The Sons (14 page)

True, their conversation lacked the lively character of former times, which he had always called to mind with a certain wistfulness in the small hotel bedrooms where he so often used to throw himself down, tired out, on the damp bedding. They were now mostly very silent. Soon after supper his father would fall asleep in his armchair; his mother and sister would admonish each other to be silent; his mother, bending low under the lamp, would sew delicate undergarments for a fashionable shop; his sister, who had taken a job as a salesgirl, was learning shorthand and French in the evenings in the hopes of getting a better position some day. Sometimes his father woke up, and as if quite unaware that he had been sleeping said to his mother: “What a lot of sewing you’re doing today!” and at once fell asleep again, while the two women exchanged a tired smile.

With a kind of mulishness his father persisted in keeping his uniform on even in the house; his robe hung uselessly on its peg and he slept fully dressed where he sat, as if he were ready for service at any moment and even here only awaiting the call of his superior. As a result, his uniform, which was not brand-new to start with, began to look dirty, despite all the loving care of the mother and sister to keep it clean, and Gregor often spent whole evenings gazing at the many greasy spots on the garment, gleaming with gold buttons always in a high state of polish, in which the old man sat sleeping in extreme discomfort and yet quite peacefully.

As soon as the clock struck ten his mother tried to rouse his father with gentle words and to persuade him after that to get into bed, for sitting there he could not have a proper sleep and that was what he needed most, since he had to go
on duty at six. But with the mulishness he displayed since becoming a bank attendant he always insisted on staying longer at the table, although he regularly fell asleep again and finally only with the greatest trouble could be persuaded to relinquish his armchair and go to bed. However insistently Gregor’s mother and sister kept urging him with gentle reminders, he would go on slowly shaking his head for a quarter of an hour, keeping his eyes shut, and refuse to get to his feet. The mother plucked at his sleeve, whispering endearments in his ear, the sister left her lessons to come to her mother’s help, but it all made little impression on Gregor’s father. He would only sink down deeper in his chair. Not until the two women hoisted him up by the armpits did he open his eyes and look at them both, one after the other, usually with the remark, “What a life. So this is the peace and quiet of my old age.” And leaning on the two of them he would heave himself up, with difficulty, as if he were his own greatest burden, permit them to lead him as far as the door, and then wave them away and go on alone, while the mother threw down her needlework and the sister her pen in order to run after him and be of further assistance.

Who could find time in this overworked and tired-out family to bother about Gregor more than was absolutely necessary? The household was reduced more and more; the maid was now let go; a gigantic bony cleaning woman with white hair flying around her head came in mornings and evenings to do the rough work; Gregor’s mother did all the rest, as well as all her sewing. Even various pieces of family jewelry, which his mother and sister had loved to wear at parties and celebrations, had to be sold, as Gregor discovered one evening from hearing them discuss the prices obtained. But what they lamented most was the fact that they could not leave the apartment, which was much too big for their present circumstances, because they could not think of any way to transfer Gregor. Yet Gregor saw well enough that
consideration for him was not the main difficulty preventing the move, for they could easily have carried him in some suitable box with a few air holes in it; what really kept them from moving into another apartment was rather their own complete hopelessness and the belief that they had been singled out for a misfortune such as had never happened to any of their relations or acquaintances. They fulfilled to the utmost all that the world demands of poor people: the father fetched breakfast for the minor clerks in the bank, the mother devoted her energy to making underwear for strangers, the sister trotted back and forth behind the counter at the demand of her customers, but more than this they had not the strength to do. And the wound in Gregor’s back began to hurt him afresh when his mother and sister, after getting his father into bed, came back again, left their work lying, drew close to each other, and sat cheek by cheek—when his mother, pointing toward his room, said, “Shut that door now, Grete,” and he was left again in darkness, while next door the women mingled their tears or perhaps sat dry-eyed, staring at the table.

