The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka (1915)
The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka (1915)
The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka (1915)
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him. She ran into the room next door to bring some spirits<br />
or other with which she could revive her mother from<br />
her fainting spell. Gregor wanted to help as well (there was<br />
time enough to save the picture), but he was stuck fast on<br />
the glass and had to tear himself loose forcefully. <strong>The</strong>n he<br />
also scurried into the next room, as if he could give his sister<br />
some advice, as in earlier times, but then he had to stand<br />
there idly behind her, while she rummaged about among<br />
various small bottles. Still, she was frightened when she<br />
turned around. A bottle fell onto the floor and shattered.<br />
A splinter of glass wounded Gregor in the face, some corrosive<br />
medicine or other dripped over him. Now, without<br />
lingering any longer, Grete took as many small bottles as<br />
she could hold and ran with them into her mother. She<br />
slammed the door shut with her foot. Gregor was now shut<br />
off from his mother, who was perhaps near death, thanks<br />
to him. He could not open the door, and he did not want to<br />
chase away his sister who had to remain with her mother. At<br />
this point he had nothing to do but wait, and overwhelmed<br />
with self-reproach and worry, he began to creep and crawl<br />
over everything: walls, furniture, and ceiling,. Finally, in<br />
his despair, as the entire room started to spin around him,<br />
he fell onto the middle of the large table.<br />
A short time elapsed. Gregor lay there limply. All around<br />
was still. Perhaps that was a good sign. <strong>The</strong>n there was ring<br />
at the door. <strong>The</strong> servant girl was naturally shut up in her<br />
kitchen, and Grete must therefore go to open the door. <strong>The</strong><br />
father had arrived. ‘What’s happened,’ were his first words.<br />
Grete’s appearance had told him everything. Grete replied<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Metamorphosis</strong> Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com<br />
with a dull voice; evidently she was pressing her face into<br />
her father’s chest: ‘Mother fainted, but she’s getting better<br />
now. Gregor has broken loose.’ ‘Yes, I have expected that,’<br />
said his father, ‘I always told you that, but you women don’t<br />
want to listen.’<br />
It was clear to Gregor that his father had badly misunderstood<br />
Grete’s short message and was assuming that<br />
Gregor had committed some violent crime or other. Thus,<br />
Gregor now had to find his father to calm him down, for he<br />
had neither the time nor the opportunity to clarify things<br />
for him. And so he rushed away to the door of his room and<br />
pushed himself against it, so that his father could see right<br />
away as he entered from the hall that Gregor fully intended<br />
to return at once to his room, that it was not necessary to<br />
drive him back, but that one only needed to open the door<br />
and he would disappear immediately.<br />
But his father was not in the mood to observe such niceties.<br />
‘Ah,’ he yelled as soon as he entered, with a tone as if he<br />
were all at once angry and pleased. Gregor pulled his head<br />
back from the door and raised it in the direction of his father.<br />
He had not really pictured his father as he now stood<br />
there. Of course, what with his new style of creeping all<br />
around, he had in the past while neglected to pay attention<br />
to what was going on in the rest of the apartment, as he had<br />
done before, and really should have grasped the fact that<br />
he would encounter different conditions. Nevertheless, nevertheless,<br />
was that still his father? Was that the same man<br />
who had lain exhausted and buried in bed in earlier days<br />
when Gregor was setting out on a business trip, who had re-