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Page 17
They carried out absolutely everything that the world
expects from poor people, Gregor's father brought bank
employees their breakfast, his mother sacrificed herself by
washing clothes for strangers, his sister ran back and forth
behind her desk at the behest of the customers, but they
just did not have the strength to do any more. And the
injury in Gregor's back began to hurt as much as when it was
new. After they had come back from taking his father to bed
Gregor's mother and sister would now leave their work where
it was and sit close together, cheek to cheek; his mother
would point to Gregor's room and say "Close that door,
Grete", and then, when he was in the dark again, they would
sit in the next room and their tears would mingle, or they
would simply sit there staring dry-eyed at the table.
Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes
he would think of taking over the family's affairs, just
like before, the next time the door was opened; he had long
forgotten about his boss and the chief clerk, but they would
appear again in his thoughts, the salesmen and the
apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three friends from
other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a provincial
hotel, a tender memory that appeared and disappeared again,
a cashier from a hat shop for whom his attention had been
serious but too slow, - all of them appeared to him, mixed
together with strangers and others he had forgotten, but
instead of helping him and his family they were all of them
inaccessible, and he was glad when they disappeared.
Other times he was not at all in the mood to look after his
family, he was filled with simple rage about the lack of
attention he was shown, and although he could think of
nothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he could
get into the pantry where he could take all the things he
was entitled to, even if he was not hungry. Gregor's sister
no longer thought about how she could please him but would
hurriedly push some food or other into his room with her
foot before she rushed out to work in the morning and at
midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away again
with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten
or - more often than not - had been left totally untouched.
She still cleared up the room in the evening, but now she
could not have been any quicker about it. Smears of dirt
were left on the walls, here and there were little balls of
dust and filth. At first, Gregor went into one of the worst
of these places when his sister arrived as a reproach to
her, but he could have stayed there for weeks without his
sister doing anything about it; she could see the dirt as
well as he could but she had simply decided to leave him to
it.
At the same time she became touchy in a way that was quite
new for her and which everyone in the family understood -
cleaning up Gregor's room was for her and her alone.
Gregor's mother did once thoroughly clean his room, and
needed to use several bucketfuls of water to do it -
although that much dampness also made Gregor ill and he lay
flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But his mother was
to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly
had his sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed
the change in Gregor's room and, highly aggrieved, ran back
into the living room where, despite her mothers raised and
imploring hands, she broke into convulsive tears. Her
father, of course, was startled out of his chair and the two
parents looked on astonished and helpless; then they, too,
became agitated; Gregor's father, standing to the right of
his mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning of
Gregor's room to his sister; from her left, Gregor's sister
screamed at her that she was never to clean Gregor's room
again; while his mother tried to draw his father, who was
beside himself with anger, into the bedroom; his sister,
quaking with tears, thumped on the table with her small
fists; and Gregor hissed in anger that no-one had even
thought of closing the door to save him the sight of this
and all its noise.
Gregor's sister was exhausted from going out to work, and
looking after Gregor as she had done before was even more
work for her, but even so his mother ought certainly not to
have taken her place. Gregor, on the other hand, ought not
to be neglected. Now, though, the charwoman was here. This
elderly widow, with a robust bone structure that made her
able to withstand the hardest of things in her long life,
wasn't really repelled by Gregor. Just by chance one day,
rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to
Gregor's room and found herself face to face with him. He
was taken totally by surprise, no-one was chasing him but he
began to rush to and fro while she just stood there in
amazement with her hands crossed in front of her. From then
on she never failed to open the door slightly every evening
and morning and look briefly in on him. At first she would
call to him as she did so with words that she probably
considered friendly, such as "come on then, you old dung-
beetle!", or "look at the old dung-beetle there!" Gregor
never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just
remained where he was without moving as if the door had
never even been opened. If only they had told this
charwoman to clean up his room every day instead of letting
her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt like it!
One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the
windowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she
began to speak to him in that way once again. Gregor was so
resentful of it that he started to move toward her, he was
slow and infirm, but it was like a kind of attack. Instead
of being afraid, the charwoman just lifted up one of the
chairs from near the door and stood there with her mouth
open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the
chair in her hand had been slammed down into Gregor's back.
"Aren't you coming any closer, then?", she asked when Gregor
turned round again, and she calmly put the chair back in the
corner.
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