Gregor hardly slept at all now, night or day. He was often haunted by the idea that the next time the door opened he would take the family’s affairs in hand again just as he used to do; once again after this long interval, there appeared in his thoughts the figures of the boss and the chief clerk, the salesmen and the apprentices, the messenger boy who was so dull-witted, two or three friends in other firms, a chambermaid in one of the rural hotels, a sweet and fleeting memory, a cashier in a milliner’s shop, whom he had courted earnestly but too slowly—they all appeared, together with strangers or people he had quite forgotten, but instead of helping him and his family they were all inaccessible and he was glad when they vanished. At other times he would not be in the mood to bother about his family, he was only filled with rage at the way they were neglecting him, and al
though he could not imagine what he might like to eat he would make plans for getting into the pantry to take the food that, after all, was due him, hungry or not. His sister no longer gave a second thought now to what might especially please him, but in the morning and at noon before she went to work hurriedly pushed into his room with her foot any food that was available, and in the evening cleared it out again with one sweep of the broom, heedless of whether it had been nibbled at, or—as most frequently happened—left completely untouched. The cleaning of his room, which she now always did in the evenings, could not have been done more hastily. Streaks of dirt were smeared along the walls, here and there lay balls of dust and filth. At first Gregor used to station himself in some particularly filthy corner when his sister arrived, in order to reproach her with it, so to speak. But he could have sat there for weeks without getting her to make any improvement; she could see the dirt as well as he did, but she had simply made up her mind to leave it alone. And yet, with a touchiness that was new to her, and which seemed, moreover, to have infected the whole family, she jealously guarded her claim to be the sole caretaker of Gregor’s room. His mother once subjected his room to a thorough cleaning, which was achieved only by means of several buckets of water—all this dampness of course upset Gregor too and he lay stretched out, sulky and motionless on the sofa—but she was well punished for it. Hardly had his sister noticed the changed aspect of his room that evening than she rushed mortally offended into the living room and, despite the imploringly raised hands of her mother, burst into a storm of weeping, while her parents—her father had of course been startled out of his chair—looked on at first in helpless amazement; then they too began to go into action; the father reproached the mother on his right for not having left the cleaning of Gregor’s room to his sister; shrieked at the sister on his left that never again would she
be allowed to clean Gregor’s room; while the mother tried to drag the father into his bedroom since he was beside himself with agitation; the sister, shaken with sobs, then beat upon the table with her small fists; and Gregor hissed loudly with rage because not one of them thought of shutting the door to spare him such a spectacle and so much noise.

Still, even if the sister, exhausted by her daily work, had grown tired of looking after Gregor as she formerly did, there was no need at all for his mother’s intervention or for Gregor’s being neglected. The cleaning woman was there. This old widow, whose strong and bony frame had enabled her to survive the worst a long life could offer, had no particular aversion to Gregor. Without being in the least inquisitive she had once by chance opened the door to his room and at the sight of Gregor, who, taken by surprise, began to rush to and fro although no one was chasing him, merely stood there in amazement with her arms folded. From that time on she never failed to open his door a little for a moment, morning and evening, to have a look at him. At first she even used to call him to her, with words which apparently she meant to be friendly, such as: “Come on over here, you old dung beetle!” or “Will you look at that old dung beetle!” To such forms of address Gregor made no answer, but stayed motionless where he was, as if the door had never been opened. Instead of being allowed to disturb him so senselessly whenever the whim took her, that servant should have been ordered instead to clean out his room daily. Once, early in the morning—heavy rain was lashing at the windowpanes, perhaps a sign that spring was on its way—Gregor was so exasperated when she began addressing him again that he turned and went toward her as if to attack her, although slowly and feebly enough. But the cleaning woman, instead of being afraid, merely picked up a chair that happened to be beside the door, held it high, and as she stood there with her mouth wide open it was clear that she
meant to shut it only after she brought the chair down on Gregor’s back. “Not coming any closer, then?” she asked, as Gregor turned away again, and quietly put the chair back into the corner.

