The Meowmorphosis (2 page)

First he wanted to stand up quietly and undisturbed, get dressed, above all have breakfast, and only then consider further action, for—he realized clearly—by thinking things over in bed he would not reach a reasonable conclusion. Yet the bed seemed warmer and more comfortable than ever, and he was loath to
leave it. He felt a strong desire to knead the coverlet with his white paws. But Gregor remembered that he had often in the past felt some light pain or other in bed, perhaps the result of an awkward reclining position, which later turned out to be purely imaginary when he stood up, and he was eager to see how his present fantasies would gradually dissipate. Surely the change in his voice was nothing other than the onset of a real chill, an occupational illness of commercial travelers; of that he had not the slightest doubt.

It was easy to throw aside the blanket. He needed only to push himself up a little, and it fell off by itself. But to continue was difficult, particularly because he was so unusually fat and cuddly. He needed arms and hands to push himself upright. Instead of these, however, he had only four large, soft paws that were incessantly moving with unfamiliar motions, flexing and curling, extending claws and retracting them, and that, in addition, he was unable to control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then it was the first to straighten itself, and if he finally succeeded doing what he wanted with this limb, in the meantime all the others, as if left free, moved around in an excessively darling agitation. “But I must not stay in bed uselessly,” said Gregor to himself.

At first he wanted to get out of bed with the lower part of his body, but this lower part—which, by the way, he had not
yet looked at and which he also couldn’t picture clearly—proved itself too difficult to move, particularly with what felt like a long, bushy tail added to the equation. The attempt went so slowly. When, having become almost frantic, he finally hurled himself forward with all his force and without caution, he chose his direction incorrectly, and he hit the lower bedpost hard. The violent pain that ensued revealed to him that the lower part of his body was at the moment probably the most sensitive. He could not abide his tail being squashed, most of all. This disaster also revealed to Gregor Samsa that he was quite a
large
kitten, for his upper parts were still curled up sweetly in bed.

So now he tried to get his upper body out of bed first, turning his head carefully toward the edge of the bed. He managed to do this easily, and in spite of its width and wriggly, almost liquid weight, his body mass at last slowly followed the turning of his head. But as he finally raised his head outside the bed in the open air, he became anxious about moving forward any farther in this manner, for if he allowed himself eventually to fall by this process, it would take a miracle to prevent his head from getting injured. And at all costs he must not lose consciousness right now. He preferred to remain in bed.

After a second effort, he lay there again, sighing as before, and once again he saw his small limbs fighting one another,
having discovered on their own some insignificant piece of fluff; all four of his paws batted it between them, as if he had nothing better to do! If anything, this was worse than earlier, and he didn’t see any chance of imposing quiet and order on this arbitrary movement. He told himself again that he couldn’t possibly remain in bed and that he really should be prepared to sacrifice everything if there was even the slightest hope of getting himself out of bed in the process. At the same moment, however, he didn’t forget to remind himself of the fact that calm—indeed the calmest—reflection—indeed, perhaps a nap—might be better than the most confused decisions. But no! He forced himself to remain sharply awake. Looking for motivation, he directed his gaze as precisely as he could toward the window, but unfortunately there was little confident cheer to be had from a glance at the morning mist, which concealed even the other side of the narrow street. “It’s already seven o’clock,” he told himself as the alarm clock struck again, “already seven o’clock and still such a fog.” And for a little while longer he lay quietly, just purring, struggling valiantly against the onslaught of the nap, as if perhaps waiting for normal and natural conditions to reemerge from the complete stillness.

But then he said to himself, “Before it strikes a quarter past seven, whatever happens I must be completely out of bed. Besides, by then someone from the office will arrive to inquire
about me, because the office will open before seven o’clock.” And he made an effort then to slide his entire body length out of the bed with a uniform motion. If he let himself fall out of the bed in this way, his head, which in the course of the fall he intended to lift up sharply, would probably remain uninjured. His back seemed to be soft and extremely bendable; nothing would really happen to it as a result of the fall. His greatest reservation was a worry about the loud noise that the fall would surely create and which presumably would arouse, if not fright, then at least concern on the other side of all the doors. However, it had to be tried.

