II

It was only in the dusk of evening that Gregor awoke from his heavy, swoon-like sleep. He would certainly have awakened not much later even without disturbance, for he felt sufficiently rested and slept out, but it seemed to him as though a fleeting footstep and the cautious closing of the door leading to the anteroom had woken him. The glow of the electric streetcar lay pale here and there upon the ceiling and the higher parts of the furniture, but down where Gregor was it was dark. Slowly he crawled, still clumsily feeling with his antennae, which he was only now learning to appreciate, toward the door, to see what had happened there. His left side seemed a single long, unpleasantly taut scar, and he had to limp properly upon his two rows of legs. One little leg, moreover, had been severely injured in the course of the morning's events—it was almost a miracle that only one had been hurt—and dragged lifelessly behind.

Only at the door did he notice what had actually lured him there; it had been the smell of something edible. For there stood a bowl filled with sweet milk, in which small slices of white bread floated. He almost would have laughed for joy, for he was hungrier than in the morning, and at once he plunged his head almost to the eyes into the milk. But soon he drew it back disappointed; not only did the eating cause him difficulties because of his tender left side—and he could only eat when his whole body puffed and labored along—but moreover the milk, which had otherwise been his favorite drink and which the sister had surely placed there for that reason, did not taste good to him at all, indeed he turned away from the bowl almost with revulsion and crawled back into the middle of the room.

In the living room, as Gregor saw through the crack of the door, the gas was lit, but whereas at this time of day the father used to read the newspaper, which appeared in the afternoon, aloud to the mother and sometimes also to the sister in a raised voice, now no sound was heard. Perhaps this reading aloud, of which the sister had always told and written him, had in recent times fallen entirely out of practice. But all around it was so quiet, even though the apartment was certainly not empty. "What a quiet life the family leads," Gregor said to himself, and as he stared motionless into the darkness before him, he felt a great pride that he had been able to procure such a life for his parents and his sister in so beautiful an apartment. But what if now all calm, all prosperity, all contentment were to come to a terrible end? So as not to lose himself in such thoughts, Gregor preferred to set himself in motion and crawled up and down the room.

Once during the long evening one side door and once the other was opened to a small crack and quickly shut again; someone had probably felt the need to come in, but also too many misgivings. Gregor now halted directly by the living-room door, resolved to bring the hesitating visitor in somehow or at least to find out who it was; but now the door was no longer opened, and Gregor waited in vain. Early, when the doors were locked, all had wanted to come in to him; now, when he had opened one door and the others had evidently been opened during the day, no one came any more, and the keys were now inserted from the outside as well.

Only late at night was the light in the living room extinguished, and now it was easy to establish that the parents and the sister had stayed awake so long, for as one could clearly hear, all three now withdrew on tiptoe. Now certainly no one would come in to Gregor until morning; he thus had a long time to reflect undisturbed on how he should now reorder his life. But the high, free room, in which he was forced to lie flat upon the floor, frightened him, without his being able to find the cause, for it was after all his room occupied by him for five years—and with a half-unconscious turn and not without a slight shame he hurried under the couch, where he felt at once very comfortable, even though his back was a little compressed and though he could no longer raise his head, and only regretted that his body was too broad to be completely accommodated under the couch.

There he remained the whole night, which he spent partly in half-sleep, from which his hunger again and again startled him, but partly in cares and vague hopes, which all led to the conclusion that for the present he must keep quiet and by patience and greatest consideration make the inconveniences tolerable for the family, which he was now in his present state compelled to cause them.

