Bab Bab 3 · 第3章

No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor’s flesh, so it

remained there as a visible reminder of his injury. He had suffered it

there for more than a month, and his condition seemed serious enough to

remind even his father that Gregor, despite his current sad and

revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated as an

enemy. On the contrary, as a family there was a duty to swallow any

revulsion for him and to be patient, just to be patient.

Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility—probably

permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid

and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across his room—crawling

over the ceiling was out of the question—but this deterioration in his

condition was fully (in his opinion) made up for by the door to the

living room being left open every evening. He got into the habit of

closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then,

lying in the darkness of his room where he could not be seen from the

living room, he could watch the family in the light of the dinner table

and listen to their conversation—with everyone’s permission, in a way,

and thus quite differently from before.

They no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of

course, the ones that Gregor always thought about with longing when he

was tired and getting into the damp bed in some small hotel room. All

of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, his father

would go to sleep in his chair; his mother and sister would urge each

other to be quiet; his mother, bent deeply under the lamp, would sew

fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his sister, who had taken a sales

job, learned shorthand and French in the evenings so that she might be

able to get a better position later on. Sometimes his father would wake

up and say to Gregor’s mother “you’re doing so much sewing again

today!”, as if he did not know that he had been dozing—and then he

would go back to sleep again while mother and sister would exchange a

tired grin.

With a kind of stubbornness, Gregor’s father refused to take his

uniform off even at home; while his nightgown hung unused on its peg

Gregor’s father would slumber where he was, fully dressed, as if always

ready to serve and expecting to hear the voice of his superior even

here. The uniform had not been new to start with, but as a result of

this it slowly became even shabbier despite the efforts of Gregor’s

mother and sister to look after it. Gregor would often spend the whole

evening looking at all the stains on this coat, with its gold buttons

always kept polished and shiny, while the old man in it would sleep,

highly uncomfortable but peaceful.

As soon as it struck ten, Gregor’s mother would speak gently to his

father to wake him and try to persuade him to go to bed, as he couldn’t

sleep properly where he was and he really had to get his sleep if he

was to be up at six to get to work. But since he had been in work he

had become more obstinate and would always insist on staying longer at

the table, even though he regularly fell asleep and it was then harder

than ever to persuade him to exchange the chair for his bed. Then,

however much mother and sister would importune him with little

reproaches and warnings he would keep slowly shaking his head for a

quarter of an hour with his eyes closed and refusing to get up.

Gregor’s mother would tug at his sleeve, whisper endearments into his

ear, Gregor’s sister would leave her work to help her mother, but

nothing would have any effect on him. He would just sink deeper into

his chair. Only when the two women took him under the arms he would

abruptly open his eyes, look at them one after the other and say: “What

a life! This is what peace I get in my old age!” And supported by the

two women he would lift himself up carefully as if he were carrying the

greatest load himself, let the women take him to the door, send them

off and carry on by himself while Gregor’s mother would throw down her

needle and his sister her pen so that they could run after his father

and continue being of help to him.

Who, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to give

more attention to Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The household

budget became even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed; an enormous,

thick-boned charwoman with white hair that flapped around her head came

every morning and evening to do the heaviest work; everything else was

looked after by Gregor’s mother on top of the large amount of sewing

work she did. Gregor even learned, listening to the evening

conversation about what price they had hoped for, that several items of

jewellery belonging to the family had been sold, even though both

mother and sister had been very fond of wearing them at functions and

celebrations. But the loudest complaint was that although the flat was

much too big for their present circumstances, they could not move out

of it, there was no imaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new

address. He could see quite well, though, that there were more reasons

than consideration for him that made it difficult for them to move, it

would have been quite easy to transport him in any suitable crate with

a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the family back from

their decision to move was much more to do with their total despair,

and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune unlike

anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related to. They

carried out absolutely everything that the world expects from poor

people, Gregor’s father brought bank employees their breakfast, his

mother sacrificed herself by washing clothes for strangers, his sister

ran back and forth behind her desk at the behest of the customers, but

they just did not have the strength to do any more. And the injury in

Gregor’s back began to hurt as much as when it was new. After they had

come back from taking his father to bed Gregor’s mother and sister

would now leave their work where it was and sit close together, cheek

to cheek; his mother would point to Gregor’s room and say “Close that

door, Grete”, and then, when he was in the dark again, they would sit

in the next room and their tears would mingle, or they would simply sit

there staring dry-eyed at the table.

Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would

think of taking over the family’s affairs, just like before, the next

time the door was opened; he had long forgotten about his boss and the

chief clerk, but they would appear again in his thoughts, the salesmen

and the apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three friends from

other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a provincial hotel, a

tender memory that appeared and disappeared again, a cashier from a hat

shop for whom his attention had been serious but too slow,—all of them

appeared to him, mixed together with strangers and others he had

forgotten, but instead of helping him and his family they were all of

them inaccessible, and he was glad when they disappeared. Other times

he was not at all in the mood to look after his family, he was filled

with simple rage about the lack of attention he was shown, and although

he could think of nothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he

could get into the pantry where he could take all the things he was

entitled to, even if he was not hungry. Gregor’s sister no longer

thought about how she could please him but would hurriedly push some

food or other into his room with her foot before she rushed out to work

in the morning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it

away again with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten

or—more often than not—had been left totally untouched. She still

cleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been any

quicker about it. Smears of dirt were left on the walls, here and there

were little balls of dust and filth. At first, Gregor went into one of

the worst of these places when his sister arrived as a reproach to her,

but he could have stayed there for weeks without his sister doing

anything about it; she could see the dirt as well as he could but she

had simply decided to leave him to it. At the same time she became

touchy in a way that was quite new for her and which everyone in the

family understood—cleaning up Gregor’s room was for her and her alone.

Gregor’s mother did once thoroughly clean his room, and needed to use

several bucketfuls of water to do it—although that much dampness also

made Gregor ill and he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But

his mother was to be punished still more for what she had done, as

hardly had his sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the

change in Gregor’s room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living

room where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she broke

into convulsive tears. Her father, of course, was startled out of his

chair and the two parents looked on astonished and helpless; then they,

too, became agitated; Gregor’s father, standing to the right of his

mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning of Gregor’s room to his

sister; from her left, Gregor’s sister screamed at her that she was

never to clean Gregor’s room again; while his mother tried to draw his

father, who was beside himself with anger, into the bedroom; his

sister, quaking with tears, thumped on the table with her small fists;

and Gregor hissed in anger that no-one had even thought of closing the

door to save him the sight of this and all its noise.

Gregor’s sister was exhausted from going out to work, and looking after

Gregor as she had done before was even more work for her, but even so

his mother ought certainly not to have taken her place. Gregor, on the

other hand, ought not to be neglected. Now, though, the charwoman was

here. This elderly widow, with a robust bone structure that made her

able to withstand the hardest of things in her long life, wasn’t really

repelled by Gregor. Just by chance one day, rather than any real

curiosity, she opened the door to Gregor’s room and found herself face

to face with him. He was taken totally by surprise, no-one was chasing

him but he began to rush to and fro while she just stood there in

amazement with her hands crossed in front of her. From then on she

never failed to open the door slightly every evening and morning and

look briefly in on him. At first she would call to him as she did so

with words that she probably considered friendly, such as “come on

then, you old dung-beetle!”, or “look at the old dung-beetle there!”

Gregor never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just

remained where he was without moving as if the door had never even been

opened. If only they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every

day instead of letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt

like it! One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the

windowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she began to

speak to him in that way once again. Gregor was so resentful of it that

he started to move toward her, he was slow and infirm, but it was like

a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the charwoman just lifted up

one of the chairs from near the door and stood there with her mouth

open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the chair in her

hand had been slammed down into Gregor’s back. “Aren’t you coming any

closer, then?”, she asked when Gregor turned round again, and she

calmly put the chair back in the corner.

Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to find

himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he might take

some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there a few hours

and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At first he thought

it was distress at the state of his room that stopped him eating, but

he had soon got used to the changes made there. They had got into the

habit of putting things into this room that they had no room for

anywhere else, and there were now many such things as one of the rooms

in the flat had been rented out to three gentlemen. These earnest

gentlemen—all three of them had full beards, as Gregor learned peering

through the crack in the door one day—were painfully insistent on

things’ being tidy. This meant not only in their own room but, since

they had taken a room in this establishment, in the entire flat and

especially in the kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could

not tolerate, especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought

most of their own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason,

many things had become superfluous which, although they could not be

sold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found their

way into Gregor’s room. The dustbins from the kitchen found their way

in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and anything she

couldn’t use for the time being she would just chuck in there. He,

fortunately, would usually see no more than the object and the hand

that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the things back out

again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw everything out

in one go, but what actually happened was that they were left where

they landed when they had first been thrown unless Gregor made his way

through the junk and moved it somewhere else. At first he moved it

because, with no other room free where he could crawl about, he was

forced to, but later on he came to enjoy it although moving about in

that way left him sad and tired to death, and he would remain immobile

for hours afterwards.

The gentlemen who rented the room would sometimes take their evening

meal at home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so the

door to this room was often kept closed in the evening. But Gregor

found it easy to give up having the door open, he had, after all, often

failed to make use of it when it was open and, without the family

having noticed it, lain in his room in its darkest corner. One time,

though, the charwoman left the door to the living room slightly open,

and it remained open when the gentlemen who rented the room came in in

the evening and the light was put on. They sat up at the table where,

formerly, Gregor had taken his meals with his father and mother, they

unfolded the serviettes and picked up their knives and forks. Gregor’s

mother immediately appeared in the doorway with a dish of meat and soon

behind her came his sister with a dish piled high with potatoes. The

food was steaming, and filled the room with its smell. The gentlemen

bent over the dishes set in front of them as if they wanted to test the

food before eating it, and the gentleman in the middle, who seemed to

count as an authority for the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of

meat while it was still in its dish, clearly wishing to establish

whether it was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to

the kitchen. It was to his satisfaction, and Gregor’s mother and

sister, who had been looking on anxiously, began to breathe again and

smiled.

The family themselves ate in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor’s father

came into the living room before he went into the kitchen, bowed once

with his cap in his hand and did his round of the table. The gentlemen

stood as one, and mumbled something into their beards. Then, once they

were alone, they ate in near perfect silence. It seemed remarkable to

Gregor that above all the various noises of eating their chewing teeth

could still be heard, as if they had wanted to show Gregor that you

need teeth in order to eat and it was not possible to perform anything

with jaws that are toothless however nice they might be. “I’d like to

eat something”, said Gregor anxiously, “but not anything like they’re

eating. They do feed themselves. And here I am, dying!”

Throughout all this time, Gregor could not remember having heard the

violin being played, but this evening it began to be heard from the

kitchen. The three gentlemen had already finished their meal, the one

in the middle had produced a newspaper, given a page to each of the

others, and now they leant back in their chairs reading them and

smoking. When the violin began playing they became attentive, stood up

and went on tip-toe over to the door of the hallway where they stood

pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in the

kitchen, as Gregor’s father called out: “Is the playing perhaps

unpleasant for the gentlemen? We can stop it straight away.” “On the

contrary”, said the middle gentleman, “would the young lady not like to

come in and play for us here in the room, where it is, after all, much

more cosy and comfortable?” “Oh yes, we’d love to”, called back

Gregor’s father as if he had been the violin player himself. The

gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited. Gregor’s father soon

appeared with the music stand, his mother with the music and his sister

with the violin. She calmly prepared everything for her to begin

playing; his parents, who had never rented a room out before and

therefore showed an exaggerated courtesy towards the three gentlemen,

did not even dare to sit on their own chairs; his father leant against

the door with his right hand pushed in between two buttons on his

uniform coat; his mother, though, was offered a seat by one of the

gentlemen and sat—leaving the chair where the gentleman happened to

have placed it—out of the way in a corner.

His sister began to play; father and mother paid close attention, one

on each side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the playing,

Gregor had dared to come forward a little and already had his head in

the living room. Before, he had taken great pride in how considerate he

was but now it hardly occurred to him that he had become so thoughtless

about the others. What’s more, there was now all the more reason to

keep himself hidden as he was covered in the dust that lay everywhere

in his room and flew up at the slightest movement; he carried threads,

hairs, and remains of food about on his back and sides; he was much too

indifferent to everything now to lay on his back and wipe himself on

the carpet like he had used to do several times a day. And despite this

condition, he was not too shy to move forward a little onto the

immaculate floor of the living room.

