bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not
imagine what it looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move;
it went so slowly; and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he
carelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could
gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower
bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower
part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.

So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed
first, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed
quite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of
his body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head.
But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the
fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be
a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry
on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock
himself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose
consciousness.

It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been
earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching
his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than
before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing
peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it
was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible
thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at
whatever sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to
remind himself that calm consideration was much better than rushing
to desperate conclusions. At times like this he would direct his
eyes to the window and look out as clearly as he 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."