day before yesterday.
"Am I less sensitive than I used to be, then?", he thought, and was
already sucking greedily at the cheese which had immediately, almost
compellingly, attracted him much more than the other foods on the
newspaper. Quickly one after another, his eyes watering with
pleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables and the sauce; the
fresh foods, on the other hand, he didn't like at all, and even
dragged the things he did want to eat a little way away from them
because he couldn't stand the smell. Long after he had finished
eating and lay lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly turned
the key in the lock as a sign to him that he should withdraw. He
was immediately startled, although he had been half asleep, and he
hurried back under the couch. But he needed great self-control to
stay there even for the short time that his sister was in the room,
as eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he
could hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he
watched with bulging eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a
broom and swept up the left-overs, mixing them in with the food he
had not even touched at all as if it could not be used any more.
She quickly dropped it all into a bin, closed it with its wooden
lid, and carried everything out. She had hardly turned her back
before Gregor came out again from under the couch and stretched
himself.

This was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the
morning while his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the
second time after everyone had eaten their meal at midday as his
parents would sleep for a little while then as well, and Gregor's
sister would send the maid away on some errand. Gregor's father and
mother certainly did not want him to starve either, but perhaps it
would have been more than they could stand to have any more
experience of his feeding than being told about it, and perhaps his
sister wanted to spare them what distress she could as they were
indeed suffering enough.

It was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the
doctor and the locksmith that first morning to get them out of the
flat. As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister,
thought that he could understand them, so he had to be content to
hear his sister's sighs and appeals to the saints as she moved about
his room. It was only later, when she had become a little more used
to everything - there w