When Gregory Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed. He lay on his tough, and, raising his head a little, managed to see - sectioned off by little crescent-shaped ridges into segments - the expanse of his arched, brown belly, atop which the coverlet perched, forever on the point of slipping off entirely. His numberous legs, pathetically frail by contrast to the rest of him, waved feebly before his eyes.

"What's the matter with me?" he thought. It was no dream. There, quietly between the four familiar walls, was his room, a normal human room, if always a little on the small side. Over the table, on which an array of cloth samples was spread out - Samsa was a travelling salesman - hung the picture he had only recently clipped from a magazine, and set in an attractive gilt frame. It was a picture of a lady in a fur hat and stole, sitting bolt upright, holding in the direction of the onlooker a heavy fur muff into which she had thrust the whole of her forearm.

From there, Gregor's gaze directed itself towards the window, and the drab weather outside - raindrops could be heard plinking against the tin window ledges - made him quite melancholy. What if I went back to sleep for a while, and forgot about all this nonsense?' he thought, but that proved quite impossible, because he was accustomed to sleeping on his right side, and is present state he was unable to find that position. However vigorously he flung himself to his right, he kept rocking on to his back.