The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka | Free Audiobook

Gates of Imagination presents: "The Metamorphosis  " by Franz Kafka, translated by Ian Courtenay

Johnston. Read by Arthur Lane. Chapter 1.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from  anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he

had been changed into a monstrous verminous  bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw,

as he lifted his head up a little, his brown,  arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like

sections. From this height the blanket,  just about ready to slide off completely,

could hardly stay in place. His numerous  legs, pitifully thin in comparison

to the rest of his circumference,  flickered helplessly before his eyes.

"What's happened to me," he thought. It was no  dream. His room, a proper room for a human being,

only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the  four well-known walls. Above the table, on which

an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was  spread out (Samsa was a traveling salesman) hung

the picture which he had cut out of an illustrated  magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty

gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur  hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting

up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur  muff into which her entire forearm disappeared.

Gregor's glance then turned to the window. The  dreary weather (the rain drops were falling

audibly down on the metal window ledge) made  him quite melancholy. "Why don't I keep sleeping

for a little while longer and forget all this  foolishness," he thought. But this was entirely

impractical, for he was used to sleeping on his  right side, and in his present state he couldn't

get himself into this position. No matter how  hard he threw himself onto his right side,

he always rolled again onto his back.  He must have tried it a hundred times,

closing his eyes, so that he would not have  to see the wriggling legs, and gave up only

when he began to feel a light, dull pain  in his side which he had never felt before.

"O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've  chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses

of trade are much greater than the work going  on at head office, and, in addition to that,

I have to deal with the problems of traveling,  the worries about train connections, irregular

bad food, temporary and constantly changing human  relationships which never come from the heart. To

hell with it all!" He felt a slight itching on the  top of his abdomen. He slowly pushed himself on

his back closer to the bed post so that he could  lift his head more easily, found the itchy part,

which was entirely covered with small white  spots (he did not know what to make of them),

and wanted to feel the place with a  leg. But he retracted it immediately,

for the contact felt like  a cold shower all over him.

He slid back again into his earlier position.  "This getting up early," he thought,

"makes a man quite idiotic. A man must  have his sleep. Other traveling salesmen

live like harem women. For instance, when  I come back to the inn during the course

of the morning to write up the necessary  orders, these gentlemen are just sitting

down to breakfast. If I were to try that with  my boss, I'd be thrown out on the spot. Still,

who knows whether that mightn't be really good for  me. If I didn't hold back for my parents' sake,

I would've quit ages ago. I would've gone  to the boss and told him just what I think

from the bottom of my heart. He would've fallen  right off his desk! How weird it is to sit up at

the desk and talk down to the employee from  way up there. The boss has trouble hearing,

so the employee has to step up quite close to him.  Anyway, I haven't completely given up that hope

yet. Once I've got together the money to pay  off the parents' debt to himthat should take

another five or six yearsI'll do it for sure. Then  I'll make the big break. In any case, right now I

have to get up. My train leaves at five o'clock." And he looked over at the alarm clock ticking away

by the chest of drawers. "Good God," he thought.  It was half past six, and the hands were going

quietly on. It was past the half hour, already  nearly quarter to. Could the alarm have failed

to ring? One saw from the bed that it was properly  set for four o'clock. Certainly it had rung. Yes,

but was it possible to sleep through this  noise that made the furniture shake? Now,

it's true he'd not slept quietly, but evidently  he'd slept all the more deeply. Still, what should

he do now? The next train left at seven o'clock.  To catch that one, he would have to go in a mad

rush. The sample collection wasn't packed up  yet, and he really didn't feel particularly

fresh and active. And even if he caught the train,  there was no avoiding a blow up with the boss,

because the firm's errand boy would've waited for  the five o'clock train and reported the news of

his absence long ago. He was the boss's minion,  without backbone or intelligence. Well then,

what if he reported in sick? But that would be  extremely embarrassing and suspicious, because

during his five years' service Gregor hadn't  been sick even once. The boss would certainly

come with the doctor from the health insurance  company and would reproach his parents for their

lazy son and cut short all objections with the  insurance doctor's comments; for him everyone was

completely healthy but really lazy about work. And  besides, would the doctor in this case be totally

wrong? Apart from a really excessive drowsiness  after the long sleep, Gregor in fact felt quite

well and even had a really strong appetite. As he was thinking all this over in the

greatest haste, without being able to make the  decision to get out of bed (the alarm clock was

indicating exactly quarter to seven) there was a  cautious knock on the door by the head of the bed.

"Gregor," a voice called (it was his  mother!) "it's quarter to seven. Don't

you want to be on your way?" The soft voice!  Gregor was startled when he heard his voice

answering. It was clearly and unmistakably  his earlier voice, but in it was intermingled,

as if from below, an irrepressibly painful  squeaking which left the words positively

distinct only in the first moment and distorted  them in the reverberation, so that one didn't

know if one had heard correctly. Gregor wanted  to answer in detail and explain everything,

but in these circumstances he confined himself to  saying, "Yes, yes, thank you mother. I'm getting

up right away." Because of the wooden door the  change in Gregor's voice was not really noticeable

outside, so his mother calmed down with this  explanation and shuffled off. However, as a

result of the short conversation the other family  members became aware of the fact that Gregor was

unexpectedly still at home, and already his father  was knocking on one side door, weakly but with his

fist. "Gregor, Gregor," he called out, "what's  going on?" And after a short while he urged him

on again in a deeper voice. "Gregor!" Gregor!" At  the other side door, however, his sister knocked

lightly. "Gregor? Are you all right? Do you  need anything?" Gregor directed answers in both

directions, "I'll be ready right away." He made an  effort with the most careful articulation and by

inserting long pauses between the individual words  to remove everything remarkable from his voice.

His father turned back to his breakfast. However,  the sister whispered, "Gregor, open the door,

I beg you." Gregor had no intention of opening the  door, but congratulated himself on his precaution,

acquired from traveling, of locking all  doors during the night, even at home.

First he wanted to stand up quietly  and undisturbed, get dressed,

above all have breakfast, and only then  consider further action, for (he noticed

this clearly) by thinking things over in bed  he would not reach a reasonable conclusion.

He remembered that he had already often felt a  light pain or other in bed, perhaps the result of

an awkward lying position, which later turned out  to be purely imaginary when he stood up, and he

was eager to see how his present fantasies would  gradually dissipate. That the change in his voice

was nothing other than the onset of a real chill,  an occupational illness of commercial travelers,

of that he had not the slightest doubt. It was very easy to throw aside the blanket.

He needed only to push himself up a little, and  it fell by itself. But to continue was difficult,

particularly because he was so unusually wide.  He needed arms and hands to push himself upright.

Instead of these, however, he had only many  small limbs which were incessantly moving with

very different motions and which, in addition,  he was unable to control. If he wanted to bend

one of them, then it was the first to extend  itself, and if he finally succeeded doing with

this limb what he wanted, in the meantime all  the others, as if left free, moved around in an

excessively painful agitation. "But I must not  stay in bed uselessly," said Gregor to himself.

At first he wanted to get off the bed with  the lower part of his body, but this lower

part (which he incidentally had not yet looked at  and which he also couldn't picture clearly) proved

itself too difficult to move. The attempt went  so slowly. When, having become almost frantic,

he finally hurled himself forward with  all his force and without thinking,

he chose his direction incorrectly, and he hit  the lower bedpost hard. The violent pain he felt

revealed to him that the lower part of his body  was at the moment probably the most sensitive.

Thus, he tried to get his upper body out of  the bed first and turned his head carefully

toward the edge of the bed. He managed to do  this easily, and in spite of its width and

weight his body mass at last slowly followed  the turning of his head. But as he finally

raised his head outside the bed in the open  air, he became anxious about moving forward

any further in this manner, for if he allowed  himself eventually to fall by this process,

it would take a miracle to prevent  his head from getting injured. And

at all costs he must not lose consciousness  right now. He preferred to remain in bed.

However, after a similar effort, while he lay  there again sighing as before and once again

saw his small limbs fighting one another, if  anything worse than before, and didn't see

any chance of imposing quiet and order on this  arbitrary movement, he told himself again that

he couldn't possibly remain in bed and that it  might be the most reasonable thing to sacrifice

everything if there was even the slightest hope  of getting himself out of bed in the process.

