Previous - Next

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

Previous - Next