Already in the early morning, it was almost still night, Gregor had the opportunity to test the strength of his just-formed resolutions, for from the anteroom the sister, almost fully dressed, opened the door and looked in with tension. She did not find him at once, but when she noticed him under the couch—good God, he had to be somewhere, he could not have flown away—she was so frightened that, unable to control herself, she slammed the door shut again from outside. But as if repenting her behavior, she immediately opened the door again and stepped in on tiptoe, as if with a seriously ill person or even a stranger. Gregor had pushed his head just to the edge of the couch and observed her. Would she perhaps notice that he had left the milk standing, and certainly not from lack of hunger, and would she bring in another food that suited him better? If she did not do it of her own accord, he would rather starve than draw her attention to it, even though he was actually enormously impelled to shoot forward from under the couch, throw himself at the sister's feet, and beg her for something good to eat. But the sister noticed at once with astonishment the still full bowl, from which only a little milk had been spilled around, she lifted it up at once, though not with bare hands but with a rag, and carried it out. Gregor was extremely curious what she would bring in exchange, and he made the most varied thoughts about it. But never could he have guessed what the sister in her kindness actually did. She brought him, to test his taste, a whole selection, all spread out on an old newspaper. There was old, half-rotten vegetables; bones from supper, surrounded by congealed white sauce; a few raisins and almonds; a cheese, which Gregor had declared inedible two days before; a dry bread, a bread smeared with butter, and a bread smeared with butter and salted. Besides, to all this she placed the bowl probably once and for all intended for Gregor, into which she had poured water. And out of delicacy, since she knew that Gregor would not eat before her, she left hurriedly and even turned the key, so that only Gregor might notice that he could make himself as comfortable as he wished. Gregor's little legs whirred as he now went to eat. His wounds must incidentally have already completely healed, he felt no hindrance anymore, he wondered at this and thought of how more than a month ago he had cut himself ever so slightly in the finger with a knife, and how this wound had still hurt him the day before yesterday. "Should I now have less sensitivity?" he thought, and was already greedily sucking at the cheese, to which among all other foods he had been drawn immediately and emphatically. Quickly one after another and with eyes watering from satisfaction he consumed the cheese, the vegetables, and the sauce; the fresh foods, on the other hand, did not taste good to him, he could not even tolerate their smell and even dragged the things he wanted to eat a little farther away. He had long since finished everything and lay only lazily in the same spot, when the sister slowly turned the key as a sign that he should withdraw. That startled him at once, even though he was already almost dozing, and he hurried back under the couch. But it cost him great self-mastery to remain under the couch even for the short time while the sister was in the room, for from the plentiful eating his body had rounded out a little, and he could hardly breathe there in the narrowness. Under slight fits of suffocation he watched with somewhat bulging eyes as the unsuspecting sister with a broom not only swept together the leftovers, but even the foods not touched by Gregor at all, as if these too were no longer usable, and how she hastily poured everything into a pail, which she closed with a wooden lid, whereupon she carried it all out. Scarcely had she turned around, when Gregor already drew himself out from under the couch and stretched and puffed himself up.

In this way Gregor now got his food daily, once in the morning, when the parents and the maid were still sleeping, the second time after the general midday meal, for then the parents likewise slept a while, and the maid was sent away by the sister on some errand. Certainly they too did not want Gregor to starve, but perhaps they could not have borne to learn more of his eating than by hearsay, perhaps the sister also wanted to spare them a possibly only slight sorrow, for actually they were suffering enough as it was.

With what excuses one had got rid of the doctor and the locksmith again from the apartment on that first morning, Gregor could not learn at all, for since he was not understood, no one thought, not even the sister, that he could understand the others, and so when the sister was in his room he had to content himself with hearing now and then her sighs and invocations of the saints. Only later, when she had grown somewhat accustomed to everything—of complete habituation there could naturally never be talk—Gregor now and then caught a remark that was meant kindly or could be so interpreted. "He enjoyed it today," she said when Gregor had cleaned up well during eating, while in the opposite case, which gradually repeated itself ever more frequently, she was accustomed to say almost sadly: "Now everything has been left standing again."

While Gregor could learn nothing directly, he overheard much from the adjoining rooms, and whenever he heard voices he ran at once to the relevant door and pressed himself against it with his whole body. Especially in the first time there was no conversation that did not somehow, if only secretly, concern him. For two days at all meals one could hear deliberations on how one should now behave; but also between meals they spoke of the same theme, for always at least two family members were at home, since probably no one wanted to remain alone at home and one could not leave the apartment entirely after all. Also the maid had on the very first day—it was not quite clear what and how much she knew of what had happened—begged the mother on her knees to dismiss her at once, and when she took her leave a quarter of an hour later, she thanked her for the dismissal amid tears, as for the greatest favor one had granted her here, and gave, without being asked, a terrible oath to betray nothing whatsoever to anyone.