No-one noticed him, though. The family was totally preoccupied with the

violin playing; at first, the three gentlemen had put their hands in

their pockets and come up far too close behind the music stand to look

at all the notes being played, and they must have disturbed Gregor’s

sister, but soon, in contrast with the family, they withdrew back to

the window with their heads sunk and talking to each other at half

volume, and they stayed by the window while Gregor’s father observed

them anxiously. It really now seemed very obvious that they had

expected to hear some beautiful or entertaining violin playing but had

been disappointed, that they had had enough of the whole performance

and it was only now out of politeness that they allowed their peace to

be disturbed. It was especially unnerving, the way they all blew the

smoke from their cigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses. Yet

Gregor’s sister was playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one

side, following the lines of music with a careful and melancholy

expression. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his head

close to the ground so that he could meet her eyes if the chance came.

Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? It seemed to him that

he was being shown the way to the unknown nourishment he had been

yearning for. He was determined to make his way forward to his sister

and tug at her skirt to show her she might come into his room with her

violin, as no-one appreciated her playing here as much as he would. He

never wanted to let her out of his room, not while he lived, anyway;

his shocking appearance should, for once, be of some use to him; he

wanted to be at every door of his room at once to hiss and spit at the

attackers; his sister should not be forced to stay with him, though,

but stay of her own free will; she would sit beside him on the couch

with her ear bent down to him while he told her how he had always

intended to send her to the conservatory, how he would have told

everyone about it last Christmas—had Christmas really come and gone

already?—if this misfortune hadn’t got in the way, and refuse to let

anyone dissuade him from it. On hearing all this, his sister would

break out in tears of emotion, and Gregor would climb up to her

shoulder and kiss her neck, which, since she had been going out to

work, she had kept free without any necklace or collar.

“Mr. Samsa!”, shouted the middle gentleman to Gregor’s father,

pointing, without wasting any more words, with his forefinger at Gregor

as he slowly moved forward. The violin went silent, the middle of the

three gentlemen first smiled at his two friends, shaking his head, and

then looked back at Gregor. His father seemed to think it more

important to calm the three gentlemen before driving Gregor out, even

though they were not at all upset and seemed to think Gregor was more

entertaining than the violin playing had been. He rushed up to them

with his arms spread out and attempted to drive them back into their

room at the same time as trying to block their view of Gregor with his

body. Now they did become a little annoyed, and it was not clear

whether it was his father’s behaviour that annoyed them or the dawning

realisation that they had had a neighbour like Gregor in the next room

without knowing it. They asked Gregor’s father for explanations, raised

their arms like he had, tugged excitedly at their beards and moved back

towards their room only very slowly. Meanwhile Gregor’s sister had

overcome the despair she had fallen into when her playing was suddenly

interrupted. She had let her hands drop and let violin and bow hang

limply for a while but continued to look at the music as if still

playing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together, lay the

instrument on her mother’s lap who still sat laboriously struggling for

breath where she was, and ran into the next room which, under pressure

from her father, the three gentlemen were more quickly moving toward.

Under his sister’s experienced hand, the pillows and covers on the beds

flew up and were put into order and she had already finished making the

beds and slipped out again before the three gentlemen had reached the

room. Gregor’s father seemed so obsessed with what he was doing that he

forgot all the respect he owed to his tenants. He urged them and

pressed them until, when he was already at the door of the room, the

middle of the three gentlemen shouted like thunder and stamped his foot

and thereby brought Gregor’s father to a halt. “I declare here and

now”, he said, raising his hand and glancing at Gregor’s mother and

sister to gain their attention too, “that with regard to the repugnant

conditions that prevail in this flat and with this family”—here he

looked briefly but decisively at the floor—“I give immediate notice on

my room. For the days that I have been living here I will, of course,

pay nothing at all, on the contrary I will consider whether to proceed

with some kind of action for damages from you, and believe me it would

be very easy to set out the grounds for such an action.” He was silent

and looked straight ahead as if waiting for something. And indeed, his

two friends joined in with the words: “And we also give immediate

notice.” With that, he took hold of the door handle and slammed the

door.

