
greater part of the work, without listening
to the warnings of his mother, who was afraid that she would strain herself.
The work lasted a long time.
After about a quarter of an hour had already gone by, his mother said it would
be better if they left the chest of drawers where it was, because, in the first place,
it was too heavy: they would not be
finished before his father's arrival, and leaving the chest of drawers in the middle
of the room would block all Gregor's pathways, but, in the second place, they
could not be certain that Gregor would be pleased with the removal of the furniture.
To her the reverse seemed to be true; the sight of the empty walls pierced her right
to the heart, and why should Gregor not feel the same, since he had been accustomed
to the room furnishings for a long time and
in an empty room would feel himself abandoned?
"And is it not the case," his mother concluded very quietly, almost whispering
as if she wished to prevent Gregor, whose exact location she really didn't know, from
hearing even the sound of her voice--for
she was convinced that he did not understand her words--"and isn't it a fact
that by removing the furniture we're showing that we're giving up all hope of an
improvement and are leaving him to his own resources without any consideration?
I think it would be best if we tried to keep the room exactly in the condition it
was in before, so that, when Gregor returns to us, he finds everything unchanged and
can forget the intervening time all the more easily."
As he heard his mother's words Gregor realized that the lack of all immediate
human contact, together with the monotonous life surrounded by the family over the
course of these two months, must have
confused his understanding, because otherwise he couldn't explain to himself
how he, in all seriousness, could have been so keen to have his room emptied.
Was he really eager to let the warm room, comfortably furnished with pieces he had
inherited, be turned into a cavern in which he would, of course, then be able to crawl
about in all directions without
disturbance, but at the same time with a quick and complete forgetting of his human
past as well?
Was he then at this point already on the verge of forgetting and was it only the
voice of his mother, which he had not heard for a long time, that had aroused him?
Nothing was to be removed--everything must remain.
In his condition he could not function without the beneficial influences of his
furniture.
And if the furniture prevented him from carrying out his senseless crawling about
all over the place, then there was no harm in that, but rather a great benefit.
But his sister unfortunately thought otherwise.
She had grown accustomed, certainly not without justification, so far as the
discussion of matters concerning Gregor was concerned, to act as an special expert with
respect to their parents, and so now the
mother's advice was for his sister sufficient reason to insist on the removal,
not only of the chest of drawers and the writing desk, which were the only items she
had thought about at first, but also of all
the furniture, with the exception of the indispensable couch.
Of course, it was not only childish defiance and her recent very unexpected and
hard won self-confidence which led her to this demand.
She had also actually observed that Gregor needed a great deal of room to creep about;
the furniture, on the other hand, as far as one could see, was not of the slightest
use.
But perhaps the enthusiastic sensibility of young women of her age also played a role.
This feeling sought release at every opportunity, and with it Grete now felt
tempted to want to make Gregor's situation even more terrifying, so that then she
would be able to do even more for him than now.
For surely no one except Grete would ever trust themselves to enter a room in which
Gregor ruled the empty walls all by himself.
And so she did not let herself be dissuaded from her decision by her mother, who in
this room seemed uncertain of herself in her sheer agitation and soon kept quiet,
helping his sister with all her energy to get the chest of drawers out of the room.
Now, Gregor could still do without the chest of drawers if need be, but the
writing desk really had to stay.
And scarcely had the women left the room with the chest of drawers, groaning as they
pushed it, when Gregor stuck his head out from under the sofa to take a look how he
could intervene cautiously and with as much consideration as possible.
But unfortunately it was his mother who came back into the room first, while Grete
had her arms wrapped around the chest of drawers in the next room and was rocking it
back and forth by herself, without moving it from its position.
His mother was not used to the sight of Gregor; he could have made her ill, and so,
frightened, Gregor scurried backwards right to the other end of the sofa, but he could
no longer prevent the sheet from moving forward a little.
That was enough to catch his mother's attention.
She came to a halt, stood still for a moment, and then went back to Grete.
Although Gregor kept repeating to himself over and over that really nothing unusual
was going on, that only a few pieces of furniture were being rearranged, he soon
had to admit to himself that the movements
of the women to and fro, their quiet conversations, and the scratching of the
furniture on the floor affected him like a great swollen commotion on all sides, and,
so firmly was he pulling in his head and
legs and pressing his body into the floor, he had to tell himself unequivocally that
he wouldn't be able to endure all this much longer.
