The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) by Kafka Franz & Robertson Ritchie & Crick Joyce

Author:Kafka, Franz & Robertson, Ritchie & Crick, Joyce [Kafka, Franz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

III

Gregor’s wound was serious and gave him pain for over a month—the apple remained, since no one dared remove it, as a visible memorial in his flesh*—but it seemed to have reminded even his father that, despite his present sad and repulsive form, Gregor was a member of the family who was not to be treated as an enemy; instead, family duty towards him commanded that they should swallow their disgust, and put up with him in patience, just put up with him.

And even though it seemed his wound had made Gregor lose his mobility for ever, and though for the present, like some disabled veteran, he needed long, long minutes to cross his room—crawling aloft on the ceiling was out of the question—he drew some recompense for this deterioration in his condition, one he considered was entirely adequate: towards evening the door to the living-room, which he grew used to watching keenly for as much as two hours beforehand, was always opened, so that, lying in the darkness of his room, invisible from the living-room, he might see the whole family at the lamp-lit table and hear what they had to say, with their general permission as it were, a very different arrangement from before.

Certainly, there were no longer the lively conversations of the past, which Gregor had always thought about with some longing in his tiny hotel rooms when he was obliged to throw himself wearily into damp bedclothes. Now things were very quiet in the main. Soon after supper the father would fall asleep in his armchair; mother and sister would remind each other to be quiet; bending far forward over the lamp, the mother would sew fine lingerie for a fashion shop; the sister, who had taken a job as a sales assistant, was learning shorthand and French in the evening so that she could perhaps get a better position later on. Sometimes the father would wake up and say to the mother, as if he wasn’t aware he had been sleeping: ‘What a long time you’ve been sewing again!’ and would go back to sleep at once, while mother and sister would smile at each other wearily.

With a kind of obstinacy, the father refused to take off his uniform, even at home; and while his dressing-gown hung uselessly on its hook, he would slumber fully dressed in his proper place, as if he were always ready for duty and waiting here too for the voice of his superior. Consequently his uniform, which hadn’t been new in the first place, began to look less clean and tidy, despite the care mother and daughter gave it, and Gregor would often gaze for entire evenings at this coat with its many, many stains and its gold buttons radiant from constant polishing, which the old man wore as he slept—in discomfort but at peace.

As soon as the clock struck ten, the mother would try to wake the father, talking to him gently, and then try to persuade him to

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