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The Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka () The Metamorphosis
This text is a translation from the German by Ian Johnston,
Malaspina University-College Nanaimo, BC. It has been
prepared for students in the Liberal Studies and English
departments. This document is in the public domain,
released, January 1999 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
I
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from
anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been
changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his ar-
mour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his
brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sec-
tions. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide
off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous
legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circum-
ference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.
‘What’s happened to me,’ he thought. It was no dream.
His room, a proper room for a human being, only some-
what too small, lay quietly between the four well-known
walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of
sample cloth goods was spread out (Samsa was a traveling
salesman) hung the picture which he had cut out of an il-
lustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt
frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and a fur
boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the
viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm dis-
appeared.
Gregor’s glance then turned to the window. The dreary
weather (the rain drops were falling audibly down on the
metal window ledge) made him quite melancholy. ‘Why
don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all The Metamorphosis
this foolishness,’ he thought. But this was entirely impracti-
cal, for he was used to sleeping on his right side, and in his
present state he couldn’t get himself into this position. No
matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he
always rolled again onto his back. He must have tried it a
hundred times, closing his eyes, so that he would not have
to see the wriggling legs, and gave up only when he began
to feel a light, dull pain in his side which he had never felt
before.
‘O God,’ he thought, ‘what a demanding job I’ve chosen!
Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much
greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addi-
tion to that, I have to deal with the problems of traveling,
the worries about train connections, irregular bad food,
temporary and constantly changing human relationships
which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!’ He felt
a slight itching on the top of his abdomen. He slowly pushed
himself on his back closer to the bed post so that he could
lift his head more easily, found the itchy part, which was
entirely covered with small white spots (he did not know
what to make of them), and wanted to feel the place with a
leg. But he retracted it immediately, for the contact felt like
a cold shower all over him.
He slid back again into his earlier position. ‘This getting
up early,’ he thought, ‘makes a man quite idiotic. A man
must have his sleep. Other traveling salesmen live like ha-
rem women. For instance, when I come back to the inn
during the course of the morning to write up the necessary
orders, these gentlemen are just sitting down to breakfast. Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
If I were to try that with my boss, I’d be thrown out on the
spot. Still, who knows whether that mightn’t be really good
for me. If I didn’t hold back for my parents’ sake, I would’ve
quit ages ago. I would’ve gone to the boss and told him just
what I think from the bottom of my heart. He would’ve fall-
en right off his desk! How weird it is to sit up at the desk and
talk down to the employee from way up there. The boss has
trouble hearing, so the employee has to step up quite close
to him. Anyway, I haven’t completely given up that hope
yet. Once I’ve got together the money to pay off the parents’
debt to him—that should take another five or six years—I’ll
do it for sure. Then I’ll make the big break. In any case, right
now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.’
And he looked over at the alarm clock ticking away by
the chest of drawers. ‘Good God,’ he thought. It was half
past six, and the hands were going quietly on. It was past
the half hour, already nearly quarter to. Could the alarm
have failed to ring? One saw from the bed that it was prop-
erly set for four o’clock. Certainly it had rung. Yes, but was it
possible to sleep through this noise that made the furniture
shake? Now, it’s true he’d not slept quietly, but evident-
ly he’d slept all the more deeply. Still, what should he do
now? The next train left at seven o’clock. To catch that one,
he would have to go in a mad rush. The sample collection
wasn’t packed up yet, and he really didn’t feel particular-
ly fresh and active. And even if he caught the train, there
was no avoiding a blow up with the boss, because the firm’s
errand boy would’ve waited for the five o’clock train and re-
ported the news of his absence long ago. He was the boss’s The Metamorphosis
minion, without backbone or intelligence. Well then, what
if he reported in sick? But that would be extremely em-
barrassing and suspicious, because during his five years’
service Gregor hadn’t been sick even once. The boss would
certainly come with the doctor from the health insurance
company and would reproach his parents for their lazy son
and cut short all objections with the insurance doctor’s
comments; for him everyone was completely healthy but re-
ally lazy about work. And besides, would the doctor in this
case be totally wrong? Apart from a really excessive drowsi-
ness after the long sleep, Gregor in fact felt quite well and
even had a really strong appetite.
As he was thinking all this over in the greatest haste,
without being able to make the decision to get out of bed
(the alarm clock was indicating exactly quarter to seven)
there was a cautious knock on the door by the head of the
bed.
‘Gregor,’ a voice called (it was his mother!) ‘it’s quar-
ter to seven. Don’t you want to be on your way?’ The soft
voice! Gregor was startled when he heard his voice answer-
ing. It was clearly and unmistakably his earlier voice, but
in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressibly
painful squeaking which left the words positively distinct
only in the first moment and distorted them in the rever-
beration, so that one didn’t know if one had heard correctly.
Gregor wanted to answer in detail and explain everything,
but in these circumstances he confined himself to saying,
‘Yes, yes, thank you mother. I’m getting up right away.’ Be-
cause of the wooden door the change in Gregor’s voice was Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
not really noticeable outside, so his mother calmed down
with this explanation and shuffled off. However, as a result
of the short conversation the other family members be-
came aware of the fact that Gregor was unexpectedly still
at home, and already his father was knocking on one side
door, weakly but with his fist. ‘Gregor, Gregor,’ he called
out, ‘what’s going on?’ And after a short while he urged him
on again in a deeper voice. ‘Gregor!’ Gregor!’ At the other
side door, however, his sister knocked lightly. ‘Gregor? Are
you all right? Do you need anything?’ Gregor directed an-
swers in both directions, ‘I’ll be ready right away.’ He made
an effort with the most careful articulation and by inserting
long pauses between the individual words to remove every-
thing remarkable from his voice. His father turned back to
his breakfast. However, the sister whispered, ‘Gregor, open
the door, I beg you.’ Gregor had no intention of opening the
door, but congratulated himself on his precaution, acquired
from traveling, of locking all doors during the night, even
at home.