Gregor’s father staggered back to his seat, feeling his way with his

hands, and fell into it; it looked as if he was stretching himself out

for his usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way his head kept

nodding it could be seen that he was not sleeping at all. Throughout

all this, Gregor had lain still where the three gentlemen had first

seen him. His disappointment at the failure of his plan, and perhaps

also because he was weak from hunger, made it impossible for him to

move. He was sure that everyone would turn on him any moment, and he

waited. He was not even startled out of this state when the violin on

his mother’s lap fell from her trembling fingers and landed loudly on

the floor.

“Father, Mother”, said his sister, hitting the table with her hand as

introduction, “we can’t carry on like this. Maybe you can’t see it, but

I can. I don’t want to call this monster my brother, all I can say is:

we have to try and get rid of it. We’ve done all that’s humanly

possible to look after it and be patient, I don’t think anyone could

accuse us of doing anything wrong.”

“She’s absolutely right”, said Gregor’s father to himself. His mother,

who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to cough dully,

her hand held out in front of her and a deranged expression in her

eyes.

Gregor’s sister rushed to his mother and put her hand on her forehead.

Her words seemed to give Gregor’s father some more definite ideas. He

sat upright, played with his uniform cap between the plates left by the

three gentlemen after their meal, and occasionally looked down at

Gregor as he lay there immobile.

“We have to try and get rid of it”, said Gregor’s sister, now speaking

only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with coughing to

listen, “it’ll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming. We

can’t all work as hard as we have to and then come home to be tortured

like this, we can’t endure it. I can’t endure it any more.” And she

broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down the face of her

mother, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand movements.

“My child”, said her father with sympathy and obvious understanding,

“what are we to do?”

His sister just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness

and tears that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier certainty.

“If he could just understand us”, said his father almost as a question;

his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as a sign that

of that there was no question.

“If he could just understand us”, repeated Gregor’s father, closing his

eyes in acceptance of his sister’s certainty that that was quite

impossible, “then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement

with him. But as it is ...”

“It’s got to go”, shouted his sister, “that’s the only way, Father.

You’ve got to get rid of the idea that that’s Gregor. We’ve only harmed

ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be Gregor? If it

were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it’s not possible for

human beings to live with an animal like that and he would have gone of

his own free will. We wouldn’t have a brother any more, then, but we

could carry on with our lives and remember him with respect. As it is

this animal is persecuting us, it’s driven out our tenants, it

obviously wants to take over the whole flat and force us to sleep on

the streets. Father, look, just look”, she suddenly screamed, “he’s

starting again!” In her alarm, which was totally beyond Gregor’s

comprehension, his sister even abandoned his mother as she pushed

herself vigorously out of her chair as if more willing to sacrifice her

own mother than stay anywhere near Gregor. She rushed over to behind

her father, who had become excited merely because she was and stood up

half raising his hands in front of Gregor’s sister as if to protect

her.

But Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all his

sister. All he had done was begin to turn round so that he could go

back into his room, although that was in itself quite startling as his

pain-wracked condition meant that turning round required a great deal

of effort and he was using his head to help himself do it, repeatedly

raising it and striking it against the floor. He stopped and looked

round. They seemed to have realised his good intention and had only

been alarmed briefly. Now they all looked at him in unhappy silence.

His mother lay in her chair with her legs stretched out and pressed

against each other, her eyes nearly closed with exhaustion; his sister

sat next to his father with her arms around his neck.

“Maybe now they’ll let me turn round”, thought Gregor and went back to

work. He could not help panting loudly with the effort and had

sometimes to stop and take a rest. No-one was making him rush any more,

everything was left up to him. As soon as he had finally finished

turning round he began to move straight ahead. He was amazed at the

great distance that separated him from his room, and could not

understand how he had covered that distance in his weak state a little

while before and almost without noticing it. He concentrated on

crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that there was not a

word, not any cry, from his family to distract him. He did not turn his

head until he had reached the doorway. He did not turn it all the way

round as he felt his neck becoming stiff, but it was nonetheless enough

to see that nothing behind him had changed, only his sister had stood

up. With his last glance he saw that his mother had now fallen

completely asleep.