Now the sister had to cook together with the mother; that, however, did not make much work, for they ate almost nothing. Again and again Gregor heard how one vainly urged the other to eat and got no other answer than: "Thank you, I have enough" or something similar. Perhaps nothing was drunk either. Often the sister asked the father whether he wanted beer, and heartily offered to fetch it herself, and when the father was silent, she said, to remove any hesitation from him, she could also send the housekeeper for it, but then the father finally said a loud "No," and it was spoken of no more.

Already in the course of the first day the father laid out the whole financial situation and prospects both to the mother and to the sister. Now and then he rose from the table and fetched from his small Wertheim cashbox, which he had rescued from the collapse of his business five years before, some receipt or some memorandum book. One heard how he unlocked the complicated lock and after taking out what was sought locked it again. These explanations of the father were in part the first pleasing thing Gregor had heard since his imprisonment. He had been of the opinion that nothing at all had remained to the father from that business, at least the father had said nothing to the contrary, and Gregor incidentally had not asked him about it. Gregor's concern at that time had only been to do everything to make the family forget as quickly as possible the business misfortune, which had brought all into complete hopelessness. And so he had then begun to work with quite special ardor and had become almost overnight from a little clerk a traveling salesman, who naturally had quite different possibilities of earning money, and whose work successes immediately transformed into cash in the form of commission, which could be laid on the table at home for the astonished and delighted family. They had been beautiful times, and never afterward had they repeated themselves, at least in this glory, even though Gregor later earned so much money that he was able to bear the expenses of the whole family and did bear them. One had simply grown accustomed, both the family and Gregor, one accepted the money gratefully, he delivered it gladly, but a special warmth would no longer arise. Only the sister had remained close to Gregor, and it was his secret plan to send her, who unlike Gregor loved music very much and played the violin touchingly, next year, regardless of the great costs that this must cause, and which one would already bring in in another way, to the conservatory. Often during Gregor's short stays in the city the conservatory was mentioned in conversations with the sister, but always only as a beautiful dream, whose realization was not to be thought of, and the parents did not even like to hear these innocent mentions; but Gregor thought very definitely of it and intended to declare it solemnly on Christmas Eve.

Such thoughts, quite useless in his present state, went through his head while he stuck upright at the door and listened. Sometimes he could no longer listen at all from general tiredness and let his head knock negligently against the door, but held it firm again at once, for even the small noise he had thereby caused had been heard next door and had silenced all. "What is he up to again," said the father after a while, evidently turned toward the door, and only then the interrupted conversation was gradually taken up again.

Gregor now learned sufficiently—for the father was accustomed to repeat himself in his explanations, partly because he himself had not concerned himself with these matters for a long time, and partly also because the mother did not understand everything at the first time—that despite all misfortune a, admittedly quite small, fortune from the old days was still present, which the untouched interest had let grow a little in the meantime. Besides, however, the money that Gregor had brought home every month—he himself had kept only a few guilders—had not been completely used up and had accumulated into a small capital. Gregor, behind his door, nodded eagerly, pleased at this unexpected prudence and thrift. Actually he could have used these surplus funds to further pay down the father's debt to the chief, and the day on which he could have gotten rid of this item would have been far nearer, but now it was undoubtedly better so, as the father had arranged it.

Now this money, however, by no means sufficed to let the family live off the interest; it sufficed perhaps to maintain the family one, at most two years, no more. It was thus merely a sum that one actually might not touch, and which had to be laid aside for an emergency; but the money for living had to be earned. Now the father was a healthy but old man, who had not worked for five years and certainly could not expect much of himself; he had in these five years, which were the first vacation of his toilsome and yet unsuccessful life, put on much fat and had thereby become quite unwieldy. And the old mother should now perhaps earn money, who suffered from asthma, to whom a walk through the apartment already caused exertion, and who spent every other day in breathing difficulty on the sofa by the open window? And the sister should earn money, who was still a child with her seventeen years, and to whom her previous way of life was so much to be granted, which had consisted in dressing nicely, sleeping long, helping in the household, taking part in a few modest pleasures, and above all playing the violin? When the talk came to this necessity of earning money, Gregor always first let go of the door and threw himself onto the cool leather sofa beside the door, for he became quite hot with shame and sorrow.

