- end_line
- 802
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T17:34:53.082Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 745
- text
- 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.
This was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the morning
while his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the second time
after everyone had eaten their meal at midday as his parents would
sleep for a little while then as well, and Gregor’s sister would send
the maid away on some errand. Gregor’s father and mother certainly did
not want him to starve either, but perhaps it would have been more than
they could stand to have any more experience of his feeding than being
told about it, and perhaps his sister wanted to spare them what
distress she could as they were indeed suffering enough.
It was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the doctor
and the locksmith that first morning to get them out of the flat. As
nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister, thought that
he could understand them, so he had to be content to hear his sister’s
sighs and appeals to the saints as she moved about his room. It was
only later, when she had become a little more used to everything—there
was, of course, no question of her ever becoming fully used to the
situation—that Gregor would sometimes catch a friendly comment, or at
least a comment that could be construed as friendly. “He’s enjoyed his
dinner today”, she might say when he had diligently cleared away all
the food left for him, or if he left most of it, which slowly became
more and more frequent, she would often say, sadly, “now everything’s
just been left there again”.
- title
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