The Meowmorphosis (6 page)

SHE BATHED HIM VIGOROUSLY, IGNORING HIS CATERWAULS OF PROTEST.

IN THE FIRST
two weeks his parents could not bring themselves to visit him, and he often heard how thankfully they acknowledged his sister’s present work—whereas, before, they had often grown annoyed at her because she had seemed to them a somewhat useless young woman. However, now both his father and his mother often waited in front of Gregor’s door while his sister cleaned up inside and fussed over him, and as soon as she came out, she had to explain in detail how things looked in the room, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this time, and whether perhaps a slight improvement in the direction of his old self was perceptible. In any event, before long his mother wanted to visit Gregor as well, but his father and his sister restrained her, at first with reasons that Gregor
listened to very attentively and that he completely endorsed. Later, however, they had to hold her back forcefully, and when she then cried, “Let me go to Gregor. He’s my poor 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 a child and, in the last analysis, had perhaps undertaken such a task out of childish desire. His mother would surely sit calmly and read while he crouched near her—but not too near. She might reach out and pat him once an hour, if she liked, but she would not importune him in the same way that Grete did, he felt certain.

Gregor’s wish to see his mother was soon realized. While during the day he wanted nothing more than to sit himself by the window, he couldn’t crawl around very much on the few square inches of the sill. He found it difficult to bear lying quietly during the night, for his paws, his whiskers, his tail all wished to prowl and to hunt—though all that he could find to expend his desire upon was a few dust-motes his sister had missed in her cleaning. Soon eating no longer gave him much pleasure, for the food lay there dead and did not offer any sport at all. So for diversion he acquired the habit of scampering back and forth across the mantel and bookshelves. He was especially
fond of hanging from the draperies. 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 that 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, and he did not injure himself in such a great fall, but without fail landed firmly upon his four paws. His sister noticed immediately the new amusement that Gregor had found for himself—for as he crept around he left behind here and there traces of his wispy white fur—and so she got the idea of making Gregor’s bouncing around as easy as possible and thus of removing the furniture, which was starting to get quite scratched and ruined by his attention, especially the chest of drawers and the writing desk.

But she was in no position to do this by herself, and she did not dare to ask her father to help. Thus, Grete had no other choice but to involve their mother while their father was absent. Gregor’s mother approached his 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 walk in. In great haste, Gregor had dragged the sheet down even farther and wrinkled it more; now the whole thing really looked just like a coverlet thrown carelessly over the couch. On this occasion, Gregor held back from spying
out from under the sheet—he didn’t need to see his mother this time, he was just happy that she had come. “Come on, he’s just hiding,” said his sister, and evidently led his mother by the hand. Now Gregor listened as the two women struggled to push the heavy old chest of drawers from its position. His sister constantly took on herself the greater part of the work, without listening to the warnings of his mother, who was afraid that she would strain herself. The work lasted a long time; after about a quarter of an hour had gone by, his mother said it would be better if they left the chest of drawers where it was, because, 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, she pointed out, they could not be certain Gregor would be pleased with the removal of the furniture. To her the reverse seemed to be true: the sight of the empty walls pierced her right to the heart. And why should Gregor not feel the same, since he had been accustomed to the room furnishings for a long time? In an empty room, would he not feel himself abandoned?

“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 didn’t 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’re showing that we’re giving up all hope of improvement, that we’re 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.”

As he heard his mother’s words, Gregor realized that the lack of all sensible, adult human contact save his sister’s cosseting, together with the monotonous life he’d been forced to spend listening to the family through the walls over the course of these two months, must have confused his understanding, because otherwise he couldn’t explain to himself how, in all seriousness, he could have been so keen to have his room emptied. Was he really eager to let the warm room, comfortably furnished with pieces he had inherited, be turned into a cavern in which he would, of course, then be able to sun about in all directions without disturbance, but neither leap to and from the bed, nor hang from the curtains, nor send the papers scattering from the writing desk, a practice that brought him much joy? At the same time, if he indulged his new appetites, would they result in a quick and complete forgetting of his human past as well? Was he then at this point already on the verge of forgetting, and was it only the voice of his mother, which he
had not heard for a long time, that had aroused him? No, nothing was to be removed—everything must remain. His mother was right: In his condition he could not function without the beneficial influences of his furniture, as a reminder and a call back to his old self. And if the furniture allowed him to carry out his mad romping about all over the place, then there was no harm in that, but rather a great benefit.

But his sister unfortunately thought otherwise. She had grown accustomed, certainly not without justification, so far as the discussion of matters concerning Gregor was concerned, to act as a special authority with more expertise than their parents—and so now their mother’s advice was, for his sister, sufficient reason to
insist
on the removal, not only of the chest of drawers and the writing desk, which were the only items she had thought about at first as they were quite spoiled by his pouncing and racing across them, but also of
all
the furniture, with the exception of the indispensable couch. Of course, it was only childish defiance—and possessiveness of her recent very unexpected but hard-earned favorite pet—that led her to this demand.

But perhaps the enthusiastic sensibility of young women of her age also played a role. This feeling sought release at every opportunity, and with it, Gregor thought, perhaps his sister now felt tempted to make Gregor’s situation even more terrifying to
the family, so that then she would be able to do even more for him than now. For surely none except Grete would ever trust themselves to enter a room in which Gregor ruled the empty walls all by himself. And so she did not let herself be dissuaded by her mother, who in this room seemed agitated and uncertain and finally yielded, helping Grete with all her energy to push the chest of drawers out of the room.