He was hardly inside his room before the door was hurriedly shut,

bolted and locked. The sudden noise behind Gregor so startled him that

his little legs collapsed under him. It was his sister who had been in

so much of a rush. She had been standing there waiting and sprung

forward lightly, Gregor had not heard her coming at all, and as she

turned the key in the lock she said loudly to her parents “At last!”.

“What now, then?”, Gregor asked himself as he looked round in the

darkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move at

all. This was no surprise to him, it seemed rather that being able to

actually move around on those spindly little legs until then was

unnatural. He also felt relatively comfortable. It is true that his

entire body was aching, but the pain seemed to be slowly getting weaker

and weaker and would finally disappear altogether. He could already

hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the inflamed area around

it, which was entirely covered in white dust. He thought back of his

family with emotion and love. If it was possible, he felt that he must

go away even more strongly than his sister. He remained in this state

of empty and peaceful rumination until he heard the clock tower strike

three in the morning. He watched as it slowly began to get light

everywhere outside the window too. Then, without his willing it, his

head sank down completely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his

nostrils.

When the cleaner came in early in the morning—they’d often asked her

not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her hurry

she still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she’d arrived and

from then on it was impossible to sleep in peace—she made her usual

brief look in on Gregor and at first found nothing special. She thought

he was laying there so still on purpose, playing the martyr; she

attributed all possible understanding to him. She happened to be

holding the long broom in her hand, so she tried to tickle Gregor with

it from the doorway. When she had no success with that she tried to

make a nuisance of herself and poked at him a little, and only when she

found she could shove him across the floor with no resistance at all

did she start to pay attention. She soon realised what had really

happened, opened her eyes wide, whistled to herself, but did not waste

time to yank open the bedroom doors and shout loudly into the darkness

of the bedrooms: “Come and ’ave a look at this, it’s dead, just lying

there, stone dead!”

Mr. and Mrs. Samsa sat upright there in their marriage bed and had to

make an effort to get over the shock caused by the cleaner before they

could grasp what she was saying. But then, each from his own side, they

hurried out of bed. Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his shoulders,

Mrs. Samsa just came out in her nightdress; and that is how they went

into Gregor’s room. On the way they opened the door to the living room

where Grete had been sleeping since the three gentlemen had moved in;

she was fully dressed as if she had never been asleep, and the paleness

of her face seemed to confirm this. “Dead?”, asked Mrs. Samsa, looking

at the charwoman enquiringly, even though she could have checked for

herself and could have known it even without checking. “That’s what I

said”, replied the cleaner, and to prove it she gave Gregor’s body

another shove with the broom, sending it sideways across the floor.

Mrs. Samsa made a movement as if she wanted to hold back the broom, but

did not complete it. “Now then”, said Mr. Samsa, “let’s give thanks to

God for that”. He crossed himself, and the three women followed his

example. Grete, who had not taken her eyes from the corpse, said: “Just

look how thin he was. He didn’t eat anything for so long. The food came

out again just the same as when it went in”. Gregor’s body was indeed

completely dried up and flat, they had not seen it until then, but now

he was not lifted up on his little legs, nor did he do anything to make

them look away.

“Grete, come with us in here for a little while”, said Mrs. Samsa with

a pained smile, and Grete followed her parents into the bedroom but not

without looking back at the body. The cleaner shut the door and opened

the window wide. Although it was still early in the morning the fresh

air had something of warmth mixed in with it. It was already the end of

March, after all.

The three gentlemen stepped out of their room and looked round in

amazement for their breakfasts; they had been forgotten about. “Where

is our breakfast?”, the middle gentleman asked the cleaner irritably.

She just put her finger on her lips and made a quick and silent sign to

the men that they might like to come into Gregor’s room. They did so,

and stood around Gregor’s corpse with their hands in the pockets of

their well-worn coats. It was now quite light in the room.

