The Metamorphosis

by Franz Kafka

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.

“Why don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness?” he thought.

Why was Gregor the only one condemned to work in a firm where the slightest lapse would attract the greatest suspicion? Were all the employees collectively, one and all, scoundrels?

Would she really notice that he had left the milk standing, not indeed from any lack of hunger, and would she bring in something else to eat more suitable for him? If she did not do it on her own, he would sooner starve to death than call her attention to the fact,

So for diversion he acquired the habit of crawling back and forth across the walls and ceiling. He was especially fond of hanging from the ceiling.

The main thing holding the family back from a change in living quarters was far more their complete hopelessness and the idea that they had been struck by a misfortune like no one else in their entire circle of relatives and acquaintances.