As Gregor was in the process of lifting himself half out of bed—the new method was more of a game than an effort; he needed only to slide prudently—it struck him how easy all this would be if someone were to come to his aid. Two strong people—he thought of his father and the servant girl—would have been quite sufficient. They would have only had to push their arms under his arched back to get him out of the bed, to bend down with their load, and then merely to exercise patience and care that he completed the flip onto the floor, where his furry little legs would then, he hoped, acquire a purpose. But, quite apart from the fact that the doors were locked, should he really call out for help? In spite of all his distress, he was unable to suppress a smile at this idea.

He had already got to the point where, by stretching out his forepaws and hind paws together, he maintained his equilibrium with difficulty, and very soon he would finally have to decide, for in five minutes it would be a quarter past seven. Then there was a ring at the door of the apartment. “That’s someone from the office,” he told himself, and he almost froze while his small limbs only danced around all the faster. For one moment everything remained still. “They aren’t answering the door,” Gregor said to himself, caught up in an absurd hope. But of course then, as usual, the servant girl with her firm footstep went to the door and opened it. Gregor needed to hear only the first word of the visitor’s greeting to recognize immediately who it was: the office manager himself. Why was Gregor the only one condemned to work in a firm where the slightest lapse immediately attracted the greatest suspicion? Were all the employees, then, collectively, one and all, scoundrels? Among them was there then no truly devoted person who, if he failed to use just a couple of hours one morning for office work, would become sick from pangs of conscience and really be in no state to get out of bed? Was it really not enough to let an apprentice make inquiries, if such questioning was even necessary? Must the manager himself come, and in the process must it be demonstrated to the entire innocent family that the investigation of this suspicious circumstance could be entrusted only to
the intelligence of the manager?

And more as a consequence of the excited state in which this idea put Gregor than as a result of an actual decision, he swung himself with all his might out of the bed. There was a loud thud, but not a real crash. The fall was absorbed somewhat by the carpet and, in addition, his back was more elastic than Gregor had thought, and he had landed squarely on all four paws, as perfectly as a gymnast. For that reason the dull noise was not quite so conspicuous. But he had not held up his head with sufficient care and had hit it. He turned his head, irritated and in pain, and rubbed it on the carpet, first his fuzzy cheeks, then his tufted ears. The pleasure of this action was intense, and he kept at it for some time, despite the danger presented by his manager’s unexpected appearance. He could not help himself.

“Something has fallen in there,” said the manager in the next room on the left. Gregor tried to imagine to himself whether anything similar to what was happening to him today could have also happened at some point to the manager. At least one had to concede the possibility of such a thing. However, as if to give a rough answer to this question, the manager now, with a squeak of his polished boots, took a few determined steps in the next room. From the neighboring room on the right Gregor’s sister was whispering to inform him: “Gregor, your manager is here.”

“I know,” purred Gregor to himself. But he did not dare make his voice loud enough so that his sister could hear.

“Gregor,” his father now said from the neighboring room on the left, “your manager has come and is asking why you have not left on the early train. We don’t know what we should tell him. Besides, he also wants to speak to you personally. So please open the door. He will be good enough to forgive the mess in your room.”

In the middle of all this, the manager called out in a friendly way, “Good morning, Mr. Samsa.”

“He is not well,” said his mother to the manager, while his father was still talking at the door. “He is not well, sir, believe me. Otherwise how would Gregor miss a train? The boy has nothing in his head except business. I’m almost angry that he never goes out at night. Right now he’s been in the city eight days, but he’s come home every evening. He sits here with us at the table and reads the newspaper quietly or studies his travel schedules. It’s a quite a diversion for him to busy himself with fretwork. For instance, he framed a small picture over the course of two or three evenings. You’d be amazed how pretty it is. It’s hanging right inside the room. You’ll see it immediately, as soon as Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I’m happy you’re here, good sir. By ourselves, we would never have made Gregor open the door. He’s so stubborn, and he’s certainly not well, although he
denied that this morning.”