First he wanted to stand up quietly and undisturbed,
get dressed, above all have breakfast, and only then con-
sider further action, for (he noticed this clearly) by thinking
things over in bed he would not reach a reasonable conclu-
sion. He remembered that he had already often felt a light
pain or other in bed, perhaps the result of an awkward ly-
ing 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. That the change in his
voice was nothing other than the onset of a real chill, an The Metamorphosis
occupational illness of commercial travelers, of that he had
not the slightest doubt.
It was very easy to throw aside the blanket. He needed
only to push himself up a little, and it fell by itself. But to
continue was difficult, particularly because he was so un-
usually wide. He needed arms and hands to push himself
upright. Instead of these, however, he had only many small
limbs which were incessantly moving with very different
motions and which, in addition, he was unable to control.
If he wanted to bend one of them, then it was the first to ex-
tend itself, and if he finally succeeded doing with this limb
what he wanted, in the meantime all the others, as if left
free, moved around in an excessively painful agitation. ‘But
I must not stay in bed uselessly,’ said Gregor to himself.
At first he wanted to get of the bed with the lower part
of his body, but this lower part (which he incidentally had
not yet looked at and which he also couldn’t picture clearly)
proved itself too difficult to move. The attempt went so slow-
ly. When, having become almost frantic, he finally hurled
himself forward with all his force and without thinking, he
chose his direction incorrectly, and he hit the lower bedpost
hard. The violent pain he felt revealed to him that the lower
part of his body was at the moment probably the most sen-
sitive.
Thus, he tried to get his upper body out of the bed first
and turned his head carefully toward the edge of the bed.
He managed to do this easily, and in spite of its width and
weight his body mass at last slowly followed the turning of
his head. But as he finally raised his head outside the bed in Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
the open air, he became anxious about moving forward any
further 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.
However, after a similar effort, while he lay there again
sighing as before and once again saw his small limbs fight-
ing one another, if anything worse than before, and 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 it might be the most reasonable
thing to sacrifice everything if there was even the slight-
est hope of getting himself out of bed in the process. At the
same moment, however, he didn’t forget to remind himself
from time to time of the fact that calm (indeed the calmest)
reflection might be better than the most confused deci-
sions. At such moments, 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 morn-
ing mist, which concealed even the other side of the narrow
street. ‘It’s already seven o’clock’ he told himself at the latest
striking of the alarm clock, ‘already seven o’clock and still
such a fog.’ And for a little while longer he lay quietly with
weak breathing, as if perhaps waiting for normal and natu-
ral conditions to re-emerge out of 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 sev- The Metamorphosis
en o’clock.’ And he made an effort then to rock 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 hard;
nothing would really happen to that as a result of the fall.
His greatest reservation was a worry about the loud noise
which the fall must 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 rock with a constant rhythm) 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 complet-
ed the flip onto the floor, where his diminutive legs would
then, he hoped, acquire a purpose. Now, 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 sup-
press a smile at this idea.
He had already got to the point where, with a stronger
rocking, 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 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
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 opening,’ Gregor said to him-
self, caught up in some absurd hope. But of course then, as
usual, the servant girl with her firm tread went to the door
and opened it. Gregor needed to hear only the visitor’s first
word of greeting to recognize immediately who it was, the
manager himself. Why was Gregor the only one condemned
to work in a firm where at the slightest lapse someone im-
mediately attracted the greatest suspicion? Were all the
employees then collectively, one and all, scoundrels? Was
there then among them no truly devoted person who, if he
failed to use just a couple of hours in the morning for office
work, would become abnormal 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 ques-
tioning was even necessary? Must the manager himself
come, and in the process must it be demonstrated to the en-
tire innocent family that the investigation of this suspicious
circumstance could only be entrusted 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. For that
reason the dull noise was not quite so conspicuous. But he
had not held his head up with sufficient care and had hit it.
He turned his head, irritated and in pain, and rubbed it on The Metamorphosis
the carpet.
‘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 to-
day 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 took a few determined steps in the next room,
with a squeak of his polished boots. From the neighbour-
ing room on the right the sister was whispering to inform
Gregor: ‘Gregor, the manager is here.’ ‘I know,’ said 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 neighbouring
room on the left, ‘Mr. 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 per-
sonally. So please open the door. He will 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, believe me, Mr. Manager.
Otherwise how would Gregor miss a train! The young man
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 been at home every evening. He sits
there with us at the table and reads the newspaper quietly
or studies his travel schedules. It’s a quite a diversion for Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
him if he busies himself with fretwork. For instance, he cut
out a small frame 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 that you’re here, Mr. Manager.
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,’ said Gregor slowly and delib-
erately and didn’t move, so as not to lose one word of the
conversation. ‘My dear lady, I cannot explain it to myself
in any other way,’ said the manager; ‘I hope it is nothing se-
rious. 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 Mr. Manager come in to see you
now’ asked his father impatiently and knocked once again
on the door. ‘No,’ said Gregor. In the neighbouring room on
the left a painful stillness descended. In the neighbouring
room on the right the 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 once again with the old de-
mands? 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 The Metamorphosis
there on the carpet, and no one who knew about his condi-
tion would’ve seriously demanded that he let the manager
in. But Gregor wouldn’t be casually dismissed right way be-
cause 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 crying and conver-
sation. But it was the very uncertainty which distressed the
others and excused their behaviour.
