Daffodil International University

Educational => English Language Lab => Topic started by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:09:26 PM

Title: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:09:26 PM

A little bird was flying south for the Winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.
As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.

The dung was actually thawing him out!
He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:11:20 PM

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?"

The eagle answered, "Sure , why not."

So the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested.
All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:12:22 PM

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull.
"They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story: Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:15:59 PM

This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside.
He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio..
His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.
He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up.
He ordered more a more raw material and buns and use to sale more. He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers.
He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.
As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father.
Then something strange happened.
The son asked, “Dad, aren’t you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?” The father replied, “No, but tell me about it.” The son said, “The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times.”
The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV. He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic.
He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand. And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.
The father said to his son, “Son, you were right”. “We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time.”

Moral of The Story : Its all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:18:36 PM

Seyyed  JawAd   Ameli, a  great  Mojtahed, was  having  his dinner
when someone  knocked at  his door. A  servant from  his  master,
AyatollAh Seyyed Mahdi Bahrol Uloom appeared and said: “Your master
has sent for you immediately. He has just sat down for his dinner
but refuses to eat till he sees you.”

There was no time to lose. Seyyed Ameli left his  dinner and rushed
to Seyyed  Bahrul  Uloom’s  residence. Just as he entered, the master
looked disapprovingly  at him  and  said: “Seyyid Jawad! You Have no
fear of Allah! Don’t you feel ashamed of Allah?”

This came  as  a thunderbolt, because  he  could not remember doing
anything to incur the wrath of his master. Hesitantly he asked: “My
master may guide me where I have failed.”

“It is now a week  that  your neighbour  and his family are without
wheat or rice. They were  buying some dates from a grocer on credit
and  today  the grocer  refused to grant him any further credit. He
returned home  empty-handed  and  the family is without a morsel of
food,” Seyyed Mehdi said.

Seyed  JawAd  was taken  by surprise. ” By Allah, ” he said,” I have no
knowledge about this.”
“That is why I am displeased all the more.  How can you be   unaware of
your own neighbour? Seven days of difficulties have passed and you tell
me that you do not know about it. Well, if you had  known  about it and
ignored him despite your knowledge, then you would not even be a Muslim,
Syyed Mahdi admonished.

And then Seyyed Mahdi  Bahrul Uloom instructed him to take all the dishes
of  food  before him  to the neighbour. “Sit with him to eat, so that he
does not feel ashamed. And take this sum for his future ration. Place it
under  his  pillow or carpet so that he is not humiliated. And  inform me
when this work is completed. Till then, I shall not eat.”

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:24:02 PM

Seeing that his mother was in a good mood, Ahmad sat near her and said, ‘Mother, I have an idea which should bring you much joy.” His mother answered eagerly, “My son, all that you give me makes me happy. What is on your mind?”

“You know,” he told her, “I have finished my studies and can afford to begin a family. I have decided to marry.”

His mother’s face brightened with a smile. “This is very good news! I have long awaited such a day,” she told him. “How often I have wished you would marry one of your cousins. Praise be to Allah that you have made this decision before it is too late!.” Ahmad exclaimed, “Before it’s too late? What do you mean?”  “Your cousin Maryam is now old enough to marry. Every day there is someone visiting her home, seeking her hand.”

Ahmad sat silently for a moment and said, “Then why should we bother her suitors?”

“What do you mean, Ahmad?,” asked his mother, dismayed.

“My cousin Maryam is not fit for me.” 

 

“Why not? No, my son, you’re mistaken. I shall go and see about your engagement tomorrow,” his mother told him.

Ahmad frowned and said, “No, mother. Please do not do such a thing. I will not agree to this.” “When she becomes your fiancé, you will feel love for her. Put aside your fears. Maryam is beautiful, and she has a respectable job.”

Ahmad disagreed, “No. This matter only concerns me.”

 

Ahmad’s mother thought for a moment and said, “If you dislike Maryam, then there’s my brother’s daughter. She is as beautiful as Maryam, and she has inherited a large sum of money from my brother.

 

“Mother, please think about this matter from my point of view. I need someone to share my life, not a business partner.”

His mother became angry and sharply asked, “What’s wrong with my niece? Why isn’t she good enough to be your wife?”

Ahmad replied, “She is not a practicing Muslim. I want a Muslim wife.”

 

Ahmad’s mother laughed sarcastically and said, “You speak as if you were an angel who could only marry another angel. Why don’t you stop saying such nonsense, my son? You are an educated young man, you should give up your impossible ideals.”

“I am neither an angel, nor do I seek a saint for a wife. I am a Muslim believer looking for a girl who also believes in Islam.” replied Ahmad.

 

Ahmad’s mother told him, “I don’t know any girls who share your ideals.”

He said, “I know someone who measures up to my expectations. “

 

Startled by this admission, Ahmad’s mother asked, “You know someone? Who is she? Since when do you begin friendship with girls?”

Ahmad answered quickly, “I didn’t mean that I know a girl personally, but I know of her.”  ” I see,” she said. “You have already chosen your wife. Who is this lucky girl?” “Mother, please be more understanding. I hope you will take my side and persuade father to agree with my choice.”

 

This appeal to Ahmad’s mother softened her, and she said, “I swear that I think only of your welfare. I’ll help you. Tell me, what are this girl ‘s qualifications?”

Ahmad told her, “Nothing matters except the religious aspect. She is Muslim, and wears complete hijab.” “Oh, then she is uneducated!” “No, she has a high school education and her religious knowledge is extensive.”

Then his mother asked, “What family is she from? Do I know them?”

 

“She is from a good family known for their piety”, Ahmad told her. “Of what use is a well-known family if a girl has no Islamic morals?” He silently beseeched Allah to give him the patience to overcome his mother’s resistance. “A happy marriage doesn’t depend on fame or wealth. Happiness stems from spiritual nearness and mutual understanding.” Then, in a different tone of voice his mother asked,

 

“What does her father do for a living?” “He is a grocer,” Ahmad replied.

“A grocer?!”, she exclaimed. “Yes. He is a grocer and a very righteous man. He is the head of a happy and virtuous family.”

Ahmad’s mother interrupted him, “You are the son of a wealthy man; with your college degree you wish to marry a grocer’s daughter? What a shame! Yet you ask me to assist you!  If I had chosen the daughter of a jeweler, how would you feel?”

His mother replied, “There is a big difference between a jeweler and a grocer.”

 

“The only difference is with regard to the substance. The former sells rings and the latter sells sugar. Both work in order to earn money,” Ahmad answered.

His mother lamented, “Imagine your father’s reaction to this news! “

Ahmad said firmly, ” This is my desire, either you help me or I’ll do it myself.”

 

He spoke so seriously that his mother laughed mockingly, saying, “Does the matter require a great effort? The least move you make, they will give their daughter to you gladly.”

Ahmad shook his head in doubt and said, “Wait and see!”

“What an odd situation this is! Am I to present my son to a grocer’s daughter? What special beauty does this girl possess to make you blind to every other consideration?

 

“I have not yet seen her,” Ahmad said.

“Then how do you know she’s not ugly?” asked his mother.

“I know she is not. As far as good conduct is concerned, physical beauty is of little importance.”

“Oh Ahmad, my amazement never ceases.”

 

The next morning, Ahmad told his father of his intentions. His father became angry, but Ahmad remained determined to marry the woman of his choice. Finally his father agreed and Ahmad asked his mother to visit the girl’s home to make the proposal and overcome any obstacles.

 

The following afternoon Ahmad’s mother, accompanied by his oldest sister, went to the girl’s house. On the way there, Ahmad’s sister asked her mother what the girl’s name was. Her mother replied, ” I forgot to ask him! “When they knocked on the family’s door, they were surprised to see a beautiful young girl open it. The girl was surprised to see the two unfamiliar women, but she showed them into the living room and went to tell her mother that they had visitors. Her mother welcomed the guests and waited for them to explain the reason for their visit. After exchanging greetings, Ahmad’s mother asked who the young girl was who had opened the door. “It was my daughter, Zaynab,” she replied. “Do you have any other daughter?” asked Ahmad’s mother. “No, she’s my only daughter”, replied her mother. Ahmad’s mother and sister were delighted to learn that the beautiful girl was Zaynab. Just then, Zaynab entered with coffee for their visitors. She sat next to Ahmad’s sister and they soon found much to discuss. Then she collected the empty coffee cups and left the room.

 

Ahmad’s mother began, “We have come with a blessed aim. We would be happy to have your daughter Zaynab as a wife for my son.” She praised her son for his intelligence, his good looks and his wealth, but she neglected to mention his firm Islamic beliefs, which was very important to Zaynab’s mother. Therefore, Ahmad’s mother was stunned when Zaynab’s mother shook her head slowly and said, “I’m very sorry. It is difficult for me to agree to this proposal; in fact, it’s impossible.” With much surprise, Ahmad’s mother asked, “What is impossible?”

 

“My daughter is still young. I’m sure your son can find a girl who suits him.” Ahmad’s mother protested, “But Zaynab suits him well! Would you be kind enough to justify your refusal?”

“I only have one daughter, and I should be sure of her future married life.”

“But Ahmad is well-off financially,” said his mother. “He is an engineer!”

 

Zaynab’s mother replied, “Zaynab would not marry someone because he is wealthy or has a college degree.”

Ahmad’s mother was at a loss for words. “Then what will ensure your daughter’s happiness and consent?”

“When a mother looks for a wife for her son, she should mention her son’s conduct.” said the mother of Zaynab. “My daughter is a committed Muslim. She wants a Muslim husband, and remember, my daughter wears hijab, and your son may want a modern wife, who dresses like his mother and sister.”

 

Ahmad’s mother laughed with relief and told her, “You’re correct. I haven’t mentioned his conduct. I thought that other aspects of his character were of more importance. My son is a faithful Muslim. He is, in fact, looking for a wife who observes hijab. Be sure that my appearance (un-Islamic clothing) is not to Ahmad’s taste.”

Zaynab’s mother also smiled and said, “You should have told me earlier! Please give us your address so we can visit you and learn more about your son.”

“We hope you can come early next week,” said Ahmad’s mother.

 

Ahmad was waiting anxiously for his mother’s return. As soon as she and her daughter returned home he asked, “Well, mother? How was your visit?”

“It was very strange,” she replied.

“What was strange?”, he asked. “Has anything bad happened?”

“Oh no, Ahmad. But I never expected such a thing,” she answered. “Then they have refused?” Ahmad’s father said, “How could a grocer’s daughter refuse a wealthy young man?”

Ahmad’s mother turned to her husband and said, ” They did, in fact, refuse…”

“What! they refused?” asked the father. “I spoke about Ahmad’s good qualities, but I didn’t mention his Islamic morals. My appearance also caused her to decline my proposal because her daughter is a very faithful Muslim. When I realized their objections, I told them that you are a true Muslim as well. I have come to respect them very much. They don’t care about status or wealth.”

 

“Have you seen the girl?”, asked Ahmad’s father.

“Yes, she is lovely and polite. Ahmad is a lucky man to have made such a choice.”

The following week, Zaynab’s family paid a visit to Ahmad’s home and plans were made for the upcoming wedding. They were soon married and there was much rejoicing.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 08:11:48 PM

A small boy worked as an apprentice in a bicycle shop.
A man sent a bicycle for repair.
After repairing the bicycle, this boy cleaned up the bicycle and it looked like a new one.
Other apprentices laughed at him for doing redundant work.
The second day after the owner claimed the bicycle back, this boy was pinched and offered a job.
Moral of the story :
1.Go the extra mile to be successful.
2. Doing more gains more & Doing less loses more.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 08:13:17 PM

A man attended an interview for a job.
Along the corridor, he picked up a piece and threw it into a dustbin.
The interviewer passed by and saw it.
This man got the job.
Moral of the story:
Live with good habits, and you will be recognised

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: faizun on May 08, 2011, 09:58:29 AM

Madam,
all the stories are very interesting. Thank you for your posted short stories.

Faizun Nesa
Lecturer of CSE

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 09, 2011, 02:56:45 PM

It's my pleasure that you have gone through the stories. Thank u madam!

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: goodboy on May 11, 2011, 11:49:52 PM

Really!!! Great stories mam......which are full of morals & learning materials.

Regards,
shajib, BBA.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 14, 2011, 03:32:09 PM

Thanx goodboy:))

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 26, 2011, 04:58:11 PM

                                                                The Princess and the Pea
                                                                           by
                                                                 Hans Christian Andersen


ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to have a real princess. 

One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it.

It was a princess standing out there in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real princess.

“Well, we’ll soon find that out,” thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

On this the princess had to lie all night. In the morning she was asked how she had slept.

“Oh, very badly!” said she. “I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It’s horrible!”

Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.

Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.

There, that is a true story.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 26, 2011, 05:15:13 PM

The Bottle Neck
by
Hans Christian Andersen
 
LOSE to the corner of a street, among other abodes of poverty, stood an exceedingly tall, narrow house, which had been so knocked about by time that it seemed out of joint in every direction. This house was inhabited by poor people, but the deepest poverty was apparent in the garret lodging in the gable. In front of the little window, an old bent bird-cage hung in the sunshine, which had not even a proper water-glass, but instead of it the broken neck of a bottle, turned upside down, and a cork stuck in to make it hold the water with which it was filled. An old maid stood at the window; she had hung chickweed over the cage, and the little linnet which it contained hopped from perch to perch and sang and twittered merrily.

“Yes, it’s all very well for you to sing,” said the bottle neck: that is, he did not really speak the words as we do, for the neck of a bottle cannot speak; but he thought them to himself in his own mind, just as people sometimes talk quietly to themselves.

“Yes, you may sing very well, you have all your limbs uninjured; you should feel what it is like to lose your body, and only have a neck and a mouth left, with a cork stuck in it, as I have: you wouldn’t sing then, I know. After all, it is just as well that there are some who can be happy. I have no reason to sing, nor could I sing now if I were ever so happy; but when I was a whole bottle, and they rubbed me with a cork, didn’t I sing then? I used to be called a complete lark. I remember when I went out to a picnic with the furrier’s family, on the day his daughter was betrothed,—it seems as if it only happened yesterday. I have gone through a great deal in my time, when I come to recollect: I have been in the fire and in the water, I have been deep in the earth, and have mounted higher in the air than most other people, and now I am swinging here, outside a bird-cage, in the air and the sunshine. Oh, indeed, it would be worth while to hear my history; but I do not speak it aloud, for a good reason—because I cannot.”

Then the bottle neck related his history, which was really rather remarkable; he, in fact, related it to himself, or, at least, thought it in his own mind. The little bird sang his own song merrily; in the street below there was driving and running to and fro, every one thought of his own affairs, or perhaps of nothing at all; but the bottle neck thought deeply. He thought of the blazing furnace in the factory, where he had been blown into life; he remembered how hot it felt when he was placed in the heated oven, the home from which he sprang, and that he had a strong inclination to leap out again directly; but after a while it became cooler, and he found himself very comfortable. He had been placed in a row, with a whole regiment of his brothers and sisters all brought out of the same furnace; some of them had certainly been blown into champagne bottles, and others into beer bottles, which made a little difference between them. In the world it often happens that a beer bottle may contain the most precious wine, and a champagne bottle be filled with blacking, but even in decay it may always be seen whether a man has been well born. Nobility remains noble, as a champagne bottle remains the same, even with blacking in its interior. When the bottles were packed our bottle was packed amongst them; it little expected then to finish its career as a bottle neck, or to be used as a water-glass to a bird’s-cage, which is, after all, a place of honor, for it is to be of some use in the world. The bottle did not behold the light of day again, until it was unpacked with the rest in the wine merchant’s cellar, and, for the first time, rinsed with water, which caused some very curious sensations. There it lay empty, and without a cork, and it had a peculiar feeling, as if it wanted something it knew not what. At last it was filled with rich and costly wine, a cork was placed in it, and sealed down. Then it was labelled “first quality,” as if it had carried off the first prize at an examination; besides, the wine and the bottle were both good, and while we are young is the time for poetry. There were sounds of song within the bottle, of things it could not understand, of green sunny mountains, where the vines grow and where the merry vine-dressers laugh, sing, and are merry. “Ah, how beautiful is life.” All these tones of joy and song in the bottle were like the working of a young poet’s brain, who often knows not the meaning of the tones which are sounding within him. One morning the bottle found a purchaser in the furrier’s apprentice, who was told to bring one of the best bottles of wine. It was placed in the provision basket with ham and cheese and sausages. The sweetest fresh butter and the finest bread were put into the basket by the furrier’s daughter herself, for she packed it. She was young and pretty; her brown eyes laughed, and a smile lingered round her mouth as sweet as that in her eyes. She had delicate hands, beautifully white, and her neck was whiter still. It could easily be seen that she was a very lovely girl, and as yet she was not engaged. The provision basket lay in the lap of the young girl as the family drove out to the forest, and the neck of the bottle peeped out from between the folds of the white napkin. There was the red wax on the cork, and the bottle looked straight at the young girl’s face, and also at the face of the young sailor who sat near her. He was a young friend, the son of a portrait painter. He had lately passed his examination with honor, as mate, and the next morning he was to sail in his ship to a distant coast. There had been a great deal of talk on this subject while the basket was being packed, and during this conversation the eyes and the mouth of the furrier’s daughter did not wear a very joyful expression. The young people wandered away into the green wood, and talked together. What did they talk about? The bottle could not say, for he was in the provision basket. It remained there a long time; but when at last it was brought forth it appeared as if something pleasant had happened, for every one was laughing; the furrier’s daughter laughed too, but she said very little, and her cheeks were like two roses. Then her father took the bottle and the cork-screw into his hands. What a strange sensation it was to have the cork drawn for the first time! The bottle could never after that forget the performance of that moment; indeed there was quite a convulsion within him as the cork flew out, and a gurgling sound as the wine was poured forth into the glasses.

“Long life to the betrothed,” cried the papa, and every glass was emptied to the dregs, while the young sailor kissed his beautiful bride.

“Happiness and blessing to you both,” said the old people-father and mother, and the young man filled the glasses again.

“Safe return, and a wedding this day next year,” he cried; and when the glasses were empty he took the bottle, raised it on high, and said, “Thou hast been present here on the happiest day of my life; thou shalt never be used by others!” So saying, he hurled it high in the air.

The furrier’s daughter thought she should never see it again, but she was mistaken. It fell among the rushes on the borders of a little woodland lake. The bottle neck remembered well how long it lay there unseen. “I gave them wine, and they gave me muddy water,” he had said to himself, “but I suppose it was all well meant.” He could no longer see the betrothed couple, nor the cheerful old people; but for a long time he could hear them rejoicing and singing. At length there came by two peasant boys, who peeped in among the reeds and spied out the bottle. Then they took it up and carried it home with them, so that once more it was provided for. At home in their wooden cottage these boys had an elder brother, a sailor, who was about to start on a long voyage. He had been there the day before to say farewell, and his mother was now very busy packing up various things for him to take with him on his voyage. In the evening his father was going to carry the parcel to the town to see his son once more, and take him a farewell greeting from his mother. A small bottle had already been filled with herb tea, mixed with brandy, and wrapped in a parcel; but when the boys came in they brought with them a larger and stronger bottle, which they had found. This bottle would hold so much more than the little one, and they all said the brandy would be so good for complaints of the stomach, especially as it was mixed with medical herbs. The liquid which they now poured into the bottle was not like the red wine with which it had once been filled; these were bitter drops, but they are of great use sometimes-for the stomach. The new large bottle was to go, not the little one: so the bottle once more started on its travels. It was taken on board (for Peter Jensen was one of the crew) the very same ship in which the young mate was to sail. But the mate did not see the bottle: indeed, if he had he would not have known it, or supposed it was the one out of which they had drunk to the felicity of the betrothed and to the prospect of a marriage on his own happy return. Certainly the bottle no longer poured forth wine, but it contained something quite as good; and so it happened that whenever Peter Jensen brought it out, his messmates gave it the name of “the apothecary,” for it contained the best medicine to cure the stomach, and he gave it out quite willingly as long as a drop remained. Those were happy days, and the bottle would sing when rubbed with a cork, and it was called a “great lark,” “Peter Jensen’s lark.”

Long days and months rolled by, during which the bottle stood empty in a corner, when a storm arose—whether on the passage out or home it could not tell, for it had never been ashore. It was a terrible storm, great waves arose, darkly heaving and tossing the vessel to and fro. The main mast was split asunder, the ship sprang a leak, and the pumps became useless, while all around was black as night. At the last moment, when the ship was sinking, the young mate wrote on a piece of paper, “We are going down: God’s will be done.” Then he wrote the name of his betrothed, his own name, and that of the ship. Then he put the leaf in an empty bottle that happened to be at hand, corked it down tightly, and threw it into the foaming sea. He knew not that it was the very same bottle from which the goblet of joy and hope had once been filled for him, and now it was tossing on the waves with his last greeting, and a message from the dead. The ship sank, and the crew sank with her; but the bottle flew on like a bird, for it bore within it a loving letter from a loving heart. And as the sun rose and set, the bottle felt as at the time of its first existence, when in the heated glowing stove it had a longing to fly away. It outlived the storms and the calm, it struck against no rocks, was not devoured by sharks, but drifted on for more than a year, sometimes towards the north, sometimes towards the south, just as the current carried it. It was in all other ways its own master, but even of that one may get tired. The written leaf, the last farewell of the bridegroom to his bride, would only bring sorrow when once it reached her hands; but where were those hands, so soft and delicate, which had once spread the table-cloth on the fresh grass in the green wood, on the day of her betrothal? Ah, yes! where was the furrier’s daughter? and where was the land which might lie nearest to her home?

The bottle knew not, it travelled onward and onward, and at last all this wandering about became wearisome; at all events it was not its usual occupation. But it had to travel, till at length it reached land—a foreign country. Not a word spoken in this country could the bottle understand; it was a language it had never before heard, and it is a great loss not to be able to understand a language. The bottle was fished out of the water, and examined on all sides. The little letter contained within it was discovered, taken out, and turned and twisted in every direction; but the people could not understand what was written upon it. They could be quite sure that the bottle had been thrown overboard from a vessel, and that something about it was written on this paper: but what was written? that was the question,—so the paper was put back into the bottle, and then both were put away in a large cupboard of one of the great houses of the town. Whenever any strangers arrived, the paper was taken out and turned over and over, so that the address, which was only written in pencil, became almost illegible, and at last no one could distinguish any letters on it at all. For a whole year the bottle remained standing in the cupboard, and then it was taken up to the loft, where it soon became covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah! how often then it thought of those better days—of the times when in the fresh, green wood, it had poured forth rich wine; or, while rocked by the swelling waves, it had carried in its bosom a secret, a letter, a last parting sigh. For full twenty years it stood in the loft, and it might have stayed there longer but that the house was going to be rebuilt. The bottle was discovered when the roof was taken off; they talked about it, but the bottle did not understand what they said—a language is not to be learnt by living in a loft, even for twenty years. “If I had been down stairs in the room,” thought the bottle, “I might have learnt it.” It was now washed and rinsed, which process was really quite necessary, and afterwards it looked clean and transparent, and felt young again in its old age; but the paper which it had carried so faithfully was destroyed in the washing. They filled the bottle with seeds, though it scarcely knew what had been placed in it. Then they corked it down tightly, and carefully wrapped it up. There not even the light of a torch or lantern could reach it, much less the brightness of the sun or moon. “And yet,” thought the bottle, “men go on a journey that they may see as much as possible, and I can see nothing.” However, it did something quite as important; it travelled to the place of its destination, and was unpacked.

“What trouble they have taken with that bottle over yonder!” said one, “and very likely it is broken after all.” But the bottle was not broken, and, better still, it understood every word that was said: this language it had heard at the furnaces and at the wine merchant’s; in the forest and on the ship,—it was the only good old language it could understand. It had returned home, and the language was as a welcome greeting. For very joy, it felt ready to jump out of people’s hands, and scarcely noticed that its cork had been drawn, and its contents emptied out, till it found itself carried to a cellar, to be left there and forgotten. “There’s no place like home, even if it’s a cellar.” It never occurred to him to think that he might lie there for years, he felt so comfortable. For many long years he remained in the cellar, till at last some people came to carry away the bottles, and ours amongst the number.

Out in the garden there was a great festival. Brilliant lamps hung in festoons from tree to tree; and paper lanterns, through which the light shone till they looked like transparent tulips. It was a beautiful evening, and the weather mild and clear. The stars twinkled; and the new moon, in the form of a crescent, was surrounded by the shadowy disc of the whole moon, and looked like a gray globe with a golden rim: it was a beautiful sight for those who had good eyes. The illumination extended even to the most retired of the garden walks, at least not so retired that any one need lose himself there. In the borders were placed bottles, each containing a light, and among them the bottle with which we are acquainted, and whose fate it was, one day, to be only a bottle neck, and to serve as a water-glass to a bird’s-cage. Everything here appeared lovely to our bottle, for it was again in the green wood, amid joy and feasting; again it heard music and song, and the noise and murmur of a crowd, especially in that part of the garden where the lamps blazed, and the paper lanterns displayed their brilliant colors. It stood in a distant walk certainly, but a place pleasant for contemplation; and it carried a light; and was at once useful and ornamental. In such an hour it is easy to forget that one has spent twenty years in a loft, and a good thing it is to be able to do so. Close before the bottle passed a single pair, like the bridal pair—the mate and the furrier’s daughter—who had so long ago wandered in the wood. It seemed to the bottle as if he were living that time over again. Not only the guests but other people were walking in the garden, who were allowed to witness the splendor and the festivities. Among the latter came an old maid, who seemed to be quite alone in the world. She was thinking, like the bottle, of the green wood, and of a young betrothed pair, who were closely connected with herself; she was thinking of that hour, the happiest of her life, in which she had taken part, when she had herself been one of that betrothed pair; such hours are never to be forgotten, let a maiden be as old as she may. But she did not recognize the bottle, neither did the bottle notice the old maid. And so we often pass each other in the world when we meet, as did these two, even while together in the same town.

The bottle was taken from the garden, and again sent to a wine merchant, where it was once more filled with wine, and sold to an aeronaut, who was to make an ascent in his balloon on the following Sunday. A great crowd assembled to witness the sight; military music had been engaged, and many other preparations made. The bottle saw it all from the basket in which he lay close to a live rabbit. The rabbit was quite excited because he knew that he was to be taken up, and let down again in a parachute. The bottle, however, knew nothing of the “up,” or the “down;” he saw only that the balloon was swelling larger and larger till it could swell no more, and began to rise and be restless. Then the ropes which held it were cut through, and the aerial ship rose in the air with the aeronaut and the basket containing the bottle and the rabbit, while the music sounded and all the people shouted “Hurrah.”

“This is a wonderful journey up into the air,” thought the bottle; “it is a new way of sailing, and here, at least, there is no fear of striking against anything.”

Thousands of people gazed at the balloon, and the old maid who was in the garden saw it also; for she stood at the open window of the garret, by which hung the cage containing the linnet, who then had no water-glass, but was obliged to be contented with an old cup. In the window-sill stood a myrtle in a pot, and this had been pushed a little on one side, that it might not fall out; for the old maid was leaning out of the window, that she might see. And she did see distinctly the aeronaut in the balloon, and how he let down the rabbit in the parachute, and then drank to the health of all the spectators in the wine from the bottle. After doing this, he hurled it high into the air. How little she thought that this was the very same bottle which her friend had thrown aloft in her honor, on that happy day of rejoicing, in the green wood, in her youthful days. The bottle had no time to think, when raised so suddenly; and before it was aware, it reached the highest point it had ever attained in its life. Steeples and roofs lay far, far beneath it, and the people looked as tiny as possible. Then it began to descend much more rapidly than the rabbit had done, made somersaults in the air, and felt itself quite young and unfettered, although it was half full of wine. But this did not last long. What a journey it was! All the people could see the bottle; for the sun shone upon it. The balloon was already far away, and very soon the bottle was far away also; for it fell upon a roof, and broke in pieces. But the pieces had got such an impetus in them, that they could not stop themselves. They went jumping and rolling about, till at last they fell into the court-yard, and were broken into still smaller pieces; only the neck of the bottle managed to keep whole, and it was broken off as clean as if it had been cut with a diamond.

“That would make a capital bird’s glass,” said one of the cellar-men; but none of them had either a bird or a cage, and it was not to be expected they would provide one just because they had found a bottle neck that could be used as a glass. But the old maid who lived in the garret had a bird, and it really might be useful to her; so the bottle neck was provided with a cork, and taken up to her; and, as it often happens in life, the part that had been uppermost was now turned downwards, and it was filled with fresh water. Then they hung it in the cage of the little bird, who sang and twittered more merrily than ever.

“Ah, you have good reason to sing,” said the bottle neck, which was looked upon as something very remarkable, because it had been in a balloon; nothing further was known of its history. As it hung there in the bird’s-cage, it could hear the noise and murmur of the people in the street below, as well as the conversation of the old maid in the room within. An old friend had just come to visit her, and they talked, not about the bottle neck, but of the myrtle in the window.

“No, you must not spend a dollar for your daughter’s bridal bouquet,” said the old maid; “you shall have a beautiful little bunch for a nosegay, full of blossoms. Do you see how splendidly the tree has grown? It has been raised from only a little sprig of myrtle that you gave me on the day after my betrothal, and from which I was to make my own bridal bouquet when a year had passed: but that day never came; the eyes were closed which were to have been my light and joy through life. In the depths of the sea my beloved sleeps sweetly; the myrtle has become an old tree, and I am a still older woman. Before the sprig you gave me faded, I took a spray, and planted it in the earth; and now, as you see, it has become a large tree, and a bunch of the blossoms shall at last appear at a wedding festival, in the bouquet of your daughter.”

There were tears in the eyes of the old maid, as she spoke of the beloved of her youth, and of their betrothal in the wood. Many thoughts came into her mind; but the thought never came, that quite close to her, in that very window, was a remembrance of those olden times,—the neck of the bottle which had, as it were shouted for joy when the cork flew out with a bang on the betrothal day. But the bottle neck did not recognize the old maid; he had not been listening to what she had related, perhaps because he was thinking so much about her.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 29, 2011, 05:18:57 PM

 
Guy de Maupassant
The Necklace
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

     She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.

     When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.

<  2  >
     She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.

     She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

*

One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand.

     "Here's something for you," he said.

     Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:

     "The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th."

     Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring:

     "What do you want me to do with this?"

     "Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big people there."

     She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?"

     He had not thought about it; he stammered:

     "Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me . . ."

     He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.

<  3  >
     "What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" he faltered.

     But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:

     "Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall."

     He was heart-broken.

     "Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. "What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?"

     She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the careful-minded clerk.

     At last she replied with some hesitation:

     "I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs."

     He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.

     Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the money."

     The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:

     "What's the matter with you? You've been very odd for the last three days."

     "I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear," she replied. "I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party."

<  4  >
     "Wear flowers," he said. "They're very smart at this time of the year. For ten francs you could get two or three gorgeous roses."

     She was not convinced.

     "No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women."

     "How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband. "Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that."

     She uttered a cry of delight.

     "That's true. I never thought of it."

     Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.

     Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said:

     "Choose, my dear."

     First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking:

     "Haven't you anything else?"

     "Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like best."

     Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.

     Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:

     "Could you lend me this, just this alone?"

     "Yes, of course."

     She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her treasure. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.

<  5  >
     She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.

     She left about four o'clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time. He threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs.

     Loisel restrained her.

     "Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to fetch a cab."

     But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the staircase. When they were out in the street they could not find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.

     They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they found on the quay one of those old nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.

     It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked up to their own apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the office at ten.

     She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer round her neck!

<  6  >
     "What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already half undressed.

     She turned towards him in the utmost distress.

     "I . . . I . . . I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace. . . ."

     He started with astonishment.

     "What! . . . Impossible!"

     They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They could not find it.

     "Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?" he asked.

     "Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."

     "But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall."

     "Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?"

     "No. You didn't notice it, did you?"

     "No."

     They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again.

     "I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I can't find it."

     And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought.

     Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.

     He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.

     She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful catastrophe.

     Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered nothing.

<  7  >
     "You must write to your friend," he said, "and tell her that you've broken the clasp of her necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to look about us."

     She wrote at his dictation.

*

By the end of a week they had lost all hope.

     Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

     "We must see about replacing the diamonds."

     Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the jewellers whose name was inside. He consulted his books.

     "It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied the clasp."

     Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace like the first, consulting their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of mind.

     In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand.

     They begged the jeweller not to sell it for three days. And they arranged matters on the understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first one were found before the end of February.

     Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He intended to borrow the rest.

     He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

<  8  >
     When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice:

     "You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it."

     She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?

*

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof.

     She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.

     Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained.

     Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopence-halfpenny a page.

     And this life lasted ten years.

     At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer's charges and the accumulation of superimposed interest.

     Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which she had been so beautiful and so much admired.

<  9  >
     What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels. Who knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!

     One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to freshen herself after the labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive.

     Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

     She went up to her.

     "Good morning, Jeanne."

     The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly addressed by a poor woman.

     "But . . . Madame . . ." she stammered. "I don't know . . . you must be making a mistake."

     "No . . . I am Mathilde Loisel."

     Her friend uttered a cry.

     "Oh! . . . my poor Mathilde, how you have changed! . . ."

     "Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows . . . and all on your account."

     "On my account! . . . How was that?"

     "You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the Ministry?"

     "Yes. Well?"

     "Well, I lost it."

     "How could you? Why, you brought it back."

     "I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You realise it wasn't easy for us; we had no money. . . . Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed."

<  10  >
     Madame Forestier had halted.

     "You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

     "Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike."

     And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.

     Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.

     "Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs! . . . "

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 29, 2011, 05:24:31 PM

 
Guy de Maupassant
Mademoiselle Fifi

Major Graf Von Farlsberg, the Prussian commandant, was reading his newspaper as he lay back in a great easy-chair, with his booted feet on the beautiful marble mantelpiece where his spurs had made two holes, which had grown deeper every day during the three months that he had been in the chateau of Uville.

     A cup of coffee was smoking on a small inlaid table, which was stained with liqueur, burned by cigars, notched by the penknife of the victorious officer, who occasionally would stop while sharpening a pencil, to jot down figures, or to make a drawing on it, just as it took his fancy.

     When he had read his letters and the German newspapers, which his orderly had brought him, he got up, and after throwing three or four enormous pieces of green wood on the fire, for these gentlemen were gradually cutting down the park in order to keep themselves warm, he went to the window. The rain was descending in torrents, a regular Normandy rain, which looked as if it were being poured out by some furious person, a slanting rain, opaque as a curtain, which formed a kind of wall with diagonal stripes, and which deluged everything, a rain such as one frequently experiences in the neighborhood of Rouen, which is the watering-pot of France.

     For a long time the officer looked at the sodden turf and at the swollen Andelle beyond it, which was overflowing its banks; he was drumming a waltz with his fingers on the window-panes, when a noise made him turn round. It was his second in command, Captain Baron van Kelweinstein.

     The major was a giant, with broad shoulders and a long, fan-like beard, which hung down like a curtain to his chest. His whole solemn person suggested the idea of a military peacock, a peacock who was carrying his tail spread out on his breast. He had cold, gentle blue eyes, and a scar from a swordcut, which he had received in the war with Austria; he was said to be an honorable man, as well as a brave officer.

<  2  >
     The captain, a short, red-faced man, was tightly belted in at the waist, his red hair was cropped quite close to his head, and in certain lights he almost looked as if he had been rubbed over with phosphorus. He had lost two front teeth one night, though he could not quite remember how, and this sometimes made him speak unintelligibly, and he had a bald patch on top of his head surrounded by a fringe of curly, bright golden hair, which made him look like a monk.

     The commandant shook hands with him and drank his cup of coffee (the sixth that morning), while he listened to his subordinate's report of what had occurred; and then they both went to the window and declared that it was a very unpleasant outlook. The major, who was a quiet man, with a wife at home, could accommodate himself to everything; but the captain, who led a fast life, who was in the habit of frequenting low resorts, and enjoying women's society, was angry at having to be shut up for three months in that wretched hole.

     There was a knock at the door, and when the commandant said, "Come in," one of the orderlies appeared, and by his mere presence announced that breakfast was ready. In the dining-room they met three other officers of lower rank - a lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two sub-lieutenants, Fritz Scheuneberg and Baron von Eyrick, a very short, fair-haired man, who was proud and brutal toward men, harsh toward prisoners and as explosive as gunpowder.

     Since he had been in France his comrades had called him nothing but Mademoiselle Fifi. They had given him that nickname on account of his dandified style and small waist, which looked as if he wore corsets; of his pale face, on which his budding mustache scarcely showed, and on account of the habit he had acquired of employing the French expression, 'Fi, fi donc', which he pronounced with a slight whistle when he wished to express his sovereign contempt for persons or things.

     The dining-room of the chateau was a magnificent long room, whose fine old mirrors, that were cracked by pistol bullets, and whose Flemish tapestry, which was cut to ribbons, and hanging in rags in places from sword-cuts, told too well what Mademoiselle Fifi's occupation was during his spare time.

<  3  >
     There were three family portraits on the walls a steel-clad knight, a cardinal and a judge, who were all smoking long porcelain pipes, which had been inserted into holes in the canvas, while a lady in a long, pointed waist proudly exhibited a pair of enormous mustaches, drawn with charcoal. The officers ate their breakfast almost in silence in that mutilated room, which looked dull in the rain and melancholy in its dilapidated condition, although its old oak floor had become as solid as the stone floor of an inn.

     When they had finished eating and were smoking and drinking, they began, as usual, to berate the dull life they were leading. The bottles of brandy and of liqueur passed from hand to hand, and all sat back in their chairs and took repeated sips from their glasses, scarcely removing from their mouths the long, curved stems, which terminated in china bowls, painted in a manner to delight a Hottentot.

     As soon as their glasses were empty they filled them again, with a gesture of resigned weariness, but Mademoiselle Fifi emptied his every minute, and a soldier immediately gave him another. They were enveloped in a cloud of strong tobacco smoke, and seemed to be sunk in a state of drowsy, stupid intoxication, that condition of stupid intoxication of men who have nothing to do, when suddenly the baron sat up and said: "Heavens! This cannot go on; we must think of something to do." And on hearing this, Lieutenant Otto and Sub-lieutenant Fritz, who preeminently possessed the serious, heavy German countenance, said: "What, captain?"

     He thought for a few moments and then replied: "What? Why, we must get up some entertainment, if the commandant will allow us." "What sort of an entertainment, captain?" the major asked, taking his pipe out of his mouth. "I will arrange all that, commandant," the baron said. "I will send Le Devoir to Rouen, and he will bring back some ladies. I know where they can be found, We will have supper here, as all the materials are at hand and; at least, we shall have a jolly evening."

<  4  >
     Graf von Farlsberg shrugged his shoulders with a smile: "You must surely be mad, my friend."

     But all the other officers had risen and surrounded their chief, saying: "Let the captain have his way, commandant; it is terribly dull here." And the major ended by yielding. "Very well," he replied, and the baron immediately sent for Le Devoir. He was an old non-commissioned officer, who had never been seen to smile, but who carried out all the orders of his superiors to the letter, no matter what they might be. He stood there, with an impassive face, while he received the baron's instructions, and then went out, and five minutes later a large military wagon, covered with tarpaulin, galloped off as fast as four horses could draw it in the pouring rain. The officers all seemed to awaken from their lethargy, their looks brightened,, and they began to talk.

     Although it was raining as hard as ever, the major declared that it was not so dark, and Lieutenant von Grossling said with conviction that the sky was clearing up, while Mademoiselle Fifi did not seem to be able to keep still. He got up and sat down again, and his bright eyes seemed to be looking for something to destroy. Suddenly, looking at the lady with the mustaches, the young fellow pulled out his revolver and said: "You shall not see it." And without leaving his seat he aimed, and with two successive bullets cut out both the eyes of the portrait.

     "Let us make a mine!" he then exclaimed, and the conversation was suddenly interrupted, as if they had found some fresh and powerful subject of interest. The mine was his invention, his method of destruction, and his favorite amusement.

     When he left the chateau, the lawful owner, Comte Fernand d'Amoys d'Uville, had not had time to carry away or to hide anything except the plate, which had been stowed away in a hole made in one of the walls. As he was very rich and had good taste, the large drawing-room, which opened into the dining-room, looked like a gallery in a museum, before his precipitate flight.

<  5  >
     Expensive oil paintings, water colors and drawings hung against the walls, while on the tables, on the hanging shelves and in elegant glass cupboards there were a thousand ornaments: small vases, statuettes, groups of Dresden china and grotesque Chinese figures, old ivory and Venetian glass, which filled the large room with their costly and fantastic array.

     Scarcely anything was left now; not that the things had been stolen, for the major would not have allowed that, but Mademoiselle Fifi would every now and then have a mine, and on those occasions all the officers thoroughly enjoyed themselves for five minutes. The little marquis went into the drawing-room to get what he wanted, and he brought back a small, delicate china teapot, which he filled with gunpowder, and carefully introduced a piece of punk through the spout. This he lighted and took his infernal machine into the next room, but he came back immediately and shut the door. The Germans all stood expectant, their faces full of childish, smiling curiosity, and as soon as the explosion had shaken the chateau, they all rushed in at once.

     Mademoiselle Fifi, who got in first, clapped his hands in delight at the sight of a terra-cotta Venus, whose head had been blown off, and each picked up pieces of porcelain and wondered at the strange shape of the fragments, while the major was looking with a paternal eye at the large drawing-room, which had been wrecked after the fashion of a Nero, and was strewn with the fragments of works of art. He went out first and said with a smile: "That was a great success this time."

     But there was such a cloud of smoke in the dining-room, mingled with the tobacco smoke, that they could not breathe, so the commandant opened the window, and all the officers, who had returned for a last glass of cognac, went up to it.

     The moist air blew into the room, bringing with it a sort of powdery spray, which sprinkled their beards. They looked at the tall trees which were dripping with rain, at the broad valley which was covered with mist, and at the church spire in the distance, which rose up like a gray point in the beating rain.

<  6  >
     The bells had not rung since their arrival. That was the only resistance which the invaders had met with in the neighborhood. The parish priest had not refused to take in and to feed the Prussian soldiers; he had several times even drunk a bottle of beer or claret with the hostile commandant, who often employed him as a benevolent intermediary; but it was no use to ask him for a single stroke of the bells; he would sooner have allowed himself to be shot. That was his way of protesting against the invasion, a peaceful and silent protest, the only one, he said, which was suitable to a priest, who was a man of mildness, and not of blood; and every one, for twenty-five miles round, praised Abbe Chantavoine's firmness and heroism in venturing to proclaim the public mourning by the obstinate silence of his church bells.

     The whole village, enthusiastic at his resistance, was ready to back up their pastor and to risk anything, for they looked upon that silent protest as the safeguard of the national honor. It seemed to the peasants that thus they deserved better of their country than Belfort and Strassburg, that they had set an equally valuable example, and that the name of their little village would become immortalized by that; but, with that exception, they refused their Prussian conquerors nothing.

     The commandant and his officers laughed among themselves at this inoffensive courage, and as the people in the whole country round showed themselves obliging and compliant toward them, they willingly tolerated their silent patriotism. Little Baron Wilhelm alone would have liked to have forced them to ring the bells. He was very angry at his superior's politic compliance with the priest's scruples, and every day begged the commandant to allow him to sound "ding-dong, ding-dong," just once, only just once, just by way of a joke. And he asked it in the coaxing, tender voice of some loved woman who is bent on obtaining her wish, but the commandant would not yield, and to console himself, Mademoiselle Fifi made a mine in the Chateau d'Uville.

     The five men stood there together for five minutes, breathing in the moist air, and at last Lieutenant Fritz said with a laugh: "The ladies will certainly not have fine weather for their drive. Then they separated, each to his duty, while the captain had plenty to do in arranging for the dinner.

<  7  >
     When they met again toward evening they began to laugh at seeing each other as spick and span and smart as on the day of a grand review. The commandant's hair did not look so gray as it was in the morning, and the captain had shaved, leaving only his mustache, which made him look as if he had a streak of fire under his nose.

     In spite of the rain, they left the window open, and one of them went to listen from time to time; and at a quarter past six the baron said he heard a rumbling in the distance. They all rushed down, and presently the wagon drove up at a gallop with its four horses steaming and blowing, and splashed with mud to their girths. Five women dismounted, five handsome girls whom a comrade of the captain, to whom Le Devoir had presented his card, had selected with care.

     They had not required much pressing, as they had got to know the Prussians in the three months during which they had had to do with them, and so they resigned themselves to the men as they did to the state of affairs.

     They went at once into the dining-room, which looked still more dismal in its dilapidated condition when it was lighted up; while the table covered with choice dishes, the beautiful china and glass, and the plate, which had been found in the hole in the wall where its owner had hidden it, gave it the appearance of a bandits' inn, where they were supping after committing a robbery in the place. The captain was radiant, and put his arm round the women as if he were familiar with them; and when the three young men wanted to appropriate one each, he opposed them authoritatively, reserving to himself the right to apportion them justly, according to their several ranks, so as not to offend the higher powers. Therefore, to avoid all discussion, jarring, and suspicion of partiality, he placed them all in a row according to height, and addressing the tallest, he said in a voice of command:

<  8  >
     "What is your name?" "Pamela," she replied, raising her voice. And then he said: "Number One, called Pamela, is adjudged to the commandant." Then, having kissed Blondina, the second, as a sign of proprietorship, he proffered stout Amanda to Lieutenant Otto; Eva, "the Tomato," to Sub-lieutenant Fritz, and Rachel, the shortest of them all, a very young, dark girl, with eyes as black as ink, a Jewess, whose snub nose proved the rule which allots hooked noses to all her race, to the youngest officer, frail Count Wilhelm d'Eyrick.

     They were all pretty and plump, without any distinctive features, and all had a similarity of complexion and figure.

     The three young men wished to carry off their prizes immediately, under the pretext that they might wish to freshen their toilets; but the captain wisely opposed this, for he said they were quite fit to sit down to dinner, and his experience in such matters carried the day. There were only many kisses, expectant kisses.

     Suddenly Rachel choked, and began to cough until the tears came into her eyes, while smoke came through her nostrils. Under pretence of kissing her, the count had blown a whiff of tobacco into her mouth. She did not fly into a rage and did not say a word, but she looked at her tormentor with latent hatred in her dark eyes.

     They sat down to dinner. The commandant seemed delighted; he made Pamela sit on his right, and Blondina on his left, and said, as he unfolded his table napkin: "That was a delightful idea of yours, captain."

     Lieutenants Otto and Fritz, who were as polite as if they had been with fashionable ladies, rather intimidated their guests, but Baron von Kelweinstein beamed, made obscene remarks and seemed on fire with his crown of red hair. He paid the women compliments in French of the Rhine, and sputtered out gallant remarks, only fit for a low pothouse, from between his two broken teeth.

