The Metamorphosis

by Franz Kafka

I still have to cope with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human interactions, which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!”

It was, on the contrary, a requirement of family duty to suppress one’s aversion and to endure—nothing else, just endure.

With a sort of stubbornness the father refused to take off his servant’s uniform even at home, and while his sleeping gown hung unused on the coat hook, the father dozed completely dressed in his place, as if he was always ready for his responsibility and even here was waiting for the voice of his superior.

In this overworked and exhausted family who had time any longer to worry about Gregor more than was absolutely necessary?

The main thing holding the family back from a change in living quarters was far more their complete hopelessness and the idea that they had been struck by a misfortune like no one else in their entire circle of relatives and acquaintances.

What the world demands of poor people they now carried out to an extreme degree.

He scarcely wondered about the fact that recently he had had so little consideration for the others.

His indifference to everything was much too great for him to lie on his back and scour himself on the carpet,

He remembered his family with deep feelings of love. In this whole business, his own conviction that he had to disappear was, if possible, even more firmly held than his sister’s. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning.