Metamorphosis

Gregor Samsa lies half-turned on his bed, a grotesque, glistening insect abdomen filling the mattress as a human face peers out from a tangle of legs and sheets; morning light slants through the window, illuminating his many tiny, twitching legs and the ruined uniform draped over the foot of the bed. The room is both intimate and uncanny: cracked wallpaper, strewn garments, and a small picture on the wall that seems absurdly ordinary against his new body.

Gregor, driven by longing and shame, crawls out into the Family Parlour / Living Room; the family and the lodgers recoil in horror as Mr. Samsa, face flushed with panic and fury, hurls an apple that strikes Gregor's back and lodges into his shell, blood darkening his chitin. The room is chaotic—furniture askew, papers fluttering—and Grete and Mrs. Samsa stand frozen between compassion and alarm while the lodgers retreat, their expressions a mix of disgust and fear.

Gregor lies on his armour-like back in a cramped, tidy room, his brown domed belly arched and dozens of thin legs waving helplessly above the bedding; textile samples and a gilt-framed magazine picture of a lady with a fur muff hang nearby. Rain taps the window and the alarm clock on the table shows nearly seven, while Gregor's face registers a stunned, melancholic horror at his own body.

From behind the closed door Mrs. Samsa knocks; through the wood Gregor answers with a strangled, painful squeak that horrifies him as much as his family. Outside other voices — Grete and Mr. Samsa — call his name; inside Gregor struggles futilely to roll toward the door, clutching at his new legs which only writhe and hurt.

The flat door bursts open and the Chief Clerk's polished boots and authoritative silhouette fill the stairwell; his voice rings into the rooms, sharp and official. Rain-dimmed light from the stairwell falls on the threshold as household servants and family cluster behind him, the flat suddenly small and exposed.

Gregor flings himself off the bed in a desperate attempt to meet the clerk, hitting the carpet with a muffled thump and bruising his head; the clerk utters a stunned remark while Grete whispers his name and his father pleads from the hall. The family crowd recoils as Gregor, half-human voice and half-insect body, tries to speak reason about trains, debts and duty.

The lock snaps and Gregor forces the double doors open, rotating his strange body into the room so he is half-visible; the Chief Clerk utters a wind-like 'Oh!' as Mrs. Samsa collapses into her skirts and Mr. Samsa covers his face. Rain streaks the doorway, a photograph of Gregor in uniform seems to watch in accusation from the wall, and the flat is flooded with stunned, chaotic light.

Mr. Samsa, eyes wild, seizes a stick and a folded newspaper and, hissing like an animal, drives Gregor back toward the narrow doorway; Gregor's flank scrapes the white wood, leaving dark brown flecks as a final shove sends him bleeding and tumbling back into his room. The door slams with the stick's last blow and silence falls, the family looming in the doorway while Gregor lies trapped inside.