They were cleaning out his room, taking away from him everything he cherished; they
had already dragged out the chest of drawers in which the fret saw and other
tools were kept, and they were now
loosening the writing desk which was fixed tight to the floor, the desk on which he,
as a business student, a school student, indeed even as an elementary school
student, had written out his assignments.
At that moment he really didn't have any more time to check the good intentions of
the two women, whose existence he had in any case almost forgotten, because in their
exhaustion they were working really
silently, and the heavy stumbling of their feet was the only sound to be heard.
And so he scuttled out--the women were just propping themselves up on the writing desk
in the next room in order to take a breather--changing the direction of his
path four times.
He really didn't know what he should rescue first.
Then he saw hanging conspicuously on the wall, which was otherwise already empty,
the picture of the woman dressed in nothing but fur.
He quickly scurried up over it and pressed himself against the glass which held it in
place and which made his hot abdomen feel good.
At least this picture, which Gregor at the moment completely concealed, surely no one
would now take away.
He twisted his head towards the door of the living room to observe the women as they
came back in. They had not allowed themselves very much
rest and were coming back right away.
Grete had placed her arm around her mother and held her tightly.
"So what shall we take now?" said Grete and looked around her.
Then her glance met Gregor's from the wall.
She kept her composure only because her mother was there.
She bent her face towards her mother in order to prevent her from looking around,
and said, although in a trembling voice and too quickly, "Come, wouldn't it be better
to go back to the living room for just another moment?"
Grete's purpose was clear to Gregor: she wanted to bring his mother to a safe place
and then chase him down from the wall.
Well, let her just try! He squatted on his picture and did not hand
it over. He would sooner spring into Grete's face.
But Grete's words had immediately made the mother very uneasy.
She walked to the side, caught sight of the enormous brown splotch on the flowered
wallpaper, and, before she became truly aware that what she was looking at was
Gregor, screamed out in a high pitched raw
voice "Oh God, oh God" and fell with outstretched arms, as if she was
surrendering everything, down onto the couch and lay there motionless.
"Gregor, you.
. ." cried out his sister with a raised fist
and an urgent glare.
Since his transformation these were the first words which she had directed right at
him.
She ran into the room next door to bring some spirits or other with which she could
revive her mother from her fainting spell.
Gregor wanted to help as well--there was time enough to save the picture--but he was
stuck fast on the glass and had to tear himself loose forcefully.
Then he also scurried into the next room, as if he could give his sister some advice,
as in earlier times, but then he had to stand there idly behind her, while she
rummaged about among various small bottles.
Still, she was frightened when she turned around.
A bottle fell onto the floor and shattered.
A splinter of glass wounded Gregor in the face, some corrosive medicine or other
dripped over him.
Now, without lingering any longer, Grete took as many small bottles as she could
hold and ran with them into her mother. She slammed the door shut with her foot.
Gregor was now shut off from his mother, who was perhaps near death, thanks to him.
He could not open the door, and he did not want to chase away his sister who had to
remain with her mother.
At this point he had nothing to do but wait, and overwhelmed with self-reproach
and worry, he began to creep and crawl over everything: walls, furniture, and ceiling.
Finally, in his despair, as the entire room started to spin around him, he fell onto
the middle of the large table. A short time elapsed.
Gregor lay there limply.
All around was still. Perhaps that was a good sign.
Then there was ring at the door.
The servant girl was naturally shut up in her kitchen, and therefore Grete had to go
to open the door. The father had arrived.
"What's happened?" were his first words.
Grete's appearance had told him everything. Grete replied with a dull voice; evidently
she was pressing her face into her father's chest: "Mother fainted, but she's getting
better now.
Gregor has broken loose." "Yes, I have expected that," said his
father, "I always told you that, but you women don't want to listen."
It was clear to Gregor that his father had badly misunderstood Grete's short message
and was assuming that Gregor had committed some violent crime or other.
Thus, Gregor now had to find his father to calm him down, for he had neither the time
nor the ability to explain things to him.