At the same moment, however, he didn't forget to  remind himself from time to time of the fact that

calm (indeed the calmest) reflection might  be better than the most confused decisions.

At such moments, he directed his gaze as  precisely as he could toward the window,

but unfortunately there was little confident  cheer to be had from a glance at the morning mist,

which concealed even the other side of the  narrow street. "It's already seven o'clock" he

told himself at the latest striking of the alarm  clock, "already seven o'clock and still such a

fog." And for a little while longer he lay  quietly with weak breathing, as if perhaps

waiting for normal and natural conditions  to re-emerge out of the complete stillness.

But then he said to himself, "Before it strikes  a quarter past seven, whatever happens I must be

completely out of bed. Besides, by then someone  from the office will arrive to inquire about me,

because the office will open before seven  o'clock." And he made an effort then to

rock his entire body length out of the bed with a  uniform motion. If he let himself fall out of the

bed in this way, his head, which in the course  of the fall he intended to lift up sharply,

would probably remain uninjured. His back  seemed to be hard; nothing would really

happen to that as a result of the fall.  His greatest reservation was a worry about

the loud noise which the fall must create and  which presumably would arouse, if not fright,

then at least concern on the other side of  all the doors. However, it had to be tried.

As Gregor was in the process of lifting himself  half out of bed (the new method was more of

a game than an effort; he needed only to rock  with a constant rhythm) it struck him how easy

all this would be if someone were to come to his  aid. Two strong people (he thought of his father

and the servant girl) would have been quite  sufficient. They would have only had to push

their arms under his arched back to get him  out of the bed, to bend down with their load,

and then merely to exercise patience and care  that he completed the flip onto the floor,

where his diminutive legs would then, he hoped,  acquire a purpose. Now, quite apart from the

fact that the doors were locked, should he really  call out for help? In spite of all his distress,

he was unable to suppress a smile at this idea. He had already got to the point where, with a

stronger rocking, he maintained his equilibrium  with difficulty, and very soon he would finally

have to decide, for in five minutes it would be  a quarter past seven. Then there was a ring at

the door of the apartment. "That's someone from  the office" he told himself, and he almost froze

while his small limbs only danced around all the  faster. For one moment everything remained still.

"They aren't opening," Gregor said to himself,  caught up in some absurd hope. But of course then,

as usual, the servant girl with her firm  tread went to the door and opened it. Gregor

needed to hear only the visitor's first word of  greeting to recognize immediately who it was,

the manager himself. Why was Gregor the only  one condemned to work in a firm where at the

slightest lapse someone immediately attracted  the greatest suspicion? Were all the employees

then collectively, one and all, scoundrels? Was  there then among them no truly devoted person who,

if he failed to use just a couple of hours in the  morning for office work, would become abnormal

from pangs of conscience and really be in no state  to get out of bed? Was it really not enough to let

an apprentice make inquiries, if such questioning  was even necessary? Must the manager himself come,

and in the process must it be demonstrated to  the entire innocent family that the investigation

of this suspicious circumstance could only be  entrusted to the intelligence of the manager?

And more as a consequence of the excited state in  which this idea put Gregor than as a result of an

actual decision, he swung himself with all his  might out of the bed. There was a loud thud, but

not a real crash. The fall was absorbed somewhat  by the carpet and, in addition, his back was more

elastic than Gregor had thought. For that reason  the dull noise was not quite so conspicuous. But

he had not held his head up with sufficient care  and had hit it. He turned his head, irritated

and in pain, and rubbed it on the carpet. "Something has fallen in there," said the

manager in the next room on the left. Gregor  tried to imagine to himself whether anything

similar to what was happening to him today could  have also happened at some point to the manager.

At least one had to concede the possibility  of such a thing. However, as if to give a

rough answer to this question, the manager now  took a few determined steps in the next room,

with a squeak of his polished boots. From the  neighbouring room on the right the sister was

whispering to inform Gregor: "Gregor, the  manager is here." "I know," said Gregor to

himself. But he did not dare make his voice  loud enough so that his sister could hear.

"Gregor," his father now said from  the neighbouring room on the left,

"Mr. Manager has come and is asking why  you have not left on the early train. We

don't know what we should tell him. Besides,  he also wants to speak to you personally.

So please open the door. He will be good  enough to forgive the mess in your room."

In the middle of all this, the manager called out  in a friendly way, "Good morning, Mr. Samsa." "He

is not well," said his mother to the manager,  while his father was still talking at the door,

"He is not well, believe me, Mr. Manager.  Otherwise how would Gregor miss a train!

The young man has nothing in his head except  business. I'm almost angry that he never goes

out at night. Right now he's been in the city  eight days, but he's been at home every evening.

He sits there with us at the table and reads  the newspaper quietly or studies his travel

schedules. It's quite a diversion for him if  he busies himself with fretwork. For instance,

he cut out a small frame over the course of two  or three evenings. You'd be amazed how pretty it

is. It's hanging right inside the room. You'll see  it immediately, as soon as Gregor opens the door.

Anyway, I'm happy that you're here, Mr. Manager.  By ourselves, we would never have made Gregor open

the door. He's so stubborn, and he's certainly  not well, although he denied that this morning."

"I'm coming right away," said Gregor  slowly and deliberately and didn't move,

so as not to lose one word of the conversation.  "My dear lady, I cannot explain it to myself in

any other way," said the manager; "I hope  it is nothing serious. On the other hand,

I must also say that we business people, luckily  or unluckily, however one looks at it, very often

simply have to overcome a slight indisposition  for business reasons." "So can Mr. Manager come

in to see you now" asked his father impatiently  and knocked once again on the door. "No," said

Gregor. In the neighbouring room on the left a  painful stillness descended. In the neighbouring

room on the right the sister began to sob. Why didn't his sister go to the others? She'd

probably just gotten up out of bed now and hadn't  even started to get dressed yet. Then why was she

crying? Because he wasn't getting up and wasn't  letting the manager in; because he was in danger

of losing his position, and because then his boss  would badger his parents once again with the old

demands? Those were probably unnecessary worries  right now. Gregor was still here and wasn't

thinking at all about abandoning his family. At  the moment he was lying right there on the carpet,

and no one who knew about his condition would've  seriously demanded that he let the manager in.

But Gregor wouldn't be casually dismissed  right way because of this small discourtesy,

for which he would find an easy and suitable  excuse later on. It seemed to Gregor that it

might be far more reasonable to leave him in  peace at the moment, instead of disturbing

him with crying and conversation. But it  was the very uncertainty which distressed

the others and excused their behaviour. "Mr. Samsa," the manager was now shouting,

his voice raised, "what's the matter? You  are barricading yourself in your room,

answer with only a yes and a no, are making  serious and unnecessary troubles for your parents,

and neglecting (I mention this only incidentally)  your commercial duties in a truly unheard of

manner. I am speaking here in the name of your  parents and your employer, and I am requesting

you in all seriousness for an immediate and clear  explanation. I am amazed. I am amazed. I thought I

knew you as a calm, reasonable person, and now  you appear suddenly to want to start parading

around in weird moods. The Chief indicated to  me earlier this very day a possible explanation

for your neglectit concerned the collection of  cash entrusted to you a short while agobut in

truth I almost gave him my word of honour that  this explanation could not be correct. However,

now I see here your unimaginable pig headedness,  and I am totally losing any desire to speak up for

you in the slightest. And your position is not  at all the most secure. Originally I intended

to mention all this to you privately, but since  you are letting me waste my time here uselessly,

I don't know why the matter shouldn't come to the  attention of your parents. Your productivity has

also been very unsatisfactory recently. Of  course, it's not the time of year to conduct

exceptional business, we recognize that, but  a time of year for conducting no business,

there is no such thing at all, Mr.  Samsa, and such a thing must never be."

"But Mr. Manager," called Gregor, beside himself  and in his agitation forgetting everything else,

"I'm opening the door immediately, this very  moment. A slight indisposition, a dizzy spell,

has prevented me from getting up. I'm  still lying in bed right now. But now

I'm quite refreshed once again. I'm  in the midst of getting out of bed.