     They did not understand him, however, and their intelligence did not seem to be awakened until he uttered foul words and broad expressions, which were mangled by his accent. Then they all began to laugh at once like crazy women and fell against each other, repeating the words, which the baron then began to say all wrong, in order that he might have the pleasure of hearing them say dirty things. They gave him as much of that stuff as he wanted, for they were drunk after the first bottle of wine, and resuming their usual habits and manners, they kissed the officers to right and left of them, pinched their arms, uttered wild cries, drank out of every glass and sang French couplets and bits of German songs which they had picked up in their daily intercourse with the enemy.

<  9  >
     Soon the men themselves became very unrestrained, shouted and broke the plates and dishes, while the soldiers behind them waited on them stolidly. The commandant was the only one who kept any restraint upon himself.

     Mademoiselle Fifi had taken Rachel on his knee, and, getting excited, at one moment he kissed the little black curls on her neck and at another he pinched her furiously and made her scream, for he was seized by a species of ferocity, and tormented by his desire to hurt her. He often held her close to him and pressed a long kiss on the Jewess' rosy mouth until she lost her breath, and at last he bit her until a stream of blood ran down her chin and on to her bodice.

     For the second time she looked him full in the face, and as she bathed the wound, she said: "You will have to pay for, that!" But he merely laughed a hard laugh and said: "I will pay."

     At dessert champagne was served, and the commandant rose, and in the same voice in which he would have drunk to the health of the Empress Augusta, he drank: "To our ladies!" And a series of toasts began, toasts worthy of the lowest soldiers and of drunkards, mingled with obscene jokes, which were made still more brutal by their ignorance of the language. They got up, one after the other, trying to say something witty, forcing themselves to be funny, and the women, who were so drunk that they almost fell off their chairs, with vacant looks and clammy tongues applauded madly each time.

     The captain, who no doubt wished to impart an appearance of gallantry to the orgy, raised his glass again and said: "To our victories over hearts and, thereupon Lieutenant Otto, who was a species of bear from the Black Forest, jumped up, inflamed and saturated with drink, and suddenly seized by an access of alcoholic patriotism, he cried: "To our victories over France!"

     Drunk as they were, the women were silent, but Rachel turned round, trembling, and said: "See here, I know some Frenchmen in whose presence you would not dare say that." But the little count, still holding her on his knee, began to laugh, for the wine had made him very merry, and said: "Ha! ha! ha! I have never met any of them myself. As soon as we show ourselves, they run away!" The girl, who was in a terrible rage, shouted into his face: "You are lying, you dirty scoundrel!"

<  10  >
     For a moment he looked at her steadily with his bright eyes upon her, as he had looked at the portrait before he destroyed it with bullets from his revolver, and then he began to laugh: "Ah! yes, talk about them, my dear! Should we be here now if they were brave?" And, getting excited, he exclaimed: "We are the masters! France belongs to us!" She made one spring from his knee and threw herself into her chair, while he arose, held out his glass over the table and repeated: "France and the French, the woods, the fields and the houses of France belong to us!"

     The others, who were quite drunk, and who were suddenly seized by military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes, seized their glasses, and shouting, "Long live Prussia!" they emptied them at a draught.

     The girls did not protest, for they were reduced to silence and were afraid. Even Rachel did not say a word, as she had no reply to make. Then the little marquis put his champagne glass, which had just been refilled, on the head of the Jewess and exclaimed: "All the women in France belong to us also!"

     At that she got up so quickly that the glass upset, spilling the amber-colored wine on her black hair as if to baptize her, and broke into a hundred fragments, as it fell to the floor. Her lips trembling, she defied the looks of the officer, who was still laughing, and stammered out in a voice choked with rage:

     "That - that - that - is not true - for you shall not have the women of France!"

     He sat down again so as to laugh at his ease; and, trying to speak with the Parisian accent, he said: "She is good, very good! Then why did you come here, my dear?" She was thunderstruck and made no reply for a moment, for in her agitation she did not understand him at first, but as soon as she grasped his meaning she said to him indignantly and vehemently: "I! I! I am not a woman, I am only a strumpet, and that is all that Prussians want."

<  11  >
     Almost before she had finished he slapped her full in the face; but as he was raising his hand again, as if to strike her, she seized a small dessert knife with a silver blade from the table and, almost mad with rage, stabbed him right in the hollow of his neck. Something that he was going to say was cut short in his throat, and he sat there with his mouth half open and a terrible look in his eyes.

     All the officers shouted in horror and leaped up tumultuously; but, throwing her chair between the legs of Lieutenant Otto, who fell down at full length, she ran to the window, opened it before they could seize her and jumped out into the night and the pouring rain.

     In two minutes Mademoiselle Fifi was dead, and Fritz and Otto drew their swords and wanted to kill the women, who threw themselves at their feet and clung to their knees. With some difficulty the major stopped the slaughter and had the four terrified girls locked up in a room under the care of two soldiers, and then he organized the pursuit of the fugitive as carefully as if he were about to engage in a skirmish, feeling quite sure that she would be caught.

     The table, which had been cleared immediately, now served as a bed on which to lay out the lieutenant, and the four officers stood at the windows, rigid and sobered with the stern faces of soldiers on duty, and tried to pierce through the darkness of the night amid the steady torrent of rain. Suddenly a shot was heard and then another, a long way off; and for four hours they heard from time to time near or distant reports and rallying cries, strange words of challenge, uttered in guttural voices.

     In the morning they all returned. Two soldiers had been killed and three others wounded by their comrades in the ardor of that chase and in the confusion of that nocturnal pursuit, but they had not caught Rachel.

<  12  >
     Then the inhabitants of the district were terrorized, the houses were turned topsy-turvy, the country was scoured and beaten up, over and over again, but the Jewess did not seem to have left a single trace of her passage behind her.

     When the general was told of it he gave orders to hush up the affair, so as not to set a bad example to the army, but he severely censured the commandant, who in turn punished his inferiors. The general had said: "One does not go to war in order to amuse one's self and to caress prostitutes." Graf von Farlsberg, in his exasperation, made up his mind to have his revenge on the district, but as he required a pretext for showing severity, he sent for the priest and ordered him to have the bell tolled at the funeral of Baron von Eyrick.

     Contrary to all expectation, the priest showed himself humble and most respectful, and when Mademoiselle Fifi's body left the Chateau d'Uville on its way to the cemetery, carried by soldiers, preceded, surrounded and followed by soldiers who marched with loaded rifles, for the first time the bell sounded its funeral knell in a lively manner, as if a friendly hand were caressing it. At night it rang again, and the next day, and every day; it rang as much as any one could desire. Sometimes even it would start at night and sound gently through the darkness, seized with a strange joy, awakened one could not tell why. All the peasants in the neighborhood declared that it was bewitched, and nobody except the priest and the sacristan would now go near the church tower. And they went because a poor girl was living there in grief and solitude and provided for secretly by those two men.

     She remained there until the German troops departed, and then one evening the priest borrowed the baker's cart and himself drove his prisoner to Rouen. When they got there he embraced her, and she quickly went back on foot to the establishment from which she had come, where the proprietress, who thought that she was dead, was very glad to see her.

<  13  >
     A short time afterward a patriot who had no prejudices, and who liked her because of her bold deed, and who afterward loved her for herself, married her and made her a lady quite as good as many others.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 29, 2011, 05:31:53 PM

Luke Thompson
The Plot
In the morning I said 'Do you want to come to the garden centre?' She said 'Are you going now?' I said I could wait if she wanted to come. So I waited. We'd never grown anything before. We spoke in the car. She said Charles Dickens had invented Christmas, I said it was rubbish, then we didn't speak. At home we ask each other if we want tea, or who should cook tonight. She says 'I want to watch Whitechapel.' I say 'I'm going to do some work.' Or she sits at the computer in the corner, her back in the room, hunched. I sit in another corner, my head hung, reading about Agarttha, or something. We keep in one room, except when I'm working, or when one of us needs the toilet. We keep in one room to save money on lights, but it means the whole house is dark, and it feels dark. It was Anthea's idea, and I like it. I don't mind saying I'm afraid of the dark a little. I'll say it's natural and it shows an open mind when you can't say what's there. Anthea's always been good at that. She has an idea, like out of nowhere. That's why we sit like that, her facing the wall, me in a book, the other rooms all in darkness.

     We went to the garden centre to buy secateurs for cutting back thorns and pruning the cypress. I had in mind to buy another birdbox and some seed and a sack of nuts for them. I told her 'I'd like to get something that's going to flower or smell pretty,' and she looked at what seeds we could sow in February while I looked at birdfeeders and nuts. There was a long sparrow house the size of a rabbit hutch, some small boxes for tits and wasps, one open-faced for robins, wagtails and wrens. I liked the house and I like robins, so I took both, then the nuts and two kilos of seed for a birdfeeder I found with suckers on it to stick on a window. She brought poppies and compost, then we looked at the vegetable seeds for when we'd finished the plot. We could plant parsnips and spring onions today, leeks, carrots and mange tout in March, then maybe squashes and courgettes in April. 'No point getting beans, is there,' she said. 'We never eat them.' Then some more flowers; sunflowers, lupins, some funny-coloured foxgloves – all sorts. We spent a fortune. We loaded it in the back then bought port at the Spar by Ann Summers' for while we worked. We didn't have to drive anywhere again until dark.

<  2  >
     First thing we opened up the shed, let the door hang wide open, which made gardening a little more of an event, kind of challenged our orbit, if you see what I mean. Then we opened up the port, drew the few tools we had, Anthea said 'Do I just turn it all over with the fork?' I said 'I'll take back these brambles.'

     I knelt in the dirt. I said 'Mind these buds, if you see them.' 'What are they?' 'I think they mean to be crocuses.' 'Cool. Okay. Look, there's more over here. I'll use my hands when I get to them.' 'You can see that one's got a little purple in the middle there. See?' Her hair fell out from behind an ear and hung heavily, swinging. She was looking at the bud so intently she seemed almost cross-eyed, like she was fascinated by it, like she was figuring out how it works, the cogs and wheels inside. 'Yes.'

     After I'd finished I took a gulp of port and said I'd work on the tubs around the shed, and the rock garden there, which was nothing but leaves and hollow sticks and some plastic bits from somewhere. I moved the bird table in here, and nailed up the box for robins, about head-height. Anthea was still digging the plot. She had her gloves on, so she never replaced her hair once it fell, but she swung it over to one side of her head, where it curled around her neck. She leaned forward a little awkwardly. Her trousers made her arse a funny shape. They always did that. I remember when she first took them off, her skin was cold and her pubic hair pale orange and sparse. When we were back in the flat. After, I remember, in the morning we woke early, and she walked over to the window, naked waist down, and her hips moved, and she opened the curtains, the shape of a nymph, and she stood upright, her pubic hair now twisted into a single curl.

     She could tell I was watching, and she stood the fork in the ground and walked her long-legged walk, bowed and robotic, to fetch her drink. As she poured it down she stood like she stood at the window again, pale fingered, her hips forward, the line of her leg. 'Am I doing it right?' she said, then I showed her what I was doing and the dirt I'd cleared. 'See how dark this bit is compared to that.' Then we watched the kites over the field and the chimney on the house over the road oozing smoke.

<  3  >
     Around the crocuses Anthea went to her knees and crawled, pulling out small shoots. She made a pile of them, weeds and dirt, tiny roots like blood vessels, over my thorns.

     We were out until dark. The geese flew overhead and we came to. Eight of them, calling. Stupid birds. We really felt the day go. 'Shall we go out to dinner?' I said. She said 'So long as we're back in time,' taking off her boots. I cleared away the fork and gloves and the secateurs and locked the shed. Anthea took in the empty bottle and glasses. There were footprints in the earth where Anthea and I had pressed down the compost over the parsnip and spring onion seeds. There was nothing else we could do now until March. Inside, Anthea said 'I'm going to change.' I took off my socks and trousers at the door, put them straight in the basket. I heard her lock the bathroom door and turn the shower on. No point putting any other clothes on yet, so I stayed as I was. I picked up my book. I turned the light on and drew all the curtains, and sat in the settee and waited for her to finish.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 29, 2011, 05:35:11 PM

           

Mary McCluskey
Before/After
In an instant, a life can divide into Before and After. A phone call, a news flash can do it. Invariably, something remains as a reminder. For Joseph, a colleague at Chloe's office, it is Bach playing on the stereo before the screech of brakes, the crunch of metal, an ambulance, the hospital.

     "I hear Bach now and think: oh, yes, I used to love that. Before. In my other life."

     For Chloe's sister, Anna, it is a body shampoo. She told Chloe how the shower was hot and steam clouded the glass. She stood in the warm fog, then sniffed the fresh, pine scent of the new Badedas body shampoo. That clean scent of mountains and good health. Just seconds later, her fingers, tentative, pressed back and forth, smoothing the skin as her brain bristled indignantly. It can't be! But it is, yes, it is. I think it is. A lump.

     And after – doctors visits, surgery, chemo, hair loss, pain.

     Chloe will be reminded of these conversations in four minutes. Right now she chooses a pretty china cup, Staffordshire, patterned with red roses. She pokes the tea bag with a spoon while she pours in the boiling water and then decides to start the laundry while the tea steeps. Dan's shirts are already loaded in the washer but she pulls them out anyway, to shake them. She is nervous that a stray ballpoint might lie forgotten in a pocket, leave a Caspian Sea of navy ink never to be bleached away. As she shakes the shirt, something flies out, floats up like confetti to land on the lid of the dryer. She studies, frowning, a pair of ticket stubs for a New York City theatre.

     She is puzzled at first. Then remembers, of course, the business conference in New York City. Seven days had stretched to ten; Dan had been exhausted when he came home, complaining about the demands of clients, the tedious conversation of his colleagues. Chloe studies these tickets with a sense of unreality, as if she is watching herself on a movie set, frowning for the camera. But her mind is seething with questions. Dan had not told her of this theatre visit. Off-Broadway does not seem appropriate, somehow. Hedda Gabler is an odd choice for an evening with a client. Or a colleague.

<  2  >
     With cold clarity, Chloe sees that these stubs will lead to questions that she does not want to ask, but must ask. That will lead to answers she does not want to hear. Later, a Decree Absolute, loneliness.

     Chloe knows as she stirs her tea, stirs what is now gungy, tarry soup, that she is already in the after. She throws the tea away, gets a fresh teabag, starts over. The tea, though freshly brewed, still tastes thick and stale.

     She understands now, that she has moved in space, slid towards some other life. She has crossed that invisible but solid line. Lipton's Orange Pekoe has joined Bach's St. Matthew's Passion and Badedas with Original Scent, to be forever in the before. And there is no going back.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 29, 2011, 05:38:42 PM

Hans Christian Andersen
The Little Match-Seller

It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold.

     In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had any one given here even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.

     Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New-year's eve - yes, she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags.

     Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers.

<  2  >
     She drew one out - "scratch!" how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand.

     She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.

     She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant's. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out.

     The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. "Some one is dying," thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.

<  3  >
     She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance.

     "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree."

     And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.

     In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year's sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt.

     "She tried to warm herself," said some.

     No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year's day.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 29, 2011, 05:41:37 PM

             
 Fernando Sorrentino
An Enlightening Tale
Translated by Clark M. Zlotchew


     This was a very honest beggar.

     One day he knocked at the door of a luxurious mansion. The butler came out and said, "Yes, sir. What do you wish, my good man?"

     The beggar answered, "Just a bit of charity, for the love of God."

     "I shall have to take this up with the lady of the house."

     The butler consulted with the lady of the house and she, who was very miserly, answered. "Jeremiah, give that good man a loaf of bread. One only. And, if possible, one from yesterday."

     Jeremiah, who was secretly in love with his employer, in order to please her sought out a stale loaf of bread, hard as a rock, and handed it to the beggar.

     "Here you are, my good man," he said, no longer calling him sir.

     "God bless you," the beggar answered.

     Jeremiah closed the massive oaken door, and the beggar went off with the loaf of bread under his arm. He came to the vacant lot where he spent his days and nights. He sat down in the shade of a tree, and began to eat the bread suddenly he bit into a hard object and felt one of his molars crumble to pieces. Great was his surprise when he picked up, together with the fragments of his molar, a fine ring of gold, pearls and diamonds.

     "What luck," he said to himself. "I'll sell it and I'll have money for a long time."

     But his honesty immediately prevailed: "No," he added. "I'll seek out its owner and return it."

     Inside the ring were engraved the initials J. X. Neither unintelligent nor lazy, the beggar went to a store and asked for the telephone book. He found that in the entire town there existed only one family whose surname began with X: the Xofaina family.

<  2  >
     Filled with joy for being able to put his honesty into practice, he set out for the home of the Xofaina family. Great was his amazement when he saw it was the very house at which he had been given the loaf of bread containing the ring. He knocked at the door.

     Jeremiah emerged and asked him, "What do you wish, my good man?"

     The beggar answered, "I've found this ring inside the loaf of bread you were good enough to give me a while ago."

     Jeremiah took the ring and said, "I shall have to take this up with the lady of the house."

     He consulted with the lady of the house, and she, happy and fairly singing, exclaimed, "Lucky me! Here we are with the ring I had lost last week, while I was kneading the dough for the bread! These are my initials, J.X., which stand for my name: Josermina Xofaina.

     After a moment of reflection, she added, "Jeremiah, go and give that good man whatever he wants as a reward. As long as it's not very expensive."

     Jeremiah returned to the door and said to the beggar, "My good man, tell me what you would like as a reward for your kind act."

     The beggar answered, "Just a loaf of bread to satisfy my hunger."

     Jeremiah, who was still in love with his employer, in order to please her sought out an old loaf of bread, hard as a rock, and handed it to the beggar.

     "Here you are, my good man."

     "God bless you. "

     Jeremiah shut the massive oaken door, and the beggar went off with the loaf of bread under his arm. He came to the vacant lot in which he spent his days and nights. He sat down in the shade of a tree and began to eat the bread. Suddenly he bit into a hard object and felt another of his molars crumble to pieces. Great was his surprise when he picked up, along with the fragments of this his second broken molar, another fine ring of gold, pearls and diamonds.

<  3  >
     Once more he noticed the initials J.X. Once more he returned the ring to Josermina Xofaina and as a reward received a third loaf of hard bread, in which he found a third ring that he again returned and for which lie obtained, as a reward, a fourth loaf of hard bread, in which ...

     From that fortunate day until the unlucky day of his death, the beggar lived happily and without financial problems. He only had to return the ring he found inside the bread every day.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 06:25:36 PM

Anton Chekhov
Grief

The turner, Grigory Petrov, who had been known for years past as a splendid craftsman, and at the same time as the most senseless peasant in the Galtchinskoy district, was taking his old woman to the hospital. He had to drive over twenty miles, and it was an awful road. A government post driver could hardly have coped with it, much less an incompetent sluggard like Grigory. A cutting cold wind was blowing straight in his face. Clouds of snowflakes were whirling round and round in all directions, so that one could not tell whether the snow was falling from the sky or rising from the earth. The fields, the telegraph posts, and the forest could not be seen for the fog of snow. And when a particularly violent gust of wind swooped down on Grigory, even the yoke above the horse's head could not be seen. The wretched, feeble little nag crawled slowly along. It took all its strength to drag its legs out of the snow and to tug with its head. The turner was in a hurry. He kept restlessly hopping up and down on the front seat and lashing the horse's back.

     "Don't cry, Matryona, ..." he muttered. "Have a little patience. Please God we shall reach the hospital, and in a trice it will be the right thing for you ... Pavel Ivanitch will give you some little drops, or tell them to bleed you; or maybe his honor will be pleased to rub you with some sort of spirit -- it'll ... draw it out of your side. Pavel Ivanitch will do his best. He will shout and stamp about, but he will do his best ... He is a nice gentleman, affable, God give him health! As soon as we get there he will dart out of his room and will begin calling me names. 'How? Why so?' he will cry. 'Why did you not come at the right time? I am not a dog to be hanging about waiting on you devils all day. Why did you not come in the morning? Go away! Get out of my sight. Come again to-morrow.' And I shall say: 'Mr. Doctor! Pavel Ivanitch! Your honor!' Get on, do! plague take you, you devil! Get on!"

<  2  >
     The turner lashed his nag, and without looking at the old woman went on muttering to himself:

     "'Your honor! It's true as before God ... Here's the Cross for you, I set off almost before it was light. How could I be here in time if the Lord ... The Mother of God ... is wroth, and has sent such a snowstorm? Kindly look for yourself ... Even a first-rate horse could not do it, while mine -- you can see for yourself -- is not a horse but a disgrace.' And Pavel Ivanitch will frown and shout: 'We know you! You always find some excuse! Especially you, Grishka; I know you of old! I'll be bound you have stopped at half a dozen taverns!' And I shall say: 'Your honor! am I a criminal or a heathen? My old woman is giving up her soul to God, she is dying, and am I going to run from tavern to tavern! What an idea, upon my word! Plague take them, the taverns!' Then Pavel Ivanitch will order you to be taken into the hospital, and I shall fall at his feet ... 'Pavel Ivanitch! Your honor, we thank you most humbly! Forgive us fools and anathemas, don't be hard on us peasants! We deserve a good kicking, whi le you graciously put yourself out and mess your feet in the snow!' And Pavel Ivanitch will give me a look as though he would like to hit me, and will say: 'You'd much better not be swilling vodka, you fool, but taking pity on your old woman instead of falling at my feet. You want a thrashing!' 'You are right there -- a thrashing, Pavel Ivanitch, strike me God! But how can we help bowing down at your feet if you are our benefactor, and a real father to us? Your honor! I give you my word, ... here as before God, ... you may spit in my face if I deceive you: as soon as my Matryona, this same here, is well again and restored to her natural condition, I'll make anything for your honor that you would like to order! A cigarette-case, if you like, of the best birchwood, ... balls for croquet, skittles of the most foreign pattern I can turn ... I will make anything for you! I won't take a farthing from you. In Moscow they would charge you four roubles for such a cigarette-case, but I won't take a farthing.' The doctor will laugh and say: 'Oh, all right, all right ... I see! But it's a pity you are a drunkard ... ' I know how to manage the gentry, old girl. There isn't a gentleman I couldn't talk to. Only God grant we don't get off the road. Oh, how it is blowing! One's eyes are full of snow."

<  3  >
     And the turner went on muttering endlessly. He prattled on mechanically to get a little relief from his depressing feelings. He had plenty of words on his tongue, but the thoughts and questions in his brain were even more numerous. Sorrow had come upon the turner unawares, unlooked-for, and unexpected, and now he could not get over it, could not recover himself. He had lived hitherto in unruffled calm, as though in drunken half-consciousness, knowing neither grief nor joy, and now he was suddenly aware of a dreadful pain in his heart. The careless idler and drunkard found himself quite suddenly in the position of a busy man, weighed down by anxieties and haste, and even struggling with nature.

     The turner remembered that his trouble had begun the evening before. When he had come home yesterday evening, a little drunk as usual, and from long-established habit had begun swearing and shaking his fists, his old woman had looked at her rowdy spouse as she had never looked at him before. Usually, the expression in her aged eyes was that of a martyr, meek like that of a dog frequently beaten and badly fed; this time she had looked at him sternly and immovably, as saints in the holy pictures or dying people look. From that strange, evil look in her eyes the trouble had begun. The turner, stupefied with amazement, borrowed a horse from a neighbor, and now was taking his old woman to the hospital in the hope that, by means of powders and ointments, Pavel Ivanitch would bring back his old woman's habitual expression.

     "I say, Matryona, ..." the turner muttered, "if Pavel Ivanitch asks you whether I beat you, say, 'Never!' and I never will beat you again. I swear it. And did I ever beat you out of spite? I just beat you without thinking. I am sorry for you. Some men wouldn't trouble, but here I am taking you ... I am doing my best. And the way it snows, the way it snows! Thy Will be done, O Lord! God grant we don't get off the road ... Does your side ache, Matryona, that you don't speak? I ask you, does your side ache?"

<  4  >
     It struck him as strange that the snow on his old woman's face was not melting; it was queer that the face itself looked somehow drawn, and had turned a pale gray, dingy waxen hue and had grown grave and solemn.

     "You are a fool!" muttered the turner ... "I tell you on my conscience, before God, ... and you go and ... Well, you are a fool! I have a good mind not to take you to Pavel Ivanitch!"

     The turner let the reins go and began thinking. He could not bring himself to look round at his old woman: he was frightened. He was afraid, too, of asking her a question and not getting an answer. At last, to make an end of uncertainty, without looking round he felt his old woman's cold hand. The lifted hand fell like a log.

     "She is dead, then! What a business!"

     And the turner cried. He was not so much sorry as annoyed. He thought how quickly everything passes in this world! His trouble had hardly begun when the final catastrophe had happened. He had not had time to live with his old woman, to show her he was sorry for her before she died. He had lived with her for forty years, but those forty years had passed by as it were in a fog. What with drunkenness, quarreling, and poverty, there had been no feeling of life. And, as though to spite him, his old woman died at the very time when he felt he was sorry for her, that he could not live without her, and that he had behaved dreadfully badly to her.

     "Why, she used to go the round of the village," he remembered. "I sent her out myself to beg for bread. What a business! She ought to have lived another ten years, the silly thing; as it is I'll be bound she thinks I really was that sort of man ... Holy Mother! but where the devil am I driving? There's no need for a doctor now, but a burial. Turn back!"

<  5  >
     Grigory turned back and lashed the horse with all his might. The road grew worse and worse every hour. Now he could not see the yoke at all. Now and then the sledge ran into a young fir tree, a dark object scratched the turner's hands and flashed before his eyes, and the field of vision was white and whirling again.

     "To live over again," thought the turner.

     He remembered that forty years ago Matryona had been young, handsome, merry, that she had come of a well-to-do family. They had married her to him because they had been attracted by his handicraft. All the essentials for a happy life had been there, but the trouble was that, just as he had got drunk after the wedding and lay sprawling on the stove, so he had gone on without waking up till now. His wedding he remembered, but of what happened after the wedding -- for the life of him he could remember nothing, except perhaps that he had drunk, lain on the stove, and quarreled. Forty years had been wasted like that.

     The white clouds of snow were beginning little by little to turn gray. It was getting dusk.

     "Where am I going?" the turner suddenly bethought him with a start. "I ought to be thinking of the burial, and I am on the way to the hospital ... It as is though I had gone crazy."

     Grigory turned round again, and again lashed his horse. The little nag strained its utmost and, with a snort, fell into a little trot. The turner lashed it on the back time after time ... A knocking was audible behind him, and though he did not look round, he knew it was the dead woman's head knocking against the sledge. And the snow kept turning darker and darker, the wind grew colder and more cutting ...

     "To live over again!" thought the turner. "I should get a new lathe, take orders, ... give the money to my old woman ..."

<  6  >
     And then he dropped the reins. He looked for them, tried to pick them up, but could not -- his hands would not work ...

     "It does not matter," he thought, "the horse will go of itself, it knows the way. I might have a little sleep now ... Before the funeral or the requiem it would be as well to get a little rest ..."

     The turner closed his eyes and dozed. A little later he heard the horse stop; he opened his eyes and saw before him something dark like a hut or a haystack ...

     He would have got out of the sledge and found out what it was, but he felt overcome by such inertia that it seemed better to freeze than move, and he sank into a peaceful sleep.

     He woke up in a big room with painted walls. Bright sunlight was streaming in at the windows. The turner saw people facing him, and his first feeling was a desire to show himself a respectable man who knew how things should be done.

     "A requiem, brothers, for my old woman," he said. "The priest should be told ..."

     "Oh, all right, all right; lie down," a voice cut him short.

     "Pavel Ivanitch!" the turner cried in surprise, seeing the doctor before him. "Your honor, benefactor! "

     He wanted to leap up and fall on his knees before the doctor, but felt that his arms and legs would not obey him.

     "Your honor, where are my legs, where are my arms!"

     "Say good-by to your arms and legs ... They've been frozen off. Come, come! ... What are you crying for ? You've lived your life, and thank God for it! I suppose you have had sixty years of it -- that's enough for you! ..."

<  7  >
     "I am grieving ... Graciously forgive me! If I could have another five or six years! ..."

     "What for?"

     "The horse isn't mine, I must give it back ... I must bury my old woman ... How quickly it is all ended in this world! Your honor, Pavel Ivanitch! A cigarette-case of birchwood of the best! I'll turn you croquet balls ..."

     The doctor went out of the ward with a wave of his hand. It was all over with the turner.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 06:28:16 PM

Nels Schifano
Three Letters
It was autumn. Although still afternoon the journey had been spent peering at slowly moving red lights through clouds of condensing exhaust and the intermittent slip-slip of wipers. Now as she turned off the ignition darkness gathered silently around her. She walked head down, hood up, feeling plastic handles moulding themselves around her fingers, the carrier bag spinning one way then the next as it clipped against her leg. The pavement was thick with the slippery brown mulch of fallen leaves and the smell of bonfires wafted across the common. A thin mist clung around the streetlights producing a shifting yellow gas. Sounds were muffled and movements lethargic. Cars slipped slowly by on a film of dirty water. At her gate she delayed, unwilling to break the stillness with squeaking hinges; not yet teatime and the city was being put to sleep.

     The terrace before her hugged the curve of the road tumbling erratically down the hill and into the gloom. Bending around the edges of her vision she was conscious of curtains being swished closed, stone faces bathed by the grey light of televisions, broken roof tiles, satellite dishes, bay windows, the whole higgledy-piggledy collection of guttering and skylights. For a moment her home was a stranger, a simple compartment in this huge connected structure.

     She rattled the key into the lock, tilting it to the particular angle that would allow it to catch. She stepped inside, her hand brushing the light switch as she closed the door behind her. The softly lit warmth of the interior walls were a welcome contrast to the dark slimy surfaces of the outside. Two elderly neighbours warmed the house from the sides and soon she would hear the comforting noises of the boiler rousing itself into life.

     She kept her mind occupied by these happy details of returning home as she walked along the hall and into the kitchen. She lifted the carrier bag onto the worktop and reached for the kettle. Standing in the centre of the room, still in her anorak, she listened to the sound of the water boil and felt the house adjust itself to her presence. Now she returned at all times of the day she sometimes sensed she had caught it unawares. What ghosts that had been running through rooms were now slipping reluctantly back into walls? While its inhabitants had moved the house stayed still, preserving pockets of time in dusty corners. The blue-tak tears on bedroom walls, a water-colour sun and stick man hiding behind a fitted wardrobe, a dent in a table, a crack in a mirror, were all passing moments etched into the physical world, like voices pressed into vinyl.

<  2  >
     Steam began to rise vertically to the ceiling where it changed direction aware of the presence of some subtle draft (or draft of some subtle presence). Through the window she could see the outline of the narrow garden, the fuzzy grey shapes of a rusting climbing frame and overflowing compost heap. Along one side a scruffy fence lent drunkenly one way then the other, while a brutally straight line of six-foot high boards marked the other side of the territory. What further anti-cat measures (minefields, tripwires perhaps) lay waiting beyond? As if summoned by her thoughts Rahel, green eyes and a flicking tail, appeared on the window ledge, her silent meows making small circles of condensation. Smiling, she unlocked the door. The cat padded in, figures of eight around her feet represented by muddy paw prints on the kitchen floor. The kettle worked itself towards a crescendo, beads of perspiration appeared on its sides and it shook violently unable to contain the bubbling pressure inside. Abruptly it finished, sat back on the filament and turned itself off.

     She reached up to the top cupboards for the coffee jar and bent down for those that contained the mugs. Here she paused, confused by the vast number of assorted cup, mugs and beakers that stared blankly back at her. Why did she have so many? Where had they come from? She sighed as she straightened pulling out a standard shaped mug with handle; colour - light blue; design - three letters emblazoned in gold, S U E.

     She took off her coat and laid it over the back of the oak kitchen chair and sat down. She let her feet slip out of her shoes and raised them onto the fitted bench across the other side of the table. Above the bench were shelves supporting decorative plates in wire stands, a Charles and Diana mug (more mugs!), and a collection of photographs showing either madly grinning or defiantly sulky children (both on the verge of crying). As she looked the image of a growing family seemed to slowly recede to reveal the image of a shrinking woman.

<  3  >
     There was the sudden sound of water flooding into a drain as somewhere nearby a plug was pulled from a sink, a toilet was flushed or maybe a washing machine emptied itself and she realised that her coffee had gone cold. She moved to the sink and ran the hot water. Staring out into darkness she listened to the succession of far-off bangs and shudders from the network of pipes. Bathed in yellow light hovering over the gloom of the garden she looked in at a woman repeatedly working a tea towel around the inside of a mug. Who was she? Why was she so miserable?

     She shook herself and took out the plug. Slipped away again into nothing time (that time that flowed into the gaps between the things you did). Wouldn't a wasted minute become a wasted hour, wasted hours become wasted days? Where could she be now if she hadn't been doing, what? - making tea, sitting in traffic jams, reading the local paper, standing in a supermarket queue. Best avoided, the thought of her life draining into these moments.

     She unpacked the carrier bag. She put away the milk, the orange, the biscuits and the cat food, then struggled to slide the two pizza's into an already crowded freezer spraying tiny shards of ice across the floor. An overflowing collection of polythene bags scrunched inside other polythene bags in the bottom of a cupboard was her commitment to recycling. When it was opened a white plastic avalanche slid towards her. She threw in the latest addition and slammed the door. A lone bag made a break for freedom and buoyed by the swish of air it lifted across the room like a jellyfish. Two pairs of eyes followed its progress over the spice rack and breadboard until it was caught on a bottle of olive oil.

     The oak bench was not just a foot rest. She had made this discovery during a rigorous cleaning session one New Year. Under the lip of the removable cushioned seat she had found a small catch, rusty enough to break two nails. Eventually it yielded and raised to reveal a dark, hollow chest. Despite a few moments when her heartbeat seemed to fill the house, it proved to contain nothing more exciting than a pile of old newspapers - more dirtiness to clean. It was, she decided, an ideal place to store tablecloths and tea towels, but steadily it began to swallow bedding, pillowcases and blankets of various sorts. Really, it was ridiculous to think that no one else was aware of its existence (was she the only one ever to change a bed, lay a table?) Still, she always thought of it as hers, and, when alone in the house, she opened it, she experienced a flush of childish excitement. She felt it rise now as her fingers fumbled beneath soft layers of folded cotton searching for the sharp cold of a shiny metal toffee tin.

<  4  >
     She put the tin on the table. Inside lay a medal from the Polish Airforce; a commemorative coin; a pebble taken from Ilfracomb beach in 1978 (could she really remember the heavy heat of that day or did she need the proof of the pebble to tell her she had been there); a present bought but never given; and inside a neatly folded bag, three envelopes. She glanced around the room, from somewhere inside a wall a pipe clanked - the house clearing its throat - and took out the top envelope.

     An antelope leapt across a colourful stamp. It looked startled as antelopes often do caught in the sights of the black postmark. The paper inside was thick and cream-coloured, it had a blue letterhead and the date in the top right hand corner was July 2000. As she let her eyes wander over the page she noticed it was just a little crumpled, stiff in places, as if it had been wetted then dried.

*

This must be something of a surprise. If, that is, this letter gets to you. I remembered your address, of course, but then it suddenly struck me that maybe you had moved and I didn't know and anyway the post round here isn't exactly reliable. So perhaps I am only writing a letter to myself.

     Really now that I've started I can't think what it was I wanted to say. I think it was just the act of writing that was important, just to feel as if I was still in contact with things, although I guess a blank piece of paper in an envelope would have seemed a little strange.

     I've really no need to ask how things are with you. It all seems to have worked out pretty much as you planned. But still I hope you are both healthy and happy.

     I am afraid I've done nothing very exciting to tell you about. Here is just an endless succession of long boring tasks, and then there's the heat and the clouds of flies that rise from the river and make everything twice as hard. But this evening as I washed and dried my clothes suddenly there was this feeling of satisfaction. Strange, five months of toil and worry then calm descends as welcome and unexpected as an ice-cream van clattering through the bush.

<  5  >
     Maybe that's why I am writing this letter. Perhaps it's thinking about England in the summer, perhaps it's the sounds of the river at night but my mind wandered back to the place of long afternoons, listening to Pink Moon and Lay Lady Lay. Can you still find a way back to the taste of cheap wine, the feel of grass between your fingers and a world that was all shimmering reflections?

     All those people disappeared into the world. How would they be recognised now - perhaps only by the sound of their laughter?

     I'm afraid I once damaged the environment in your name and took a penknife to the willow we used to sit by. I can remember wondering if the bark would ever grow back. If you ever find yourself driving past one weekend . . . Well perhaps not, it's probably so sadly different. But I know your name will still be there, carved in the memory of a tree.

*

She re-folded the letter and tapped it several times against her top lip. From the hall the clock calling out the quarter hour, then a moment of stillness - time stalling - before, faintly, the clock in her study responded.

     She took out the next envelope. While her fingers searched for the flap she looked at the Queen's silver silhouette. The letter was written on paper so white and thin that as her gaze fell across it she saw it as a shade of blue. The date was April 1976.

*

Do I remember that September afternoon when I first met you? Is it possible to remember the slide into sleep or the hypnotist's fingers on your eyelids? I only know that it happened because at some stage I awoke.

     Some things are clear, the lucid fragments of a dream, a conversation over the phone one Easter. We both felt down because I was working in a stuffy shop and you in a sorting office. I hated it and asked you how it was that time moved so slowly. It's okay, you said, it doesn't matter, because it will end and time passed is all the same, and anyway, in the end it's not time that you're left with.

<  6  >
     You told me to go look for happiness and bring some back when I found it. But you can't bank happiness. You can't keep it for when you need it and you cannot give to someone else simply by having it yourself.

     I thought I would be content to watch the river flow past and drift away on the scent of water lilies. I watched days become nights and nights gently give way to days, believing I was shedding my cares when really I was storing regrets. Now I know that reading is dreaming, that dreaming is sleeping and thought inaction. When I wake I find that all I have left is thoughts of you.

*

The noise of the cat jumping clumsily onto her lap, the feeling of her pressing up and down with alternate paws, claws snagging loops of cotton.

     This time the silhouette is not the Queen's but that of Nehru, a white head against an orange background. The stamp is stuck on at an odd angle (but still stuck after all this time!) and he stares down at the scraggly lines of a familiar address. The letter itself is written on a school child's lined paper, as her eyes run down the page they linger on the date, Nov. 1968 and the dappling of yellow blotches. What were they? Had they always been there?

*

I still can't believe you decided to go. Why go back to the grey, the dirt, the noise, the rush? There is a lifetime to do those things. I know you chase that dream of yours, but the dream is so sweetly deferred here. Here I feel as if I am absorbing the sunshine and serenity.

     Since you left we moved further east where the earth here has a reddish tinge and so does the food. Today we met a group of Americans. We got a ride on the roof of their van and helped them collect firewood. They say there is an old man who sells the beads you wanted from the front of his hut, and eight miles of white sand.

<  7  >
     I am writing this in a flickering of orange and blackness. This is the best time, talking and reading, the world melting away into words, although sometimes a phrase is so beautiful I have to walk around a little just to let them settle in. One of these made me think of you. 'Do that which makes you happy to do, and you will do right.'

*

The freezer's cooling mechanism rattled, then fell silent, and she realised that she hadn't been aware of the noise it was making. In its absence the air in the house seemed to hang with that same question; how would her life have been if she had managed to send just one of them? But the air received no answers and went back to its lazy circulation.

     In time she would fold the letter away and place it back in the envelope, place the envelopes back into the bag, the bag back into the tin and the tin into the trunk. She would cover it with layers of cloth and place down the seat and lock the catch. But now she just sat for a moment, the noise of the cat's contented breathing filling the house.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 06:32:22 PM

Ursula Wills-Jones
The Wicker Husband

Once upon a time, there was an ugly girl. She was short and dumpy, had one leg a bit shorter than the other, and her eyebrows met in the middle. The ugly girl gutted fish for a living, so her hands smelt funny and her dress was covered in scales. She had no mother or brother, no father, sister, or any friends. She lived in a ramshackle house on the outskirts of the village, and she never complained.

     One by one, the village girls married the local lads, and up the path to the church they'd prance, smiling all the way. At the weddings, the ugly girl always stood at the back of the church, smelling slightly of brine. The village women gossiped about the ugly girl. They wondered what she did with the money she earnt. The ugly girl never bought a new frock, never made repairs to the house, and never drank in the village tavern.

     Now, it so happened that outside the village, in a great damp swamp, lived an old basket-maker who was famed for the quality of his work. One day the old basket-maker heard a knock on his door. When he opened it, the ugly girl stood there. In her hand, she held six gold coins.

     'I want you to make me a husband,' she said.

     'Come back in a month,' he replied.

     Well, the old basket-maker was greatly moved that the ugly girl had entrusted him with such an important task. He resolved to make her the best husband he could. He made the wicker husband broad of shoulder and long of leg, and all the other things women like. He made him strong of arm and elegant of neck, and his brows were wide and well-spaced. His hair was a fine dark brown, his eyes a greenish hazel.

     When the day came, the ugly girl knocked on the basket-maker's door.

     'He says today is too soon. He will be in the church tomorrow, at ten,' said the basket-maker. The ugly girl went away, and spent the day scraping scales from her dress.

<  2  >
     Later that night, there was a knock on the door of the village tailor. When the tailor opened it, the wicker husband stood outside.

     'Lend me a suit,' he said. 'I am getting married in the morning, and I cannot go to church naked.'

     'Aaaaaaargh!' yelled the tailor, and ran out the back door.

     The tailor's wife came out, wiping her hands. 'What's going on?' she said.

     'Lend me a suit,' said the wicker husband. 'I am getting married tomorrow, and I cannot go to my wedding naked.'

     The tailor's wife gave him a suit, and slammed the door in his face.

     Next, there was a knock on the door of the village shoe-maker. When the shoe-maker opened it, the wicker husband stood there.

     'Lend me some shoes,' he said. 'I am getting married in the morning, and I cannot go to church barefoot.'

     'Aaaaaaargh!' yelled the shoe-maker, and he ran out the back door.

     The shoe-maker's wife came out, her hands trembling.

     'What do you want?' she said.

     'Lend me some shoes,' said the wicker husband. 'I am getting married in the morning, and I cannot go to my wedding barefoot.'

     The shoe-maker's wife gave him a pair of shoes, and slammed the door in his face. Next, the wicker husband went to the village inn.

     'Give me a drink,' said the wicker husband. 'I am getting married tomorrow, and I wish to celebrate.'

     'Aaaaaaargh!' yelled the inn-keeper and all his customers, and out they ran. The poor wicker husband went behind the bar, and poured himself a drink.

     When the ugly girl got to church in the morning, she was mighty pleased to find her husband so handsome, and so well turned-out.

<  3  >
When the couple had enjoyed their first night of marriage, the wicker husband said to his wife: 'This bed is broken. Bring me a chisel: I will fix it.'

     So like a good husband, he began to fix the bed. The ugly girl went out to gut fish. When she came back at the end of the day, the wicker husband looked at her, and said: 'I was made to be with you.'

     When the couple had enjoyed their second night of marriage, the wicker husband said: 'This roof is leaky. Bring me a ladder: I will fix it.'

     So, like a good husband, he climbed up and began to fix the thatch. The ugly girl went out to gut fish. When she returned in the evening, the wicker husband looked at his wife, and said: 'Without you, I should never have seen the sun on the water, or the clouds in the sky.'

     When the couple had enjoyed their third night of marriage, the ugly girl got ready to out. 'The chimney needs cleaning,' she said, hopefully, 'And the fire could be laid...' But at this, the wicker husband - she was just beginning to learn his expressions - looked completely terrified. From this, the ugly girl came to understand that there are some things you cannot ask a man to do, even if he is very kind.

     Over the weeks, the villagers began to notice a change in the ugly girl. If one of her legs was still shorter than the other, her hips moved with a swing that didn't please them. If she still smelt funny, she sang while she gutted the fish. She bought a new frock and wore flowers in her hair. Even her eyebrows no longer met in the middle: the wicker husband had pulled them out with his strong, withied fingers. When the villagers passed the ugly girl's house, they saw it had been painted anew, the windows sparkled, and the door no longer hung askew. You might think that all these changes pleased the villagers, but oh no. Instead, wives pointed out to husbands that their doors needed fixing, and why didn't they offer? The men retorted that maybe if their wives made an effort with new frocks and flowers in their hair, then maybe they'd feel like fixing the house, and everybody grumbled and cursed each other, but secretly, in their hearts, they blamed the ugly girl and her husband.

<  4  >
     As to the ugly girl, she didn't notice all the jealousy. She was too busy growing accustomed to married life, and was finding that the advantages of a wicker husband outweighed his few shortcomings. The wicker husband didn't eat, and never complained that his dinner was late. He only drank water, the muddier the better. She was a little sad that she could not cook him dinner like an ordinary man, and watch him while he ate. In the cold nights, she hoped they would sit together close to the fire, but he preferred the darkness, far from the flames. The ugly girl got in the habit of calling across the room all the things she had to say to him. As winter turned to spring, and rain pelted down, the wicker husband became a little mouldy, and the ugly girl had to scrub him down with a brush and a bottle of vinegar. Spring turned to summer, and June was very dry. The wicker husband complained of stiffness in his joints, and spent the hottest hour of the day lying in the stream. The ugly girl took her fish-gutting, and sat on the bank, keeping him company.

     Eventually the villagers were too ridden with curiosity to stand it any longer. There was a wedding in the village: the ugly girl and her husband were invited. At the wedding, there was music and dancing, and food and wine. As the musicians struck up, the wicker husband and the ugly girl went to dance. The villagers could not help staring: the wicker husband moved so fine. He lifted his dumpy wife like she was nought but a feather, and swung her round and round. He swayed and shimmered; he was elegant, he was graceful. As for the ugly girl: she was in heaven.

     The women began to whisper behind their hands. Now, the blacksmith's wife was boldest, and she resolved to ask the wicker husband to dance. When the music paused she went towards the couple. The ugly girl was sitting in the wicker husband's lap, so he creaked a little. The blacksmith's wife was about to tap the wicker husband on the shoulder, but his arms were wrapped round the ugly girl.

<  5  >
     'You are the only reason that I live and breathe,' the wicker husband said to his wife.

     The blacksmith's wife heard what he said, and went off, sulking. The next day there were many frayed tempers in the village.

     'You've got two left feet!' shouted the shoe-maker's wife at her husband.

     'You never tell me anything nice!' yelled the blacksmith's wife.

     'All you do is look at other women!' shouted the baker's wife, though how she knew was a mystery, as she'd done nothing but stare at the wicker husband all night. The husbands fled their homes and congregated in the tavern.

     'T'aint right,' they muttered, 'T'isn't natural.'

     'E's showing us up.'

     'Painting doors.'

     'Fixing thatch.'

     'Murmuring sweet nothings.'

     'Dancing!' muttered the blacksmith, and they all spat.

     'He's not really a man,' muttered the baker. 'An abomination!'

     'He don't eat.'

     'He don't grumble.'

     'He don't even fart,' added the tailor, gloomily.

     The men shook their heads, and agreed that it couldn't go on.

     Meanwhile the women congregated in each other's kitchens.

     'It's not right,' they muttered. 'Why does she deserve him?'

     'It's an enchantment,' they whispered. 'She bewitched him.'

