- end_line
- 1415
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T17:34:53.092Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1360
- text
- Gregor’s back began to hurt as much as when it was new. After they had
come back from taking his father to bed Gregor’s mother and sister
would now leave their work where it was and sit close together, cheek
to cheek; his mother would point to Gregor’s room and say “Close that
door, Grete”, and then, when he was in the dark again, they would sit
in the next room and their tears would mingle, or they would simply sit
there staring dry-eyed at the table.
Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would
think of taking over the family’s affairs, just like before, the next
time the door was opened; he had long forgotten about his boss and the
chief clerk, but they would appear again in his thoughts, the salesmen
and the apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three friends from
other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a provincial hotel, a
tender memory that appeared and disappeared again, a cashier from a hat
shop for whom his attention had been serious but too slow,—all of them
appeared to him, mixed together with strangers and others he had
forgotten, but instead of helping him and his family they were all of
them inaccessible, and he was glad when they disappeared. Other times
he was not at all in the mood to look after his family, he was filled
with simple rage about the lack of attention he was shown, and although
he could think of nothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he
could get into the pantry where he could take all the things he was
entitled to, even if he was not hungry. Gregor’s sister no longer
thought about how she could please him but would hurriedly push some
food or other into his room with her foot before she rushed out to work
in the morning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it
away again with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten
or—more often than not—had been left totally untouched. She still
cleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been any
quicker about it. Smears of dirt were left on the walls, here and there
were little balls of dust and filth. At first, Gregor went into one of
the worst of these places when his sister arrived as a reproach to her,
but he could have stayed there for weeks without his sister doing
anything about it; she could see the dirt as well as he could but she
had simply decided to leave him to it. At the same time she became
touchy in a way that was quite new for her and which everyone in the
family understood—cleaning up Gregor’s room was for her and her alone.
Gregor’s mother did once thoroughly clean his room, and needed to use
several bucketfuls of water to do it—although that much dampness also
made Gregor ill and he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But
his mother was to be punished still more for what she had done, as
hardly had his sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the
change in Gregor’s room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living
room where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she broke
into convulsive tears. Her father, of course, was startled out of his
chair and the two parents looked on astonished and helpless; then they,
too, became agitated; Gregor’s father, standing to the right of his
mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning of Gregor’s room to his
sister; from her left, Gregor’s sister screamed at her that she was
never to clean Gregor’s room again; while his mother tried to draw his
father, who was beside himself with anger, into the bedroom; his
sister, quaking with tears, thumped on the table with her small fists;
and Gregor hissed in anger that no-one had even thought of closing the
door to save him the sight of this and all its noise.
- title
- Chunk 3