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- 2026-01-28T17:34:53.071Z
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- 152
- text
- other side door his sister came plaintively: “Gregor? Aren’t you well?
Do you need anything?” Gregor answered to both sides: “I’m ready, now”,
making an effort to remove all the strangeness from his voice by
enunciating very carefully and putting long pauses between each,
individual word. His father went back to his breakfast, but his sister
whispered: “Gregor, open the door, I beg of you.” Gregor, however, had
no thought of opening the door, and instead congratulated himself for
his cautious habit, acquired from his travelling, of locking all doors
at night even when he was at home.
The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being
disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast. Only
then would he consider what to do next, as he was well aware that he
would not bring his thoughts to any sensible conclusions by lying in
bed. He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in bed, perhaps
caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned 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.
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