     'She'll be onto our husbands next, I expect,' said the baker's wife. 'We should be careful.'

     'She needs to be brought down a peg or two.'

     'Fancies that she's better than the rest of us, I reckon.'

     'Flowers in her hair!!'

<  6  >
     'Did you see her dancing?'

     And they all agreed that it couldn't go on.

     One day the wicker husband was on his way back from checking the fish-traps, when he was accosted by the baker.

     'Hello,' said the baker. The wicker husband was a little surprised: the baker never bothered to speak to him. 'You made an impression the other night.'

     'I did?' said the wicker husband.

     'Oh yes,' continued the baker. 'The women are all aflutter. Don't you ever think - well...'

     'What?' said the wicker husband, completely confused.

     'Man like you,' said the baker. 'Could do well for himself. A lot of opportunities...' He leaned forward, so the wicker husband recoiled. The baker's breath smelt of dough, which he found unpleasant. 'Butcher's wife,' added the baker meaningfully. 'Very taken. I know for a fact that he's not at home. Gone to visit his brother in the city. Why don't you go round?'

     'I can't,' said the wicker husband. 'My wife's waiting for me at home.' And he strode off, up the lane. The baker went home, annoyed.

     Now the wicker husband, who was too trusting, thought less of this of this than he should, and did not warn his wife that trouble was brewing. About a week later, the ugly girl was picking berries in the hedgerow, when the tailor's wife sidled up. Her own basket was empty, which made the ugly girl suspicious.

     'My dear!' cried the tailor's wife, fluttering her hands.

     'What d'you want?' said the ugly girl.

     The tailor's wife wiped away a fake tear, and looked in both directions. 'My dear,' she whispered. 'I'm only here to warn you. Your husband - he's been seen with other women.'

     'What other women?' said the ugly girl.

<  7  >
     The tailor's wife fluttered her hands. This wasn't going as she intended. 'My dear, you can't trust men. They're all the same. And you can't expect - a man like him, and a woman like you - frankly -'

     The ugly girl was so angry that she hit the tailor's wife with her basket, and ran off, up the lane. The ugly girl went home, and - knowing more of cruelty than her husband did - thought on this too much and too long. But she did not want to upset her husband, so she said nothing.

     The tailor's wife came home fuming, with scratches all over her face. That night, the wives and husbands of the village all agreed - for once - that something drastic had to be done.

 

A few days later the old basket-maker heard a knocking at his door. When he opened it, the villagers stood outside. Right on cue, the tailor's wife began to weep, pitifully.

     'What's the matter?' said the old basket-maker.

     'She's childless,' said the baker's wife, sniffing.

     'Not a son,' said the tailor, sadly.

     'Or a daughter.'

     'No-one to comfort them in their old age,' added the butcher.

     'It's breaking their hearts,' went on the baker.

     'So we've come to ask -'

     'If you'll make us a baby. Out of wicker.'

     And they held out a bag of gold.

     'Very well,' said the old basket-maker. 'Come back in a month.'

     Well, one dusky day in autumn, the ugly girl was sitting by the fire, when there came a knock at the door. The wicker husband opened it. Outside, stood the villagers. The tailor's wife bore a bundle in her arms, and the bundle began to whimper.

<  8  >
     'What's that?' said the ugly girl.

     'This is all your fault,' hissed the butcher, pointing at the wicker husband.

     'Look what you've done!' shouted the baker.

     'It's an abomination,' sneered the inn-keeper. 'Not even human!'

     The tailor pulled away the blanket. The ugly girl saw that the baby was made of wicker. It had the same shaped nose, the same green eyes that her husband did.

     'Tell me it's not true!' she cried.

     But the wicker husband said nothing. He just stared at the baby. He had never seen one of his own kind before, and now - his heart filled up with tenderness. When the ugly girl saw this on his face, a great cloud of bitterness came upon her. She sank to the floor, moaning.

     'Filthy, foul, creature!' cried the tailor. 'I should burn it!' He seized the baby, and made to fling it into the blaze. At this, the wicker husband let out a yell. Forward he leapt.

     The ugly girl let out a terrible cry. She took the lamp, and flung it straight at her husband. The lamp burst in shards of glass. Oil went everywhere. Flames began to lick at the wicker husband's chest, up his neck, into his face. He tried to beat at the flames, but his fingers grew oily, and burst into fire. Out he ran, shrieking, and plunged into the river.

     'Well, that worked well,' said the butcher, in a satisfied manner.

     The villagers did not spare a second glance for the ugly girl, but went home again to their dinners. On the way, the tailor's wife threw the wicker baby in the ditch. She stamped on its face. 'Ugh,' she said. 'Horrible thing.'

     The next day the ugly girl wandered the highways, weeping, her face smeared in ashes.

<  9  >
     'Have you seen my husband?' she asked passing travellers, but they saw madness in her eyes, and spurred their horses on. Dusk fell. Stumbling home, scarce knowing where she was, the ugly girl heard a sound in the ditch. Kneeling, she found the wicker baby. It wailed and thrashed, and held up its hands. The ugly girl saw in its face her husband's eyes, and her husband's nose. She coddled it to her chest and took it home.

     Now, the old basket maker knew nothing of all this. One day, the old man took it into his head to see how his creations were faring. He walked into town, and knocked on the tailor's door. The wife answered.

     'How is the baby?' he said.

     'Oh that,' she said. 'It died.' And she shut the door in his face. The old basket-maker walked on, till he came to the ugly girl's place. The door was closed, the garden untended, and dirt smeared the windows. The old basket-maker knocked on the door. No-one answered, though he waited a very long time.

     The old-basket maker went home, disheartened. He was walking the long dark road into the swamp, when he heard something in the rushes. At first he was afraid: he wrapped his scarf closer round his face. But the thing seemed to follow him. From time to time, it groaned.

     'Who's there?' called the old man.

     Out onto the roadway staggered the most broken and bedraggled, the most pathetic and pitiful thing. The old basket-maker stared at what was left of the wicker husband: his hands consumed by fire, his face equally gone. Dark pits of scorched wood marred his chest. Where he had burnt, he had started to rot.

     'What have they done to my children?' cried the old basket-maker.

     The wicker husband said nothing: he had lost his tongue.

     The old basket-maker took the wicker husband home. As daylight came, the old basket-maker sat down to repair him. But as he worked, his heart grew hot with anger.

<  10  >
     'I made you, but I failed you,' he said. 'I will not send you there again.'

     Eventually, the wicker husband looked as good as new, though the smell of burning still clung. But as the days passed, a damp black mould began to grow on him. The old basket-maker pulled out the rotting withies and replaced them. But it seemed useless: the wicker husband rotted from the inside, outwards.

     At last, the old basket-maker saw there was nothing else to be done. He took up his travelling cloak, set out at night, and passed through the village. He came to the ugly girl's house. In the garden, wreathed in filth, stood the ugly girl, cuddling a child. She was singing the saddest lullaby he had ever heard. The old basket-maker saw that the child was the one he'd made, and his heart softened a little. He stepped out of the shadows.

     'Why do you keep the baby,' he said, 'when you cast your husband from home?'

     The ugly girl cried out, to hear someone speak to her.

     'It is all I have left of my husband,' she said at last. 'Though it is proof he betrayed me, I could not leave it in the ditch to die.'

     'You are a fool,' he said. 'It was I that made the child. Your husband is innocent.'

     At this, the ugly girl let out a cry, and ran towards the river. But old basket-maker caught her arm. 'Wait - I have something to show you,' he said.

     The ugly girl walked behind him, through the swamp where the water sucked and burbled, carrying the baby. As the sun rose, she saw that its features were only those of the old basket-maker, who, like any maker, had passed down his face to his creations.

     When they came to the dwelling, the ugly girl opened the door, and saw her husband, sitting in darkness.

<  11  >
     'It cannot be you,' she said. 'You are dead. I know: I killed you myself.'

     'I was made for you alone,' said the wicker husband, 'But you threw me away.'

     The ugly girl let out a cry so loud, birds surfaced from the marches for miles around, and threw herself at her husband's feet.

 

A few days later, the villagers were surprised to see the old basket-maker standing outside the church.

     'I have something to say,' he said. 'Soon I will retire. But first, I am making my masterwork - a woman made of wicker. If you want her, you can have her. But you must bring me a gift for my retirement. Whoever brings me the best gift can have the wicker woman.'

     Then he turned round and went back to the swamp.

     Behind him, the villagers began to whisper. Hadn't the wicker husband been tall and graceful? Hadn't he been a hard worker? Hadn't he been handsome, and eager to please his wife?

     Next day, the entire village denied any interest in the wicker lady, but secretly began to plan. Men eyed up prize cows; women sneaked open jewellery boxes.

     'That wicker husband worked like a slave, and never even ate,' said the shoe-maker's wife to her husband. 'Get me the wicker woman as a servant, I'll live like a lady, never lift a finger.'

     'That wicker husband never quarrelled with anyone, never even raised his voice. Not like you, you old fishwife,' the inn-keeper said to his wife.

     'That wicker husband never tired, and never had a headache,' said the butcher to the baker. 'Imagine...!'

     'Lend me a shilling, cousin,' said the shoe-maker's wife. 'I need a new petticoat.'

     'I can't,' lied the blacksmith's wife. 'I spent it on medicine. The child was very sick.'

<  12  >
     'I need that back-rent you owe me,' said the butcher, who owned the tailor's house.

     'Been a very bad season in the tailoring trade,' muttered the tailor. 'You'll get it soon.'

     The butcher went into town, hired a lawyer, and got the tailor evicted from his house. The tailor and his wife had to go and live in the shoe-maker's shed.

     'But what are you going to do with the empty house?' asked the butcher's wife.

     'Nothing,' said the butcher, who thought the place would do admirably to keep a mistress. The butcher's wife and the tailor's wife had a fight in the market, and went home with black eyes. In the tavern, no-one spoke, but only eyed each other, suspiciously. The lawyer was still in town. Rumour had it that the tailor's wife was suing for divorce: the inn-keeper's wife had her husband arrested after she found the stairs had been greased. In short, the fields went uncut, the cows went unmilked, ovens uncleaned: the village was obsessed.

     When the day came, the old basket-maker came to town, and sat on the churchyard wall. The villagers brought their gifts. First the tailor, who'd made a luxurious coat. Next the miller, bringing twelve sacks of grain. The baker made the most extravagant cake; the carpenter brought a table and chairs, the carter a good strong horse. The blacksmith's wife staggered up with a cheese the size of a millwheel. Her cousin, the tailor's wife, arrived with a bag of gold.

     'Where d'you get that, wife?' said her husband, amazed.

     'Never you mind,' she snapped.

     The inn-keeper's wife wasn't there: she'd slipped while climbing the stairs.

     Last to come was the butcher. He'd really outdone the others: two oxen, four cows, and a dozen sheep.

     The old-basket maker looked around him. 'Well,' he said. 'I think the prize goes to... the butcher. I'll just take these and be back, with the wicker lady.'

<  13  >
     The butcher was so pleased, spittle ran from his mouth.

     'Can I have my grain back?' said the miller.

     'No no,' said the old man. 'That wasn't the bargain.' And he began to load all the goods onto the horse. The villagers would have fallen on each other, fighting, but they were so desperate to see the wicker lady, they just stood there, to wait.

     It was dusk by the time the basket-maker returned. The wicker woman was seated on the horse, shrouded in a cloak, veiled like a bride. From under the cloak, white flowers fell. As she passed the villagers, a most marvellous smell drifted down.

     The butcher stood outside the tailor's old house. He'd locked his wife in the coal cellar in preparation.

     The old basket-maker held out a hand, and helped the lady dismount. The butcher smelt her fragrance. From under the veil, he thought he saw her give him a saucy glance. He was so excited, he hopped from foot to foot.

     The wicker lady lifted her veil: she took off her cloak. The butcher stared at her. The wicker lady was short of stature and twisted of limb, her face was dark and rough. But worse than that - from head to foot, she was covered in thorns.

     'What have you done?' shrieked the butcher.

     'Ah,' said the old basket-maker. 'The wicker husband was made of willow. Willow is the kindest of trees: tall, elegant, pliable, of much assistance in easing pain. But I saw that you did not like him. Therefore I made you the wicker lady from blackthorn. Blackthorn is cold, hard, and thorny - it will not be killed, either by fire or frost.'

     The villagers would have fallen on the old basket-maker there and then, had not the wicker lady stepped forward. She seized hold of the butcher and reached up to kiss him. The butcher let out a howl. When he pulled his lips away, they were shredded and tattered: blood ran down his chin. Then, with a bang, the butcher's wife broke out of the coal cellar, and ran down the road. Seeing the wicker lady kissing her husband, she screamed, and fell on her. The two of them rolled in the gutter, howling and scratching.

<  14  >
     Just then, the lawyer piped up. 'Didn't you check the details first?' he said. 'It's very important. You should always check the small print.'

     The men of the village took their butcher's knives and pitchforks and tailoring shears, and chased the lawyer out of town. When they'd run out of breath, they stopped.

     'That old fraud the basket-maker,' said the baker. 'He tricked us.'

     So they turned round and began to go back in the other direction, on the road into the swamp. In the darkness they stumbled and squelched, lost their way and nearly drowned. It was light by the time they came to the old basket-maker's dwelling, but the old basket-maker, the wicker husband, the ugly girl and the baby, as well as all the villagers' goods, had already upped, and gone.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 06:35:51 PM

 
 


Esther Claes
The Star

When the world started to end, you were ashamed of yourself for weeping bitterly in your bedroom for an entire day. You saw the president crying and begging on TV and it sent you into a panic. You lay in bed with the blankets pulled up to your nose, crying, refusing to answer the door when the maid, your manager, your assistant, and finally your parents begged you to come out.

     After twenty-four hours, your father took the door off its hinges and dragged you down the stairs into your sunken living room with the white carpet and leather couches. You kicked and screamed until he had to pick you up and carry you over his shoulder. You called him a motherer and threatened to take back the Mercedes you'd purchased for him last Christmas.

     Your mother sat solemnly on the couch, her hands clenched into fists on top of the newspaper in her lap. She said it was all over.

     You glowered and glared; you asked what the hell is happening, and will you still be on the talk show circuit next month?

     The television stations are all color bars and static. Your father says that the talk shows are all gone, and not to worry. He tells you that there are far more important things happening right now. How can you not worry? You were supposed to debut your new fragrance next month to coincide with the release of your latest album.

     Your mother tells you that the album isn't going to happen, and she clenches her fists even tighter than before. You can't believe what she's saying. How can she say that? There will always be an album, and there will always be television. You tell your parents they're idiots, and that this will all blow over in a few days, as soon as they replace that pussy of a president.

     Your mother says that the world is ending. They dropped bombs, she says darkly.

     There are diseases and radiation poisoning spreading all over the country, your father says.

<  2  >
     Not in LA you shout defiantly.

     Your mother holds up the newspapers one at a time. WAR is on the cover of each one, along with speculations on the doomed fate of the country, including LA. You feel sick, you're dizzy. You want to know what you did to deserve this, and how anyone could possibly do such a thing before you had a chance to accomplish the things that mean so much to you.

*

Two days later, your mother and father are discussing survival, and filling jugs with water from the tap just in case. Your father is worried about the electricity holding out. You sit in the living room wondering why all the servants quit the day before, and if your assistant is ever going to call you back. The only connection to the outside world is the radio, and it's hard to get real information between the crying and praying on almost every channel. On the pop station, the dj says over and over that it's only a matter of time. Your father tells you to switch to the AM band because they have more sense on AM, goddammit.

     You hear reports of death and destruction all over the country, and all you can think is that you hope LA is okay. Even after reports of people dead in their cars, you imagine Rodeo Drive the same as it ever was, untouched by nasty things like war, sickness and death. How could a place a beautiful as Hollywood ever be destroyed? No one messes with LA, you say, and your father won't look you in the eye.

     When the electricity goes out that night, your eyes fill with frustrated tears, and you light the scented candles you'd been saving for a special occasion. The radio runs on batteries, but they won't last long. Your father tells you to conserve them, and stop leaving the radio on so much. You tell him to shut up, and that you can afford thousands of batteries. The man on the radio says that much of the east coast is destroyed, along with Detroit and Chicago. He says that the radiation is coming west at an alarming rate, and you wish you had a map so you'd know what that meant. Instead of worrying, you get out that limited edition pink nail polish and give yourself a pedicure. It isn't until you spill the bottle, and nail polish gets all over the carpet that you realize you can't stop crying.

<  3  >
     In the morning, your dad tells you that your mother is very sick, and he doesn't feel so well himself. You roll your eyes and tell them to take some pepto, but on the inside, you can't deal with the possibility of them dying and leaving you alone, so you go back to your room and sit in front of the window. Your yard looks the same. There is no death and destruction on your property, but you wonder what's changed outside of your front gates.

     In the afternoon, you bring your four gold records and three Grammy awards up to your room so you can look at them. Your finger traces your name on the awards over and over, and you can't comprehend how someone who has accomplished so much in such a short time should be allowed to go through something as horrible as this. You're a star, for God's sake, you deserve better than this.

     Your father is calling your name in the hall. He sounds sick. His voice breaks repeatedly, and he's gagging between words. You don't want him to throw up on the carpet in the hall, but you keep your mouth shut. If he does, the cleaning woman will take care of it tomorrow. You pull the blankets up to your chin and close your eyes. Your father's voice sounds farther and farther away now as you clutch the Grammy close to your chest and squeeze your eyes shut.

     Tomorrow you'll wake up and things will be better. Tomorrow you'll be on the Tonight Show, and be as charming as ever. Tomorrow your agent will apologize for not calling. Tomorrow you'll still be a star.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 06:38:29 PM

Simon Collings
Do You Speak English?
Manuel had passed the fish on his way up the road. It was eighteen to twenty inches long and its silvery scales were covered with dirt. The gill flaps opened like two gash wounds on the sides of its head as it thrashed helplessly in the gutter. Next to it a boy leaned against the railings, his rod and line dangling out over the floating garbage and the stream of brown, stinking waste which trickled from a pipe in the wall below. The boy wore a faded pair of football shorts. He was perhaps nine or ten years old, barefoot and grubby, and his skin was marked with insect bites.

     The fish gasped, then made one last convulsive leap, throwing itself in the direction of the river, and landed on the pavement with a thud. There it lay motionless for a moment, exhausted no doubt by the effort. The boy looked down at it, turned and kicked it back into the gutter.

     Manuel had not paid much attention to the fish as he was preoccupied. He had just been to look at an apartment and he was considering how he could afford the rent. Accommodation was hard to find in the city and a place like this didn't come up very often. The apartment he and his wife were currently living in was so small their six-year-old son had to live with his wife's parents during the week. They had been trying to move for two years. He took out a cigarette and leaned against the railing, looking down the street at the boy fishing.

     Further along the quay two figures were approaching. He watched as they wandered slowly towards him. They looked to be in their early thirties and were obviously tourists, Americans he would guess. The woman had shoulder-length reddish hair and pale freckled skin. She was slim and athletic looking. Her partner was tall and flabby, his stomach protruding from under his T-shirt. He wore knee-length shorts, sunglasses and his long hair was tied in a pony tail. They came slowly along the dusty street of warehouses. Tourists were not uncommon in the city but they usually kept to the old port with its rococo churches and stately customs house, or took the organized cruises along the reef. It was rare to see them in this district and Manuel assumed they were lost.

<  2  >
     â€˜Look at the poor thing,' said the woman, stopping beside the fish, which lay where the boy had kicked it, probably now gasping its last breaths. She spoke with a lazy, nasal drawl. The boy had not turned around but he had noticed their presence. He stared fixedly across the glittering surface of the water towards the lines of washing in the narrow streets on the opposite bank, waiting for them to go.

     â€˜It ought to be thrown back,' the woman was saying. ‘Do you think he wants it?' She turned to her companion who shrugged. He looked nervous.

     â€˜I don't like the look of this neighborhood,' he said. ‘I think we should get back.' But the woman wasn't going to let it pass. She stood there looking from the fish to the boy and back again.

     â€˜You could try asking him,' the man said. The woman stepped around the fish and approached the boy, who was still looking out across the river. The child's body tensed as the woman came up to him.

     â€˜Do you know that fish is dying?' Manuel heard her ask. The boy looked up at her blankly and then shook his head. ‘Dy-ing,' she repeated, drawing out each syllable, but the boy remained dumb, uncomprehending. He fidgeted awkwardly with his feet.

     â€˜I don't think he understands,' said the woman to her partner. The man shrugged as if to say ‘I told you we shouldn't get involved'. She looked around for assistance and noticed Manuel watching her. She stared at him for a moment, taking in the cream-coloured linen suit, the shoes. She was obviously unsure what to make of him.

     â€˜Do you speak English?' she asked, this time with a more respectful tone than she had used with the boy. Manuel said that he did but in a voice which gave her no reason to expect his help. She held his gaze for a few moments.

     â€˜Can you ask this boy what he means to do with the fish? It seems so cruel, it ought to be thrown back.' He looked across at the boy and then at the woman. He wondered if he should tell her about the kind of life this boy led, about the squalid shacks down by the beach from where he had probably come that morning, about the parents struggling to make ends meet. Two days earlier he had read in the local paper about a fishing community a few miles up the coast which was being evicted to make way for a new hotel. The boy was watching them anxiously.

<  3  >
     â€˜Esta senhora quer saber o que voce vai fazer com o peixe,' he said to the boy. He treated the boy gently, with consideration. The boy wiped a dirty hand across one eye and looked at Manuel.

     â€˜E para vender,' he responded.

     â€˜He intends to sell it,' he told the woman. He tried to make his answer sound final, as though that was the end of the matter. The woman hesitated, perhaps uncertain how to interpret the lack of encouragement in his voice. Manuel observed her confusion. Her eyes searched his face as though looking for some clue. Her companion shifted nervously behind her.

     â€˜Honey, I think we should go,' he said. But the woman ignored him. He shuffled uncomfortably. ‘You know I really don't think you should interfere.'

     â€˜How much does the boy want for the fish?' the woman asked. Manuel glanced at her companion with his stooped shoulders and useless bulk. The woman's determination amused him but he did not smile.

     â€˜A senhora quer comprar o peixe. Quanto e?' The boy named a price which was five times what he would have got for it locally. His expression was deadpan. Only a slight clenching of his right hand betrayed the tension he was probably feeling. Manuel told her the price, adopting the same tone of voice with which he had addressed her previously, but this time he could not help smiling. She seemed to interpret this as friendliness. She opened her purse and took out some money, peeling off a note of twice the value the boy had asked.

     â€˜Does he have any change?' she asked.

     Manuel translated. Again the boy's right hand twitched slightly but otherwise his face wore the same expression of innocence it had before. He shook his head. The woman hesitated for a moment and looked across at the fish. Then she held out the note to the boy who took it. She stooped down, picked the fish up carefully between forefinger and thumb and threw it into the river. Without looking at either Manuel or the boy she turned to her companion and they went on up the road together. The man produced a handkerchief and offered it to the woman to wipe her fingers but she refused it. They appeared to be arguing. The boy stood holding the note. His expression had hardly changed. Manuel watched the couple until they disappeared out of sight. They did not once look back. He lit another cigarette and returned to his former position against the railings.

<  4  >
     The fish had not survived its lengthy time out of the water and was now floating amidst the debris a few feet out from the bank, washed in against the shore by the backward eddy of the current. The boy climbed over the railings and down onto a ledge just above the water line. He began dragging the dead fish towards him with a stick. When it was finally within reach he caught hold of it and tossed it up onto the road. As he clambered over the railings he grinned at Manuel. The boy gathered up his rod and the fish and set off up the street. Manuel watched him while he finished his cigarette. Then he threw the butt down into the dirty water and made his way back the way he had come.

 
 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 06:42:17 PM

 
 

 Simon Collings
Snow
1

Vanessa and Robert are on holiday. It is New Year's Eve and Vanessa is driving over the fell road. Robert is explaining to her what will happen in the event of a major radiation leak at the nearby power station. Vanessa doesn't want to think about accidents or the threat of terrorist attacks. She prefers to imagine instead the glacial ice-sheets which covered these mountains for millions of years. She thinks of the slow-moving ice carving down through the valleys. She imagines clear skies and a world covered with virgin snow, a pristine version of the landscape through which they are driving.

     â€˜It's still there,' announces Robert, who has been looking back at the power station through the rear window of the car. ‘Yes,' says Vanessa. She is trying to make her voice sound conversational but it sounds accusing. She forces herself to smile so that he will give her the benefit of the doubt. On another occasion she might not have bothered and he would have sulked, forcing her to ask what the matter was. She would resist, knowing full well what she was doing, wanting him to fight her, though she knows he won't. But this is neither the time nor the place and she lets it drop. She repeats to herself the names of rocks: calcareous, gneiss, feldspar. The words sound hard, unyielding, comforting.

     A few scarlet-marked sheep scatter from the road onto the gorse-covered bank. There are yellow flowers on the gorse which she knows blooms every day of the year; ‘Like hope' her mother used to say. Vanessa has been living with Robert for six years. She is 29. Recently she has taken to thinking a lot about herself. What once seemed distant concerns have taken on a real urgency. She cannot see herself with Robert for the rest of her life. She wants to break out but she doesn't yet know where to. In the earlier days of living together they laughed over friends and relatives getting married. They congratulated themselves on their freedom. Each of them had a career. How was it possible to make a commitment so young? After a time they ceased to talk about it. Now the fact they have not married seems to demand correction.

<  2  >
     'How long before we get to the car park?' Vanessa asks. Robert says it's not too far. Around the next bend they see the sign and Vanessa pulls off the road and stops with the nose of the car pointing towards mountains. There is a lake behind them, a long curve of metallic blue. The power station has passed from sight.

     She had felt the wind buffeting the car while she was driving but the violence of it almost knocks her over as she gets out to put on her walking boots. She turns round to see Robert chasing his hat down the road. He play-acts for her benefit and she laughs. Robert looks pleased as he comes back up the road towards her, his hat now firmly secured on his head.

     From the car park they cross a narrow brook and take the path up the valley in front of them. Robert has traced out a route along the dotted footpaths marked on the Ordnance Survey map. His square back and shoulders move ahead. Vanessa's boots squelch in the half-frozen mud. They climb in silence, following the trail along the side of the lower hillslope. There are footprints in the mud but once the car park has passed from view she cannot see any other forms of human life, only the white, drifted snow. Across the valley Vanessa occasionally mistakes a rock for a human figure. She thinks how difficult it would be to find someone if they were lost up here. She is glad she is wearing her bright yellow waterproof. Robert has on only an old, brown flying jacket. From the air he would be indistinguishable from the boulders littering the hillside, she thinks.

     She picks her way unsteadily over the wet ground, trying to follow Robert in the placing of a foot here or there. Several times they have to stop while Robert finds a way through a particularly boggy section of the path. Vanessa watches him. When they first knew each other he used to go climbing. But friends moved away and he got out of the habit. Now he rarely even goes out.

<  3  >
     Vanessa wonders if she was ever really in love with Robert. She has certainly felt affection for him, and still does. She doesn't want to hurt him. She thinks it was a desire for security rather than love that provided the motivation for their living together. It was a way of escaping from being by herself.

     At the top of the ridge they pause to catch their breath and Robert divides out some chocolate he has brought with him. Beneath them the full extent of the lake is visible in the slanting rays of the sun. Vanessa remembers reading about a woman's body being found in the lake. It had been lashed to a concrete fence post. The woman had been murdered by her husband at their home in the midlands. He had loaded the body into the boot of the family car and driven to visit their son at a private school in Devon, where he had checked into a hotel for the night. But instead of sleeping he had driven up here, dumped the body and then driven south again to arrive in time for breakfast at the hotel. The surprising part of the story was that after the police found the body three other murderers confessed.

     â€˜What are you thinking about?' Robert asks.

     â€˜I was wondering what drives a man to murder his wife,' Vanessa says.

     â€˜Why don't they just walk out on them?'

     â€˜I don't know,' Robert says. ‘Is it always husbands murdering wives?'

     â€˜Not always,' says Vanessa. ‘But isn't it usually?'

     â€˜I suppose you're right,' Robert says.

     â€˜There was a body found in this lake a few years back. Three men confessed to the murder before the actual murderer was identified.'

     â€˜You mean three hoaxes?'

     â€˜No three murderers confessed, but this wasn't their victim. I guess the pressure of maintaining their secrets finally got to be too much.'

<  4  >
     â€˜Well I promise not to murder you,' says Robert, grinning. Vanessa doesn't respond. He has started fidgeting, a sign that he wants to go on. They continue climbing in silence, Robert in front, Vanessa behind. Craggy peaks tower above them. The higher they climb the bigger the mountains appear to become. It seems to Vanessa that they have come almost no distance at all even though it is nearly an hour since they left the car. Twenty yards ahead of her Robert stops to consult the map.

     â€˜This is the wrong path,' he announces as Vanessa comes up towards him. ‘It gets more and more like a river the higher up we go.'

     â€˜Where is the real path?' Vanessa asks.

     â€˜Up there,' Robert replies pointing up the slope. ‘Fancy a climb?'

     Vanessa perches on top of a clump of snow-covered grass. The sock inside her left boot is wet. Robert is starting to climb. He is obviously excited. This is his idea of a good walk. He never really feels he's been out unless he's spent hours scrambling over loose screes and fording rivers.

     â€˜Robert, this is crazy!' Vanessa shouts. What if he falls, she is thinking. What if I fall? She feels annoyed that they have come the wrong way, but not particularly with Robert. How have they managed to lose their way? She feels as though her dignity has been undermined, as though she has been humiliated. But she knows this is something that only concerns herself.

     â€˜I suppose you're right.' Robert sounds disappointed as he sits on his hands and toboggans down the slope towards her. ‘It's getting late. We ought to head back anyway.'

     Descending the slope again Robert hands her another piece of chocolate. Vanessa is still wondering how they missed the path. The track they are walking along seems unfamiliar, but perhaps that is just the effect of going the other way. The last of the sunlight fills the valley below. In less than an hour it will begin to get dark. In the entire landscape there is no sign of human habitation and nothing moves.

<  5  >
     â€˜Well that's the last of the chocolate,' Robert says screwing up the foil wrapper in his hand.

 

II

The cottage they are staying in belongs to a friend of Robert's. In the visitors' book there are entries back to 1996. Many of them are disconcertingly personal, especially the religious ones. They talk of private grief and individual heartache, of the healing power of beauty and quietness. Vanessa is surprised by these entries. Lawrence, who owns the place, has never shown the slightest inclination towards spirituality in the time she has known him. She guesses these must be entries by acquaintances of Lawrence's father, a retired clergyman who lives at the other end of the village. They have yet to meet him but know they probably will. Lawrence's father visits everyone who stays in the cottage.

     Best of all in the visitors' book Vanessa likes the entries of the children, Lawrence's children growing up through the summer and winter holidays spent here. There are Sarah's first tentative entries, and Neil's coloured doodles. Someone has written beside them in blue ink: ‘Neil's signature aged 2 ½ years.' There is other evidence of the children in the cottage too: a wicker basket of rocks and sea shells and the pale skeletons of sea urchins. There are dried conkers on the mantelpiece and children's storybooks on the shelf among the walking guides, detective books and recipe books.

     Children are one of the reasons Vanessa knows she has to leave Robert. Earlier in life she had thought that she would never want children. The commitment of so much time had seemed to her unthinkable. Now she finds herself increasingly imagining the presence of children. She has left it late already. She does not want to leave it for much longer. Yet she cannot see Robert as the father of her children. She has tried to picture it to herself but she cannot reconcile herself to such a vision. They would go on then for years. The thought makes her feel as though she were suffocating.

     The sound of someone knocking at the front door interrupts the flow of Vanessa's thoughts and she sits up in the bath in which she has been soaking. She can hear Robert talking to someone in the front room and wonders if she should get out. The bath is warm and comfortable however and she decides to wait. It is a man's voice she can hear but she can't quite make out what is being said. Vanessa hopes the visitor won't think her anti-social as she slides back down into the soft, soapy water.

<  6  >
     The bathroom is damp and black mould is growing on the walls in places. She has the wall heater on and a fan heater, the lead running in under the door from the kitchen. She soaps her body slowly. Recently she read an article in a magazine which claimed that personal smells were a major reason for marriages breaking up. It said that Americans used so much deodorant that it wasn't until they were married that they discovered how each other smelled and often that spelled disaster. She hasn't yet made up her mind whether she thinks there's any truth in this. She hears the front door closing, then Robert coming through into the kitchen.

     â€˜That was Lawrence's father,' he calls through the bathroom door. ‘He's invited us round after dinner this evening.'

     â€˜What's he like?' Vanessa asks. Robert pushes open the bathroom door as though taking her question for an invitation.

     â€˜Nice,' he says. He stands in the door way gazing at her through the steam. Vanessa hopes he isn't going to touch her.

     â€˜Do you want me to start making dinner or are you going to be some time?' he asks. This is his way of saying that he is hungry. So that's what he's concerned about, she thinks.

     â€˜OK, I'll get out in a minute,' she says. Robert smiles at her then goes out, closing the door. Vanessa rinses the soap from her arms and legs and stands up, reaching for a damp towel hanging behind the door. She rubs the towel over her flat stomach and wonders what it would be like to feel it swelling. She isn't attracted to the facts of pregnancy, only the idea of motherhood. She doesn't like being ill and being pregnant she thinks would be a bit like being sick for nine months. She hopes that having a child will make her feel that she has done something with her life. In the kitchen she can hear Robert shifting pans around. Vanessa finishes towelling her body and steps out onto the bath mat. Then she dries her feet. She feels clean now, like herself, uncontaminated.

<  7  >
III

While Robert is cooking dinner Vanessa studies the map, tracing the route they followed that afternoon. She is trying to work out where they went wrong, but after a while she gives up the attempt. Instead she looks at other places they have visited. She sits in front of the open fire in a big armchair, feet curled under her. She has always loved maps. There is something reassuring about knowing where you are and where you have been. She uses the map to build up a mental picture of the area, connecting one day's memories with another.

     Neither Robert nor Vanessa have been to this part of the country before. Vanessa remembers travelling past on the motorway going north as a child but neither of them count that. Two years ago they went to the Yorkshire Dales and Vanessa was surprised to discover how much history there was in the area. Though a southerner, she had always thought herself immune from southern prejudice. She had expected bleak moorland, not fertile valleys and ruined abbeys. She was reminded of a map of the British Isles a friend's child had drawn at school. The capital occupied a third of the map with the north tapering away to a tiny, almost non-existent Scotland. Now she is wiser. Still she draws a blank on the history of this part of the country.

     â€˜What happened here before Gray and Wordsworth put it on the map?' she calls out to Robert.

     â€˜Nothing much,' he calls back above the sound of the fan heater. ‘Sheep, lots of sheep. It was too inaccessible for anything else.'

     In the bottom corner of the map is the power station. It looks just like a village except that it has no name, only the word ‘works' to indicate what it is. The site blends innocuously into its surroundings. There are no ‘danger' signs, no skull and crossbones, no radiation symbol. It is unobtrusive, not as it appears in real life, and yet Vanessa feels there is a sort of truth in its being so unremarkable. The map keeps faith with the way local people have accepted the power station into their lives, the way tissue grows around a foreign body, enfolding it.

<  8  >
     That morning they had been into the tiny seaside town to the south of the power station to buy coal. They had to stop at a garage to ask for directions to the local coal merchant, which turned out to be an ordinary-looking, semi-detached house in a side road. Robert rang the bell. An elderly woman opened the door to him and together they disappeared around the back of the house. A few minutes later Robert reappeared struggling with two bags of coal and Vanessa got out to open the boot. The old woman followed Robert down the path.

     â€˜Yes it's very pretty, so long as it stays up on the hills,' she was saying.

     â€˜Snow,' said Robert by way of explanation.

     Vanessa folds the map and puts it on the table. In the kitchen Robert swears loudly.

     â€˜Everything OK?' she calls.

     â€˜The soup just boiled over.'

     â€˜I'll open the wine,' she says. The smell of the cooking is making her hungry. She takes the corkscrew from a drawer in the sideboard and uncorks the bottle which has been standing on the table. Robert believes in eating and drinking well, especially on holiday. So does Vanessa, but she finds the time spent hunting for ingredients tiresome. Robert always seems to forget that few places offer the variety of shops they have in London. He seems surprised when ingredients he regards as perfectly ordinary aren't available. That morning they had been to four different shops in two towns before they found the sour cream which Robert insisted was an essential accompaniment to the soup he is cooking. He also forgets that few holiday cottages are equipped with the range of utensils he has assembled at home. She wishes she didn't begrudge him the pleasures of preparing these meals.

     â€˜OK we're ready,' says Robert appearing at the kitchen door. ‘I'm going to dish up the first course.' The soup they are having tonight is a traditional recipe using dried peas and bacon. During the time she has known him Robert's cooking has gone through a number of phases, all of them associated with places he has visited on holiday. For a while it was Portugal, then France. Currently he is infatuated with traditional English cookery. While Robert places the two bowls of soup on the table Vanessa pours the wine. She takes a mouthful, hoping the alcohol will help her relax. She feels anxious though she can't say exactly why. The soup seems none the worse for having boiled over and she compliments Robert on its delicate flavour. He looks pleased.

<  9  >
     â€˜I thought you were annoyed with me,' he says.

     â€˜Why?'

     â€˜Oh I don't know, you haven't said much since we got back from the walk.'

     â€˜Sorry,' Vanessa says. ‘I'm just in a quiet sort of mood.'

     â€˜What are you thinking about?'

     â€˜Nothing really,' she says, wondering if she should tell him about the way the power station appears on the map. But she decides not to. He will only start talking about the issues again. ‘I'll try to cheer up.'

     The soup is followed by roast pheasant. Robert serves it in the kitchen.

     â€˜Good job we brought that sharp knife,' he says. ‘The ones here are as blunt as…whatever things get as blunt as.' The knife had been Vanessa's idea. She knew from experience that they wouldn't find one here with any sort of edge to it. Robert never believes her when she says they need to pack these sorts of implements, he always thinks she's making a fuss. Not that he'd worry if they found they were without something. He'd just go and buy it. The corkscrew was her idea too. While they are eating Vanessa asks about Lawrence's father.

     â€˜Nothing much to tell,' says Robert, his mouth half full of food. He swallows, then picks up his glass and gulps down a mouthful of wine before continuing. ‘He was only here a couple of minutes. You wouldn't have guessed he was a vicar, his voice sounded quite normal.'

     Vanessa is curious to meet Lawrence's father but at the same time she's worried that they won't find anything to talk about. She hates the empty platitudes which people exchange when they have nothing to say. She particularly hates it in herself because she knows she can do better.

     â€˜What will we talk about?' she asks, thinking aloud.

     â€˜Oh I don't know, lots of things.' Robert takes another mouthful of wine. Vanessa worries that Lawrence's father may want to talk about religion. She has never been religious. The universe is too vast, she thinks, for it to have a creator capable of taking a personal interest in individual people's lives. She believes this brief life is all she can expect and she has to make the most of it. Robert's thoughts are obviously running along similar lines though he has a different perspective.

<  10  >
     â€˜You can understand how, in a place like this, people might believe in God,' he says. ‘These peaks and the stillness of the lakes make the idea of a creator almost plausible. It has a kind of human scale.' Vanessa says nothing. She finds nothing benign in this landscape the way Robert does. She thinks of it as neutral, indifferent to her small existence. ‘I suppose that's what Wordsworth is all about,' he continues.

     â€˜I think I'm more in sympathy with Coleridge,' Vanessa replies. ‘He couldn't take all this beauty. It reminded him too much of the passing of time.' She had intended to say ‘reminded him of death' but she thought this would sound too morbid.

     â€˜I suppose it depends on temperament,' Robert says, determined not to be deflated. Robert is the type who would find these mountains ‘healing'. He's a romantic, she thinks. Vanessa cannot feel that way. She wants change in her life, not reconciliation.

 

IV

Lawrence's father is shorter than she had expected. He looks well for his age, the result, she supposes, of having led an active life. He is dressed casually in a thick brown sweater, grey woollen trousers and red carpet slippers. He arranges chairs for them and throws some more wood on the fire.

     â€˜There, make yourselves comfortable while I take your coats,' he says. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece strikes eight. Vanessa takes off her waterproof and scarf. The room is small, the front door blocked up and the only light is from the fire and from a desk lamp by the window. She checks her appearance in the mirror which hangs above the fireplace, an old octagonal glass without a frame. Her hair is a little untidy from the walk and she straightens it.

     â€˜I'm afraid I don't have much in the house to eat.' Lawrence's father says, placing a tin of biscuits on the table with some knives and plates and a jar of rum butter. ‘Do you like rum butter?' Vanessa tells him she loves it and he hands her a plate. ‘I have a friend who brings me a jar every Christmas,' he says.

<  11  >
     From the kitchen the boiling kettle emits a loud whistle and he goes to make the tea. Vanessa inspects the room. There is a large bookcase in one corner full of theology books and poetry. On the desk there is a book lying open next to a sheet of paper with a few lines written on it in black ink. Before she has time to read them, Lawrence's father returns. Robert is already placing a thickly buttered biscuit in his mouth.

     â€˜So what have you been up to since you arrived?' he asks setting the teapot on its brass stand by the fire.

     â€˜Walking mostly,' Robert says, and he runs through the names of the various places they have visited. Vanessa doesn't say much. She lets Robert talk for both of them. He ends by telling about the walk that afternoon, including how they lost their way. Robert treats this as a joke.

     â€˜It's easily done in the snow,' says the old man. But Vanessa suspects he is simply being polite. If one belonged here one would not make these kind of mistakes, she thinks. Lawrence's father suggests other places they might visit. Robert explains that they only have one more day of holiday left.

     â€˜We'll have to save them for next time,' he says. Vanessa feels gloomy at the thought of returning home. She is afraid that the routines will take hold again and that she will let life drift on. Though she feels she cannot stay with Robert, she cannot imagine the end either. Practical difficulties occupy her thoughts, like where she will live and how they will divide up the possessions they have accumulated together. She knows there is no way to manage a separation cleanly. It is this which she dreads most of all.

     â€˜Lawrence said you grew up here,' Robert is saying. The old man confirms this. Vanessa hadn't known.

     â€˜And have you lived here all your life?' she asks.

     â€˜Mostly,' he says. ‘I had a couple of brief spells away.' Vanessa feels envious of his rootedness. There is nowhere she thinks of as home. Her parents moved twice when she was a child and the secret places of her infancy have long since disappeared under tarmac and concrete.

<  12  >
     â€˜Don't you worry about living so close to the power station?' Robert asks.

     â€˜I'm concerned about it. But at my age there's not much point worrying about dying.' He smiles.

     â€˜What do people round here think about the idea of living on top of a nuclear dump? Robert asks.

     â€˜Well you have to remember that most of them depend on it for their livelihoods. This area was devastated during the thirties you know. Some people here still remember that.'

     â€˜Aren't people worried?'

     â€˜Yes, many don't like it. But the authorities don't tell you much about what's going on and it's difficult to get to the bottom of many of the stories you hear. The media like to play things up. For the most part people have found a way to accommodate its existence.' Vanessa thinks about the old lady at the coal merchant's.

     â€˜People believe what they want to believe I suppose,' Vanessa says.

     â€˜That doesn't mean there isn't a right and a wrong,' Robert interjects.

     â€˜No, that's right,' Lawrence's father says, ‘though the issues are complex.' Vanessa feels chastened, though she hadn't meant to sound so dismissive. Truth is not the issue, she thinks. Lawrence's father, more than anyone, should understand this. People need to be able to imagine a future. They have to believe they will survive.

     â€˜What would Wordsworth have made of it all?' she asks to change the subject.

     â€˜Oh, he'd have hated it,' the old man says.

     â€˜Really?' says Vanessa, uncertain if this is the answer she had expected or not.

     â€˜Oh yes, he didn't like technological change. He was opposed to the railway coming here for instance. He even wrote a sonnet about it. "Is there no nook of English ground secure from rash assault," or something like that. It's not a very good sonnet I might add.' He pours more tea and offers them more biscuits.

<  13  >
     â€˜Would he ever have come near this village?' Robert asks.

     â€˜Right along this road,' Lawrence's father replies. ‘He had a friend at Whitehaven. He and Coleridge used to walk over from Grasmere and would have come right past here. When I was younger I used to do that walk myself. But I couldn't do it now.'

     Vanessa thinks that the excursions she and Robert have been making hardly merit the name ‘walks' compared to the feats of distance Lawrence's father is talking about. She feels they ought to be doing more. One day they won't be able to. She wonders what it must be like to be at the end of one's life looking back. She wants to have a full life so that when she is old she will be able at least to say I did this and this and this, tangible achievements. She supposes that such memories are some kind of consolation.

     â€˜I did think of moving away at one time,' Lawrence's father continues. ‘That was a few years ago, after my wife died. But I'm too used to it here now.'

     â€˜Were you married long?' Vanessa asks.

     â€˜Forty-two years,' the old man says with a smile. ‘I thought she would outlive me.'

     â€˜That's a long time,' says Robert, echoing Vanessa's own thought. It is the time she has been with Robert seven times over. She looks up to find Lawrence's father watching her and for a moment she has the uncanny feeling that he has read her mind. But she tells herself she is being silly. All the same she suddenly feels disturbed. She feels as though she ought to say something but she takes up her cup and saucer instead. She wonders if the old man has noticed her confusion. If he has he shows no sign of it.

     â€˜I'll put the kettle on again,' he says.

 

V

Robert sits at the table playing the guitar, fingering his way hesitantly through a piece in a book of guitar studies. On the table is a pile of books he brought with him. There are volumes of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, De Quincey's Recollections of the Lake Poets, a book about Morecambe Bay. Vanessa leans forward in her chair and stirs the embers in the grate. The fire has burned right down and it is getting cold in the room. It is nearly midnight however, so she doesn't put any more coal on the fire. Instead she gets up and puts on the electric fan heater. Robert puts down his guitar.

<  14  >
     â€˜Fancy another drink?' he says. Vanessa accepts though she is already feeling drowsy. She knows she could have gone to bed, it wouldn't have mattered to Robert, but somehow she feels it is important that she stays up to see the New Year in.

     Robert fills two glasses with whiskey and hands one to her. She returns to her chair and picks up the book on geological history she is reading, opening it at the bookmark. Then she decides she is too distracted to read and closes it again.

     â€˜This bit always makes me feel a little panicky,' Robert says. ‘The final minutes of the year ticking away. It's unnerving.'

     â€˜You're supposed to think about friends,' Vanessa says.

     â€˜I know,' he says, drinking the whiskey back and taking the bottle to pour himself another. ‘All the same it feels eerie somehow.'

     â€˜Tell me what you've been reading about,' Vanessa says. Robert fits the cork back in the bottle carefully before replying.

     â€˜I've been reading about what an unpleasant human being Wordsworth was. That's De Quincey's view anyway. De Quincey really got to dislike Wordsworth.'

