Your favorite short stories

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Idget Child
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Post by Idget Child »

I see a few favorites listed already. I would also include:

"The Hunger Artist" by Franz Kafka
"The Artist of the Beautiful" and "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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smooth
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Post by smooth »

Great thread!

I will have to say 'The Old Woman' by absurdist Daniil Kharms. You may not find anything of this type any LOLtastic than this:
SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW
Old Woman, The

In the courtyard an old woman is standing and holding a clock in her hands. I walk through, past the old woman, stop and ask her:
-- What time is it?
-- Have a look -- the old woman says to me.
I look and see that there are no hands on the clock.
-- There are no hands here -- I say.
The old woman looks at the clock face and tells me: -- It's now a quarter to three.
-- Oh, so that's what it is. Thank you very much -- I say and go on.
The old woman shouts something after me but I walk on without looking round. I go out on to the street and walk on the sunny side. The spring sun is very pleasant. I walk on, screwing up my eyes and smoking my pipe. On the corner of Sadovaya I happen to run into Sakerdon Mikhailovich. We say hello, stop and talk for a long time. I get fed up with standing on the street and I invite Sakerdon Mikhailovich into a cellar bar. We drink vodka, eat hard-boiled eggs and sprats and then say goodbye, and I walk on alone.
At this point I remember that I had forgotten to turn off the electric oven at home. This is very annoying. I turn round and walk home. The day had started so well and this was the first misfortune. I ought not to have taken to the street.
I get home, take off my jacket, take my watch out of my waistcoat pocket and hang it on a nail; then I lock the door and lie down on the couch. I shall recline and try to get to sleep.
The offensive shouting of urchins can be heard from the street. I lie there, thinking up various means of execution for them. My favourite one is to infect them all with tetanus so that they suddenly stop moving. Their parents can drag them all home. They will lie in their beds unable even to eat, because their mouths won't open. They will be fed artificially. After a week the tetanus can pass off, but the children will be so feeble that they will have to lie in their beds for a whole month. Then they will gradually start to recover but I shall infect them with a second dose of tetanus and they will all croak.
I lie on the couch with my eyes open and I can't get to sleep. I remember the old woman with the clock whom I saw today in the yard and feel pleased that there were no hands on her clock. Only the other day in the second-hand shop I saw a revolting kitchen clock and its hands were made in the form of a knife and fork.
Oh, my God! I still haven't turned off the electric oven! I jump up and turn it off, and then I lie down again on the couch and try to get to sleep. I close my eyes. I don't feel sleepy. The spring sun is shining in through the window, straight on to me. I start to feel hot. I get up and sit down in the armchair by the window.
Now I feel sleepy but I am not going to sleep. I get hold of a piece of paper and a pen and I am going to write. I feel within me a terrible power. I thought it all over as long ago as yesterday. It will be the story about a miracle worker who is living in our time and who doesn't work any miracles. He knows that he is a miracle worker and that he can perform any miracle, but he doesn't do so. He is thrown out of his flat and he knows that he only has to wave a finger and the flat will remain his, but he doesn't do this; he submissively moves out of the flat and lives out of town in a shed. He is capable of turning this shed into a fine brick house, but he doesn't do this; he carries on living in the shed and eventually dies, without having done a single miracle in the whole of his life.
I just sit and rub my hands with glee. Sakerdon Mikhailovich will burst with envy. He thinks that I am beyond writing anything of genius. Now then, now then, to work! Away with any kind of sleep and laziness! I shall write for eighteen hours straight off!
I am shaking all over with impatience. I am not able to think out what has to be done: I needed to take a pen and a piece of paper, but I grabbed various objects, not at all those that I needed. I ran about the room: from the window to the table, from the table to the oven, from the oven again to the table, then to the divan and again to the window. I was gasping from the flame which was ablaze in my breast. It's only five o'clock now. The whole day is ahead, and the evening, and all night is . . .
I stand in the middle of the room. Whatever am I thinking of? Why, it's already twenty past five. I must write. I move the table towards the window and sit down at it. A sheet of squared paper is in front of me, in my hand is a pen.
My heart is still beating too fast and my hand is shaking. I wait, so as to calm down a little. I put down my pen and fill my pipe. The sun is shining right in my eyes; I squint and light up my pipe.
And now a crow flies past the window. I look out of the window on to the street and see a man with an artificial leg walking along the pavement. He is knocking loudly with his leg and his stick.
-- So -- I say to myself, continuing to look out of the window.
The sun is hiding behind a chimney of the building opposite. The shadow of the chimney runs along the roof, flies across the street and falls on my face. I should take advantage or this shadow and write a few words about the miracle worker. I grab the pen and write: 'The miracle worker was on the tall side.'
Nothing more can I write. I sit on until I start feeling hungry. Then I get up and go over to the cupboard where I keep my provisions; I rummage there but find nothing. A lump of sugar and nothing more. Someone is knocking at the door.
-- Who's there?
No one answers me. I open the door and see before me the old woman who in the morning had been standing in the yard with the clock. I am very surprised and cannot say anything.
-- So, here I am -- says the old woman and comes into my room.
I stand by the door and don't know what to do: should I chase the old woman out or, on the contrary, suggest that she sit down? But the old woman goes of her own accord over to my armchair beside the window and sits down in it.
-- Close the door and lock it -- the old woman tells me.
I close and lock the door.
-- Kneel -- says the old woman.
And I get down on my knees.
But at this point I begin to realise the full absurdity of my position. Why am I kneeling in front of some old woman? And, indeed, why is this old woman in my room and sitting in my favourite armchair? Why hadn't I chased this old woman out?
-- Now, listen here -- I say -- what right have you to give the orders in my room, and, what's more, boss me about? I have no wish at all to be kneeling.
