The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka (1915)

and must remain intolerable in future, and that she really
had to exert a lot of self-control not to run away from a
glimpse of only the small part of his body which stuck out
from under the couch. In order to spare her even this sight,
one day he dragged the sheet on his back onto the couch
(this task took him four hours) and arranged it in such a
way that he was now completely concealed and his sister,
even if she bent down, could not see him. If this sheet was
not necessary as far as she was concerned, then she could
remove it, for it was clear enough that Gregor could not derive
any pleasure from isolating himself away so completely.
But she left the sheet just as it was, and Gregor believed he
even caught a look of gratitude when on one occasion he
carefully lifted up the sheet a little with his head to check as
his sister took stock of the new arrangement.
In the first two weeks his parents could not bring
themselves to visit him, and he often heard how they fully
acknowledged his sister’s present work; whereas, earlier
they had often got annoyed at his sister because she had
seemed to them a somewhat useless young woman. However,
now both his father and his mother often waited in front
of Gregor’s door while his sister cleaned up inside, and as
soon as she came out she had to explain in detail how things
looked in the room, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved
this time, and whether perhaps a slight improvement
was perceptible. In any event, his mother comparatively
soon wanted to visit Gregor, but his father and his sister restrained
her, at first with reasons which Gregor listened to
very attentively and which he completely endorsed. Later,
however, they had to hold her back forcefully, and when
she then cried ‘Let me go to Gregor. He’s my unlucky son!
Don’t you understand that I have to go to him?’ Gregor then
thought that perhaps it would be a good thing if his mother
came in, not every day, of course, but maybe once a week.
She understood everything much better than his sister, who
in spite of all her courage was still a child and, in the last
analysis, had perhaps undertaken such a difficult task only
out of childish recklessness.
Gregor’s wish to see his mother was soon realized. While
during the day Gregor, out of consideration for his parents,
did not want to show himself by the window, he couldn’t
crawl around very much on the few square metres of the
floor. He found it difficult to bear lying quietly during the
night, and soon eating no longer gave him the slightest
pleasure. So for diversion he acquired the habit of crawling
back and forth across the walls and ceiling. He was
especially fond of hanging from the ceiling. The experience
was quite different from lying on the floor. It was easier to
breathe, a slight vibration went through his body, and in the
midst of the almost happy amusement which Gregor found
up there, it could happen that, to his own surprise, he let go
and hit the floor. However, now he naturally controlled his
body quite differently, and he did not injure himself in such
a great fall. His sister noticed immediately the new amusement
which Gregor had found for himself (for as he crept
around he left behind here and there traces of his sticky
stuff), and so she got the idea of making Gregor’s creeping
around as easy as possible and thus of removing the furni-
0 The Metamorphosis
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