“I’m coming right away,” Gregor said slowly and deliberately and didn’t move, so as not to lose one word of the conversation.

“My dear lady,” his manager was saying, “I cannot explain it to myself in any other way. I hope it is nothing serious. On the other hand, I must also say that we business people, luckily or unluckily, however one looks at it, very often simply have to overcome a slight indisposition for business reasons.”

“So can the manager come in to see you now?” asked his father impatiently and knocked once again on the door. “No,” said Gregor. In the neighboring room on the left a painful stillness descended. In the neighboring room on the right his sister began to sob.

Why didn’t his sister go to the others? She’d probably just gotten up out of bed now and hadn’t even started to get dressed yet. Then why was she crying? Because he wasn’t getting up and wasn’t letting the manager in? Because he was in danger of losing his position, and because then his boss would badger his parents again with the old demands? Those were probably unnecessary worries right now. Gregor was still here and wasn’t thinking at all about abandoning his family. At the moment he was lying right there on the carpet, and no one who knew about his condition would’ve seriously demanded that he let
the manager in. But Gregor wouldn’t be casually fired right away because of this small discourtesy, for which he would find an easy and suitable excuse later on. It seemed to Gregor that it might be far more reasonable to leave him in peace at the moment, instead of disturbing him with all this crying and conversation. But it was the very uncertainty of the situation that distressed the others and excused their behavior. Quite without noticing he was doing it, Gregor began to wash himself, licking one paw and running it over his long white whiskers repeatedly.

“Mr. Samsa,” the manager was now shouting, his voice raised, “what’s the matter? You are barricading yourself in your room, answering with only a yes and a no, making serious and unnecessary troubles for your parents, and neglecting—I mention this only incidentally—your professional duties in a truly unheard-of manner. I am speaking here in the name of your parents and your employer, and I am requesting from you in all seriousness an immediate and clear explanation. I am amazed. I am amazed. I thought I knew you as a calm, reasonable person, and now you suddenly appear to want to start parading around in weird moods. The chief indicated to me earlier this very day a possible explanation for your neglect—it concerned the collection of cash entrusted to you a short while ago—but in truth I almost gave him my word of honor that this explanation
could not be correct. However, now I see here your unimaginable pigheadedness, and I am totally losing any desire to speak up for you in the slightest. And your position is not at all the most secure. Originally I intended to mention all this to you privately, but since you are letting me waste my time here uselessly, I don’t know why the matter shouldn’t come to the attention of your parents. Your productivity has also been very unsatisfactory recently. Of course, it’s not the time of year to conduct exceptional business, we recognize that, but a time of year for conducting no business? There is no such thing at all, Mr. Samsa, and such a thing must never be.”

“But, sir,” called Gregor, beside himself and, in his agitation, forgetting everything else, “I’m opening the door immediately, this very moment. A slight indisposition, a dizzy spell, has prevented me from getting up. I’m still lying in bed right now. But I’m quite refreshed once again. I’m in the midst of getting out of bed. Just have patience for a short moment! Things are not going as well as I thought. But I’m all right. How suddenly a thing can overcome someone! Just yesterday everything was fine with me. My parents certainly know that. Actually, yesterday evening I had a small symptom of something. They must have seen that. Why didn’t I report that to the office? But we always think we’ll get over an illness without having to stay home. Sir, please, don’t upset my parents! There
is really no basis for these criticisms you’re making against me; really, nobody has said a word to me about any of this. Perhaps you haven’t seen the latest orders I shipped. In any case, I’ll set out on the eight o’clock train; these few hours of rest have helped me feel stronger. There’s no need for you to wait, sir—I will be at the office in person right away. Please, say so to the chief and give him my respects!”