Previous - Next

out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would
slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest
doubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first
sign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for
travelling salesmen.

It was a simple matter to throw off the covers; he only had to blow
himself up a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became
difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad.
He would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up; but
instead of them he only had all those little legs continuously
moving in different directions, and which he was moreover unable to
control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first
one that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do
what he wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free
and would move about painfully. "This is something that can't be
done in bed", Gregor said to himself, "so don't keep trying to do
it".

The first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body
out of the bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not
imagine what it looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move;
it went so slowly; and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he
carelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could
gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower
bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower
part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.

So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed
first, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed
quite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of
his body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head.
But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the
fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be
a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry
on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock
himself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose
consciousness.

It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been
earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching
his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than
before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing
peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it
was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible
thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at

Previous - Next