Page 34 - the-metamorphosis

was not comprehensible, no one, not even his sister, thought
that he might be able to understand others, and thus, when
his sister was in her room, he had to be content with listen-
ing now and then to her sighs and invocations to the saints.
Only later, when she had grown somewhat accustomed to
everything (naturally there could never be any talk of her
growing completely accustomed to it) Gregor sometimes
caught a comment which was intended to be friendly or
could be interpreted as such. ‘Well, today it tasted good to
him,’ she said, if Gregor had really cleaned up what he had
to eat; whereas, in the reverse situation, which gradually
repeated itself more and more frequently, she used to say
sadly, ‘Now everything has stopped again.’
But while Gregor could get no new information direct-
ly, he did hear a good deal from the room next door, and
as soon as he heard voices, he scurried right away to the
relevant door and pressed his entire body against it. In
the early days especially, there was no conversation which
was not concerned with him in some way or other, even if
only in secret. For two days at all meal times discussions
on that subject could be heard on how people should now
behave; but they also talked about the same subject in the
times between meals, for there were always at least two
family members at home, since no one really wanted to re-
main in the house alone and people could not under any
circumstances leave the apartment completely empty. In
addition, on the very first day the servant girl (it was not
completely clear what and how much she knew about what
had happened) on her knees had begged his mother to let