One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himselftransformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back,and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domedand divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to coverit and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thincompared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream.His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefullybetween its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread outon the table—Samsa was a travelling salesman—and above it therehung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine andhoused in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat andfur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of herlower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of raincould be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. “Howabout if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense”, hethought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used tosleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn’t get into thatposition. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled backto where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so thathe wouldn’t have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped whenhe began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
“Oh, God”, he thought, “what a strenuous career it is thatI’ve chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like thistakes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of thatthere’s the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections,bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that youcan never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can all go toHell!” He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up onhis back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; foundwhere the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spotswhich he didn’t know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the placewith one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched ithe was overcome by a cold shudder.
He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all thetime”, he thought, “it makes you stupid. You’ve got to getenough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance,whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out thecontract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating theirbreakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I’d get kicked out onthe spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If Ididn’t have my parents to think about I’d have given in my notice along time ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just what Ithink, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He’dfall right off his desk! And it’s a funny sort of business to be sittingup there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there,especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard ofhearing. Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the moneytogether to pay off my parents’ debt to him—another five or sixyears I suppose—that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’swhen I’ll make the big change. First of all though, I’ve got to getup, my tr