Metamorphosis - Kafka

'Stay where you are, I don't need you! You think you have enough strength to come here, and are merely staying back because that's what you have chosen to do. You are mistaken! I am still by far the stronger of us. Alone, I might have had to give best to you, but your mother left me all her strength. I have made a wonderful pact with your friend, and I have all your customers right here in my pocket!

'So he's even got pockets in his shirt!'* Georg said under his breath, and thought the remark would make his father impossible in the world. The thought came and went, as everything did, because he was continually forgetting everything.

'Just you try slipping your arm in your fiancee's and coming to meet me! I'll swat her away from you, you have no idea!

Georg pulled a face, as though of disbelief. His father merely nodded towards George's corner, in confirmation of what he had said.

'How you amused me today when you came along and asked me whether you should tell your friend about the engagement. He knows everything, you silly boy, everything! I wrote to him, because you forgot to deprive me of my writing implements. That's why he hasn't come for years, he knows everything a hundred times better than you. In his left hand he crumples up your letters unopened, while in his right he holds mine in front of him to read!'

In his enthusiasm, he swung his arm over his head. 'He knows everything a thousand times better!' he shouted.

"Ten thousand times!' said Georg, to mock his father, but even as he spoke them the words sounded deadly earnest.

'For years I've been waiting for you to approach me with your question. Do you think anything else had the least interest for me? Do you imagine I read the newspapers? Here!' and he tossed Georg a page from the newspaper, which had somehow been carried into bed with him. An old newspaper, with a name that didn't sound at all familiar to Georg.

'How long you dilly-dallied before reaching maturity! Your mother was unable to witness the joyful day, she had to die first, your friend is going under in Russia; three years ago he was so yellow he was obviously not long for the world, and as for me, you see what condition I'm in. It seems you have enough vision to see that!

'So you were lying in wait for me! shouted Georg.

Pityingly, his father remarked: 'I expect you meant to say that earlier. It doesn't fit in here.'

And then, louder: 'So now you know what else there was besides yourself; up till now all you knew was you! You were an innocent child, really, but it would be truer to say you were a veritable fiend! - And now hear: I sentence you to death by drowning!

Georg felt himself expelled from he room, the crash with which his father came down on the bed ringing in his ears as he sprinted away. On the stairs, which he took like a smooth incline, he collided with the charwoman, who was just on her way upstairs to give the flat its morning clean. 'Oh my God!' she exclaimed, and buried her face in her apron but was already gone. he sprang through the gate, crossed the road, and raced towards the river. Already he was gripping at the rails, like a hungry man his food. He swung himself over them, like the excellent gymnast he had been in his early years, to the pride of his parents. His grip was beginning to weaken, when through the rails he spied a motor omnibus that would easily cover the sound of his fall, softly he called out, 'Dear parents, I have always loved you,' and let himself drop.

At that moment, a quite unending flow of traffic streamed over the bridge.'

^{* Kafka's variation on the German proverb that says the last shirt - the shroud - has no pockets in it.}