The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  In this way Gregor now got his food every day, once in the morning, when his parents and the servant girl were still asleep, and a second time after the common noon meal, for his parents were asleep then for a little while, and the servant girl was sent off by his sister on some errand or other. They certainly would not have wanted Gregor to starve to death, but perhaps they could not have endured finding out what he ate (other than by hearsay). Perhaps his sister also wanted to spare them what was possibly only a small grief, for they were really suffering quite enough already.

  What sorts of excuses people had used on that first morning to get the doctor and the locksmith out of the house again Gregor was completely unable to ascertain. Since they could not understand him, no one, not even his sister, had imagined that he might be able to understand others, and thus, when his sister was in his room, he had to be content with listening now and then to her sighs and invocations to the saints. Only later, when she had grown somewhat accustomed to everything—naturally there could never be any talk of her growing completely accustomed to it—Gregor sometimes caught a comment which was intended to be friendly or could be interpreted as such. “Well, today it tasted good to him,” she said, if Gregor had really cleaned up what he had to eat; whereas, in the reverse situation, which gradually repeated itself more and more frequently, she used to say almost sadly, “Now everything has been left again.”

  But while Gregor could get no new information directly, he did hear a good deal from the room next door, and as soon as he heard voices, he scurried over right away to whichever door it was and pressed his entire body against it. In the early days especially, there was no conversation which was not concerned with him in some way or other, even if only surreptitiously. For two days at all meal times discussions could be heard of how they should now conduct themselves. They also talked about the same subject in the times between meals, for there were always at least two family members at home, since no one really wanted to remain in the house alone and people could not under any circumstances leave the apartment completely empty. In addition, on the very first day the servant girl—it was not completely clear what and how much she knew about what had happened—on her knees had begged his mother to let her go immediately. When she said goodbye about fifteen minutes later, she thanked them for the dismissal with tears in her eyes, as if she was receiving the greatest favor which people had ever shown her there, and, without anyone demanding it from her, she swore a fearful oath not to reveal anything to anyone, not even the slightest detail.

  Now his sister had to team up with his mother to do the cooking, although that did not create much trouble because people were eating almost nothing. Again and again Gregor listened as one of them vainly invited another one to eat and received no answer other than “Thank you. I’ve had enough” or something like that. And perhaps they had stopped having anything to drink, too. His sister often asked his father whether he wanted to have a beer and gladly offered to fetch it herself, and when his father was silent, she said, in order to remove any reservations he might have, that she could send the caretaker’s wife to get it. But then the father would finally say a resounding “No,” and nothing more would be spoken about it.

  Already during the first day his father laid out all the financial circumstances and prospects to his mother and to his sister as well. From time to time he stood up from the table and pulled out of the small lockbox salvaged from his business, which had collapsed five years previously, some document or other or some notebook. The sound was audible as he opened up the complicated lock and, after removing what he was looking for, locked it up again. Some of the father’s explanations were the first enjoyable thing that Gregor had the chance to listen to since his imprisonment began. He had thought that his father had been left with nothing at all from that business; at least his father had told him nothing to contradict that view, and Gregor in any case had not asked him about it. At the time Gregor’s only concern had been to do everything he could in order to allow his family to forget as quickly as possible the business misfortune which had brought them all into a state of complete hopelessness. And so at that point he had started to work with a special intensity; from a minor assistant he had become, almost overnight, a traveling salesman, who naturally had entirely different possibilities for earning money and whose successes at work were converted immediately into the form of cash commissions, which could be set out on the table at home for his astonished and delighted family. Those had been beautiful days, and they had never come back since, at least not with the same splendor, in spite of the fact that Gregor later earned so much money that he was in a position to bear the expenses of the entire family, costs which he, in fact, did bear. They had become quite accustomed to it, both the family and Gregor as well. They took the money with thanks, and he happily surrendered it, but there was no longer any special warmth about it. Only his sister had remained still close to Gregor, and it was his secret plan to send her next year to the Conservatory, regardless of the great expense which that necessarily involved and which would be made up in other ways. In contrast to Gregor, she loved music very much and knew how to play the violin charmingly. Now and then during Gregor’s short stays in the city the Conservatory was mentioned in conversations with his sister, but always merely as a beautiful dream, whose realization was unimaginable; their parents never listened to these innocent expectations with pleasure. But Gregor thought about them with scrupulous consideration and intended to announce his proposal solemnly on Christmas Eve.