-- And you don't have to -- says the old woman. -- Now you must lie down on your stomach and bury your face in the floor. I carried out her bidding straight away . . .
I see before me accurately traced squares. Discomfort in my shoulder and in my right hip forces me to change position. I had been lying face down and now, with great difficulty, I get up on to my knees. All my limbs have gone numb and will scarcely bend. I look round and see myself in my own room, kneeling in the middle of the floor. My consciousness and memory are slowly returning to me. I look round the room once more and see that it looks as though someone is sitting in the armchair by the window. It's not very light in the room, because it must be the white nights now. I peer attentively. Good Lord! Is it really that old woman, still sitting in my armchair? I crane my neck round and have a look. Yes, of course, it's the old woman sitting there and her head's drooped on to her chest. She must have fallen asleep.
I pick myself up and hobble over towards her. The old woman's head is drooping down on to her chest; her arms are hanging down the sides of the armchair. I feel like grabbing hold of this old woman and shoving her out of the door.
-- Listen -- I say -- you are in my room. I need to work. I am asking you to leave.
The old woman doesn't budge. I bend over and look the old woman in the face. Her mouth is half open and from her mouth protrudes a displaced set of dentures. And suddenly it all becomes clear to me: the old woman has died.
A terrible feeling of annoyance comes over me. What did she die in my room for? I can't stand dead people. And now, having to mess about with this carrion, having to go and talk to the caretaker and the house manager, to explain to them why this old woman was found in my place. I looked at the old woman with hatred. But perhaps she wasn't dead, after all? I feel her forehead. Her forehead is cold. Her hand also. Now what am I supposed to do?
I light up my pipe and sit down on the couch. A mindless fury is rising up in me.
-- What a swine! -- I say out loud.
The dead old woman is sitting in my armchair, like a sack. Her teeth are sticking out of her mouth. She looks like a dead horse.
-- What a revolting spectacle -- I say, but I can't cover the old woman with a newspaper, because anything might go on under the newspaper.
Movement could be heard through the wall: it's my neighbour getting up, the engine driver. I've quite enough on my plate without him getting wind that I've got a dead old woman in my room! I listen closely to my neighbour's footsteps. Why is he so slow? It's half-past five already! It's high time he went off. My God! He's making a cup of tea! I can hear the noise of the primus through the wall. Oh, I wish that blasted engine driver would hurry up and go!
I pull my legs up on to the couch and lie there. Eight minutes go by, but my neighbour's tea is still not ready and the primus is making a noise. I close my eyes and doze.
I dream that my neighbour has gone out and I, together with him, go out on to the staircase and I slam the door behind me on its spring lock. I haven't got the key and I can't get back into the flat. I shall have to knock and wake up the rest of the tenants and that is not a good thing at all. I am standing on the landing thinking what to do and suddenly I see that I have no hands. I incline my head, so as to get a better look to see whether I have any hands, and I see that on one side, instead of a hand, a knife is sticking out and, on the other side, a fork.
-- So -- I am saying to Sakerdon Mikhailovich, who for some reason is sitting there on a folding chair -- So, do you see -- I say to him -- the sort of hands I have?
But Sakerdon Mikhailovich sits there in silence and I can see that this is not the real Sakerdon Mikhailovich, but his clay semblance.
At this point I wake up and immediately realise that I am lying in my room on the couch and that by the window, in the armchair, sits a dead old woman.
I quickly turn my head in her direction. The old woman is not in the armchair. I gaze at the empty armchair and I am filled with a wild joy. So, that means all this was a dream. Except, where did it start? Did an old woman come into my room yesterday? Perhaps that was a dream as well? I came back yesterday because I had forgotten to turn off the electric oven. But perhaps that was a dream as well? In any case, it's marvelous that I don't have a dead old woman in my room and that means I won't have to go to the house manager and bother about the corpse!
But still, how long had I been asleep? I looked at my watch: half-past nine; it must be morning.
Good Lord! The things that can happen in dreams!
I lowered my legs from the couch, intending to stand up, and suddenly caught sight of the dead old woman, lying on the floor behind the table, beside the armchair. She was lying face up and her dentures, which had jumped out of her mouth, had one tooth digging into the old woman's nostril. Her arms were tucked under her torso and were not visible and from under her disordered skirt protruded bony legs in white, dirty woollen stockings.
-- What a swine! -- I shouted and, running over to the old woman, kicked her on the chin.
The set of dentures flew off into the corner. I wanted to kick the old woman again, but was afraid that marks would remain on her body and that subsequently it might be decided that it was I who had killed her.
I moved away from the old woman, sat down on the couch and lit my pipe. Thus twenty minutes went by. Now it had become clear to me that, come what may, the matter would be put in the hands of a criminal investigation and that in the bungling which would follow I would be accused of murder. The situation was turning out to be serious, and then there was that kick as well.
I went over to the old woman again, leaned over and started to examine her face. There was a small dark bruise on her chin. No, nothing much could be made of that. What of it? Perhaps the old woman had bumped into something when she was still alive? I calm down a little and begin pacing the room, smoking my pipe and ruminating over my situation.
I pace up and down the room and start feeling a greater and greater hunger. I even start shaking from hunger. Once more I rummage in the cupboard where my provisions are kept, but I find nothing, except a lump of sugar.
I pull out my wallet and count my money. Eleven roubles. That means I can buy myself some ham sausage and bread and still have enough for tobacco.
I adjust my tie, which had got disarranged in the night, pick up my watch, put on my jacket, go out into the corridor, painstakingly lock the door of my room, put the key in my pocket and go out on to the street. Before anything else I have to eat something; then my thoughts will be clearer and then I'll do something about this carrion. On the way to the shop, I keep on thinking: shouldn't I go and see Sakerdon Mikhailovich and tell him all about it and perhaps together we could soon think out what to do. But I turn this idea down on the spot, because there are some things which one has to do alone, without witnesses.
There was no ham sausage in the shop and I bought myself half a kilo of saveloys. There was no tobacco, either. From the shop I went to the bakery.
