{"id":"01KG0M2AAQHS528MS8N4VBBX3P","cid":"bafkreifrvyryczzmreye2ypx2sfgj4hysi7wpzmaizgq3zfp266i25kq44","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":930,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T20:59:33.327Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG0K71QM71M0G20X5B9DHB1X","start_line":869,"text":"There were times when he simply became too tired to continue listening,\r\nwhen his head would fall wearily against the door and he would pull it\r\nup again with a start, as even the slightest noise he caused would be\r\nheard next door and they would all go silent. “What’s that he’s doing\r\nnow”, his father would say after a while, clearly having gone over to\r\nthe door, and only then would the interrupted conversation slowly be\r\ntaken up again.\r\n\r\nWhen explaining things, his father repeated himself several times,\r\npartly because it was a long time since he had been occupied with these\r\nmatters himself and partly because Gregor’s mother did not understand\r\neverything the first time. From these repeated explanations Gregor\r\nlearned, to his pleasure, that despite all their misfortunes there was\r\nstill some money available from the old days. It was not a lot, but it\r\nhad not been touched in the meantime and some interest had accumulated.\r\nBesides that, they had not been using up all the money that Gregor had\r\nbeen bringing home every month, keeping only a little for himself, so\r\nthat that, too, had been accumulating. Behind the door, Gregor nodded\r\nwith enthusiasm in his pleasure at this unexpected thrift and caution.\r\nHe could actually have used this surplus money to reduce his father’s\r\ndebt to his boss, and the day when he could have freed himself from\r\nthat job would have come much closer, but now it was certainly better\r\nthe way his father had done things.\r\n\r\nThis money, however, was certainly not enough to enable the family to\r\nlive off the interest; it was enough to maintain them for, perhaps, one\r\nor two years, no more. That’s to say, it was money that should not\r\nreally be touched but set aside for emergencies; money to live on had\r\nto be earned. His father was healthy but old, and lacking in self\r\nconfidence. During the five years that he had not been working—the\r\nfirst holiday in a life that had been full of strain and no success—he\r\nhad put on a lot of weight and become very slow and clumsy. Would\r\nGregor’s elderly mother now have to go and earn money? She suffered\r\nfrom asthma and it was a strain for her just to move about the home,\r\nevery other day would be spent struggling for breath on the sofa by the\r\nopen window. Would his sister have to go and earn money? She was still\r\na child of seventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable,\r\nconsisting of wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the\r\nbusiness, joining in with a few modest pleasures and most of all\r\nplaying the violin. Whenever they began to talk of the need to earn\r\nmoney, Gregor would always first let go of the door and then throw\r\nhimself onto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he became quite hot\r\nwith shame and regret.\r\n\r\nHe would often lie there the whole night through, not sleeping a wink\r\nbut scratching at the leather for hours on end. Or he might go to all\r\nthe effort of pushing a chair to the window, climbing up onto the sill\r\nand, propped up in the chair, leaning on the window to stare out of it.\r\nHe had used to feel a great sense of freedom from doing this, but doing\r\nit now was obviously something more remembered than experienced, as\r\nwhat he actually saw in this way was becoming less distinct every day,\r\neven things that were quite near; he had used to curse the ever-present\r\nview of the hospital across the street, but now he could not see it at\r\nall, and if he had not known that he lived in Charlottenstrasse, which\r\nwas a quiet street despite being in the middle of the city, he could\r\nhave thought that he was looking out the window at a barren waste where\r\nthe grey sky and the grey earth mingled inseparably. His observant\r\nsister only needed to notice the chair twice before she would always\r\npush it back to its exact position by the window after she had tidied\r\nup the room, and even left the inner pane of the window open from then\r\non.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG0KZ67K50CQT3J3ZW1G4SAK","peer_label":"Chapter Content","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG0K71QM71M0G20X5B9DHB1X","peer_label":"metamorphoses.txt","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG0M2AB1W348W9M3K66X36HM","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG0M2ABDSJPJADRD4PV2V5BP","peer_label":"Chunk 5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-27T20:59:33.910Z","ts":"2026-01-27T20:59:35.020Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}