[Ah, pirozhki. He hasn't had one of those in... well, at least a month, but it seems much longer. Gregor takes one himself, picking at it at least as much as he's eating it. There's a paper napkin taken from the bag that he holds it in, properly.

Some etiquette manners are harder to discard than others.]

Maybe. Or at least... We're never as far as we think we are. You're the one that said that escaping being Vor would be like escaping your own shadow. Maybe we're always closer than we think.

[It seems poignant in the context of all that homesickness.]