There were a lot of people in the bakery and there was a long queue waiting at the cash desk. I immediately frowned but still joined the queue. The queue moved very slowly and then stopped moving altogether, because some sort of a row had broken out at the cash desk.
I pretended not to notice anything and stared at the back of a nice young lady who was standing in the queue in front of me. The young lady was obviously very inquisitive: she was craning her neck first to the right and then to the left and she kept standing on tiptoe, so as to get a better view of what was happening at the cash desk. Eventually she turned round to me and said: -- You don't know what's going on there, do you?
-- I'm afraid I don't -- I answered as drily as possible.
The young lady twisted herself from side to side and finally again addressed me:
-- You wouldn't like to go up there and find out what's happening, would you?
-- I'm afraid it doesn't concern me in the slightest -- I said, even more drily.
-- What do you mean, it doesn't concern you? -- exclaimed the young lady -- you are being held up in the queue yourself because of it, aren't you?
I made no reply and merely bowed slightly. The young lady looked at me with great attention.
-- Of course, it's not a man's job to queue for bread -- she said. -- I'm sorry for you, having to stand here. You must be a bachelor?
-- Yes, I am a bachelor -- I replied, somewhat taken aback, but automatically continuing to answer somewhat drily, with a slight bow at the same time.
The young lady again looked me up and down and suddenly, touching me on the sleeve, she said: -- Let me get you what you need and you can wait for me outside.
This threw me completely.
-- Thank you -- I said. -- It's extremely kind of you but, really, I could do it myself.
-- No, no -- said the young lady -- you go outside. What were you intending to buy?
-- Well, then -- I said -- I was intending to buy half a kilo of black bread, only of the round sort, the cheapest one. I prefer it.
-- Right, well that's fine -- said the young lady. -- So, go on, then. I'll buy it and we can settle up afterwards. And she even gave me a slight shove under the elbow.
I went out of the bakery and stood right by the door. The spring sun is shining right in my eyes. I light up my pipe. What a delightful young lady! It's so rare these days. I stand there, my eyes screwed up from the sun, smoking my pipe and thinking about the delightful young lady. She has bright brown eyes, too. She's simply irresistibly pretty!
-- Do you smoke a pipe? -- I hear a voice beside me. The delightful young lady hands me the bread.
-- Oh, I'm forever grateful to you -- I say, taking the bread.
-- And you smoke a pipe! I really like that -- says the delightful young lady.
And between us the following conversation takes place.
She: So, you buy bread yourself?
I: Not only bread; I buy everything for myself.
She: And where do you have lunch?
I: Usually I cook my own lunch. But sometimes I eat in the bar.
She: Do you like beer, then?
I: No, I prefer vodka.
She: I like vodka, too.
I: You like vodka? That's wonderful! I'd like to have a drink with you sometime.
She: And I'd like to drink vodka with you, too.
I: Forgive me, but may I ask you something?
She: (blushing furiously) of course, just ask.
I: All right then, I will. Do you believe in God?
She: (surprised) In God? Yes, of course.
I: And what would you say to us buying some vodka now and going to my place? I live very near here.
She: (perkily) Well, why not, it's fine by me!
I: Then let's go.
We go into a shop and I buy half a litre of vodka. I have no more money left, except a bit of change. We talk about various things all the time and suddenly I remember that in my room on the floor there is a dead old woman.
I look round at my new acquaintance: she's standing by the counter and looking at jars of jam. I gingerly make off towards the door and slide out of the shop. It just happens that a tram is stopping opposite the shop. I jump on the tram, without even looking to see what number it is. I get off at Mikhailovskaya Street and walk to Sakerdon Mikhailovich's. I am carrying a bottle of vodka, saveloys and bread.
Sakerdon Mikhailovich opened the door to me himself. He was wearing his dressing-gown, with nothing on underneath, his Russian boots with the tops cut off and his fur hat with the earflaps, but the earflaps were turned up and tied in a bow on top.
-- Jolly good -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich on seeing that it was me. -- I'm not dragging you away from your work? -- I asked.
-- No, no -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- I wasn't doing anything, I was just sitting on the floor.
-- Well, you see -- I said to Sakerdon Mikhailovich -- I've popped round to you with vodka and a bite to eat. If you've no objection, let's have a drink.
-- Fine -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- Come in.
We sent through to his room. I opened the bottle of vodka and Sakerdon Mikhailovich put two glasses and a plate of boiled meat on the table.
-- I've got some saveloys here -- I said. -- So, how shall we eat them: raw, or shall we boil them?
-- We'll put them on to boil -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich and while they're cooking we'll drink vodka with the boiled meat. It's from a stew, it's first-class boiled meat!
Sakerdon Mikhailovich put a saucepan on to heat, on his kerosene stove, and we sat down to the vodka.
-- Drinking vodka's good for you -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich, filling the glasses. -- Mechnikov wrote that vodka's better than bread, and bread is only straw which rots in our bellies.
-- Your health! -- said I, clinking glasses with Sakerdon Mikhailovich. We drank, taking the cold meat as a snack. -- It's good -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
But at that moment something in the room gave out a sharp crack.
-- What's that? -- I asked.
We sat in silence and listened. Suddenly there was another crack. Sakerdon Mikhailovich jumped up from his chair and, running up to the window, tore down the curtain.
-- What are you doing? -- I exclaimed.
But Sakerdon Mikhailovich didn't answer me; he rushed over to the kerosene stove, grabbed hold or the saucepan with the curtain and placed it on the floor.
-- Devil take it! -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- I forgot to put water in the saucepan and the saucepan's an enamel one, and now the enamel's come off.
-- Oh, I see -- I said, nodding.
We sat down again at the table.
-- Oh, to the devil with it -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich -- we'll eat the saveloys raw.
-- I'm starving -- I said.
-- Help yourself -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich, pushing the saveloys over to me.
-- The last time I ate was yesterday, in the cellar bar with you, and since then I haven't eaten a thing -- I said.
-- Yeh, yeh -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- I was writing all the time -- said I.
-- Bloody hell! -- exclaimed Sakerdon Mikhailovich in an exaggerated tone. -- It's a great thing to see a genius before one.
-- I should think so! -- said I.
