The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka (1915)

him. She ran into the room next door to bring some spirits
or other with which she could revive her mother from
her fainting spell. Gregor wanted to help as well (there was
time enough to save the picture), but he was stuck fast on
the glass and had to tear himself loose forcefully. Then he
also scurried into the next room, as if he could give his sister
some advice, as in earlier times, but then he had to stand
there idly behind her, while she rummaged about among
various small bottles. Still, she was frightened when she
turned around. A bottle fell onto the floor and shattered.
A splinter of glass wounded Gregor in the face, some corrosive
medicine or other dripped over him. Now, without
lingering any longer, Grete took as many small bottles as
she could hold and ran with them into her mother. She
slammed the door shut with her foot. Gregor was now shut
off from his mother, who was perhaps near death, thanks
to him. He could not open the door, and he did not want to
chase away his sister who had to remain with her mother. At
this point he had nothing to do but wait, and overwhelmed
with self-reproach and worry, he began to creep and crawl
over everything: walls, furniture, and ceiling,. Finally, in
his despair, as the entire room started to spin around him,
he fell onto the middle of the large table.
A short time elapsed. Gregor lay there limply. All around
was still. Perhaps that was a good sign. Then there was ring
at the door. The servant girl was naturally shut up in her
kitchen, and Grete must therefore go to open the door. The
father had arrived. ‘What’s happened,’ were his first words.
Grete’s appearance had told him everything. Grete replied
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with a dull voice; evidently she was pressing her face into
her father’s chest: ‘Mother fainted, but she’s getting better
now. Gregor has broken loose.’ ‘Yes, I have expected that,’
said his father, ‘I always told you that, but you women don’t
want to listen.’
It was clear to Gregor that his father had badly misunderstood
Grete’s short message and was assuming that
Gregor had committed some violent crime or other. Thus,
Gregor now had to find his father to calm him down, for he
had neither the time nor the opportunity to clarify things
for him. And so he rushed away to the door of his room and
pushed himself against it, so that his father could see right
away as he entered from the hall that Gregor fully intended
to return at once to his room, that it was not necessary to
drive him back, but that one only needed to open the door
and he would disappear immediately.
But his father was not in the mood to observe such niceties.
‘Ah,’ he yelled as soon as he entered, with a tone as if he
were all at once angry and pleased. Gregor pulled his head
back from the door and raised it in the direction of his father.
He had not really pictured his father as he now stood
there. Of course, what with his new style of creeping all
around, he had in the past while neglected to pay attention
to what was going on in the rest of the apartment, as he had
done before, and really should have grasped the fact that
he would encounter different conditions. Nevertheless, nevertheless,
was that still his father? Was that the same man
who had lain exhausted and buried in bed in earlier days
when Gregor was setting out on a business trip, who had re-