But at least it was now believed that all was not right with him and they were ready to help him. He felt cheered by the confidence and surety with which the first orders were met. He felt encircled by humanity again and he expected great and miraculous results from both the doctor and the locksmith, without truly distinguishing between them. In order to have the clearest voice possible for the decisive conversations to come, he coughed a little, taking pains to stifle the sound, as it may not have sounded like a human cough and he could no longer trust his own judgment about it. Meanwhile in the adjoining room it had become completely still. Maybe the parents were sitting at the table whispering with the head clerk, or maybe they were all leaning against the door, listening.

With the aid of the chair, Gregor slowly pushed himself to the door, then let go and threw himself against it and held himself upright—the pads of his little legs were slightly sticky—and rested there for a moment from his exertions. He then attempted to unlock it by taking the key into his mouth. Unfortunately he appeared to have no teeth—how then should he grasp the key?—but on the other hand his jaws were certainly very powerful, and with their help he got the key to move, ignoring the fact that he was somehow harming himself, because a brown fluid had come from his mouth, oozed over the key, and dripped onto the floor. “Do you hear that,” said the head clerk in the next room, “he’s turning the key.” This was a great encouragement to Gregor, but they should all, the mother and father too, have shouted: “Go, Gregor,” they should have shouted: “Keep going, keep going with that lock!” And imagining that they were intently following his every move, he obliviously clenched the key in his jaws with all the strength he could muster. In accordance with the progress of the key, he danced around the lock, holding himself up only by his mouth, and as needed he either hung on to the key or pressed his whole weight down against it. It was the sharp click of the lock finally snapping back that abruptly roused him. Breathing a sigh of relief, he said to himself: “So I didn’t need the locksmith after all,” and pressed his head against the handle in order to completely open the door.

Since he had to pull the door open in this way, it was opened quite wide while he himself still could not be seen. He first had to slowly circumnavigate one of the double doors and do it very carefully so as not to flop onto his back before entering the room. He was still busy with this involved maneuver and had no time to be distracted by anything else when he heard the head clerk burst out with a loud “Oh!”—it sounded like a gust of wind—and now he also saw the head clerk, standing closest to the door, pressing his hand against his open mouth and backing away slowly as if repelled by an invisible and relentless force.4 The mother—standing there, despite the presence of the head clerk, with her hair still undone and bristling all over—first looked at the father with clasped hands, then took two steps toward Gregor and fell down amid her billowing skirts, her face sinking out of sight onto her breast. The father, furiously shaking his fists as if willing Gregor to go back in his room, looked uncertainly around the living room, covered his eyes in his hands, and sobbed with great heaves of his powerful chest.

Gregor did not now enter the room but instead leaned against the other, firmly locked wing of the door so that only half of his body could be seen and his head above it, tilting as he peered out at the others. In the meantime it had grown much brighter; a section of the endless dark gray building across the street was clearly visible—it was a hospital, with regular windows breaking through the matte façade; the rain was still falling but now only in large individually formed and visible drops that struck the ground one at a time. The many breakfast dishes lay on the table, as breakfast was the most important meal of the day for the father, the time when he would pore over the different newspapers for hours. On the wall just opposite hung a photograph of Gregor from the time of his military service, showing him as a lieutenant and, with a carefree smile and his hand on his sword, demanding respect for his bearing and uniform. The door to the foyer was open, and since the apartment door was also open, one could see out to the landing and the top of the stairs leading down.

“Well now,” said Gregor, well aware that he alone had remained calm, “I will get dressed immediately, pack my samples, and be on my way. Will you all, will you let me go catch my train? Now you see, sir, I’m not stubborn and I’m happy to work; traveling is difficult but I couldn’t live without it. Where are you going, sir? To the office? Yes? Will you report on everything truthfully? A man can suddenly be incapable of working, but this is the precise moment to remember his past performance and to consider that later, after resolving his difficulties, he would work all the harder and more diligently. I am so deeply obligated to the Chief, as you well know. And besides, I am responsible for my parents and sister. I am in a tough bind but I’ll work myself back out of it. Please do not make it more difficult than it already is. I beg you to speak up for me in the office! No one likes traveling salesmen, I know. They think we make a slew of money and lead charmed lives. There’s no particular reason for them to further examine this prejudice. But you, sir, you have a better perspective than the rest of the office, an even better perspective, in all confidence, than the Chief himself, who, in his capacity as employer, allows his opinion to be easily swayed against an employee. You know very well that a traveling salesman, out of the office for almost the entire year, can easily fall prey to gossip, coincidences, and unfounded grievances against which he cannot possibly defend himself because he almost never hears about them except when returning home from an exhausting trip; he personally suffers the grim consequences, the causes of which he can no longer determine.