Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right.

The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. It wasn’t a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls.

01. The Roof of the Enclosure Was of Solid Glass about Four or Five Inches in Thickness

This made her laugh again.  She could not understand it, for, with all her tenderness and womanly sweetness, she was still a Martian, and to a Martian the only good enemy is a dead enemy, for every dead foeman means so much more to divide between those who live.

I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so much perturbation a moment before and so I continued to importune her to enlighten me. She pitched violently, and this retarded her progress. The breeze little by little swelled into a tempest, and it was to be feared that the Henrietta might not be able to maintain herself upright on the waves.

02. A Loose-Fish Is Fair Game for Anybody Who Can Soonest Catch It

And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead, as likely I shall be ere the further moon has circled Barsoom another twelve times, remember that I listened and that I smiled. It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the more positive became her denials of my request, and, so, in very hopelessness, I desisted.

Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible

But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to expound it.

03. The Forty-Barrel-Bull Schools Are Larger Than the Harem Schools

Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the great avenue lighted by the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking down upon us out of her luminous green eye, it seemed that we were alone in the universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so. The chill of the Martian night was upon us, and removing my silks I threw them across the shoulders of Dejah Thoris.  As my arm rested for an instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of my being such as contact with no other mortal had even produced and it seemed to me that she had leaned slightly toward me, but of that I was not sure.

Only I knew that as my arm rested there across her shoulders longer than the act of adjusting the silk required she did not draw away, nor did she speak.  And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new. I loved Dejah Thoris.  The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment that my eyes had met hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad.