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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.

Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to
find himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he
might take some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there
a few hours and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At
first he thought it was distress at the state of his room that
stopped him eating, but he had soon got used to the changes made
there. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room
that they had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many
such things as one of the rooms in the flat had been rented out to
three gentlemen. These earnest gentlemen - all three of them had
full beards, as Gregor learned peering through the crack in the door
one day - were painfully insistent on things' being tidy. This
meant not only in their own room but, since they had taken a room in
this establishment, in the entire flat and especially in the
kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate,
especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their
own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many
things had become superfluous which, although they could not be
sold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found
their way into Gregor's room. The dustbins from the kitchen found
their way in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and
anything she couldn't use for the time being she would just chuck in

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