And so he rushed away to the door of his room and pushed himself against it, so that
his father could see right away as he entered from the hall that Gregor fully
intended to return at once to his room,
that it was not necessary to drive him back, but that one only needed to open the
door, and he would disappear immediately. But his father was not in the mood to
observe such niceties.
"Ah," he yelled as soon as he entered, with a tone as if he were all at once angry and
pleased.
Gregor pulled his head back from the door and raised it in the direction of his
father. He had not really pictured his father as he
now stood there.
Of course, what with his new style of creeping all around, he had in the past
while neglected to pay attention to what was going on in the rest of the apartment,
as he had done before, and really should
have grasped the fact that he would encounter different conditions.
Nevertheless, nevertheless, was that still his father?
Was that the same man who had lain exhausted and buried in bed in earlier days
when Gregor was setting out on a business trip, who had received him on the evenings
of his return in a sleeping gown and arm
chair, totally incapable of standing up, who had only lifted his arm as a sign of
happiness, and who in their rare strolls together a few Sundays a year and on the
important holidays made his way slowly
forwards between Gregor and his mother--who themselves moved slowly--always a bit more
slowly than them, bundled up in his old coat, all the time setting down his walking
stick carefully, and who, when he had
wanted to say something, almost always stood still and gathered his entourage
around him?
But now he was standing up really straight, dressed in a tight-fitting blue uniform
with gold buttons, like the ones servants wear in a banking company.
Above the high stiff collar of his jacket his firm double chin stuck out prominently,
beneath his bushy eyebrows the glance of his black eyes was freshly penetrating and
alert, his otherwise dishevelled white hair
was combed down into a carefully exact shining part.
He threw his cap, on which a gold monogram, apparently the symbol of the bank, was
affixed, in an arc across the entire room onto the sofa and moved, throwing back the
edge of the long coat of his uniform, with
his hands in his trouser pockets and a grim face, right up to Gregor.
He really didn't know what he had in mind, but he raised his foot uncommonly high
anyway, and Gregor was astonished at the gigantic size of the sole of his boot.
However, he did not linger on that point.
For he knew from the first day of his new life that, as far as he was concerned, his
father considered the greatest force the only appropriate response.
And so he scurried away from his father, stopped when his father remained standing,
and scampered forward again when his father merely stirred.
In this way they made their way around the room repeatedly, without anything decisive
taking place. In fact, because of the slow pace, it
didn't look like a chase.
Gregor remained on the floor for the time being, especially since he was afraid that
his father could take a flight up onto the wall or the ceiling as an act of real
malice.
At any event, Gregor had to tell himself that he couldn't keep up this running
around for a long time, because whenever his father took a single step, he had to go
through an enormous number of movements.
Already he was starting to suffer from a shortage of breath, just as in his earlier
days when his lungs had been quite unreliable.
As he now staggered around in this way in order to gather all his energies for
running, hardly keeping his eyes open and feeling so listless that he had no notion
at all of any escape other than by running
and had almost already forgotten that the walls were available to him, although they
were obstructed by carefully carved furniture full of sharp points and spikes,
at that moment something or other thrown
casually flew down close by and rolled in front of him.
It was an apple. Immediately a second one flew after it.
Gregor stood still in fright.
Further running away was useless, for his father had decided to bombard him.
From the fruit bowl on the sideboard his father had filled his pockets.
And now, without for the moment taking accurate aim, he was throwing apple after
apple.
These small red apples rolled around on the floor, as if electrified, and collided with
each other. A weakly thrown apple grazed Gregor's back
but skidded off harmlessly.
However, another thrown immediately after that one drove into Gregor's back really
hard.
Gregor wanted to drag himself off, as if the unexpected and incredible pain would go
away if he changed his position.
But he felt as if he was nailed in place and lay stretched out completely confused
in all his senses.
Only with his final glance did he notice how the door of his room was pulled open
and how, right in front of his sister--who was yelling--his mother ran out in her
undergarments, for his sister had undressed
her in order to give her some freedom to breathe in her fainting spell, and how his
mother then ran up to his father, on the way her tied up skirts slipped toward the
floor one after the other, and how,
tripping over her skirts, she hurled herself onto his father and, throwing her
arms around him, in complete union with him--but at this moment Gregor's powers of
sight gave way--as her hands reached to the
back of his father's head and she begged him to spare Gregor's life.