[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
even returned to his breakfast, but his sister whispered: Gregor,
32 The Metamorphosis
open the door, I beg you. But Gregor certainly had no intention
of opening it; instead, he applauded the habit of caution he had
adopted from his travels in locking all the doors at home overnight
as well.
He wanted first to get up quietly without any disturbance, get
dressed, and above all have his breakfast, and only then put his mind
to what next, for, as he understood perfectly well, he wouldn t come
to any sensible conclusion if he stayed in bed. He recalled that, per-
haps through lying awkwardly, he had often felt some slight pain in
bed, which, once he got up, turned out to be pure imagination. And
he was curious to see how his present impressions would gradually
fade away. He hadn t the slightest doubt that the change in his voice
was nothing but the herald of a really bad cold, an occupational disease
for travellers.
Throwing off the bedspread was quite simple; he needed only to
puff himself up a little and it fell down of its own accord. But after
that it got difficult, particularly because he was so uncommonly wide.
He would have needed arms and hands to raise himself; but instead
of those, he had only these many little legs, which were continually
fluttering about, and which he could not control anyhow. If he tried
to bend one of them, it was the first to stretch; and if he finally man-
aged to get this leg to do what he wanted, all the others were flapping
about meanwhile in the most intense and painful excitement, as if
they had been let loose. Just don t stay uselessly in bed, Gregor said
to himself.
At first he tried to get out of bed with the lower part of his body,
but this lower part, which in any case he hadn t yet seen, nor could
have any proper idea of, proved to be too sluggish; it was such slow
going; and when finally, driven nearly crazy, he heaved himself for-
ward regardless with all his might, he found he had chosen the wrong
direction and bumped violently against the bottom bedpost; and the
burning pain he felt told him that it was the lower part of his body
that was perhaps the most sensitive.
So he attempted to get his upper body out of the bed first, cau-
tiously turning his head towards the edge. This worked easily
enough, and in the end, despite its width and weight, the mass of his
body slowly followed the way his head was turning. But when at last
he held his head in the air outside the bed, he became afraid of mov-
ing any further forward in this way, for if he did finally let himself
The Metamorphosis 33
drop, it would need a sheer miracle for his head to remain unharmed.
And right now was no time to lose consciousness, not at any price;
he would sooner stay in bed.
But, as he lay there as before, once again sighing heavily after
repeating the effort and once again watching his little legs struggling
among themselves, if anything worse than ever, and saw no possibil-
ity of bringing calm and order to this unruliness, once again he told
himself he couldn t possibly stay in bed, and the most sensible thing
was to sacrifice everything if there was just the slightest hope that
this would release him from his bed. But at the same time he did not
forget to remind himself between whiles that calm, the calmest,
reflection was far better than desperate decisions. At such moments
he turned his eyes as keenly as he could towards the window, but
unfortunately the sight of the morning fog, which even shrouded the
other side of the narrow street, had little confidence or cheer to offer.
Seven o clock already, he said to himself as the alarm-clock began
to ring again, seven o clock already, and still so foggy. And for a
little while he lay quietly, his breathing shallow, as if he were expect-
ing that perhaps the utter stillness would bring a return of the real,
true, ordinary state of affairs.
But then he said to himself: Before it rings a quarter-past seven,
I absolutely must have got out of bed, all of me. Besides, by that time
somebody will have come from the business to ask after me, for it
opens before seven o clock. And he set about rocking the entire
length of his body out of bed all in one piece. If he fell out of bed in
this way, his head, which he meant to lift sharply as he was falling,
would as far as he could see remain unscathed. His back seemed
hard; it would probably come to no harm as he fell on to the carpet.
His greatest misgivings came from his concern over the loud crash
which was bound to follow and would probably rouse if not terror
then certainly apprehension on the far side of all the doors. Still, that
would have to be risked.
As Gregor was already rearing halfway out of bed the new
method was more play than effort, for he only needed to rock back-
wards it occurred to him how simple it would all be if someone
came to help him. Two strong people he thought of his father and
the maid would have been entirely up to it; all they would have to
do was put their arms under the dome of his back, unpeel him out of
his bed in this way, stoop down with their load, and then merely wait
34 The Metamorphosis
patiently with him until he had managed to swing over on the floor,
when, he hoped, his legs would do what they were intended to do.
Well now, quite apart from the fact that the doors were locked,
should he really have called for help? In spite of his distress, he
couldn t suppress a smile at the thought.
In rocking so strongly, he had already reached the point where he
could scarcely keep his balance, and very soon he had to make up his
mind once and for all, for in five minutes it would be a quarter-past
seven when there came a ring at the door of the apartment. That s
somebody from the office, he said to himself, and almost froze, while
his little legs only danced all the faster. For a moment, everything
was silent. They re not going to open it, said Gregor to himself,
seized by some sort of absurd hope. But then of course, as always, the
maid walked with a firm tread to the door, and opened it. Gregor
only needed to hear the first words of greeting from the visitor and
he knew who it was the chief clerk himself. Why was Gregor the
only one condemned to serve in a firm where the slightest lapse pro-
voked the greatest suspicion? Were all their staff rogues, the lot of
them? Wasn t there one loyal, devoted person among them who, if he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
