364
PARTISAN REVIEW
h er foo t any food tha t was ava il able, and in the evening clea red it out
aga in with o ne sweep o f the broom , heedless o f whether it had been
merely tas ted , or-as most frequentl y happened-lef t unto uched . T he
cleaning o f his room, which she now did a lways in the evenings, could
no t have been more has tily done. Streaks o f dirt stre tched a long t,he
wa lls, here and there lay ba ll s o f dust a nd filth . At first G regor used
to
sta tion himse lf in some pa rticula rl y filthy co rner when his sister
a rrived , in order to rep roach her with it, so to speak. But he could have
sa t there for weeks without ge tting her to ma ke a ny improvemen t; she
could see the dirt as we ll as he did, but she had simpl y made up her
mind to leave it a lone. And ye t, with a to uchiness tha t was new to her,
which seemed anyhow to have infec ted the who le famil y, she jea lously
g ua rded her cla im to be the sole care taker o f G rego r's room." Once
when his mo ther had g iven the room a thorough cleaning with several
buckets of wa ter-the dampness upse t Gregor-a gro tesque family row
ensues. T he sister bursts into a s torm o f weeping while her pa rents look
o n in helpless amazement; " then they too began to go into ac tion; the
fa ther reproached the mo ther on hi s right for no t hav ing left the
cleaning of Gregor's room to his sister; shrieked a t the sister on his left
tha t never aga in was she to be a llowed to clean Gregor's room ; while
the mo ther tried to pull the fa ther into his bedroom, since he was
beyond himself with agita tio n ; the sister, shaken with sobs, then bea t
upon the table with her sma ll fi sts; and Gregor hissed lo udl y with rage
because not one o f them thought o f shutting the door to spare him such
a spec tacle a nd so much no ise."
Scene IV:
A curio us rela tionship is es ta blished between Gregor
a nd the bony cha rwoman who is ra ther amused by him, no t fri ghtened
a t a ll , and in fac t she ra ther likes him. "Come a long, then , you old
dung bee tl e," she says. And it is ra ining outside, the first sign o f spring
perhaps.
Scene V:
T he lodge rs a rrive , the three bearded boa rders, with a
pass ion for order. These a re mecha nica l beings; their bea rds a re masks
o f res pec tability but ac tua ll y they a re shoddy scoundrels, these serious–
looking gentlemen .
In
this scene a grea t cha nge comes over the
a pa rtment. T he boarders ta ke the pa rents' bed room on the fa r left of the
fl a t, beyond the living room . The pa rents move across to the sister's
room on the right of Gregor's room , a nd Gre te has to sleep in the living
room but has now no room o f her own since the lodgers take their
meals in the living room and spend their evenings there. Mo reover, the
three bea rded boa rders have bro ught in to this furni shed fl a t some
furniture o f their own . T hey have a fi endi sh love for superficial
