He saw the mother run to the father, stumbling over her loosened petticoats as they slipped to the floor one by one, and press herself against him, uniting them in her embrace—now Gregor’s vision failed him—and with her arms flung around his neck, she begged the father to spare Gregor’s life.

III

GREGOR’S SERIOUS INJURY, FROM which he suffered for almost a month—the apple remained embedded in his flesh as a visible souvenir because no one had the courage to remove it—served to remind even the father that Gregor, despite his now pathetic and repulsive shape, was a member of the family who could not be treated as an enemy; on the contrary, in accordance with family duty they were required to quell their aversion and tolerate him, but only tolerate.

And now, although Gregor had lost some mobility, most likely permanently due to his injury, and traversing his room now took many long minutes like an old invalid—crawling above floor level was out of the question—he was granted, in his mind, entirely satisfactory compensation for this deterioration of his condition: toward evening every day the living room door, which he got used to watching intently for an hour or two beforehand, was opened, so that lying in the darkness of his room and unseen from the living room, he could view the whole family at the brightly lit table and could listen to their conversation more or less with their consent, completely unlike his prior eavesdropping.

Of course there no longer were the lively conversations of earlier times that Gregor would wistfully recall whenever he’d had to sink down into the damp bedding of some small hotel room. Now it was mostly very subdued. The father fell asleep in his armchair soon after supper, and the mother and the sister would caution each other to keep still; the mother, bent over toward the light, sewed delicate lingerie for an apparel shop; the sister, who had taken a job as a salesgirl, was studying shorthand and French in the hope of attaining a better position in the future. The father sometimes woke up and, as if he were not aware he had been sleeping, would say to the mother: “How long you’re sewing again today!” and instantly fall back asleep while mother and sister exchanged a tired smile.

Out of some absurd obstinacy, the father refused to take off his messenger’s uniform even in the house, and while the dressing gown hung uselessly on the clothes hook, the father sat fully dressed in his chair, as if he were ever ready for duty and awaited, even here, his superior’s call. As a result the uniform, which was not new to begin with, became more and more seedy despite all the efforts of the mother and sister, and Gregor often spent whole evenings staring at this garment, covered with greasy stains and gleaming, constantly polished gold buttons, in which the father slept awkwardly but very peacefully.

As soon as the clock struck ten, the mother tried to rouse the father with gentle words and then persuade him to go to bed, for he simply was not getting any proper rest where he was, something he sorely needed since he had to go on duty at six. But, with this stubbornness that he had acquired since becoming a bank messenger, he always insisted on staying longer at the table even though he nodded off regularly, and it was then a monumental task to coax him into exchanging the chair for the bed. However much the mother and sister prodded him with admonishments, he would go on shaking his head slowly with his eyes closed for another quarter of an hour and refuse to get up. The mother plucked at his sleeve, cajoling softly in his ear, and the sister left her lessons to help the mother, all to no avail. The father only ensconced himself farther in the chair. Not until the two women pulled him up under the arms would he open his eyes and look back and forth from the mother to the sister, with the customary remark: “What a life. This is the rest of my old age.” And supported by the two women, he rose haltingly to his feet as if he himself were his greatest burden and allowed the women to steer him to the door, where he shrugged them off and labored on alone, while the mother dropped her sewing and the sister her pen to run after him and aid him further.

Who in this overworked and exhausted family had time to fuss over Gregor more than was absolutely necessary? The household was even further reduced; the maid was dismissed after all and a huge bony charwoman with white hair flapping around her head came mornings and evenings to see to the heaviest chores; the mother took care of everything else on top of her copious sewing. Even various pieces of family jewelry, which the mother and sister used to joyously display at parties and celebrations, had to be sold, as Gregor learned from a discussion of the obtained prices one evening. However, their most persistent lament was that they could not leave this apartment, much too large for their present needs, because it was inconceivable how Gregor was to be moved. But Gregor fully comprehended that it was not only consideration for him that prevented a move, for he could easily have been transported in a suitable crate with a few airholes; what truly hindered them was an utter hopelessness and the belief that a plight had befallen them unlike any other that had been visited upon their friends or relatives. They carried out the world’s demands on poor people to the extreme: The father fetched breakfast for the minor bank clerks, the mother sacrificed herself to the underwear of strangers, the sister ran to and fro behind the counter at customers’ beck and call, but beyond this the family had no more strength. And the wound in Gregor’s back began to hurt anew whenever the mother and sister, after putting the father to bed, returned to the table, left their work idle, drew close to each other, and sat cheek to cheek, and whenever the mother, pointing toward Gregor’s room, now said: “Go shut that door, Grete,” and Gregor was in darkness again while next door the women mingled their tears or stared dry-eyed at the table.

Gregor spent the days and nights almost entirely without sleep. Sometimes he mulled over the idea that the next time the door opened he would take control of the family affairs as he had done in the past; these musings led him once more after such a long interval to conjure up the figures of the boss, the head clerk, the salesmen, the apprentices, the dullard of an office messenger, two or three friends from other firms, a sweet and fleeting memory of a chambermaid in one of the rural hotels, a cashier in a milliner’s shop whom he had wooed earnestly but too slowly—they all appeared mixed up with strangers or nearly forgotten people, but instead of helping him and his family they were each and every one unapproachable, and he was relieved when they evaporated. Then other times he could not be bothered to worry about his family, he was filled with rage at their miserable treatment of him, and even though he could not imagine anything that might spark his appetite he still devised plans to raid the pantry and, even if he was not hungry, get the food due him. No longer concerning herself about what Gregor might particularly care for, the sister hastily shoved any old food through the door to Gregor’s room with her foot, both morning and noon before she raced to work, and in the evening cleared it all out with one sweep of the broom, indifferent to whether the food had only been tasted or—as was most frequently the case—left completely untouched. The cleaning of his room, which she now always did in the evening, could not have been more cursory. Grimy dirt streaked the walls, layers of dust and filth had settled everywhere. At first, whenever the sister came in, he would station himself in corners particularly offensive in this respect as if to impart some reproach. But he could have waited there for weeks without the sister showing any improvement; she could see the dirt just as well as he, but she had simply made up her mind to leave it there. At the same time, with a testiness that was new to her and had in fact overtaken the whole family, she made certain that this tidying remained in her sole domain. The mother once subjected Gregor’s room to thorough cleaning that was effected only after many buckets of water—all this dampness sickened Gregor of course, and he lay sprawled on the sofa, embittered and immobile—but the mother’s punishment was not far off. Because as soon as the sister noticed the change in Gregor’s room that evening, she ran into the living room deeply insulted and despite the mother’s hands, raised imploringly, burst into a fit of tears while the astonished parents—the father was naturally shocked out of his chair—looked on helplessly. Then they quickly started in; the father admonished the mother to his right for not having left the cleaning of Gregor’s room to the sister and shouted at the sister to his left that she was never again allowed to clean Gregor’s room; meanwhile the mother tried to drag the overexcited father to the bedroom, the sister shaking with sobs beat her small fists on the table, and Gregor hissed furiously because no one had thought to close his door and spare him this racket and spectacle.

But even if the sister, worn out by her job, ceased to tend to him as she used to, there was no need for the mother’s intervention or for Gregor to be at all neglected. For now there was the charwoman. This old widow, who must have weathered the worst in her long life with the help of her sturdy bone structure, was not particularly disgusted by Gregor. Without being truly nosy, she happened to open the door to Gregor’s room one day and, at the sight of Gregor—who was completely caught off guard and, although no one chased him, began running back and forth—she merely stood still, her arms folded over her middle, in amazement.