Just have patience for a short moment! Things are  not going so well as I thought. But things are all

right. How suddenly this can overcome someone!  Just yesterday evening everything was fine

with me. My parents certainly know that. Actually  just yesterday evening I had a small premonition.

People must have seen that in me. Why have I not  reported that to the office! But people always

think that they'll get over sickness without  having to stay at home. Mr. Manager! Take it easy

on my parents! There is really no basis for the  criticisms which you are now making against me,

and really nobody has said a word to me about  that. Perhaps you have not read the latest orders

which I shipped. Besides, now I'm setting  out on my trip on the eight o'clock train;

the few hours' rest have made me stronger. Mr.  Manager, do not stay. I will be at the office

in person right away. Please have the goodness to  say that and to convey my respects to the Chief."

While Gregor was quickly blurting all this  out, hardly aware of what he was saying,

he had moved close to the chest of drawers  without effort, probably as a result of the

practice he had already had in bed, and now he  was trying to raise himself up on it. Actually,

he wanted to open the door; he really wanted  to let himself be seen by and to speak with

the manager. He was keen to witness what the  others now asking after him would say at the

sight of him. If they were startled, then  Gregor had no more responsibility and could

be calm. But if they accepted everything quietly,  then he would have no reason to get excited and,

if he got a move on, could really be  at the station around eight o'clock.

At first he slid down a few times from the  smooth chest of drawers. But at last he gave

himself a final swing and stood upright there.  He was no longer at all aware of the pains in

his lower body, no matter how they might still  sting. Now he let himself fall against the back

of a nearby chair, on the edge of which he  braced himself with his thin limbs. By doing

this he gained control over himself and kept  quiet, for he could now hear the manager.

"Did you understand a single word?" the manager  asked the parents, "Is he playing the fool with

us?" "For God's sake," cried the mother already in  tears, "perhaps he's very ill and we're upsetting

him. Grete! Grete!" she yelled at that point.  "Mother?" called the sister from the other side.

They were making themselves understood through  Gregor's room. "You must go to the doctor right

away. Gregor is sick. Hurry to the doctor.  Have you heard Gregor speak yet?" "That was an

animal's voice," said the manager, remarkably  quietly in comparison to the mother's cries.

"Anna! Anna!' yelled the father through the  hall into the kitchen, clapping his hands,

"fetch a locksmith right away!" The two young  women were already running through the hall

with swishing skirts (how had his sister dressed  herself so quickly?) and yanked open the doors

of the apartment. One couldn't hear the doors  closing at all. They probably had left them open,

as is customary in an apartment in  which a huge misfortune has taken place.

However, Gregor had become much calmer. All right,  people did not understand his words any more,

although they seemed clear enough  to him, clearer than previously,

perhaps because his ears had gotten used to them.  But at least people now thought that things were

not all right with him and were prepared to help  him. The confidence and assurance with which the

first arrangements had been carried out made him  feel good. He felt himself included once again in

the circle of humanity and was expecting  from both the doctor and the locksmith,

without differentiating between them with any real  precision, splendid and surprising results. In

order to get as clear a voice as possible for  the critical conversation which was imminent,

he coughed a little, and certainly took the  trouble to do this in a really subdued way,

since it was possible that even this noise  sounded like something different from a

human cough. He no longer trusted himself  to decide any more. Meanwhile in the next

room it had become really quiet. Perhaps his  parents were sitting with the manager at the

table and were whispering; perhaps they were  all leaning against the door and listening.

Gregor pushed himself slowly towards the  door, with the help of the easy chair,

let go of it there, threw himself against  the door, held himself upright against it

(the balls of his tiny limbs had a little sticky  stuff on them), and rested there momentarily from

his exertion. Then he made an effort to turn the  key in the lock with his mouth. Unfortunately it

seemed that he had no real teeth. How then was he  to grab hold of the key? But to make up for that

his jaws were naturally very strong; with their  help he managed to get the key really moving,

and he did not notice that he was obviously  inflicting some damage on himself, for a

brown fluid came out of his mouth, flowed  over the key, and dripped onto the floor.

"Just listen for a moment," said the manager in  the next room, "he's turning the key." For Gregor

that was a great encouragement. But they all  should've called out to him, including his father

and mother, "Come on, Gregor," they should've  shouted, "keep going, keep working on the lock."

Imagining that all his efforts were being followed  with suspense, he bit down frantically on the

key with all the force he could muster. As the  key turned more, he danced around the lock. Now he

was holding himself upright only with his mouth,  and he had to hang onto the key or then press it

down again with the whole weight of his body,  as necessary. The quite distinct click of the

lock as it finally snapped really woke Gregor up.  Breathing heavily he said to himself, "So I didn't

need the locksmith," and he set his head against  the door handle to open the door completely.

Because he had to open the door in this way,  it was already open very wide without him yet

being really visible. He first had to turn  himself slowly around the edge of the door,

very carefully, of course, if he did not want to  fall awkwardly on his back right at the entrance

into the room. He was still preoccupied with  this difficult movement and had no time to pay

attention to anything else, when he heard the  manager exclaim a loud "Oh!" (it sounded like

the wind whistling), and now he saw him, nearest  to the door, pressing his hand against his open

mouth and moving slowly back, as if an invisible  constant force was pushing him away. His mother

(in spite of the presence of the manager she was  standing here with her hair sticking up on end,

still a mess from the night) with her hands  clasped was looking at his father; she then

went two steps towards Gregor and collapsed  right in the middle of her skirts spreading

out all around her, her face sunk on her breast,  completely concealed. His father clenched his fist

with a hostile expression, as if he wished to push  Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly

around the living room, covered his eyes with his  hands, and cried so that his mighty breast shook.

At this point Gregor did not take one step into  the room, but leaned his body from the inside

against the firmly bolted wing of the door, so  that only half his body was visible, as well

as his head, titled sideways, with which he peeped  over at the others. Meanwhile it had become much

brighter. Standing out clearly from the other side  of the street was a part of the endless gray-black

house situated opposite (it was a hospital) with  its severe regular windows breaking up the facade.

The rain was still coming down, but only in  large individual drops visibly and firmly thrown

down one by one onto the ground. The breakfast  dishes were standing piled around on the table,

because for his father breakfast was the most  important meal time in the day, which he prolonged

for hours by reading various newspapers. Directly  across on the opposite wall hung a photograph of

Gregor from the time of his military service;  it was a picture of him as a lieutenant, as he,

smiling and worry free, with his hand on his  sword, demanded respect for his bearing and

uniform. The door to the hall was ajar, and  since the door to the apartment was also open,

one saw out into the landing of the apartment  and the start of the staircase going down.

"Now," said Gregor, well aware that he was the  only one who had kept his composure. "I'll get

dressed right away, pack up the collection  of samples, and set off. You'll allow me to

set out on my way, will you not? You see, Mr.  Manager, I am not pig-headed, and I am happy to

work. Traveling is exhausting, but I couldn't live  without it. Where are you going, Mr. Manager? To

the office? Really? Will you report everything  truthfully? A person can be incapable of work

momentarily, but that is precisely the best  time to remember the earlier achievements and

to consider that later, after the obstacles have  been shoved aside, the person will work all the

more keenly and intensely. I am really so indebted  to Mr. Chiefyou know that perfectly well. On the

other hand, I am concerned about my parents and  my sister. I'm in a fix, but I'll work myself out

of it again. Don't make things more difficult for  me than they already are. Speak up on my behalf in

the office! People don't like traveling salesmen.  I know that. People think they earn pots of money

and thus lead a fine life. People don't even have  any special reason to think through this judgment

more clearly. But you, Mr. Manager, you have  a better perspective on the interconnections

than the other people, even, I tell you in total  confidence, a better perspective than Mr. Chairman

himself, who in his capacity as the employer  may let his judgment make casual mistakes at the

expense of an employee. You also know well enough  that the traveling salesman who is outside the

office almost the entire year can become so easily  a victim of gossip, coincidences, and groundless

complaints, against which it's impossible for  him to defend himself, since for the most part

he doesn't hear about them at all and only then  when he's exhausted after finishing a trip,

and gets to feel in his own body at home the nasty  consequences, which can't be thoroughly explored

back to their origins. Mr. Manager, don't leave  without speaking a word telling me that you'll at

least concede that I'm a little in the right!" But at Gregor's first words the manager had

already turned away, and now he looked back at  Gregor over his twitching shoulders with pursed

lips. During Gregor's speech he was not still for  a moment, but was moving away towards the door,

without taking his eyes off Gregor, but really  gradually, as if there was a secret ban on

leaving the room. He was already in the hall,  and after the sudden movement with which he

finally pulled his foot out of the living room,  one could have believed that he had just burned

the sole of his foot. In the hall, however,  he stretched out his right hand away from his

body towards the staircase, as if some truly  supernatural relief was waiting for him there.

