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impact music has on the average listener. A great composer, a great
writer, a great painter are brothers. But I think that the impact music in
a generalized and primitive form has on the listener is of a more lowly
quality than the impact of an average book or an average picture. What
I especially have in mind is the soothing, lulling, dulling influence of
music on some people, such as of the radio or records.
In Kafka 's tale it is merely a girl pitifully scraping on a fiddle, and
this corresponds in the piece to the canned music or plugged-in music
of LOday. What Kafka felt about music in general is what I have just
described: its stupefying, numbing, animallike quality. This attitude
must be kept in mind in interpreting an important sentence that has
been misunderstood by some translators. Literally, it reads "Was
Gregor an animal LO be so affected by music?" That is, in his human
form he had cared little for it, but in this scene, in his beetlehood, he
succumbs: "He felt as if the way were opening before him to the
unknown nourishmen t he craved ." The scene goes as follows. Gregor's
sister begins to play for the lodgers. Gregor is attracted by the playing
and actually puts his head into the living room. "He felt hardly any
surprise at his growing lack of consideration for the others; there had
been a time when he prided himself on being considerate. And yet just
on this occasion he had more reason than ever to hide himself, since
owing to the amount of dust which lay thick in his room and rose into
the air at the slightest movement, he too was covered with dust; fluff
and hair and remnants of food trailed with him, caught on his back
and along his sides; his indifference to everything was much too great
for him to turn on his back and scrape himself clean on the carpet, as
once he had done several times a day. And in spite of his condition, no
shame deterred him from advancing a little over the spotless floor of
the living room. "
At first no one was aware of him. The lodgers, disappointed in
their expectation of hearing good violin playing, were clustered near
the window, whispering among themselves and waiting only for the
music to stop. And yet, to Gregor, his sister was playing beautifully. He
"crawled a little farther forward and lowered his head to the ground so
that it might be possible for his eyes to meet hers. Was he an animal,
that music had such an effect upon him? He felt as if the way were
opening before him to the unknown nourishment he craved. He was
determined to push forward till he reached his sister, to pull at her skirt
and so let her know that she was to come into his room with her violin,
for no one here appreciated her playing as he would appreciate it. He
would never let her out of his room, at least, not so long as he lived; his
frightful appearance would become, for the first time, useful to him; he
