Chapter III · II

It was on this very evening—Gregor could not remember having heard the violin during all this time—that its sound drifted from the kitchen. The lodgers had already finished their supper; the middle one had pulled out a newspaper, given a sheet each to the other two, and now they leaned back, reading and smoking. When the violin began to play, their interest was aroused; they stood up and walked on tiptoe to the hall door, where they remained standing, pressed close against one another. They must have been heard from the kitchen, for the father called out: “Is the playing perhaps unpleasant to the gentlemen? It can be stopped at once.” “On the contrary,” said the middle gentleman, “would the young lady not like to come in to us and play here in the room, where it is after all much more comfortable and cozy?” “Oh, please!” called the father, as though he were the violinist. The gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited. Soon the father came with the music stand, the mother with the sheet music, and the sister with the violin. The sister calmly prepared everything for the playing; the parents, who had never let rooms before and therefore exaggerated their politeness toward the lodgers, did not dare sit down on their own chairs; the father leaned against the door, his right hand slipped between two buttons of his buttoned livery coat; the mother, however, was offered an armchair by one of the gentlemen and, leaving the chair wherever the gentleman had happened to place it, sat off to the side in a corner.

The sister began to play; father and mother, each from their own side, closely followed the movements of her hands. Attracted by the playing, Gregor had ventured a little further forward and already had his head in the living room. He was hardly surprised that in recent times he had shown so little consideration for the others; once, such consideration had been his pride. And yet, just now he would have had all the more reason to hide, for because of the dust that lay everywhere in his room and flew about at the slightest movement, he too was completely covered in dust; threads, hairs, and leftover scraps of food trailed around with him on his back and along his sides; his indifference to everything was far too great for him to turn on his back and scour himself against the carpet, as he used to do several times a day. And despite this condition, he felt no qualms about advancing a little way across the spotless living-room floor.

To be sure, no one paid any attention to him either. The family was entirely engrossed in the violin playing; the lodgers, on the other hand, who had at first stood, hands in their trouser pockets, far too close behind the sister’s music stand, so that they could all have looked into the sheet music, which certainly must have disturbed the sister, soon withdrew to the window, conversing in low voices with bowed heads, where they remained, anxiously watched by the father. It had now truly become all too apparent that they were disappointed in their expectation of hearing a beautiful or entertaining violin performance, were sick of the whole recital, and were only out of politeness still suffering their peace to be disturbed. In particular, the way they all blew the smoke of their cigars up into the air through their noses and mouths suggested great nervousness. And yet the sister played so beautifully. Her face was tilted to one side; searchingly and sadly, her eyes followed the lines of notes. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his head close to the floor in the hope of perhaps meeting her gaze. Was he an animal, that music could move him so? It seemed to him as if the way were opening toward the longed-for, unknown nourishment. He was determined to press on to his sister, to tug at her skirt and thereby intimate to her that she might come into his room with her violin, for no one here rewarded her playing as he intended to reward it. He did not want to let her out of his room anymore, at least not as long as he lived; his terrifying form was for once to be of use to him; he wanted to be at all the doors of his room at once, hissing back at the attackers; the sister, however, was not to be forced, but should stay with him of her own free will; she was to sit beside him on the sofa, bend her ear down to him, and then he would confide in her that he had firmly intended to send her to the Conservatory, and that, if the misfortune had not intervened, he would have announced this to everyone last Christmas—Christmas was surely over by now, was it not?—without caring about any objections. After this declaration, his sister would burst into tears of emotion, and Gregor would raise himself up to her shoulder and kiss her neck, which, ever since she had begun working in the shop, she wore bare, without ribbon or collar.

“Mr. Samsa!” the middle gentleman called out to the father, and, without wasting another word, pointed his index finger at Gregor, who was slowly moving forward. The violin fell silent, the middle lodger first smiled at his friends with a shake of his head, and then looked back at Gregor. The father seemed to think it more necessary, instead of driving Gregor away, to calm the lodgers first, even though they were not at all agitated and Gregor seemed to entertain them more than the violin playing. He hurried over to them and, with outstretched arms, tried to urge them into their room, while at the same time blocking their view of Gregor with his body. Now they really did become somewhat angry, though it was impossible to tell whether it was at the father’s behavior or at the realization now dawning on them that they had unknowingly had such a roommate as Gregor. They demanded explanations from the father, raised their arms in turn, tugged nervously at their beards, and only slowly retreated toward their room. Meanwhile, the sister had overcome the feeling of forlornness into which she had fallen after the sudden interruption of her playing; having held the violin and bow for a while in her limply hanging hands, continuing to gaze at the sheet music as if she were still playing, she suddenly pulled herself together, laid the instrument on the lap of her mother, who was still sitting in her chair, struggling to breathe with heavily laboring lungs, and ran into the adjoining room, which the lodgers were already approaching more quickly under the father’s urging. One could see how, under the sister’s practiced hands, the blankets and pillows on the beds flew up and arranged themselves. Before the gentlemen had even reached the room, she had finished making the beds and slipped out. The father seemed once again so seized by his stubbornness that he forgot every ounce of respect that he nevertheless owed his tenants. He simply pushed and pushed, until right in the doorway of the room the middle gentleman stamped his foot with a thunderous thud and thereby brought the father to a halt. “I hereby declare,” he said, raising his hand and looking also toward the mother and the sister, “that in view of the disgusting conditions prevailing in this apartment and family”—here he spat resolutely onto the floor—“I give notice on my room immediately. Naturally, I shall not pay the slightest amount, either, for the days I have lived here; on the contrary, I shall consider whether I might not bring against you certain claims which—believe me—will be very easy to justify.” He fell silent and looked straight ahead, as if expecting something. Indeed, his two friends chimed in at once with the words: “We too give notice immediately.” With that, he grasped the door handle and slammed the door shut with a crash.

