One morning, as Gregor Samsa waswaking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he hadbeen changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on hisarmour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, hisbrown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. Fromthis height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely,could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin incomparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplesslybefore his eyes.
"What's happened to me," he thought. It was no dream. His room,a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, layquietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table, onwhich an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was spread out(Samsa was a traveling salesman) hung the picture which he had cutout of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in apretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and afur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of theviewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearmdisappeared.
Gregor's glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather(the rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal windowledge) made him quite melancholy. "Why don't I keep sleeping for alittle while longer and forget all this foolishness," he thought.But this was entirely impractical, for he was used to sleeping onhis right side, and in his present state he couldn't get himselfinto this position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto hisright side, he always rolled again onto his back. He must havetried it a hundred times, closing his eyes, so that he would nothave to see the wriggling legs, and gave up only when he began tofeel a light, dull pain in his side which he had never feltbefore.
"O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've chosen! Day in,day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much greater thanthe work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I haveto deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about trainconnections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changinghuman relationships which never come from the heart. To hell withit all!" He felt a slight itching on the top of his abdomen. Heslowly pushed himself on his back closer to the bed post so that hecould lift his head more easily, found the itchy part, which wasentirely covered with small white spots (he did not know what tomake of them), and wanted to feel the place with a leg. But heretracted it immediately, for the contact felt like a cold showerall over him.
He slid back again into his earlier position. "This getting upearly," he thought, "makes a man quite idiotic. A man must have hissleep. Other traveling salesmen live like harem women. Forinstance, when I come back to the inn during the course of themorning to write up the necessary orders, these gentlemen are justsitting down to breakfast. If I were to try that with my boss, I'dbe thrown out on the spot. Still, who knows whether that mightn'tbe really good for me. If I didn't hold back for my parents' sake,I would've quit ages ago. I would've gone to the boss and told himjust what I think from the bottom of my heart. He would've fallenright off his desk! How weird it is to sit up at the desk and talkdown to the employee from way up there. The boss has troublehearing, so the employee has to step up quite close to him. Anyway,I haven't completely given up that hope yet. Once I've got togetherthe money to pay off the parents' debt to him--that should takeanother five or six years--I'll do it for sure. Then I'll make thebig break. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leavesat five o'clock."
And he looked over at the alarm clock ticking away by the chestof drawers. "Good God," he thought. It was half past six, and thehands were going quietly on. It was past the half hour, alreadynearly quarter to. Could the alarm have failed to ring? One sawfrom the bed that it was properly set for four o'clock. Certainlyit had rung. Yes, but was it possible to sleep through this noisethat made the furniture shake? Now, it's true he'd not sleptquietly, but evidently he'd slept all the more deeply. Still, whatshould he do now? The next train left at seven o'clock. To catchthat one, he would have to go in a mad rush. The sample collectionwasn't packed up yet, and he really didn't feel particularly freshand active. And even if he caught the train, there was no avoidinga blow up with the boss, because the firm's errand boy would'vewaited for the five o'clock train and reported the news of hisabsence long ago. He was the boss's minion, without backbone orintelligence. Well then, what if he reported in sick? But thatwould be extremely embarrassing and suspicious, because during hisfive years' service Gregor hadn't been sick even once. The bosswould certainly come with the doctor from the health insurancecompany and would reproach his parents for their lazy son and cutshort all objections with the insurance doctor's comments; for himeveryone was completely healthy but really lazy about work. Andbesides, would the doctor in this case be totally wrong? Apart froma really excessive drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor in factfelt quite well and even had a really strong appetite.
As he was thinking all this over in the greatest haste, withoutbeing able to make the decision to get out of bed (the alarm clockwas indicating exactly quarter to seven) there was a cautious knockon the door by the head of the bed.