‘Mr. Samsa,’ the manager was now shouting, his voice
raised, ‘what’s the matter? You are barricading yourself in
your room, answer with only a yes and a no, are making
serious and unnecessary troubles for your parents, and ne-
glecting (I mention this only incidentally) your commercial
duties in a truly unheard of manner. I am speaking here in
the name of your parents and your employer, and I am re-
questing you in all seriousness for an immediate and clear
explanation. I am amazed. I am amazed. I thought I knew
you as a calm, reasonable person, and now you appear sud-
denly to want to start parading around in weird moods. The
Chief indicated to me earlier this very day a possible expla-
nation 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 honour that this explanation could
not be correct. However, now I see here your unimaginable
pig headedness, 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 Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
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 Mr. Manager,’ 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 now I’m quite refreshed once
again. I’m in the midst of getting out of bed. Just have pa-
tience for a short moment! Things are not going so well as
I thought. But things are all right. How suddenly this can
overcome someone! Just yesterday evening everything was
fine with me. My parents certainly know that. Actually just
yesterday evening I had a small premonition. People must
have seen that in me. Why have I not reported that to the
office! But people always think that they’ll get over sickness
without having to stay at home. Mr. Manager! Take it easy
on my parents! There is really no basis for the criticisms
which you are now making against me, and really nobody
has said a word to me about that. Perhaps you have not read
the latest orders which I shipped. Besides, now I’m setting
out on my trip on the eight o’clock train; the few hours’ rest
have made me stronger. Mr. Manager, do not stay. I will be
at the office in person right away. Please have the goodness
to say that and to convey my respects to the Chief.’
While Gregor was quickly blurting all this out, hard- The Metamorphosis
ly aware of what he was saying, he had moved close to the
chest of drawers without effort, probably as a result of the
practice he had already had in bed, and now he was trying
to raise himself up on it. Actually, he wanted to open the
door; he really wanted to let himself be seen by and to speak
with the manager. He was keen to witness what the others
now asking after him would say at the sight of him. If they
were startled, then Gregor had no more responsibility and
could be calm. But if they accepted everything quietly, then
he would have no reason to get excited and, if he got a move
on, could really be at the station around eight o’clock.
At first he slid down a few times from the smooth chest of
drawers. But at last he gave himself a final swing and stood
upright there. He was no longer at all aware of the pains in
his lower body, no matter how they might still sting. Now
he let himself fall against the back of a nearby chair, on the
edge of which he braced himself with his thin limbs. By do-
ing this he gained control over himself and kept quiet, for
he could now hear the manager.
‘Did you understood a single word?’ the manager asked
the parents, ‘Is he playing the fool with us?’ ‘For God’s sake,’
cried the mother already in tears, ‘perhaps he’s very ill and
we’re upsetting him. Grete! Grete!’ she yelled at that point.
‘Mother?’ called the sister from the other side. They were
making themselves understood through Gregor’s room.
‘You must go to the doctor right away. Gregor is sick. Hurry
to the doctor. Have you heard Gregor speak yet?’ ‘That was
an animal’s voice,’ said the manager, remarkably quietly in
comparison to the mother’s cries. Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
‘Anna! Anna!’ yelled the father through the hall into the
kitchen, clapping his hands, ‘fetch a locksmith right away!’
The two young women were already running through the
hall with swishing skirts (how had his sister dressed herself
so quickly?) and yanked open the doors of the apartment.
One couldn’t hear the doors closing at all. They probably
had left them open, as is customary in an apartment in
which a huge misfortune has taken place.
However, Gregor had become much calmer. All right,
people did not understand his words any more, although
they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously,
perhaps because his ears had gotten used to them. But at
least people now thought that things were not all right with
him and were prepared to help him. The confidence and as-
surance with which the first arrangements had been carried
out made him feel good. He felt himself included once again
in the circle of humanity and was expecting from both the
doctor and the locksmith, without differentiating between
them with any real precision, splendid and surprising re-
sults. In order to get as clear a voice as possible for the critical
conversation which was imminent, he coughed a little, and
certainly took the trouble to do this in a really subdued way,
since it was possible that even this noise sounded like some-
thing different from a human cough. He no longer trusted
himself to decide any more. Meanwhile in the next room it
had become really quiet. Perhaps his parents were sitting
with the manager at the table and were whispering; perhaps
they were all leaning against the door and listening.
Gregor pushed himself slowly towards the door, with the The Metamorphosis
help of the easy chair, let go of it there, threw himself against
the door, held himself upright against it (the balls of his tiny
limbs had a little sticky stuff on them), and rested there mo-
mentarily from his exertion. Then he made an effort to turn
the key in the lock with his mouth. Unfortunately it seemed
that he had no real teeth. How then was he to grab hold
of the key? But to make up for that his jaws were naturally
very strong; with their help he managed to get the key really
moving, and he did not notice that he was obviously inflict-
ing some damage on himself, for a brown fluid came out of
his mouth, flowed over the key, and dripped onto the floor.
‘Just listen for a moment,’ said the manager in the next
room, ‘he’s turning the key.’ For Gregor that was a great
encouragement. But they all should’ve called out to him,
including his father and mother, ‘Come on, Gregor,’ they
should’ve shouted, ‘keep going, keep working on the lock.’
