350
PARTISAN REVIEW
avoid a row with the boss, since the firm's messenger would have been
waiting for the five o'clock train and would have long since reported
his failure to turn up. " He thinks of reporting that he is sick, but
concludes that the insurance doctor would certify him as perfectly
healthy . "And would he be so far wrong on this occasion? Gregor really
felt quite well, apart from a drowsiness that was utterly superfluous
after such a long sleep, and he was even unusually hungry."
Scene II:
The three members of the family knock on his doors and
talk
to
him from, respectively, the hallway, the living room, and his
sister's room. Gregor's family are his parasites, exploiting him, eating
him out from the inside. This is his beetle itch in human terms. The
pathetic urge to find some protection from betrayal, cruelty, and filth
is
the factor that went to form his carapace, his beetle shell, which at first
seems hard and secure but eventually is seen
to
be as vulnerable as his
sick human flesh and spirit had been. Who of the three parasites–
father, mother, sister-is the most cruel? At first it would seem to be the
father. But he is not the worst: it is the sister, whom Gregor loves most
but who betrays him beginning with the furniture .;cene in the middle
of the story. In the second scene the door theme begins: "there came a
cautious tap at the door behind the head of his bed. 'Gregor,' said a
voice-it was his mother's-'it's a quarter to seven. Hadn't you a train
to catch?' That gentle voice! Gregor had a shock as he heard his own
voice answering hers, unmistakably his own voice, it was true, but with
a persistent pitiful squeaky undertone.... 'Yes, yes, thank you,
Mother, I'm getting up now.' The wooden door between them must
have kept the change in his voice from being noticeable outside.
. . . Yet this brief exchange of words had made the other members of
the family aware that Gregor was still in the house, as they had not
expected, and at one of the side doors his father was already knocking
gently, yet with his fist. 'Gregor, Gregor,' he called, 'what's the matter
with you?' And after a while he ca lled again in a deeper voice: 'Gregor!
Gregor!' At the other side door his sister was saying in a low, plaintive
tone: 'Gregor? Aren 't you well? Do you need anything?' He answered
them both at once: 'I'm just ready,' and did his best to make his voice
sound as normal as possible by enunciating the words very clearly and
leaving long pauses between them. So his father went back
to
his
breakfast, but his sister whispered: 'Gregor, open the door, do.'
However, he was not thinking of opening the door, and felt thankful
for the prudent habit he had acquired in traveling of locking all doors
during the night, even at home. "
