The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (5 page)

Gregor was fed twice daily in this way, once in the morning while the parents and the maid still slept, and once after dinner was eaten while the parents napped for a short time and the sister could send the maid on some errand. The parents certainly did not want Gregor to starve, but perhaps it was as much as they could bear to hear about it, perhaps the sister wanted to save them from even the smallest possible discomfort, as they surely had enough to bear.

Gregor had no idea what excuse was used that first morning to put off the doctor and locksmith, because as no one could understand him, no one thought, including the sister, that he could understand them, and so he had to content himself, whenever his sister was in the room, with hearing a sigh now and then or an appeal to the saints. A little time later, when she was a bit more at ease—of course it was never a question of being completely at ease—Gregor sometimes caught a remark that was meant kindly or at least could be so considered. "Oh, he enjoyed it today," she said when Gregor had eaten well, or when he had not, which was more frequently the case, she would say almost sadly, "It's all been left again."

Although Gregor could get no news directly, he overheard a great deal from the neighboring rooms, and as soon as he heard voices he would run over to the corresponding door and press his entire body against it. There was no conversation, especially early on, that did not concern him even if only indirectly. At every meal for two whole days there were discussions about what should be done, but this same theme was also debated between meals, because there were always at least two family members home since no one wanted to be alone in the apartment and it certainly could not be left empty under the circumstances. Furthermore, on the very first day, the cook—it was not entirely clear what and how much she knew of the situation—begged the mother on her knees to be discharged immediately, and when she took her leave a quarter of an hour later, she was tearfully thankful for the dismissal, as if it were the greatest service they had ever conferred upon her, and with no prompting swore a dreadful oath never to breathe to anyone a word of what had happened.

Now the sister also had to cook, as did the mother, but this was not much trouble, as the family ate almost nothing. Again and again Gregor heard one encouraging another in vain to eat and receiving no answer but: "Thank you, I've had enough," or something very similar. Perhaps they did not drink either. The sister often asked the father whether he would have some beer and kindly offered to procure it herself, and when the father did not reply she suggested that she could send the janitor's wife to fetch it to offset any hesitation, but then in the end the father answered with a firm "No," and it was discussed no further.

In the course of the very first day, the father explained the family's financial position and prospects to both the mother and the sister. Now and then he rose from the table to get some receipt or notebook from the small safe he had managed to rescue from the collapse of his business five years earlier. He could be heard opening the complicated lock, removing the desired document, and closing it again. The father's explanations were the first encouraging news Gregor had heard since his captivity. He had been of the opinion that nothing had been salvaged from the father's business; at least the father had said nothing to the contrary, although Gregor had also never asked him. Gregor's only concern at that time had been to do whatever he could to have the family forget as quickly as possible the financial misfortune that had plunged them into total despair. And so he began to work with consuming energy and was promoted, almost overnight, from a minor clerk to a traveling salesman with much greater potential to earn money, and his success was soon transformed, by way of commission, into cash that he could then lay on the table before the astonished and delighted family. Those had been happy times and they had never returned, at least not with the same brilliance, even though Gregor later earned enough to meet the expenses of the entire family and did so. They had simply grown used to it, both the family and Gregor; the money was gratefully accepted and gladly given but it no longer brought any particular warmth. Only the sister remained close to Gregor, and it was his secret plan that she, who unlike Gregor greatly loved music and played the violin movingly, should be sent to the Conservatory next year despite the considerable expense it was sure to incur, which would just have to be met in some other way. During Gregor's short stays in the city, the Conservatory would often come up in conversation with the sister but always as a beautiful dream that could never be realized. The parents were displeased to hear even these innocent allusions, but Gregor had very definite ideas about it and intended to announce his plan on Christmas Eve.

Such were the thoughts, utterly useless in his present condition, that went through his head as he stood listening, glued to the door. Sometimes, from general weariness he could listen no longer and carelessly let his head slump against the door, but he promptly recovered because even the small noise he had made had been heard in the next room and had silenced them all. "What's he up to now?" the father said after a while, obviously turning toward the door, and only then did the interrupted conversation resume.

