The_Metamorphosis_NT.pdf

The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka

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The Metamorphosis

This text is a translation from the German

by Ian Johnston, Malaspina University-

College Nanaimo, BC. It has been

prepared for students in the Liberal Studies

and English departments. This document is

in the public domain, released, January

1999

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The Metamorphosis

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from

anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been

changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his

armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little,

his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-

like sections. From this height the blanket, just about

ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place.

His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest

of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.

‘What’s happened to me,’ he thought. It was no dream.

His room, a proper room for a human being, only

somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-

known walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked

collection of sample cloth goods was spread out (Samsa

was a traveling salesman) hung the picture which he had

cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set

in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a

fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the

direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her

entire forearm disappeared.

Gregor’s glance then turned to the window. The dreary

weather (the rain drops were falling audibly down on the

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The Metamorphosis

metal window ledge) made him quite melancholy. ‘Why

don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all

this foolishness,’ he thought. But this was entirely

impractical, for he was used to sleeping on his right side,

and in his present state he couldn’t get himself into this

position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto his

right side, he always rolled again onto his back. He must

have tried it a hundred times, closing his eyes, so that he

would not have to see the wriggling legs, and gave up

only when he began to feel a light, dull pain in his side

which he had never felt before.

‘O God,’ he thought, ‘what a demanding job I’ve

chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade

are much greater than the work going on at head office,

and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems

of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular

bad food, temporary and constantly changing human

relationships which never come from the heart. To hell

with it all!’ He felt a slight itching on the top of his

abdomen. He slowly pushed himself on his back closer to

the bed post so that he could lift his head more easily,

found the itchy part, which was entirely covered with

small white spots (he did not know what to make of

them), and wanted to feel the place with a leg. But he

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The Metamorphosis

retracted it immediately, for the contact felt like a cold

shower all over him.

He slid back again into his earlier position. ‘This

getting up early,’ he thought, ‘makes a man quite idiotic.

A man must have his sleep. Other traveling salesmen live

like harem women. For instance, when I come back to the

inn during the course of the morning to write up the

necessary orders, these gentlemen are just sitting down to

breakfast. If I were to try that with my boss, I’d be thrown

out on the spot. Still, who knows whether that mightn’t

be really good for me. If I didn’t hold back for my parents’

sake, I would’ve quit ages ago. I would’ve gone to the

boss and told him just what I think from the bottom of my

heart. He would’ve fallen right off his desk! How weird it

is to sit up at the desk and talk down to the employee

from way up there. The boss has trouble hearing, so the

employee has to step up quite close to him. Anyway, I

haven’t completely given up that hope yet. Once I’ve got

together the money to pay off the parents’ debt to him—

that should take another five or six years—I’ll do it for

sure. Then I’ll make the big break. In any case, right now

I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.’

And he looked over at the alarm clock ticking away by

the chest of drawers. ‘Good God,’ he thought. It was half

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