     â€˜I thought he worshipped him,' says Vanessa. Robert explains that that was earlier in his life, before he'd even met Wordsworth. Wordsworth had shown a lot of ingratitude towards De Quincey later on and De Quincey resented it.

     â€˜He was really bitter about it,' Robert says.

     â€˜Maybe it was because Wordsworth had changed,' Vanessa volunteers.

     â€˜Maybe,' Robert answers. He seems not to want to discuss it further. ‘What about you?' he asks after a pause.

     â€˜I've been reading about the ice ages,' Vanessa says. ‘It's strange, this afternoon I was thinking of all that earth history somehow being static; millions of years of ice when nothing happened, everything frozen and unmoving. But if you think of that time all speeded up, everything was moving around all over the place. The Sahara was once at the South Pole.'

<  15  >
     â€˜If you'd been there though everything would have seemed pretty static,' Robert says. ‘It depends on your point of view.' Vanessa looks at him, wondering if she has explained herself properly. She feels slightly foolish that she could have become so excited about the idea of the continents flowing over the earth, ice advancing and retreating. All of these things are familiar to Robert.

     The alarm on Robert's phone goes off. ‘Midnight,' he announces. ‘The New Year has arrived. He gets up from his chair, draws back the curtain over the door and lifts the latch. Outside the night is clear. No more snow has fallen. The path is still marked by the trail of footprints they made earlier. Across the road the fields lie silent under their white covering and further along the next cottage is dark. Maybe everyone is out, Vanessa thinks. In the distance fireworks light up the sky but the sound is far away. Robert starts trying to guess the outline of constellations.

     â€˜There, isn't that Orion?' he says. Vanessa doesn't know. ‘There's something over there too,' Roberts says. ‘But I can't remember what it's called.'

     Vanessa stands in the doorway watching Robert who is pointing up into the night sky. Then she looks down at her small footprints in the soft, powdery snow. So this is it then,' she thinks, ‘this is the future.'

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:16:42 PM

 
 


Alison L. Randall
End of the Line

When Frank and I stepped through the post office doors, there was a crowd gathered, gawking at the new fixture on the wall like a chorus of wide-mouthed frogs. I had to get closer, and that was where being a girl that's scrawnier than a wire fence came in handy. Fortunately, Frank, my twin of eleven years, was just the same.

     "Come on." I said, grabbing his hand, and we slid through the cracks between people until we spilled out in front.

     Finally I got a good look. It was fixed to the plaster next to the postmaster's window, the place of honor usually reserved for the Wanted posters. Beady-eyed Zedekiah Smith, the bank robber, still hung there, but even he had been pushed aside for something more important.

     A telephone. The first one in town.

     "How's it work?" Noah Crawford called out. Noah's the best fix-it man around, and I could tell he was itching to get his fingers on those shiny knobs.

     "Don't rightly know," answered the postmaster, and he tugged at his goatee as if it might tell him. "I do know the sound of your voice moves along wires strung on poles. It's sort of like the telegraph, only you hear words instead of dots and dashes."

     "Ah," the crowd murmured, and I felt my own mouth move along.

     I gazed at that gleaming wood box and something happened inside me. Something — I can only guess — that might be like falling in love. The thought of talking into that box — of making my voice sail through wires in the sky — it took over my brain. I couldn't get it out.

     "Frank," I whispered to my twin. "I have to use that telephone."

     Five minutes later, Frank towed me up Main Street, toward home. "Liza — " he began, but I cut him off. We two thought so much alike, I had Frank's questions answered before he even asked.

<  2  >
     "You're right," I said. "It costs five cents and I don't have it. But look." I pulled him over to the window of Poulson's Variety Store. "You see those?"

     I pointed to a handful of shimmery rocks spread on black velvet. Some were a shiny gray shot through with gold streaks, others yellow as cheese curds. And one, clear and jagged, sat like an icicle, leftover from wintertime.

     Frank's eyebrows screwed up and I could tell he wasn't following.

     "If I found one of those, I bet they'd pay me for it." I explained.

     With a shake of his head, Frank hooked two thumbs under his suspenders. "But Liza — "

     I held up a hand — he couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. "I've got that figured, too. I'll bet we could find some at North Creek — in the mine."

     Frank shrugged, pretending not to care, but I knew better. He wanted to explore that old mine, same as me. Besides, Frank knew he had no choice. Twins stick together, especially scrawny ones, 'cause it takes two of us to make one of most people.

     We spent half the morning on the dusty road to North Creek. Ma packed a lunch but said she couldn't understand walking all that way for rocks. She thought we were off to search the dry creek bed, and I didn't correct her.

     I felt a bit guilty about fooling my ma, but whenever a pang hit, I conjured up the vision of my voice dancing along wires in the sky. It looked a lot like me, my voice did, only wearing a pink tutu and carrying a frilly umbrella.

     We reached the old mine around noon. The hole in the sage-covered hill had been shored up by timbers. They were weathered and splintery, and looked like a picture frame around nothing.

<  3  >
     I stepped inside, my arms turning to goose bumps from the chill. The air smelled of mildew and rotted beams, but also of horse sweat and wood smoke. Strange. That mine had sat empty for years.

     Once my eyes got used to the dim, I gazed around, hoping to see shimmery rocks littering the floor, but dust was all I saw. Frank walked past me to where the walls narrowed, then disappeared around the curve. I followed fast.

     I'd come up right behind Frank when, ting, his boot connected with metal. He stooped, grabbed, and when he stood, his palm held more than we'd hoped.

     A gold coin. Frank's eyes nearly popped.

     "Where did that come from?" I whispered and reached out a finger to touch.

     Just then, voices sounded in the next cavern over: "Zed, hold it higher." Two men stepped through a gap in the far wall.

     They weren't miners. I could tell that from one glance. They were dressed for riding, with leather chaps and spurs. One held saddlebags over a shoulder and had a mustache that hung past his jaw. The other wore a battered hat, his face hid in its shadow. When he raised his lantern, the light shone full on those beady eyes.

     It was Zedekiah Smith, the bank robber.

     I plastered myself to the wall, hoping to disappear into shadow. Frank hunched over, hiding his head in his sleeves. But for once, we weren't scrawny enough.

     "Hey!" The mustached man pointed, then dropped his saddlebags and ran for us.

     I tried to run, too, but met up with Frank's backside. The next thing I knew, Frank and I were on the ground, being hauled to our feet by a sharp-nailed hand.

     "Lookee here, Zed," our captor cried, "a couple of spies."

<  4  >
     "No," I said, brushing myself off. "We're not spies. We were looking for rocks to sell. There's a new telephone in town, and I just wanted to — Ow!"

     The mustache man yanked my hair. "Does she always talk this much?" he asked Frank. Frank — the traitor — nodded.

     "Looking for rocks, eh?" Mustache Man pried open Frank's fingers. The gold coin glowed warm in the lantern light. "Lookee here, Zed. Musta fallen out."

     Zedekiah Smith strode over and picked the coin out of Frank's palm. "You don't want that, boy. That's dirty money."

     "You made it that way," I told him. "You stole it."

     Zedekiah Smith narrowed his eyes, turning them even beadier. "Caleb's right. You do talk a lot."

     Five minutes later, Frank and I were back to back on the ground.

     "That's what you get," Caleb said, as he tied our hands behind us. "Shouldn't go poking your noses in bad places."

     "It wouldn't be bad without you," I said, and Frank twitched.

     "Sure it would," Caleb said. "Old mine's a dangerous place. You could've got caught in a cave-in, or bit by rattlers. Lucky you got us instead. He, he!" He tightened his knots then stood straight. "Someone will find you in a day or so. We'll be long gone by then. Right Zed?"

     "That's right." Zedekiah Smith stood back, watching Caleb do the dirty work, his eyes shaded again.

     "Just let us go," I begged. "We won't tell."

     "Ha!" Caleb shouldered the saddlebags. "I'd like to see you keep your mouth still."

     Zedekiah Smith took up the lantern and without looking back they passed through the opening in the rock wall. I listened until the jingle of their spurs faded.

<  5  >
     We were alone in dark so thick it stopped up my nose. Caleb was right. This was a bad place. I wouldn't last a day. And worse, when Ma found my lifeless body, she'd know I was a liar.

     I was about to sink into despair, but Frank distracted me with more twitching.

     "There," he said. "I'm free."

     I couldn't believe it when the ropes went slack. Jumping to my feet, I rubbed my wrists, trying to figure how Frank had managed to surprise me so. It wasn't that he'd worked his bony wrists out of Caleb's knots. That was plain Frank. The real surprise was that he'd come up with the idea without my help.

     "Phew," I said, relief washing over me at my second chance at life. Ma wouldn't have to find my lifeless body after all. And as for the liar part, well, I'd work on that.

     But first, I had another good deed in mind, the best way to begin my new life. I was about to turn in that outlaw.

     I grabbed Frank's arm and towed him toward the exit. "We need to get to town and report Zedekiah Smith." Then something else occurred to me. "Think of the telephone calls I could make with that reward money."

     'Liza — " Frank started up, but I knew where he was heading.

     "Of course we'll split it."

     We rounded the wall and ran smack into another, one with chaps and a hat. Zedekiah Smith was back. Before we could move, he had us trussed in his arms like two pigs for slaughter.

     "Let go!" I cried, pounding his chest.

     "Shh," he whispered. "Caleb thinks I forgot something."

     I froze. "But . . . "

<  6  >
     "I came back to cut you loose."

     For once, I had a hard time filling my mouth with words.

     "Now, you stay hidden until I get Caleb away," he whispered. "It won't do to have him telling people about my weak stomach."

     "Are you feeling poorly?" Frank asked and Zedekiah Smith laughed.

     "No, but I've got no stomach for hurting people." His arms went limp, releasing us, and he took a step back. "You'd better do your duty and report me. But take this in case that reward money's long in coming." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pale yellow rock studded with honey-colored crystals. "I saw it out in the dry creek bed. Might be worth a telephone call."

     He dropped it into my hand and gave a wink. Then he turned and walked out into the sunlight. Frank and I gawked, like a duet of wide-mouthed frogs.

     We didn't make it to the Sheriff's office until the next morning. I reported Zedekiah Smith, just like I should, but for some reason, it didn't feel like a good deed anymore.

     Our next stop was the Variety Store. Old Mr. Poulson's eyes kindled when he saw the crystal rock. Twenty-five cents went to Frank, who wasted it on candy. I saved mine for something monumental.

     The post office wasn't crowded anymore. Still, there were a few lookers as I walked to the counter and laid down my nickel.

     "I'd like to make a telephone call," I announced.

     "How about that," the postmaster said, stroking his goatee. "You'll be the first. Who would you like to call?"

     "Who?" I echoed. And just like that, my vision dissolved. Pink tutu and frilly umbrella, both drifted off like a dandelion in the wind. My voice couldn't dance along wires — it had no place to go. Nobody I knew had a telephone.

<  7  >
     I turned to Frank and found him grinning.

     "You saw it all along," I accused.

     He shrugged. "I tried to tell you."

     "You did?" I thought back to the day before and realized that maybe he had. I'd been too busy using my own mouth to notice.

     After taking one last, loving look at the telephone, I turned away from the counter. Maybe candy would be a good use for that nickel after all.

     "Frank," I said, pondering those thoughts he kept having without me, "next time you have something to say, speak up. I'll try hard to listen."

     The poster of Zedekiah Smith seemed to nod at me as we passed.


 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:18:14 PM

    Fernando Sorrentino
A Question of Age
Translation by Michele McKay Aynesworth
On those rainy days, Mario would insist on having some of Grandma's special sugar-coated fritters. Flattered and smiling and only too happy to comply, she'd send Coca to reorganize the junk room or to rid the closets of dust balls. This is how she managed to have the kitchen to herself.

     In that great, dark, solitary house, I could choose to stick around as Grandma's veined hands ever so slowly fashioned her "frittahs," or go with Coca and watch her redo the junk room. Coca called it the attic, but I knew very well from my illustrated dictionary that an attic couldn't be a ground floor cubbyhole looking out on a brick boundary wall. This end of the yard was quiet and moist, with an old rectangle of rusted iron, some flowery tiles, and a faucet for watering the garden – although the faucet had no spigot, and in any case, no one watered the garden. In fact, it was hardly a garden at all. It had no plants or cultivated flowers, just an assortment of weeds and vines, along with pill bugs, ants, ponds, toads, and mice.

     I think I was fourteen before I discovered what the outside of the house looked like. I hardly ever went out, and when I did, I always came and went using the sidewalk on our side of the street, so I knew the houses across the street by heart, but not the one that had sheltered me since I was born. One day I decided not to make any diagonal crossings, just right angles. From the corner, I walked along the sidewalk opposite our house. To my left loomed wire or wrought-iron fences and overgrown plants; to my right, trees imprisoned every few meters in dirt squares. Their cool, restless branches would link up overhead in spring and summer, sifting the sun's rays. But this was a winter day, and dusk had set in. Everything was so sad, the breeze mute and listless, the street empty, the lights dying in high-ceilinged rooms. I don't know why, they made me want to cry, and suddenly I thought of Mirta, an older girl who went to my school.

     I was standing on blue and white mosaic tiles consisting of nine little squares each, and the wind was about to carry off a dirty page from El Gráfico. I stepped on it in time, and without bending over, read, "Musimessi, star goalkeeper for Newell's Old Boys." I let it go, and the paper groaned harshly as it scudded along before ending up in the sewer.

<  2  >
     How gloomy my house was! You could hardly see it. Dark, withered vines covered the rusty black iron grille. Behind it, gray palms, peeling pines, and the almighty rubber plant obscured even the dim outline of our house, whose cracked and stained walls resembled nothing so much as roadmaps. But the gabled roof, its once-red tiles now a muddy violet, stood out in sharp relief against the white sky.

     The house also had an attic, but since Coca slept there it was no longer an attic, but a bedroom. Grandma, of course, called it the maid's room (just as streetcars for her were trolleys, shoes slippers, and the Primera Junta subway line forever The Anglo). I liked the little room with its upside down V for a ceiling and its thick beams of dark wood. Every night Coca would listen to the radio play broadcast by Radio El Mundo on a very old, very tall, and very hard-to-hear radio that towered above a kitchen bench. Half the room was taken up by a huge, three-door mahogany wardrobe with an oval mirror. Inside its doors hung tango singer Carlos Gardel in sky-blue gaucho garb; cowboy actor Robert Taylor; and dapper movie idol Ángel Maga-a, in coat and bowtie. There were also posters of the Virgin of Luján and of the saintly Mapuche Indian boy, Ceferino Namuncurá. On the wall a color photo taken the day of her wedding to Ricardo showed a different Coca, with her hair piled high, her lips red and smooth. A bottle of cologne and a sulfur stick sat on the marble-topped lamp table. The best thing in the room, however, was a window like a porthole with two pink panes that could be opened one at a time.

     And so, when Coca said she was going to clean the attic, it was understood she meant the junk room. And if it pleased Grandma to make fritters for Mario, it was not so much that she liked doing it, but that she could regain a little of her former importance, when it was she who ran the house, when they had not yet put her on the sidelines. Of course, since she was senile (arteriosclerosis, eighty-six years old), her manias and confusion came as no surprise. She could not be blamed for lying or making things up sometimes. Dr. Calvino explained that such maladies were typical of old age, and since there was no cure, it was best just to accept the situation. In any case, Grandma was adorable and didn't bother anybody.

<  3  >
     She would pass autumn and winter afternoons with a shawl across her knees and a scarf around her shoulders, rocking away in an enormous chair that yet seemed lost amid the endless lilac-colored flowers and greenish birds on the living room walls. Sitting there with her hands intertwined, she would think about who knows what, looking out past the black oval table with its crude, crocheted doily. Or she would polish all the metal objects in the house till they shone scandalously in the midst of things so dull and melancholy. I used to bring her bronze candelabra or silver fruit bowls, but Mario put his foot down, saying I was only encouraging her tendency toward what might be called obsession.

     Be that as it may, now that the weather was milder Grandma had taken to wandering about in the yard's many unexplored corners. In the evening she would sit well away from the house on a little straw chair until, at length, Coca would fetch her back inside, citing the dangers of the evening dew. Convincing Grandma to stay in the living room was not easy, however, and every day she spent more time in the garden, usually near the ruined statue. Dr. Calvino advised us to let her have her way so long as she did not catch cold, given the weak state of her bronchial tubes.

     When Mario got up to secure the shutters the night of the Santa Rosa storm, he was shocked to see Grandma out in the rain, a fragile plant being blown about by the raging, icy wind. Dr. Calvino diagnosed pneumonia, and now to senility was added delirium. Grandma started seeing little men. "Little men?" Right, the little men in yellow shorts and red jackets with tall black boots on their feet and blue velvet caps on their heads. It was no good interrupting her with the news that Telma had given birth to twins or showing her the sheets Aunt Marcelina had just finished embroidering. The city of little men was called Natania and consisted mainly of woods, towers, and bridges; the fortress of the king and his three ministers was guarded by winged lions and eagle-headed bulls. "By statues of lions and bulls?" No, by flesh and blood lions and bulls.

<  4  >
     Dr. Calvino put on the special face that family doctors will assume, and the house became an obligatory stop for commiserating cousins, however distant. When finally the old lady's delicate little life expired completely, the undertakers showed up with the absurd trappings of death. They set up a funeral chapel in the room where Grandma used to polish her metals, and the coffin handles shone as if she had buffed them herself. The aunts, one of whom was still single, recalled how as a young girl Grandma was always ready and willing to work, while the uncles – notaries and lawyers all – sipped coffee and cognac and weighed the chances of Balb'n-Frondizi versus Perón-Quijano in the upcoming presidential elections.

     I passed the night viewing a procession of faces (with an occasional thought for Mirta) until, deserting the wake, I took refuge in the garden's thick tangle of plants, surrounded by scraggy palms and blue bellflowers that died almost as soon as they were plucked. Remembering her there, with her glasses and her black coat, I cried, though quietly.

     Since Grandma was no longer around to be scandalized, Mario allowed a so-called fiancé to move in with Coca (now separated from the Ricardo in the color photo). He turned out to be a grim sort, with little hair, bad manners, and no words. During the first week, returning from I don't know where, and always at about the same time of day, he would spend the afternoons gazing out the round window at the house opposite ours. Saturday he showed a perversely creative streak. Things were just fine as they were, but with Mario's consent, he embarked on a brutal revolution.

     He planned to start with the yard, no less, cutting down weeds, sowing grass, cultivating flowers. And then the garden would be nothing more than a garden — smooth and clear and clean. No longer would I be able to think and play in secret, mysterious places. No longer could I go where the fattest palm, the wild privet hedge, and the fallen statue covered in moss and lichen (as my eighth-grade botany text would say) formed a private space.

<  5  >
     The statue's base was completely hidden by weeds, but below it — if someone were able to lift the heavy thing — the ground was flat and compacted to form a perfect circle. That's where we first began to communicate. The block of marble had been lost in the garden for some time now. A half-blurred little heart and arrow read ELISA AND MARIO, yet Mario had been a widower for more than twenty years.

     A neighborhood dog delayed the garden takeover. Barking and whining day and night, it was a stupid, unbearable dog, and indeed, the boyfriend couldn't bear it. In a gesture typical of the way he went about solving problems, he tossed some poisoned meat over the dividing wall. The neighbors – who for other reasons were just as boorish – filed a complaint with the police, and he had to spend two days in jail.

     Once free, he turned his attention to redoing the inside of the house. Mario was already very old and quite powerless, one more useless thing that, instead of finding a niche in the junk room, found one in the library. With careful, old-fashioned penmanship, he sat copying — why? what for? — romantic, high-sounding poems in a schoolboy's notebook. But the weeks flew by, and the guy had almost finished remodeling and painting the whole house in ever brighter colors. He would soon be attacking the garden.

     He began to clear it, moving in a circle that centered on the house. Of course, there was a good way to go before he reached the statue, so I still had time to talk and get more details. Meanwhile, he pulled up the first weeds, got rid of the cans and rocks that had accumulated over more than twenty-five years of idleness, killed countless innocent toads, and thus completed the first round of the circle. Fortunately, since each new round covered a larger area, his progress became slower by the day.

     At school I was extremely nervous, imagining that he was closing in on Julio the pine tree (when looked at from the proper angle, the knots read JULIO), and, indeed, he had done so. The ground was completely cleared and smoothed down around it. They had already begun an orderly migration, and even though they should have let me know, they never told me where they would settle next. To make matters worse, he passed up his regular Sunday session with the boys, those pool-hall clowns with cigarettes hanging from their mouths, and stayed in the garden drinking maté with Coca and reading lies in the newspaper, so I could make little progress. The next day I had a zoology test, but my eyes kept gravitating toward the window, making it impossible to concentrate. I wasn't in a mood for amoebas and paramecia; I couldn't think about such stupidities, knowing without a doubt that Monday he would get around to the pedestal.

<  6  >
     I went to say good-bye at two in the morning and became so upset I couldn't sleep a wink. Zoology was the last thing on my mind. I tried cheating, but the teacher caught me and took away my test. At last, sitting there on the school bench in peace and comfort, I was able to recall once more the little men in yellow shorts and red jackets with tall black boots on their feet and blue velvet caps on their heads.

 

First published by Fernando Sorrentino in Imperios y servidumbres, Barcelona, Editorial Seix Barral, 1972.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:24:59 PM

 
 


Alison L. Randall
End of the Line
When Frank and I stepped through the post office doors, there was a crowd gathered, gawking at the new fixture on the wall like a chorus of wide-mouthed frogs. I had to get closer, and that was where being a girl that's scrawnier than a wire fence came in handy. Fortunately, Frank, my twin of eleven years, was just the same.

     "Come on." I said, grabbing his hand, and we slid through the cracks between people until we spilled out in front.

     Finally I got a good look. It was fixed to the plaster next to the postmaster's window, the place of honor usually reserved for the Wanted posters. Beady-eyed Zedekiah Smith, the bank robber, still hung there, but even he had been pushed aside for something more important.

     A telephone. The first one in town.

     "How's it work?" Noah Crawford called out. Noah's the best fix-it man around, and I could tell he was itching to get his fingers on those shiny knobs.

     "Don't rightly know," answered the postmaster, and he tugged at his goatee as if it might tell him. "I do know the sound of your voice moves along wires strung on poles. It's sort of like the telegraph, only you hear words instead of dots and dashes."

     "Ah," the crowd murmured, and I felt my own mouth move along.

     I gazed at that gleaming wood box and something happened inside me. Something — I can only guess — that might be like falling in love. The thought of talking into that box — of making my voice sail through wires in the sky — it took over my brain. I couldn't get it out.

     "Frank," I whispered to my twin. "I have to use that telephone."

     Five minutes later, Frank towed me up Main Street, toward home. "Liza — " he began, but I cut him off. We two thought so much alike, I had Frank's questions answered before he even asked.

<  2  >
     "You're right," I said. "It costs five cents and I don't have it. But look." I pulled him over to the window of Poulson's Variety Store. "You see those?"

     I pointed to a handful of shimmery rocks spread on black velvet. Some were a shiny gray shot through with gold streaks, others yellow as cheese curds. And one, clear and jagged, sat like an icicle, leftover from wintertime.

     Frank's eyebrows screwed up and I could tell he wasn't following.

     "If I found one of those, I bet they'd pay me for it." I explained.

     With a shake of his head, Frank hooked two thumbs under his suspenders. "But Liza — "

     I held up a hand — he couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. "I've got that figured, too. I'll bet we could find some at North Creek — in the mine."

     Frank shrugged, pretending not to care, but I knew better. He wanted to explore that old mine, same as me. Besides, Frank knew he had no choice. Twins stick together, especially scrawny ones, 'cause it takes two of us to make one of most people.

     We spent half the morning on the dusty road to North Creek. Ma packed a lunch but said she couldn't understand walking all that way for rocks. She thought we were off to search the dry creek bed, and I didn't correct her.

     I felt a bit guilty about fooling my ma, but whenever a pang hit, I conjured up the vision of my voice dancing along wires in the sky. It looked a lot like me, my voice did, only wearing a pink tutu and carrying a frilly umbrella.

     We reached the old mine around noon. The hole in the sage-covered hill had been shored up by timbers. They were weathered and splintery, and looked like a picture frame around nothing.

<  3  >
     I stepped inside, my arms turning to goose bumps from the chill. The air smelled of mildew and rotted beams, but also of horse sweat and wood smoke. Strange. That mine had sat empty for years.

     Once my eyes got used to the dim, I gazed around, hoping to see shimmery rocks littering the floor, but dust was all I saw. Frank walked past me to where the walls narrowed, then disappeared around the curve. I followed fast.

     I'd come up right behind Frank when, ting, his boot connected with metal. He stooped, grabbed, and when he stood, his palm held more than we'd hoped.

     A gold coin. Frank's eyes nearly popped.

     "Where did that come from?" I whispered and reached out a finger to touch.

     Just then, voices sounded in the next cavern over: "Zed, hold it higher." Two men stepped through a gap in the far wall.

     They weren't miners. I could tell that from one glance. They were dressed for riding, with leather chaps and spurs. One held saddlebags over a shoulder and had a mustache that hung past his jaw. The other wore a battered hat, his face hid in its shadow. When he raised his lantern, the light shone full on those beady eyes.

     It was Zedekiah Smith, the bank robber.

     I plastered myself to the wall, hoping to disappear into shadow. Frank hunched over, hiding his head in his sleeves. But for once, we weren't scrawny enough.

     "Hey!" The mustached man pointed, then dropped his saddlebags and ran for us.

     I tried to run, too, but met up with Frank's backside. The next thing I knew, Frank and I were on the ground, being hauled to our feet by a sharp-nailed hand.

     "Lookee here, Zed," our captor cried, "a couple of spies."

<  4  >
     "No," I said, brushing myself off. "We're not spies. We were looking for rocks to sell. There's a new telephone in town, and I just wanted to — Ow!"

     The mustache man yanked my hair. "Does she always talk this much?" he asked Frank. Frank — the traitor — nodded.

     "Looking for rocks, eh?" Mustache Man pried open Frank's fingers. The gold coin glowed warm in the lantern light. "Lookee here, Zed. Musta fallen out."

     Zedekiah Smith strode over and picked the coin out of Frank's palm. "You don't want that, boy. That's dirty money."

     "You made it that way," I told him. "You stole it."

     Zedekiah Smith narrowed his eyes, turning them even beadier. "Caleb's right. You do talk a lot."

     Five minutes later, Frank and I were back to back on the ground.

     "That's what you get," Caleb said, as he tied our hands behind us. "Shouldn't go poking your noses in bad places."

     "It wouldn't be bad without you," I said, and Frank twitched.

     "Sure it would," Caleb said. "Old mine's a dangerous place. You could've got caught in a cave-in, or bit by rattlers. Lucky you got us instead. He, he!" He tightened his knots then stood straight. "Someone will find you in a day or so. We'll be long gone by then. Right Zed?"

     "That's right." Zedekiah Smith stood back, watching Caleb do the dirty work, his eyes shaded again.

     "Just let us go," I begged. "We won't tell."

     "Ha!" Caleb shouldered the saddlebags. "I'd like to see you keep your mouth still."

     Zedekiah Smith took up the lantern and without looking back they passed through the opening in the rock wall. I listened until the jingle of their spurs faded.

<  5  >
     We were alone in dark so thick it stopped up my nose. Caleb was right. This was a bad place. I wouldn't last a day. And worse, when Ma found my lifeless body, she'd know I was a liar.

     I was about to sink into despair, but Frank distracted me with more twitching.

     "There," he said. "I'm free."

     I couldn't believe it when the ropes went slack. Jumping to my feet, I rubbed my wrists, trying to figure how Frank had managed to surprise me so. It wasn't that he'd worked his bony wrists out of Caleb's knots. That was plain Frank. The real surprise was that he'd come up with the idea without my help.

     "Phew," I said, relief washing over me at my second chance at life. Ma wouldn't have to find my lifeless body after all. And as for the liar part, well, I'd work on that.

     But first, I had another good deed in mind, the best way to begin my new life. I was about to turn in that outlaw.

     I grabbed Frank's arm and towed him toward the exit. "We need to get to town and report Zedekiah Smith." Then something else occurred to me. "Think of the telephone calls I could make with that reward money."

     'Liza — " Frank started up, but I knew where he was heading.

     "Of course we'll split it."

     We rounded the wall and ran smack into another, one with chaps and a hat. Zedekiah Smith was back. Before we could move, he had us trussed in his arms like two pigs for slaughter.

     "Let go!" I cried, pounding his chest.

     "Shh," he whispered. "Caleb thinks I forgot something."

     I froze. "But . . . "

<  6  >
     "I came back to cut you loose."

     For once, I had a hard time filling my mouth with words.

     "Now, you stay hidden until I get Caleb away," he whispered. "It won't do to have him telling people about my weak stomach."

     "Are you feeling poorly?" Frank asked and Zedekiah Smith laughed.

     "No, but I've got no stomach for hurting people." His arms went limp, releasing us, and he took a step back. "You'd better do your duty and report me. But take this in case that reward money's long in coming." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pale yellow rock studded with honey-colored crystals. "I saw it out in the dry creek bed. Might be worth a telephone call."

     He dropped it into my hand and gave a wink. Then he turned and walked out into the sunlight. Frank and I gawked, like a duet of wide-mouthed frogs.

     We didn't make it to the Sheriff's office until the next morning. I reported Zedekiah Smith, just like I should, but for some reason, it didn't feel like a good deed anymore.

     Our next stop was the Variety Store. Old Mr. Poulson's eyes kindled when he saw the crystal rock. Twenty-five cents went to Frank, who wasted it on candy. I saved mine for something monumental.

     The post office wasn't crowded anymore. Still, there were a few lookers as I walked to the counter and laid down my nickel.

     "I'd like to make a telephone call," I announced.

     "How about that," the postmaster said, stroking his goatee. "You'll be the first. Who would you like to call?"

     "Who?" I echoed. And just like that, my vision dissolved. Pink tutu and frilly umbrella, both drifted off like a dandelion in the wind. My voice couldn't dance along wires — it had no place to go. Nobody I knew had a telephone.

<  7  >
     I turned to Frank and found him grinning.

     "You saw it all along," I accused.

     He shrugged. "I tried to tell you."

     "You did?" I thought back to the day before and realized that maybe he had. I'd been too busy using my own mouth to notice.

     After taking one last, loving look at the telephone, I turned away from the counter. Maybe candy would be a good use for that nickel after all.

     "Frank," I said, pondering those thoughts he kept having without me, "next time you have something to say, speak up. I'll try hard to listen."

     The poster of Zedekiah Smith seemed to nod at me as we passed.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:29:58 PM

Hans Christian Andersen
Thumbelina

There was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish. At last she went to a fairy, and said, "I should so very much like to have a little child; can you tell me where I can find one?"

     "Oh, that can be easily managed," said the fairy. "Here is a barleycorn of a different kind to those which grow in the farmer's fields, and which the chickens eat; put it into a flower-pot, and see what will happen."

     "Thank you," said the woman, and she gave the fairy twelve shillings, which was the price of the barleycorn. Then she went home and planted it, and immediately there grew up a large handsome flower, something like a tulip in appearance, but with its leaves tightly closed as if it were still a bud.

     "It is a beautiful flower," said the woman, and she kissed the red and golden-colored leaves, and while she did so the flower opened, and she could see that it was a real tulip. Within the flower, upon the green velvet stamens, sat a very delicate and graceful little maiden. She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small. A walnut-shell, elegantly polished, served her for a cradle; her bed was formed of blue violet-leaves, with a rose-leaf for a counterpane. Here she slept at night, but during the day she amused herself on a table, where the woman had placed a plateful of water. Round this plate were wreaths of flowers with their stems in the water, and upon it floated a large tulip-leaf, which served Tiny for a boat. Here the little maiden sat and rowed herself from side to side, with two oars made of white horse-hair. It really was a very pretty sight. Tiny could, also, sing so softly and sweetly that nothing like her singing had ever before been heard.

     One night, while she lay in her pretty bed, a large, ugly, wet toad crept through a broken pane of glass in the window, and leaped right upon the table where Tiny lay sleeping under her rose-leaf quilt. "What a pretty little wife this would make for my son," said the toad, and she took up the walnut-shell in which little Tiny lay asleep, and jumped through the window with it into the garden.

<  2  >
     In the swampy margin of a broad stream in the garden lived the toad, with her son. He was uglier even than his mother, and when he saw the pretty little maiden in her elegant bed, he could only cry, "Croak, croak, croak."

     "Don't speak so loud, or she will wake," said the toad, "and then she might run away, for she is as light as swan's down. We will place her on one of the water-lily leaves out in the stream; it will be like an island to her, she is so light and small, and then she cannot escape; and, while she is away, we will make haste and prepare the state-room under the marsh, in which you are to live when you are married."

     Far out in the stream grew a number of water-lilies, with broad green leaves, which seemed to float on the top of the water. The largest of these leaves appeared farther off than the rest, and the old toad swam out to it with the walnut-shell, in which little Tiny lay still asleep.

     The tiny little creature woke very early in the morning, and began to cry bitterly when she found where she was, for she could see nothing but water on every side of the large green leaf, and no way of reaching the land.

     Meanwhile the old toad was very busy under the marsh, decking her room with rushes and wild yellow flowers, to make it look pretty for her new daughter-in-law. Then she swam out with her ugly son to the leaf on which she had placed poor little Tiny. She wanted to fetch the pretty bed, that she might put it in the bridal chamber to be ready for her. The old toad bowed low to her in the water, and said, "Here is my son, he will be your husband, and you will live happily in the marsh by the stream."

     "Croak, croak, croak," was all her son could say for himself; so the toad took up the elegant little bed, and swam away with it, leaving Tiny all alone on the green leaf, where she sat and wept. She could not bear to think of living with the old toad, and having her ugly son for a husband.

<  3  >
     The little fishes, who swam about in the water beneath, had seen the toad, and heard what she said, so they lifted their heads above the water to look at the little maiden. As soon as they caught sight of her, they saw she was very pretty, and it made them very sorry to think that she must go and live with the ugly toads. "No, it must never be!" So they assembled together in the water, round the green stalk which held the leaf on which the little maiden stood, and gnawed it away at the root with their teeth. Then the leaf floated down the stream, carrying Tiny far away out of reach of land.

     Tiny sailed past many towns, and the little birds in the bushes saw her, and sang, "What a lovely little creature;" so the leaf swam away with her farther and farther, till it brought her to other lands.

     A graceful little white butterfly constantly fluttered round her, and at last alighted on the leaf. Tiny pleased him, and she was glad of it, for now the toad could not possibly reach her, and the country through which she sailed was beautiful, and the sun shone upon the water, till it glittered like liquid gold. She took off her girdle and tied one end of it round the butterfly, and the other end of the ribbon she fastened to the leaf, which now glided on much faster than ever, taking little Tiny with it as she stood.

     Presently a large cockchafer flew by; the moment he caught sight of her, he seized her round her delicate waist with his claws, and flew with her into a tree. The green leaf floated away on the brook, and the butterfly flew with it, for he was fastened to it, and could not get away.

     Oh, how frightened little Tiny felt when the cockchafer flew with her to the tree! But especially was she sorry for the beautiful white butterfly which she had fastened to the leaf, for if he could not free himself he would die of hunger. But the cockchafer did not trouble himself at all about the matter. He seated himself by her side on a large green leaf, gave her some honey from the flowers to eat, and told her she was very pretty, though not in the least like a cockchafer.

<  4  >
     After a time, all the cockchafers turned up their feelers, and said, "She has only two legs! how ugly that looks."

     "She has no feelers," said another. "Her waist is quite slim. Pooh! she is like a human being."

     "Oh! she is ugly," said all the lady cockchafers, although Tiny was very pretty. Then the cockchafer who had run away with her, believed all the others when they said she was ugly, and would have nothing more to say to her, and told her she might go where she liked. Then he flew down with her from the tree, and placed her on a daisy, and she wept at the thought that she was so ugly that even the cockchafers would have nothing to say to her. And all the while she was really the loveliest creature that one could imagine, and as tender and delicate as a beautiful rose-leaf.

     During the whole summer poor little Tiny lived quite alone in the wide forest. She wove herself a bed with blades of grass, and hung it up under a broad leaf, to protect herself from the rain. She sucked the honey from the flowers for food, and drank the dew from their leaves every morning. So passed away the summer and the autumn, and then came the winter - the long, cold winter. All the birds who had sung to her so sweetly were flown away, and the trees and the flowers had withered. The large clover leaf under the shelter of which she had lived, was now rolled together and shrivelled up, nothing remained but a yellow withered stalk. She felt dreadfully cold, for her clothes were torn, and she was herself so frail and delicate, that poor little Tiny was nearly frozen to death.

     It began to snow too; and the snow-flakes, as they fell upon her, were like a whole shovelful falling upon one of us, for we are tall, but she was only an inch high. Then she wrapped herself up in a dry leaf, but it cracked in the middle and could not keep her warm, and she shivered with cold.

<  5  >
     Near the wood in which she had been living lay a corn-field, but the corn had been cut a long time; nothing remained but the bare dry stubble standing up out of the frozen ground. It was to her like struggling through a large wood. Oh! how she shivered with the cold.

     She came at last to the door of a field-mouse, who had a little den under the corn-stubble. There dwelt the field-mouse in warmth and comfort, with a whole roomful of corn, a kitchen, and a beautiful dining room. Poor little Tiny stood before the door just like a little beggar-girl, and begged for a small piece of barley-corn, for she had been without a morsel to eat for two days.

     "You poor little creature," said the field-mouse, who was really a good old field-mouse, "come into my warm room and dine with me." She was very pleased with Tiny, so she said, "You are quite welcome to stay with me all the winter, if you like; but you must keep my rooms clean and neat, and tell me stories, for I shall like to hear them very much."

     And Tiny did all the field-mouse asked her, and found herself very comfortable.

     "We shall have a visitor soon," said the field-mouse one day; "my neighbor pays me a visit once a week. He is better off than I am; he has large rooms, and wears a beautiful black velvet coat. If you could only have him for a husband, you would be well provided for indeed. But he is blind, so you must tell him some of your prettiest stories."

     But Tiny did not feel at all interested about this neighbor, for he was a mole. However, he came and paid his visit dressed in his black velvet coat.

     "He is very rich and learned, and his house is twenty times larger than mine," said the field-mouse.

     He was rich and learned, no doubt, but he always spoke slightingly of the sun and the pretty flowers, because he had never seen them. Tiny was obliged to sing to him, "Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home," and many other pretty songs. And the mole fell in love with her because she had such a sweet voice; but he said nothing yet, for he was very cautious.

<  6  >
     A short time before, the mole had dug a long passage under the earth, which led from the dwelling of the field-mouse to his own, and here she had permission to walk with Tiny whenever she liked. But he warned them not to be alarmed at the sight of a dead bird which lay in the passage. It was a perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have been dead long, and was lying just where the mole had made his passage. The mole took a piece of phosphorescent wood in his mouth, and it glittered like fire in the dark; then he went before them to light them through the long, dark passage. When they came to the spot where lay the dead bird, the mole pushed his broad nose through the ceiling, the earth gave way, so that there was a large hole, and the daylight shone into the passage. In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, his beautiful wings pulled close to his sides, his feet and his head drawn up under his feathers; the poor bird had evidently died of the cold. It made little Tiny very sad to see it, she did so love the little birds; all the summer they had sung and twittered for her so beautifully. But the mole pushed it aside with his crooked legs, and said, "He will sing no more now. How miserable it must be to be born a little bird! I am thankful that none of my children will ever be birds, for they can do nothing but cry, 'Tweet, tweet,' and always die of hunger in the winter."

     "Yes, you may well say that, as a clever man!" exclaimed the field-mouse, "What is the use of his twittering, for when winter comes he must either starve or be frozen to death. Still birds are very high bred."

     Tiny said nothing; but when the two others had turned their backs on the bird, she stooped down and stroked aside the soft feathers which covered the head, and kissed the closed eyelids. "Perhaps this was the one who sang to me so sweetly in the summer," she said; "and how much pleasure it gave me, you dear, pretty bird."

<  7  >
     The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone, and then accompanied the lady home. But during the night Tiny could not sleep; so she got out of bed and wove a large, beautiful carpet of hay; then she carried it to the dead bird, and spread it over him; with some down from the flowers which she had found in the field-mouse's room. It was as soft as wool, and she spread some of it on each side of the bird, so that he might lie warmly in the cold earth.

     "Farewell, you pretty little bird," said she, "farewell; thank you for your delightful singing during the summer, when all the trees were green, and the warm sun shone upon us." Then she laid her head on the bird's breast, but she was alarmed immediately, for it seemed as if something inside the bird went "thump, thump." It was the bird's heart; he was not really dead, only benumbed with the cold, and the warmth had restored him to life. In autumn, all the swallows fly away into warm countries, but if one happens to linger, the cold seizes it, it becomes frozen, and falls down as if dead; it remains where it fell, and the cold snow covers it. Tiny trembled very much; she was quite frightened, for the bird was large, a great deal larger than herself, - she was only an inch high. But she took courage, laid the wool more thickly over the poor swallow, and then took a leaf which she had used for her own counterpane, and laid it over the head of the poor bird.

     The next morning she again stole out to see him. He was alive but very weak; he could only open his eyes for a moment to look at Tiny, who stood by holding a piece of decayed wood in her hand, for she had no other lantern.

     "Thank you, pretty little maiden," said the sick swallow; "I have been so nicely warmed, that I shall soon regain my strength, and be able to fly about again in the warm sunshine."

<  8  >
     "Oh," said she, "it is cold out of doors now; it snows and freezes. Stay in your warm bed; I will take care of you."

     Then she brought the swallow some water in a flower-leaf, and after he had drank, he told her that he had wounded one of his wings in a thorn-bush, and could not fly as fast as the others, who were soon far away on their journey to warm countries. Then at last he had fallen to the earth, and could remember no more, nor how he came to be where she had found him.

     The whole winter the swallow remained underground, and Tiny nursed him with care and love. Neither the mole nor the field-mouse knew anything about it, for they did not like swallows. Very soon the spring time came, and the sun warmed the earth. Then the swallow bade farewell to Tiny, and she opened the hole in the ceiling which the mole had made. The sun shone in upon them so beautifully, that the swallow asked her if she would go with him; she could sit on his back, he said, and he would fly away with her into the green woods. But Tiny knew it would make the field-mouse very grieved if she left her in that manner, so she said, "No, I cannot."

     "Farewell, then, farewell, you good, pretty little maiden," said the swallow; and he flew out into the sunshine.

     Tiny looked after him, and the tears rose in her eyes. She was very fond of the poor swallow.

     "Tweet, tweet," sang the bird, as he flew out into the green woods, and Tiny felt very sad. She was not allowed to go out into the warm sunshine. The corn which had been sown in the field over the house of the field-mouse had grown up high into the air, and formed a thick wood to Tiny, who was only an inch in height.

     "You are going to be married, Tiny," said the field-mouse. "My neighbor has asked for you. What good fortune for a poor child like you. Now we will prepare your wedding clothes. They must be both woollen and linen. Nothing must be wanting when you are the mole's wife."

<  9  >
     Tiny had to turn the spindle, and the field-mouse hired four spiders, who were to weave day and night. Every evening the mole visited her, and was continually speaking of the time when the summer would be over. Then he would keep his wedding-day with Tiny; but now the heat of the sun was so great that it burned the earth, and made it quite hard, like a stone. As soon as the summer was over, the wedding should take place. But Tiny was not at all pleased; for she did not like the tiresome mole. Every morning when the sun rose, and every evening when it went down, she would creep out at the door, and as the wind blew aside the ears of corn, so that she could see the blue sky, she thought how beautiful and bright it seemed out there, and wished so much to see her dear swallow again. But he never returned; for by this time he had flown far away into the lovely green forest.

     When autumn arrived, Tiny had her outfit quite ready; and the field-mouse said to her, "In four weeks the wedding must take place."

     Then Tiny wept, and said she would not marry the disagreeable mole.

     "Nonsense," replied the field-mouse. "Now don't be obstinate, or I shall bite you with my white teeth. He is a very handsome mole; the queen herself does not wear more beautiful velvets and furs. His kitchen and cellars are quite full. You ought to be very thankful for such good fortune."

     So the wedding-day was fixed, on which the mole was to fetch Tiny away to live with him, deep under the earth, and never again to see the warm sun, because he did not like it. The poor child was very unhappy at the thought of saying farewell to the beautiful sun, and as the field-mouse had given her permission to stand at the door, she went to look at it once more.

     "Farewell bright sun," she cried, stretching out her arm towards it; and then she walked a short distance from the house; for the corn had been cut, and only the dry stubble remained in the fields. "Farewell, farewell," she repeated, twining her arm round a little red flower that grew just by her side. "Greet the little swallow from me, if you should see him again."

<  10  >
     "Tweet, tweet," sounded over her head suddenly. She looked up, and there was the swallow himself flying close by. As soon as he spied Tiny, he was delighted; and then she told him how unwilling she felt to marry the ugly mole, and to live always beneath the earth, and never to see the bright sun any more. And as she told him she wept.

     "Cold winter is coming," said the swallow, "and I am going to fly away into warmer countries. Will you go with me? You can sit on my back, and fasten yourself on with your sash. Then we can fly away from the ugly mole and his gloomy rooms, - far away, over the mountains, into warmer countries, where the sun shines more brightly than here; where it is always summer, and the flowers bloom in greater beauty. Fly now with me, dear little Tiny; you saved my life when I lay frozen in that dark passage."

     "Yes, I will go with you," said Tiny; and she seated herself on the bird's back, with her feet on his outstretched wings, and tied her girdle to one of his strongest feathers.

     Then the swallow rose in the air, and flew over forest and over sea, high above the highest mountains, covered with eternal snow. Tiny would have been frozen in the cold air, but she crept under the bird's warm feathers, keeping her little head uncovered, so that she might admire the beautiful lands over which they passed.

     At length they reached the warm countries, where the sun shines brightly, and the sky seems so much higher above the earth. Here, on the hedges, and by the wayside, grew purple, green, and white grapes; lemons and oranges hung from trees in the woods; and the air was fragrant with myrtles and orange blossoms. Beautiful children ran along the country lanes, playing with large gay butterflies; and as the swallow flew farther and farther, every place appeared still more lovely.

     At last they came to a blue lake, and by the side of it, shaded by trees of the deepest green, stood a palace of dazzling white marble, built in the olden times. Vines clustered round its lofty pillars, and at the top were many swallows' nests, and one of these was the home of the swallow who carried Tiny.

<  11  >
     "This is my house," said the swallow; "but it would not do for you to live there - you would not be comfortable. You must choose for yourself one of those lovely flowers, and I will put you down upon it, and then you shall have everything that you can wish to make you happy."

     "That will be delightful," she said, and clapped her little hands for joy.

     A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been broken into three pieces. Between these pieces grew the most beautiful large white flowers; so the swallow flew down with Tiny, and placed her on one of the broad leaves. But how surprised she was to see in the middle of the flower, a tiny little man, as white and transparent as if he had been made of crystal! He had a gold crown on his head, and delicate wings at his shoulders, and was not much larger than Tiny herself. He was the angel of the flower; for a tiny man and a tiny woman dwell in every flower; and this was the king of them all.