Often he lay there through the whole long nights, slept not a wink and only scratched on the leather for hours. Or he did not shy from the great trouble of pushing an armchair to the window, then crawling up the window sill, and, braced in the armchair, leaning against the window, evidently only in some memory of the liberating feeling that had formerly lain for him in looking out the window. For in fact he saw from day to day the even slightly distant things ever more indistinct; the hospital opposite, whose all too frequent sight he had formerly cursed, he no longer got to see at all, and if he had not known exactly that he lived in the quiet but thoroughly urban Charlottenstraße, he could have believed, from his window, to be looking into a wilderness in which the gray sky and the gray earth inseparably united. Only twice had the attentive sister had to see that the armchair stood by the window, and each time after she had tidied the room she pushed the armchair back exactly to the window, indeed from then on left the inner window casement open.

If only Gregor could have spoken with the sister and thanked her for everything she had to do for him, he would have borne her services more easily; as it was, however, he suffered under it. The sister indeed sought to obscure the awkwardness of the whole as much as possible, and the longer time passed, the better she succeeded at this naturally, but also Gregor saw through everything much more precisely with time. Already her entrance was terrible for him. Scarcely had she entered, she ran, without taking time to close the door, however much she otherwise took care to spare everyone the sight of Gregor's room, straight to the window and tore it open with hasty hands, as if she were almost suffocating, and remained even if it was ever so cold a while by the window and breathed deeply. With this running and noise she frightened Gregor twice daily; the whole time he trembled under the couch and yet knew very well that she would certainly have spared him this if it had only been possible for her to stay in a room in which Gregor was, with the window closed.

Once, it was probably already a month since Gregor's transformation had passed, and there was no longer any special reason for the sister to be astonished at Gregor's appearance, she came a little earlier than usual and found Gregor still, as he was looking motionlessly and quite frighteningly placed out the window. It would not have been unexpected for Gregor if she had not entered, since he prevented her by his position from opening the window at once, but she not only did not enter, she even drew back and closed the door; a stranger could almost have thought Gregor had lain in wait for her and wanted to bite her. Gregor of course hid at once under the couch, but he had to wait until noon before the sister came back, and she seemed much more restless than usual. He recognized from this that his sight was still unbearable to her and must remain unbearable to her further, and that she must overcome herself greatly not to run away at the sight even of the small part of his body that protruded from under the couch. To spare her even this sight, one day he carried on his back—he needed four hours for this work—the linen sheet onto the couch and arranged it in such a way that he was now completely concealed, and that the sister, even if she bent down, could not see him. If this linen sheet had been unnecessary in her opinion, she could have removed it, for that it could not belong to Gregor's pleasure to shut himself off so entirely was clear enough, but she left the linen sheet as it was, and Gregor even believed to have caught a grateful glance, when he once cautiously lifted the linen sheet a little with his head, to see how the sister took the new arrangement.

In the first fourteen days the parents could not bring themselves to come in to him, and he often heard how they fully acknowledged the sister's present work, whereas they had formerly often been annoyed at the sister, because she had appeared to them as a somewhat useless girl. Now, however, both, the father and the mother, often waited before Gregor's room while the sister tidied there, and scarcely had she come out, she had to tell exactly how it looked in the room, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time, and whether perhaps a small improvement was to be noticed. The mother, incidentally, wanted to visit Gregor relatively soon, but the father and the sister at first held her back with reasons of sense, which Gregor listened to very attentively, and which he fully approved. Later, however, they had to restrain her by force, and when she then cried: "Let me to Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Do you not understand that I must go to him?", then Gregor thought that it might perhaps be good if the mother came in, not every day naturally, but perhaps once a week; she understood everything much better than the sister, who despite all her courage was still only a child and in the last ground had perhaps taken on such a heavy task only out of childish lightness.

