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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 uttered a resounding “No,” and nothing more would be spoken about it.
    ON THE FIRST DAY of Gregor’s changed situation, his father had laid out all the financial circumstances and prospects to his mother and sister. From time to time since, the elder Mr. Samsa would stand up from the table, take the small lockbox salvaged from his business, which had collapsed five years previously, and pull out some document or notebook. (Gregor could hear the distinct sound of the box’s complicated lock opening and, after his father was done with it, closing and locking again.) These explanations by his father were the first somewhat enjoyable thing that Gregor had the chance to listen to since his imprisonment. Gregor had thought that no money at
all
remained from that business; at least, his father had told him nothing to contradict that view, and Gregor in any case hadn’t asked him about it. At the time, Gregor’s only concern had been to work as hard as he possibly could so that his family might forget as quickly as possible the financial misfortune that had brought them all into such a state of complete hopelessness. And so at that point he’d applied himself to his job with a special intensity and from an assistant had become, almost overnight, a traveling salesman, which naturally opened entirely different possibilities for earning money, as his successes at work were turned immediately into cash commissions, which could be brought home and set on the table in front of his astonished and delighted family.
    Those had been beautiful days, and they had never come back afterward, at least not with the same splendor, despite that Gregor later earned so much money that he was in a position to bear the expenses of the entire family, which was precisely what he did. They had become quite accustomed to it, both the family and Gregor as well. They took the money with thanks, and he happily surrendered it—but as that arrangement continued, their warm family intimacy faded. Only Grete remained still close to Gregor, and it was his secret plan to send her next year to the conservatory, regardless of the great expense that necessarily involved and which would have to be made up in other ways. Unlike Gregor, she loved music very much and knew how to play the violin charmingly. Now and then during Gregor’s short stays at home, music school would come up in conversations with his sister, but always only as a beautiful dream whose realization was unimaginable, and their parents never listened to these innocent expectations with pleasure. But Gregor dwelled upon it with scrupulous consideration and intended to present his plan to Grete and his parents ceremoniously on Christmas.
    In his present situation, he would recall such thoughts, recognizing their futility now, as he pushed himself right up against the door and listened to the others. Sometimes, in his general exhaustion, he couldn’t listen anymore and let his head droopsleepily against the door, but he immediately pulled himself together, for even the small sound he made by this motion was heard outside and caused everyone to immediately fall silent. “There he goes again,” his father said after a while, clearly turning toward 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 concerned himself with these matters for a long time now, and partly also because his mother did not understand everything right away the first time—that, in spite of all the bad luck they’d suffered, a modest sum of money was still available from the old times, and the interest, which had