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.