Imagining that all his efforts were being followed with sus-
pense, he bit down frantically on the key with all the force
he could muster. As the key turned more, he danced around
the lock. Now he was holding himself upright only with his
mouth, and he had to hang onto the key or then press it
down again with the whole weight of his body, as necessary.
The quite distinct click of the lock as it finally snapped re-
ally woke Gregor up. Breathing heavily he said to himself,
‘So I didn’t need the locksmith,’ and he set his head against
the door handle to open the door completely.
Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already
open very wide without him yet being really visible. He first
had to turn himself slowly around the edge of the door, very Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
carefully, of course, if he did not want to fall awkwardly on
his back right at the entrance into the room. He was still
preoccupied with this difficult movement and had no time
to pay attention to anything else, when he heard the manag-
er exclaim a loud ‘Oh!’ (it sounded like the wind whistling),
and now he saw him, nearest to the door, pressing his hand
against his open mouth and moving slowly back, as if an
invisible constant force was pushing him away. His mother
(in spite of the presence of the manager she was standing
here with her hair sticking up on end, still a mess from the
night) with her hands clasped was looking at his father; she
then went two steps towards Gregor and collapsed right in
the middle of her skirts spreading out all around her, her
face sunk on her breast, completely concealed. His father
clenched his fist with a hostile expression, as if he wished
to push Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly
around the living room, covered his eyes with his hands,
and cried so that his mighty breast shook.
At this point Gregor did not take one step into the room,
but leaned his body from the inside against the firmly bolt-
ed wing of the door, so that only half his body was visible,
as well as his head, titled sideways, with which he peeped
over at the others. Meanwhile it had become much brighter.
Standing out clearly from the other side of the street was
a part of the endless gray-black house situated opposite (it
was a hospital) with its severe regular windows breaking
up the facade. The rain was still coming down, but only in
large individual drops visibly and firmly thrown down one
by one onto the ground. The breakfast dishes were standing The Metamorphosis
piled around on the table, because for his father breakfast
was the most important meal time in the day, which he pro-
longed for hours by reading various newspapers. Directly
across on the opposite wall hung a photograph of Gregor
from the time of his military service; it was a picture of him
as a lieutenant, as he, smiling and worry free, with his hand
on his sword, demanded respect for his bearing and uni-
form. The door to the hall was ajar, and since the door to the
apartment was also open, one saw out into the landing of
the apartment and the start of the staircase going down.
‘Now,’ said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one
who had kept his composure. ‘I’ll get dressed right away,
pack up the collection of samples, and set off. You’ll allow
me to set out on my way, will you not? You see, Mr. Manag-
er, I am not pig-headed, and I am happy to work. Traveling
is exhausting, but I couldn’t live without it. Where are you
going, Mr. Manager? To the office? Really? Will you report
everything truthfully? A person can be incapable of work
momentarily, but that is precisely the best time to remem-
ber the earlier achievements and to consider that later, after
the obstacles have been shoved aside, the person will work
all the more keenly and intensely. I am really so indebted to
Mr. Chief—you know that perfectly well. On the other hand,
I am concerned about my parents and my sister. I’m in a fix,
but I’ll work myself out of it again. Don’t make things more
difficult for me than they already are. Speak up on my behalf
in the office! People don’t like traveling salesmen. I know
that. People think they earn pots of money and thus lead a
fine life. People don’t even have any special reason to think Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
through this judgment more clearly. But you, Mr. Manag-
er, you have a better perspective on the interconnections
than the other people, even, I tell you in total confidence, a
better perspective than Mr. Chairman himself, who in his
capacity as the employer may let his judgment make casual
mistakes at the expense of an employee. You also know well
enough that the traveling salesman who is outside the of-
fice almost the entire year can become so easily a victim
of gossip, coincidences, and groundless complaints, against
which it’s impossible for him to defend himself, since for the
most part he doesn’t hear about them at all and only then
when he’s exhausted after finishing a trip, and gets to feel in
his own body at home the nasty consequences, which can’t
be thoroughly explored back to their origins. Mr. Manager,
don’t leave without speaking a word telling me that you’ll at
least concede that I’m a little in the right!’
But at Gregor’s first words the manager had already turned
away, and now he looked back at Gregor over his twitching
shoulders with pursed lips. During Gregor’s speech he was
not still for a moment, but was moving away towards the
door, without taking his eyes off Gregor, but really gradu-
ally, as if there was a secret ban on leaving the room. He was
already in the hall, and after the sudden movement with
which he finally pulled his foot out of the living room, one
could have believed that he had just burned the sole of his
foot. In the hall, however, he stretched out his right hand
away from his body towards the staircase, as if some truly
supernatural relief was waiting for him there.
Gregor realized that he must not under any circum- The Metamorphosis
stances allow the manager to go away in this frame of mind,
especially if his position in the firm was not to be placed
in the greatest danger. His parents did not understand all
this very well. Over the long years, they had developed the
conviction that Gregor was set up for life in his firm and,
in addition, they had so much to do nowadays with their
present troubles that all foresight was foreign to them. But
Gregor had this foresight. The manager must be held back,
calmed down, convinced, and finally won over. The future
of Gregor and his family really depended on it! If only the
sister had been there! She was clever. She had already cried
while Gregor was still lying quietly on his back. And the
manager, this friend of the ladies, would certainly let him-
self be guided by her. She would have closed the door to
the apartment and talked him out of his fright in the hall.
But the sister was not even there. Gregor must deal with it
himself.