  In his present situation, such completely futile ideas would go through his head while he pushed himself right up against the door and listened. Sometimes in his general exhaustion he could not listen anymore and let his head bang listlessly against the door, but he immediately pulled himself together once more, for even the small sound which he made by this motion would be heard nearby and silence everyone. “There he goes on again,” his father would say after a while, clearly turning toward the door, and only then would the interrupted conversation gradually be resumed again.

  Gregor soon found out clearly enough—for his father tended to repeat himself from time to time in his explanations, partly because he had not personally concerned himself with these matters for a long time now, and partly because his mother did not understand everything right away the first time—that, in spite of all bad luck, an amount of money, although a very small one, was still available from the old times and that the interest, which had not been touched, had in the intervening time accumulated a little. In addition to this, the money which Gregor had brought home every month—he had kept only a few crowns for himself—had not been completely spent and had grown into a small capital amount. Gregor, behind his door, nodded eagerly, rejoicing over this unanticipated foresight and frugality. True, with this excess money, he could really have paid off more of the father’s debt to his employer and the day on which he could be rid of this position would have been a lot closer, but now things were doubtless better the way his father had arranged them.

  At the moment, however, this money was not nearly sufficient to permit the family to live off the interest payments. Perhaps the savings would be enough to maintain the family for one or at most two years, that was all. Thus, it only really added up to an amount that one should not draw upon and that should be set aside for an emergency. They had to earn money to live on. Now, it’s true his father was indeed a healthy man, but he was old and had not worked for five years and thus could not be counted on for very much. He had in these five years, the first holidays of his laborious but unsuccessful life, put on a good deal of fat and thus had become really heavy. And should his old mother now be expected to work for money? A woman who suffered from asthma, for whom wandering through the apartment was even now a great strain and who spent every second day on the sofa by the open window, having trouble with her breathing? Should his sister earn money, a girl who was still a seventeen-year-old child and whose
earlier lifestyle—consisting of dressing herself nicely, sleeping in late, helping around the house, taking part in a few modest enjoyments and, above all, playing the violin—had been so very delightful? When it came to talking about this need to earn money, Gregor would at first always let go of the door and throw himself on the cool leather sofa nearby, quite hot from shame and sorrow.

  Often he lay there all night long, not sleeping at all, just scratching on the leather for hours at a time. Or he would take on the very difficult task of pushing a chair over to the window. Then he would creep up on the windowsill and, braced on the chair, lean against the window to look out, obviously with some memory or other of the liberating sense which looking out the window used to bring him in earlier times. For, in fact, from day to day he perceived things with less and less clarity, even things that were only a short distance away. The hospital across the street, the all-too-frequent sight of which he had previously cursed, was not visible at all anymore, and if he had not been very well aware that he lived in the quiet but completely urban Charlotte Street, he could have believed that from his window he was peering out at a featureless wasteland, in which the gray heaven and the gray earth had merged and were indistinguishable. His observant sister had only to notice a couple of times that the chair stood by the window; then, after cleaning up the room, she would each time push the chair back right against the window again. She even began to leave the inner casements open.

  If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for everything that she had to do for him, he would have tolerated her service more easily. As it was, he suffered under it. To her credit, the sister sought to cover up the awkwardness of everything as much as possible, and, as time went by, she naturally became more successful at it. But with the passing of time Gregor also came to understand everything much more clearly. Even the way she would come in was terrible for him. As soon as she entered, she ran straight to the window, without taking the time to shut the door—in spite of the fact that at other times she was very careful to spare anyone the sight of Gregor’s room—and yanked the window open with eager hands, as if she were almost suffocating, and remained for a while by the window breathing deeply, even when it was very cold. With all her noisy rushing about she frightened Gregor twice every day. The entire time he trembled under the couch, and yet he knew very well that she would certainly have spared him all this gladly if it had only been possible for her to remain with the window closed in a room where Gregor lived.

  On one occasion—about one month had already gone by since Gregor’s transformation, and there was no particular reason any more for his sister to be startled at Gregor’s appearance—she arrived a little earlier than usual and came upon Gregor as he was still looking out the window, immobile and positioned as if to frighten someone. It would not have come as a surprise to Gregor if she had not come in, since his position was preventing her from opening the window immediately. But not only did she not step inside; she even stepped back and shut the door. A stranger really could have concluded from this that Gregor had been lying in wait for her and wanted to bite her. Of course, Gregor immediately concealed himself under the couch, but he had to wait until noon before his sister returned, and she seemed much less calm than usual. From this he realized that his appearance was still intolerable to her and should remain intolerable to her in future—and that she really must have to exert a lot of self-control not to run away from a glimpse of only the small part of his body which stuck out from under the couch. In order to spare her even this sight, one day he dragged the bedsheet on his back up onto the couch—this task took him four hours—and arranged it in such a way that he was now completely concealed and his sister, even if she bent down, could not see him. If this sheet was not necessary as far as she was concerned, then she could certainly have removed it, for it was clear enough that Gregor could not derive any pleasure from isolating himself away so completely. But she left the sheet just as it was, and Gregor believed he even caught a look of gratitude when, on one occasion, he carefully lifted up the sheet a little with his head to check as his sister took stock of the new arrangement.

  In the first two weeks his parents could not bring themselves to visit him, and he often heard how they fully acknowledged his sister’s present work; whereas, earlier they had often got annoyed at his sister because she had seemed to them a somewhat useless girl. Now both his father and his mother frequently waited in front of Gregor’s door while his sister cleaned up inside. As soon as she came out, she had to explain in great detail how things looked in the room, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time, and whether perhaps a slight improvement was perceptible. As it happened, his mother comparatively soon had wanted to visit Gregor, but his father and his sister had restrained her, at first with reasons which Gregor listened to very attentively and which he completely endorsed. Later, however, they had to hold her back forcefully. When she then cried “Let me go to Gregor. He’s my unfortunate son! Don’t you understand that I have to go to him?” Gregor then thought that perhaps it would be a good thing if his mother came in, not every day, of course, but maybe once a week. She understood everything much better than his sister, who, in spite of all her courage, was still merely a child and, in the last analysis, had perhaps undertaken such a difficult task only out of childish recklessness.

  Gregor’s wish to see his mother was soon realized. While during the day Gregor, out of consideration for his parents, did not want to show himself by the window, he could not crawl around very much on the few square meters of the floor. He found it difficult to bear lying quietly during the night, and soon eating no longer gave him the slightest pleasure. So for diversion he acquired the habit of crawling back and forth across the walls and ceiling. He was especially fond of hanging from the ceiling. The experience was quite different from lying on the floor. It was easier to breathe, a slight vibration went through his body, and in the midst of the almost happy amusement which Gregor found up there, it could happen that, to his own surprise, he let go and hit the floor. However, now he naturally controlled his body quite differently than before, and he did not injure himself in such a great fall. Now, his sister noticed immediately the new amusement which Gregor had found for himself—for as he crept around he left behind here and there traces of his sticky stuff—and so she got the idea of making the area where Gregor could creep around as large as possible and thus of removing the furniture which got in the way, especially the chest of drawers and the writing desk. But she was in no position to do this by herself. She did not dare to ask her father to help, and the servant girl would certainly not have assisted her, for although this girl, about sixteen years old, had courageously remained since the dismissal of the previous cook, she had begged for the privilege of being allowed to stay permanently confined to the kitchen and of having to open the door only in answer to a special summons. Thus, his sister had no other choice but to involve his mother, choosing a time when his father was absent. His mother approached Gregor’s room with cries of excited joy, but she fell silent at the door. Of course, his sister first checked whether everything in the room was in order. Only then did she let his mother enter. Gregor had, with the greatest haste, drawn the sheet down even further and wrinkled it more. The whole thing really looked just like a coverlet thrown carelessly over the couch. On this occasion, Gregor also held back from spying out from under the sheet. For now, he refrained from looking at his mother and was merely happy that she had now come. “Come on. You can’t see him,” said his sister and evidently led his mother by the hand. Now Gregor listened as these two weak women shifted the heavy old chest of drawers from its position. His sister constantly took on herself the greatest part of the work, without listening to the warnings of his mother, who was afraid that she would strain herself. The work lasted a very long time. After about a quarter of an hour had already gone by, his mother said it would be better if they left the chest of drawers where it was, becau
se, in the first place, it was too heavy. They would not be finished before his father’s arrival, and leaving the chest of drawers in the middle of the room would block all Gregor’s pathways, but, in the second place, they could not be at all certain that Gregor would be pleased with the removal of the furniture. To Gregor’s mother the reverse seemed likely to be true. The sight of the empty walls pierced her right to the heart; and why should Gregor not feel the same? He had been accustomed to the room furnishings for a long time and without them would feel himself abandoned in an empty room. “And is it not the case,” his mother concluded very quietly, almost whispering, as if she wished to prevent Gregor, whose exact location she really did not know, from hearing even the sound of her voice—for she was convinced that he did not understand her words—“and isn’t it a fact that by removing the furniture we’d be showing that we were giving up all hope of an improvement and leaving him to his own resources without any consideration? I think it would be best if we tried to keep the room exactly in the condition it was in before, so that, when Gregor returns to us, he finds everything unchanged and can forget the intervening time all the more easily.”