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.”

Upon hearing the mother’s words, Gregor realized that the lack of any direct human exchange, coupled with the monotony of the family’s life, must have confused his mind; he could not otherwise explain to himself how he could have seriously wished to have his room cleared out. Did he really wish his warm room, comfortably furnished with old family heirlooms, to be transformed into a lair in which he would certainly be able to crawl freely in any direction, but at the price of rapidly and completely forgetting his human past? He had indeed been so close to forgetting that only the voice of the mother, so long unheard, brought him to his senses. Nothing should be removed, everything must stay as it was, he could not do without the beneficial influence of the furniture on his state of mind, and if the furniture impeded his senseless crawling about, it was not a loss but a great boon.

Unfortunately, however, the sister thought differently; she had grown accustomed, not entirely without reason, to being especially expert in any discussion with her parents concerning Gregor, and so now the mother’s advice was grounds enough for her to insist on removing not only the bureau and desk, as she had originally planned, but also the rest of the furniture, with the exception of the indispensable sofa. This determination of course did not arise only from childish defiance and the self-confidence she had recently and so unexpectedly developed at such a cost; she had in fact observed that Gregor needed more room to crawl, and as far as one could see, he never used the furniture. Her determination may also have arisen from the romantic enthusiasm of girls her age that seeks expression at every opportunity and tempted Grete to overplay the horror of Gregor’s predicament in order that she might perform even more heroically on his behalf than previously. For in a room where Gregor alone ruled over the bare walls, no one other than Grete was likely to dare set foot.

And so she refused to be shaken from her resolve by the mother, who seemed extremely anxious and unsure of herself in this room and soon quieted and helped the sister, to the best of her abilities, to push the bureau outside. Now, in a pinch Gregor could do without the bureau but the desk must absolutely stay. And no sooner had the women left the room, grunting and heaving with the bureau, than Gregor poked his head out from under the sofa to ascertain how he could cautiously and tactfully intervene. But as luck would have it, it was the mother who returned first while Grete was still in the next room with her arms around the bureau, rocking it and trying to shift it on her own but naturally not budging it an inch. The mother, however, was unaccustomed to Gregor’s appearance and it might have sickened her; so Gregor panicked and scuttled back to the other end of the sofa, but he could not prevent the sheet from stirring a little in front. This was enough to catch the mother’s eye. She froze, stood still for a beat, then retreated to Grete.

Although Gregor said over and over to himself that nothing out of the ordinary was happening, that some furniture was just being moved around, he soon had to concede that the coming and going of the women, their soft exclamations, the scraping of the furniture along the floor were all like a roaring rising up and pressing in around him, and no matter how he tucked in his head and legs and flattened his body to the floor, he was forced to admit that he could not stand the ruckus much longer. They were clearing out his room, taking from him everything that he loved; they had already dragged out the bureau, which contained the fretsaw and other tools, and now they were prying loose the firmly entrenched desk, at which he had done his assignments during business school, high school, and even as far back as elementary school—there was now no longer any time to contemplate the finer intentions of the two women, whose existence he had actually almost forgotten, because from sheer exhaustion they were struggling in silence and only the heavy shuffling of their feet could be heard.

And so he broke out—the women were in the next room, leaning on the desk to catch their breath—and ran in four different directions, not knowing what to save first; then he saw on the otherwise barren wall opposite him the picture of the lady swathed in furs and quickly scrambled up and pressed himself against the glass, a surface he could stick to and that soothed his heated belly. At the very least this picture, which Gregor now completely concealed, would be removed by no one. He twisted his head around to the living room door to observe the women’s return.

They had not taken much of a break and were already headed back; Grete had put an arm around the mother and was almost carrying her. “So what should we take now?” said Grete, looking around. And then her eyes met Gregor’s gaze from the wall. It was probably due only to the presence of the mother that she maintained her composure, bent her head down to the mother to keep her from looking up, and said, rather shakily and without thinking: “Come, why don’t we go back to the living room for a moment?” It was clear to Gregor that she intended to get the mother to safety and then chase him down from the wall. Well, just let her try! He cleaved to his picture and would not relinquish it. He would rather fly in Grete’s face.

But Grete’s words had quite unnerved the mother; she took a step to the side, took in the huge brown splotch on the flowered wallpaper, and, before realizing what she saw was actually Gregor, screamed in a loud, harsh voice: “Oh God! Oh God!” and collapsed, arms, outflung in total abandon, onto the sofa and did not move. “Gregor, you!” yelled the sister, glaring fiercely and raising her fist.