- end_line
- 778
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T20:59:33.325Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 729
- text
- even of a stranger. Gregor had pushed his head forward, right to the
edge of the couch, and watched her. Would she notice that he had left
the milk as it was, realise that it was not from any lack of hunger and
bring him in some other food that was more suitable? If she didn’t do
it herself he would rather go hungry than draw her attention to it,
although he did feel a terrible urge to rush forward from under the
couch, throw himself at his sister’s feet and beg her for something
good to eat. However, his sister noticed the full dish immediately and
looked at it and the few drops of milk splashed around it with some
surprise. She immediately picked it up—using a rag, not her bare
hands—and carried it out. Gregor was extremely curious as to what she
would bring in its place, imagining the wildest possibilities, but he
never could have guessed what his sister, in her goodness, actually did
bring. In order to test his taste, she brought him a whole selection of
things, all spread out on an old newspaper. There were old, half-rotten
vegetables; bones from the evening meal, covered in white sauce that
had gone hard; a few raisins and almonds; some cheese that Gregor had
declared inedible two days before; a dry roll and some bread spread
with butter and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water
into the dish, which had probably been permanently set aside for
Gregor’s use, and placed it beside them. Then, out of consideration for
Gregor’s feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of her,
she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so that
Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for himself as he
liked. Gregor’s little legs whirred, at last he could eat. What’s more,
his injuries must already have completely healed as he found no
difficulty in moving. This amazed him, as more than a month earlier he
had cut his finger slightly with a knife, he thought of how his finger
had still hurt the day before yesterday. “Am I less sensitive than I
used to be, then?”, he thought, and was already sucking greedily at the
cheese which had immediately, almost compellingly, attracted him much
more than the other foods on the newspaper. Quickly one after another,
his eyes watering with pleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables
and the sauce; the fresh foods, on the other hand, he didn’t like at
all, and even dragged the things he did want to eat a little way away
from them because he couldn’t stand the smell. Long after he had
finished eating and lay lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly
turned the key in the lock as a sign to him that he should withdraw. He
was immediately startled, although he had been half asleep, and he
hurried back under the couch. But he needed great self-control to stay
there even for the short time that his sister was in the room, as
eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he could
hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he watched with
bulging eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a broom and swept up
the left-overs, mixing them in with the food he had not even touched at
all as if it could not be used any more. She quickly dropped it all
into a bin, closed it with its wooden lid, and carried everything out.
She had hardly turned her back before Gregor came out again from under
the couch and stretched himself.
- title
- Chunk 1