     "Oh, how beautiful he is!" whispered Tiny to the swallow.

     The little prince was at first quite frightened at the bird, who was like a giant, compared to such a delicate little creature as himself; but when he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers.

     This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower. Then there was much rejoicing, and the little swallow who sat above them, in his nest, was asked to sing a wedding song, which he did as well as he could; but in his heart he felt sad for he was very fond of Tiny, and would have liked never to part from her again.

<  12  >
     "You must not be called Tiny any more," said the spirit of the flowers to her. "It is an ugly name, and you are so very pretty. We will call you Maia."

     "Farewell, farewell," said the swallow, with a heavy heart as he left the warm countries to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang, "Tweet, tweet," and from his song came the whole story.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:31:36 PM

Mo McAuley
Mr Sticky

No one knew how Mr. Sticky got in the fish tank.

     "He's very small," Mum said as she peered at the tiny water snail. "Just a black dot."

     "He'll grow," said Abby and pulled her pyjama bottoms up again before she got into bed. They were always falling down.

 

In the morning Abby jumped out of bed and switched on the light in her fish tank.

     Gerry, the fat orange goldfish, was dozing inside the stone archway. Jaws was already awake, swimming along the front of the tank with his white tail floating and twitching. It took Abby a while to find Mr. Sticky because he was clinging to the glass near the bottom, right next to the gravel.

     At school that day she wrote about the mysterious Mr. Sticky who was so small you could mistake him for a piece of gravel. Some of the girls in her class said he seemed an ideal pet for her and kept giggling about it.

     That night Abby turned on the light to find Mr. Sticky clinging to the very tiniest, waviest tip of the pond weed. It was near the water filter so he was bobbing about in the air bubbles.

     "That looks fun," Abby said. She tried to imagine what it must be like to have to hang on to things all day and decided it was probably very tiring. She fed the fish then lay on her bed and watched them chase each other round and round the archway. When they stopped Gerry began nibbling at the pond weed with his big pouty lips. He sucked Mr. Sticky into his mouth then blew him back out again in a stream of water. The snail floated down to the bottom of the tank among the coloured gravel.

 

"I think he's grown a bit," Abby told her Mum at breakfast the next day.

<  2  >
     "Just as well if he's going to be gobbled up like that," her Mum said, trying to put on her coat and eat toast at the same time.

     "But I don't want him to get too big or he won't be cute anymore. Small things are cute aren't they?"

     "Yes they are. But big things can be cute too. Now hurry up, I'm going to miss my train."

 

At school that day, Abby drew an elephant. She needed two pieces of expensive paper to do both ends but the teacher didn't mind because she was pleased with the drawing and wanted it on the wall. They sellotaped them together, right across the elephant's middle. In the corner of the picture, Abby wrote her full name, Abigail, and drew tiny snails for the dots on the 'i's The teacher said that was very creative.

     At the weekend they cleaned out the tank. "There's a lot of algae on the sides," Mum said. "I'm not sure Mr. Sticky's quite up to the job yet."

     They scooped the fish out and put them in a bowl while they emptied some of the water. Mr. Sticky stayed out of the way, clinging to the glass while Mum used the special 'vacuum cleaner' to clean the gravel. Abby trimmed the new pieces of pond weed down to size and scrubbed the archway and the filter tube. Mum poured new water into the tank.

     "Where's Mr. Sticky?" Abby asked.

     "On the side," Mum said. She was busy concentrating on the water. "Don't worry I was careful."

     Abby looked on all sides of the tank. There was no sign of the water snail.

     "He's probably in the gravel then," her mum said. "Come on let's get this finished. I've got work to do." She plopped the fish back in the clean water where they swam round and round, looking puzzled.

<  3  >
That evening Abby went up to her bedroom to check the tank. The water had settled and looked lovely and clear but there was no sign of Mr. Sticky. She lay on her bed and did some exercises, stretching out her legs and feet and pointing her toes. Stretching was good for your muscles and made you look tall a model had said on the t.v. and she looked enormous. When Abby had finished, she kneeled down to have another look in the tank but there was still no sign of Mr. Sticky. She went downstairs.

 

Her mum was in the study surrounded by papers. She had her glasses on and her hair was all over the place where she'd been running her hands through it. She looked impatient when she saw Abby in the doorway and even more impatient when she heard the bad news.

     "He'll turn up." was all she said. "Now off to bed Abby. I've got masses of work to catch up on."

     Abby felt her face go hot and red. It always happened when she was angry or upset.

     "You've hoovered him up haven't you," she said. You were in such a rush you hoovered him up."

     "I have not. I was very careful. But he is extremely small."

     "What's wrong with being small?"

     "Nothing at all. But it makes things hard to find."

     "Or notice," Abby said and ran from the room.

 

The door to the bedroom opened and Mum's face appeared around the crack. Abby tried to ignore her but it was hard when she walked over to the bed and sat next to her. She was holding her glasses in her hand. She waved them at Abby.

     "These are my new pair," she said. "Extra powerful, for snail hunting." She smiled at Abby. Abby tried not to smile back.

<  4  >
     "And I've got a magnifying glass," Abby suddenly remembered and rushed off to find it.

     They sat beside each other on the floor. On their knees they shuffled around the tank, peering into the corners among the big pebbles, at the gravel and the pondweed.

     "Ah ha!" Mum suddenly cried.

     "What?" Abby moved her magnifying glass to where her mum was pointing.

     There, tucked in the curve of the archway, perfectly hidden against the dark stone, sat Mr. Sticky. And right next to him was another water snail, even smaller than him.

     "Mrs Sticky!" Abby breathed. "But where did she come from?"

     "I'm beginning to suspect the pond weed don't you think?"

     They both laughed and climbed into Abby's bed together, cuddling down under the duvet. It was cozy but a bit of a squeeze.

     "Budge up," Mum said, giving Abby a push with her bottom.

     "I can't, I'm already on the edge."

     "My goodness you've grown then. When did that happen? You could have put an elephant in here last time we did this."

     Abby put her head on her mum's chest and smiled.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:33:17 PM

Mike Krath
High and Lifted Up
It was a windy day.

     The mailman barely made it to the front door. When the door opened, Mrs. Pennington said, "hello", but, before she had a real chance to say "thank you", the mail blew out of the mailman's hands, into the house and the front door slammed in his face. Mrs. Pennington ran to pick up the mail.

     "Oh my," she said.

     Tommy was watching the shutters open and then shut, open and then shut.

     "Mom," he said, "may I go outside?"

     "Be careful," she said. "It's so windy today."

     Tommy crawled down from the window-seat and ran to the door. He opened it with a bang. The wind blew fiercely and snatched the newly recovered mail from Mrs. Pennington's hands and blew it even further into the house.

     "Oh my," she said again. Tommy ran outside and the door slammed shut.

     Outside, yellow, gold, and red leaves were leaping from swaying trees, landing on the roof, jumping off the roof, and then chasing one another down the street in tiny whirlwinds of merriment.

     Tommy watched in fascination.

     "If I was a leaf, I would fly clear across the world," Tommy thought and then ran out into the yard among the swirl of colors.

     Mrs. Pennington came to the front porch.

     "Tommy, I have your jacket. Please put it on."

     However, there was no Tommy in the front yard.

     "Tommy?"

     Tommy was a leaf. He was blowing down the street with the rest of his play-mates.

     A maple leaf came close-by, touched him and moved ahead. Tommy met him shortly, brushed against him, and moved further ahead. They swirled around and around, hit cars and poles, flew up into the air and then down again.

<  2  >
     "This is fun," Tommy thought.

     The maple leaf blew in front of him. It was bright red with well-defined veins. The sun-light shone through it giving it a brilliance never before seen by a little boy's eyes.

     "Where do you think we are going?" Tommy asked the leaf.

     "Does it matter?" the leaf replied. "Have fun. Life is short."

     "I beg to differ," an older leaf said suddenly coming beside them. "The journey may be short, but the end is the beginning."

     Tommy pondered this the best a leaf could ponder.

     "Where do we end up?"

     "If the wind blows you in that direction," the old leaf said, "you will end up in the city dump."

     "I don't want that," Tommy said.

     "If you are blown in that direction, you will fly high into the air and see things that no leaf has seen before."

     "Follow me to the city dump," the maple leaf said. "Most of my friends are there."

     The wind blew Tommy and the maple leaf along. Tommy thought of his choices. He wanted to continue to play.

     "Okay," Tommy said, "I will go with you to the dump."

     The winds shifted and Tommy and the leaf were blown in the direction of the city dump.

     The old leaf didn't follow. He was blown further down the block and suddenly lifted up high into the air.

     "Hey," he called out, "the sights up here. They are spectacular. Come and see."

<  3  >
     Tommy and the maple leaf ignored him.

     "I see something. I see the dump." The old leaf cried out. "I see smoke. Come up here. I see fire."

     "I see nothing," the maple leaf said.

     Tommy saw the fence that surrounded the city dump. He was happy to be with his friend. They would have fun in the dump.

     Suddenly, a car pulled up. It was Tommy's mom. Mrs. Pennington wasn't about to let her little boy run into the city dump.

     "Not so fast," she said getting out of the car. "You are not allowed to play in there. Don't you see the smoke?"

     Tommy watched the maple leaf blow against the wall and struggle to get over. He ran over to get it but was unable to reach it.

     Mrs. Pennington walked over and took the leaf. She put it in her pocket.

     "There," she said, "it will be safe until we get home."

     Tommy smiled, ran to the car and got in. He rolled down the back window and looked up into the sky. He wondered where the old leaf had gone. Perhaps one day he would see what the old leaf had seen - perhaps.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:35:42 PM

Brothers Grimm
Rapunzel

There were once a man and a woman who had long, in vain, wished for a child. At length it appeared that God was about to grant their desire.

     These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world.

     One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion, and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it. She quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable.

     Her husband was alarmed, and asked: 'What ails you, dear wife?'

     'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die.'

     The man, who loved her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.'

     At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before.

     If he was to have any rest, her husband knew he must once more descend into the garden. Therefore, in the gloom of evening, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him.

     'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!'

<  2  >
     'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.'

     The enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.'

     The man in his terror consented to everything.

     When the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her.

     Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower in the middle of a forest. The tower had neither stairs nor door, but near the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:

  

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
 

     Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress, she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.

     After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it.

<  3  >
     Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried:

 

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
 

     Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her.

     'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried:

 

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
 

     Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up.

     At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king's son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does'; and she said yes, and laid her hand in his.

     She said: 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.'

     They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her: 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's son - he is with me in a moment.'

<  4  >
     'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!'

     In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.

     On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the king's son came and cried:

 

'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
 

     she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks.

     'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.'

     The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.

     He wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on May 30, 2011, 07:39:06 PM

Brothers Grimm
Little Red Riding Hood
Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little riding hood of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called 'Little Red Riding Hood.'

     One day her mother said to her: 'Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing; and when you go into her room, don't forget to say, "Good morning", and don't peep into every corner before you do it.'

     'I will take great care,' said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, and gave her hand on it.

     The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, and just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him.

     'Good day, Little Red Riding Hood,' said he.

     'Thank you kindly, wolf.'

     'Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?'

     'To my grandmother's.'

     'What have you got in your apron?'

     'Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger.'

     'Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?'

     'A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,' replied Little Red Riding Hood.

<  2  >
     The wolf thought to himself: 'What a tender young creature! what a nice plump mouthful - she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.'

     So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said: 'See, Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here - why do you not look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.'

     Little Red Riding Hood raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought: 'Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time.'

     So she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.

     Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door.

     'Who is there?'

     'Little Red Riding Hood,' replied the wolf. 'She is bringing cake and wine; open the door.'

     'Lift the latch,' called out the grandmother, 'I am too weak, and cannot get up.'

     The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed and drew the curtains.

     Little Red Riding Hood, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her.

<  3  >
     She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself: 'Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like being with grandmother so much.' She called out: 'Good morning,' but received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange.

     'Oh! grandmother,' she said, 'what big ears you have!'

     'All the better to hear you with, my child,' was the reply.

     'But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!' she said.

     'All the better to see you with, my dear.'

     'But, grandmother, what large hands you have!'

     'All the better to hug you with.'

     'Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!'

     'All the better to eat you with!'

     And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Red Riding Hood.

     When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud.

     The huntsman was just passing the house, and thought to himself: 'How the old woman is snoring! I must just see if she wants anything.' So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it.

     'Do I find you here, you old sinner!' said he. 'I have long sought you!' But just as he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf.

<  4  >
     When he had made two snips, he saw the little red riding hood shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl sprang out, crying: 'Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was inside the wolf.'

     After that the aged grandmother came out alive also, but scarcely able to breathe. Red Riding Hood, however, quickly fetched great stones with which they filled the wolf's belly, and when he awoke, he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at once, and fell dead.

     Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf's skin and went home with it; the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which Red Riding Hood had brought, and revived. But Red Riding Hood thought to herself: 'As long as I live, I will never leave the path by myself to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.'

 

It is also related that once, when Red Riding Hood was again taking cakes to the old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the path. Red Riding Hood, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he had said 'good morning' to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would have eaten her up.

     'Well,' said the grandmother, 'we will shut the door, so that he can not come in.'

     Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried: 'Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red Riding Hood, and am bringing you some cakes.'

     But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until Red Riding Hood went home in the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother saw what was in his thoughts.

<  5  >
     In front of the house was a great stone trough, so she said to the child: 'Take the pail, Red Riding Hood; I made some sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the trough.'

     Red Riding Hood carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight into the great trough, and was drowned. But Red Riding Hood went joyously home, and no one ever did anything to harm her again.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 01:49:01 PM

       
Hans Christian Andersen
The Emperor's New Suit

Many, many years ago lived an emperor, who thought so much of new clothes that he spent all his money in order to obtain them; his only ambition was to be always well dressed. He did not care for his soldiers, and the theatre did not amuse him; the only thing, in fact, he thought anything of was to drive out and show a new suit of clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day; and as one would say of a king "He is in his cabinet," so one could say of him, "The emperor is in his dressing-room."

     The great city where he resided was very gay; every day many strangers from all parts of the globe arrived. One day two swindlers came to this city; they made people believe that they were weavers, and declared they could manufacture the finest cloth to be imagined. Their colours and patterns, they said, were not only exceptionally beautiful, but the clothes made of their material possessed the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.

     "That must be wonderful cloth," thought the emperor. "If I were to be dressed in a suit made of this cloth I should be able to find out which men in my empire were unfit for their places, and I could distinguish the clever from the stupid. I must have this cloth woven for me without delay." And he gave a large sum of money to the swindlers, in advance, that they should set to work without any loss of time. They set up two looms, and pretended to be very hard at work, but they did nothing whatever on the looms. They asked for the finest silk and the most precious gold-cloth; all they got they did away with, and worked at the empty looms till late at night.

     "I should very much like to know how they are getting on with the cloth," thought the emperor. But he felt rather uneasy when he remembered that he who was not fit for his office could not see it. Personally, he was of opinion that he had nothing to fear, yet he thought it advisable to send somebody else first to see how matters stood. Everybody in the town knew what a remarkable quality the stuff possessed, and all were anxious to see how bad or stupid their neighbours were.

<  2  >
     "I shall send my honest old minister to the weavers," thought the emperor. "He can judge best how the stuff looks, for he is intelligent, and nobody understands his office better than he."

     The good old minister went into the room where the swindlers sat before the empty looms. "Heaven preserve us!" he thought, and opened his eyes wide, "I cannot see anything at all," but he did not say so. Both swindlers requested him to come near, and asked him if he did not admire the exquisite pattern and the beautiful colours, pointing to the empty looms. The poor old minister tried his very best, but he could see nothing, for there was nothing to be seen. "Oh dear," he thought, "can I be so stupid? I should never have thought so, and nobody must know it! Is it possible that I am not fit for my office? No, no, I cannot say that I was unable to see the cloth."

     "Now, have you got nothing to say?" said one of the swindlers, while he pretended to be busily weaving.

     "Oh, it is very pretty, exceedingly beautiful," replied the old minister looking through his glasses. "What a beautiful pattern, what brilliant colours! I shall tell the emperor that I like the cloth very much."

     "We are pleased to hear that," said the two weavers, and described to him the colours and explained the curious pattern. The old minister listened attentively, that he might relate to the emperor what they said; and so he did.

     Now the swindlers asked for more money, silk and gold-cloth, which they required for weaving. They kept everything for themselves, and not a thread came near the loom, but they continued, as hitherto, to work at the empty looms.

     Soon afterwards the emperor sent another honest courtier to the weavers to see how they were getting on, and if the cloth was nearly finished. Like the old minister, he looked and looked but could see nothing, as there was nothing to be seen.

<  3  >
     "Is it not a beautiful piece of cloth?" asked the two swindlers, showing and explaining the magnificent pattern, which, however, did not exist.

     "I am not stupid," said the man. "It is therefore my good appointment for which I am not fit. It is very strange, but I must not let any one know it;" and he praised the cloth, which he did not see, and expressed his joy at the beautiful colours and the fine pattern. "It is very excellent," he said to the emperor.

     Everybody in the whole town talked about the precious cloth. At last the emperor wished to see it himself, while it was still on the loom. With a number of courtiers, including the two who had already been there, he went to the two clever swindlers, who now worked as hard as they could, but without using any thread.

     "Is it not magnificent?" said the two old statesmen who had been there before. "Your Majesty must admire the colours and the pattern." And then they pointed to the empty looms, for they imagined the others could see the cloth.

     "What is this?" thought the emperor, "I do not see anything at all. That is terrible! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be emperor? That would indeed be the most dreadful thing that could happen to me."

     "Really," he said, turning to the weavers, "your cloth has our most gracious approval;" and nodding contentedly he looked at the empty loom, for he did not like to say that he saw nothing. All his attendants, who were with him, looked and looked, and although they could not see anything more than the others, they said, like the emperor, "It is very beautiful." And all advised him to wear the new magnificent clothes at a great procession which was soon to take place. "It is magnificent, beautiful, excellent," one heard them say; everybody seemed to be delighted, and the emperor appointed the two swindlers "Imperial Court weavers."

     The whole night previous to the day on which the procession was to take place, the swindlers pretended to work, and burned more than sixteen candles. People should see that they were busy to finish the emperor's new suit. They pretended to take the cloth from the loom, and worked about in the air with big scissors, and sewed with needles without thread, and said at last: "The emperor's new suit is ready now."

<  4  >
     The emperor and all his barons then came to the hall; the swindlers held their arms up as if they held something in their hands and said: "These are the trousers!" "This is the coat!" and "Here is the cloak!" and so on. "They are all as light as a cobweb, and one must feel as if one had nothing at all upon the body; but that is just the beauty of them."

     "Indeed!" said all the courtiers; but they could not see anything, for there was nothing to be seen.

     "Does it please your Majesty now to graciously undress," said the swindlers, "that we may assist your Majesty in putting on the new suit before the large looking-glass?"

     The emperor undressed, and the swindlers pretended to put the new suit upon him, one piece after another; and the emperor looked at himself in the glass from every side.

     "How well they look! How well they fit!" said all. "What a beautiful pattern! What fine colours! That is a magnificent suit of clothes!"

     The master of the ceremonies announced that the bearers of the canopy, which was to be carried in the procession, were ready.

     "I am ready," said the emperor. "Does not my suit fit me marvellously?" Then he turned once more to the looking-glass, that people should think he admired his garments.

     The chamberlains, who were to carry the train, stretched their hands to the ground as if they lifted up a train, and pretended to hold something in their hands; they did not like people to know that they could not see anything.

     The emperor marched in the procession under the beautiful canopy, and all who saw him in the street and out of the windows exclaimed: "Indeed, the emperor's new suit is incomparable! What a long train he has! How well it fits him!" Nobody wished to let others know he saw nothing, for then he would have been unfit for his office or too stupid. Never emperor's clothes were more admired.

<  5  >
     "But he has nothing on at all," said a little child at last. "Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child," said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. "But he has nothing on at all," cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, "Now I must bear up to the end." And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 01:51:55 PM

The following story is my favorit. Hope you'll also like this story:

Hans Christian Andersen
The Ugly Duckling
It was lovely summer weather in the country, and the golden corn, the green oats, and the haystacks piled up in the meadows looked beautiful. The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered in the Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst of which were deep pools. It was, indeed, delightful to walk about in the country. In a sunny spot stood a pleasant old farm-house close by a deep river, and from the house down to the water side grew great burdock leaves, so high, that under the tallest of them a little child could stand upright. The spot was as wild as the centre of a thick wood. In this snug retreat sat a duck on her nest, watching for her young brood to hatch; she was beginning to get tired of her task, for the little ones were a long time coming out of their shells, and she seldom had any visitors. The other ducks liked much better to swim about in the river than to climb the slippery banks, and sit under a burdock leaf, to have a gossip with her.

     At length one shell cracked, and then another, and from each egg came a living creature that lifted its head and cried, "Peep, peep."

     "Quack, quack," said the mother, and then they all quacked as well as they could, and looked about them on every side at the large green leaves. Their mother allowed them to look as much as they liked, because green is good for the eyes.

     "How large the world is," said the young ducks, when they found how much more room they now had than while they were inside the egg-shell.

     "Do you imagine this is the whole world?" asked the mother; "Wait till you have seen the garden; it stretches far beyond that to the parson's field, but I have never ventured to such a distance. Are you all out?" she continued, rising; "No, I declare, the largest egg lies there still. I wonder how long this is to last, I am quite tired of it;" and she seated herself again on the nest.

<  2  >
     "Well, how are you getting on?" asked an old duck, who paid her a visit.

     "One egg is not hatched yet," said the duck, "it will not break. But just look at all the others, are they not the prettiest little ducklings you ever saw? They are the image of their father, who is so unkind, he never comes to see."

     "Let me see the egg that will not break," said the duck; "I have no doubt it is a turkey's egg. I was persuaded to hatch some once, and after all my care and trouble with the young ones, they were afraid of the water. I quacked and clucked, but all to no purpose. I could not get them to venture in. Let me look at the egg. Yes, that is a turkey's egg; take my advice, leave it where it is and teach the other children to swim."

     "I think I will sit on it a little while longer," said the duck; "as I have sat so long already, a few days will be nothing."

     "Please yourself," said the old duck, and she went away.

     At last the large egg broke, and a young one crept forth crying, "Peep, peep." It was very large and ugly. The duck stared at it and exclaimed, "It is very large and not at all like the others. I wonder if it really is a turkey. We shall soon find it out, however when we go to the water. It must go in, if I have to push it myself."

     On the next day the weather was delightful, and the sun shone brightly on the green burdock leaves, so the mother duck took her young brood down to the water, and jumped in with a splash. "Quack, quack," cried she, and one after another the little ducklings jumped in. The water closed over their heads, but they came up again in an instant, and swam about quite prettily with their legs paddling under them as easily as possible, and the ugly duckling was also in the water swimming with them.

<  3  >
     "Oh," said the mother, "that is not a turkey; how well he uses his legs, and how upright he holds himself! He is my own child, and he is not so very ugly after all if you look at him properly. Quack, quack! come with me now, I will take you into grand society, and introduce you to the farmyard, but you must keep close to me or you may be trodden upon; and, above all, beware of the cat."

     When they reached the farmyard, there was a great disturbance, two families were fighting for an eel's head, which, after all, was carried off by the cat. "See, children, that is the way of the world," said the mother duck, whetting her beak, for she would have liked the eel's head herself. "Come, now, use your legs, and let me see how well you can behave. You must bow your heads prettily to that old duck yonder; she is the highest born of them all, and has Spanish blood, therefore, she is well off. Don't you see she has a red flag tied to her leg, which is something very grand, and a great honor for a duck; it shows that every one is anxious not to lose her, as she can be recognized both by man and beast. Come, now, don't turn your toes, a well-bred duckling spreads his feet wide apart, just like his father and mother, in this way; now bend your neck, and say "quack."

     The ducklings did as they were bid, but the other duck stared, and said, "Look, here comes another brood, as if there were not enough of us already! and what a queer looking object one of them is; we don't want him here," and then one flew out and bit him in the neck.

     "Let him alone," said the mother; "he is not doing any harm."

     "Yes, but he is so big and ugly," said the spiteful duck "and therefore he must be turned out."

     "The others are very pretty children," said the old duck, with the rag on her leg, "all but that one; I wish his mother could improve him a little."

<  4  >
     "That is impossible, your grace," replied the mother; "he is not pretty; but he has a very good disposition, and swims as well or even better than the others. I think he will grow up pretty, and perhaps be smaller; he has remained too long in the egg, and therefore his figure is not properly formed;" and then she stroked his neck and smoothed the feathers, saying, "It is a drake, and therefore not of so much consequence. I think he will grow up strong, and able to take care of himself."

     "The other ducklings are graceful enough," said the old duck. "Now make yourself at home, and if you can find an eel's head, you can bring it to me."

     And so they made themselves comfortable; but the poor duckling, who had crept out of his shell last of all, and looked so ugly, was bitten and pushed and made fun of, not only by the ducks, but by all the poultry. "He is too big," they all said, and the turkey cock, who had been born into the world with spurs, and fancied himself really an emperor, puffed himself out like a vessel in full sail, and flew at the duckling, and became quite red in the head with passion, so that the poor little thing did not know where to go, and was quite miserable because he was so ugly and laughed at by the whole farmyard. So it went on from day to day till it got worse and worse. The poor duckling was driven about by every one; even his brothers and sisters were unkind to him, and would say, "Ah, you ugly creature, I wish the cat would get you," and his mother said she wished he had never been born. The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed the poultry kicked him with her feet. So at last he ran away, frightening the little birds in the hedge as he flew over the palings.

     "They are afraid of me because I am ugly," he said. So he closed his eyes, and flew still farther, until he came out on a large moor, inhabited by wild ducks. Here he remained the whole night, feeling very tired and sorrowful.

<  5  >
     In the morning, when the wild ducks rose in the air, they stared at their new comrade. "What sort of a duck are you?" they all said, coming round him.

     He bowed to them, and was as polite as he could be, but he did not reply to their question. "You are exceedingly ugly," said the wild ducks, "but that will not matter if you do not want to marry one of our family."

     Poor thing! he had no thoughts of marriage; all he wanted was permission to lie among the rushes, and drink some of the water on the moor. After he had been on the moor two days, there came two wild geese, or rather goslings, for they had not been out of the egg long, and were very saucy.

     "Listen, friend," said one of them to the duckling, "you are so ugly, that we like you very well. Will you go with us, and become a bird of passage? Not far from here is another moor, in which there are some pretty wild geese, all unmarried. It is a chance for you to get a wife; you may be lucky, ugly as you are."

     "Pop, pop," sounded in the air, and the two wild geese fell dead among the rushes, and the water was tinged with blood. "Pop, pop," echoed far and wide in the distance, and whole flocks of wild geese rose up from the rushes. The sound continued from every direction, for the sportsmen surrounded the moor, and some were even seated on branches of trees, overlooking the rushes. The blue smoke from the guns rose like clouds over the dark trees, and as it floated away across the water, a number of sporting dogs bounded in among the rushes, which bent beneath them wherever they went. How they terrified the poor duckling! He turned away his head to hide it under his wing, and at the same moment a large terrible dog passed quite near him. His jaws were open, his tongue hung from his mouth, and his eyes glared fearfully. He thrust his nose close to the duckling, showing his sharp teeth, and then, "splash, splash," he went into the water without touching him, "Oh," sighed the duckling, "how thankful I am for being so ugly; even a dog will not bite me." And so he lay quite still, while the shot rattled through the rushes, and gun after gun was fired over him. It was late in the day before all became quiet, but even then the poor young thing did not dare to move. He waited quietly for several hours, and then, after looking carefully around him, hastened away from the moor as fast as he could. He ran over field and meadow till a storm arose, and he could hardly struggle against it.

<  6  >
     Towards evening, he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to fall, and only remained standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first. The storm continued so violent, that the duckling could go no farther; he sat down by the cottage, and then he noticed that the door was not quite closed in consequence of one of the hinges having given way. There was therefore a narrow opening near the bottom large enough for him to slip through, which he did very quietly, and got a shelter for the night. A woman, a tom cat, and a hen lived in this cottage. The tom cat, whom the mistress called, "My little son," was a great favorite; he could raise his back, and purr, and could even throw out sparks from his fur if it were stroked the wrong way. The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie short legs." She laid good eggs, and her mistress loved her as if she had been her own child. In the morning, the strange visitor was discovered, and the tom cat began to purr, and the hen to cluck.

     "What is that noise about?" said the old woman, looking round the room, but her sight was not very good; therefore, when she saw the duckling she thought it must be a fat duck, that had strayed from home. "Oh what a prize!" she exclaimed, "I hope it is not a drake, for then I shall have some duck's eggs. I must wait and see."

     So the duckling was allowed to remain on trial for three weeks, but there were no eggs. Now the tom cat was the master of the house, and the hen was mistress, and they always said, "We and the world," for they believed themselves to be half the world, and the better half too. The duckling thought that others might hold a different opinion on the subject, but the hen would not listen to such doubts.

     "Can you lay eggs?" she asked.

     "No."

     "Then have the goodness to hold your tongue."

<  7  >
     "Can you raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks?" said the tom cat.

     "No."

     "Then you have no right to express an opinion when sensible people are speaking."

     So the duckling sat in a corner, feeling very low spirited, till the sunshine and the fresh air came into the room through the open door, and then he began to feel such a great longing for a swim on the water, that he could not help telling the hen.

     "What an absurd idea," said the hen. "You have nothing else to do, therefore you have foolish fancies. If you could purr or lay eggs, they would pass away."

     "But it is so delightful to swim about on the water," said the duckling, "and so refreshing to feel it close over your head, while you dive down to the bottom."

     "Delightful, indeed!" said the hen, "why you must be crazy! Ask the cat, he is the cleverest animal I know, ask him how he would like to swim about on the water, or to dive under it, for I will not speak of my own opinion; ask our mistress, the old woman; there is no one in the world more clever than she is. Do you think she would like to swim, or to let the water close over her head?"

     "You don't understand me," said the duckling.

     "We don't understand you? Who can understand you, I wonder? Do you consider yourself more clever than the cat, or the old woman? I will say nothing of myself. Don't imagine such nonsense, child, and thank your good fortune that you have been received here. Are you not in a warm room, and in society from which you may learn something. But you are a chatterer, and your company is not very agreeable. Believe me, I speak only for your own good. I may tell you unpleasant truths, but that is a proof of my friendship. I advise you, therefore, to lay eggs, and learn to purr as quickly as possible."

<  8  >
     "I believe I must go out into the world again," said the duckling.

     "Yes, do," said the hen. So the duckling left the cottage, and soon found water on which it could swim and dive, but was avoided by all other animals, because of its ugly appearance.

     Autumn came, and the leaves in the forest turned to orange and gold. Then, as winter approached, the wind caught them as they fell and whirled them in the cold air. The clouds, heavy with hail and snow-flakes, hung low in the sky, and the raven stood on the ferns crying, "Croak, croak." It made one shiver with cold to look at him. All this was very sad for the poor little duckling.

     One evening, just as the sun set amid radiant clouds, there came a large flock of beautiful birds out of the bushes. The duckling had never seen any like them before. They were swans, and they curved their graceful necks, while their soft plumage shown with dazzling whiteness. They uttered a singular cry, as they spread their glorious wings and flew away from those cold regions to warmer countries across the sea. As they mounted higher and higher in the air, the ugly little duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them. He whirled himself in the water like a wheel, stretched out his neck towards them, and uttered a cry so strange that it frightened himself. Could he ever forget those beautiful, happy birds; and when at last they were out of his sight, he dived under the water, and rose again almost beside himself with excitement. He knew not the names of these birds, nor where they had flown, but he felt towards them as he had never felt for any other bird in the world. He was not envious of these beautiful creatures, but wished to be as lovely as they. Poor ugly creature, how gladly he would have lived even with the ducks had they only given him encouragement.

     The winter grew colder and colder; he was obliged to swim about on the water to keep it from freezing, but every night the space on which he swam became smaller and smaller. At length it froze so hard that the ice in the water crackled as he moved, and the duckling had to paddle with his legs as well as he could, to keep the space from closing up. He became exhausted at last, and lay still and helpless, frozen fast in the ice.

<  9  >
     Early in the morning, a peasant, who was passing by, saw what had happened. He broke the ice in pieces with his wooden shoe, and carried the duckling home to his wife. The warmth revived the poor little creature; but when the children wanted to play with him, the duckling thought they would do him some harm; so he started up in terror, fluttered into the milk-pan, and splashed the milk about the room. Then the woman clapped her hands, which frightened him still more. He flew first into the butter-cask, then into the meal-tub, and out again. What a condition he was in! The woman screamed, and struck at him with the tongs; the children laughed and screamed, and tumbled over each other, in their efforts to catch him; but luckily he escaped. The door stood open; the poor creature could just manage to slip out among the bushes, and lie down quite exhausted in the newly fallen snow.

     It would be very sad, were I to relate all the misery and privations which the poor little duckling endured during the hard winter; but when it had passed, he found himself lying one morning in a moor, amongst the rushes. He felt the warm sun shining, and heard the lark singing, and saw that all around was beautiful spring. Then the young bird felt that his wings were strong, as he flapped them against his sides, and rose high into the air. They bore him onwards, until he found himself in a large garden, before he well knew how it had happened. The apple-trees were in full blossom, and the fragrant elders bent their long green branches down to the stream which wound round a smooth lawn. Everything looked beautiful, in the freshness of early spring. From a thicket close by came three beautiful white swans, rustling their feathers, and swimming lightly over the smooth water. The duckling remembered the lovely birds, and felt more strangely unhappy than ever.

     "I will fly to those royal birds," he exclaimed, "and they will kill me, because I am so ugly, and dare to approach them; but it does not matter: better be killed by them than pecked by the ducks, beaten by the hens, pushed about by the maiden who feeds the poultry, or starved with hunger in the winter."

<  10  >
     Then he flew to the water, and swam towards the beautiful swans. The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings.

     "Kill me," said the poor bird; and he bent his head down to the surface of the water, and awaited death.

     But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg. He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the new-comer, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome.

     Into the garden presently came some little children, and threw bread and cake into the water.

     "See," cried the youngest, "there is a new one;" and the rest were delighted, and ran to their father and mother, dancing and clapping their hands, and shouting joyously, "There is another swan come; a new one has arrived."

     Then they threw more bread and cake into the water, and said, "The new one is the most beautiful of all; he is so young and pretty." And the old swans bowed their heads before him.

     Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wing; for he did not know what to do, he was so happy, and yet not at all proud. He had been persecuted and despised for his ugliness, and now he heard them say he was the most beautiful of all the birds. Even the elder-tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, "I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling."


 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 01:58:03 PM

Hans Christian Andersen
The Little Mermaid

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.

     We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand. No, indeed; the most singular flowers and plants grow there; the leaves and stems of which are so pliant, that the slightest agitation of the water causes them to stir as if they had life. Fishes, both large and small, glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land. In the deepest spot of all, stands the castle of the Sea King. Its walls are built of coral, and the long, gothic windows are of the clearest amber. The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them. Their appearance is very beautiful, for in each lies a glittering pearl, which would be fit for the diadem of a queen.

     The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him. She was a very wise woman, and exceedingly proud of her high birth; on that account she wore twelve oysters on her tail; while others, also of high rank, were only allowed to wear six. She was, however, deserving of very great praise, especially for her care of the little sea-princesses, her grand-daughters. They were six beautiful children; but the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf, and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish's tail.

     All day long they played in the great halls of the castle, or among the living flowers that grew out of the walls. The large amber windows were open, and the fish swam in, just as the swallows fly into our houses when we open the windows, excepting that the fishes swam up to the princesses, ate out of their hands, and allowed themselves to be stroked.

<  2  >
     Outside the castle there was a beautiful garden, in which grew bright red and dark blue flowers, and blossoms like flames of fire; the fruit glittered like gold, and the leaves and stems waved to and fro continually. The earth itself was the finest sand, but blue as the flame of burning sulphur. Over everything lay a peculiar blue radiance, as if it were surrounded by the air from above, through which the blue sky shone, instead of the dark depths of the sea. In calm weather the sun could be seen, looking like a purple flower, with the light streaming from the calyx. Each of the young princesses had a little plot of ground in the garden, where she might dig and plant as she pleased. One arranged her flower-bed into the form of a whale; another thought it better to make hers like the figure of a little mermaid; but that of the youngest was round like the sun, and contained flowers as red as his rays at sunset.

     She was a strange child, quiet and thoughtful; and while her sisters would be delighted with the wonderful things which they obtained from the wrecks of vessels, she cared for nothing but her pretty red flowers, like the sun, excepting a beautiful marble statue. It was the representation of a handsome boy, carved out of pure white stone, which had fallen to the bottom of the sea from a wreck. She planted by the statue a rose-colored weeping willow. It grew splendidly, and very soon hung its fresh branches over the statue, almost down to the blue sands. The shadow had a violet tint, and waved to and fro like the branches; it seemed as if the crown of the tree and the root were at play, and trying to kiss each other.

     Nothing gave her so much pleasure as to hear about the world above the sea. She made her old grandmother tell her all she knew of the ships and of the towns, the people and the animals. To her it seemed most wonderful and beautiful to hear that the flowers of the land should have fragrance, and not those below the sea; that the trees of the forest should be green; and that the fishes among the trees could sing so sweetly, that it was quite a pleasure to hear them. Her grandmother called the little birds fishes, or she would not have understood her; for she had never seen birds.

<  3  >
     "When you have reached your fifteenth year," said the grand-mother, "you will have permission to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will see both forests and towns."

     In the following year, one of the sisters would be fifteen: but as each was a year younger than the other, the youngest would have to wait five years before her turn came to rise up from the bottom of the ocean, and see the earth as we do. However, each promised to tell the others what she saw on her first visit, and what she thought the most beautiful; for their grandmother could not tell them enough; there were so many things on which they wanted information. None of them longed so much for her turn to come as the youngest, she who had the longest time to wait, and who was so quiet and thoughtful.

     Many nights she stood by the open window, looking up through the dark blue water, and watching the fish as they splashed about with their fins and tails. She could see the moon and stars shining faintly; but through the water they looked larger than they do to our eyes. When something like a black cloud passed between her and them, she knew that it was either a whale swimming over her head, or a ship full of human beings, who never imagined that a pretty little mermaid was standing beneath them, holding out her white hands towards the keel of their ship.

     As soon as the eldest was fifteen, she was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean. When she came back, she had hundreds of things to talk about; but the most beautiful, she said, was to lie in the moonlight, on a sandbank, in the quiet sea, near the coast, and to gaze on a large town nearby, where the lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars; to listen to the sounds of the music, the noise of carriages, and the voices of human beings, and then to hear the merry bells peal out from the church steeples; and because she could not go near to all those wonderful things, she longed for them more than ever. Oh, did not the youngest sister listen eagerly to all these descriptions? and afterwards, when she stood at the open window looking up through the dark blue water, she thought of the great city, with all its bustle and noise, and even fancied she could hear the sound of the church bells, down in the depths of the sea.

<  4  >
     In another year the second sister received permission to rise to the surface of the water, and to swim about where she pleased. She rose just as the sun was setting, and this, she said, was the most beautiful sight of all. The whole sky looked like gold, while violet and rose-colored clouds, which she could not describe, floated over her; and, still more rapidly than the clouds, flew a large flock of wild swans towards the setting sun, looking like a long white veil across the sea. She also swam towards the sun; but it sunk into the waves, and the rosy tints faded from the clouds and from the sea.

     The third sister's turn followed; she was the boldest of them all, and she swam up a broad river that emptied itself into the sea. On the banks she saw green hills covered with beautiful vines; palaces and castles peeped out from amid the proud trees of the forest; she heard the birds singing, and the rays of the sun were so powerful that she was obliged often to dive down under the water to cool her burning face. In a narrow creek she found a whole troop of little human children, quite naked, and sporting about in the water; she wanted to play with them, but they fled in a great fright; and then a little black animal came to the water; it was a dog, but she did not know that, for she had never before seen one. This animal barked at her so terribly that she became frightened, and rushed back to the open sea. But she said she should never forget the beautiful forest, the green hills, and the pretty little children who could swim in the water, although they had not fish's tails.

     The fourth sister was more timid; she remained in the midst of the sea, but she said it was quite as beautiful there as nearer the land. She could see for so many miles around her, and the sky above looked like a bell of glass. She had seen the ships, but at such a great distance that they looked like sea-gulls. The dolphins sported in the waves, and the great whales spouted water from their nostrils till it seemed as if a hundred fountains were playing in every direction.

<  5  >
     The fifth sister's birthday occurred in the winter; so when her turn came, she saw what the others had not seen the first time they went up. The sea looked quite green, and large icebergs were floating about, each like a pearl, she said, but larger and loftier than the churches built by men. They were of the most singular shapes, and glittered like diamonds. She had seated herself upon one of the largest, and let the wind play with her long hair, and she remarked that all the ships sailed by rapidly, and steered as far away as they could from the iceberg, as if they were afraid of it. Towards evening, as the sun went down, dark clouds covered the sky, the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, and the red light glowed on the icebergs as they rocked and tossed on the heaving sea. On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, while she sat calmly on the floating iceberg, watching the blue lightning, as it darted its forked flashes into the sea.

     When first the sisters had permission to rise to the surface, they were each delighted with the new and beautiful sights they saw; but now, as grown-up girls, they could go when they pleased, and they had become indifferent about it. They wished themselves back again in the water, and after a month had passed they said it was much more beautiful down below, and pleasanter to be at home. Yet often, in the evening hours, the five sisters would twine their arms round each other, and rise to the surface, in a row. They had more beautiful voices than any human being could have; and before the approach of a storm, and when they expected a ship would be lost, they swam before the vessel, and sang sweetly of the delights to be found in the depths of the sea, and begging the sailors not to fear if they sank to the bottom. But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm. And these things were never to be beautiful for them; for if the ship sank, the men were drowned, and their dead bodies alone reached the palace of the Sea King.

<  6  >
     When the sisters rose, arm-in-arm, through the water in this way, their youngest sister would stand quite alone, looking after them, ready to cry, only that the mermaids have no tears, and therefore they suffer more.

     "Oh, were I but fifteen years old," said she: "I know that I shall love the world up there, and all the people who live in it."

     At last she reached her fifteenth year.

     "Well, now, you are grown up," said the old dowager, her grandmother; "so you must let me adorn you like your other sisters;" and she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair, and every flower leaf was half a pearl. Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.

     "But they hurt me so," said the little mermaid.

     "Pride must suffer pain," replied the old lady. Oh, how gladly she would have shaken off all this grandeur, and laid aside the heavy wreath! The red flowers in her own garden would have suited her much better, but she could not help herself: so she said, "Farewell," and rose as lightly as a bubble to the surface of the water.

     The sun had just set as she raised her head above the waves; but the clouds were tinted with crimson and gold, and through the glimmering twilight beamed the evening star in all its beauty. The sea was calm, and the air mild and fresh. A large ship, with three masts, lay becalmed on the water, with only one sail set; for not a breeze stiffed, and the sailors sat idle on deck or amongst the rigging. There was music and song on board; and, as darkness came on, a hundred colored lanterns were lighted, as if the flags of all nations waved in the air. The little mermaid swam close to the cabin windows; and now and then, as the waves lifted her up, she could look in through clear glass window-panes, and see a number of well-dressed people within.

<  7  >
     Among them was a young prince, the most beautiful of all, with large black eyes; he was sixteen years of age, and his birthday was being kept with much rejoicing. The sailors were dancing on deck, but when the prince came out of the cabin, more than a hundred rockets rose in the air, making it as bright as day. The little mermaid was so startled that she dived under water; and when she again stretched out her head, it appeared as if all the stars of heaven were falling around her, she had never seen such fireworks before. Great suns spurted fire about, splendid fireflies flew into the blue air, and everything was reflected in the clear, calm sea beneath. The ship itself was so brightly illuminated that all the people, and even the smallest rope, could be distinctly and plainly seen. And how handsome the young prince looked, as he pressed the hands of all present and smiled at them, while the music resounded through the clear night air.

     It was very late; yet the little mermaid could not take her eyes from the ship, or from the beautiful prince. The colored lanterns had been extinguished, no more rockets rose in the air, and the cannon had ceased firing; but the sea became restless, and a moaning, grumbling sound could be heard beneath the waves: still the little mermaid remained by the cabin window, rocking up and down on the water, which enabled her to look in.

     After a while, the sails were quickly unfurled, and the noble ship continued her passage; but soon the waves rose higher, heavy clouds darkened the sky, and lightning appeared in the distance. A dreadful storm was approaching; once more the sails were reefed, and the great ship pursued her flying course over the raging sea. The waves rose mountains high, as if they would have overtopped the mast; but the ship dived like a swan between them, and then rose again on their lofty, foaming crests. To the little mermaid this appeared pleasant sport; not so to the sailors. At length the ship groaned and creaked; the thick planks gave way under the lashing of the sea as it broke over the deck; the mainmast snapped asunder like a reed; the ship lay over on her side; and the water rushed in.

<  8  >
     The little mermaid now perceived that the crew were in danger; even she herself was obliged to be careful to avoid the beams and planks of the wreck which lay scattered on the water. At one moment it was so pitch dark that she could not see a single object, but a flash of lightning revealed the whole scene; she could see every one who had been on board excepting the prince; when the ship parted, she had seen him sink into the deep waves, and she was glad, for she thought he would now be with her; and then she remembered that human beings could not live in the water, so that when he got down to her father's palace he would be quite dead. But he must not die. So she swam about among the beams and planks which strewed the surface of the sea, forgetting that they could crush her to pieces. Then she dived deeply under the dark waters, rising and falling with the waves, till at length she managed to reach the young prince, who was fast losing the power of swimming in that stormy sea. His limbs were failing him, his beautiful eyes were closed, and he would have died had not the little mermaid come to his assistance. She held his head above the water, and let the waves drift them where they would.

     In the morning the storm had ceased; but of the ship not a single fragment could be seen. The sun rose up red and glowing from the water, and its beams brought back the hue of health to the prince's cheeks; but his eyes remained closed. The mermaid kissed his high, smooth forehead, and stroked back his wet hair; he seemed to her like the marble statue in her little garden, and she kissed him again, and wished that he might live.

     Presently they came in sight of land; she saw lofty blue mountains, on which the white snow rested as if a flock of swans were lying upon them. Near the coast were beautiful green forests, and close by stood a large building, whether a church or a convent she could not tell. Orange and citron trees grew in the garden, and before the door stood lofty palms. The sea here formed a little bay, in which the water was quite still, but very deep; so she swam with the handsome prince to the beach, which was covered with fine, white sand, and there she laid him in the warm sunshine, taking care to raise his head higher than his body. Then bells sounded in the large white building, and a number of young girls came into the garden. The little mermaid swam out farther from the shore and placed herself between some high rocks that rose out of the water; then she covered her head and neck with the foam of the sea so that her little face might not be seen, and watched to see what would become of the poor prince.

