7 August 2026
INNOVATIVE BIOREACTOR TECHNOLOGY FOR MICROBIOLOGICAL ...
Izstādes
One morning, when Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a hideous insect. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little, he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding could barely cover it and seemed ready to slip off at any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream. His room, a proper human room, albeit a little too small, lay peacefully within its four familiar walls. A collection of fabric samples lay spread out on the table – Samsa was a travelling salesman – and above it hung a picture he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and placed in a fine, gilded frame. It showed a lady wearing a fur hat and a fur boa, sitting upright and raising a heavy fur muff – which covered her entire forearm – towards the viewer.
However hard he threw himself to his right, he always rolled back to where he had been. He must have tried it a hundred times, closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at his flailing legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
However hard he threw himself to his right, he always rolled back to where he had been. He must have tried it a hundred times, closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at his flailing legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
“Oh, God,” he thought, “what a gruelling career I’ve chosen! Travelling day in, day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than running your own business at home, and on top of that there’s the hassle of travelling, worries about catching train connections, poor and irregular meals, and constantly meeting different people, so that you can never really get to know anyone or become friends with them.”.
“Oh, God,” he thought, “what a gruelling career I’ve chosen! Travelling day in, day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than running your own business at home, and on top of that there’s the hassle of travelling, worries about catching train connections, poor and irregular meals, and constantly meeting different people, so that you can never really get to know anyone or become friends with them.”.
He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all the time,” he thought, “it makes you stupid. You’ve got to get enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance, whenever I go back to the guest house in the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I’d be sacked on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me.
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| If I didn’t have my parents to think about, I would have handed in my notice a long time ago | I’d have gone up to the boss and told him exactly what I think, told him everything I wanted to, and let him know exactly how I feel. | He’d fall right off his desk! |
| And it’s a funny sort of business, sitting up there at your desk, talking down to your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to get right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. | Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve saved up enough money to pay off my parents’ debt to him – another five or six years, I suppose – that’s definitely what I’ll do. | That’s when I’ll make the big change. |
| First of all, though, I’ve got to get up – my train leaves at five. | And he glanced over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of drawers. | “Good heavens!” he thought. |
It was half past six and the hands were moving quietly round the dial; it was even later than half past, more like a quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not gone off? He could see from the bed that it had been set for four o’clock, as it should have been; it certainly must have gone off. Yes, but was it possible to sleep soundly through that noise that made the furniture rattle?
It was true that he hadn’t slept peacefully, but probably all the more deeply for that. What should he do now? The next train left at seven; if he were to catch it, he would have to rush like mad, and the collection of samples still wasn’t packed, and he didn’t feel particularly fresh and lively at all.
And even if he did catch the train, he would not escape his boss’s anger, as the office assistant would have been there to see the five o’clock train leave; he would have reported Gregor’s absence a long time ago.
The office assistant was the boss’s lackey, spineless and clueless. What if he called in sick? But that would seem highly far-fetched and suspicious, given that in fifteen years of service Gregor had never once been ill. His boss would certainly turn up with the doctor from the health insurance company, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the doctor’s recommendation not to make any claim, as the doctor believed that nobody was ever actually ill but that many were simply work-shy. And what’s more, would he have been entirely wrong in this case? Gregor did, in fact – apart from feeling excessively sleepy after sleeping for so long – feel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual.
