The Metamorphosis als Hörbuch - kostenlos hören

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. He lay on his armor-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. His blanket perched high on this belly could hardly stay in place; it seemed about to slide off completely. 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, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm had disappeared. Gregor�s glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather�you could hear the rain drops falling on the 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 could not get himself into this position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled onto his back again. 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 that 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 selling are much greater than the actual work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I still have to cope with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human interactions, 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, and 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 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 fired on the spot. Still, who knows whether that mightn�t be really good for me. If it weren�t for my parents� sake, I�d have 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 for him to sit up at that desk, talking down to the employee from way up there�and even more weird because 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 my parents� debt to him�that should take another five or six years�I�ll do it for sure. Then I�ll make my big break. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o�clock.� He looked over at the alarm clock ticking away on the chest of drawers. �Good God!� he thought. It was half past six, and the hands were going quietly on. It was even past the half hour, already nearly quarter to. Could the alarm have failed to ring? You could see from the bed that it was properly set for four o�clock. Certainly it had rung. Yes, but was it possible to sleep peacefully through that noise which made the furniture shake? Now, it is true he had not slept peacefully, but evidently he had slept all the more deeply. Still, what should he do now? The next train left at seven o�clock. To catch that one, he would have to go in a mad rush. The case of samples was not packed up yet, and he really did not feel particularly bright and lively. And even if he caught the train, there was no avoiding a blow-up with the boss; the firm�s errand boy would have waited for the five o�clock train and reported the news of his absence long ago. He was the boss�s minion, without backbone or intelligence. Well then, what if he reported in sick? But that would be extremely embarrassing and suspicious, because during his five years� service Gregor had not been sick even once. The boss would certainly come with the doctor from the health insurance company and would reproach his parents for their lazy son and cut short all objections by asking for the insurance doctor�s comments; for this doctor, everyone was completely healthy but really lazy about work. And besides, would the doctor in this case be totally wrong? Apart from a really excessive drowsiness after the long sleep, Gregor, in fact, felt quite well and even had a really strong appetite. As he was thinking all this over in the greatest haste, without being able to make the decision to get out of bed�the alarm clock was indicating exactly quarter to seven�there was a cautious knock on the door by the head of the bed. �Gregor,� a voice called�it was his mother��it�s quarter to seven. Don�t you want to be on your way?� That soft voice! Gregor was startled when he heard his own voice answering. It was clearly and unmistakably the voice he�d had before, but in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressible, painful squeaking, which left the words positively distinct only in the first moment and distorted them in the reverberation, so that anyone listening did not know if he had heard correctly. Gregor wanted to answer in detail and explain everything, but in these circumstances he confined himself to saying, �Yes, yes, thank you Mother. I�m getting up right away.� Because of the wooden door the change in Gregor�s voice was not really noticeable outside, so his mother calmed down with this explanation and shuffled off. However, as a result of the short conversation, the other family members became aware that Gregor was unexpectedly still at home, and already his father was knocking on one side door, weakly but with his fist. �Gregor, Gregor,� he called out, �what�s going on?� And, after a short while, he urged him on again in a deeper voice: �Gregor! Gregor!� At the other side door, however, his sister knocked lightly. �Gregor? Are you all right? Do you need anything?� Gregor directed answers in both directions: �I�ll be ready right away.� He made an effort with the most careful articulation and inserted long pauses between the individual words to remove everything remarkable from his voice. His father turned back to his breakfast. However, his sister whispered, �Gregor, open the door�I beg you.� Gregor had no intention of opening the door; he congratulated himself on his precaution, acquired from traveling, of locking all doors during the night, even at home. First he wanted to stand up quietly and undisturbed, get dressed, above all have breakfast, and only then consider further action, for�he noticed this clearly�by thinking things over in bed he would not reach a reasonable conclusion. He remembered that before now in bed he had often felt some light pain or other, which was perhaps the result of an awkward lying position, and which later, once he stood up, turned out to be purely imaginary, and he was eager to see how his present fantasies would gradually dissipate. That the change in his voice was nothing other than the onset of a cold, an occupational illness of commercial travelers, of that he had not the slightest doubt. It was very easy to throw aside the blanket. He needed only to push his stomach out a little, and it fell by itself. But to continue was difficult, particularly because he was so unusually wide. He needed