<  9  >
     She did not wait long before she saw a young girl approach the spot where he lay. She seemed frightened at first, but only for a moment; then she fetched a number of people, and the mermaid saw that the prince came to life again, and smiled upon those who stood round him. But to her he sent no smile; he knew not that she had saved him. This made her very unhappy, and when he was led away into the great building, she dived down sorrowfully into the water, and returned to her father's castle.

     She had always been silent and thoughtful, and now she was more so than ever. Her sisters asked her what she had seen during her first visit to the surface of the water; but she would tell them nothing. Many an evening and morning did she rise to the place where she had left the prince. She saw the fruits in the garden ripen till they were gathered, the snow on the tops of the mountains melt away; but she never saw the prince, and therefore she returned home, always more sorrowful than before. It was her only comfort to sit in her own little garden, and fling her arm round the beautiful marble statue which was like the prince; but she gave up tending her flowers, and they grew in wild confusion over the paths, twining their long leaves and stems round the branches of the trees, so that the whole place became dark and gloomy.

     At length she could bear it no longer, and told one of her sisters all about it. Then the others heard the secret, and very soon it became known to two mermaids whose intimate friend happened to know who the prince was. She had also seen the festival on board ship, and she told them where the prince came from, and where his palace stood.

     "Come, little sister," said the other princesses; then they entwined their arms and rose up in a long row to the surface of the water, close by the spot where they knew the prince's palace stood.

<  10  >
     It was built of bright yellow shining stone, with long flights of marble steps, one of which reached quite down to the sea. Splendid gilded cupolas rose over the roof, and between the pillars that surrounded the whole building stood life-like statues of marble. Through the clear crystal of the lofty windows could be seen noble rooms, with costly silk curtains and hangings of tapestry; while the walls were covered with beautiful paintings which were a pleasure to look at. In the centre of the largest saloon a fountain threw its sparkling jets high up into the glass cupola of the ceiling, through which the sun shone down upon the water and upon the beautiful plants growing round the basin of the fountain.

     Now that she knew where he lived, she spent many an evening and many a night on the water near the palace. She would swim much nearer the shore than any of the others ventured to do; indeed once she went quite up the narrow channel under the marble balcony, which threw a broad shadow on the water. Here she would sit and watch the young prince, who thought himself quite alone in the bright moonlight. She saw him many times of an evening sailing in a pleasant boat, with music playing and flags waving. She peeped out from among the green rushes, and if the wind caught her long silvery-white veil, those who saw it believed it to be a swan, spreading out its wings. On many a night, too, when the fishermen, with their torches, were out at sea, she heard them relate so many good things about the doings of the young prince, that she was glad she had saved his life when he had been tossed about half-dead on the waves. And she remembered that his head had rested on her bosom, and how heartily she had kissed him; but he knew nothing of all this, and could not even dream of her. She grew more and more fond of human beings, and wished more and more to be able to wander about with those whose world seemed to be so much larger than her own. They could fly over the sea in ships, and mount the high hills which were far above the clouds; and the lands they possessed, their woods and their fields, stretched far away beyond the reach of her sight. There was so much that she wished to know, and her sisters were unable to answer all her questions. Then she applied to her old grandmother, who knew all about the upper world, which she very rightly called the lands above the sea.

<  11  >
     "If human beings are not drowned," asked the little mermaid, "can they live forever? do they never die as we do here in the sea?"

     "Yes," replied the old lady, "they must also die, and their term of life is even shorter than ours. We sometimes live to three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of those we love. We have not immortal souls, we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see."

     "Why have not we an immortal soul?" asked the little mermaid mournfully; "I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars."

     "You must not think of that," said the old woman; "we feel ourselves to be much happier and much better off than human beings."

     "So I shall die," said the little mermaid, "and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?"

     "No," said the old woman, "unless a man were to love you so much that you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen. Your fish's tail, which amongst us is considered so beautiful, is thought on earth to be quite ugly; they do not know any better, and they think it necessary to have two stout props, which they call legs, in order to be handsome."

<  12  >
     Then the little mermaid sighed, and looked sorrowfully at her fish's tail. "Let us be happy," said the old lady, "and dart and spring about during the three hundred years that we have to live, which is really quite long enough; after that we can rest ourselves all the better. This evening we are going to have a court ball."

     It is one of those splendid sights which we can never see on earth. The walls and the ceiling of the large ball-room were of thick, but transparent crystal. May hundreds of colossal shells, some of a deep red, others of a grass green, stood on each side in rows, with blue fire in them, which lighted up the whole saloon, and shone through the walls, so that the sea was also illuminated. Innumerable fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some of them the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others they shone like silver and gold. Through the halls flowed a broad stream, and in it danced the mermen and the mermaids to the music of their own sweet singing. No one on earth has such a lovely voice as theirs. The little mermaid sang more sweetly than them all. The whole court applauded her with hands and tails; and for a moment her heart felt quite gay, for she knew she had the loveliest voice of any on earth or in the sea. But she soon thought again of the world above her, for she could not forget the charming prince, nor her sorrow that she had not an immortal soul like his; therefore she crept away silently out of her father's palace, and while everything within was gladness and song, she sat in her own little garden sorrowful and alone. Then she heard the bugle sounding through the water, and thought: "He is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes depend, and in whose hands I should like to place the happiness of my life. I will venture all for him, and to win an immortal soul, while my sisters are dancing in my father's palace, I will go to the sea witch, of whom I have always been so much afraid, but she can give me counsel and help."

<  13  >
     And then the little mermaid went out from her garden, and took the road to the foaming whirlpools, behind which the sorceress lived. She had never been that way before: neither flowers nor grass grew there; nothing but bare, gray, sandy ground stretched out to the whirlpool, where the water, like foaming mill-wheels, whirled round everything that it seized, and cast it into the fathomless deep. Through the midst of these crushing whirlpools the little mermaid was obliged to pass, to reach the dominions of the sea witch; and also for a long distance the only road lay right across a quantity of warm, bubbling mire, called by the witch her turfmoor. Beyond this stood her house, in the centre of a strange forest, in which all the trees and flowers were polypi, half animals and half plants; they looked like serpents with a hundred heads growing out of the ground. The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top. All that could be reached in the sea they seized upon, and held fast, so that it never escaped from their clutches.

     The little mermaid was so alarmed at what she saw, that she stood still, and her heart beat with fear, and she was very nearly turning back; but she thought of the prince, and of the human soul for which she longed, and her courage returned. She fastened her long flowing hair round her head, so that the polypi might not seize hold of it. She laid her hands together across her bosom, and then she darted forward as a fish shoots through the water, between the supple arms and fingers of the ugly polypi, which were stretched out on each side of her. She saw that each held in its grasp something it had seized with its numerous little arms, as if they were iron bands. The white skeletons of human beings who had perished at sea, and had sunk down into the deep waters, skeletons of land animals, oars, rudders, and chests of ships were lying tightly grasped by their clinging arms; even a little mermaid, whom they had caught and strangled; and this seemed the most shocking of all to the little princess.

<  14  >
     She now came to a space of marshy ground in the wood, where large, fat water-snakes were rolling in the mire, and showing their ugly, drab-colored bodies. In the midst of this spot stood a house, built with the bones of shipwrecked human beings. There sat the sea witch, allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just as people sometimes feed a canary with a piece of sugar. She called the ugly water-snakes her little chickens, and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom.

     "I know what you want," said the sea witch; "it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish's tail, and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may have an immortal soul." And then the witch laughed so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and lay there wriggling about. "You are but just in time," said the witch; "for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you."

     "Yes, I will," said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she thought of the prince and the immortal soul.

     "But think again," said the witch; "for when once your shape has become like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return through the water to your sisters, or to your father's palace again; and if you do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow the priest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another your heart will break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves."

<  15  >
     "I will do it," said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death.

     "But I must be paid also," said the witch, "and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword."

     "But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is left for me?"

     "Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain a man's heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught."

     "It shall be," said the little mermaid.

     Then the witch placed her cauldron on the fire, to prepare the magic draught.

     "Cleanliness is a good thing," said she, scouring the vessel with snakes, which she had tied together in a large knot; then she pricked herself in the breast, and let the black blood drop into it. The steam that rose formed itself into such horrible shapes that no one could look at them without fear. Every moment the witch threw something else into the vessel, and when it began to boil, the sound was like the weeping of a crocodile. When at last the magic draught was ready, it looked like the clearest water.

     "There it is for you," said the witch. Then she cut off the mermaid's tongue, so that she became dumb, and would never again speak or sing. "If the polypi should seize hold of you as you return through the wood," said the witch, "throw over them a few drops of the potion, and their fingers will be torn into a thousand pieces." But the little mermaid had no occasion to do this, for the polypi sprang back in terror when they caught sight of the glittering draught, which shone in her hand like a twinkling star.

<  16  >
     So she passed quickly through the wood and the marsh, and between the rushing whirlpools. She saw that in her father's palace the torches in the ballroom were extinguished, and all within asleep; but she did not venture to go in to them, for now she was dumb and going to leave them forever, she felt as if her heart would break. She stole into the garden, took a flower from the flower-beds of each of her sisters, kissed her hand a thousand times towards the palace, and then rose up through the dark blue waters.

     The sun had not risen when she came in sight of the prince's palace, and approached the beautiful marble steps, but the moon shone clear and bright. Then the little mermaid drank the magic draught, and it seemed as if a two-edged sword went through her delicate body: she fell into a swoon, and lay like one dead.

     When the sun arose and shone over the sea, she recovered, and felt a sharp pain; but just before her stood the handsome young prince. He fixed his coal-black eyes upon her so earnestly that she cast down her own, and then became aware that her fish's tail was gone, and that she had as pretty a pair of white legs and tiny feet as any little maiden could have; but she had no clothes, so she wrapped herself in her long, thick hair. The prince asked her who she was, and where she came from, and she looked at him mildly and sorrowfully with her deep blue eyes; but she could not speak. Every step she took was as the witch had said it would be, she felt as if treading upon the points of needles or sharp knives; but she bore it willingly, and stepped as lightly by the prince's side as a soap-bubble, so that he and all who saw her wondered at her graceful-swaying movements. She was very soon arrayed in costly robes of silk and muslin, and was the most beautiful creature in the palace; but she was dumb, and could neither speak nor sing.

     Beautiful female slaves, dressed in silk and gold, stepped forward and sang before the prince and his royal parents: one sang better than all the others, and the prince clapped his hands and smiled at her. This was great sorrow to the little mermaid; she knew how much more sweetly she herself could sing once, and she thought, "Oh if he could only know that! I have given away my voice forever, to be with him."

<  17  >
     The slaves next performed some pretty fairy-like dances, to the sound of beautiful music. Then the little mermaid raised her lovely white arms, stood on the tips of her toes, and glided over the floor, and danced as no one yet had been able to dance. At each moment her beauty became more revealed, and her expressive eyes appealed more directly to the heart than the songs of the slaves. Every one was enchanted, especially the prince, who called her his little foundling; and she danced again quite readily, to please him, though each time her foot touched the floor it seemed as if she trod on sharp knives.

     The prince said she should remain with him always, and she received permission to sleep at his door, on a velvet cushion. He had a page's dress made for her, that she might accompany him on horseback. They rode together through the sweet-scented woods, where the green boughs touched their shoulders, and the little birds sang among the fresh leaves. She climbed with the prince to the tops of high mountains; and although her tender feet bled so that even her steps were marked, she only laughed, and followed him till they could see the clouds beneath them looking like a flock of birds travelling to distant lands. While at the prince's palace, and when all the household were asleep, she would go and sit on the broad marble steps; for it eased her burning feet to bathe them in the cold sea-water; and then she thought of all those below in the deep.

     Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing sorrowfully, as they floated on the water. She beckoned to them, and then they recognized her, and told her how she had grieved them. After that, they came to the same place every night; and once she saw in the distance her old grandmother, who had not been to the surface of the sea for many years, and the old Sea King, her father, with his crown on his head. They stretched out their hands towards her, but they did not venture so near the land as her sisters did.

<  18  >
     As the days passed, she loved the prince more fondly, and he loved her as he would love a little child, but it never came into his head to make her his wife; yet, unless he married her, she could not receive an immortal soul; and, on the morning after his marriage with another, she would dissolve into the foam of the sea.

     "Do you not love me the best of them all?" the eyes of the little mermaid seemed to say, when he took her in his arms, and kissed her fair forehead.

     "Yes, you are dear to me," said the prince; "for you have the best heart, and you are the most devoted to me; you are like a young maiden whom I once saw, but whom I shall never meet again. I was in a ship that was wrecked, and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple, where several young maidens performed the service. The youngest of them found me on the shore, and saved my life. I saw her but twice, and she is the only one in the world whom I could love; but you are like her, and you have almost driven her image out of my mind. She belongs to the holy temple, and my good fortune has sent you to me instead of her; and we will never part."

     "Ah, he knows not that it was I who saved his life," thought the little mermaid. "I carried him over the sea to the wood where the temple stands: I sat beneath the foam, and watched till the human beings came to help him. I saw the pretty maiden that he loves better than he loves me;" and the mermaid sighed deeply, but she could not shed tears. "He says the maiden belongs to the holy temple, therefore she will never return to the world. They will meet no more: while I am by his side, and see him every day. I will take care of him, and love him, and give up my life for his sake."

     Very soon it was said that the prince must marry, and that the beautiful daughter of a neighboring king would be his wife, for a fine ship was being fitted out. Although the prince gave out that he merely intended to pay a visit to the king, it was generally supposed that he really went to see his daughter. A great company were to go with him. The little mermaid smiled, and shook her head. She knew the prince's thoughts better than any of the others.

<  19  >
     "I must travel," he had said to her; "I must see this beautiful princess; my parents desire it; but they will not oblige me to bring her home as my bride. I cannot love her; she is not like the beautiful maiden in the temple, whom you resemble. If I were forced to choose a bride, I would rather choose you, my dumb foundling, with those expressive eyes." And then he kissed her rosy mouth, played with her long waving hair, and laid his head on her heart, while she dreamed of human happiness and an immortal soul. "You are not afraid of the sea, my dumb child," said he, as they stood on the deck of the noble ship which was to carry them to the country of the neighboring king. And then he told her of storm and of calm, of strange fishes in the deep beneath them, and of what the divers had seen there; and she smiled at his descriptions, for she knew better than any one what wonders were at the bottom of the sea.

     In the moonlight, when all on board were asleep, excepting the man at the helm, who was steering, she sat on the deck, gazing down through the clear water. She thought she could distinguish her father's castle, and upon it her aged grandmother, with the silver crown on her head, looking through the rushing tide at the keel of the vessel. Then her sisters came up on the waves, and gazed at her mournfully, wringing their white hands. She beckoned to them, and smiled, and wanted to tell them how happy and well off she was; but the cabin-boy approached, and when her sisters dived down he thought it was only the foam of the sea which he saw.

     The next morning the ship sailed into the harbor of a beautiful town belonging to the king whom the prince was going to visit. The church bells were ringing, and from the high towers sounded a flourish of trumpets; and soldiers, with flying colors and glittering bayonets, lined the rocks through which they passed. Every day was a festival; balls and entertainments followed one another.

<  20  >
     But the princess had not yet appeared. People said that she was being brought up and educated in a religious house, where she was learning every royal virtue. At last she came. Then the little mermaid, who was very anxious to see whether she was really beautiful, was obliged to acknowledge that she had never seen a more perfect vision of beauty. Her skin was delicately fair, and beneath her long dark eye-lashes her laughing blue eyes shone with truth and purity.

     "It was you," said the prince, "who saved my life when I lay dead on the beach," and he folded his blushing bride in his arms. "Oh, I am too happy," said he to the little mermaid; "my fondest hopes are all fulfilled. You will rejoice at my happiness; for your devotion to me is great and sincere."

     The little mermaid kissed his hand, and felt as if her heart were already broken. His wedding morning would bring death to her, and she would change into the foam of the sea. All the church bells rung, and the heralds rode about the town proclaiming the betrothal. Perfumed oil was burning in costly silver lamps on every altar. The priests waved the censers, while the bride and bridegroom joined their hands and received the blessing of the bishop. The little mermaid, dressed in silk and gold, held up the bride's train; but her ears heard nothing of the festive music, and her eyes saw not the holy ceremony; she thought of the night of death which was coming to her, and of all she had lost in the world.

     On the same evening the bride and bridegroom went on board ship; cannons were roaring, flags waving, and in the centre of the ship a costly tent of purple and gold had been erected. It contained elegant couches, for the reception of the bridal pair during the night. The ship, with swelling sails and a favorable wind, glided away smoothly and lightly over the calm sea. When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck. The little mermaid could not help thinking of her first rising out of the sea, when she had seen similar festivities and joys; and she joined in the dance, poised herself in the air as a swallow when he pursues his prey, and all present cheered her with wonder. She had never danced so elegantly before. Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart. She knew this was the last evening she should ever see the prince, for whom she had forsaken her kindred and her home; she had given up her beautiful voice, and suffered unheard-of pain daily for him, while he knew nothing of it. This was the last evening that she would breathe the same air with him, or gaze on the starry sky and the deep sea; an eternal night, without a thought or a dream, awaited her: she had no soul and now she could never win one. All was joy and gayety on board ship till long after midnight; she laughed and danced with the rest, while the thoughts of death were in her heart. The prince kissed his beautiful bride, while she played with his raven hair, till they went arm-in-arm to rest in the splendid tent. Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake, stood at the helm. The little mermaid leaned her white arms on the edge of the vessel, and looked towards the east for the first blush of morning, for that first ray of dawn that would bring her death. She saw her sisters rising out of the flood: they were as pale as herself; but their long beautiful hair waved no more in the wind, and had been cut off.

<  21  >
     "We have given our hair to the witch," said they, "to obtain help for you, that you may not die to-night. She has given us a knife: here it is, see it is very sharp. Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish's tail, and you will be once more a mermaid, and return to us to live out your three hundred years before you die and change into the salt sea foam. Haste, then; he or you must die before sunrise. Our old grandmother moans so for you, that her white hair is falling off from sorrow, as ours fell under the witch's scissors. Kill the prince and come back; hasten: do you not see the first red streaks in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise, and you must die." And then they sighed deeply and mournfully, and sank down beneath the waves.

     The little mermaid drew back the crimson curtain of the tent, and beheld the fair bride with her head resting on the prince's breast. She bent down and kissed his fair brow, then looked at the sky on which the rosy dawn grew brighter and brighter; then she glanced at the sharp knife, and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who whispered the name of his bride in his dreams. She was in his thoughts, and the knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid: then she flung it far away from her into the waves; the water turned red where it fell, and the drops that spurted up looked like blood. She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam.

     The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold foam of the little mermaid, who did not feel as if she were dying. She saw the bright sun, and all around her floated hundreds of transparent beautiful beings; she could see through them the white sails of the ship, and the red clouds in the sky; their speech was melodious, but too ethereal to be heard by mortal ears, as they were also unseen by mortal eyes. The little mermaid perceived that she had a body like theirs, and that she continued to rise higher and higher out of the foam.

<  22  >
     "Where am I?" asked she, and her voice sounded ethereal, as the voice of those who were with her; no earthly music could imitate it.

     "Among the daughters of the air," answered one of them. "A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny. But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves. We fly to warm countries, and cool the sultry air that destroys mankind with the pestilence. We carry the perfume of the flowers to spread health and restoration. After we have striven for three hundred years to all the good in our power, we receive an immortal soul and take part in the happiness of mankind. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do as we are doing; you have suffered and endured and raised yourself to the spirit-world by your good deeds; and now, by striving for three hundred years in the same way, you may obtain an immortal soul."

     The little mermaid lifted her glorified eyes towards the sun, and felt them, for the first time, filling with tears. On the ship, in which she had left the prince, there were life and noise; she saw him and his beautiful bride searching for her; sorrowfully they gazed at the pearly foam, as if they knew she had thrown herself into the waves. Unseen she kissed the forehead of her bride, and fanned the prince, and then mounted with the other children of the air to a rosy cloud that floated through the aether.

     "After three hundred years, thus shall we float into the kingdom of heaven," said she.

     "And we may even get there sooner," whispered one of her companions. "Unseen we can enter the houses of men, where there are children, and for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years. But when we see a naughty or a wicked child, we shed tears of sorrow, and for every tear a day is added to our time of trial!"


   

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 04:15:01 PM

 Hans Christian Andersen
The Red Shoes

Once upon a time there was little girl, pretty and dainty. But in summer time she was obliged to go barefooted because she was poor, and in winter she had to wear large wooden shoes, so that her little instep grew quite red.

     In the middle of the village lived an old shoemaker's wife; she sat down and made, as well as she could, a pair of little shoes out of some old pieces of red cloth. They were clumsy, but she meant well, for they were intended for the little girl, whose name was Karen.

     Karen received the shoes and wore them for the first time on the day of her mother's funeral. They were certainly not suitable for mourning; but she had no others, and so she put her bare feet into them and walked behind the humble coffin.

     Just then a large old carriage came by, and in it sat an old lady; she looked at the little girl, and taking pity on her, said to the clergyman, "Look here, if you will give me the little girl, I will take care of her."

     Karen believed that this was all on account of the red shoes, but the old lady thought them hideous, and so they were burnt. Karen herself was dressed very neatly and cleanly; she was taught to read and to sew, and people said that she was pretty. But the mirror told her, "You are more than pretty - you are beautiful."

     One day the Queen was travelling through that part of the country, and had her little daughter, who was a princess, with her. All the people, amongst them Karen too, streamed towards the castle, where the little princess, in fine white clothes, stood before the window and allowed herself to be stared at. She wore neither a train nor a golden crown, but beautiful red morocco shoes; they were indeed much finer than those which the shoemaker's wife had sewn for little Karen. There is really nothing in the world that can be compared to red shoes!

<  2  >
     Karen was now old enough to be confirmed; she received some new clothes, and she was also to have some new shoes. The rich shoemaker in the town took the measure of her little foot in his own room, in which there stood great glass cases full of pretty shoes and white slippers. It all looked very lovely, but the old lady could not see very well, and therefore did not get much pleasure out of it. Amongst the shoes stood a pair of red ones, like those which the princess had worn. How beautiful they were! and the shoemaker said that they had been made for a count's daughter, but that they had not fitted her.

     "I suppose they are of shiny leather?" asked the old lady. "They shine so."

     "Yes, they do shine," said Karen. They fitted her, and were bought. But the old lady knew nothing of their being red, for she would never have allowed Karen to be confirmed in red shoes, as she was now to be.

     Everybody looked at her feet, and the whole of the way from the church door to the choir it seemed to her as if even the ancient figures on the monuments, in their stiff collars and long black robes, had their eyes fixed on her red shoes. It was only of these that she thought when the clergyman laid his hand upon her head and spoke of the holy baptism, of the covenant with God, and told her that she was now to be a grown-up Christian. The organ pealed forth solemnly, and the sweet children's voices mingled with that of their old leader; but Karen thought only of her red shoes. In the afternoon the old lady heard from everybody that Karen had worn red shoes. She said that it was a shocking thing to do, that it was very improper, and that Karen was always to go to church in future in black shoes, even if they were old.

     On the following Sunday there was Communion. Karen looked first at the black shoes, then at the red ones - looked at the red ones again, and put them on.

<  3  >
     The sun was shining gloriously, so Karen and the old lady went along the footpath through the corn, where it was rather dusty.

     At the church door stood an old crippled soldier leaning on a crutch; he had a wonderfully long beard, more red than white, and he bowed down to the ground and asked the old lady whether he might wipe her shoes. Then Karen put out her little foot too.

     "Dear me, what pretty dancing-shoes!" said the soldier. "Sit fast, when you dance," said he, addressing the shoes, and slapping the soles with his hand.

     The old lady gave the soldier some money and then went with Karen into the church.

     And all the people inside looked at Karen's red shoes, and all the figures gazed at them; when Karen knelt before the altar and put the golden goblet to her mouth, she thought only of the red shoes. It seemed to her as though they were swimming about in the goblet, and she forgot to sing the psalm, forgot to say the "Lord's Prayer."

     Now every one came out of church, and the old lady stepped into her carriage. But just as Karen was lifting up her foot to get in too, the old soldier said: "Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!" and Karen could not help it, she was obliged to dance a few steps; and when she had once begun, her legs continued to dance. It seemed as if the shoes had got power over them. She danced round the church corner, for she could not stop; the coachman had to run after her and seize her. He lifted her into the carriage, but her feet continued to dance, so that she kicked the good old lady violently. At last they took off her shoes, and her legs were at rest.

     At home the shoes were put into the cupboard, but Karen could not help looking at them.

     Now the old lady fell ill, and it was said that she would not rise from her bed again. She had to be nursed and waited upon, and this was no one's duty more than Karen's. But there was a grand ball in the town, and Karen was invited. She looked at the red shoes, saying to herself that there was no sin in doing that; she put the red shoes on, thinking there was no harm in that either; and then she went to the ball; and commenced to dance.

<  4  >
     But when she wanted to go to the right, the shoes danced to the left, and when she wanted to dance up the room, the shoes danced down the room, down the stairs through the street, and out through the gates of the town. She danced, and was obliged to dance, far out into the dark wood. Suddenly something shone up among the trees, and she believed it was the moon, for it was a face. But it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding his head and said: "Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!"

     She was frightened, and wanted to throw the red shoes away; but they stuck fast. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes had grown fast to her feet. She danced and was obliged to go on dancing over field and meadow, in rain and sunshine, by night and by day - but by night it was most horrible.

     She danced out into the open churchyard; but the dead there did not dance. They had something better to do than that. She wanted to sit down on the pauper's grave where the bitter fern grows; but for her there was neither peace nor rest. And as she danced past the open church door she saw an angel there in long white robes, with wings reaching from his shoulders down to the earth; his face was stern and grave, and in his hand he held a broad shining sword.

     "Dance you shall," said he, "dance in your red shoes till you are pale and cold, till your skin shrivels up and you are a skeleton! Dance you shall, from door to door, and where proud and wicked children live you shall knock, so that they may hear you and fear you! Dance you shall, dance!"

     "Mercy!" cried Karen. But she did not hear what the angel answered, for the shoes carried her through the gate into the fields, along highways and byways, and unceasingly she had to dance.

     One morning she danced past a door that she knew well; they were singing a psalm inside, and a coffin was being carried out covered with flowers. Then she knew that she was forsaken by every one and damned by the angel of God.

<  5  >
     She danced, and was obliged to go on dancing through the dark night. The shoes bore her away over thorns and stumps till she was all torn and bleeding; she danced away over the heath to a lonely little house. Here, she knew, lived the executioner; and she tapped with her finger at the window and said:

     "Come out, come out! I cannot come in, for I must dance."

     And the executioner said: "I don't suppose you know who I am. I strike off the heads of the wicked, and I notice that my axe is tingling to do so."

     "Don't cut off my head!" said Karen, "for then I could not repent of my sin. But cut off my feet with the red shoes."

     And then she confessed all her sin, and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes; but the shoes danced away with the little feet across the field into the deep forest.

     And he carved her a pair of wooden feet and some crutches, and taught her a psalm which is always sung by sinners; she kissed the hand that guided the axe, and went away over the heath.

     "Now, I have suffered enough for the red shoes," she said; "I will go to church, so that people can see me." And she went quickly up to the church-door; but when she came there, the red shoes were dancing before her, and she was frightened, and turned back.

     During the whole week she was sad and wept many bitter tears, but when Sunday came again she said: "Now I have suffered and striven enough. I believe I am quite as good as many of those who sit in church and give themselves airs." And so she went boldly on; but she had not got farther than the churchyard gate when she saw the red shoes dancing along before her. Then she became terrified, and turned back and repented right heartily of her sin.

<  6  >
     She went to the parsonage, and begged that she might be taken into service there. She would be industrious, she said, and do everything that she could; she did not mind about the wages as long as she had a roof over her, and was with good people. The pastor's wife had pity on her, and took her into service. And she was industrious and thoughtful. She sat quiet and listened when the pastor read aloud from the Bible in the evening. All the children liked her very much, but when they spoke about dress and grandeur and beauty she would shake her head.

     On the following Sunday they all went to church, and she was asked whether she wished to go too; but, with tears in her eyes, she looked sadly at her crutches. And then the others went to hear God's Word, but she went alone into her little room; this was only large enough to hold the bed and a chair. Here she sat down with her hymn-book, and as she was reading it with a pious mind, the wind carried the notes of the organ over to her from the church, and in tears she lifted up her face and said: "O God! help me!"

     Then the sun shone so brightly, and right before her stood an angel of God in white robes; it was the same one whom she had seen that night at the church-door. He no longer carried the sharp sword, but a beautiful green branch, full of roses; with this he touched the ceiling, which rose up very high, and where he had touched it there shone a golden star. He touched the walls, which opened wide apart, and she saw the organ which was pealing forth; she saw the pictures of the old pastors and their wives, and the congregation sitting in the polished chairs and singing from their hymn-books. The church itself had come to the poor girl in her narrow room, or the room had gone to the church. She sat in the pew with the rest of the pastor's household, and when they had finished the hymn and looked up, they nodded and said, "It was right of you to come, Karen."

<  7  >
     "It was mercy," said she.

     The organ played and the children's voices in the choir sounded soft and lovely. The bright warm sunshine streamed through the window into the pew where Karen sat, and her heart became so filled with it, so filled with peace and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunbeams to Heaven, and no one was there who asked after the Red Shoes.


 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 05:50:26 PM

 
 Brothers Grimm
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in twelve beds all in one room and when they went to bed, the doors were shut and locked up. However, every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night. Nobody could find out how it happened, or where the princesses had been.

     So the king made it known to all the land that if any person could discover the secret and find out where it was that the princesses danced in the night, he would have the one he liked best to take as his wife, and would be king after his death. But whoever tried and did not succeed, after three days and nights, they would be put to death.

     A king's son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance; and, in order that nothing could happen without him hearing it, the door of his chamber was left open. But the king's son soon fell asleep; and when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes.

     The same thing happened the second and third night and so the king ordered his head to be cut off.

     After him came several others; but they all had the same luck, and all lost their lives in the same way.

     Now it happened that an old soldier, who had been wounded in battle and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king reigned, and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman, who asked him where he was going.

     'I hardly know where I am going, or what I had better do,' said the soldier; 'but I think I would like to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time I might be a king.'

<  2  >
     'Well,' said the old woman, 'that is not a very hard task: only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the princesses will bring to you in the evening; and as soon as she leaves you pretend to be fast asleep.'

     Then she gave him a cloak, and said, 'As soon as you put that on you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the princesses wherever they go.' When the soldier heard all this good advice, he was determined to try his luck, so he went to the king, and said he was willing to undertake the task.

     He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered fine royal robes to be given him; and when the evening came he was led to the outer chamber.

     Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of the princesses brought him a cup of wine; but the soldier threw it all away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loudly as if he was fast asleep.

     When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed heartily; and the eldest said, 'This fellow too might have done a wiser thing than lose his life in this way!' Then they rose and opened their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and dressed themselves at the mirror, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing.

     But the youngest said, 'I don't know why it is, but while you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will befall us.'

     'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid; have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he would have slept soundly enough.'

<  3  >
     When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier; but he snored on, and did not stir hand or foot: so they thought they were quite safe.

     Then the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands, and the bed sank into the floor and a trap-door flew open. The soldier saw them going down through the trap-door one after another, the eldest leading the way; and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them.

     However, in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest princess, and she cried out to her sisters, 'All is not right; someone took hold of my gown.'

     'You silly creature!' said the eldest, 'it is nothing but a nail in the wall.'

     Down they all went, and at the bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully. The soldier wished to take away some token of the place; so he broke off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the youngest daughter said again, 'I am sure all is not right -- did not you hear that noise? That never happened before.'

     But the eldest said, 'It is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.'

     They came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear. But the eldest still said it was only the princes, who were crying for joy.

     They went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses.

<  4  >
     One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into the same boat as the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier said, 'I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired: the boat seems very heavy today.'

     'It is only the heat of the weather,' said the princess, 'I am very warm, too.'

     On the other side of the lake stood a fine, illuminated castle from which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed, and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess; and the soldier, who was still invisible, danced with them too. When any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always silenced her.

     They danced on till three o'clock in the morning, and then all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave. The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising to come again the next night.

     When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses, and laid himself down. And as the twelve, tired sisters slowly came up, they heard him snoring in his bed and they said, 'Now all is quite safe'. Then they undressed themselves, put away their fine clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed.

     In the morning the soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more of this strange adventure, and went again on the second and third nights. Everything happened just as before: the princesses danced till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. On the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a token of where he had been.

<  5  >
     As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken before the king with the three branches and the golden cup; and the twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would say.

     The king asked him. 'Where do my twelve daughters dance at night?'

     The soldier answered, 'With twelve princes in a castle underground.' And then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him.

     The king called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said was true and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all.

     So the king asked the soldier which of the princesses he would choose for his wife; and he answered, 'I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.' -- and they were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king's heir.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 05:52:49 PM

    Brothers Grimm
Rumpelstiltskin

Once there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold."

     The king said to the miller, "That is an art which pleases me well, if your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her to-morrow to my palace, and I will put her to the test."

     And when the girl was brought to him he took her into a room which was quite full of straw, gave her a spinning-wheel and a reel, and said, "Now set to work, and if by to-morrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die."

     Thereupon he himself locked up the room, and left her in it alone. So there sat the poor miller's daughter, and for the life of her could not tell what to do, she had no idea how straw could be spun into gold, and she grew more and more frightened, until at last she began to weep.

     But all at once the door opened, and in came a little man, and said, "Good evening, mistress miller, why are you crying so?"

     "Alas," answered the girl, "I have to spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it."

     "What will you give me," said the manikin, "if I do it for you?"

     "My necklace," said the girl.

     The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three turns, and the reel was full, then he put another on, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the second was full too. And so it went on until the morning, when all the straw was spun, and all the reels were full of gold.

<  2  >
     By daybreak the king was already there, and when he saw the gold he was astonished and delighted, but his heart became only more greedy. He had the miller's daughter taken into another room full of straw, which was much larger, and commanded her to spin that also in one night if she valued her life. The girl knew not how to help herself, and was crying, when the door opened again, and the little man appeared, and said, "What will you give me if I spin that straw into gold for you?"

     "The ring on my finger," answered the girl.

     The little man took the ring, again began to turn the wheel, and by morning had spun all the straw into glittering gold.

     The king rejoiced beyond measure at the sight, but still he had not gold enough, and he had the miller's daughter taken into a still larger room full of straw, and said, "You must spin this, too, in the course of this night, but if you succeed, you shall be my wife."

     Even if she be a miller's daughter, thought he, I could not find a richer wife in the whole world.

     When the girl was alone the manikin came again for the third time, and said, "What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time also?"

     "I have nothing left that I could give," answered the girl.

     "Then promise me, if you should become queen, to give me your first child."

     Who knows whether that will ever happen, thought the miller's daughter, and, not knowing how else to help herself in this strait, she promised the manikin what he wanted, and for that he once more spun the straw into gold.

     And when the king came in the morning, and found all as he had wished, he took her in marriage, and the pretty miller's daughter became a queen.

<  3  >
     A year after, she brought a beautiful child into the world, and she never gave a thought to the manikin. But suddenly he came into her room, and said, "Now give me what you promised."

     The queen was horror-struck, and offered the manikin all the riches of the kingdom if he would leave her the child. But the manikin said, "No, something alive is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world."

     Then the queen began to lament and cry, so that the manikin pitied her.

     "I will give you three days, time," said he, "if by that time you find out my name, then shall you keep your child."

     So the queen thought the whole night of all the names that she had ever heard, and she sent a messenger over the country to inquire, far and wide, for any other names that there might be. When the manikin came the next day, she began with Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar, and said all the names she knew, one after another, but to every one the little man said, "That is not my name."

     On the second day she had inquiries made in the neighborhood as to the names of the people there, and she repeated to the manikin the most uncommon and curious. Perhaps your name is Shortribs, or Sheepshanks, or Laceleg, but he always answered, "That is not my name."

     On the third day the messenger came back again, and said, "I have not been able to find a single new name, but as I came to a high mountain at the end of the forest, where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, there I saw a little house, and before the house a fire was burning, and round about the fire quite a ridiculous little man was jumping, he hopped upon one leg, and shouted -

     'To-day I bake, to-morrow brew,

<  4  >
     the next I'll have the young queen's child.

     Ha, glad am I that no one knew

     that Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.'"

     You may imagine how glad the queen was when she heard the name. And when soon afterwards the little man came in, and asked, "Now, mistress queen, what is my name?"

     At first she said, "Is your name Conrad?"

     "No."

     "Is your name Harry?"

     "No."

     "Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?"

     "The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that," cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 02, 2011, 06:18:42 PM

         
Hans Christian Andersen
The Fir Tree
Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir Tree. The place he had was a very good one: the sun shone on him: as to fresh air, there was enough of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree.

     He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care for the little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they were in the woods looking for wild-strawberries. The children often came with a whole pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on a straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, "Oh, how pretty he is! What a nice little fir!" But this was what the Tree could not bear to hear.

     At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year he was another long bit taller; for with fir trees one can always tell by the shoots how many years old they are.

     "Oh! Were I but such a high tree as the others are," sighed he. "Then I should be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look into the wide world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches: and when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as the others!"

     Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds which morning and evening sailed above him, gave the little Tree any pleasure.

     In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would often come leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that made him so angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the Tree was so large that the hare was obliged to go round it. "To grow and grow, to get older and be tall," thought the Tree --"that, after all, is the most delightful thing in the world!"

<  2  >
     In autumn the wood-cutters always came and felled some of the largest trees. This happened every year; and the young Fir Tree, that had now grown to a very comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent great trees fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they were hardly to be recognised; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged them out of the wood.

     Where did they go to? What became of them?

     In spring, when the swallows and the storks came, the Tree asked them, "Don't you know where they have been taken? Have you not met them anywhere?"

     The swallows did not know anything about it; but the Stork looked musing, nodded his head, and said, "Yes; I think I know; I met many ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. I may congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high most majestically!"

     "Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But how does the sea look in reality? What is it like?"

     "That would take a long time to explain," said the Stork, and with these words off he went.

     "Rejoice in thy growth!" said the Sunbeams. "Rejoice in thy vigorous growth, and in the fresh life that moveth within thee!"

     And the Wind kissed the Tree, and the Dew wept tears over him; but the Fir understood it not.

     When Christmas came, quite young trees were cut down: trees which often were not even as large or of the same age as this Fir Tree, who could never rest, but always wanted to be off. These young trees, and they were always the finest looking, retained their branches; they were laid on carts, and the horses drew them out of the wood.

<  3  >
     "Where are they going to?" asked the Fir. "They are not taller than I; there was one indeed that was considerably shorter; and why do they retain all their branches? Whither are they taken?"

     "We know! We know!" chirped the Sparrows. "We have peeped in at the windows in the town below! We know whither they are taken! The greatest splendor and the greatest magnificence one can imagine await them. We peeped through the windows, and saw them planted in the middle of the warm room and ornamented with the most splendid things, with gilded apples, with gingerbread, with toys, and many hundred lights!

     "And then?" asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every bough. "And then? What happens then?"

     "We did not see anything more: it was incomparably beautiful."

     "I would fain know if I am destined for so glorious a career," cried the Tree, rejoicing. "That is still better than to cross the sea! What a longing do I suffer! Were Christmas but come! I am now tall, and my branches spread like the others that were carried off last year! Oh! were I but already on the cart! Were I in the warm room with all the splendor and magnificence! Yes; then something better, something still grander, will surely follow, or wherefore should they thus ornament me? Something better, something still grander must follow -- but what? Oh, how I long, how I suffer! I do not know myself what is the matter with me!"

     "Rejoice in our presence!" said the Air and the Sunlight. "Rejoice in thy own fresh youth!"

     But the Tree did not rejoice at all; he grew and grew, and was green both winter and summer. People that saw him said, "What a fine tree!" and towards Christmas he was one of the first that was cut down. The axe struck deep into the very pith; the Tree fell to the earth with a sigh; he felt a pang -- it was like a swoon; he could not think of happiness, for he was sorrowful at being separated from his home, from the place where he had sprung up. He well knew that he should never see his dear old comrades, the little bushes and flowers around him, anymore; perhaps not even the birds! The departure was not at all agreeable.

<  4  >
     The Tree only came to himself when he was unloaded in a court-yard with the other trees, and heard a man say, "That one is splendid! We don't want the others." Then two servants came in rich livery and carried the Fir Tree into a large and splendid drawing-room. Portraits were hanging on the walls, and near the white porcelain stove stood two large Chinese vases with lions on the covers. There, too, were large easy-chairs, silken sofas, large tables full of picture-books and full of toys, worth hundreds and hundreds of crowns -- at least the children said so. And the Fir Tree was stuck upright in a cask that was filled with sand; but no one could see that it was a cask, for green cloth was hung all round it, and it stood on a large gaily-colored carpet. Oh! how the Tree quivered! What was to happen? The servants, as well as the young ladies, decorated it. On one branch there hung little nets cut out of colored paper, and each net was filled with sugarplums; and among the other boughs gilded apples and walnuts were suspended, looking as though they had grown there, and little blue and white tapers were placed among the leaves. Dolls that looked for all the world like men -- the Tree had never beheld such before -- were seen among the foliage, and at the very top a large star of gold tinsel was fixed. It was really splendid -- beyond description splendid.

     "This evening!" they all said. "How it will shine this evening!"

     "Oh!" thought the Tree. "If the evening were but come! If the tapers were but lighted! And then I wonder what will happen! Perhaps the other trees from the forest will come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows will beat against the windowpanes! I wonder if I shall take root here, and winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!"

     He knew very much about the matter -- but he was so impatient that for sheer longing he got a pain in his back, and this with trees is the same thing as a headache with us.

<  5  >
     The candles were now lighted -- what brightness! What splendor! The Tree trembled so in every bough that one of the tapers set fire to the foliage. It blazed up famously.

     "Help! Help!" cried the young ladies, and they quickly put out the fire.

     Now the Tree did not even dare tremble. What a state he was in! He was so uneasy lest he should lose something of his splendor, that he was quite bewildered amidst the glare and brightness; when suddenly both folding-doors opened and a troop of children rushed in as if they would upset the Tree. The older persons followed quietly; the little ones stood quite still. But it was only for a moment; then they shouted that the whole place re-echoed with their rejoicing; they danced round the Tree, and one present after the other was pulled off.

     "What are they about?" thought the Tree. "What is to happen now!" And the lights burned down to the very branches, and as they burned down they were put out one after the other, and then the children had permission to plunder the Tree. So they fell upon it with such violence that all its branches cracked; if it had not been fixed firmly in the ground, it would certainly have tumbled down.

     The children danced about with their beautiful playthings; no one looked at the Tree except the old nurse, who peeped between the branches; but it was only to see if there was a fig or an apple left that had been forgotten.

     "A story! A story!" cried the children, drawing a little fat man towards the Tree. He seated himself under it and said, "Now we are in the shade, and the Tree can listen too. But I shall tell only one story. Now which will you have; that about Ivedy-Avedy, or about Humpy-Dumpy, who tumbled downstairs, and yet after all came to the throne and married the princess?"

     "Ivedy-Avedy," cried some; "Humpy-Dumpy," cried the others. There was such a bawling and screaming -- the Fir Tree alone was silent, and he thought to himself, "Am I not to bawl with the rest? Am I to do nothing whatever?" for he was one of the company, and had done what he had to do.

<  6  >
     And the man told about Humpy-Dumpy that tumbled down, who notwithstanding came to the throne, and at last married the princess. And the children clapped their hands, and cried. "Oh, go on! Do go on!" They wanted to hear about Ivedy-Avedy too, but the little man only told them about Humpy-Dumpy. The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed in thought; the birds in the wood had never related the like of this. "Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess! Yes, yes! That's the way of the world!" thought the Fir Tree, and believed it all, because the man who told the story was so good-looking. "Well, well! who knows, perhaps I may fall downstairs, too, and get a princess as wife! And he looked forward with joy to the morrow, when he hoped to be decked out again with lights, playthings, fruits, and tinsel.

     "I won't tremble to-morrow!" thought the Fir Tree. "I will enjoy to the full all my splendor! To-morrow I shall hear again the story of Humpy-Dumpy, and perhaps that of Ivedy-Avedy too." And the whole night the Tree stood still and in deep thought.

     In the morning the servant and the housemaid came in.

     "Now then the splendor will begin again," thought the Fir. But they dragged him out of the room, and up the stairs into the loft: and here, in a dark corner, where no daylight could enter, they left him. "What's the meaning of this?" thought the Tree. "What am I to do here? What shall I hear now, I wonder?" And he leaned against the wall lost in reverie. Time enough had he too for his reflections; for days and nights passed on, and nobody came up; and when at last somebody did come, it was only to put some great trunks in a corner, out of the way. There stood the Tree quite hidden; it seemed as if he had been entirely forgotten.

     "'Tis now winter out-of-doors!" thought the Tree. "The earth is hard and covered with snow; men cannot plant me now, and therefore I have been put up here under shelter till the spring-time comes! How thoughtful that is! How kind man is, after all! If it only were not so dark here, and so terribly lonely! Not even a hare! And out in the woods it was so pleasant, when the snow was on the ground, and the hare leaped by; yes -- even when he jumped over me; but I did not like it then! It is really terribly lonely here!"

<  7  >
     "Squeak! Squeak!" said a little Mouse, at the same moment, peeping out of his hole. And then another little one came. They snuffed about the Fir Tree, and rustled among the branches.

     "It is dreadfully cold," said the Mouse. "But for that, it would be delightful here, old Fir, wouldn't it?"

     "I am by no means old," said the Fir Tree. "There's many a one considerably older than I am."

     "Where do you come from," asked the Mice; "and what can you do?" They were so extremely curious. "Tell us about the most beautiful spot on the earth. Have you never been there? Were you never in the larder, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from above; where one dances about on tallow candles: that place where one enters lean, and comes out again fat and portly?"

     "I know no such place," said the Tree. "But I know the wood, where the sun shines and where the little birds sing." And then he told all about his youth; and the little Mice had never heard the like before; and they listened and said,

     "Well, to be sure! How much you have seen! How happy you must have been!"

     "I!" said the Fir Tree, thinking over what he had himself related. "Yes, in reality those were happy times." And then he told about Christmas-eve, when he was decked out with cakes and candles.

     "Oh," said the little Mice, "how fortunate you have been, old Fir Tree!"

     "I am by no means old," said he. "I came from the wood this winter; I am in my prime, and am only rather short for my age."

     "What delightful stories you know," said the Mice: and the next night they came with four other little Mice, who were to hear what the Tree recounted: and the more he related, the more he remembered himself; and it appeared as if those times had really been happy times. "But they may still come -- they may still come! Humpy-Dumpy fell downstairs, and yet he got a princess!" and he thought at the moment of a nice little Birch Tree growing out in the woods: to the Fir, that would be a real charming princess.