Gregor realized that he must not under any  circumstances allow the manager to go away

in this frame of mind, especially if his position  in the firm was not to be placed in the greatest

danger. His parents did not understand  all this very well. Over the long years,

they had developed the conviction that Gregor  was set up for life in his firm and, in addition,

they had so much to do nowadays with their present  troubles that all foresight was foreign to them.

But Gregor had this foresight. The manager  must be held back, calmed down, convinced,

and finally won over. The future of Gregor and his  family really depended on it! If only the sister

had been there! She was clever. She had already  cried while Gregor was still lying quietly on his

back. And the manager, this friend of the ladies,  would certainly let himself be guided by her.

She would have closed the door to the  apartment and talked him out of his fright

in the hall. But the sister was not even  there. Gregor must deal with it himself.

Without thinking that as yet he didn't  know anything about his present ability

to move and without thinking that his speech  possibly (indeed probably) had once again not

been understood, he left the wing of the  door, pushed himself through the opening,

and wanted to go over to the manager, who was  already holding tight onto the handrail with

both hands on the landing in a ridiculous way.  But as he looked for something to hold onto,

with a small scream Gregor immediately fell  down onto his numerous little legs. Scarcely

had this happened, when he felt for the first time  that morning a general physical well being. The

small limbs had firm floor under them; they  obeyed perfectly, as he noticed to his joy,

and strove to carry him forward in the direction  he wanted. Right away he believed that the final

amelioration of all his suffering was immediately  at hand. But at the very moment when he lay on the

floor rocking in a restrained manner quite close  and directly across from his mother (apparently

totally sunk into herself) she suddenly sprang  right up with her arms spread far apart and

her fingers extended and cried out, "Help, for  God's sake, help!" She held her head bowed down,

as if she wanted to view Gregor better, but ran  senselessly back, contradicting that gesture,

forgetting that behind her stood the table with  all the dishes on it. When she reached the table,

she sat down heavily on it, as if absent-mindedly,  and did not appear to notice at all that next to

her coffee was pouring out onto the carpet in a  full stream from the large overturned container.

"Mother, mother," said Gregor quietly,  and looked over towards her. The

manager momentarily had disappeared  completely from his mind; by contrast,

at the sight of the flowing coffee he couldn't  stop himself snapping his jaws in the air a

few times . At that his mother screamed  all over again, hurried from the table,

and collapsed into the arms of his father, who was  rushing towards her. But Gregor had no time right

now for his parents: the manager was already on  the staircase. His chin level with the banister,

the manager looked back for the last time. Gregor  took an initial movement to catch up to him if

possible. But the manager must have suspected  something, because he made a leap down over a

few stairs and disappeared, still shouting "Huh!"  The sound echoed throughout the entire stairwell.

Now, unfortunately this flight of the manager  also seemed completely to bewilder his father,

who earlier had been relatively calm, for instead  of running after the manager himself or at least

not hindering Gregor from his pursuit, with his  right hand he grabbed hold of the manager's cane,

which he had left behind with his hat and overcoat  on a chair. With his left hand, his father picked

up a large newspaper from the table and, stamping  his feet on the floor, he set out to drive Gregor

back into his room by waving the cane and the  newspaper. No request of Gregor's was of any use;

no request would even be understood. No matter how  willing he was to turn his head respectfully, his

father just stomped all the harder with his feet. Across the room from him his mother had pulled

open a window, in spite of the cool weather,  and leaning out with her hands on her cheeks,

she pushed her face far outside the window.  Between the alley and the stair well a strong

draught came up, the curtains on the window flew  around, the newspapers on the table swished,

and individual sheets fluttered down over the  floor. The father relentlessly pressed forward

pushing out sibilants, like a wild man. Now,  Gregor had no practice at all in going backwards;

it was really going very slowly. If Gregor  only had been allowed to turn himself around,

he would have been in his room right away, but  he was afraid to make his father impatient by the

time-consuming process of turning around, and each  moment he faced the threat of a mortal blow on his

back or his head from the cane in his father's  hand. Finally Gregor had no other option, for

he noticed with horror that he did not understand  yet how to maintain his direction going backwards.

And so he began, amid constantly anxious sideways  glances in his father's direction, to turn himself

around as quickly as possible (although in truth  this was only very slowly). Perhaps his father

noticed his good intentions, for he did not  disrupt Gregor in this motion, but with the tip

of the cane from a distance he even directed  here and there Gregor's rotating movement.

If only there hadn't been his father's unbearable  hissing! Because of that Gregor totally lost

his head. He was already almost totally turned  around, when, always with this hissing in his ear,

he just made a mistake and turned himself back  a little. But when he finally was successful in

getting his head in front of the door opening,  it became clear that his body was too wide to go

through any further. Naturally his father, in his  present mental state, had no idea of opening the

other wing of the door a bit to create a suitable  passage for Gregor to get through. His single

fixed thought was that Gregor must get into his  room as quickly as possible. He would never have

allowed the elaborate preparations that Gregor  required to orient himself and thus perhaps get

through the door. On the contrary, as if there  were no obstacle and with a peculiar noise,

he now drove Gregor forwards. Behind Gregor the  sound was at this point no longer like the voice

of only a single father. Now it was really  no longer a joke, and Gregor forced himself,

come what might, into the door. One side of his  body was lifted up. He lay at an angle in the door

opening. His one flank was sore with the scraping.  On the white door ugly blotches were left. Soon he

was stuck fast and would have not been able to  move any more on his own. The tiny legs on one

side hung twitching in the air above, the ones  on the other side were pushed painfully into the

floor. Then his father gave him one really strong  liberating push from behind, and he scurried,

bleeding severely, far into the interior of his  room. The door was slammed shut with the cane,

and finally it was quiet. Chapter 2.

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. The shine of  the electric streetlights 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.

For there stood a bowl 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 favorite 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 the father  was accustomed to read the afternoon newspaper in

a loud voice to his mother and sometimes also to  his sister, at the moment not a sound was audible.

Now, perhaps this reading aloud, about which  his sister 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 tranquility, 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  and crawled 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 that. 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, 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 could now observe that

he could make himself as comfortable as he wished.  Gregor's small limbs buzzed as 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 it, 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. Certainly they 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 he was not comprehensible,

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 relevant 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 have 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 the contradict that view,

and Gregor in any case hadn't asked him about  it. At the time Gregor's only concern had been

to devote 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 traveling salesman, who  naturally had entirely different possibilities for

earning money and whose successes at work at once  were converted 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, expenses 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 (in contrast to Gregor she loved music  very much and knew how to play the violin

charmingly) next year to the conservatory,  regardless of the great expense which that

must necessitate and which would be made up  in other ways. 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 bang 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 nowhere

near 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 came only

to an amount which one should not really take out  and which must be set aside for an emergency. But

the money to live on must be earned. Now, his  father was a healthy man, although he was old,

who had not worked at all for five years now 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 maybe

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 gray heaven and the gray 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 came

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 could 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 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 is 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  greatest 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 that 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  with the chest of drawers in the middle of the

room it would block all Gregor's pathways, but,  in the second place, it might 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 thus 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 in which it was  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 that he

in all seriousness could've 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 along time, that had aroused him? Nothing  was to be removed; everything must remain. In

his condition he couldn't 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, 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 that

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 crossed with 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 attempt that! 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

those 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 Grete  must therefore 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 opportunity to clarify

things for 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 disheveled 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

his 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; indeed because

of the slow pace it didn't look like a chase.  Gregor remained on the floor for the time being,

especially as 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 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, in his listlessness

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 spikesat 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 flight 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,  was throwing apple after apple. These small

red apples rolled as if electrified around  on the floor 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 one after the other

slipped toward the floor, and how, tripping over  her skirts, she hurled herself onto his father

and, throwing her arms around him, in complete  union with himbut at this moment Gregor's powers

of sight gave wayas her hands reached to the back  of his father's head and she begged him to spare

Gregor's life. Chapter 3.