-- Did you get much done? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- Yes -- said I. -- I got through a mass of paper.
-- To the genius of our day -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich, lifting his glass.
We drank. Sakerdon Mikhailovich ate boiled meat and I . . . the saveloys. Having eaten four saveloys, I lit my pipe and said:
-- You know, I came to see you, to escape from persecution.
-- Who was persecuting you? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- A lady -- I said.
But as Sakerdon Mikhailovich didn't ask me anything and only poured vodka into his glass in silence, I went on: -- I met her in the bakery and immediately fell in love.
-- Is she attractive? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- Yes -- said I -- just my type.
We drank and I continued: -- She agreed to go to my place and drink vodka. We went into a shop, but I had to make a run for it out of the shop, on the quiet.
-- Didn't you have enough money? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- No, I had just enough money -- I said -- but I remembered that I couldn't let her into my room.
-- What, do you mean you had another woman in your room? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- Yes, if you like, there's another woman in my room -- I said, with a smile. -- Now I can't let anyone into my room.
-- Get married. Then you can invite me to the reception -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- No -- I said, snorting with laughter. -- I'm not going to get married to this woman.
-- Well then, marry that one from the bakery -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- Why are you so keen to marry me off? -- said I.
-- So, what then? -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich, filling the glasses. -- Here's to your conquests!
We drank. Clearly, the vodka was starting to have its effect on us. Sakerdon Mikhailovich look off his fur hat with the earflaps and slung it on to the bed. I got up and paced around the room, already experiencing a certain amount of head-spinning.
-- How do you feel about the dead? -- I asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- Completely negatively -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- I'm afraid of them.
-- Yes, I can't stand dead people either -- I said. -- Give me a dead person and, assuming he's not a relative of mine, I would be bound to boot him one.
-- You shouldn't kick corpses -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- I would give him a good booting, right in the chops -- said I. -- I can't stand dead people or children.
-- Yes, children are vile -- agreed Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- But which do you think are worse: the dead or children? -- I asked.
-- Children are perhaps worse, they get in our way more often. The dead at least don't burst into our lives -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- They do burst in! -- I shouted and immediately stopped speaking. Sakerdon Mikhailovich looked at me attentively.
-- Do you want some more vodka? -- he asked.
-- No -- I said, but, recollecting myself, I added: -- No, thank you, I don't want any more.
I came over and sat down again at the table. For a while we are silent.
-- I want to ask you -- I say finally. -- Do you believe in God?
A transverse wrinkle appears on Sakerdon Mikhailovich's brow and he says: -- There is such a thing as bad form. It's bad form to ask someone to lend you fifty roubles if you have noticed him just putting two hundred in his pocket. It's his business to give you the money or to refuse; and the most convenient and agreeable means of refusal is to lie, saying, that he hasn't got the money. But you have seen that that person does have the money and thereby you have deprived him of the possibility of simply and agreeably refusing. You have deprived him of the right of choice and that is a dirty trick. It's bad form and quite tactless and asking a person: 'Do you believe in God?' -- that also is tactless and bad form.
-- Well -- said I -- I see nothing in common there.
-- Anal I am making no comparisons -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- Well, all right, then -- I said -- let's leave it. Just excuse me for putting such an indecent and tactless question.
-- That's all right -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- I merely refused to answer you.
-- I wouldn't have answered either -- said I -- except that it would've been for a different reason.
-- And what would that be? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich limply.
-- You see -- I said -- in my view there are no believers or non-believers. There are only those who wish to believe and those who wish not to believe.
-- So, those who wish not to believe already believe in something? -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- And those who wish to believe already, in advance, don't believe in anything?
-- Perhaps that's the way it is -- I said. -- I don't know.
-- And in what do they believe or not believe? In God? -- asked Sakerdon Mikhailovich.
-- No -- I said -- in immortality.
-- Then why did you ask me whether I believe in God?
-- Simply because asking: 'Do you believe in immortality?' sounds rather stupid -- I said to Sakerdon Mikhailovich and stood up.
-- What, are you going? -- Sakerdon Mikhailovich asked me.
-- Yes -- I said -- it's time I was going.
-- And what about the vodka? -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich. -- There's a glass each left, you know.
-- Well, let's drink it, then -- I said.
We drank down the vodka and finished off the remains of the boiled meat.
-- And now I must go -- I said.
-- Goodbye -- said Sakerdon Mikhailovich, accompanying me across the kitchen and out lo the stairway. -- Thanks for bringing the refreshments.
-- Thank you -- I said. -- Goodbye.
And I left.
Remaining on his own, Sakerdon Mikhailovich cleared the tables, shoved the empty vodka bottle on top of the cupboard, put his fur cap with the earflaps on again and sat down on the floor under the window. Sakerdon Mikhailovich put his hands behind his back and they could not be seen. And from his disordered dressing-gown protruded his bare, bony legs, shod in Russian boots with the tops cut off.
I walked along Nevsky Prospect, weighed down by my own thoughts. I'll now have to go to the house manager and tell him everything. And having dealt with the old woman, I shall stand for entire days by the bakery, until I encounter that delightful young lady. Indeed, I have remained in her debt for the bread, to the tune of forty-eight kopecks. I have a fine pretext for seeking her out. The vodka I had drunk was still continuing to have its effect and it seemed as though everything was shaping up very nicely and straightforwardly.
On Fontanka I went over to a stall and, on the strength of my remaining change, I downed a big mug of kvass. The kvass was of poor quality and sour, and I walked on with a revolting taste in my mouth.
On the corner of Liteinaya some drunk or other staggered up and pushed me. It's a good thing I don't have a revolver: I would have killed him right here on the spot.
I walked all the way home, no doubt with a face distorted with malice. In any event, almost everyone I passed swung round to look at me.