Gregor was now very thoroughly informed—because the father tended to repeat his explanations, partly because he had not dealt with these matters himself in a long time and partly because the mother did not always understand the first time—and discovered that despite the disaster a sum, admittedly very small, remained from the old days and had increased slightly in the meantime due to the untouched interest. And besides that, the money Gregor brought home every month—he had kept only a few guilder for himself—had not been entirely depleted and had now accumulated into a small capital sum. Behind the door Gregor nodded his head emphatically, delighted to learn of this unexpected frugality and foresight. Of course he actually could have used this extra money to further pay off the father's debt to the Chief, thus bringing much closer the day he could have rid himself of this job, but doubtless things were better this way, the way his father had arranged them.

However, this money was by no means sufficient to support the family on the interest; the principal might support the family for a year, or two at the most. So it was just a sum that should not be touched, put aside for emergencies, and the money to live on would still need to be earned. Now the father was certainly healthy but an old man who had not worked in five years and could not be expected to do much; during these years, the first leisure time in his laborious albeit unsuccessful life, he had gained a lot of weight and become quite sluggish as a result. And how should the elderly mother earn a living, when she suffered from asthma and even a walk through the apartment was trying, leaving her gasping for breath every other day on the sofa by an open window? And should the sister work, still a child of seventeen whose life had been so pleasant until now—dressing nicely, sleeping late, helping with the housework, enjoying a few modest amusements, and above all playing the violin? At first, whenever the conversation turned to the need to earn money, Gregor let go of the door and threw himself onto the cool leather sofa nearby, he felt so flushed with shame and grief.

He often lay there through the whole night, not sleeping a wink, just scrabbling on the leather for hours. Or, not shying from the great effort, he would push a chair over to the window, climb up to the sill, and lean, propped up on the chair, against the windowpanes, evidently in some vague remembrance of the freedom he had once found in gazing out. For actually he now saw things just a short distance away becoming dimmer each day; he could no longer make out the hospital opposite, whose sight he used to curse for having seen it all too often, and if he were not so certain that he lived on the quiet but decidedly urban Charlotte Street, he could have believed that he was gazing out the window at a barren wasteland where the ashen sky merged indistinguishably with the gray earth. The observant sister had needed to notice the chair standing by the window only twice; whenever she straightened the room after that, she carefully replaced the chair at the window and now even left the inner casements open.

If only Gregor had been able to speak with the sister and thank her for everything she was obliged to do for him, he could have borne her ministrations more easily; as it was they oppressed him. The sister certainly tried to lessen the general awkwardness of the situation as much as possible, and as time went by she naturally succeeded more and more, however with the passing time Gregor too saw everything more clearly. Her very entrance was terrible for him. Hardly had she entered when she rushed directly to the window without taking the time to close the door—although she was usually so careful to shield everyone from the sight of Gregor's room—tore the window open with hasty hands as if almost suffocating, and stayed there awhile, even when it was bitterly cold, breathing deeply. This bustle and racket of hers tortured Gregor twice a day, and he lay the entire time quaking under the sofa, knowing very well that she would have spared him this if it were at all possible to remain in a room with Gregor with the window shut.

Once, approximately a month after Gregor's transformation, when there was no reason for the sister to be especially alarmed at his appearance, she came a little earlier than usual and caught Gregor perfectly still, gazing out the window, thus giving him a particularly frightful aspect. It would not have surprised Gregor if she had not come in, as his position prevented her from immediately opening the window, but not only did she not enter, she actually jumped back and shut the door; a stranger could easily have thought Gregor had been lying in wait for her and meant to bite her. Gregor naturally hid himself at once under the sofa but had to wait until noon for the sister's return, and then she seemed much more uneasy than usual. He concluded that the sight of him was still repulsive to her and was bound to remain repulsive, and that she must have exercised great self-control not to take flight at the sight of even the smallest portion of his body protruding from under the couch. To spare her from even these glimpses, he dragged the sheet to the sofa on his back one day—this required four hours' work—and laid it in such a way as to conceal himself entirely, so the sister could not see him even if she stooped down. If she did not find the sheet necessary, she certainly could have removed it, because it was clear enough that Gregor could not possibly be pleased by his total confinement, but she left the sheet as it was, and Gregor imagined he caught a grateful look once when he cautiously raised the sheet a little with his head to see how the sister was taking the new arrangement.