Gregor's serious wound, from which he suffered  for over a month (since no one ventured to

remove the apple, it remained in his flesh  as a visible reminder), seemed by itself to

have reminded the father that, in spite of  his present unhappy and hateful appearance,

Gregor was a member of the family, something one  should not treat as an enemy, and that it was,

on the contrary, a requirement of family duty to  suppress one's aversion and to endurenothing else,

just endure. And if through his wound Gregor  had now apparently lost for good his ability

to move and for the time being needed many  many minutes to crawl across this room,

like an aged invalid (so far as creeping up  high was concerned, that was unimaginable),

nevertheless for this worsening of his condition,  in his opinion, he did get completely satisfactory

compensation, because every day towards  evening the door to the living room,

which he was in the habit of keeping a sharp eye  on even one or two hours beforehand, was opened,

so that he, lying down in the darkness of his  room, invisible from the living room, could

see the entire family at the illuminated table and  listen to their conversation, to a certain extent

with their common permission, a situation  quite different from what happened before.

Of course, it was no longer the animated  social interaction of former times,

about which Gregor in small hotel rooms had  always thought about with a certain longing,

when, tired out, he had to throw himself in the  damp bedclothes. For the most part what went on

now was very quiet. After the evening meal the  father fell asleep quickly in his arm chair;

the mother and sister talked guardedly to  each other in the stillness. Bent far over,

the mother sewed fine undergarments  for a fashion shop. The sister,

who had taken on a job as a salesgirl, in  the evening studied stenography and French,

so as perhaps later to obtain a better position.  Sometimes the father woke up and, as if he was

quite ignorant that he had been asleep, said to  the mother "How long you have been sewing today!"

and went right back to sleep, while the mother  and the sister smiled tiredly to each other.

With a sort of stubbornness the father refused  to take off his servant's uniform even at home,

and while his sleeping gown hung unused on the  coat hook, the father dozed completely dressed

in his place, as if he was always ready for his  responsibility and even here was waiting for the

voice of his superior. As result, in spite of all  the care of the mother and sister, his uniform,

which even at the start was not new, grew dirty,  and Gregor looked, often for the entire evening,

at this clothing, with stains all over it  and with its gold buttons always polished,

in which the old man, although very  uncomfortable, slept peacefully nonetheless.

As soon as the clock struck ten, the mother tried  encouraging the father gently to wake up and then

persuading him to go to bed, on the ground that he  couldn't get a proper sleep here and the father,

who had to report for service at six  o'clock, really needed a good sleep. But

in his stubbornness, which had gripped him since  he had become a servant, he insisted always on

staying even longer by the table, although he  regularly fell asleep and then could only be

prevailed upon with the greatest difficulty to  trade his chair for the bed. No matter how much

the mother and sister might at that point work  on him with small admonitions, for a quarter of

an hour he would remain shaking his head slowly,  his eyes closed, without standing up. The mother

would pull him by the sleeve and speak flattering  words into his ear; the sister would leave her

work to help her mother, but that would not have  the desired effect on the father. He would settle

himself even more deeply in his arm chair. Only  when the two women grabbed him under the armpits

would he throw his eyes open, look back and forth  at the mother and sister, and habitually say "This

is a life. This is the peace and quiet of  my old age." And propped up by both women,

he would heave himself up, elaborately, as if for  him it was the greatest travail, allow himself

to be led to the door by the women, wave them  away there, and proceed on his own from there,

while the mother quickly threw down her sewing  implements and the sister her pen in order to

run after the father and help him some more. In this overworked and exhausted family who

had time to worry any longer about Gregor more  than was absolutely necessary? The household

was constantly getting smaller. The servant girl  was now let go. A huge bony cleaning woman with

white hair flapping all over her head came in  the morning and the evening to do the heaviest

work. The mother took care of everything else  in addition to her considerable sewing work.

It even happened that various pieces of family  jewelry, which previously the mother and sister

had been overjoyed to wear on social and festive  occasions, were sold, as Gregor found out in the

evening from the general discussion of the prices  they had fetched. But the greatest complaint was

always that they could not leave this apartment,  which was too big for their present means, since

it was impossible to imagine how Gregor might be  moved. But Gregor fully recognized that it was not

just consideration for him which was preventing a  move (for he could have been transported easily in

a suitable box with a few air holes); the main  thing holding the family back from a change in

living quarters was far more their complete  hopelessness and the idea that they had been

struck by a misfortune like no one else in their  entire circle of relatives and acquaintances.

What the world demands of poor people they now  carried out to an extreme degree. The father

brought breakfast to the petty officials at  the bank, the mother sacrificed herself for the

undergarments of strangers, the sister behind her  desk was at the beck and call of customers, but

the family's energies did not extend any further.  And the wound in his back began to pain Gregor all

over again, when now mother and sister, after  they had escorted the father to bed, came back,

let their work lie, moved close together, and sat  cheek to cheek and when his mother would now say,

pointing to Gregor's room, "Close the door,  Grete," and when Gregor was again in the darkness,

while close by the women mingled their tears  or, quite dry eyed, stared at the table.

Gregor spent his nights and days with  hardly any sleep. Sometimes he thought

that the next time the door opened he would  take over the family arrangements just as

he had earlier. In his imagination  appeared again, after a long time,

his employer and supervisor and the apprentices,  the excessively gormless custodian, two or three

friends from other businesses, a chambermaid  from a hotel in the provinces, a loving fleeting

memory, a female cashier from a hat shop, whom  he had seriously, but too slowly courtedthey all

appeared mixed in with strangers or people he had  already forgotten, but instead of helping him and

his family, they were all unapproachable,  and he was happy to see them disappear.

But then he was in no mood to worry about his  family. He was filled with sheer anger over the

wretched care he was getting, even though he  couldn't imagine anything for which he might

have an appetite. Still, he made plans about  how he could take from the larder what he at

all account deserved, even if he wasn't hungry.  Without thinking any more about how one might be

able to give Gregor special pleasure, the sister  now kicked some food or other very quickly into

his room in the morning and at noon, before  she ran off to her shop, and in the evening,

quite indifferent about whether the food had  perhaps only been tasted or, what happened

most frequently, remained entirely undisturbed,  she whisked it out with one sweep of her broom.

The task of cleaning his room, which she now  always carried out in the evening, could not be

done any more quickly. Streaks of dirt ran along  the walls; here and there lay tangles of dust and

garbage. At first, when his sister arrived, Gregor  positioned himself in a particularly filthy corner

in order with this posture to make something of  a protest. But he could have well stayed there

for weeks without his sister's changing her ways.  Indeed, she perceived the dirt as much as he did,

but she had decided just to let it stay. In this business, with a touchiness which

was quite new to her and which had generally taken  over the entire family, she kept watch to see that

the cleaning of Gregor's room remained reserved  for her. Once his mother had undertaken a major

cleaning of Gregor's room, which she had only  completed successfully after using a few buckets

of water. But the extensive dampness made Gregor  sick and he lay supine, embittered and immobile

on the couch. However, the mother's punishment  was not delayed for long. For in the evening the

sister had hardly observed the change in Gregor's  room before she ran into the living room mightily

offended and, in spite of her mother's hand lifted  high in entreaty, broke out in a fit of crying.

