- end_line
- 1477
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T17:34:53.093Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1439
- text
- a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the charwoman just lifted up
one of the chairs from near the door and stood there with her mouth
open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the chair in her
hand had been slammed down into Gregor’s back. “Aren’t you coming any
closer, then?”, she asked when Gregor turned round again, and she
calmly put the chair back in the corner.
Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to find
himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he might take
some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there a few hours
and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At first he thought
it was distress at the state of his room that stopped him eating, but
he had soon got used to the changes made there. They had got into the
habit of putting things into this room that they had no room for
anywhere else, and there were now many such things as one of the rooms
in the flat had been rented out to three gentlemen. These earnest
gentlemen—all three of them had full beards, as Gregor learned peering
through the crack in the door one day—were painfully insistent on
things’ being tidy. This meant not only in their own room but, since
they had taken a room in this establishment, in the entire flat and
especially in the kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could
not tolerate, especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought
most of their own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason,
many things had become superfluous which, although they could not be
sold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found their
way into Gregor’s room. The dustbins from the kitchen found their way
in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and anything she
couldn’t use for the time being she would just chuck in there. He,
fortunately, would usually see no more than the object and the hand
that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the things back out
again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw everything out
in one go, but what actually happened was that they were left where
they landed when they had first been thrown unless Gregor made his way
through the junk and moved it somewhere else. At first he moved it
because, with no other room free where he could crawl about, he was
forced to, but later on he came to enjoy it although moving about in
that way left him sad and tired to death, and he would remain immobile
for hours afterwards.
- title
- Chunk 5