During the first two weeks, the parents could not bring themselves to enter his room and he often heard them praising the efforts of the sister, whereas earlier they had frequently been annoyed with her because she appeared to them to be a somewhat useless girl. Now, however, both the father and the mother often waited outside Gregor's room while the sister cleaned up inside, and as soon as she stepped out she had to report fully to them on exactly how the room looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time, and whether perhaps some slight improvement was noticeable. Incidentally, the mother wanted to visit Gregor relatively soon but the father and the sister put her off with logical arguments that Gregor listened to very attentively and approved of wholeheartedly. But later she had to be held back by force, and when she cried out: "Let me go to Gregor, he's my unfortunate son! Can't you understand that I must go to him?" Gregor then thought that it would perhaps be beneficial if the mother did come in, not every day of course, but maybe once a week; she understood everything much better than the sister, who for all her pluck was still just a child and may have ultimately undertaken such a difficult task out of childish recklessness.

Gregor's desire to see the mother was soon fulfilled. During the daytime Gregor did not want to show himself at the window, if only out of consideration for his parents, but he could not crawl around very far in the few square meters of floor, nor could he bear to lie still even at night, and eating gave him scant pleasure, so as a distraction he acquired the habit of crawling crisscross over the walls and ceiling. He especially liked hanging from the ceiling; it was entirely different from lying on the floor, he could breathe more freely and a mild tingling ran through his body, and in the near joyful oblivion in which Gregor found himself up there he could, to his own surprise, lose hold and plunge to the floor. But naturally he now had much more control over his body than before and was not harmed by even so great a fall. The sister immediately noticed Gregor's newfound entertainment—after all he did leave behind the sticky traces of his crawling here and there—and she got it into her head to allow Gregor the widest crawling space possible by the removal of the furniture that hindered him, namely the bureau and the desk. She was not, however, able to do this alone; she did not dare ask for the father's help and the maid would certainly not help her because, although she, a girl of about sixteen, had had the courage to stay on after the cook's departure, she had asked for the privilege of keeping the kitchen door locked at all times and opening it only upon specific requests. This left the sister no choice but to ask the mother at a time when the father was out. The mother did come with exclamations of excited delight but fell silent outside the door to Gregor's room. Naturally the sister first checked to see that everything was in order in the room and only then admitted the mother. Gregor had very hastily pulled the sheet down lower in tighter folds so that it really looked like a sheet casually thrown over the couch. He refrained from peeking out from under the sheet this time, renouncing this very first sight of his mother, and was only glad she had come at all. "Come in, you can't see him," said the sister, evidently leading the mother by the hand. Gregor now heard the two frail women pushing the extremely heavy old bureau from its place and the sister taking on most of the work, not heeding the warnings of the mother, who feared she might overexert herself. It took a very long time. After struggling for a good quarter of an hour, the mother declared that they had better leave the bureau where it was; first, it was just too heavy, they would not be finished before the father's arrival, and Gregor's every movement would be hindered with the bureau in the middle of the room, and second, it was not at all certain that removing the furniture was doing Gregor any great service. It seemed to her that the opposite was true: The look of the empty wall was heartrending, and wouldn't Gregor feel that same way since he had been used to the furniture for so long and might feel bereft in the empty room. "And doesn't it look," concluded the mother very softly, in fact she practically whispered the whole time as if, not knowing Gregor's precise whereabouts, she did not want him to hear even the sound of her voice, as she was convinced that he could not understand the words, "and doesn't it look, by removing all the furniture, like we've abandoned all hope of his recovery and are callously leaving him completely on his own? I think it would be best if we tried to keep the room exactly as it was before, so that when Gregor comes back to us he can find everything unchanged and forget that much more easily what happened in the meantime."