Her parents (the father had, of course, woken up  with a start in his arm chair) at first looked at

her astonished and helpless; until they started  to get agitated. Turning to his right, the father

heaped reproaches on the mother that she was not  to take over the cleaning of Gregor's room from

the sister and, turning to his left, he shouted at  the sister that she would no longer be allowed to

clean Gregor's room ever again, while the mother  tried to pull the father, beside himself in his

excitement, into the bed room; the sister, shaken  by her crying fit, pounded on the table with her

tiny fists, and Gregor hissed at all this,  angry that no one thought about shutting the

door and sparing him the sight of this commotion. But even when the sister, exhausted from her daily

work, had grown tired of caring for Gregor as she  had before, even then the mother did not have to

come at all on her behalf. And Gregor did not have  to be neglected. For now the cleaning woman was

there. This old widow, who in her long life must  have managed to survive the worst with the help

of her bony frame, had no real horror of Gregor.  Without being in the least curious, she had once

by chance opened Gregor's door. At the sight of  Gregor, who, totally surprised, began to scamper

here and there, although no one was chasing him,  she remained standing with her hands folded across

her stomach staring at him. Since then she did  not fail to open the door furtively a little

every morning and evening to look in on Gregor.  At first, she also called him to her with words

which she presumably thought were friendly, like  "Come here for a bit, old dung beetle!" or "Hey,

look at the old dung beetle!" Addressed in such  a manner, Gregor answered nothing, but remained

motionless in his place, as if the door had not  been opened at all. If only, instead of allowing

this cleaning woman to disturb him uselessly  whenever she felt like it, they had instead

given her orders to clean up his room every day!  One day in the early morning (a hard downpour,

perhaps already a sign of the coming spring,  struck the window panes) when the cleaning woman

started up once again with her usual conversation,  Gregor was so bitter that he turned towards her,

as if for an attack, although slowly and  weakly. But instead of being afraid of him,

the cleaning woman merely lifted up a chair  standing close by the door and, as she stood there

with her mouth wide open, her intention was clear:  she would close her mouth only when the chair in

her hand had been thrown down on Gregor's back.  "This goes no further, all right?" she asked,

as Gregor turned himself around again, and she  placed the chair calmly back in the corner.

Gregor ate hardly anything any more. Only  when he chanced to move past the food which

had been prepared did he, as a game, take a  bit into his mouth, hold it there for hours,

and generally spit it out again. At first he  thought it might be his sadness over the condition

of his room which kept him from eating, but he  very soon became reconciled to the alterations

in his room. People had grown accustomed to  put into storage in his room things which they

couldn't put anywhere else, and at this point  there were many such things, now that they had

rented one room of the apartment to three lodgers.  These solemn gentlemen (all three had full beards,

as Gregor once found out through a crack in  the door) were meticulously intent on tidiness,

not only in their own room but (since they had now  rented a room here) in the entire household, and

particularly in the kitchen. They simply did not  tolerate any useless or shoddy stuff. Moreover,

for the most part they had brought with them  their own pieces of furniture. Thus, many items

had become superfluous, and these were not really  things one could sell or things people wanted to

throw out. All these items ended up in Gregor's  room, even the box of ashes and the garbage pail

from the kitchen. The cleaning woman, always in a  hurry, simply flung anything that was momentarily

useless into Gregor's room. Fortunately Gregor  generally saw only the relevant object and the

hand which held it. The cleaning woman perhaps  was intending, when time and opportunity allowed,

to take the stuff out again or to throw everything  out all at once, but in fact the things remained

lying there, wherever they had ended up at the  first throw, unless Gregor squirmed his way

through the accumulation of junk and moved it. At  first he was forced to do this because otherwise

there was no room for him to creep around, but  later he did it with a with a growing pleasure,

although after such movements, tired to death  and feeling wretched, he didn't budge for hours.

Because the lodgers sometimes also took their  evening meal at home in the common living room,

the door to the living room stayed shut on many  evenings. But Gregor had no trouble at all going

without the open door. Already on many evenings  when it was open he had not availed himself of it,

but, without the family noticing, was stretched  out in the darkest corner of his room. However,

once the cleaning woman had left the  door to the living room slightly ajar,

and it remained open even when the lodgers  came in in the evening and the lights were

put on. They sat down at the head of the  table, where in earlier days the mother,

the father, and Gregor had eaten, unfolded their  serviettes, and picked up their knives and forks.

The mother immediately appeared in the door  with a dish of meat and right behind her the

sister with a dish piled high with potatoes.  The food gave off a lot of steam. The gentlemen

lodgers bent over the plate set before them,  as if they wanted to check it before eating,

and in fact the one who sat in the middle (for the  other two he seemed to serve as the authority) cut

off a piece of meat still on the plate obviously  to establish whether it was sufficiently

tender and whether or not something should be  shipped back to the kitchen. He was satisfied,

and mother and sister, who had looked on in  suspense, began to breathe easily and to smile.

The family itself ate in the kitchen. In spite  of that, before the father went into the kitchen,

he came into the room and with a single bow, cap  in hand, made a tour of the table. The lodgers

rose up collectively and murmured something  in their beards. Then, when they were alone,

they ate almost in complete silence. It seemed odd  to Gregor that out of all the many different sorts

of sounds of eating, what was always audible was  their chewing teeth, as if by that Gregor should

be shown that people needed their teeth to eat  and that nothing could be done even with the

most handsome toothless jawbone. "I really do have  an appetite," Gregor said to himself sorrowfully,

"but not for these things. How these  lodgers stuff themselves, and I am dying."

On this very evening (Gregor didn't remember  hearing the violin all through this period) it

sounded from the kitchen. The lodgers  had already ended their night meal,

the middle one had pulled out a newspaper  and had given each of the other two a page,

and they were now leaning back, reading and  smoking. When the violin started playing,

they became attentive, got up, and went on tiptoe  to the hall door, at which they remained standing

pressed up against one another. They must  have been audible from the kitchen, because

the father called out "Perhaps the gentlemen  don't like the playing? It can be stopped at

once." "On the contrary," stated the lodger in  the middle, "might the young woman not come into

us and play in the room here where it is really  much more comfortable and cheerful?" "Oh, thank

you," cried out the father, as if he were the one  playing the violin. The men stepped back into the

room and waited. Soon the father came with the  music stand, the mother with the sheet music,

and the sister with the violin. The sister calmly  prepared everything for the recital. The parents,

who had never previously rented a room  and therefore exaggerated their politeness

to the lodgers, dared not sit on their own  chairs. The father leaned against the door,

his right hand stuck between two buttons of  his buttoned up uniform. The mother, however,

accepted a chair offered by one lodger. Since she  left the chair sit where the gentleman had chanced

to put it, she sat to one side in a corner. The sister began to play. The father and mother,

followed attentively, one on each side, the  movements of her hands. Attracted by the playing,

Gregor had ventured to advance a little further  forward and his head was already in the living

room. He scarcely wondered about the fact that  recently he had had so little consideration for

the others; earlier this consideration had  been something he was proud of. And for that

very reason he would've had at this moment more  reason to hide away, because as a result of the

dust which lay all over his room and flew  around with the slightest movement, he was

totally covered in dirt. On his back and his sides  he carted around with him dust, threads, hair, and

remnants of food. His indifference to everything  was much too great for him to lie on his back and

scour himself on the carpet, as he often had  done earlier during the day. In spite of his

condition he had no timidity about inching forward  a bit on the spotless floor of the living room.

In any case, no one paid him any attention. The  family was all caught up in the violin playing.

The lodgers, by contrast, who for the moment had  placed themselves, their hands in their trouser

pockets, behind the music stand much too close to  the sister, so that they could all see the sheet

music, something that must certainly bother the  sister, soon drew back to the window conversing

in low voices with bowed heads, where they then  remained, worriedly observed by the father. It

now seemed really clear that, having assumed they  were to hear a beautiful or entertaining violin

recital, they were disappointed, and were allowing  their peace and quiet to be disturbed only out of

politeness. The way in which they all blew the  smoke from their cigars out of their noses and

mouths in particular led one to conclude that  they were very irritated. And yet his sister

was playing so beautifully. Her face was turned to  the side, her gaze followed the score intently and

sadly. Gregor crept forward still a little further  and kept his head close against the floor in order

to be able to catch her gaze if possible. Was he  an animal that music so seized him? For him it was

as if the way to the unknown nourishment he craved  was revealing itself to him. He was determined to

press forward right to his sister, to tug at  her dress and to indicate to her in this way

that she might still come with her violin into his  room, because here no one valued the recital as he

wanted to value it. He did not wish to let her go  from his room any more, at least not as long as

he lived. His frightening appearance would for the  first time become useful for him. He wanted to be

at all the doors of his room simultaneously  and snarl back at the attackers. However,

his sister should not be compelled but would  remain with him voluntarily; she would sit next

to him on the sofa, bend down her ear to him,  and he would then confide in her that he firmly

intended to send her to the conservatory and that,  if his misfortune had not arrived in the interim,

he would have declared all this last Christmas  (had Christmas really already come and gone?),

and would have brooked no argument. After this  explanation his sister would break out in tears

of emotion, and Gregor would lift himself up  to her armpit and kiss her throat, which she,

from the time she started going to work, had  left exposed without a band or a collar.