Without thinking that as yet he didn’t know anything
about his present ability to move and without thinking
that his speech possibly (indeed probably) had once again
not been understood, he left the wing of the door, pushed
himself through the opening, and wanted to go over to the
manager, who was already holding tight onto the handrail
with both hands on the landing in a ridiculous way. But as
he looked for something to hold onto, with a small scream
Gregor immediately fell down onto his numerous little legs.
Scarcely had this happened, when he felt for the first time
that morning a general physical well being. The small limbs
had firm floor under them; they obeyed perfectly, as he Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
noticed to his joy, and strove to carry him forward in the
direction he wanted. Right away he believed that the final
amelioration of all his suffering was immediately at hand.
But at the very moment when he lay on the floor rocking in
a restrained manner quite close and directly across from his
mother (apparently totally sunk into herself) she suddenly
sprang right up with her arms spread far apart and her fin-
gers extended and cried out, ‘Help, for God’s sake, help!’ She
held her head bowed down, as if she wanted to view Gregor
better, but ran senselessly back, contradicting that gesture,
forgetting that behind her stood the table with all the dishes
on it. When she reached the table, she sat down heavily on
it, as if absent-mindedly, and did not appear to notice at all
that next to her coffee was pouring out onto the carpet in a
full stream from the large overturned container.
‘Mother, mother,’ said Gregor quietly, and looked over
towards her. The manager momentarily had disappeared
completely from his mind; by contrast, at the sight of the
flowing coffee he couldn’t stop himself snapping his jaws
in the air a few times . At that his mother screamed all over
again, hurried from the table, and collapsed into the arms of
his father, who was rushing towards her. But Gregor had no
time right now for his parents: the manager was already on
the staircase. His chin level with the banister, the manager
looked back for the last time. Gregor took an initial move-
ment to catch up to him if possible. But the manager must
have suspected something, because he made a leap down
over a few stairs and disappeared, still shouting ‘Huh!’ The
sound echoed throughout the entire stairwell. The Metamorphosis
Now, unfortunately this flight of the manager also
seemed completely to bewilder his father, who earlier had
been relatively calm, for instead of running after the manag-
er himself or at least not hindering Gregor from his pursuit,
with his right hand he grabbed hold of the manager’s cane,
which he had left behind with his hat and overcoat on a
chair. With his left hand, his father picked up a large news-
paper from the table and, stamping his feet on the floor, he
set out to drive Gregor back into his room by waving the
cane and the newspaper. No request of Gregor’s was of any
use; no request would even be understood. No matter how
willing he was to turn his head respectfully, his father just
stomped all the harder with his feet.
Across the room from him his mother had pulled open
a window, in spite of the cool weather, and leaning out with
her hands on her cheeks, she pushed her face far outside
the window. Between the alley and the stair well a strong
draught came up, the curtains on the window flew around,
the newspapers on the table swished, and individual sheets
fluttered down over the floor. The father relentlessly pressed
forward pushing out sibilants, like a wild man. Now, Gregor
had no practice at all in going backwards; it was really going
very slowly. If Gregor only had been allowed to turn himself
around, he would have been in his room right away, but he
was afraid to make his father impatient by the time-consum-
ing process of turning around, and each moment he faced
the threat of a mortal blow on his back or his head from the
cane in his father’s hand. Finally Gregor had no other op-
tion, for he noticed with horror that he did not understand Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
yet how to maintain his direction going backwards. And so
he began, amid constantly anxious sideways glances in his
father’s direction, to turn himself around as quickly as pos-
sible (although in truth this was only very slowly). Perhaps
his father noticed his good intentions, for he did not disrupt
Gregor in this motion, but with the tip of the cane from a
distance he even directed here and there Gregor’s rotating
movement.
If only there hadn’t been his father’s unbearable hissing!
Because of that Gregor totally lost his head. He was already
almost totally turned around, when, always with this hiss-
ing in his ear, he just made a mistake and turned himself
back a little. But when he finally was successful in getting
his head in front of the door opening, it became clear that
his body was too wide to go through any further. Natu-
rally his father, in his present mental state, had no idea of
opening the other wing of the door a bit to create a suitable
passage for Gregor to get through. His single fixed thought
was that Gregor must get into his room as quickly as possi-
ble. He would never have allowed the elaborate preparations
that Gregor required to orient himself and thus perhaps
get through the door. On the contrary, as if there were no
obstacle and with a peculiar noise, he now drove Gregor for-
wards. Behind Gregor the sound was at this point no longer
like the voice of only a single father. Now it was really no
longer a joke, and Gregor forced himself, come what might,
into the door. One side of his body was lifted up. He lay at an
angle in the door opening. His one flank was sore with the
scraping. On the white door ugly blotches were left. Soon The Metamorphosis
he was stuck fast and would have not been able to move any
more on his own. The tiny legs on one side hung twitch-
ing in the air above, the ones on the other side were pushed
painfully into the floor. Then his father gave him one really
strong liberating push from behind, and he scurried, bleed-
ing severely, far into the interior of his room. The door was
slammed shut with the cane, and finally it was quiet. Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
II
Gregor first woke up from his heavy swoon-like sleep
in the evening twilight. He would certainly have wo-
ken up soon afterwards without any disturbance, for he felt
himself sufficiently rested and wide awake, although it ap-
peared to him as if a hurried step and a cautious closing of
the door to the hall had aroused him. The shine of the elec-
tric streetlights lay pale here and there on the ceiling and on
the higher parts of the furniture, but underneath around
Gregor it was dark. He pushed himself slowly toward the
door, still groping awkwardly with his feelers, which he
now learned to value for the first time, to check what was
happening there. His left side seemed one single long un-
pleasantly stretched scar, and he really had to hobble on his
two rows of legs. In addition, one small leg had been seri-
ously wounded in the course of the morning incident (it was
almost a miracle that only one had been hurt) and dragged
lifelessly behind.
