Chapter III · III

When the charwoman arrived in the early morning—out of sheer strength and haste, no matter how often she had been asked to avoid it, she slammed all the doors with such force that from the moment of her arrival no peaceful sleep was possible anywhere in the flat—she noticed nothing out of the ordinary during her usual brief peek at Gregor. She assumed he was lying there motionless on purpose, playing the offended party; she credited him with all possible understanding. Since she happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, she tried to tickle Gregor with it from the doorway. When that produced no result either, she grew annoyed and jabbed Gregor a little, and only when she had shoved him from his spot without meeting the slightest resistance did she become attentive. Soon realizing the true state of affairs, she opened her eyes wide, whistled under her breath, but did not linger long; instead, she tore open the bedroom door and shouted at the top of her voice into the dark: “Come look, it’s croaked; there it lies, completely and utterly croaked!”

Mr. and Mrs. Samsa sat bolt upright in the marriage bed, struggling to overcome the fright given them by the charwoman before they even managed to grasp her announcement. But then Mr. and Mrs. Samsa hastily climbed out of bed, each on their own side; Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his shoulders, Mrs. Samsa emerged in only her nightgown, and in this manner they stepped into Gregor’s room. Meanwhile, the door of the living room had also opened, where Grete had been sleeping since the lodgers moved in; she was fully dressed, as if she had not slept at all, a fact her pale face also seemed to confirm. “Dead?” said Mrs. Samsa, looking up inquiringly at the charwoman, even though she could verify everything herself and could indeed recognize it without any verification. “I should say so,” said the charwoman, and to prove it she shoved Gregor’s corpse a good distance sideways with the broom. Mrs. Samsa made a motion as if to hold back the broom, but did not. “Well,” said Mr. Samsa, “now we can thank God.” He crossed himself, and the three women followed his example. Grete, who did not take her eyes off the corpse, said: “Just look how thin he was. He hasn’t eaten anything for such a long time, after all. The food came out just as it went in.” Indeed, Gregor’s body was completely flat and dry; this was really only apparent now that it was no longer raised on its little legs and there was nothing else to distract the eye.

“Come in with us for a little while, Grete,” said Mrs. Samsa with a melancholy smile, and Grete, not without looking back at the corpse, followed her parents into the bedroom. The charwoman shut the door and opened the window wide. Despite the early hour, a touch of mildness was already mingled with the fresh air. After all, it was already late March.

The three lodgers stepped out of their room and looked around in astonishment for their breakfast; they had been forgotten. “Where is breakfast?” the middle gentleman asked the charwoman gruffly. She, however, laid her finger to her lips and then hastily and silently beckoned the gentlemen to come into Gregor’s room. They came along, and then stood around Gregor’s corpse in the room, which was now completely bright, their hands in the pockets of their somewhat worn jackets.

Then the bedroom door opened, and Mr. Samsa appeared in his livery, his wife on one arm, his daughter on the other. All of them were a little tear-stained; now and then Grete pressed her face against her father’s arm.

“Leave my flat immediately!” said Mr. Samsa, pointing to the door without letting go of the women. “What do you mean by that?” said the middle gentleman, somewhat taken aback, smiling sweetly. The other two held their hands behind their backs and rubbed them together incessantly, as if in joyful anticipation of a great quarrel that was bound to turn out in their favour. “I mean exactly what I say,” answered Mr. Samsa, advancing in a line with his two companions toward the lodger. The man stood still at first and looked at the floor, as though the things in his head were rearranging themselves into a new order. “Then we shall go,” he said at last, looking up at Mr. Samsa as if, in a sudden wave of humility, he were asking a fresh permission even for this decision. Mr. Samsa merely nodded to him several times, curtly, his eyes wide. Thereupon the gentleman did indeed stride out into the hall at once; his two friends, who had been listening for a while with hands quite still, now fairly hopped after him, as though afraid Mr. Samsa might enter the hall before them and break their connection with their leader. In the hall, all three took their hats from the rack, drew their canes from the umbrella stand, bowed silently, and left the flat. With a suspicion that proved entirely groundless, Mr. Samsa stepped out onto the landing with the two women; leaning over the banister, they watched the three gentlemen descend the long flight of stairs, slowly but steadily, disappearing at each floor around a certain bend in the staircase and reappearing after a few moments; the lower they got, the more the Samsa family’s interest in them waned, and when a butcher’s boy with a carrier on his head came marching proudly up toward them and then high past them, Mr. Samsa and the women soon left the railing, and all returned to their flat as if relieved.

They decided to spend the day resting and going for a walk; they had not only earned this break from work, they positively needed it. And so they sat down at the table and wrote three letters of excuse: Mr. Samsa to his management, Mrs. Samsa to her employer, and Grete to her principal. While they were writing, the charwoman came in to say that she was leaving, as her morning work was done. The three writers merely nodded at first without looking up; only when the charwoman still refused to take her leave did they look up in irritation. “Well?” asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood smiling in the doorway, as though she had great good fortune to report to the family, but would do so only if she were thoroughly questioned. The small, almost upright ostrich feather on her hat, which had annoyed Mr. Samsa throughout the entire time she had been in their employ, swayed gently in all directions. “Well, what is it you actually want?” asked Mrs. Samsa, for whom the charwoman still had the most respect. “Yes,” replied the charwoman, unable to continue right away for friendly chuckling, “well, you don’t need to worry about how that stuff next door is to be cleared away. It’s all taken care of.” Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent over their letters as if they wished to go on writing; Mr. Samsa, noticing that the charwoman was about to start describing everything in detail, firmly waved her off with an outstretched hand. But since she was not permitted to tell her story, she remembered what a great hurry she was in, called out, visibly offended, “Bye-bye, everyone,” spun around wildly, and left the flat with a terrible slamming of doors.

“She’ll be dismissed this evening,” said Mr. Samsa, but received an answer from neither his wife nor his daughter, for the charwoman seemed to have disturbed once more the peace they had barely regained. They stood up, went to the window, and stayed there, holding each other close. Mr. Samsa turned around in his armchair toward them and observed them quietly for a while. Then he called out: “Come on over here, then. Let bygones be bygones at last. And have a little consideration for me, too.” At once the women complied, hurried over to him, caressed him, and quickly brought their letters to an end.

Then all three left the apartment together, something they had not done for months, and took the electric tram out into the open country outside the city. The car, in which they sat alone, was flooded with warm sunshine. Leaning comfortably back in their seats, they discussed their prospects for the future, and it turned out that upon closer consideration these were not at all bad, for all three of their employments—about which they had really not yet questioned one another—were exceedingly advantageous and particularly promising for later on. The greatest immediate improvement in their situation would naturally and easily come from moving to a new home; they now wished to take a smaller and cheaper, but better situated and altogether more practical apartment than their present one, which had been chosen by Gregor. While they were conversing in this manner, it occurred almost simultaneously to Mr. and Mrs. Samsa, at the sight of their daughter who was growing ever more lively, how in recent times, despite all the sorrow that had made her cheeks pale, she had blossomed into a beautiful and shapely young woman. Growing quieter and communicating almost unconsciously through glances, they reflected that it would soon be time to look for a good husband for her as well. And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions when, at the journey’s end, the daughter was the first to rise and stretch her young body.