Page 47 - the-metamorphosis

over that really nothing unusual was going on, that only
a few pieces of furniture were being rearranged, he soon
had to admit to himself that the movements of the wom-
en to and fro, their quiet conversations, the scratching of
the furniture on the floor affected him like a great swollen
commotion on all sides, and, so firmly was he pulling in his
head and legs and pressing his body into the floor, he had
to tell himself unequivocally that he wouldn’t be able to en-
dure all this much longer. They were cleaning out his room,
taking away from him everything he cherished; they had
already dragged out the chest of drawers in which the fret
saw and other tools were kept, and they were now loosening
the writing desk which was fixed tight to the floor, the desk
on which he, as a business student, a school student, in-
deed even as an elementary school student, had written out
his assignments. At that moment he really didn’t have any
more time to check the good intentions of the two women,
whose existence he had in any case almost forgotten, be-
cause in their exhaustion they were working really silently,
and the heavy stumbling of their feet was the only sound to
be heard.
And so he scuttled out (the women were just propping
themselves up on the writing desk in the next room in or-
der to take a breather) changing the direction of his path
four times. He really didn’t know what he should rescue
first. Then he saw hanging conspicuously on the wall, which
was otherwise already empty, the picture of the woman
dressed in nothing but fur. He quickly scurried up over it
and pressed himself against the glass that held it in place

The Metamorphosis