hort conversation
made the other members of the family aware that Gregor, against
their expectations was still at home, and soon his father came
knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist.
"Gregor, Gregor", he called, "what's wrong?" And after a short
while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice: "Gregor!
Gregor!" At the 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