Gregor's wish to see the mother was soon fulfilled. During the day Gregor, out of consideration for his parents, did not want to show himself at the window, but he could not crawl much on the few square meters of floor either, the quiet lying he already bore badly during the night, the eating soon gave him not the least pleasure, and so he took up the habit of crawling crosswise and lengthwise over walls and ceiling for distraction. Especially up on the ceiling he liked to hang; it was quite different from lying on the floor; one breathed more freely; a slight swinging went through the body, and in the almost happy distraction in which Gregor found himself up there, it could happen that to his own surprise he let go and slapped onto the floor. But now he naturally had his body much more in control than before and did not injure himself even in such a great fall. The sister now noticed at once the new entertainment Gregor had found for himself—for he also left here and there traces of his glue when crawling—and so she made it her aim to enable Gregor to crawl in the greatest measure and to remove the furniture that hindered it, thus above all the chest and the writing desk. Now she was not, however, able to do this alone; she did not dare ask the father for help; the maid would certainly not have helped her, for this about sixteen-year-old girl indeed bravely persevered since the dismissal of the former cook, but had asked for the privilege of keeping the kitchen continuously locked and only having to open on special call; so nothing remained for the sister but to fetch the mother once in the father's absence. With cries of excited joy the mother also came, but fell silent at the door before Gregor's room. First of course the sister looked whether everything was in order in the room; only then did she let the mother enter. Gregor had in greatest haste pulled the linen sheet lower and more into folds, the whole really looked only like a linen sheet accidentally thrown over the couch. Gregor also omitted this time to spy under the linen sheet; he renounced seeing the mother already this time, and was only glad that she had now come after all. "Come, one does not see him," said the sister, and evidently she led the mother by the hand. Gregor now heard how the two weak women moved the nevertheless heavy old chest from its place, and how the sister continuously claimed the greatest part of the work for herself, without heeding the mother's warnings, who feared she would overexert herself. It lasted very long. Probably after already a quarter hour's work the mother said one should rather leave the chest here, for first it was too heavy, they would not finish before the father's arrival and with the chest in the middle of the room block every path for Gregor, but second it was not at all certain that the removal of the furniture did Gregor a favor. It seemed to her the opposite was the case; the sight of the empty wall depressed her heart precisely; and why should not Gregor have this feeling too, since he was long accustomed to the room furniture and would therefore feel abandoned in the empty room. "And is it not so," the mother closed quite softly, as she almost whispered throughout, as if wanting to avoid that Gregor, whose exact whereabouts she did not know, hear even the sound of the voice, for that he did not understand the words she was convinced of, "and is it not so, as if by removing the furniture we showed that we give up all hope of improvement and leave him to himself without consideration? I think it would be best if we try to keep the room exactly in the state it was in before, so that Gregor, when he comes back to us, finds everything unchanged and can forget the intervening time all the easier."

On hearing these words of the mother Gregor recognized that the lack of any immediate human address, combined with the monotonous life in the midst of the family, must have confused his mind in the course of these two months, for otherwise he could not explain to himself that he had seriously desired that his room be emptied. Had he really had the desire to let the warm, cozily furnished room with inherited furniture be transformed into a cave, in which he then certainly could crawl undisturbed in all directions, but also with simultaneous, rapid, complete forgetting of his human past? He was indeed already close to forgetting, and only the long-unheard voice of the mother had roused him. Nothing should be removed, everything must stay, the good influences of the furniture on his condition he could not do without; and if the furniture hindered him from practicing senseless crawling around, it was no damage but a great advantage.

But the sister was unfortunately of another opinion; she had, not quite unjustified, grown accustomed to appear as especially expert in discussion of Gregor's affairs vis-à-vis the parents, and so now the mother's advice was reason enough for the sister to insist on the removal not only of the chest and the writing desk, which she had at first thought of alone, but on the removal of all furniture, with the exception of the indispensable couch. It was naturally not only childish defiance and the self-confidence so unexpectedly and hardly won lately that determined her to this demand; she had indeed also actually observed that Gregor needed much room to crawl, whereas the furniture, as far as one could see, he did not use in the least. But perhaps also the romantic sense of girls her age played a part, which seeks its satisfaction on every occasion, and through which Grete now let herself be tempted to want to make Gregor's situation still more terrifying, in order then to be able to do even more for him than hitherto. For in a room in which Gregor alone dominated the empty walls, probably no human except Grete would ever dare to enter.