Gregor was now eating hardly anything. Only when he happened to pass the food laid out for him did he take a bit of something in his mouth as a kind of game, kept it there for hours at a time, and usually spat it out again. At first he thought it was chagrin over the state of his room that prevented him from eating, yet in fact he very quickly got used to the various changes in his room. It had become a habit in the family to put things into his room for which there was no space elsewhere, and there were plenty of these things now, since one of the rooms had been rented to three boarders. These serious gentlemen—all three of them with full beards, as Gregor once observed through a crack in the door—had a passion for order, not only in their own room but, since they were now members of the household, in all its arrangements, especially in the kitchen. They could not endure useless, let alone dirty, clutter. Besides, they had brought with them most of the furnishings they needed. For this reason many things could be dispensed with that it was no use trying to sell but that should not be thrown away either. All of them found their way into Gregor’s room. The ash can likewise and the kitchen garbage can. Anything that was not needed for the moment was simply flung into Gregor’s room by the cleaning woman, who did everything in a hurry; fortunately Gregor usually saw only the object, whatever it was, and the hand that held it. Perhaps she intended to take the things away again as time and opportunity offered, or to collect them until she could throw them all out in a heap, but in fact they just lay wherever she happened to throw them, except when Gregor pushed his way through the junk heap and arranged it somewhat, at first out of necessity because he had no room to crawl
around in, but later with increasing enjoyment, although after such excursions, being sad and weary to death, he would lie motionless for hours.

Since the boarders often ate their supper at home in the common living room, the living-room door stayed shut many an evening, yet Gregor reconciled himself quite easily to the shutting of the door, for often enough on evenings when it was opened he had disregarded it entirely and lain in the darkest corner of his room, quite unnoticed by the family. On one occasion the cleaning woman had left the door open a little and it stayed ajar even when the lodgers came in for supper and the lamp was lit. They sat down at the upper end of the table where formerly Gregor and his father and mother had eaten their meals, unfolded their napkins, and took knife and fork in hand. At once his mother appeared in the doorway with a platter of meat and close behind her his sister with a bowl of potatoes piled high. The food steamed with a thick vapor. The boarders bent over the food set before them as if to scrutinize it before eating; in fact, the man in the middle, who seemed to pass for an authority with the other two, cut a piece of meat as it lay on the platter, obviously to determine if it was tender enough or should be sent back to the kitchen. He was satisfied, and Gregor’s mother and sister, who had been watching anxiously, breathed a sigh of relief and began to smile.

The family itself took its meals in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor’s father came into the living room before going to the kitchen and with one prolonged bow, cap in hand, made a round of the table. The boarders all stood up and muttered something in their beards. When they were alone again they ate their food in almost complete silence. It seemed remarkable to Gregor that among the various noises coming from the table he could always distinguish the sound of their chewing teeth, as if this were a sign to Gregor that one needed teeth in order to eat, and that even with the finest
of toothless jaws one could do nothing. “I’m certainly hungry,” said Gregor sadly to himself, “but not for that kind of food. How these boarders are stuffing themselves, and here am I dying of starvation!”

On that very evening—during all this time Gregor could not remember ever having heard the violin—the sound of violin playing came from the kitchen. The boarders had already finished their supper, the one in the middle had brought out a newspaper and given the other two a page apiece, and now they were leaning back at ease reading and smoking. When the violin began to play they pricked up their ears, got to their feet, and went on tiptoe to the hall door where they stood huddled together. Their movements must have been heard in the kitchen, for Gregor’s father called out: “Is the violin playing disturbing you, gentlemen? It can be stopped at once.” “On the contrary,” said the middle boarder, “wouldn’t the young lady like to join us here and play where it is much more pleasant and comfortable?” “Oh certainly,” cried Gregor’s father, as if he were the violin player. The boarders returned to the living room and waited. Soon Gregor’s father arrived with the music stand, his mother carrying the music and his sister with the violin. His sister calmly made everything ready to start playing; his parents, who had never let rooms before and so had an exaggerated idea of the courtesy due to boarders, did not venture to sit down on their own chairs; his father leaned against the door, his right hand thrust between two buttons of his uniform jacket, which was formally buttoned up; but his mother was offered a chair by one of the boarders and, since she left the chair just where he had happened to put it, sat down in a corner off to one side.