By the door he first noticed what had really lured him
there: it was the smell of something to eat. For there stood a
bowl filled with sweetened milk, in which swam tiny piec-
es of white bread. He almost laughed with joy, for he now
had a much greater hunger than in the morning, and he im-
mediately dipped his head almost up to and over his eyes
down into the milk. But he soon drew it back again in dis- The Metamorphosis
appointment, not just because it was difficult for him to eat
on account of his delicate left side (he could eat only if his
entire panting body worked in a coordinated way), but also
because the milk, which otherwise was his favorite drink
and which his sister had certainly placed there for that rea-
son, did not appeal to him at all. He turned away from the
bowl almost with aversion and crept back into the middle
of the room.
In the living room, as Gregor saw through the crack in
the door, the gas was lit, but where on other occasions at this
time of day the father was accustomed to read the afternoon
newspaper in a loud voice to his mother and sometimes also
to his sister, at the moment not a sound was audible. Now,
perhaps this reading aloud, about which his sister always
spoken and written to him, had recently fallen out of their
general routine. But it was so still all around, in spite of the
fact that the apartment was certainly not empty. ‘What a
quiet life the family leads’, said Gregor to himself and, as he
stared fixedly out in front of him into the darkness, he felt
a great pride that he had been able to provide such a life in
a beautiful apartment like this for his parents and his sister.
But how would things go if now all tranquillity, all prosper-
ity, all contentment should come to a horrible end? In order
not to lose himself in such thoughts, Gregor preferred to set
himself moving and crawled up and down in his room.
Once during the long evening one side door and then the
other door was opened just a tiny crack and quickly closed
again. Someone presumably needed to come in but had then
thought better of it. Gregor immediately took up a position Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
by the living room door, determined to bring in the hesitant
visitor somehow or other or at least to find out who it might
be. But now the door was not opened any more, and Gregor
waited in vain. Earlier, when the door had been barred, they
had all wanted to come in to him; now, when he had opened
one door and when the others had obviously been opened
during the day, no one came any more, and the keys were
stuck in the locks on the outside.
The light in the living room was turned off only late at
night, and now it was easy to establish that his parents and
his sister had stayed awake all this time, for one could hear
clearly as all three moved away on tiptoe. Now it was cer-
tain that no one would come into Gregor any more until
the morning. Thus, he had a long time to think undisturbed
about how he should reorganize his life from scratch. But
the high, open room, in which he was compelled to lie flat
on the floor, made him anxious, without his being able to
figure out the reason, for he had lived in the room for five
years. With a half unconscious turn and not without a slight
shame he scurried under the couch, where, in spite of the
fact that his back was a little cramped and he could no lon-
ger lift up his head, he felt very comfortable and was sorry
only that his body was too wide to fit completely under it.
There he remained the entire night, which he spent partly
in a state of semi-sleep, out of which his hunger constantly
woke him with a start, but partly in a state of worry and
murky hopes, which all led to the conclusion that for the
time being he would have to keep calm and with patience
and the greatest consideration for his family tolerate the The Metamorphosis
troubles which in his present condition he was now forced
to cause them.
Already early in the morning (it was still almost night)
Gregor had an opportunity to test the power of the deci-
sions he had just made, for his sister, almost fully dressed,
opened the door from the hall into his room and looked ea-
gerly inside. She did not find him immediately, but when she
noticed him under the couch (God, he had to be somewhere
or other; for he could hardly fly away) she got such a shock
that, without being able to control herself, she slammed the
door shut once again from the outside. However, as if she
was sorry for her behaviour, she immediately opened the
door again and walked in on her tiptoes, as if she was in
the presence of a serious invalid or a total stranger. Gregor
had pushed his head forward just to the edge of the couch
and was observing her. Would she really notice that he had
left the milk standing, not indeed from any lack of hunger,
and would she bring in something else to eat more suitable
for him? If she did not do it on her own, he would sooner
starve to death than call her attention to the fact, although
he had a really powerful urge to move beyond the couch,
throw himself at his sister’s feet, and beg her for something
or other good to eat. But his sister noticed right away with
astonishment that the bowl was still full, with only a little
milk spilled around it. She picked it up immediately (al-
though not with her bare hands but with a rag), and took
it out of the room. Gregor was extremely curious what she
would bring as a substitute, and he pictured to himself dif-
ferent ideas about that. But he never could have guessed Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
what his sister out of the goodness of her heart in fact did.
She brought him, to test his taste, an entire selection, all
spread out on an old newspaper. There were old half-rot-
ten vegetables, bones from the evening meal, covered with
a white sauce which had almost solidified, some raisins
and almonds, cheese, which Gregor had declared inedible
two days earlier, a slice of dry bread, a slice of salted bread
smeared with butter. In addition to all this, she put down a
bowl (probably designated once and for all as Gregor’s) into
which she had poured some water. And out of her delicacy
of feeling, since she knew that Gregor would not eat in front
of her, she went away very quickly and even turned the key
in the lock, so that Gregor could now observe that he could
make himself as comfortable as he wished. Gregor’s small
limbs buzzed as the time for eating had come. His wounds
must, in any case, have already healed completely. He felt
no handicap on that score. He was astonished at that and
thought about it, how more than a month ago he had cut his
finger slightly with a knife and how this wound had hurt
enough even the day before yesterday.
