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not been touched, had in the intervening time gradually increased a bit. In addition, the money that 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, rejoicing over this unanticipated foresight and frugality. He even allowed himself a small, triumphant squeak, which he prayed went unheard. True, had he known of 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 his horrid job would have been a lot closer—but now things were doubtlessly better the way hisfather had arranged them.
    At the moment, however, this savings was not nearly enough to permit the family to live on the interest payments. Perhaps it would be enough to maintain them for a year or two at most, but that was all. Thus, it should ideally continue to be set aside for use as a last resort, in case of a true emergency; meanwhile, the money to live on would have to be earned. Now, Gregor’s father was old, and though he was a healthy man, he had not worked at all for five years and thus could not be counted on for very much. He had, in those five years—the first time off he’d ever had in his trouble-filled but unsuccessful life—put on a good deal of fat. And should Gregor’s old mother now work for money, a woman who suffered from asthma, exacerbated now by Gregor’s constant shedding of his fine fur and dander; a woman for whom just wandering through the apartment was a great strain, who spent every second day on the sofa by the open window laboring for breath? Or should his sister go to work to earn money, a girl who was still a seventeen-year-old child whose earlier lifestyle 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 modest enjoyments, and, above all, playing the violin? When the options were laid out like that, Gregor went away from the door and threw himself on the 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 get a minute of sleep, just scratched on the leather for hours at a time. Finally, recalling the satisfaction that the sight of the street outside used to bring him, he undertook the difficult task of shoving a chair over to the window; then he crept up on the windowsill and, braced in the chair, leaned against the glass to look out.
    With each passing day, Gregor found that he could see things with more and more clarity, even things a long distance away, especially in the dark: the hospital across the street, the all-too-frequent sight of which he had previously cursed, was visible clearly now, even to the colors of the beards of various patients, and if he had not been precisely aware that he lived in the quiet but completely urban Charlotte Street, he could have believed that from his window he was peering out at an astonishing painting, in which the clear heaven and the teeming earth had merged and were full of extraordinarily sharply drawn scenes and landscapes. His attentive sister must have observed a couple of times that the chair stood by the window, for thereafter, upon cleaning up the room, she made sure to push 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 couldhave tolerated her attentions more easily. Grete sought to cover up the awkwardness of everything as much as possible—particularly that of cleaning up his business, which was now messier than it once was. As time went by, she naturally got more successful at it. But with the passing of time, Gregor also came to understand everything more precisely. Even her entrance was terrible for him. As soon as she entered, she