"Gregor," a voice called (it was his mother!) "it's quarter toseven. Don't you want to be on your way?" The soft voice! Gregorwas startled when he heard his voice answering. It was clearly andunmistakably his earlier voice, but in it was intermingled, as iffrom below, an irrepressibly painful squeaking which left the wordspositively distinct only in the first moment and distorted them inthe reverberation, so that one didn't know if one had heardcorrectly. Gregor wanted to answer in detail and explaineverything, but in these circumstances he confined himself tosaying, "Yes, yes, thank you mother. I'm getting up right away."Because of the wooden door the change in Gregor's voice was notreally noticeable outside, so his mother calmed down with thisexplanation and shuffled off. However, as a result of the shortconversation the other family members became aware of the fact thatGregor was unexpectedly still at home, and already his father wasknocking on one side door, weakly but with his fist. "Gregor,Gregor," he called out, "what's going on?" And after a short whilehe urged him on again in a deeper voice. "Gregor!" Gregor!" At theother side door, however, his sister knocked lightly. "Gregor? Areyou all right? Do you need anything?" Gregor directed answers inboth directions, "I'll be ready right away." He made an effort withthe most careful articulation and by inserting long pauses betweenthe individual words to remove everything remarkable from hisvoice. His father turned back to his breakfast. However, the sisterwhispered, "Gregor, open the door, I beg you." Gregor had nointention of opening the door, but congratulated himself on hisprecaution, acquired from traveling, of locking all doors duringthe night, even at home.
First he wanted to stand up quietly and undisturbed, getdressed, above all have breakfast, and only then consider furtheraction, for (he noticed this clearly) by thinking things over inbed he would not reach a reasonable conclusion. He remembered thathe had already often felt a light pain or other in bed, perhaps theresult of an awkward lying position, which later turned out to bepurely imaginary when he stood up, and he was eager to see how hispresent fantasies would gradually dissipate. That the change in hisvoice was nothing other than the onset of a real chill, anoccupational illness of commercial travelers, of that he had notthe slightest doubt.
It was very easy to throw aside the blanket. He needed only topush himself up a little, and it fell by itself. But to continuewas difficult, particularly because he was so unusually wide. Heneeded arms and hands to push himself upright. Instead of these,however, he had only many small limbs which were incessantly movingwith very different motions and which, in addition, he was unableto control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then it was the firstto extend itself, and if he finally succeeded doing with this limbwhat he wanted, in the meantime all the others, as if left free,moved around in an excessively painful agitation. "But I must notstay in bed uselessly," said Gregor to himself.
At first he wanted to get off the bed with the lower part of hisbody, but this lower part (which he incidentally had not yet lookedat and which he also couldn't picture clearly) proved itself toodifficult to move. The attempt went so slowly. When, having becomealmost frantic, he finally hurled himself forward with all hisforce and without thinking, he chose his direction incorrectly, andhe hit the lower bedpost hard. The violent pain he felt revealed tohim that the lower part of his body was at the moment probably themost sensitive.
Thus, he tried to get his upper body out of the bed first andturned his head carefully toward the edge of the bed. He managed todo this easily, and in spite of its width and weight his body massat last slowly followed the turning of his head. But as he finallyraised his head outside the bed in the open air, he became anxiousabout moving forward any further in this manner, for if he allowedhimself eventually to fall by this process, it would take a miracleto prevent his head from getting injured. And at all costs he mustnot lose consciousness right now. He preferred to remain inbed.
However, after a similar effort, while he lay there againsighing as before and once again saw his small limbs fighting oneanother, if anything worse than before, and didn't see any chanceof imposing quiet and order on this arbitrary movement, he toldhimself again that he couldn't possibly remain in bed and that itmight be the most reasonable thing to sacrifice everything if therewas even the slightest hope of getting himself out of bed in theprocess. At the same moment, however, he didn't forget to remindhimself from time to time of the fact that calm (indeed thecalmest) reflection might be better than the most confuseddecisions. At such moments, he directed his gaze as precisely as hecould toward the window, but unfortunately there was littleconfident cheer to be had from a glance at [...]