I went into the house manager's office. At the table sat a short, dirty, snub-nosed, one-eyed, tow-headed female and, looking into her make-up mirror, she was daubing herself with lipstick.
-- And where's the house manager? -- I asked.
The girl remained silent, continuing to daub her lips.
-- Where's the house manager? -- I repeated in a sharp voice.
-- He'll be here tomorrow, not today -- replied the dirty, snub-nosed, one-eyed and tow-haired female.
I went out on to the street. On the opposite side, an invalid was walking along on an artificial leg and knocking loudly with his leg and his stick. Six urchins were running behind the invalid, mimicking his gait.
I turned into my main entrance and began to go up the stairway. On the first floor I stopped; a repulsive thought had entered my head: of course, the old woman must have started to decompose. I had not shut the windows, and they say that with an open window the dead decompose all the quicker. What utter stupidity! And that devil of a house manager won't be there until tomorrow! I stood in indecision for several minutes and then began to ascend further.
I stopped again beside the door to my flat. Perhaps I should go to the bakery and wait there for the delightful young lady? I could try imploring her to let me in to her place for two or three nights. But at this point I recollect that she has already bought her bread today and so she won't be coming to the bakery. And in any case nothing would have come of it.
I unlocked the door and went into the corridor. At the end of the corridor a light was on and Mar'ia Vasil'evna, holding some rag or other in her hands, was rubbing it over with another rag. Upon seeing me, Mar'ia Vasil'evna cried: -- Shome auld man was ashking for ye!
-- What old man? -- I asked.
-- I donch know -- replied Mar'ia Vasil'evna.
-- When was that? -- I asked.
-- Donch know zhat, eizher -- said Mar'ia Vasil'evna.
-- Did you talk to the old man? -- I asked Mar'ia Vasil'evna.
-- I did -- replied Mar'ia Vasil'evna.
-- So, how come you don't know when it was? -- said I.
-- Choo hourzh ago -- said Mar'ia Vasil'evna.
-- And what did this old man look like? -- I asked.
-- Donch know zhat, eizher -- said Mar'ia Vasil'evna and went off to the kitchen.
I went over to my room.
-- Suppose -- I thought -- the old woman has disappeared. I shall go into any room, and there's no old woman there. Oh my God! Do miracles really not happen?
I unlocked the door and started to open it slowly. Perhaps it only seemed that way, but the sickly smell of decomposition in progress hit me in the face. I looked in through the half-open door and, for a instant, froze on the spot. The old woman was on all fours, crawling slowly over to meet me.
I slammed the door with a yelp, turned the key and leapt across to the wall opposite.
Mar'ia Vasil'evna appeared in the corridor.
-- Were ye calling me? -- she asked.
I was so shaken that I couldn't reply and just shook my head negatively. Mar'ia Vasil'evna came a bit nearer.
-- Ye were talking to shomeone -- she said.
I again shook my head.
-- Crazhy madman -- said Mar'ia Vasil'evna and she again went off to the kitchen, looking round at me several times on the way.
-- I can't just stand here. I can't just stand here -- I repeated to myself. This phrase had formed somewhere within me. I kept reiterating it until it reached my consciousness.
-- No, I can't just stand here -- I said to myself, but carried on standing there, as though paralysed. Something horrific had happened, but there was now the prospect of dealing with something that perhaps was even more horrific than what had already occurred. My thoughts were spinning in a vortex and I could see only the malicious eyes of the dead old woman, slowly crawling towards me on all fours.
Burst into the room and smash the old woman's skull in! That's what needs to be done! I even gave the place the once-over and was relieved to see a croquet mallet which, for some unknown reason, had been standing in the corner of the corridor for nearly a year. Grab the mallet, burst into the room and bang . . . !
My shivering had not passed off. I was standing with my shoulders arched from an inner cold. My thoughts were jumping and jumbled, backtracking to their point of departure and again jumping ahead and taking over new spheres, and I stood, lending an ear to my own thoughts, and remaining as though to one side of them, as though not their controller.
-- The dead -- my own thoughts explained to me -- are a category to be reckoned with. A lot of use calling them dead; rather, they should be called the undead. They need to be watched and watched. Ask any mortuary watchman. What do you think he is put there for? Only for one thing: to keep watch, so that the dead don't crawl all over the place. There can even occur what are, in a certain sense, amusing incidents. One deceased crawled out of the mortuary while the attendant, on management's orders, was taking his bath, crawled into the disinfection room and ate up a heap of bed linen. The disinfectors dished out a damned good thrashing to the deceased in question but, as for the ruined linen, they had to settle up for that out of their own pockets. And another deceased crawled as far as the maternity ward and so frightened the inmates that one child-bearer produced a premature foetus on the spot, while the deceased pounced smartly on the fruits of the miscarriage and began to devour it, champing away vigourously. And, when a brave nurse struck the deceased on the back with a stool, he bit the said nurse on the leg and she soon died from infection by corpse poisoning. Yes, indeed, the dead are a category to be reckoned with, and with them you certainly have to be on the quick side.
-- Stop! -- said I to my own thoughts. -- You are talking nonsense. The dead are immobile.
-- All right, then -- my own thoughts said to me. -- Just you enter your room and you'll soon find what you call an immobile dead person.
An unexpected stubbornness within me began speaking.
-- All right, I will! -- I replied resolutely to my own thoughts.
-- Just you try! -- my own thoughts said to me derisively.
This derision definitively enraged me. I grabbed the croquet mallet and rushed towards the door.
-- Hold on a moment! -- my own thoughts yelled at me. But I had already turned the key and unlocked the door.
The old woman was lying in the doorway, her face pressed against the floor.
Croquet mallet raised, I stood at the ready. The old woman wasn't moving.
My trembling passed off and my thoughts were flowing clearly and logically. I was in control.
-- First of all, shut the door! -- I commanded myself.
I pulled the key from the outer side of the door and put it into the inner side. I did this with my left hand, while in my right hand I held the croquet mallet and the whole time did not take my eyes off the old woman. I turned the key in the door and, carefully stepping over the old woman, stepped out into the middle of the room.
-- Now you and I will settle things -- said I. A plan had occurred to me, one to which murderers in detective stories and reports in the newspapers usually resort; I simply wanted to hide the old woman in a suitcase, carry her off out of town and dump her in a bog. I knew one such place.