And so she did not let herself be diverted from her resolve by the mother, who also in this room seemed unsure from sheer uneasiness, soon fell silent and helped the sister with all her might in carrying out the chest. Now, the chest Gregor could do without in an emergency, but the writing desk had to stay. And scarcely had the women left the room with the chest, at which they groaned and pressed, when Gregor pushed his head out from under the couch, to see how he could intervene cautiously and as considerately as possible. But unfortunately it was just the mother who returned first, while Grete in the next room embraced the chest and swung it back and forth alone, without of course moving it from the spot. The mother, however, was not accustomed to Gregor's sight, it could have made her ill, and so Gregor in fright ran backward to the other end of the couch, but could no longer prevent the linen sheet from moving a little at the front. That sufficed to make the mother attentive. She faltered, stood still a moment, and then went back to Grete.

Although Gregor kept telling himself that nothing extraordinary was happening, but only a few pieces of furniture were being moved, yet, as he had soon to admit, this coming and going of the women, their small calls, the scraping of the furniture on the floor, worked like a great turmoil nourished from all sides upon him, and he had, however tightly he drew head and legs to himself and pressed his body to the floor, unavoidably to say that he would not endure the whole long. They were clearing his room out; took from him everything he loved; the chest, in which the fret saw and other tools lay, they had already carried out; now they loosened the writing desk, already firmly dug into the floor, at which he as commercial academy student, as citizen-school pupil, indeed already as elementary pupil had written his assignments—there he really no longer had time to examine the good intentions which the two women had, whose existence he had incidentally almost forgotten, for from exhaustion they already worked silently, and one only heard the heavy padding of their feet.

And so he broke forth—the women were just supporting themselves in the next room at the writing desk, to catch their breath a little—changed the direction of his run four times, he really did not know what to save first, when he saw on the otherwise already empty wall conspicuously the picture of the lady clad in full fur hanging, crawled hastily up and pressed himself against the glass, which held him fast and did his hot belly good. This picture at least, which Gregor now completely covered, would certainly no one take away. He twisted his head toward the door of the living room, to observe the women at their return.

They had not granted themselves much rest and came already again; Grete had laid her arm around the mother and almost carried her. "So what shall we take now?" said Grete and looked around. There their glances crossed with Gregor's at the wall. Probably only on account of the mother's presence she kept her composure, bent her face to the mother to keep her from looking around, and said, though trembling and inconsiderately: "Come, shall we not rather go back into the living room for a moment?" Grete's intention was clear to Gregor, she wanted to bring the mother to safety and then chase him down from the wall. Well, she might try! He sat on his picture and would not give it up. Rather would he spring into Grete's face.

But Grete's words had alarmed the mother all the more, she stepped aside, beheld the gigantic brown spot on the flowered wallpaper, cried, before it really came to her consciousness that it was Gregor she saw, with screaming, rough voice: "Oh God, oh God!" and fell with outspread arms, as if giving up everything, over the couch and did not move. "You, Gregor!" cried the sister with raised fist and urgent glances. They were the first words since the transformation that she had addressed to him directly. She ran into the next room to fetch some essence with which she could wake the mother from her faint; Gregor wanted to help too—there was still time to save the picture—; but he stuck fast to the glass and had to tear himself loose with force; he then also ran into the next room, as if he could give the sister some advice, as in former times; but had then to stand behind her inactive; while she rummaged in various vials, she was frightened when she turned around; a bottle fell to the floor and broke; a splinter wounded Gregor in the face, some caustic medicine flowed around him; Grete now took, without lingering longer, as many vials as she could hold, and ran with them to the mother; the door she slammed with her foot. Gregor was now shut off from the mother, who through his fault was perhaps near death; he might not open the door, if he did not want to drive away the sister, who had to remain with the mother; he now had nothing to do but wait; and oppressed by self-reproaches and worry, he began to crawl, crawled over everything, walls, furniture, and ceiling, and finally in his despair, as the whole room already began to spin around him, fell down in the middle of the large table.

A little while passed, Gregor lay exhausted, all around it was quiet, perhaps that was a good sign. Then the bell rang. The maid was naturally locked in her kitchen and Grete therefore had to go open. The father had come. "What has happened?" were his first words; Grete's appearance had probably betrayed everything to him. Grete answered with dull voice, evidently she pressed her face to the father's chest: "The mother was faint, but she is already better. Gregor has broken out." "I expected it," said the father, "I always told you, but you women would not listen." Gregor understood that the father had misinterpreted Grete's all-too-brief message and assumed that Gregor had committed some act of violence. Therefore Gregor had to try to soothe the father now, for he had neither time nor possibility to enlighten him. And so he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself against it, so that the father upon entry from the anteroom might see at once that Gregor had the best intention to return immediately into his room, and that it was not necessary to drive him back, but that one only needed to open the door, and he would disappear at once.

But the father was not in the mood to notice such niceties. "Ah!" he cried at once upon entry in a tone as if he were simultaneously angry and glad. Gregor drew his head back from the door and raised it toward the father. He had really not imagined the father thus, as he now stood; admittedly he had in the last time, over the novel crawling around, neglected to concern himself with the events in the rest of the apartment as formerly, and should actually have been prepared to find changed conditions. Yet, yet, was that still the father? The same man who lay buried tired in bed, when formerly Gregor had set out on a business trip; who had received him on evenings of return in the armchair in his dressing gown; hardly able to stand up, but only raised his arms as a sign of joy, and who on the rare common walks on a few Sundays of the year and on the highest holidays between Gregor and the mother, who anyway walked slowly, always still a little slower, packed in his old coat, with cautiously placed walking stick worked himself forward, and when he wanted to say something, almost always stood still and gathered his companions around him? Now, however, he was well upright; dressed in a tight blue uniform with gold buttons, such as servants of banking institutions wear; above the high stiff collar of the coat developed his strong double chin; under the bushy eyebrows the glance of the black eyes emerged fresh and attentive; the otherwise disheveled white hair was combed down into a painstakingly exact, shining part. He threw his cap, on which a gold monogram, probably that of a bank, was attached, in an arc over the whole room onto the couch, and went, the ends of his long uniform coat thrown back, hands in trouser pockets, with clenched face toward Gregor. He probably himself did not know what he intended; nevertheless he lifted his feet unusually high, and Gregor wondered at the gigantic size of his boot soles. Yet he did not dwell on that, for he still knew from the first day of his new life that the father considered only the greatest strictness toward him as appropriate. And so he ran before the father, stopped when the father stopped, and hurried forward again when the father only stirred. Thus they made several rounds about the room, without anything decisive happening, indeed without the whole, due to its slow tempo, having the appearance of a pursuit. Therefore Gregor remained for the present on the floor, especially since he feared the father might take a flight onto the walls or the ceiling for special malice. However, Gregor had to tell himself that he would not long endure even this running, for while the father made one step, he had to execute a host of movements. Breathlessness began to be noticeable, as he indeed in his former time had not possessed a quite trustworthy lung. As he now thus tottered along, to gather all strength for the run, hardly kept his eyes open; in his dullness thought of no other rescue than through running; and had almost already forgotten that the walls stood free to him, which here, however, were blocked with carefully carved furniture full of jags and points—then something flew down close beside him, lightly thrown, and rolled before him. It was an apple; at once a second was thrown after him; Gregor stopped in fright; running on was useless, for the father had resolved to bombard him. From the fruit bowl on the sideboard he had filled his pockets and now threw, without for the present aiming sharply, apple after apple. These small red apples rolled about on the floor as if electrified and knocked against each other. A weakly thrown apple grazed Gregor's back, but glided off harmlessly. One flying immediately after, however, literally drove into Gregor's back; Gregor wanted to crawl on, as if the surprising incredible pain could pass with the change of place; but he felt as if nailed fast and stretched out in complete confusion of all senses. Only with the last glance did he still see how the door of his room was torn open, and before the screaming sister the mother rushed out, in her shift, for the sister had undressed her, to give her freedom of breath in the faint, how then the mother ran toward the father and on the way her unfastened skirts slipped one after another to the floor, and how stumbling over the skirts she bore down on the father and embracing him, in complete union with him—but now Gregor's power of sight already failed—with hands at the back of the father's head begged for sparing of Gregor's life.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”