‘Am I now going to be less sensitive,’ he thought, already
sucking greedily on the cheese, which had strongly attract-
ed him right away, more than all the other foods. Quickly
and with his eyes watering with satisfaction, he ate one after
the other the cheese, the vegetables, and the sauce; the fresh
food, by contrast, didn’t taste good to him. He couldn’t bear
the smell and even carried the things he wanted to eat a
little distance away. By the time his sister slowly turned the
key as a sign that he should withdraw, he was long finished The Metamorphosis
and now lay lazily in the same spot. The noise immediately
startled him, in spite of the fact that he was already almost
asleep, and he scurried back again under the couch. But it
cost him great self-control to remain under the couch, even
for the short time his sister was in the room, because his
body had filled out somewhat on account of the rich meal
and in the narrow space there he could scarcely breathe.
In the midst of minor attacks of asphyxiation, he looked
at her with somewhat protruding eyes, as his unsuspect-
ing sister swept up with a broom, not just the remnants, but
even the foods which Gregor had not touched at all, as if
these were also now useless, and as she dumped everything
quickly into a bucket, which she closed with a wooden lid,
and then carried all of it out of the room. She had hardly
turned around before Gregor had already dragged himself
out from the couch, stretched out, and let his body expand.
In this way Gregor got his food every day, once in the
morning, when his parents and the servant girl were still
asleep, and a second time after the common noon meal, for
his parents were, as before, asleep then for a little while, and
the servant girl was sent off by his sister on some errand
or other. Certainly they would not have wanted Gregor to
starve to death, but perhaps they could not have endured
finding out what he ate other than by hearsay. Perhaps his
sister wanted to spare them what was possibly only a small
grief, for they were really suffering quite enough already.
What sorts of excuses people had used on that first
morning to get the doctor and the locksmith out of the
house Gregor was completely unable to ascertain. Since he Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
was not comprehensible, no one, not even his sister, thought
that he might be able to understand others, and thus, when
his sister was in her room, he had to be content with listen-
ing now and then to her sighs and invocations to the saints.
Only later, when she had grown somewhat accustomed to
everything (naturally there could never be any talk of her
growing completely accustomed to it) Gregor sometimes
caught a comment which was intended to be friendly or
could be interpreted as such. ‘Well, today it tasted good to
him,’ she said, if Gregor had really cleaned up what he had
to eat; whereas, in the reverse situation, which gradually
repeated itself more and more frequently, she used to say
sadly, ‘Now everything has stopped again.’
But while Gregor could get no new information direct-
ly, he did hear a good deal from the room next door, and
as soon as he heard voices, he scurried right away to the
relevant door and pressed his entire body against it. In
the early days especially, there was no conversation which
was not concerned with him in some way or other, even if
only in secret. For two days at all meal times discussions
on that subject could be heard on how people should now
behave; but they also talked about the same subject in the
times between meals, for there were always at least two
family members at home, since no one really wanted to re-
main in the house alone and people could not under any
circumstances leave the apartment completely empty. In
addition, on the very first day the servant girl (it was not
completely clear what and how much she knew about what
had happened) on her knees had begged his mother to let The Metamorphosis
her go immediately, and when she said good bye about fif-
teen minutes later, she thanked them for the dismissal with
tears in her eyes, as if she was receiving the greatest favour
which people had shown her there, and, without anyone de-
manding it from her, she swore a fearful oath not to betray
anyone, not even the slightest bit.
Now his sister had to team up with his mother to do the
cooking, although that didn’t create much trouble because
people were eating almost nothing. Again and again Gregor
listened as one of them vainly invited another one to eat and
received no answer other than ‘Thank you. I have enough’
or something like that. And perhaps they had stopped hav-
ing anything to drink, too. His sister often asked his father
whether he wanted to have a beer and gladly offered to fetch
it herself, and when his father was silent, she said, in order
to remove any reservations he might have, that she could
send the caretaker’s wife to get it. But then his father finally
said a resounding ‘No,’ and nothing more would be spoken
about it.
Already during the first day his father laid out all the
financial circumstances and prospects to his mother and
to his sister as well. From time to time he stood up from
the table and pulled out of the small lockbox salvaged from
his business, which had collapsed five years previously,
some document or other or some notebook. The sound was
audible as he opened up the complicated lock and, after re-
moving what he was looking for, locked it up again. These
explanations by his father were, in part, the first enjoyable
thing that Gregor had the chance to listen to since his im- Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
prisonment. He had thought that nothing at all was left over
for his father from that business; at least his father had told
him nothing to the contradict that view, and Gregor in any
case hadn’t asked him about it. At the time Gregor’s only
concern had been to devote everything he had in order to
allow his family to forget as quickly as possible the busi-
ness misfortune which had brought them all into a state of
complete hopelessness. And so at that point he’d started
to work with a special intensity and from an assistant had
become, almost overnight, a traveling salesman, who natu-
rally had entirely different possibilities for earning money
and whose successes at work at once were converted into
the form of cash commissions, which could be set out on
the table at home in front of his astonished and delighted
family. Those had been beautiful days, and they had never
come back afterwards, at least not with the same splendour,
in spite of the fact that Gregor later earned so much money
that he was in a position to bear the expenses of the entire
family, expenses which he, in fact, did bear. They had be-
come quite accustomed to it, both the family and Gregor
as well. They took the money with thanks, and he happily
surrendered it, but the special warmth was no longer pres-
ent. Only the sister had remained still close to Gregor, and
it was his secret plan to send her (in contrast to Gregor she
loved music very much and knew how to play the violin
charmingly) next year to the conservatory, regardless of the
great expense which that must necessitate and which would
be made up in other ways. Now and then during Gregor’s
short stays in the city the conservatory was mentioned in The Metamorphosis
conversations with his sister, but always only as a beauti-
ful dream, whose realization was unimaginable, and their
parents never listened to these innocent expectations with
pleasure. But Gregor thought about them with scrupulous
consideration and intended to explain the matter ceremoni-
ously on Christmas Eve.