I had a suitcase under the couch. I dragged it out and opened it. There were a few assorted things in it: several books, an old felt hat and some torn underwear. I unpacked all this on the couch.
At this moment the outside door slammed loudly and it seemed to me that the old woman shuddered.
I immediately jumped up and grabbed the croquet mallet.
The old woman is lying there quietly. I am standing and listening intently. It is the engine driver who has just come back; I can hear him walking about in his room. That's him going along the corridor to the kitchen. If Mar'ia Vasil'evna tells him all about my madness it will do no good. It's a devilish nuisance. I'd better go along to the kitchen and reassure them by my appearance.
I again strode over the old woman, placed the mallet right by the door, so that on my return, without even entering the room, I could have the mallet in my hands, and went out into the corridor. Voices came towards me from the kitchen, but the words were not audible. I shut the door to my room behind me and cautiously went off to the kitchen: I wanted to find out what Mar'ia Vasil'evna and the engine driver were talking about. I passed down the corridor quickly and slowed my steps near the kitchen. The engine driver was speaking; evidently he was talking about something which had happened to him at work.
I went in. The engine driver was standing with a towel in his hands and speaking, while Mar'ia Vasil'evna was sitting on a stool listening. Upon seeing me, the engine driver waved at me.
-- Hello there, hello there, Matvei Filippovich -- I said to him and went on through to the bathroom. So far everything was safe enough. Mar'ia Vasil'evna was used to my strange ways and may even have forgotten this latest incident.
Suddenly it dawned upon me that I had not locked the door. What if the old woman should crawl out of the room?
I rushed back but recollected myself in time and, so as not to alarm the tenants, ambled through the kitchen at a leisurely step.
Mar'ia Vasil'evna was tapping her finger on the kitchen table and saying to the engine driver:
-- Quaite raight. That's quaite raight! I wud have wustled too!
With my heart sinking, I went out into the corridor and immediately breaking very nearly into a run I dashed down to my room. The old woman, as before, was lying there quietly, her face pressed to the floor. The croquet mallet was standing by the door in the same spot. I picked it up, went into the room , and locked the door behind me with the key. Yes, there was definitely a whiff of dead body in the room. I strode over the old woman, went up to the window and sat down in the armchair. So long as I don't get ill from this so far only weak, but still already unbearable, smell. I lit up my pipe. I felt a touch of nausea and my stomach was aching a bit.
So, why am I just sitting here? I need to act quickly, before this old woman rots completely. But, in any case, I need to be careful shoving her into the suitcase because, while we're at it, she could take a nip at my hand. And, as for dying from corpse poisoning -- no thank you!
-- Hey, thought -- I suddenly exclaimed. -- I'd like to see what you would bite me with! Your teeth are over there, anyway!
I leaned over in the armchair and looked into the corner on the other side of the window where, by my reckoning, the old woman's set of dentures must be. But the false teeth were not there.
I thought for a bit: perhaps the dead old woman had been crawling about my room looking for her teeth? Perhaps she had even found them and stuck them back into her mouth?
I took the product mallet and poked around in the corner with it. No, the dentures had gone. Then I pulled out of the cupboard a thick flannelette sheet and went over to the old woman. The croquet mallet I held at the ready in my right hand and in my left I held the flannelette sheet.
This dead old woman was arousing a squeamish feeling of fear. I raised her head with the mallet: her mouth was open, the eyes rolled upwards and, on the whole of her chin, where I had landed my kick, a big dark bruise was spreading. I looked into the old woman's mouth. No, she had not found her dentures. I released her head. The head dropped and knocked against the floor.
Then I spread the flannelette sheet out on the floor and pulled it over to the old woman herself. Then with my foot and the croquet mallet I turned the old woman over by way of her left side on to her back. Now she was lying on the sheet. The old woman's legs were bent at the knees and her fists clasped to her shoulders. The old woman seemed to be lying on her back, like a cat, ready to defend herself from a predatory eagle. Quickly, away with this carrion!
I rolled the old woman up in the thick sheet and picked her up in my arms. She turned out to be lighter than I had thought. I put her down into the suitcase and tried to close it. I now expected all kinds of difficulties, but the lid closed comparatively easily. I clicked down the locks on the case and straightened up.
The suitcase is standing before me with a totally decorous air, as though it contains clothes and books. I took hold of it by the handle and tried to lift it. Yes, of course, it was heavy, but not excessively so. I could certainly carry it to the tram.
I looked at my watch: twenty past five. That's fine. I sat down in the armchair so as to have a breather and finish smoking my pipe.
Obviously the saveloys which I had eaten today had been a bit off, since my stomach was aching more and more. But perhaps this was because I had eaten them raw? But perhaps my stomach-ache was purely nervous.
I sit there, smoking. And minute after minute goes by.
The spring sun is shining in through the window and I screw up my eyes against its rays. Now it is hiding behind a chimney of the building opposite and the shadow of the chimney runs along the roof, flies across the street and falls right on my face. I recall how yesterday at this same time I was sitting writing my story. Here it is: the squared paper and on it the inscription, in tiny handwriting: 'The miracle worker was on the tall side'.
I looked out of the window. An invalid was walking along the street on an artificial leg, knocking loudly with his leg and with a stick. Two workmen, and an old woman with them, were holding their sides, guffawing at the invalid's ridiculous gait.
I got up. It was time! Time to be on my way! Time to take the old woman off to the bog! I still needed to borrow some money from the engine driver.
I went out into the corridor and went up to his door.
-- Matvei Filippovich, are you in? -- I asked.
-- I'm in -- replied the engine driver.
-- Excuse me then, Matvei Filippovich, you don't happen to have plenty of money on you, do you? I get paid the day after tomorrow. You couldn't lend me thirty roubles, could you?
-- I could -- said the engine driver. And I could hear him jangling keys as he unlocked some box or other. Then he opened the door and held out a new, red thirty-rouble note. -- Thank you very much, Matvei Filippovich -- I said.
-- That's all right, that's all right -- said the engine driver.