The father tottered with groping hands to his armchair and collapsed into it; it looked as if he were stretching out for his usual evening nap, but the heavy nodding of his seemingly unsupported head showed that he was not asleep at all. Gregor had lain quietly the entire time in the spot where the lodgers had caught him. Disappointment at the failure of his plan, but perhaps also the weakness caused by so much starving, made it impossible for him to move. He feared with a certain definiteness a general collapse coming down upon him in the very next moment, and waited. Not even the violin startled him, which, slipping from beneath the mother’s trembling fingers, fell from her lap and gave off a resounding note.

“Dear parents,” said the sister, striking the table with her hand by way of introduction, “things cannot go on like this. If you perhaps don’t realize it, I do. In the presence of this monster I refuse to utter my brother’s name, and therefore I will only say: we must try to get rid of it. We have tried what is humanly possible to care for it and endure it; I don’t believe anyone can make the slightest reproach against us.”

“She is a thousand times right,” said the father to himself. The mother, who was still unable to catch her breath, began to cough dully into her cupped hand, with a crazed expression in her eyes.

The sister hurried to the mother and held her forehead. The father seemed to have been brought to more definite thoughts by the sister’s words; he had sat up straight, was playing with his livery cap among the plates that still stood on the table from the lodgers’ supper, and looked over now and then at the silent Gregor.

“We must try to get rid of it,” the sister now said exclusively to the father, for the mother heard nothing through her coughing, “it will kill the two of you yet, I can see it coming. When one already has to work as hard as we all do, one cannot endure this endless torment at home as well. I can’t bear it anymore either.” And she broke into such violent weeping that her tears streamed down onto the mother’s face, from which she wiped them with mechanical movements of her hands.

“Child,” said the father pityingly and with striking understanding, “what are we to do, though?”

The sister merely shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness that had now seized her while weeping, in contrast to her former certainty.

“If he understood us,” said the father, half-questioningly; through her weeping, the sister violently shook her hand to signify that such a thing was out of the question.

“If he understood us,” repeated the father, closing his eyes and absorbing the sister’s conviction of the impossibility of it, “then perhaps an agreement with him might be possible. But as it is—”

“It has to go,” cried the sister, “that is the only way, Father. You just have to try to get rid of the idea that it’s Gregor. That we have believed it for so long, that is our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that human beings cannot live together with such an animal, and he would have gone away of his own free will. Then we wouldn’t have a brother, but we could go on living and honor his memory. But as it is, this animal persecutes us, drives away the lodgers, evidently wants to take over the whole apartment and make us spend the night in the street. Look, Father,” she suddenly screamed, “he’s beginning again!” And in a terror completely incomprehensible to Gregor, the sister even abandoned the mother, literally shoving herself away from her armchair as if she would rather sacrifice the mother than remain in Gregor’s vicinity, and rushed behind the father, who, agitated solely by her behavior, also stood up and half-raised his arms in front of her as if to protect his sister.

Yet it had not occurred to Gregor in the least to frighten anyone, least of all his sister. He had merely begun to turn around in order to make his way back to his room, and this certainly looked striking, since, owing to his ailing condition, he had to assist himself during the difficult turns with his head, which he raised repeatedly and struck against the floor in the process. He paused and looked around. His good intention seemed to have been recognized; it had only been a momentary fright. Now they all looked at him in silence and sorrow. The mother lay in her armchair, her legs stretched out and pressed together, her eyes almost closing from exhaustion; the father and the sister sat side by side, the sister had put her hand around the father’s neck.

“Now perhaps I am allowed to turn around,” thought Gregor and resumed his labor. He could not suppress his panting from the exertion, and now and then he had to rest. Besides, no one urged him on; everything was left to him. When he had completed the turn, he at once began to make his way straight back. He was astonished at the great distance that separated him from his room, and did not understand at all how, in his weakness, he had covered that same distance a short time ago almost without noticing it. Intent constantly on crawling rapidly, he hardly paid attention to the fact that not a word, not a cry from his family disturbed him. Only when he was already in the doorway did he turn his head—not completely, for he felt his neck growing stiff—yet he still saw that nothing had changed behind him; only the sister had stood up. His last glance brushed the mother, who was now fast asleep.

Hardly was he inside his room when the door was pushed shut in the greatest haste, bolted tight, and locked. At the sudden noise behind him, Gregor was so startled that his little legs gave way under him. It was the sister who had hurried so. She had already been standing upright, waiting, then had leaped forward lightly—Gregor had not heard her coming at all—and cried “At last!” to the parents as she turned the key in the lock.

“And now?” Gregor asked himself, looking around in the darkness. He soon discovered that he was now completely unable to move at all. He was not surprised at this; rather, it struck him as unnatural that he had actually been able to move about with these thin little legs until now. Otherwise he felt relatively comfortable. He had pains throughout his whole body, to be sure, but it seemed to him as if they were gradually growing fainter and fainter and would finally pass away completely. He scarcely felt the rotting apple in his back and the inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered with soft dust. He looked back upon his family with emotion and love. His own opinion that he had to disappear was, if possible, even more resolute than his sister’s. In this state of empty and peaceful reflection he remained until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still lived to see the beginning of the general brightening outside the window. Then his head sank down entirely without his will, and from his nostrils his last breath feebly flowed forth.