<  8  >
     "Who is Humpy-Dumpy?" asked the Mice. So then the Fir Tree told the whole fairy tale, for he could remember every single word of it; and the little Mice jumped for joy up to the very top of the Tree. Next night two more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats even; but they said the stories were not interesting, which vexed the little Mice; and they, too, now began to think them not so very amusing either.

     "Do you know only one story?" asked the Rats.

     "Only that one," answered the Tree. "I heard it on my happiest evening; but I did not then know how happy I was."

     "It is a very stupid story! Don't you know one about bacon and tallow candles? Can't you tell any larder stories?"

     "No," said the Tree.

     "Then good-bye," said the Rats; and they went home.

     At last the little Mice stayed away also; and the Tree sighed: "After all, it was very pleasant when the sleek little Mice sat round me, and listened to what I told them. Now that too is over. But I will take good care to enjoy myself when I am brought out again."

     But when was that to be? Why, one morning there came a quantity of people and set to work in the loft. The trunks were moved, the tree was pulled out and thrown -- rather hard, it is true -- down on the floor, but a man drew him towards the stairs, where the daylight shone.

     "Now a merry life will begin again," thought the Tree. He felt the fresh air, the first sunbeam -- and now he was out in the courtyard. All passed so quickly, there was so much going on around him, the Tree quite forgot to look to himself. The court adjoined a garden, and all was in flower; the roses hung so fresh and odorous over the balustrade, the lindens were in blossom, the Swallows flew by, and said, "Quirre-vit! My husband is come!" but it was not the Fir Tree that they meant.

<  9  >
     "Now, then, I shall really enjoy life," said he exultingly, and spread out his branches; but, alas, they were all withered and yellow! It was in a corner that he lay, among weeds and nettles. The golden star of tinsel was still on the top of the Tree, and glittered in the sunshine.

     In the court-yard some of the merry children were playing who had danced at Christmas round the Fir Tree, and were so glad at the sight of him. One of the youngest ran and tore off the golden star.

     "Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!" said he, trampling on the branches, so that they all cracked beneath his feet.

     And the Tree beheld all the beauty of the flowers, and the freshness in the garden; he beheld himself, and wished he had remained in his dark corner in the loft; he thought of his first youth in the wood, of the merry Christmas-eve, and of the little Mice who had listened with so much pleasure to the story of Humpy-Dumpy.

     "'Tis over -- 'tis past!" said the poor Tree. "Had I but rejoiced when I had reason to do so! But now 'tis past, 'tis past!"

     And the gardener's boy chopped the Tree into small pieces; there was a whole heap lying there. The wood flamed up splendidly under the large brewing copper, and it sighed so deeply! Each sigh was like a shot.

     The boys played about in the court, and the youngest wore the gold star on his breast which the Tree had had on the happiest evening of his life. However, that was over now -- the Tree gone, the story at an end. All, all was over -- every tale must end at last.


   

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:28:17 PM

Kate Peterson
Appearance

It was during the first snowstorm of the new year. The color green was something you saw in pictures tacked to the wall or in a memory from what felt like years ago. I was living alone in a studio apartment in a shitty section of west Cleveland. Everything was the same color in that neighborhood, even in the summer. It was the kind of dirty grey that gets swept up into the air of unfinished basements and cold storage warehouses. There were no stairs to get to my apartment. I was as far down as you can get without going under. I slept in the same room as the oven, but I liked the smallness of it. When I was young my sister and I used to zip each other into suitcases. We would drag the suitcases up and down the stairs, and all around the living room, laughing hysterically.

     That first morning I wrapped a scarf around my neck and lit the stove. I tripped over my shoes on my way to the sink to fill the pot. I looked down at them accusingly, as if anyone but me could have put them there. I looked up after kicking them across the room and that was when I saw him for the first time. I wouldn't find out until later that he had been there for weeks. Inches away from me as I slept. An arm's reach as I showered and dressed each morning. He sat with me while I overcooked my eggs and searched the internet for a cat to adopt, each time deciding against it because I could imagine it snowballing into two or three until I became one of those women.

     The outside world that day, and every day since I had been living there, was a white swirling mixture of ground and sky. Set against the bright seamless backdrop was the outline of a man. He was fading in and out with each gust of wind, like a Polaroid gone backwards. But I saw him. I saw the tip of one of his pink fingers poking out of a hole in his glove. His hands were up against his mouth which was covered in a thick dark beard and his breath came in a long slow billow of white smoke, like the mouth of a gutter under a frozen street. His hood was pulled up over his head which made his eyes ever brighter in the shadow. I couldn't tell what color they were, but they seemed to have a reflection inside them like the round outline of a flashbulb in the eye of a magazine model. I didn't scream. I felt nothing like adrenaline, or dread. Or that feeling when your heart beats so fast it makes you want to throw up. Nothing like that happened. If someone told me that they saw a strange man staring at them through their window I would have expected to hear them say, "And then I screamed and dropped my glass and it shattered and I ran to the phone and dialed 911 and then I ran to my front door and pulled the deadbolt across and then I hid in the bathroom with the door closed and I couldn't stop shaking." But I didn't do any of that. I stood completely still as if someone was holding me there, and I watched as the man I saw so clearly disappeared into the endless white.

<  2  >
     There was nothing in my apartment that anyone would want. My possessions were piled in and out of boxes and I didn't even own a real bed. I had a mattress on the floor that tripled as a couch and dining room table. I did own a laptop but I took it with me to work. I didn't own a TV, or a toaster oven, or even a decent pair of shoes. I just decided that since there was nothing for him to steal, and I was sure he figured that out if he took a good look, that I would go on about my day despite his strange appearance outside my window. It felt less like a decision to ignore it, and more like it didn't happen at all. Or like it happens all the time. And that is exactly how it ended up. Each morning while I boiled water and ladled my mug into the steaming pot, I saw him. I didn't own a tea kettle either. I didn't see why people spent money on things like that when they could function perfectly well without them. But anyway, each night when I came home from work and my apartment was dark and quiet and anyone would think that I should be scared, I wasn't. There was no one waiting for me behind the shower curtain. Nothing was ever out of place. There were never any footprints circling my apartment, or scratch marks around my doorknob. I came and went peacefully and each morning I shared a moment with a stranger whose eye brows curled up like a puppy and whose fingers were always bent across his mouth.

     It went on for about a week that way. I continued to start my car ten minutes early with the keys dangling in the ignition, so it could thaw. I guess in hindsight that was a pretty stupid thing to do in west Cleveland anyway, random man or not. But I mean I just lived my life normally, with the exception of my gloomy window friend stopping by more and more often. Once while I was watching TV late at night, something caught my eye at the window. Of course it was him. I just kept on eating my popcorn until I was full and there was still half a bowl left. I hated to waste food, and I always felt bad for the little birds that hopped over the snow, and wondered what the hell they ate in this neighborhood at twelve below. So sometimes I would throw food outside for them. Or for the squirrels. So I went to the window. I had never really…confronted the man. I stayed a room's length away from him as he peered at me sadly. But that night I guess I got brave. I got up and saw his outline like the moon must have been fat and shining right behind him, casting a line of white around his face. My eyes went to the top of the window to unhook the lock, and when they returned to him there was only the snow. He had been erased by its pale hand. I put my face into the cold, that kind of cold that feels more like fire than ice, and I looked for him. The snow was covered in a layer of glass. I threw the leftover popcorn and it rolled like dice across the ground. There were no signs of his tracks. I noticed, as I pulled the window back down, that there was no moon that night.

<  3  >
     The next morning I saw the white grey billows of exhaust fumes pouring out of a piece of shit station wagon in front of my apartment. I saw the woman's eyes, and they were glossy and dull. I had seen her baby basset hound eyebrows before, on the man at my window. She just stared at the door as if she was waiting for someone to come out. I came out. She drove away.

     It happened that way three times. Not all at once, but spread so far out across two weeks that I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't a déjà vu, and that yes, this had really happened before. The fourth time I decided had to be different. Something about her felt so much like the man at my window, but maybe it was just her coming and going. And her staring. And those eyebrows arching up. But her hands were not covering her mouth; they were white and exposed even in this weather, and they were gripping the steering wheel. So I could see that her lips were moving tightly against each other, and on top of each other, pulling in and out of her mouth. This fourth time she didn't drive away when I walked out onto the ice. I stood waiting for her to do it; to drive away as she always had. But she just looked ahead at the road, and then back into my face. Then I saw her hand move to the door, and the window rolled down. I walked towards her casually, not like someone who had seen her on three previous mornings, but like someone who was going to ask her if she needed directions. Or if she was alright. So I did ask her that, because I wasn't sure what else to say.

     The wind stole the words and spread them out across the trees and the pavement and the kicked over silver trash cans. She said nothing. She looked like she might drive away again. She put her hands back on the wheel and looked straight ahead. But then she turned and looked past me at my apartment. I looked back then too, like maybe I was missing something. She was looking at the right side of the house, at the space between it and the neighbor's fence, which was all of four feet. It was the space where I saw my window friend each morning standing, waiting to watch me curse at my hair for making me late.

<  4  >
     "Are you looking for him?" I asked. Feeling as soon as I said it, the longing to take it back. I wasn't sure what I would say if she asked "Who?" Oh, just that man who stares in my window every day. The one who for all I know could be a serial killer casing out his next victim. I know that's what people would think if I told them. But it didn't feel like that at all.

     But she didn't ask me who, she didn't say anything for about a minute, she just stared blankly back and forth between me and the apartment, and I knew that I would be late for work again. She looked like she was about to say something, her mouth kept moving and tears starting falling into it from her eyes. I remembered the landlord speaking to me in broken English, telling me how grateful he was that he didn't need to help me carry furniture. I remembered him telling me that a couple had lived there before me. And he kept saying something in Spanish that sounded like "tragic." And he kept shaking his head.

     "Do you need help?" I asked, coming a little closer to the window. She just kept crying, harder now. I squeezed my cell phone for the time and saw that I was still early. I always turned my car on too soon, and by the time I got inside it the snow was pouring from the roof like rain.

     "You can come inside and we can have some tea if you want." I said, imagining myself using a soup spoon to dish her out a ration of hot water.

     "Or maybe you just want to talk? Is that why you keep coming here?" I just kept talking. I didn't know what else to do with her.

     "What's your name? I just moved here a few weeks ago, actually I guess it's been more than a month. I don't know anyone. I work downtown at a magazine. I do graphic design." She started to calm down a little and looked at me.

<  5  >
     "Amy," she said quietly.

     "Hey Amy," I said, a little too cheerfully. "I'm Ellen. Is this where you used to live?" I said, pointing back at my little faded blue apartment and the trees, and the trash cans that were glued to the sidewalk now from all the ice. She stared at the apartment and nodded at it, as if it had asked her the question.

     "Well, did you want to come in for a little while? I can't stay long, I do have to go soon, but you can come in for a few minutes if you want. I know when I moved from my first house I always wanted to go back and see what they did to my old room. See if they painted it a different color or anything. I didn't paint anything yet. Maybe I will in the summer." I smiled at her, and she smiled back slowly, as if her face had forgotten which muscles it took to pull up the chapped corners of her mouth. She stared at the house, and then at me and then back at the house again, and without saying anything she unlocked her seat belt and got out of the car. We were standing there in the middle of the frozen street, her car was still running and dripping fluid, making a little puddle that was curling and flowing over the cracks in the ice and the dirty solid snow that was pushed up onto the curb.

     "Did you want to…?" I motioned to the keys hanging in the ignition. It was alright for me to leave my car running, but if hers got stolen I would feel pretty terrible.

     "Oh, yeah, thanks," she said softly. I watched her lean into her car and shut it off, pull the keys out and put them in the pocket of her coat. When she turned to face me again I smiled a sort of awkward, ok right this way, kind of smile, and turned to walk to the apartment. She followed me hesitantly and I heard her take in a deep breath. The cold air must have stung her lungs because she started coughing.

<  6  >
     "You ok?" I said, turning to look at her over my shoulder as I opened the door and walked in. She just nodded, and I saw her eyebrows start to go higher, and her lips start to pull into her mouth. I wasn't sure if this was such a great idea after all. What was I supposed to do with some strange sobbing woman? I remembered that I didn't have anywhere for her to sit, and it felt like an even worse idea. I took in a deep breath of the frozen air as we walked into the apartment.

     She was my first guest and I was suddenly a little self conscious about my housekeeping. I scooped up the cold soggy tea bags from the counter and threw them in the trash, and moved a few things around so I didn't look like a slob.

     "Do you want some tea? Or hot chocolate maybe? I don't have a coffee maker." I grabbed two mugs before she could answer, refilled the pot that was on the stove, and started it to boil. She didn't say anything, and I looked behind me to see her standing in what I guess had been her living room, looking around the apartment like Dorothy when she came out of her little spinning cabin.

     "I think I feel like some hot chocolate," I said, trying to break her from her daze. She stared at me as if she had forgotten where she was. "Sure," she said finally.

     I attempted small talk, mostly to myself, while the water boiled. I asked her questions and got a nod here and there. Finally I had two cups of hot chocolate and I stirred at them violently trying to get the lumps out.

     "I wish I had some of those tiny marshmallows. They're fun," I said, smiling awkwardly as I handed her the mug. It was from some rest stop in the Redwood Forrest, Paul Bunyan and his big blue Ox. I wished I would have noticed and given her the one with the Dalmatian instead. That would have seemed a little less awkward. My mom sent it to me because when I was little I loved Dalmatians. I tried to explain to her that, thanks to Disney, lots of little kids liked Dalmatians and that the phase was over, but she still kept sending me mugs and birthday cards with black spots.

<  7  >
     "I guess you could sit…on my bed if you want? I'm sorry, that's pretty creepy but I don't have any chairs yet." I looked around at the empty walls and the posters rolled up on the floor and told myself I would hang them up tonight. But I knew I wouldn't. She walked over to my bed and sat down on the corner. I pulled up a box full of books and sat down on it. I sipped at the hot chocolate and got a big chunk of powder. I hoped I had stirred hers a little better.

     "So, you lived here before me?" I asked quietly. Hoping not to start another round of hysterics; she had finally seemed to calm down.

     "Yes."

     "Did you live alone?" I squeezed the hot mug, already feeling like I knew the answer. She must have been part of the couple the landlord attempted to gossip with me about. Maybe it was a really bad breakup. Maybe he was still looking for her, still stalking her. I thought of the man who I guess was stalking me. But he didn't seem like he would hurt anybody. He was too sad, too cold and lonely.

     "No," she said, and then she breathed into the steaming mug, and I waited, hoping that maybe she would tell me her story so that I didn't ask the wrong question and make her cry.

     "I lived with my fiancé, Eric. He was a musician." She tried smiling. "We had rugs and towels hanging all over the walls," - she pointed to the tiny holes, the ones I never noticed - "and his friends would come over and practice."

     "Band practice in this place? That must have been crazy." She smiled bigger now. I was sure she was transporting herself back there, and I pictured four or five guys with guitars huddled around the bed where she sat and listened, maybe a drummer with his chair stuck inside the bathroom. She stopped talking and stared down into her mug. We sat in silence and then my eyes went to the window. He was back.

<  8  >
     Amy noticed the way I looked at the window suddenly, and she looked too, but nothing happened. She didn't see him. He walked closer to the window and cupped his hands around his face to peer inside. Then he looked sadder than he ever had. His cheeks pulled up and his forehead wrinkled like an old man. It looked like he was shaking. He put his palms flat on the window and I could see what looked like frost forming where the tips of his fingers touched the glass. I realized in that moment, what I knew I couldn't say out loud. Either I had a tumor growing in my brain that was making me see this man that she couldn't, or he was a ghost. He was her ghost. Her fiance's ghost.

     "Amy, what happened to him? To Eric." I halfway hoped she would say, "What do you mean? He's at work." But then that would mean that I had a tumor, and I couldn't afford a tumor. I didn't have health insurance.

     But she didn't say that. She just looked at me as if she didn't care how I knew, or what I knew. As if I wasn't even there. She stared into the air and her mind went somewhere else again. This time it wasn't somewhere happy at all.

     "He killed himself. Right over there." She pointed to the cramped bathroom. The yellow tiles. I pictured the man at the window, staring into the tiny mirror over the sink, with a gun inside his mouth. I thought about what questions were appropriate, if any. And what do you ask first? Why or how? I guess how was the less complicated one so I went with that.

     "Pills. He swallowed the whole cabinet full. I found him lying on the floor all curled up." She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut hard. I guess she was seeing it again. Seeing him. I looked at the window and he was squeezing his eyes shut too.

     "What was he like?" I tried changing the subject a little. I stared out the window at him as she spoke.

<  9  >
     "He was," she paused, "quiet. I never knew what he was going through. In his head. He just wouldn't tell me. He lost his job and they kicked him out of the band. They said they didn't need three guitar players, they said they looked stupid on stage with that many people. My parents never liked him. They didn't want us to get married. They said he looked like he belonged in a homeless shelter. But he loved that beard. I loved it..." She trailed off and looked down at her shoes, which were making a puddle on the wood floor.

     "I'm sorry, I don't know why I keep coming here. I just feel close to him here I guess. I never got to say goodbye." She sighed and looked around at the empty walls. I was sure now that the man at the window was dead. That he was Eric. That he was coming here for her. I guess it didn't sound as crazy to me as it should have.

     "I think he's been coming here too." I said, bracing myself in case she flipped out. She didn't. She just stared at me and squinted her eyes like she was trying to read the fine print across my face.

     "Someone's been coming to the window. I thought maybe he was homeless or, I'm not sure what I thought. But maybe it's him. He's there right now actually." I expected him to disappear as soon as she turned her head to look out the window, but he didn't. He stared into her eyes. She turned back to me.

     "There?" she said, confused, pointing to the frozen glass.

     "Yeah. He's looking at you. He seems really upset. Maybe he didn't mean to do it." I wasn't sure what I was doing. Being an interpreter for the dead? She looked at me at first like I was crazy, and I understood. But she didn't get up, she didn't throw the hot brown liquid in my face and run screaming for the door. I think she must have wanted this, deep down. She must have driven here needing to find something. Needing this to be real. Her face softened and she looked back at the window as she spoke. I looked back too and of course, maybe to make me look even crazier, he was gone.

<  10  >
     "Does he…talk?" she said, and I could hear the sane part of her trying to win out over whatever part believed it all.

     "Well he's gone now. But no, he doesn't talk. Not to me."

     She snapped her head back towards me, the fastest movement she had made so far.

     "What do you mean, he's gone?" She got up and went to the window. She looked out of it a little frantically, and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She stood there with her eyes closed for a long time. Just breathing.

     Finally she turned and looked around the apartment again, this time with the softest edge of a grin. She looked down into her mug and then up to me.

     "Thank you for this. For letting me come back."

     "You're welcome."

     "I'll let you go now. I don't want to make you late." She walked to the sink and put her mug down next to the dirty plates and cups. I followed her to the door as if it were still her apartment. The sun was so bright against the snow that I had to shield my eyes with the half empty Dalmatian mug.

     "It was nice meeting you." She said, smiling so that now I could see the row of white teeth that I never imagined existed.

     "Sure. I'm glad I could…help?" I said, searching for the words to describe or explain what just took place. She turned and walked back to her car, seeming almost a little embarrassed for having been there at all. Then to my left, from the side of the house came at first a shadow, and then a man. Eric. Now he had a name. I watched as he walked with his hands down from his face now and at his sides. He stopped and looked at me, right into my eyes, for a few seconds that seemed to stretch out longer than any other few seconds of my life. Then he walked forward again, catching up to Amy.

<  11  >
     "Amy!" I wanted to tell her that he was right there, he was right behind her. But I stopped. She turned to face me and she was really facing him. He was between us looking right into her face, close enough to touch her.

     "You're welcome to stop by anytime." I said, feeling like it sounded less genuine that it was. I guess I really did mean it. She got into the car and I watched as Eric got into the passenger's seat.

     "Thanks." She said, looking back at the house. I knew I would never see her again by the way she looked at it as she drove off, like she was saying goodbye.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:32:51 PM

Fernando Sorrentino
Unjustified Fears
Translated by Naomi Lindstrom

I'm not very sociable, and often I forget about my friends. After letting two years go by, on one of those January days in1979 - they're so hot - I went to visit a friend who suffers from somewhat unjustified fears. His name doesn't matter; let's call him - just call him - Enrique Viani.

     On a certain Saturday in March, 1977, his life changed course.

     It seems that, while in the living room of his house, near the door to the balcony, Enrique Viani saw, suddenly, an "enor-mous" - according to him - spider on his right shoe. No sooner had he had the thought this was the biggest spider he'd seen in his life, when, suddenly leaving its place on his shoe, the animal slipped up his pants leg between the leg and the pants.

     Enrique Viani was - he said - "petrified." Nothing so disagreeable had ever happened to him. At that instant he recalled two principles he had read somewhere or other, which were: 1) that, without exception, all spiders, even the smallest ones, carry poison, and can inject it; and, 2) that spiders only sting when they feel attacked or disturbed. It was plain to see, that huge spider must surely have plenty of poison in it, the full strength toxic type. So, Enrique Viani thought the most sensible thing to do was hold stock still, since at the least move of his, the insect would inject him with a definitive dose of deadly poison.

     So he kept rigid for five or six hours, with the reasonable hope that the spider would eventually leave the spot it had taken up on his right tibia; clearly, it couldn't stay too long in a place where it couldn't find any food.

     As he came up with this optimistic prediction, he felt that, indeed, the visitor was starting to move. It was such a bulky, heavy spider that Enrique Viani could feel - and count - the footfalls of the eight feet - hairy and slightly sticky - across the goose flesh of his leg. But, unfortunately, the guest was not leaving; instead, it nested, with its warm and throbbing cephalothorax and abdomen, in the hollow we all have behind our knees.

<  2  >

*

Up to here we have the first - and, of course, fundamental - part of this story. After that there came some not very significant variations: the basic fact was that Enrique Viani, afraid of getting stung, insisted on keeping stone still as long as need be, despite his wife and two daughters' pleas for him to abandon the plan. And so, they came to a stalemate where no progress was possible.

     Then Graciela - the wife - did me the honor of calling me in to see if I could resolve the problem. This happened around two in the afternoon: I was a bit annoyed to have to give up my one siesta of the week and I silently cursed out people who can't manage their own affairs. Once over at Enrique Viani's house, I found a pathetic scene: he stood immobile, though not in too stiff a pose, rather like parade rest; Graciela and the girls were crying.

     I managed to keep myself calm and tried to calm the three women as well. Then I told Enrique Viani that if he agreed to my plan, I could make quick work of the invading spider. Opening his mouth just the least bit, so as not to send the slightest quiver through his leg muscle, Enrique Viani wondered:

     "What plan?"

     I explained. I'd take a razor blade and make a vertical slit downwards in his pants leg till I came to the spider, without even touching it. Once this was done, it would be easy for me to hit it with a rolled-up newspaper, knock it to the floor and then kill it or catch it.

     "No, no," muttered Enrique Viani, desperate, but trying to restrain himself. "The pants leg will move and the spider will sting me. No, no, that's a terrible idea."

     Stubborn people drive me up the wall. Without boasting, I can say my plan was perfect, and here this wretch who'd made me miss my siesta just up and rejects it, for no serious reason and, to top it off, he's snotty about it.

<  3  >
     "Then I don't know what on earth we'll do," said Graciela. "And just tonight we have Patricia's fifteenth birthday party ..."

     "Congratulations," I said, and kissed the birthday girl.

     "... and we can't let the guests see Enrique standing there like a statue."

     "Besides, what will Alejandro say."

     "Who's Alejandro?"

     "My boyfriend," Patricia, predictably, answered.

     "I've got an idea!" exclaimed Claudia, the little sister. "We can call Don Nicola and ..."

     I want it clear that I wasn't exactly wild about Claudia's plan and had nothing to do with its being adopted. In fact, I was dead set against it. But everyone else was heartily in favor of it and Enrique Viani was more enthusiastic than anyone.

     So Don Nicola showed up and right away, being a man of action and not words, he set to work. Quickly he mixed mortar and, brick by brick, built up around Enrique Viani a tall, thin cylinder. The tight fit of his living quarters, far from being a drawback, allowed Enrique Viani to sleep standing up with no fear of falling and losing his upright position. Then Don Nicola carefully plastered over the construction, applied a base and painted it moss green to blend in with the carpeting and chairs.

     Still, Graciela - dissatisfied with the general effect of this mini obelisk in the living room - tried putting a vase of flowers on top of it and then an ornamental lamp. Undecided, she said:

     "This mess will have to do for now. Monday I'll buy something decent-looking."

     To keep Enrique Viani from getting too lonely, I thought of staying on for Patricia's party, but the thought of facing the music our young people are so fond of terrified me. Anyway, Don Nicola had taken care to make a little rectangular window in front of Enrique Viani's eyes, so he could keep entertained watching certain irregularities in the wall paint. So, seeing everything was normal, I said goodbye to the Vianis and Don Nicola and went back home.

<  4  >

*

In Buenos Aires back in those years we were all overwhelmed with duties and obligations: the truth is I almost forgot all about Enrique Viani. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I managed to get free for a moment and went to call on him.

     I found he was still living in his little obelisk, only now a splendid blue-flowering creeper had twined its runners and leaves all around it. I pulled a bit to one side some of the luxuriant greenery and through the little window I managed to spot a face so pale it was nearly transparent. Guessing the question I was about to ask, Graciela told me that, through a kind of wise adaptation to the new circumstances, nature had exempted Enrique Viani from all physical necessities.

     I didn't want to leave without making one last plea for sanity. I asked Enrique Viani to be reasonable; after twenty-three months of being walled up, this spider of ours was surely dead, so, then, we could tear down Don Nicola's handiwork and ...

     Enrique Viani had lost the power of speech or at any rate his voice could no longer be heard; he just said no desperately with his eyes.

     Tired and, maybe, a bit sad, I left.

     In general, I don't think about Enrique Viani. But lately, I recalled his situation two or three times, and I flared up with rebellion: ah, if those unjustified fears didn't have such a hold, you'd see how I'd grab a pickaxe and knock down that ridiculous structure of Don Nicola's; you'd see how, facing facts that spoke louder than words, Enrique Viani would end up agreeing his fears were groundless.

     But, after these flareups, respect for my fellow-man wins out, and I realize I have no right to butt into other people's lives and deprive Enrique Viani of an advantage he so treasures.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:37:10 PM

 
 

       
Crystal Arbogast
Hobnail

Fannie Poteet sat cross-legged on her Uncle John's front porch; her favorite rag doll clutched under one arm. The late afternoon sun shone through the leaves of the giant oak tree, casting its flickering light on the cabin. This golden motion of light entranced the child and she sat with her face turned upward, as if hypnotized. The steady hum of conversation flowed from inside of the cabin.

     "Ellen, I'm sure happy that you came to church with us today. Why don't you spend the night? It's getting awfully late and it will be dark before you make it home."

     "I'll be fine Sally," replied Fannie's mother. "Anyhow, you know how Lige is about his supper. I left plenty for him and the boys on the back of the stove, but he'll want Fannie and me home. Besides, he'll want to hear if Sam Bosworth's wife managed to drag him into church."

     The laughter that followed her mother's statement broke the child's musings and she stood up, pulled her dress over the protruding petticoat, and stepped inside.

     "Get your shawl Fannie. When the sun goes down, it'll get chilly."

     As the little girl went to the chair by the fireplace to retrieve her wrap, her uncle came in from the back with a lantern.

     "You'll need this Ellen. The wick is new and I've filled it up for you."

     "I appreciate it Johnny," Ellen said. "I'll have Lige bring it back when he goes to town next week."

     Ellen kissed her younger brother good-bye and hugged Sally gently. Patting her sister-in-law on her swollen belly, she said," I'll be back at the end of the month. Don't be lifting anything heavy. If that queasy feeling keeps bothering you, brew some of that mint tea I left in the kitchen. Lord knows I've never seen a baby keep its mammy so sick as much as this one has. It's a boy for sure."

<  2  >
     Upon hearing this, Fannie frowned. She was the youngest in her family, and the only girl. After living with four brothers, she had prayed fervently to God every night for Him to let her aunt have a girl. The only other comfort she had was the pretty rag doll that her mother had made for her. Tucking the doll under her left arm and gathering the shawl with the same hand, she stood waiting patiently. Aunt Sally kissed her lightly on the cheek and squeezed Fannie gently. "If I have a girl, I hope that she will be as sweet as you," her aunt whispered. Uncle John patted her on the head and said, "Bye Punkin. When that old momma cat has her kittens, I'll give you the pick of the litter."

     This brought a smile to Fannie's face and swept away the darkening thoughts of boys.

     Ellen secured her own shawl about her shoulders and tossing one side around and over again, picked up the lantern, which had already been lit. Taking Fannie's right hand, the pair proceeded on the three-mile trek back home. Heavy rains during the last week had left the dirt road virtually impassable for anyone on foot. Ellen and her daughter would return home the way they had come, by following the railroad track. The track was about one half mile above the road. It wound and wound around the mountains and through the valleys carrying the coal and lumber, which had been harvested from the land. Once on the track, they proceeded in the direction of their own home. Ellen began to tell Fannie about the trains and all of the distant places they went to. The little girl loved hearing her mother's stories of all the big cities far away. She had been to town only a few times and had never traveled outside of Wise County. Fannie remembered her papa talking about his brother Jack.

     Uncle Jack had left the county, as well as the state of Virginia. He was in a faraway place called Cuba, fighting for a man called Roosevelt. She wondered what kind of place Cuba was, and if it was anything like home.

<  3  >
     The sun's last rays were sinking behind the tree-studded mountains. Shadows rose ominously from the dense woods on both sides of the track. Rustling sounds from the brush caused Fannie to jump, but her mother's soothing voice calmed her fears.

     "It's all right Child; just foxes and possums."

     A hoot owl's mournful cry floated out of the encroaching darkness and Fannie tightened her grip on her mother's hand.

     Finally, night enveloped the landscape, and all that could be seen was the warm glow of the lantern and the shadow of the figures behind it. It was a moonless night, and the faint glow of a few stars faded in between the moving clouds. Fannie tripped over the chunks of gravel scattered between the ties and Ellen realized that her daughter was tired.

     "We'll rest awhile child. My guess is that we have less than a mile to go."

     Ellen set the lantern down and the weary travelers attempted to get comfortable sitting on the rail.

     "Mammy, it's so scary in the dark. Will God watch over us and protect us?"

     "Yes, Fannie. Remember what that new young preacher said in church today. The Good Lord is always with you, and when you need His strength, call out His name. Better still, do what I do."

     "What's that mammy?"

     "Well," Ellen said, stroking her daughter's hair," I sing one of my favorite hymns."

     While contemplating her mother's advice, Fannie was distracted by a sound. The sound came from the direction they had traveled from, and the girl's eyes peered into the ink like darkness. It was very faint, but unlike the other noises she had grown used to along the way. The slow methodic sound was someone walking, and coming in their direction.

<  4  >
     "Mammy, do you hear that?"

     "Hear what child?"

     Fannie moved closer to her mother and said, "It's somebody else coming!"

     Ellen gave her daughter a comforting hug and replied," You're just imagining things Fannie. We've rested enough. Let's get on home. Your papa will be worried."

     Ellen picked up the lantern, took Fannie's hand, and the two resumed their journey. After a while, the sound that had unnerved the little girl began again. This time the steps were more distinct, and definitely closer. The distant ringing of heavy boots echoed in the dark.

     "Mammy, I hear it again!"

     "Hush child."

     Ellen swung the lantern around.

     "See, there's nothing there."

     Fannie secured the grip on her mother's hand and clutched her rag doll tightly. The hoot owl continued its call in the distance, and the night breeze rustled the leaves in the trees.

     "The air sure smells like rain," said Ellen. "The wind is picking up a mite too. We'll be home soon, little girl. Yonder is the last bend."

     Fannie found comfort in her mother's voice, but in the darkness behind them, the steps rang louder. It was the sound of boots, heavy hobnail boots.

     "Mammy, it's getting closer!"

     Ellen swung the lantern around again and said, "Child, there's nothing out there. Tell you what; let's sing "Precious Lord".

     Fannie joined in with her mother, but her voice quivered with fear as the heavy steps came closer and closer. She couldn't understand why her mother seemed oblivious to the sound.

     Ellen's singing grew louder, and up ahead the warm glow of light from their own home glimmered down the side and through the trees. A dog barking in the distance brought the singing to an abrupt end.

<  5  >
     "See child, we're almost home. Tinker will be running up to meet us. Big old Tinker. He's chased mountain lions before. He'll see us safely home."

     "Let's hurry then Mammy. Can't you hear? It's closer and I'm scared. Let's run!"

     "All right child, but see, I'm telling you there's nothing there."

     Ellen made another sweep around with the lantern and as they proceeded she cried out, "Here Tinker! Come on boy!"

     The dog raced up the path leading to the track and the two nearly collided with him as they stepped down on the familiar trail to home.

     "Ellen, is that you?"

     Fannie's heart filled with joy as her father's voice rang out of the darkness.

     "Yes Lige. I'm sorry we're so late. I'm afraid I walked a bit fast for this child. She's worn out."

     Elijah picked up his daughter and carried her the rest of the way home. Once inside of the cabin, Ellen helped Fannie undress and gently tucked her in bed.

     The comforting sounds of her parents' voices drifted from the kitchen. Even the snores of her brothers in the back made her smile and be thankful that she and her mother were safe and sound. Before closing her eyes, her mother's voice rang in her ears.

     "Lige, I heard the steps. I didn't want to frighten the child. I kept singing and swinging the lantern around and telling her there was nothing to be afraid of. But Lige, just before we got off the tracks, I turned the lantern around one last time. That's when I saw what was following us. I saw the figure of a man. A man without a head!"

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:41:42 PM

 
 


Eliza Riley
Return to Paradise
Lisa gazed out over the Caribbean Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face - eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered the last time she had been here.

     She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as his looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort on the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the travelling they would do together - it was all certain, so they had thought then.

     But that seemed such a long time ago now. A lot can change in just a few years - a lot of heartache can change a person and drive a wedge through the strongest ties, break even the deepest love. Three years to the day and they had returned, though this time not for the beachside marriages the island was famous for but for one of its equally popular quickie divorces.

     Lisa let out a sigh that was filled with pain and regret. What could she do but move on, find a new life and new dreams? - the old one was beyond repair. How could this beautiful place, with its lush green coastline, eternity of azure blue sea and endless sands be a place for the agony she felt now?

     The man stood watching from the edge of the palm trees. He couldn't take his eyes of the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water's edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something - or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself. It wasn't her looks that attracted him though; he came across many beautiful women in his work as a freelance photographer. It was her loneliness and intensity that lured him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he could meet.

<  2  >
     Lisa sensed the man approaching even before she turned around. She had been aware of him standing there staring at her and had felt strangely calm about being observed. She looked at him and felt the instant spark of connection she had only experienced once before. He walked slowly towards her and they held each other's gaze. It felt like meeting a long lost friend - not a stranger on a strange beach.

     Later, sitting at one of the many bars on the resort, sipping the local cocktails they began to talk. First pleasantries, their hotels, the quality of the food and friendliness of the locals. Their conversation was strangely hesitant considering the naturalness and confidence of their earlier meeting. Onlookers, however, would have detected the subtle flirtation as they mirrored each other's actions and spoke directly into each other's eyes. Only later, after the alcohol had had its loosening effect, did the conversation deepen. They talked of why they were here and finally, against her judgement, Lisa opened up about her heartache of the past year and how events had led her back to the place where she had married the only man she believed she could ever love. She told him of things that had been locked deep inside her, able to tell no one. She told him how she had felt after she had lost her baby.

     She was six months pregnant and the happiest she had ever been when the pains had started. She was staying with her mother as James was working out of town. He hadn't made it back in time. The doctor had said it was just one of those things, that they could try again. But how could she when she couldn't even look James in the eye. She hated him then, for not being there, for not hurting as much as her but most of all for looking so much like the tiny baby boy that she held for just three hours before the took him away. All through the following months she had withdrawn from her husband, family, friends. Not wanting to recover form the pain she felt - that would have been a betrayal of her son. At the funeral she had refused to stand next to her husband and the next day she had left him.

<  3  >
     Looking up, Lisa could see her pain reflected in the man's eyes. For the first time in months she didn't feel alone, she felt the unbearable burden begin to lift from her, only a bit but it was a start. She began to believe that maybe she had a future after all and maybe it could be with this man, with his kind hazel eyes, wet with their shared tears.

     They had come here to dissolve their marriage but maybe there was hope. Lisa stood up and took James by the hand and led him away from the bar towards the beech where they had made their vows to each other three years ago. Tomorrow she would cancel the divorce; tonight they would work on renewing their promises.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:44:57 PM

A. J. McKenna
Old Ghosts
It is Jim Brennan's birthday. He wakens on this humid August morning, startled by birdsong echoing across the garden outside and, for a long time, he stares in confused remembrance towards where the swelling orange sun is burning the faded floral wallpaper across from his tumbled bed.

     'It's my birthday,' he finally realises. 'I'm seventy-six today. Where did it go?'

     Climbing painfully from a sore mattress, standing in striped pyjamas by the window, Jim stares gardenwards. There's much too be done. Later. Much later. These days it's all weed killing, backache and wishes. Outside in the sunrise garden roses are already awake, clematis climbs like a growing child and all the border marigolds are on fire.

     'It's my birthday.'

     Next door's dog barks. A cat scales a glass sharp wall and drops beside its shadow under an apple tree, stalking anxious sparrows with the first sun. Under the broken birdhouse a mouse plays with a nibble of yesterday's bread. Shadows shrink in bright shyness against all the garden fences and the last star melts into dawnrise. There's heat in the breathless August day already.

 

Jimmy Brennan, seventy-six, sitting in his kitchen. Silent. The house, holding its breath around him, the roof heavy and oven baked. Jim's thick veined hands brush toast crumbs from the plastic tabletop and when he moves his faded slippered feet dust dances giddily on the sun patched carpet. He listens to the awakening of the new day: the clock on the dresser ticks hurriedly and the letter box snaps awake.

     Jim walks to the hall and picks up bills and ads that promise discounts and holidays abroad. Jim has never been out of Ireland, never crossed the sea. His tired eyes examine the envelopes at arm's length. There are no birthday cards to sigh over - these days who would know?

     Returning to the familiar kitchen he slides a knife along his letters, slitting out their folded information. It's better than nothing. Even if the electricity is red and overdue. At least, they keep in touch. No longer absorbed in his letter opening task Jim looks at the sunlight shining blindly on his glazed, brown teapot and then, laying the bad news aside for later, he pours more lukewarm tea. He sits and thinks about birthdays back then. Cakes and ale, songs and celebrations and the long dead who cared. Back when.

<  2  >
     'Time flies,' he says.

     He's talking to himself most days - who else will listen? Up in the still shadowed parlour a clock chimes the hour and Jim rises tiredly and prepares to face the day. When he turns on the wireless the news assaults his soul. The world is littered with dead children and pain. Bad news amuses while the ad men slip in a jingle. The world has gone mad with cruelty and nobody seems to have noticed. He turns a dial and foreign voices cackle urgently in the ether. Talking violence in tongues, telling of the rapes of children, no doubt. The media loves abusing the innocent with their excited updates and urgently breaking stories. It was different back then. It seemed quieter and children could play on the streets. Back when.

     Ring- a- ring- a- rosy!

     Jim smiles and finds Mozart and the morning is saved by Cherubino. Then he dresses and walks, cane and cloth cap, to the front door and checks the windows and the bolts and all's secure. When the nighttime house creaks with its own age, Jim thinks of burglars and imagined violations and trembles in case they invade him.

     What a world!

     Jim swings open the front door and sees Ellen Kelly stands there, smiling like sunlight.

     'Happy birthday, Jim.'

     No longer astonished, Jim smiles back and sighs because Ellen isn't really there.

     Ellen Kelly, fourteen last week. He's been seeing Ellen a lot lately. She walked behind him all the way to the hushed library yesterday and when he sat to rest in Carolyn Park she was standing under a tree, waiting in its shade.

     'I didn't forget,' Ellen says.

     'I know, I know.'

     'Will you come out to play?'

<  3  >
     'I can't Ellen. You're dead.'

     The sun slides down the street and settles on Jim's house and Ellen fades like a startled shadow.

     'Poor Ellen,' Jim whispers sadly. 'My poor dead darling.'

 

Jim avoids the supermarket. It's too complicated. Grim checkout people urgent to get home. Kids breathing asthma. Babes bawling immediate needs. Bald headed young men pushing forward, rings in their ears, rape in their shiftless eyes. Never stare back. Girls demanding more. Car parks cluttered with stress earned money. Housewives hurrying, car exhausts, liberated women with little freedom. The exhaustion of super markets and too much choice. Too big, too modern. Too lonely for Jim.

     He goes to smaller stores, chats with familiar people and gets milk and eggs and a small loaf of fresh bread. Further along, outside the charity shop, Mrs Barret from number twenty-nine nods an inquisitive greeting.

     'How are you keeping?' she asks, looking past him at the bargains in the window.

     'Grand, thank God. Yourself?'

     'Couldn't be better.'

     Life is strangled with polite lies.

     Jim walks home through the heating streets towards sanctuary at seventy six.

 

In his armchair in the parlour looking out on the road. Hearing the parlour's ten time chime and the long day stretching ahead like a dreadful eternity. The terror of ten a.m. Nothing to do and outside bright girls hurry through the morning, sun on their heads, time on their hands. Feet clattering, black tights, skirts just short of sin. Making promises.

     I'm glad I'm not young anymore.

     Jim despises this time of day. Already too hot for the garden and nothing to fill the mind until making something at lunchtime. Light sustenance for the long afternoon lengthening drearily ahead like an empty road going nowhere. Jim tries to read but even in glasses the words are a blur.

<  4  >
     'Ellen,' he whispers and her name rings in his head like a tolling bell.

     Ellen Kelly, Kelly Ellen, Kellen Nelly.

     Jim plays with her. His eyes close. He becomes delirious with dreaming and hears distantly the brass handle under the Brassoed letterbox clattering once. Jim shuffles down the hall and when he cautiously opens the wide door Ellen is there, fifteen and lovely, framed in the sun like a miracle. Ellen Kelly, budding with womanhood and childfresh happiness.

     'Will you not come out to play, Jim?'

     From behind, a different ghost in the dark hallway, Jim's mother, smiling.

     'He's got to do some shopping for me, Ellen dear.'

     Jim, sixteen, between women, inter Ellen's, adolescently happy.

     'I'll come along with you, then,' Ellen, always agreeable. 'We'll go to the shops together. If that's all right?

     Mother agrees, loving neighbour Ellen like the daughter her grey age longs for.

     'Of course it's all right with me, darling.'

     Jim and Ellen walking down the path with mama at the door, waving like a mother, waiting until they are beyond the gate, forever worrying about crossing roads and unsuspected illnesses. Tuberculosis, Pneumonia. Polio. Measles. Mumps. You name it. Young people often died young back then.

     Jim and Ellen, heads tilted, magnetic affection drawing them closer, talking, laughing, a pair apart from others. In love. Ellen's raven hair curling around her tiny, elfin ears. Ellen, quiet and reliable as the moon.

     'Will you love me forever?' Jim asks.

     'Forever and ever,' Ellen assures, squeezing his hand.

     On the way back they short cut thorough the August woods. A long short cut. Still talking, their words tumbling like thistledown on the hot butterflied silence. In the deep green they settle in shade and kiss among fernleafs, innocently. They kissed like that for years.

<  5  >
Life, a summer holiday until seventeen. Then. Jim goes to Cork with his father. A business trip. Magnificent Cork and boat bobbing, cathedraled Cobh and then the Metropole Hotel. Swanky. Dinner and desserts. Black ties, brown cigars. Gin and tonic with a twist of lemon. Now Cork is always dry gin and a twist in Jim's fading memory. Bitter lemon.

     Jim with father's friends. A party and the talcum smell of sex. Dad leaves early with a friend. Dad feels only half married. Winking a man's signal. Permission to sin. A bird in the bush.

     Jim dancing until dawn with necklace and pearls. Back at her oak roomed upstairs house she says her parents are away and Jim is still not sober.

     'Let me help you to bed,' he says, learning the rules of the game and when to cheat.

     Sixteen Ellen smelled of love and roses. This girl is twenty and slick with gin. Pearls in her ears, stones in her heart. Bath naked she drips rich. Jim falls into her and is devoured. Ellen, sweetest sixteen, gave him everything except that. Her tended flesh is reserved for the marriage bed. Jim wanted more. Pearls before swine.

     Mea culpa, Ellen -mea maxima culpa!

     The blonde one came to Dublin with the snow, passion pursuing Jim all grown up and knowing. Blood on snow. Seventeen Ellen, discarded, like a toy wound down, broken and useless.

     'Don't you want me anymore?'

     'No.'

     Tears on Ellen's bitten lips. Eyes red with pain. Soul seared. Ellen goodbye.

     'No. I don't want you.'

     Jim brave and final, cruel as winter. Abandoned Ellen, quietly waiting for him to mature.

 

Next year he took the pearly girl away. Holidaying. Not even saying goodbye to pale Ellen, eighteen and alone with sickness teasing her young pink lungs, her heart dark with love. Ellen's innocence like petals blowing on grass, dancing redly away. Crowns of thorns for Ellen's virgin bridehood. Veils of tears.

<  6  >
     Ellen ill.

     On Jim's return his mother greets him with rubbing, folded fingers. Wet cheeks.

     'Poor Ellen,' mama whispers. Respect for the dead.

     Jim matures. Instantly.

     Too late.

     Ellen's black blood on her spitting lips. The flowers on her grave stiff in frost. Brown leaves tumbling, flying wildly in the frozen air, reburying her. No more warm kisses and a heart soaring with love. Ellen nineteen, never twenty. Mama behind the coffin, mama in her own maternal grave. And rain for fifty long years and more, after that.

     My darling gone for evermore!

 

Clock chime. Ding. One. Ding. Two. Et Cetera.

     Jim struggles from a dream speaking her name into the listening shadows.

     'Ellen?

     The pitch dark shadows silent as lovewords from dead mouths. Marble graveyard lips, cold as stone. Ivy and moss. Memories haunting his present. Jim shivers and steps into the window sun. Rubs his thick veined hands. Prays. Then he makes lunch. Tomatoes and ham. He dreams the evening away - half out of life. On the radio a woman sings Four Last Songs. You don't have to know the language.

     Such sweet sorrow. Who said that?

     Later, a seat in the garden looking towards the singing sunset. There is nothing to see except blackbirds and sparrows; nothing to hear except the noise of butterflies' wings.

     Even later, the clock in the parlour chimes twelve heartbeats. Night comes hot and bothered.

     Climbing into an empty bed, Jim turns off the sidelight and watches the shadows huddling against the floral wallpaper. Stars look in at his greying face. A hot August moon in the open window. Soft as silence, quiet as apple blossoms falling, gentle as Ellen's dimpled smile. Ellen's same sad glad smile standing there by his bed. Faithful Ellen, waiting.

<  7  >
     'Do you want me now?'