I stuffed the money in my pocket and returned to my room. The suitcase was calmly standing on the same spot.
-- Now then, on our way, without further ado -- I said to myself.
I took the suitcase and went out of the room.
Mar'ia Vasil'evna caught sight of me with the suitcase and shouted: -- Where are ye off to?
-- To see my aunt -- said I.
-- Will ye soon be back? -- asked Mar'ia Vasil'evna.
-- Yes -- I said. -- I just have to take some clothes over to my aunt. I'll be back maybe even today.
I went out on to the street. I got safely to the tram, carrying the suitcase first in my right hand, then in my left.
I got on to the tram from the front passenger space of the rear car and began waving the conductress over, so that she should come and take the money for my ticket and baggage. I didn't want to pass my single thirty-rouble note down the whole car and couldn't bring myself to leave the suitcase and myself walk through to the conductress. The conductress came over to me on to the front platform and declared that she had no change. I had to get off at the very first stop.
I stood there fuming as I was waiting for the next tram. I was suffering from stomach-ache and a slight shiver in the legs.
And then suddenly I glimpsed my delightful young lady: she was crossing the street and not looking in my direction.
I grabbed the suitcase and rushed after her. I didn't know her name and couldn't call her. The suitcase was a serious hindrance: I was holding it in front of me with both hands and pushing at it with my knees and stomach. The delightful young lady was fairly fleet of foot and I felt that I had no hope of catching her. I was soaked through with sweat and quite exhausted. The delightful young lady turned into a side-street. When I got to the corner, she was nowhere to be seen.
-- That blasted old woman! -- I spat, throwing the suitcase down. The sleeves of my jacket were soaked through with sweat and they stuck to my arms. I sat clown on the suitcase and, pulling out my handkerchief, I wiped my neck and face with it. Two urchins stopped in front of me and began looking at me. I put on a calm face and looked attentively at the nearest gateway, as though waiting for someone. The urchins were whispering and making rude gestures towards me. A wild fury smothered me. Oh, may they be infected with tetanus!
And so, because of these obnoxious urchins, I stand up, lift the suitcase, take it over to the gateway and peer into it. I affect a surprised face, get out my watch and shrug my shoulders. The urchins are observing me from algal. I once more shrug my shoulders and peer into the gateway.
-- That's strange -- I say aloud; I take the suitcase and drag it to the tram stop.
I arrived at the station at five to seven. I take a return ticket to Lis'ii Nos and get on to the train.
In the carriage, apart from me, there are two others: one evidently is a workman; he is tired and is asleep, his cap pulled over his eyes. The other is quite a young fellow, dressed like a village dandy: under his jacket he is wearing a pink Russian shirt and from underneath his cap protrudes a curly quiff. He is smoking a Russian cigarette, stuck into a bright green plastic holder.
I place the suitcase between the seats and sit down. I have such spasms in my stomach that I clench my fists, so as not to groan out loud from the pain.
Two militiamen are leading some citizen or other along the platform under arrest. He is walking with his hands behind his back and his head drooping.
The train moves off. I look at my watch: ten past seven.
Oh, with what pleasure will I dump this old woman in the bog! It's a pity only that I didn't bring a stick with me, as the old woman is bound to need a few shoves.
The dandy in the pink shirt keeps looking at me impudently. I turn my back on him and look out of the window.
Horrific seizures are raging in my belly; then I have to grit my teeth, clench my fists and strain my legs.
We go through Lanskaya and Novaya Derevnya. Here there's a glitter from the golden top of the Buddhist pagoda and over there a glimpse of the sea.
But at this point I jump up and, forgetting everything around me, run off to the toilet with short steps. My consciousness is being buffeted and twisted by a reckless wave . . .
The train slackens speed. We are arriving at Lakhta. I sit there, afraid to move, lest I get thrown out of the toilet while at the station.
-- If only it would hurry up and get moving! Hurry up and get moving!
The train moves off and I close my eyes in ecstasy. Oh, these minutes are just as sweet as any moments of love! All my powers are straining, but I know that this will be followed by an awful collapse.
The train is stopping again. It's Ol'gino. That means the same torture again!
But now it's a matter of phantom urges. A cold sweat comes out on my brow and a slight coldness flutters around my heart. I raise myself up and for a certain time stand with my head pressed to the wall. The train goes on and the swaying of the carriage feels quite pleasant to me.
I gather all my strength and stagger out from the toilet.
There's no one in the carriage. The worker and the dandy in the pink shirt obviously got out at Lakhta, or at Ol'gino. I walk slowly towards my window.
And suddenly I stop in my tracks and peer dully in front of me. There, where I had left it, there is no suitcase. I must have mistaken the window. I jump over to the next window. No suitcase. I jump backwards and forwards, run up and down the carriage on both sides, look under the seats, but the suitcase is nowhere to be found.
Indeed, is there any reason to doubt it? Of course, while I was in the toilet the suitcase was stolen. That could even have been predicted!
I am sitting on the seat goggle-eyed and for some reason I remember the cracking sound of the enamel coming off the overheated saucepan at Sakerdon Mikhailovich's.
-- So what's the outcome? -- I ask myself. -- Now who will believe that I didn't kill the old woman? They'll catch me this very day, either right here or in the city at the station, like that citizen who was walking along with his head drooping.
I go out on to the outside space at the end of the carriage. The train is coming in to Lis'ii Nos. The white posts which mark off the track are flashing past. The train is stopping. The steps down from my carriage do not reach the ground. I jump down and walk over to the station office. There is still half an hour before the train back to town.
I walk over towards a little wood. There are juniper bushes there. No one will see me behind them. I make for them.
A big, green caterpillar is crawling over the ground. I drop down on my knees and touch it with my finger. Powerful and sinewy, it wriggles around a few times from one side to the other.
I look round. No one can see me. A slight shiver runs down my back. I incline my head and quietly say:
-- In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, now and for ever. Amen.
The Talmud wrote:Menahoth 43b-44a. A Jewish man is obligated to say the following prayer every day: Thank you God for not making me a gentile, a woman or a slave.
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smooth
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Post by smooth »