"Mr. Samsa," called out the middle lodger  to the father, and pointed his index finger,

without uttering a further word, at Gregor as  he was moving slowly forward. The violin fell

silent. The middle lodger smiled, first  shaking his head once at his friends,

and then looked down at Gregor once more. Rather  than driving Gregor back again, the father seemed

to consider it of prime importance to calm down  the lodgers, although they were not at all upset

and Gregor seemed to entertain them more than  the violin recital. The father hurried over to

them and with outstretched arms tried to push  them into their own room and simultaneously to

block their view of Gregor with his own body. At  this point they became really somewhat irritated,

although one no longer knew whether that was  because of the father's behaviour or because

of knowledge they had just acquired that they had  had, without knowing it, a neighbour like Gregor.

They demanded explanations from his father, raised  their arms to make their points, tugged agitatedly

at their beards, and moved back towards their room  quite slowly. In the meantime, the isolation which

had suddenly fallen upon his sister after the  sudden breaking off of the recital had overwhelmed

her. She had held onto the violin and bow in her  limp hands for a little while and had continued

to look at the sheet music as if she was still  playing. All at once she pulled herself together,

placed the instrument in her mother's lap (the  mother was still sitting in her chair having

trouble breathing and with her lungs labouring)  and had run into the next room, which the lodgers,

pressured by the father, were already approaching  more rapidly. One could observe how under the

sister's practiced hands the sheets and pillows  on the beds were thrown on high and arranged. Even

before the lodgers had reached the room, she  was finished fixing the beds and was slipping

out. The father seemed so gripped once again with  his stubbornness that he forgot about the respect

which he always owed to his renters. He pressed on  and on, until at the door of the room the middle

gentleman stamped loudly with his foot and thus  brought the father to a standstill. "I hereby

declare," the middle lodger said, raising his hand  and casting his glance both on the mother and the

sister, "that considering the disgraceful  conditions prevailing in this apartment and

family," with this he spat decisively on the  floor, "I immediately cancel my room. I will,

of course, pay nothing at all for the days which  I have lived here; on the contrary I shall think

about whether or not I will initiate some sort  of action against you, something whichbelieve

me will be very easy to establish." He fell silent  and looked directly in front of him, as if he was

waiting for something. In fact, his two friends  immediately joined in with their opinions, "We

also give immediate notice." At that he seized the  door handle, banged the door shut, and locked it.

The father groped his way tottering to his chair  and let himself fall in it. It looked as if he

was stretching out for his usual evening snooze,  but the heavy nodding of his head (which looked

as if it was without support) showed that he was  not sleeping at all. Gregor had lain motionless

the entire time in the spot where the lodgers had  caught him. Disappointment with the collapse of

his plan and perhaps also his weakness brought on  his severe hunger made it impossible for him to

move. He was certainly afraid that a general  disaster would break over him at any moment,

and he waited. He was not even startled  when the violin fell from the mother's lap,

out from under her trembling fingers,  and gave off a reverberating tone.

"My dear parents," said the sister banging her  hand on the table by way of an introduction,

"things cannot go on any longer in this  way. Maybe if you don't understand that,

well, I do. I will not utter my brother's name in  front of this monster, and thus I say only that

we must try to get rid of it. We have tried what  is humanly possible to take care of it and to be

patient. I believe that no one can criticize us  in the slightest." "She is right in a thousand

ways," said the father to himself. The mother,  who was still incapable of breathing properly,

began to cough numbly with her hand held up over  her mouth and a manic expression in her eyes.

The sister hurried over to her mother and held  her forehead. The sister's words seemed to have

led the father to certain reflections.  He sat upright, played with his uniform

hat among the plates, which still lay on  the table from the lodgers' evening meal,

and looked now and then at the motionless Gregor. "We must try to get rid of it," the sister now

said decisively to the father, for the mother, in  her coughing fit, wasn't listening to anything,

"it is killing you both. I see it coming.  When people have to work as hard as we all do,

they cannot also tolerate this endless torment  at home. I just can't go on any more." And she

broke out into such a crying fit that her  tears flowed out down onto her mother's

face. She wiped them off her mother  with mechanical motions of her hands.

"Child," said the father sympathetically and with  obvious appreciation, "then what should we do?"

The sister only shrugged her shoulders  as a sign of the perplexity which,

in contrast to her previous confidence,  had come over her while she was crying.

"If only he understood us," said the father in a  semi-questioning tone. The sister, in the midst

of her sobbing, shook her hand energetically as  a sign that there was no point thinking of that.

"If he only understood us," repeated  the father and by shutting his eyes

he absorbed the sister's conviction  of the impossibility of this point,

"then perhaps some compromise would  be possible with him. But as it is..."

"It must be gotten rid of," cried the sister;  "That is the only way, father. You must try

to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor.  The fact that we have believed for so long,

that is truly our real misfortune. But  how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor,

he would have long ago realized that a communal  life among human beings is not possible with such

an animal and would have gone away voluntarily.  Then we would not have a brother, but we could

go on living and honour his memory. But this  animal plagues us. It drives away the lodgers,

will obviously take over the entire apartment,  and leave us to spend the night in the alley.

Just look, father," she suddenly cried out,  "he's already starting up again." With a

fright which was totally incomprehensible  to Gregor, the sister even left the mother,

pushed herself away from her chair, as if she  would sooner sacrifice her mother than remain

in Gregor's vicinity, and rushed behind her  father who, excited merely by her behaviour,

also stood up and half raised his arms in  front of the sister as though to protect her.

But Gregor did not have any notion of wishing to  create problems for anyone and certainly not for

his sister. He had just started to turn himself  around in order to creep back into his room,

quite a startling sight, since, as  a result of his suffering condition,

he had to guide himself through the  difficulty of turning around with his head,

in this process lifting and banging it against  the floor several times. He paused and looked

around. His good intentions seem to have been  recognized. The fright had only lasted for a

moment. Now they looked at him in silence  and sorrow. His mother lay in her chair,

with her legs stretched out and pressed together;  her eyes were almost shut from weariness. The

father and sister sat next to one another. The  sister had set her hands around the father's neck.

" Now perhaps I can actually turn myself  around," thought Gregor and began the

task again. He couldn't stop puffing at  the effort and had to rest now and then.

Besides no on was urging him on.  It was all left to him on his own.

When he had completed turning around, he  immediately began to wander straight back.

He was astonished at the great distance  which separated him from his room and did

not understand in the least how in his weakness he  had covered the same distance a short time before,

almost without noticing it. Constantly  intent only on creeping along quickly,

he hardly paid any attention to the fact that  no word or cry from his family interrupted him.

Only when he was already in the door  did he turn his head, not completely,

because he felt his neck growing stiff. At any  rate he still saw that behind him nothing had

changed. Only the sister was standing up. His  last glimpse brushed over the mother who was

now completely asleep. Hardly was he inside his  room when the door was pushed shut very quickly,

bolted fast, and barred. Gregor was startled by  the sudden commotion behind him, so much so that

his little limbs bent double under him. It was his  sister who had been in such a hurry. She had stood

up right away, had waited, and had then sprung  forward nimbly. Gregor had not heard anything of

her approach. She cried out "Finally!" to her  parents, as she turned the key in the lock.

"What now?" Gregor asked himself and looked around  him in the darkness. He soon made the discovery

that he could no longer move at all. He was not  surprised at that. On the contrary, it struck him

as unnatural that he had really been able up  to this point to move around with these thin

little legs. Besides he felt relatively content.  True, he had pains throughout his entire body,

but it seemed to him that they were gradually  becoming weaker and weaker and would finally go

away completely. The rotten apple in his back  and the inflamed surrounding area, entirely

covered with white dust, he hardly noticed.  He remembered his family with deep feeling

and love. In this business, his own thought that  he had to disappear was, if possible, even more

decisive than his sister's. He remained in this  state of empty and peaceful reflection until the

tower clock struck three o'clock in the morning.  From the window he witnessed the beginning of

the general dawning outside. Then without willing  it, his head sank all the way down, and from his

nostrils flowed out weakly out his last breath. Early in the morning the cleaning woman came.