Then the door of the bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his

uniform with his wife on one arm and his daughter on the other. All of

them had been crying a little; Grete now and then pressed her face

against her father’s arm.

“Leave my home. Now!”, said Mr. Samsa, indicating the door and without

letting the women from him. “What do you mean?”, asked the middle of

the three gentlemen somewhat disconcerted, and he smiled sweetly. The

other two held their hands behind their backs and continually rubbed

them together in gleeful anticipation of a loud quarrel which could

only end in their favour. “I mean just what I said”, answered Mr.

Samsa, and, with his two companions, went in a straight line towards

the man. At first, he stood there still, looking at the ground as if

the contents of his head were rearranging themselves into new

positions. “Alright, we’ll go then”, he said, and looked up at Mr.

Samsa as if he had been suddenly overcome with humility and wanted

permission again from Mr. Samsa for his decision. Mr. Samsa merely

opened his eyes wide and briefly nodded to him several times. At that,

and without delay, the man actually did take long strides into the

front hallway; his two friends had stopped rubbing their hands some

time before and had been listening to what was being said. Now they

jumped off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that Mr.

Samsa might go into the hallway in front of them and break the

connection with their leader. Once there, all three took their hats

from the stand, took their sticks from the holder, bowed without a word

and left the premises. Mr. Samsa and the two women followed them out

onto the landing; but they had had no reason to mistrust the men’s

intentions and as they leaned over the landing they saw how the three

gentlemen made slow but steady progress down the many steps. As they

turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and would reappear a

few moments later; the further down they went, the more that the Samsa

family lost interest in them; when a butcher’s boy, proud of posture

with his tray on his head, passed them on his way up and came nearer

than they were, Mr. Samsa and the women came away from the landing and

went, as if relieved, back into the flat.

They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation

and to go for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but

they were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote

three letters of excusal, Mr. Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa to her

contractor and Grete to her principal. The cleaner came in while they

were writing to tell them she was going, she’d finished her work for

that morning. The three of them at first just nodded without looking up

from what they were writing, and it was only when the cleaner still did

not seem to want to leave that they looked up in irritation. “Well?”,

asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in the doorway with a smile on her

face as if she had some tremendous good news to report, but would only

do it if she was clearly asked to. The almost vertical little ostrich

feather on her hat, which had been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa

all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all

directions. “What is it you want then?”, asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the

cleaner had the most respect for. “Yes”, she answered, and broke into a

friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, “well then,

that thing in there, you needn’t worry about how you’re going to get

rid of it. That’s all been sorted out.” Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down

over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were

writing; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing

everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite

clear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling them

all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in and,

clearly peeved, called out “Cheerio then, everyone”, turned round

sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went.

“Tonight she gets sacked”, said Mr. Samsa, but he received no reply

from either his wife or his daughter as the charwoman seemed to have

destroyed the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went

over to the window where they remained with their arms around each

other. Mr. Samsa twisted round in his chair to look at them and sat

there watching for a while. Then he called out: “Come here, then. Let’s

forget about all that old stuff, shall we. Come and give me a bit of

attention”. The two women immediately did as he said, hurrying over to

him where they kissed him and hugged him and then they quickly finished

their letters.

After that, the three of them left the flat together, which was

something they had not done for months, and took the tram out to the

open country outside the town. They had the tram, filled with warm

sunshine, all to themselves. Leant back comfortably on their seats,

they discussed their prospects and found that on closer examination

they were not at all bad—until then they had never asked each other

about their work but all three had jobs which were very good and held

particularly good promise for the future. The greatest improvement for

the time being, of course, would be achieved quite easily by moving

house; what they needed now was a flat that was smaller and cheaper

than the current one which had been chosen by Gregor, one that was in a

better location and, most of all, more practical. All the time, Grete

was becoming livelier. With all the worry they had been having of late

her cheeks had become pale, but, while they were talking, Mr. and Mrs.

Samsa were struck, almost simultaneously, with the thought of how their

daughter was blossoming into a well built and beautiful young lady.

They became quieter. Just from each other’s glance and almost without

knowing it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man

for her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good

intentions, as soon as they reached their destination Grete was the

first to get up and stretch out her young body.