Chapter II · III

And so he broke forth—in the next room the women were just leaning against the writing desk to catch their breath a little—changed the direction of his course four times, really not knowing what to save first, when he caught sight of the picture of the lady clad in nothing but furs hanging conspicuously on the otherwise already bare wall, crawled hastily up to it and pressed himself against the glass, which held him fast and felt good against his hot belly. This picture at least, which Gregor now completely covered, surely no one would take away. He twisted his head toward the door of the living room to watch the women when they returned.

They had not allowed themselves much rest and were already coming back; Grete had her arm around their mother and was practically carrying her. “Well, what shall we take now?” said Grete, looking around. Just then her eyes met Gregor’s on the wall. Surely only on account of the mother’s presence did she keep her composure; she bent her face toward the mother to keep her from looking around and said, though trembling and without thinking: “Come, wouldn’t we do better to go back into the living room for just a moment?” Grete’s intention was clear to Gregor: she wanted to get their mother to safety and then chase him down from the wall. Well, she could certainly try! He sat upon his picture and would not surrender it. He would sooner jump in Grete’s face.

But Grete’s words had only made the mother more uneasy; she stepped to one side, caught sight of the gigantic brown patch on the flowered wallpaper, and before it really entered her consciousness that what she was seeing was Gregor, cried out in a shrill, raspy voice: “Oh God, oh God!” and fell across the sofa with outstretched arms as if giving up everything, and did not stir. “You, Gregor!” cried his sister with raised fist and piercing eyes. These were the first words she had addressed directly to him since the metamorphosis. She ran into the next room to fetch some sort of essence with which she might revive their mother from her faint; Gregor wanted to help too—there was still time to save the picture—but he was stuck fast to the glass and had to tear himself away by force; he then ran into the adjoining room as well, as if he could offer his sister some advice, as in former days; but had to stand idly behind her; while she rummaged among various small bottles, she took fright again when she turned round; a bottle fell to the floor and shattered; a splinter injured Gregor in the face, some sort of corrosive medicine flowed around him; Grete, without lingering any longer, seized as many phials as she could possibly hold and dashed into the mother’s room with them, slamming the door shut with her foot. Gregor was now cut off from his mother, who might be near death through his fault; he dared not open the door if he did not want to drive away his sister, who had to stay with their mother; he had nothing to do now but wait; and beset by self-reproach and anxiety, he began to crawl, crawled over everything, walls, furniture, and ceiling, and at last in his despair, when the whole room was already beginning to spin around him, fell right onto the middle of the large table.

A little time passed; Gregor lay there exhausted; all around it was quiet, perhaps that was a good sign. Then the doorbell rang. The maid was of course locked up in her kitchen, and Grete therefore had to go and answer it. The father had arrived. “What has happened?” were his first words; Grete’s appearance had evidently told him everything. Grete answered in a muffled voice, her face apparently pressed against her father’s chest: “Mother fainted, but she’s better already. Gregor has broken out.” “I expected as much,” said the father, “I told you so all along, but you women wouldn’t listen.” It was clear to Gregor that his father had put the worst construction on Grete’s all-too-brief report and assumed that Gregor had been guilty of some act of violence. Gregor therefore had to try to appease his father now, for he had neither the time nor the opportunity to explain matters to him. And so he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself against it, so that when his father entered from the hall he could see at once that Gregor had every intention of returning immediately to his room, and that it was not necessary to drive him back, but that one had only to open the door and he would disappear at once.

But his father was not in the mood to notice such fine points. “Ah!” he cried out the moment he entered, in a tone that sounded at once furious and glad. Gregor drew his head back from the door and raised it toward his father. Truly, this was not how he had pictured his father standing before him now; to be sure, of late, what with his novel crawling about, he had neglected to keep up with events in the rest of the apartment as he used to, and ought really to have been prepared to find altered circumstances. And yet, and yet, was this still his father? The same man who used to lie buried exhausted in bed whenever Gregor had set off on a business trip; who had received him on the evenings of his return sitting in an armchair in his dressing gown; who had been barely capable of getting to his feet, but had only raised his arms as a sign of joy, and who, on the rare walks they took together a couple of Sundays a year and on the highest holidays, bundled up in his old coat, moving along between Gregor and his mother—who already walked slowly enough—had labored forward even more slowly still, planting his crutch-handled cane with perpetual caution, and, whenever he wanted to say something, had almost always come to a standstill and gathered his companions around him? But now he stood up remarkably straight; dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, such as attendants in banking establishments wear; above the high, stiff collar of his tunic billowed a heavy double chin; beneath his bushy eyebrows, the gaze of his black eyes peered forth piercing and alert; his once disheveled white hair was combed down into an impeccably exact, gleaming part. He hurled his cap, adorned with a gold monogram, probably that of a bank, across the entire room in an arc onto the sofa, and, with the skirts of his long uniform coat flung back and his hands in his trouser pockets, advanced upon Gregor with a grim set to his face. He probably did not know himself what he intended to do; all the same, he lifted his feet unusually high, and Gregor was astonished at the gigantic size of the soles of his boots. Yet he did not linger over this; he knew well enough from the very first day of his new life that his father considered only the utmost severity appropriate where he was concerned. And so he scurried ahead of his father, paused when his father stopped, and rushed forward again the moment his father made the slightest move. In this way they made the circuit of the room several times without anything decisive happening, without the whole thing, in fact, given its slow pace, having the appearance of a pursuit. That was why Gregor remained on the floor for the time being, especially as he feared that flight onto the walls or the ceiling might be taken by his father for sheer malice. All the same, Gregor had to tell himself that he would not be able to keep up even this running for long, for while his father took a single step, he had to perform an endless number of movements. Shortness of breath was already beginning to make itself felt, just as in earlier days his lungs had never been entirely trustworthy. As he now staggered along, trying to muster all his strength for the run, barely keeping his eyes open; in his dullness of mind thinking of no other rescue than through running; and having almost forgotten that the walls were open to him, though they were obstructed here by elaborately carved furniture full of points and jagged edges—something flew lightly hurled right beside him and rolled ahead of him. It was an apple; instantly a second one came flying after it; Gregor stopped dead in terror; running on was useless, for his father was determined to bombard him. He had filled his pockets from the fruit bowl on the sideboard and was now hurling apple after apple, without, for the present, taking careful aim. These small red apples rolled about on the floor as if electrified, knocking into one another. One weakly thrown apple grazed Gregor’s back, but slipped off harmlessly. Another, flying right behind it, literally lodged itself in Gregor’s back; Gregor tried to drag himself forward, as though the startling, unbelievable pain might pass with a change of place; yet he felt as if nailed to the spot and stretched out in complete confusion of all his senses. Only with his final glimpse did he still see the door of his room fly open, and his mother rush out ahead of his screaming sister, in her chemise, for the sister had undressed her to give her breath in her swoon, and he saw his mother run toward his father, her unfastened petticoats slipping to the floor one after another as she ran, and saw her, stumbling over the petticoats, throw herself upon his father, and, embracing him, in complete union with him—now, however, Gregor’s sight was already failing—her hands clutched behind his father’s head, beg him to spare Gregor’s life.