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possible. So he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself
against it so that his father, when he came in from the hall, could
see straight away that Gregor had the best intentions and would go
back into his room without delay, that it would not be necessary to
drive him back but that they had only to open the door and he would
disappear.

His father, though, was not in the mood to notice subtleties like
that; "Ah!", he shouted as he came in, sounding as if he were both
angry and glad at the same time. Gregor drew his head back from the
door and lifted it towards his father. He really had not imagined
his father the way he stood there now; of late, with his new habit
of crawling about, he had neglected to pay attention to what was
going on the rest of the flat the way he had done before. He really
ought to have expected things to have changed, but still, still, was
that really his father? The same tired man as used to be laying
there entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business
trips, who would receive him sitting in the armchair in his
nightgown when he came back in the evenings; who was hardly even
able to stand up but, as a sign of his pleasure, would just raise
his arms and who, on the couple of times a year when they went for a
walk together on a Sunday or public holiday wrapped up tightly in
his overcoat between Gregor and his mother, would always labour his
way forward a little more slowly than them, who were already walking
slowly for his sake; who would place his stick down carefully and,
if he wanted to say something would invariably stop and gather his
companions around him. He was standing up straight enough now;
dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, the sort worn by
the employees at the banking institute; above the high, stiff collar
of the coat his strong double-chin emerged; under the bushy
eyebrows, his piercing, dark eyes looked out fresh and alert; his
normally unkempt white hair was combed down painfully close to his
scalp. He took his cap, with its gold monogram from, probably, some
bank, and threw it in an arc right across the room onto the sofa,
put his hands in his trouser pockets, pushing back the bottom of his
long uniform coat, and, with look of determination, walked towards
Gregor. He probably did not even know himself what he had in mind,
but nonetheless lifted his feet unusually high. Gregor was amazed
at the enormous size of the soles of his boots, but wasted no time
with that - he knew full well, right from the first day of his new
life, that his father thought it necessary to always be extremely

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