Now, Gregor could do without the chest of drawers if need be, but the writing desk really had to stay. And scarcely had the women left the room with the chest of drawers, groaning as they pushed it, when Gregor stuck his head out from under the sofa to take a look how he could intervene cautiously and with as much consideration as possible. But unfortunately it was his mother who came back into the room first, while Grete had her arms wrapped around the chest of drawers in the next room and was rocking it back and forth by herself, without moving it from its position. His mother was not used to the sight of Gregor, and he realized he might make her ill with her delicate chest and his voluminous fur, so, frightened for her, Gregor scurried backward to the far end of the sofa—but he could not prevent the sheet from moving forward a little. That was enough to catch his mother’s attention. She came to a halt, stood still for a moment, and then went back to Grete.

Gregor kept repeating to himself over and over that really
nothing unusual was going on, that only a few pieces of furniture were being rearranged, but he soon had to admit to himself that the movements of the women to and fro, their quiet conversations, and the scratching of the furniture on the floor affected him like a great swollen commotion on all sides, and, so firmly was he pulling in his head and paws and pressing his belly into the floor, he had to tell himself unequivocally that he wouldn’t be able to endure all this much longer. They were cleaning out his room, taking away from him everything he cherished; they had already dragged out the chest of drawers in which the fret saw and other tools were kept, and they were now loosening the writing desk that was fixed tight to the floor, the desk on which he, as a business student, a school student, indeed even as an elementary school student, had written out his assignments. At that moment he really didn’t have any more time to check the good intentions of the two women, whose existence he had in any case now almost forgotten, because in their exhaustion they were working really silently, and the heavy stumbling of their feet was the only sound to be heard.

And so he wriggled out—the women were just propping themselves up on the writing desk in the next room in order to take a breather—changing the direction of his path four times. He really didn’t know what he should rescue first. Then he saw hanging conspicuously on the wall, which was otherwise
already empty, the large framed picture of the woman dressed in nothing but fur. He quickly scurried up to it and pawed at the bottom edge of the gilt frame, clinging to it with desperation. By leaping and scrabbling at the frame, he pulled himself up onto the top of the heavy portrait, where he settled himself, though a part of his ample, striped belly and tail spilled over the picture. At least this painting, which Gregor now covered nearly to the woman’s shoulders, would now not be taken away. He twisted his head toward the door of the living room to observe the women as they came back in.

They had not allowed themselves very much rest and were coming back right away. Grete had placed her arm around her mother and held her tightly. “So what shall we take next?” Grete said, looking around. Then her glance met Gregor’s from the wall. She kept her composure only because her mother was there. She bent her face toward her mother in order to prevent her from looking around, and said, although in a trembling voice and too quickly, “Come, let’s go back to the living room for a moment.” Grete’s purpose was clear to Gregor: She wanted to bring his mother to a safe place and then chase him down from the painting. Well, let her just try! He squatted on his picture and did not hand it over. He would sooner spring into Grete’s face.

But Grete’s words had immediately made his mother very
uneasy. She turned around, caught sight of the enormous brown shape against the flowered wallpaper, and, before she became truly aware that what she was looking at was Gregor, screamed out in a high-pitched raw voice, “Oh God, oh God!” and fell with outstretched arms, as if she were surrendering everything, onto the couch and lay there motionless, her hands extended to him as if imploring. Gregor felt a terrible urgency in his fluffy chest and moved to jump down—there would be time enough to save the picture—but he was stuck fast on the glass and the gilt and had to tear himself loose forcefully, which made him topple ungracefully from his perch. He then went to his mother immediately, purring and pressing himself desperately against his mother’s chest, as he had when a babe, and accepting her hesitant hands on his large, heavy body, grateful and sorry to have caused such chaos in their comfortable home. His mother, for her part, wept unhappily, for nothing remained that anyone could say. But she did stroke him, and she did let him press his cheek against her hand.

“Gregor, you …,” cried out his sister with a raised fist and an urgent glare—for he had never nuzzled
her
so willingly. These were the first angry words she had directed at him since his transformation. She ran into the room next door to bring some spirits or other with which she could revive her mother from her fainting spell. Gregor wanted to help as well; he darted
after his sister into the next room, as if he could give her some advice, as he used to once upon a time, but then he had to stand there idly behind her while she rummaged about among various small bottles. Still, she was frightened when she turned around. A bottle fell onto the floor and shattered. A splinter of glass wounded Gregor in the face, some corrosive medicine or other dripped over him. He tried to lick his paw and mop it away, but the taste of it was sour and foul. Now, without lingering any longer, Grete took as many small bottles as she could hold and ran with them to her mother. She slammed the door shut with her foot, leaving Gregor stranded. He was now shut off from his mother, who was perhaps near death, thanks to him. He could not open the door, and he did not want to chase away his sister, who of course had to remain with their mother. At this point, he had nothing to do but wait, and overwhelmed with self-reproach and worry, he began to mew pitifully and knead the carpet below the door, turning in circles and climbing upon the fresh, new furniture that stood in the parlor. Finally, in his despair, as the entire room started to spin around him, he fell asleep on a large table.