In her sheer energy and haste she banged all  the doors (in precisely the way people had

already asked her to avoid), so much so that  once she arrived a quiet sleep was no longer

possible anywhere in the entire apartment. In  her customarily brief visit to Gregor she at

first found nothing special. She thought he lay  so immobile there intending to play the offended

party. She gave him credit for as complete an  understanding as possible. Because she happened

to hold the long broom in her hand, she tried to  tickle Gregor with it from the door. When that was

quite unsuccessful, she became irritated and poked  Gregor a little, and only when she had shoved him

from his place without any resistance did she  become attentive. When she quickly realized the

true state of affairs, her eyes grew large, she  whistled to herself, but didn't restrain herself

for long. She pulled open the door of the bedroom  and yelled in a loud voice into the darkness,

"Come and look. It's kicked the bucket.  It's lying there, totally snuffed!"

The Samsa married couple sat upright in their  marriage bed and had to get over their fright

at the cleaning woman before they managed to grasp  her message. But then Mr. and Mrs. Samsa climbed

very quickly out of bed, one on either side. Mr.  Samsa threw the bedspread over his shoulders,

Mrs. Samsa came out only in her night-shirt,  and like this they stepped into Gregor's room.

Meanwhile the door of the living room (in which  Grete had slept since the lodgers had arrived on

the scene) had also opened. She was fully clothed,  as if she had not slept at all; her white face

also seem to indicate that. "Dead?" said Mrs.  Samsa and looked questioningly at the cleaning

woman, although she could check everything on  her own and even understand without a check.

"I should say so," said the cleaning woman  and, by way of proof, poked Gregor's body

with the broom a considerable distance more  to the side. Mrs. Samsa made a movement as if

she wished to restrain the broom, but  didn't do it. "Well," said Mr. Samsa,

"now we can give thanks to God." He crossed  himself, and the three women followed his example.

Grete, who did not take her eyes off the corpse,  said, "Look how thin he was. He had eaten nothing

for such a long time. The meals which came in  here came out again exactly the same." In fact,

Gregor's body was completely flat and dry.  That was apparent really for the first time,

now that he was no longer raised  on his small limbs and, moreover,

now that nothing else distracted one's gaze.

"Grete, come into us for a moment," said Mrs.  Samsa with a melancholy smile, and Grete went,

not without looking back at the corpse,  behind her parents into the bed room. The

cleaning woman shut the door and opened the  window wide. In spite of the early morning,

the fresh air was partly tinged with  warmth. It was already the end of March.

The three lodgers stepped out of their  room and looked around for their breakfast,

astonished that they had been forgotten.  "Where is the breakfast?" asked the middle

one of the gentlemen grumpily  to the cleaning woman. However,

she laid her finger to her lips and then quickly  and silently indicated to the lodgers that they

could come into Gregor's room. So they came  and stood around Gregor's corpse, their hands

in the pockets of their somewhat worn jackets,  in the room, which was already quite bright.

Then the door of the bed room opened,  and Mr. Samsa appeared in his uniform,

with his wife on one arm and his  daughter on the other. All were a

little tear stained. Now and then Grete  pressed her face onto her father's arm.

"Get out of my apartment immediately,"  said Mr. Samsa and pulled open the door,

without letting go of the women. "What  do you mean?" said the middle lodger,

somewhat dismayed and with a sugary smile. The two  others kept their hands behind them and constantly

rubbed them against each other, as if in joyful  anticipation of a great squabble which must end

up in their favour. "I mean exactly what I say,"  replied Mr. Samsa and went directly with his two

female companions up to the lodger. The latter  at first stood there motionless and looked at

the floor, as if matters were arranging themselves  in a new way in his head. "All right, then we'll

go," he said and looked up at Mr. Samsa as if,  suddenly overcome by humility, he was asking fresh

permission for this decision. Mr. Samsa merely  nodded to him repeatedly with his eyes open wide.

Following that, the lodger actually went  immediately with long strides into the hall. His

two friends had already been listening for a while  with their hands quite still, and now they hopped

smartly after him, as if afraid that Mr. Samsa  could step into the hall ahead of them and disturb

their reunion with their leader. In the hall all  three of them took their hats from the coat rack,

pulled their canes from the cane holder, bowed  silently, and left the apartment. In what turned

out to be an entirely groundless mistrust, Mr.  Samsa stepped with the two women out onto the

landing, leaned against the railing, and looked  down as the three lodgers slowly but steadily made

their way down the long staircase, disappeared  on each floor in a certain turn of the stairwell

and in a few seconds came out again. The deeper  they proceeded, the more the Samsa family lost

interest in them, and when a butcher with a  tray on his head come to meet them and then

with a proud bearing ascended the stairs high  above them, Mr. Samsa., together with the women,

left the banister, and they all returned,  as if relieved, back into their apartment.

They decided to pass that day resting and going  for a stroll. Not only had they earned this

break from work, but there was no question that  they really needed it. And so they sat down at

the table and wrote three letters of apology: Mr.  Samsa to his supervisor, Mrs. Samsa to her client,

and Grete to her proprietor. During the writing  the cleaning woman came in to say that she was

going off, for her morning work was finished.  The three people writing at first merely nodded,

without glancing up. Only when the cleaning  woman was still unwilling to depart,

did they look up angrily. "Well?" asked Mr. Samsa.  The cleaning woman stood smiling in the doorway,

as if she had a great stroke of luck to report  to the family but would only do it if she was

asked directly. The almost upright small ostrich  feather in her hat, which had irritated Mr. Samsa

during her entire service, swayed lightly in all  directions. "All right then, what do you really

want?" asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaning lady  still usually respected. "Well," answered the

cleaning woman (smiling so happily she couldn't go  on speaking right away), "about how that rubbish

from the next room should be thrown out,  you mustn't worry about it. It's all taken

care of." Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down to their  letters, as though they wanted to go on writing;

Mr. Samsa, who noticed that the cleaning woman  wanted to start describing everything in detail,

decisively prevented her with an outstretched  hand. But since she was not allowed to explain,

she remembered the great hurry she was in,  and called out, clearly insulted, "Ta ta,

everyone," turned around furiously and left the  apartment with a fearful slamming of the door.

"This evening she'll be let go," said Mr. Samsa,  but he got no answer from either his wife or from

his daughter, because the cleaning woman seemed  to have upset once again the tranquility they had

just attained. They got up, went to the window  and remained there, with their arms about each

other. Mr. Samsa turned around in his chair in  their direction and observed them quietly for a

while. Then he called out, "All right, come here  then. Let's finally get rid of old things. And

have a little consideration for me." The women  attended to him at once. They rushed to him,

caressed him, and quickly ended their letters. Then all three left the apartment together,

something they had not done for months now,  and took the electric tram into the open air

outside the city. The car in which they were  sitting by themselves was totally engulfed by

the warm sun. They talked to each other,  leaning back comfortably in their seats,

about future prospects, and they discovered that  on closer observation these were not at all bad,

for all three had employment, about which they  had not really questioned each other at all,

which was extremely favorable and with especially  promising prospects. The greatest improvement in

their situation at this moment, of course, had to  come from a change of dwelling. Now they wanted to

rent an apartment smaller and cheaper but better  situated and generally more practical than the

present one, which Gregor had found. While they  amused themselves in this way, it struck Mr. and

Mrs. Samsa almost at the same moment how their  daughter, who was getting more animated all the

time, had blossomed recently, in spite of all the  troubles which had made her cheeks pale, into a

beautiful and voluptuous young woman. Growing more  silent and almost unconsciously understanding each

other in their glances, they thought that the time  was now at hand to seek out a good honest man for

her. And it was something of a confirmation  of their new dreams and good intentions when

at the end of their journey the daughter first  lifted herself up and stretched her young body.

Thank you for listening.

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