The Metamorphosis

could, but unfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was
enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer to
offer him. “Seven o’clock, already”, he said to himself when the clock
struck again, “seven o’clock, and there’s still a fog like this.” And
he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly as if he perhaps
expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real and
natural state.

But then he said to himself: “Before it strikes quarter past seven I’ll
definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then somebody
will have come round from work to ask what’s happened to me as well, as
they open up at work before seven o’clock.” And so he set himself to
the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed all
at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out of bed in this way and
kept his head raised as he did so he could probably avoid injuring it.
His back seemed to be quite hard, and probably nothing would happen to
it falling onto the carpet. His main concern was for the loud noise he
was bound to make, and which even through all the doors would probably
raise concern if not alarm. But it was something that had to be risked.