     Yes! Dear sweet God - yes!

     He says 'I can play now, Ellen, If you like. I'm finally, properly dead.'

     'I'm glad. I've been waiting for such a long time!'

     Jim rising from his bed, leaving his seventy-six years between the laundered sheets. Soaring through the moonlight with Ellen in his arms, the pair of them shooting like comets into Eternity while the clock in the parlour stops.

     Forever and forever.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:46:11 PM

O. Henry
The Thing's The Play

Being acquainted with a newspaper reporter who had a couple of free passes, I got to see the performance a few nights ago at one of the popular vaudeville houses.

     One of the numbers was a violin solo by a striking-looking man not much past forty, but with very gray thick hair. Not being afflicted with a taste for music, I let the system of noises drift past my ears while I regarded the man.

     "There was a story about that chap a month or two ago," said the reporter. "They gave me the assignment. It was to run a column and was to be on the extremely light and joking order. The old man seems to like the funny touch I give to local happenings. Oh, yes, I'm working on a farce comedy now. Well, I went down to the house and got all the details; but I certainly fell down on that job. I went back and turned in a comic write-up of an east side funeral instead. Why? Oh, I couldn't seem to get hold of it with my funny hooks, somehow. Maybe you could make a one-act tragedy out of it for a curtain-raiser. I'll give you the details."

     After the performance my friend, the reporter, recited to me the facts over Wurzburger.

     "I see no reason," said I, when he had concluded, "why that shouldn't make a rattling good funny story. Those three people couldn't have acted in a more absurd and preposterous manner if they had been real actors in a real theatre. I'm really afraid that all the stage is a world, anyhow, and all the players men and women. 'The thing's the play,' is the way I quote Mr. Shakespeare."

     "Try it," said the reporter.

     "I will," said I; and I did, to show him how he could have made a humorous column of it for his paper.

<  2  >
     There stands a house near Abingdon Square. On the ground floor there has been for twenty-five years a little store where toys and notions and stationery are sold.

     One night twenty years ago there was a wedding in the rooms above the store. The Widow Mayo owned the house and store. Her daughter Helen was married to Frank Barry. John Delaney was best man. Helen was eighteen, and her picture had been printed in a morning paper next to the headlines of a "Wholesale Female Murderess" story from Butte, Mont. But after your eye and intelligence had rejected the connection, you seized your magnifying glass and read beneath the portrait her description as one of a series of Prominent Beauties and Belles of the lower west side.

     Frank Barry and John Delaney were "prominent" young beaux of the same side, and bosom friends, whom you expected to turn upon each other every time the curtain went up. One who pays his money for orchestra seats and fiction expects this. That is the first funny idea that has turned up in the story yet. Both had made a great race for Helen's hand. When Frank won, John shook his hand and congratulated him - honestly, he did.

     After the ceremony Helen ran upstairs to put on her hat. She was getting married in a traveling dress. She and Frank were going to Old Point Comfort for a week. Downstairs the usual horde of gibbering cave-dwellers were waiting with their hands full of old Congress gaiters and paper bags of hominy.

     Then there was a rattle of the fire-escape, and into her room jumps the mad and infatuated John Delaney, with a damp curl drooping upon his forehead, and made violent and reprehensible love to his lost one, entreating her to flee or fly with him to the Riviera, or the Bronx, or any old place where there are Italian skies and dolce far niente.

<  3  >
     It would have carried Blaney off his feet to see Helen repulse him. With blazing and scornful eyes she fairly withered him by demanding whatever he meant by speaking to respectable people that way.

     In a few moments she had him going. The manliness that had possessed him departed. He bowed low, and said something about "irresistible impulse" and "forever carry in his heart the memory of" - and she suggested that he catch the first fire-escape going down.

     "I will away," said John Delaney, "to the furthermost parts of the earth. I cannot remain near you and know that you are another's. I will to Africa, and there amid other scenes strive to for -"

     "For goodness sake, get out," said Helen. "Somebody might come in."

     He knelt upon one knee, and she extended him one white hand that he might give it a farewell kiss.

     Girls, was this choice boon of the great little god Cupid ever vouchsafed you - to have the fellow you want hard and fast, and have the one you don't want come with a damp curl on his forehead and kneel to you and babble of Africa and love which, in spite of everything, shall forever bloom, an amaranth, in his heart? To know your power, and to feel the sweet security of your own happy state; to send the unlucky one, broken-hearted, to foreign climes, while you congratulate yourself as he presses his last kiss upon your knuckles, that your nails are well manicured - say, girls, it's galluptious - don't ever let it get by you.

     And then, of course - how did you guess it? - the door opened and in stalked the bridegroom, jealous of slow-tying bonnet strings.

     The farewell kiss was imprinted upon Helen's hand, and out of the window and down the fire-escape sprang John Delaney, Africa bound.

<  4  >
     A little slow music, if you please - faint violin, just a breath in the clarinet and a touch of the 'cello. Imagine the scene. Frank, white-hot, with the cry of a man wounded to death bursting from him. Helen, rushing and clinging to him, trying to explain. He catches her wrists and tears them from his shoulders - once, twice, thrice he sways her this way and that - the stage manager will show you how - and throws her from him to the floor a huddled, crushed, moaning thing. Never, he cries, will he look upon her face again, and rushes from the house through the staring groups of astonished guests.

     And, now because it is the Thing instead of the Play, the audience must stroll out into the real lobby of the world and marry, die, grow gray, rich, poor, happy or sad during the intermission of twenty years which must precede the rising of the curtain again.

     Mrs. Barry inherited the shop and the house. At thirty-eight she could have bested many an eighteen-year-old at a beauty show on points and general results. Only a few people remembered her wedding comedy, but she made of it no secret. She did not pack it in lavender or moth balls, nor did she sell it to a magazine.

     One day a middle-aged money-making lawyer, who bought his legal cap and ink of her, asked her across the counter to marry him.

     "I'm really much obliged to you," said Helen, cheerfully, "but I married another man twenty years ago. He was more a goose than a man, but I think I love him yet. I have never seen him since about half an hour after the ceremony. Was it copying ink that you wanted or just writing fluid?"

     The lawyer bowed over the counter with old-time grace and left a respectful kiss on the back of her hand. Helen sighed. Parting salutes, however romantic, may be overdone. Here she was at thirty-eight, beautiful and admired; and all that she seemed to have got from her lovers were approaches and adieus. Worse still, in the last one she had lost a customer, too.

<  5  >
     Business languished, and she hung out a Room to Let card. Two large rooms on the third floor were prepared for desirable tenants. Roomers came, and went regretfully, for the house of Mrs. Barry was the abode of neatness, comfort and taste.

     One day came Ramonti, the violinist, and engaged the front room above. The discord and clatter uptown offended his nice ear; so a friend had sent him to this oasis in the desert of noise.

     Ramonti, with his still youthful face, his dark eyebrows, his short, pointed, foreign, brown beard, his distinguished head of gray hair, and his artist's temperament - revealed in his light, gay and sympathetic manner - was a welcome tenant in the old house near Abingdon Square.

     Helen lived on the floor above the store. The architecture of it was singular and quaint. The hall was large and almost square. Up one side of it, and then across the end of it ascended an open stairway to the floor above. This hall space she had furnished as a sitting room and office combined. There she kept her desk and wrote her business letters; and there she sat of evenings by a warm fire and a bright red light and sewed or read. Ramonti found the atmosphere so agreeable that he spent much time there, describing to Mrs. Barry the wonders of Paris, where he had studied with a particularly notorious and noisy fiddler.

     Next comes lodger No. 2, a handsome, melancholy man in the early 40's, with a brown, mysterious beard, and strangely pleading, haunting eyes. He, too, found the society of Helen a desirable thing. With the eyes of Romeo and Othello's tongue, he charmed her with tales of distant climes and wooed her by respectful innuendo.

     From the first Helen felt a marvelous and compelling thrill in the presence of this man. His voice somehow took her swiftly back to the days of her youth's romance. This feeling grew, and she gave way to it, and it led her to an instinctive belief that he had been a factor in that romance. And then with a woman's reasoning (oh, yes, they do, sometimes) she leaped over common syllogism and theory, and logic, and was sure that her husband had come back to her. For she saw in his eyes love, which no woman can mistake, and a thousand tons of regret and remorse, which aroused pity, which is perilously near to love requited, which is the sine qua non in the house that Jack built.

<  6  >
     But she made no sign. A husband who steps around the corner for twenty years and then drops in again should not expect to find his slippers laid out too conveniently near nor a match ready lighted for his cigar. There must be expiation, explanation, and possibly execration. A little purgatory, and then, maybe, if he were properly humble, he might be trusted with a harp and crown. And so she made no sign that she knew or suspected.

     And my friend, the reporter, could see nothing funny in this! Sent out on an assignment to write up a roaring, hilarious, brilliant joshing story of - but I will not knock a brother - let us go on with the story.

     One evening Ramonti stopped in Helen's hall-office-reception-room and told his love with the tenderness and ardor of the enraptured artist. His words were a bright flame of the divine fire that glows in the heart of a man who is a dreamer and doer combined.

     "But before you give me an answer," he went on, before she could accuse him of suddenness, "I must tell you that 'Ramonti' is the only name I have to offer you. My manager gave me that. I do not know who I am or where I came from. My first recollection is of opening my eyes in a hospital. I was a young man, and I had been there for weeks. My life before that is a blank to me. They told me that I was found lying in the street with a wound on my head and was brought there in an ambulance. They thought I must have fallen and struck my head upon the stones. There was nothing to show who I was. I have never been able to remember. After I was discharged from the hospital, I took up the violin. I have had success. Mrs. Barry - I do not know your name except that - I love you; the first time I saw you I realized that you were the one woman in the world for me - and" - oh, a lot of stuff like that.

<  7  >
     Helen felt young again. First a wave of pride and a sweet little thrill of vanity went all over her; and then she looked Ramonti in the eyes, and a tremendous throb went through her heart. She hadn't expected that throb. It took her by surprise. The musician had become a big factor in her life, and she hadn't been aware of it.

     "Mr. Ramonti," she said sorrowfully (this was not on the stage, remember; it was in the old home near Abingdon Square), "I'm awfully sorry, but I'm a married woman."

     And then she told him the sad story of her life, as a heroine must do, sooner or later, either to a theatrical manager or to a reporter.

     Ramonti took her hand, bowed low and kissed it, and went up to his room.

     Helen sat down and looked mournfully at her hand. Well she might. Three suitors had kissed it, mounted their red roan steeds and ridden away.

     In an hour entered the mysterious stranger with the haunting eyes. Helen was in the willow rocker, knitting a useless thing in cotton-wool. He ricocheted from the stairs and stopped for a chat. Sitting across the table from her, he also poured out his narrative of love. And then he said: "Helen, do you not remember me? I think I have seen it in your eyes. Can you forgive the past and remember the love that has lasted for twenty years? I wronged you deeply - I was afraid to come back to you - but my love overpowered my reason. Can you, will you, forgive me?"

     Helen stood up. The mysterious stranger held one of her hands in a strong and trembling clasp.

     There she stood, and I pity the stage that it has not acquired a scene like that and her emotions to portray.

<  8  >
     For she stood with a divided heart. The fresh, unforgettable, virginal love for her bridegroom was hers; the treasured, sacred, honored memory of her first choice filled half her soul. She leaned to that pure feeling. Honor and faith and sweet, abiding romance bound her to it. But the other half of her heart and soul was filled with something else - a later, fuller, nearer influence. And so the old fought against the new.

     And while she hesitated, from the room above came the soft, racking, petitionary music of a violin. The hag, music, bewitches some of the noblest. The daws may peck upon one's sleeve without injury, but whoever wears his heart upon his tympanum gets it not far from the neck.

     This music and the musician caller her, and at her side honor and the old love held her back.

     "Forgive me," he pleaded.

     "Twenty years is a long time to remain away from the one you say you love," she declared, with a purgatorial touch.

     "How could I tell?" he begged. "I will conceal nothing from you. That night when he left I followed him. I was mad with jealousy. On a dark street I struck him down. He did not rise. I examined him. His head had struck a stone. I did not intend to kill him. I was mad with love and jealousy. I hid near by and saw an ambulance take him away. Although you married him, Helen -"

     "Who are you?" cried the woman, with wide-open eyes, snatching her hand away.

     "Don't you remember me, Helen - the one who has always loved you best? I am John Delaney. If you can forgive -"

<  9  >
     But she was gone, leaping, stumbling, hurrying, flying up the stairs toward the music and him who had forgotten, but who had known her for his in each of his two existences, and as she climbed up she sobbed, cried and sang: "Frank! Frank! Frank!"

     Three mortals thus juggling with years as though they were billiard balls, and my friend, the reporter, couldn't see anything funny in it!

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 01:48:02 PM

        
Glynis Gertsch
Staring Me In The Face
The tray didn't just hit the floor. It crashed and smashed his lunch to pieces. Serves you damn well right, I thought. You were staring again.

     He stood stock-still and looked down at the food. Suddenly I got up and moved towards him. I hadn't intended to, hadn't wanted to help him. I called to the woman behind the counter. She closed her mouth and brought a cloth to clean up the mess. I picked up crockery, put it on the tray. There was a soppy stain on his trousers and through it you could see just how bony his knees were. Like the rest of him. All bones, dangling jacket and hanging trousers. Stooped shoulders and mile-long arms. Then he smiled at me. A wonderful smile that creased up his worn face and totally surprised me.

     "Thank you."

     I shoved the tray at him and went back to my table.

     I worked at a large publishing company and ate lunch in the canteen. I had noticed him because he stared at me. He was weird-looking. His hair was badly cut and his clothes were ancient and dull; too-short corduroys, baggy at the knees and colour-less sweaters, dotted with fluff. Often he sat alone and just picked at his food. Or he read and jotted things down.

     A few days after the crash, he stopped at the table I was sharing with Mark from proof reading, and asked if he might sit down. I said the seats were taken and continued eating. He apologised and took his tray off somewhere else.

     "What's your problem, Leanna?" asked Mark.

     "No problem. It's just that I like to choose who I share my mealtimes with."

     "A bit rough on the old chap though."

     I shrugged.

     It was Mark who told me more about him. He had gone over to scrounge a cigarette. By the time he came back to the table, I had my head stuck into the news-paper.

<  2  >
     "Interesting chap. Sub-editor. Been all over the world," said Mark.

     I decided to find the newspaper more interesting and finally Mark shut up and finished smoking.

     "Asked your name," he said.

     "He what?"

     "Yeah."

     "What'd you say?"

     "Leanna, of course."

     I folded the newspaper.

     "I've loads of work this afternoon."

     "Said you look familiar," said Mark. "Like someone he knew."

     "Someone he knew?"

     "Yeah. Could be strategy. Maybe he fancies you."

     "Fancies me? But he's old."

     "Only old enough to be your father."

     I grabbed my tray and left the table.

     I didn't do much work that afternoon. I kept wishing Mark hadn't said what he had said. Old enough to be your father.

     The following week I took along a book to read during lunchtime. When I got into the lift on my floor, he was already inside. He greeted me so I had to reply but I didn't smile. We were alone and that worried me. I wondered whether I should get out at the next floor and walk up the stairs to the canteen. Don't panic, I thought. Just because he's stared at you for ages doesn't mean he's going to do anything.

     " Well, I suppose one of us should press the button or we'll be here all day, won't we?"

     I'd been so busy wondering what he was going to do and expecting him to do something, that I'd completely forgotten to do anything myself. I felt like an idiot and this made me smile and I hadn't wanted to. He smiled back, his blue eyes crinkling right up to the grey hair at his ears and making him look ... nice. Then there was a slap. My book hit the floor. I bent down and so did he, and we bashed heads. At that moment, the lift shuddered to a stop and the doors seemed to fling themselves wide open. I was so embarrassed, I marched out of the lift, straight towards the queue at the counter. I ordered without looking at the menu and took my tray to a table where there was only one empty seat. I breathed a sigh of relief and began to eat. But the salad stuck in my throat when I noticed that everyone else at the table had already finished lunch and they were getting up to go. I glanced over at the counter. He was paying and in a second, his eyes would scan the room to find me. I ducked my head. Waited. Any minute now he'd sit down with his tray.

<  3  >
     Short Stories from Australasia. My book appeared in front of my eyes. His fingers were the longest I'd seen and his nails were manicured. I hadn't thought he'd bother.

     "You left it in the lift," he said. "May I sit down?"

     His voice was soft. Cultivated. What could I say? The tables were all pretty full so I nodded. He said bon appétit and began to eat. I'd always thought he picked at his food. But as I watched, I noticed that he selected small pieces, speared them and moved them carefully to his mouth.

     "Have you been there?"

     "Been where?" I was totally dazed. From dropping my book and banging my head and everything.

     "Australia, New Zealand."

     I stared at him and thought again of what Mark had said about me reminding him of someone. An Australian? Maybe an ex-girlfriend or wife?

     "Not such a strange question," he said. "You're old enough to have travelled there. And Katherine Mansfield, Janet Frame, are most likely in the book."

     His smile crinkled up his eyes.

     "No, I haven't and yes, they are," I said.

     That's how it started. He asked me a question, nodded when I spoke and then asked another. I was off, talking about reading, books and all that stuff I love.

     Days later Malcolm passed our table with his tray and spontaneously I said a seat was free. Mark stared at me and I felt a rush of heat to my cheeks.

     After that, Malcolm often sat with us and he and I discussed a lot of things. We spoke a little about ourselves too. I told him how Mom had brought me up on her own at the start of the Hippie Era. He said he had married during that time but divorced a few

<  4  >
     years later. Mark asked me how come Malcolm and I always had so much to talk about.

     "He's easy to talk to. And he reads a lot."

     "You two got so much to say, I don't get a chance to open my mouth all lunch-time."

     "You do. You shove food in."

     One lunchtime Malcom asked me if I'd like to go to a reading with him.

     "Um. Don't know."

     "Amelia Turner. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year."

     I wanted very much to go. But although I no longer thought Malcolm quite so weird, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out in his company.

     "Afterwards, I'll cook us curry. Do you like it? "

     "Love it."

     "Me too. Settled then?" he asked and smiled his soft smile.

     It didn't surprise me that I nodded.

     After the reading and the curry dinner, I went into Malcolm's sitting room where there were more books than I'd ever seen on anyone's shelves. I began to read the titles.

     "Help yourself," said Malcolm.

     "Thanks. But if I read a book, I have add it to my collection."

     "Strange, same here." He waved his arms towards the shelves. "But look where it's got me."

     "I'd hate to be without books. They're ... friends."

     "That sounds like lonely," said Malcolm.

     I turned and pulled out a book.

     "Are you?"

<  5  >
     "Am I what?"

     "Lonely?"

     I shrugged.

     "Not really."

     "Not really but what?"

     My voice came from a distance as I tried to answer him.

     "I'm choosy about my friends. Don't have a great many."

     "I'm listening," said Malcolm and sat down, indicating the armchair opposite him.

     "My childhood was ... I mean, my mother loved moving around. She had no trouble putting down roots all over the place. I hated it! Books were the constant things, so I buried myself in them."

     "Hell, sounds familiar."

     I sat down in the armchair.

     "I had very academic parents," said Malcolm. "Was an afterthought, perhaps a mistake even. They loved me in their vague intellectual way but left me alone to get on with growing up. Hence the books."

     "That's lonely, too," I said.

     When I left, I took along a couple of Malcolm's books.

     My friendship with Malcolm grew but my curiousity remained. Who did I remind him of? My mother? If so, could he be my father? Although Mom had never bothered with books, our physical similarities, apart from my tallness, were undeniable. She had never told me much about the man who had fathered me. Clever, was all she had usually said. Once though, when I had been ill with chicken pox, and hot and scratchy, she had relented.

     "What was he like?"

     "Skinniest man you ever saw."

     "Where'd you meet him?"

     "In a park. I was catching a suntan and these papers started blowin' in my face. I was a bit cheesed off at them blowin' all over me and then this man comes runnin'. He grabbed and grabbed but couldn't catch them all. So he jus' stood still, a helpless look on his face. It was so funny, I started laughin'."

<  6  >
     "And then?"

     "I helped and we chased all over the place after them papers. When we sat down to get our breath back, he told me he was a student. He was ever so clever. Can't re-member what the devil it was he was studyin'. Somethin' I'd never heard of then or since."

     "Why didn't you marry him?"

     "Marry him? Good Lord, Leanna, I wasn't ready to marry and he wasn't the type I'd have wanted to marry by a long shot."

     "What else did he look like, Mom?"

     "Lord, stop the questions, child. Get some sleep."

     She saw my disappointment however, and said she would write it all down for me. Put it in an envelope to open when she was dead and gone. I was happy with that. On a wet, slick highway, driving to France for a weekend, she was involved in an accident and died instantly. I was twenty-three then and on my own feet but as I sorted through and packed up the belongings in her flat, I felt like a child again. I looked for the envelope but didn't find one. For a long time after, my mother's death and not knowing who my father was, made me feel as though I was drifting on a sea without horizons.

     One lunchtime I just decided to brave it and ask Malcolm who I reminded him of.

     "Met her while I was a student," he said.

     "Was she studying too?"

     "Oh, heavens, no. That was what attracted me to her. She was ... so different."

     "What were you like?" I asked.

     "Like? Much as I am now. Nose in books, bit of a loner. Not very interesting. Not for a live wire like she was."

<  7  >
     "Go on," I said.

     "She fell pregnant. I was very happy until she told me she didn't want my help. Thought she'd change her mind, though, as the pregnancy advanced but when I attempted to see her, she told me to leave her be. I was very hurt but accepted her refusal to involve me. A few months later, I took a job I'd been offered in New York. Salary was dreadful but I thought it would be for the best."

     "Was it? " I asked.

     "No. When I returned, they'd moved. Left no forwarding address."

     "So you never knew whether it was a boy or ...? "

     "A girl?" asked Malcolm.

     I nodded.

     "A boy," he said. "Had the approximate date and went to the Registry of Births to look it up."

     I sat there, trying to take in what Malcom had said. I felt as though I'd been flattened by a truck.

     "Somewhere out there I have a child I know nothing about," Malcom continued. "I was stupid. Rushed off instead of staying to have a share in my son's life."

     "I thought perhaps it was a daughter."

     "Beg your pardon?"

     "A daughter. Me."

     "You thought I was ... your father?"

     "Books, curry, I'm tall. We ... we like the same things."

     "We definitely have things in common but I'm not your father." He looked at me.

     "I'm so sorry to disappoint you, Leanna." I tried to smile.

     "We're not related but we can be something else."

<  8  >
     "What?"

     "Can't you think of anything?"

     "Uh uh."

     "Friends."

     "Friends?"

     "It's been staring you in the face for weeks." Malcolm's use of that phrase made me burst out laughing.

     "Let me in on the joke sometime," he said.

     "Okay," I said. "Tell you sometime seeing we're friends."

     Then I smiled. And my smile was as wide and warm as the one he smiled in return.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 02:56:17 PM

 
 -       
Jesse Miller
Madeleine Rain

It happened because she was edgy and bursting. It was the first day you could really feel Spring approaching. It was that brief time in between seasons that she could feel something new happening, and it made her anxious and excited. It was like new air, or sweeping cobwebs. There was a light rain outside and Madeleine wanted to throw open her two little windows to her small apartment space and let the warm mist fill the room. But the noise from the traffic would've been too much, and she was worried for the bird. As it was, the hiss of the scratchy needle was barely audible. She crouched down beside the heating vent to listen. The music was low and tired. Something like Billie Holiday. It was Billie Holiday, but for the two weeks she had looked, she hadn't been able to find it in any of the record shops. She leaned against her raggedy old reading chair and stared at the stack of books and odd art supplies next to her. Too much time spent inside reading and dreaming, she worried.

     She looked up at the small, blue-green bird in the cage next to her bed, and then picked up a blue crayon. The bird was quiet. Quite still and beautiful. Every once in a while she would turn her head slightly to observe her new surroundings. She was calm. Even when Madeleine had brought her home a week ago and taken a polaroid of her, she had fluttered her wings, but in a gentle way. The softly blurred movement was a moment of perfect grace, Madeleine thought, as she ran her fingers along the edge of the picture which now hung on the wall beside the chair. She looked like the sea. As she put down the crayon for another, it started. She wondered how long Maggie had lived down there. How long she had been there. She rested her head against the wall and began to slowly peel away the old crayon's paper label. She reached for a jar of rubber cement and twisted off the top. The music mixed with the sound of Maggie, as if the sobs were a part of the song. Not like an instrument - not an accompanying sound - but interior, as if growing from within the music. A ghost. Madeleine brushed a streak of glue next to the polaroid and stuck the green paper to the wall. "Seafoam," she whispered.

<  2  >
     Typically, she had only gone on Wednesday afternoons. It was the one day that they ran a bargain matinee and it only cost her $3. Besides the price, she liked the fact that the theatre was empty then. It was an old movie house where they played revivals and art films. Madeleine liked the musty smell inside, and the worn crushed burgundy of the seats. She liked the warm glow of colors that were muted by the darkness, like the old Hopper painting that hung above her chair. Occasionally, she would bring her little reading light and a sketch pad and work on a face from the film.

     It was on a Sunday night that she had met her. One of those odd times when she had to pay full price, because the film she wanted to see was only a weekend run. It was Stardust Memories, by Woody Allen. He had been one of her favorites before the awful thing with his wife's daughter. Before the fear of age and death had become too overwhelming for him. She had seen one or two of his newer movies, and it made her feel embarrassed. Like finding out a close friend has been lying to you.

     "Do you ever draw birds?"

     Madeleine looked up from her wallet. "I'm sorry..."

     "The drawing pad. You're a painter?"

     "Um, I sketch."

     Madeleine was startled to realize it was the woman from her building. She had seen her in the basement laundry room that first day she had been down there. One of the woman's laundry baskets was overturned and used as a step, so that she could climb up onto the washing machine and then again to nestled herself in a window above the machines. She had pried open the dingy window frame and was quietly feeding a few small birds through the security bars. Madeleine watched as they hoped in and out, pecking crackers straight from her hands. It was three days later that she first heard her through the vent and realized she lived in 3c, directly below her. She had seen her one other time out her window one evening. She had been exiting the building, alone. Madeleine remembered the way that her hair had lifted softly, caught by the wind as she walked off out of view.

<  3  >
     "I like this one," the woman said, tearing an orange ticket from her ticket spool. Madeleine struggled with the loose bills in her wallet.

     "Although, he's kind of a creep, now."

     Madeleine put her $6.50 on the booth counter and looked up again. She noticed the woman was smiling at her. She had a beautiful, quiet smile, that was enhanced by deep pensive brown eyes. Madeleine wanted to tell her that she didn't really like Woody Allen anymore either, and that she was only coming to draw the sad woman who had played Woody Allen's first girlfriend in the film. That she hadn't seen the woman in anything else, as if she had disappeared. And that there was one particular scene that she adored. Just simple shots of the woman - jumpcuts of different expressions: manic anxiety, whimsical laughter, pain, sorrow. She wanted to tell her that this was all she had come for. Just to sketch her in her book, to take her from the film and close the door on Woody forever.

     "Yeah, I know what you mean," she eeked out in an apologetic manner. Lame, she thought.

     "Here you go." The woman nonchalantly slid Madeleine's money back at her, with her ticket.

     "But won't you --"

     The woman smiled softly and nodded. "Go ahead, I'll see you around. You can get me another time."

     "Oh. Thanks ..." Madeleine smiled. She gathered her things.

     "Maggie."

     "Thank you, Maggie."

     The lines were simple, as Madeleine let her hand go. She was half-conscious of what she was doing, caught somewhere between the last sounds of Maggie and her fading song, and the tapping of the rain which had started to fall hard on her window. It was the bird who brought her out of it. She had pecked the tiny silver bell, hanging from the top of her cage. The bird tilted her head to look down at Madeleine on the floor. Madeleine stared for a moment, smiling, and then turned back to the wall to finish her sketch: a ribbon around the bird's neck drifted across the wall into words: HELLO, SAD MAGGIE.

<  4  >
     She didn't take the elevator, because she wasn't sure if it would bother the bird. By the second set of stairs her hands were beginning to tremble. The rain clattered off of the metal dumpsters outside, and filled the stairwell with echoes. "You okay, honey?" The bird hopped from one perch to the next, calmly inspecting the passing walls and handrails. As she entered the hallway and stepped up to the door, a horrific thought occurred to her: "Hello, Maggie? I know i've only seen you around a couple of times, and well, there's this vent in my place, you see...anyways, I hear you crying and I...I just wanted to give you this bird?" Yeah, right. Shit. She began to freeze up. "Don't. Don't freeze up," she thought. She looked down at the bird. She turned back to the stairs, and just as she was about to retreat, it happened. The bird cheeped. A little one. She froze. She looked back down at the bird. The bird was staring up at her. Another. Madeleine couldn't move.

     The apartment door opened. Maggie peered out. "Bird?"

     The bird began to sing. Maggie stepped out into the hall.

     "Oh, sweetheart. You're lovely. Yes." she said, as the bird continued. She turned to Madeleine. "Hi."

     Madeleine smiled. Her face was red. She wasn't sure if she could move. She raised her arm tentatively to present Maggie with the cage. The bird sprung up against the front of the cage door to greet Maggie. Maggie leaned in an ran her finger against the bars near the bird.

     "Um. I bought her for you."

     Maggie looked up at Madeleine. She was quiet. "Oh," she said. She smiled softly, looked serious for a moment and then her eyes started to become wet.

<  5  >
     She took the cage from Madeleine's slightly trembling hands. She continue to stare at Madeleine. "Can you come in?"

     Madeleine tried to relax into a smile.

     "Yeah. Sure."

     The first thing Madeleine noticed, once inside, were all of the plants. Not the amount of them - although there were a few - but how green they were. She had never seen such lush house plants in the city before. Or, anywhere for that matter. They surrounded the two small window spaces.

     "How do you keep your plants so green?"

     Before she could get an answer, she felt a soft hand touch her neck. She turned and Maggie leaned in and kissed her.

     "Thank you." Maggie whispered.

     Madeleine looked into her eyes, as Maggie reached up and brushed Madeleine's hair lovingly from her forehead. She kissed her again.

     "I talk to them," Maggie said. Madeleine smiled.

     "There was something I've been wanting to tell you," Madeleine said, feeling Maggie's hands still brushing against her waist. She looked over at the bird, who was still leaning tight against the cage door, staring up at the two women.

     "Well. This is kind of stupid but ... the first time when I ... well ...," She paused, serious. "When I came to the theatre I wanted to tell you ... I really don't like Woody Allen anymore, I think he's gross. I just really liked that film. Yeah. There." She exhaled and laughed awkwardly.

     Maggie laughed. She kissed Madeleine's forhead.

     "I sketched the woman in it." Madeleine continued shyly.

     Maggie nodded, smiling.

<  6  >
     Madeleine looked around the apartment and then back at Maggie.

     "The first girlfriend," Madeleine added.

     Maggie nodded, knowingly. "Jumpcuts," she said quietly.

     Madeleine smiled. "I used to think you were a ghost."

     "How do you know I'm not," Maggie grinned.

     "Well. I guess I don't." She paused and looked over at the bird. "But, the bird sees you, too."

     "That lovely bird's probably seen lots of ghosts."

     Madeleine was quiet. She looked down at the ground. She looked back up at Maggie, her head tilted slightly like the bird. "Are you?"

     Maggie paused. She sighed. "I'm not sure," she said softly. Her look became distant. Madeleine took a deep breath and step towards Maggie, squeezing her hand lightly. Closing her eyes, she leaned in and kissed Maggie just below her ear.

     "I don't mind," she said.

 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on June 23, 2011, 02:57:50 PM

 
Nels Schifano
Three Letters

It was autumn. Although still afternoon the journey had been spent peering at slowly moving red lights through clouds of condensing exhaust and the intermittent slip-slip of wipers. Now as she turned off the ignition darkness gathered silently around her. She walked head down, hood up, feeling plastic handles moulding themselves around her fingers, the carrier bag spinning one way then the next as it clipped against her leg. The pavement was thick with the slippery brown mulch of fallen leaves and the smell of bonfires wafted across the common. A thin mist clung around the streetlights producing a shifting yellow gas. Sounds were muffled and movements lethargic. Cars slipped slowly by on a film of dirty water. At her gate she delayed, unwilling to break the stillness with squeaking hinges; not yet teatime and the city was being put to sleep.

     The terrace before her hugged the curve of the road tumbling erratically down the hill and into the gloom. Bending around the edges of her vision she was conscious of curtains being swished closed, stone faces bathed by the grey light of televisions, broken roof tiles, satellite dishes, bay windows, the whole higgledy-piggledy collection of guttering and skylights. For a moment her home was a stranger, a simple compartment in this huge connected structure.

     She rattled the key into the lock, tilting it to the particular angle that would allow it to catch. She stepped inside, her hand brushing the light switch as she closed the door behind her. The softly lit warmth of the interior walls were a welcome contrast to the dark slimy surfaces of the outside. Two elderly neighbours warmed the house from the sides and soon she would hear the comforting noises of the boiler rousing itself into life.

     She kept her mind occupied by these happy details of returning home as she walked along the hall and into the kitchen. She lifted the carrier bag onto the worktop and reached for the kettle. Standing in the centre of the room, still in her anorak, she listened to the sound of the water boil and felt the house adjust itself to her presence. Now she returned at all times of the day she sometimes sensed she had caught it unawares. What ghosts that had been running through rooms were now slipping reluctantly back into walls? While its inhabitants had moved the house stayed still, preserving pockets of time in dusty corners. The blue-tak tears on bedroom walls, a water-colour sun and stick man hiding behind a fitted wardrobe, a dent in a table, a crack in a mirror, were all passing moments etched into the physical world, like voices pressed into vinyl.

<  2  >
     Steam began to rise vertically to the ceiling where it changed direction aware of the presence of some subtle draft (or draft of some subtle presence). Through the window she could see the outline of the narrow garden, the fuzzy grey shapes of a rusting climbing frame and overflowing compost heap. Along one side a scruffy fence lent drunkenly one way then the other, while a brutally straight line of six-foot high boards marked the other side of the territory. What further anti-cat measures (minefields, tripwires perhaps) lay waiting beyond? As if summoned by her thoughts Rahel, green eyes and a flicking tail, appeared on the window ledge, her silent meows making small circles of condensation. Smiling, she unlocked the door. The cat padded in, figures of eight around her feet represented by muddy paw prints on the kitchen floor. The kettle worked itself towards a crescendo, beads of perspiration appeared on its sides and it shook violently unable to contain the bubbling pressure inside. Abruptly it finished, sat back on the filament and turned itself off.

     She reached up to the top cupboards for the coffee jar and bent down for those that contained the mugs. Here she paused, confused by the vast number of assorted cup, mugs and beakers that stared blankly back at her. Why did she have so many? Where had they come from? She sighed as she straightened pulling out a standard shaped mug with handle; colour - light blue; design - three letters emblazoned in gold, S U E.

     She took off her coat and laid it over the back of the oak kitchen chair and sat down. She let her feet slip out of her shoes and raised them onto the fitted bench across the other side of the table. Above the bench were shelves supporting decorative plates in wire stands, a Charles and Diana mug (more mugs!), and a collection of photographs showing either madly grinning or defiantly sulky children (both on the verge of crying). As she looked the image of a growing family seemed to slowly recede to reveal the image of a shrinking woman.

<  3  >
     There was the sudden sound of water flooding into a drain as somewhere nearby a plug was pulled from a sink, a toilet was flushed or maybe a washing machine emptied itself and she realised that her coffee had gone cold. She moved to the sink and ran the hot water. Staring out into darkness she listened to the succession of far-off bangs and shudders from the network of pipes. Bathed in yellow light hovering over the gloom of the garden she looked in at a woman repeatedly working a tea towel around the inside of a mug. Who was she? Why was she so miserable?

     She shook herself and took out the plug. Slipped away again into nothing time (that time that flowed into the gaps between the things you did). Wouldn't a wasted minute become a wasted hour, wasted hours become wasted days? Where could she be now if she hadn't been doing, what? - making tea, sitting in traffic jams, reading the local paper, standing in a supermarket queue. Best avoided, the thought of her life draining into these moments.

     She unpacked the carrier bag. She put away the milk, the orange, the biscuits and the cat food, then struggled to slide the two pizza's into an already crowded freezer spraying tiny shards of ice across the floor. An overflowing collection of polythene bags scrunched inside other polythene bags in the bottom of a cupboard was her commitment to recycling. When it was opened a white plastic avalanche slid towards her. She threw in the latest addition and slammed the door. A lone bag made a break for freedom and buoyed by the swish of air it lifted across the room like a jellyfish. Two pairs of eyes followed its progress over the spice rack and breadboard until it was caught on a bottle of olive oil.

     The oak bench was not just a foot rest. She had made this discovery during a rigorous cleaning session one New Year. Under the lip of the removable cushioned seat she had found a small catch, rusty enough to break two nails. Eventually it yielded and raised to reveal a dark, hollow chest. Despite a few moments when her heartbeat seemed to fill the house, it proved to contain nothing more exciting than a pile of old newspapers - more dirtiness to clean. It was, she decided, an ideal place to store tablecloths and tea towels, but steadily it began to swallow bedding, pillowcases and blankets of various sorts. Really, it was ridiculous to think that no one else was aware of its existence (was she the only one ever to change a bed, lay a table?) Still, she always thought of it as hers, and, when alone in the house, she opened it, she experienced a flush of childish excitement. She felt it rise now as her fingers fumbled beneath soft layers of folded cotton searching for the sharp cold of a shiny metal toffee tin.

<  4  >
     She put the tin on the table. Inside lay a medal from the Polish Airforce; a commemorative coin; a pebble taken from Ilfracomb beach in 1978 (could she really remember the heavy heat of that day or did she need the proof of the pebble to tell her she had been there); a present bought but never given; and inside a neatly folded bag, three envelopes. She glanced around the room, from somewhere inside a wall a pipe clanked - the house clearing its throat - and took out the top envelope.

     An antelope leapt across a colourful stamp. It looked startled as antelopes often do caught in the sights of the black postmark. The paper inside was thick and cream-coloured, it had a blue letterhead and the date in the top right hand corner was July 2000. As she let her eyes wander over the page she noticed it was just a little crumpled, stiff in places, as if it had been wetted then dried.

*

This must be something of a surprise. If, that is, this letter gets to you. I remembered your address, of course, but then it suddenly struck me that maybe you had moved and I didn't know and anyway the post round here isn't exactly reliable. So perhaps I am only writing a letter to myself.

     Really now that I've started I can't think what it was I wanted to say. I think it was just the act of writing that was important, just to feel as if I was still in contact with things, although I guess a blank piece of paper in an envelope would have seemed a little strange.

     I've really no need to ask how things are with you. It all seems to have worked out pretty much as you planned. But still I hope you are both healthy and happy.

     I am afraid I've done nothing very exciting to tell you about. Here is just an endless succession of long boring tasks, and then there's the heat and the clouds of flies that rise from the river and make everything twice as hard. But this evening as I washed and dried my clothes suddenly there was this feeling of satisfaction. Strange, five months of toil and worry then calm descends as welcome and unexpected as an ice-cream van clattering through the bush.

<  5  >
     Maybe that's why I am writing this letter. Perhaps it's thinking about England in the summer, perhaps it's the sounds of the river at night but my mind wandered back to the place of long afternoons, listening to Pink Moon and Lay Lady Lay. Can you still find a way back to the taste of cheap wine, the feel of grass between your fingers and a world that was all shimmering reflections?

     All those people disappeared into the world. How would they be recognised now - perhaps only by the sound of their laughter?

     I'm afraid I once damaged the environment in your name and took a penknife to the willow we used to sit by. I can remember wondering if the bark would ever grow back. If you ever find yourself driving past one weekend . . . Well perhaps not, it's probably so sadly different. But I know your name will still be there, carved in the memory of a tree.

*

She re-folded the letter and tapped it several times against her top lip. From the hall the clock calling out the quarter hour, then a moment of stillness - time stalling - before, faintly, the clock in her study responded.

     She took out the next envelope. While her fingers searched for the flap she looked at the Queen's silver silhouette. The letter was written on paper so white and thin that as her gaze fell across it she saw it as a shade of blue. The date was April 1976.

*

Do I remember that September afternoon when I first met you? Is it possible to remember the slide into sleep or the hypnotist's fingers on your eyelids? I only know that it happened because at some stage I awoke.

     Some things are clear, the lucid fragments of a dream, a conversation over the phone one Easter. We both felt down because I was working in a stuffy shop and you in a sorting office. I hated it and asked you how it was that time moved so slowly. It's okay, you said, it doesn't matter, because it will end and time passed is all the same, and anyway, in the end it's not time that you're left with.

<  6  >
     You told me to go look for happiness and bring some back when I found it. But you can't bank happiness. You can't keep it for when you need it and you cannot give to someone else simply by having it yourself.

     I thought I would be content to watch the river flow past and drift away on the scent of water lilies. I watched days become nights and nights gently give way to days, believing I was shedding my cares when really I was storing regrets. Now I know that reading is dreaming, that dreaming is sleeping and thought inaction. When I wake I find that all I have left is thoughts of you.

*

The noise of the cat jumping clumsily onto her lap, the feeling of her pressing up and down with alternate paws, claws snagging loops of cotton.

     This time the silhouette is not the Queen's but that of Nehru, a white head against an orange background. The stamp is stuck on at an odd angle (but still stuck after all this time!) and he stares down at the scraggly lines of a familiar address. The letter itself is written on a school child's lined paper, as her eyes run down the page they linger on the date, Nov. 1968 and the dappling of yellow blotches. What were they? Had they always been there?

*

I still can't believe you decided to go. Why go back to the grey, the dirt, the noise, the rush? There is a lifetime to do those things. I know you chase that dream of yours, but the dream is so sweetly deferred here. Here I feel as if I am absorbing the sunshine and serenity.

     Since you left we moved further east where the earth here has a reddish tinge and so does the food. Today we met a group of Americans. We got a ride on the roof of their van and helped them collect firewood. They say there is an old man who sells the beads you wanted from the front of his hut, and eight miles of white sand.

<  7  >
     I am writing this in a flickering of orange and blackness. This is the best time, talking and reading, the world melting away into words, although sometimes a phrase is so beautiful I have to walk around a little just to let them settle in. One of these made me think of you. 'Do that which makes you happy to do, and you will do right.'

*

The freezer's cooling mechanism rattled, then fell silent, and she realised that she hadn't been aware of the noise it was making. In its absence the air in the house seemed to hang with that same question; how would her life have been if she had managed to send just one of them? But the air received no answers and went back to its lazy circulation.

     In time she would fold the letter away and place it back in the envelope, place the envelopes back into the bag, the bag back into the tin and the tin into the trunk. She would cover it with layers of cloth and place down the seat and lock the catch. But now she just sat for a moment, the noise of the cat's contented breathing filling the house.


 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: Antara11 on July 17, 2011, 11:30:42 AM

It's good to read all these stories. Thank you madam for sharing with us.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: nusrat-diu on July 17, 2011, 05:00:40 PM

Thanks Madam. You may use these stories for classroom reading practice.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: waliullah on August 18, 2011, 09:29:08 PM

Name     : Waliullah
ID         : 112-15-1398
Section  : C
Semester:Summer 2011
Program  : B.Sc in CSE

_______________________________________

Old Ghosts
_A.J Mckenna

   The summary of this story is cleared at the end of the story, when Jim Brennan rising from his bed, learning his seventy-six years between the laundered sheet. Soaring through the laundered sheet. Soaring through the moon light with Ellen in bus arms, the pair of the shooting likes comets into eternity while the clock in the parlors stops.

The Thing’s the play
-O. Henry

   This report is about a newspaper reporter who had a couple of free passes. In the end, three mortals juggling with years as though they were billiard balls, and my friend, the reporter, couldn’t see anything funny in it.


Staring Me in the Face
-Gltbes Gertsch
In this story, the author was very happy when he came to know that, ( the female character ) of the story is pregnant. He was very hurt but accepted her refusal to involve him. A few months later, he took a job and he had been offered in New York. Salary was dreadful but he thought it would be for the best.



Madeleine Rain
-Jesse Miller
   Jesse Millers ‘Madeleine Rain’ is described with sprig and the feeling of Madeline Rain. There was a light rain outside and Madeline wanted to throw open her two little windows to her small apartment space and let the warm mist fill the room. But the noise from the traffic would have been too much and she was worried for the bird.


Three Letters
-Nels Schifano

   This story is about author’s personal life. In the end of the story I came to know One day author fold the letter away and place it back in the envelope place the envelopes back into the bag, the bag back into the tin and the into the trunk.
 
_______________

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: farzanamili on October 02, 2011, 02:58:59 PM

Quote from: nusrat-diu on May 07, 2011, 07:09:26 PM

(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

Just thinking of the above lines deeply.....sooo thoughtful...thanks for giving food for our brain..:)

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: Anisur Rahman on October 02, 2011, 06:00:17 PM

I feel really happy to see some of my favorite fairy tales here.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: sethy on October 04, 2011, 02:08:16 PM

All the stories are very interesting. They have a lot's of moral value too. We can learn many thinks from the stories. Thanks mam for your nice stories. 

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: Syed Raihan on October 23, 2011, 09:50:56 PM

Thank u very much Mam...its really interesting for me to read short stories after long time.Last time I read might be when i was in class 5/6.And today again.I didn't read all yet but some and soon i will read whole.Also i wanna share a sort story with u all.Thanx again. :)

Enjoy your life at every moment
Once a fisherman was sitting near seashore, under the shadow of a tree smoking his beedi. Suddenly a rich businessman passing by approached him and enquired as to why he was sitting under a tree smoking and not working. To this the poor fisherman replied that he had caught enough fishes for the day.

Hearing this the rich man got angry and said: Why don’t you catch more fishes instead of sitting in shadow wasting your time?
Fisherman asked: What would I do by catching more fishes?
Businessman: You could catch more fishes, sell them and earn more money, and buy a bigger boat.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could go fishing in deep waters and catch even more fishes and earn even more money.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could buy many boats and employ many people to work for you and earn even more money.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could become a rich businessman like me.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could then enjoy your life peacefully.
Fisherman: What do you think I’m doing right now?

MORAL – You don’t need to wait for tomorrow to be happy and enjoy your life. You don’t even need to be more rich, more powerful to enjoy life. LIFE is at this moment, enjoy it fully.

As some great men have said “My riches consist not in extent of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants”.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: baset on October 26, 2011, 09:15:49 PM

Thank you madam for sharing stories with us.

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: Antara11 on January 31, 2012, 03:07:31 PM

These stories are really interesting and heart touching.

Go ahead.

Antara Basak
Lecturer
Dept. of English

Title: Re: Short Stories
Post by: Johny on February 03, 2012, 05:43:14 PM

I could not help myself and have shared link of your stories in Facebook without your permission. If it is inconvenient to u then the post will be removed as soon as u tel me to.Those morals are very much true but the way you squeeze those from the story seemed funny made me laugh. Thank you very much for the post.