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everything looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this
time and whether, perhaps, any slight improvement could be seen.
His mother also wanted to go in and visit Gregor relatively soon but
his father and sister at first persuaded her against it. Gregor
listened very closely to all this, and approved fully. Later,
though, she had to be held back by force, which made her call out:
"Let me go and see Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can't you
understand I have to see him?", and Gregor would think to himself
that maybe it would be better if his mother came in, not every day
of course, but one day a week, perhaps; she could understand
everything much better than his sister who, for all her courage, was
still just a child after all, and really might not have had an
adult's appreciation of the burdensome job she had taken on.

Gregor's wish to see his mother was soon realised. Out of
consideration for his parents, Gregor wanted to avoid being seen at
the window during the day, the few square meters of the floor did
not give him much room to crawl about, it was hard to just lie
quietly through the night, his food soon stopped giving him any
pleasure at all, and so, to entertain himself, he got into the habit
of crawling up and down the walls and ceiling. He was especially
fond of hanging from the ceiling; it was quite different from lying
on the floor; he could breathe more freely; his body had a light
swing to it; and up there, relaxed and almost happy, it might happen
that he would surprise even himself by letting go of the ceiling and
landing on the floor with a crash. But now, of course, he had far
better control of his body than before and, even with a fall as
great as that, caused himself no damage. Very soon his sister
noticed Gregor's new way of entertaining himself - he had, after
all, left traces of the adhesive from his feet as he crawled about -
and got it into her head to make it as easy as possible for him by
removing the furniture that got in his way, especially the chest of
drawers and the desk. Now, this was not something that she would be
able to do by herself; she did not dare to ask for help from her
father; the sixteen year old maid had carried on bravely since the
cook had left but she certainly would not have helped in this, she
had even asked to be allowed to keep the kitchen locked at all times
and never to have to open the door unless it was especially
important; so his sister had no choice but to choose some time when
Gregor's father was not there and fetch his mother to help her. As
she approached the room, Gregor could hear his mother express her

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