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- 105
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T02:25:17.171Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 42
- text
- I
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found
himself transformed 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 domed and divided by arches into stiff sections.
The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off
any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared 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 peacefully between
its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out
on the table—Samsa was a travelling salesman—and above it there hung a
picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and
housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur
hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered
the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of
rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad.
“How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this
nonsense”, he thought, but that was something he was unable to do
because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state
couldn’t get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his
right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a
hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at the
floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull
pain there that he had never felt before.
“Oh, God”, he thought, “what a strenuous career it is that I’ve chosen!
Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more
effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there’s
the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad
and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that
you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can
all go to Hell!” He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself
slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his
head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with
lots of little white spots which he didn’t know what to make of; and
when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly
back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold
shudder.
He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all the time”,
he thought, “it makes you stupid. You’ve got to get enough 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 the contract,
these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts.
I ought to just try that with my boss; I’d get kicked out on the spot.
But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I didn’t
have my parents to think about I’d have given in my notice a long time
ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell
him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He’d fall right
off his desk! And it’s a funny sort of business to be sitting up 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
of hearing. Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the money
together to pay off my parents’ debt to him—another five or six years I
suppose—that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’s when I’ll make the big
change. First of all though, I’ve got to get up, my train leaves at
five.”
- title
- Chunk 1