The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka (1915)

appointment, not just because it was difficult for him to eat
on account of his delicate left side (he could eat only if his
entire panting body worked in a coordinated way), but also
because the milk, which otherwise was his favorite drink
and which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason,
did not appeal to him at all. He turned away from the
bowl almost with aversion and crept back into the middle
of the room.
In the living room, as Gregor saw through the crack in
the door, the gas was lit, but where on other occasions at this
time of day the father was accustomed to read the afternoon
newspaper in a loud voice to his mother and sometimes also
to his sister, at the moment not a sound was audible. Now,
perhaps this reading aloud, about which his sister always
spoken and written to him, had recently fallen out of their
general routine. But it was so still all around, in spite of the
fact that the apartment was certainly not empty. ‘What a
quiet life the family leads’, said Gregor to himself and, as he
stared fixedly out in front of him into the darkness, he felt
a great pride that he had been able to provide such a life in
a beautiful apartment like this for his parents and his sister.
But how would things go if now all tranquillity, all prosperity,
all contentment should come to a horrible end? In order
not to lose himself in such thoughts, Gregor preferred to set
himself moving and crawled up and down in his room.
Once during the long evening one side door and then the
other door was opened just a tiny crack and quickly closed
again. Someone presumably needed to come in but had then
thought better of it. Gregor immediately took up a position
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by the living room door, determined to bring in the hesitant
visitor somehow or other or at least to find out who it might
be. But now the door was not opened any more, and Gregor
waited in vain. Earlier, when the door had been barred, they
had all wanted to come in to him; now, when he had opened
one door and when the others had obviously been opened
during the day, no one came any more, and the keys were
stuck in the locks on the outside.
The light in the living room was turned off only late at
night, and now it was easy to establish that his parents and
his sister had stayed awake all this time, for one could hear
clearly as all three moved away on tiptoe. Now it was certain
that no one would come into Gregor any more until
the morning. Thus, he had a long time to think undisturbed
about how he should reorganize his life from scratch. But
the high, open room, in which he was compelled to lie flat
on the floor, made him anxious, without his being able to
figure out the reason, for he had lived in the room for five
years. With a half unconscious turn and not without a slight
shame he scurried under the couch, where, in spite of the
fact that his back was a little cramped and he could no longer
lift up his head, he felt very comfortable and was sorry
only that his body was too wide to fit completely under it.
There he remained the entire night, which he spent partly
in a state of semi-sleep, out of which his hunger constantly
woke him with a start, but partly in a state of worry and
murky hopes, which all led to the conclusion that for the
time being he would have to keep calm and with patience
and the greatest consideration for his family tolerate the