In his present situation, such futile ideas went through
his head, while he pushed himself right up against the
door and listened. Sometimes in his general exhaustion
he couldn’t listen any more and let his head bang listlessly
against the door, but he immediately pulled himself togeth-
er, for even the small sound which he made by this motion
was heard near by and silenced everyone. ‘ There he goes on
again,’ said his father after a while, clearly turning towards
the door, and only then would the interrupted conversation
gradually be resumed again.
Gregor found out clearly enough (for his father tended
to repeat himself often in his explanations, partly because
he had not personally concerned himself with these mat-
ters for a long time now, and partly also because his mother
did not understand everything right away the first time)
that, in spite all bad luck, a fortune, although a very small
one, was available from the old times, which the interest
(which had not been touched) had in the intervening time
gradually allowed to increase a little. Furthermore, in ad-
dition to this, the money which Gregor had brought home
every month (he had kept only a few florins for himself)
had not been completely spent and had grown into a small
capital amount. Gregor, behind his door, nodded eagerly, Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
rejoicing over this unanticipated foresight and frugality.
True, with this excess money, he could have paid off more
of his father’s debt to his employer and the day on which he
could be rid of this position would have been a lot closer,
but now things were doubtless better the way his father had
arranged them.
At the moment, however, this money was nowhere near
sufficient to permit the family to live on the interest pay-
ments. Perhaps it would be enough to maintain the family
for one or at most two years, that’s all. Thus it came only to
an amount which one should not really take out and which
must be set aside for an emergency. But the money to live
on must be earned. Now, his father was a healthy man, al-
though he was old, who had not worked at all for five years
now and thus could not be counted on for very much. He
had in these five years, the first holidays of his trouble-filled
but unsuccessful life, put on a good deal of fat and thus had
become really heavy. And should his old mother now may-
be work for money, a woman who suffered from asthma,
for whom wandering through the apartment even now was
a great strain and who spent every second day on the sofa
by the open window labouring for breath? Should his sis-
ter earn money, a girl who was still a seventeen-year-old
child, whose earlier life style had been so very delightful
that it had consisted of dressing herself nicely, sleeping in
late, helping around the house, taking part in a few mod-
est enjoyments and, above all, playing the violin? When
it came to talking about this need to earn money, at first
Gregor went away from the door and threw himself on the The Metamorphosis
cool leather sofa beside the door, for he was quite hot from
shame and sorrow.
Often he lay there all night long. He didn’t sleep a mo-
ment and just scratched on the leather for hours at a time.
He undertook the very difficult task of shoving a chair over
to the window. Then he crept up on the window sill and,
braced in the chair, leaned against the window to look out,
obviously with some memory or other of the satisfaction
which that used to bring him in earlier times. Actually from
day to day he perceived things with less and less clarity, even
those a short distance away: the hospital across the street,
the all too frequent sight of which he had previously cursed,
was not visible at all any more, and if he had not been pre-
cisely aware that he lived in the quiet but completely urban
Charlotte Street, he could have believed that from his win-
dow he was peering out at a featureless wasteland, in which
the gray heaven and the gray earth had merged and were
indistinguishable. His attentive sister must have observed
a couple of times that the chair stood by the window; then,
after cleaning up the room, each time she pushed the chair
back right against the window and from now on she even
left the inner casement open.
If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and
thank her for everything that she had to do for him, he
would have tolerated her service more easily. As it was he
suffered under it. The sister admittedly sought to cover up
the awkwardness of everything as much as possible, and,
as time went by, she naturally got more successful at it. But
with the passing of time Gregor also came to understand Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
everything more precisely. Even her entrance was terrible
for him. As soon as she entered, she ran straight to the win-
dow, without taking the time to shut the door (in spite of
the fact that she was otherwise very considerate in sparing
anyone the sight of Gregor’s room), and yanked the window
open with eager hands, as if she was almost suffocating, and
remained for a while by the window breathing deeply, even
when it was still so cold. With this running and noise she
frightened Gregor twice every day. The entire time he trem-
bled under the couch, and yet he knew very well that she
would certainly have spared him gladly if it had only been
possible to remain with the window closed in a room where
Gregor lived.
On one occasion (about one month had already gone by
since Gregor’s transformation, and there was now no partic-
ular reason any more for his sister to be startled at Gregor’s
appearance) she came a little earlier than usual and came
upon Gregor as he was still looking out the window, im-
mobile and well positioned to frighten someone. It would
not have come as a surprise to Gregor if she had not come
in, since his position was preventing her from opening the
window immediately. But she not only did not step inside;
she even retreated and shut the door. A stranger really could
have concluded from this that Gregor had been lying in wait
for her and wanted to bite her. Of course, Gregor imme-
diately concealed himself under the couch, but he had to
wait until the noon meal before his sister returned, and she
seemed much less calm than usual. From this he realized
that his appearance was still constantly intolerable to her