John Jr. wrote:the first thing that comes to mind is "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson

read it here:

http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html

read it at an early age. really defined a lot of my feelings on art ownership.
Read this before as recommended on the board before. Love it and I feel the same way.
The Talmud wrote:Menahoth 43b-44a. A Jewish man is obligated to say the following prayer every day: Thank you God for not making me a gentile, a woman or a slave.
Mr. Budd

Re: Your favorite short stories

Post by Mr. Budd »

Almost anything from Bulghakov, Chekhov, Grin, Zoschenko, Yuir Olesha, Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales, Kharms, Ring Lardner Sr., James T. Farrell, Salinger's Nine Stories, Maeterlink, Ibsen, Strindberg, Walser, Bruno Schulz and Krasznahorkai.
necrothrash
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Post by necrothrash »

Pisscubes wrote:"A & P" by John Updike
This. And anything from this:

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Friendly Goatus
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Post by Friendly Goatus »

Kurt wrote:The Most Dangerous Game
by Richard Connell
SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW
"OFF THERE to the right--somewhere--is a large island," said Whitney." It's rather a mystery--"

"What island is it?" Rainsford asked.

"The old charts call it `Ship-Trap Island,"' Whitney replied." A suggestive name, isn't it? Sailors have a curious dread of the place. I don't know why. Some superstition--"

"Can't see it," remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the dank tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick warm blackness in upon the yacht.

"You've good eyes," said Whitney, with a laugh," and I've seen you pick off a moose moving in the brown fall bush at four hundred yards, but even you can't see four miles or so through a moonless Caribbean night."

"Nor four yards," admitted Rainsford. "Ugh! It's like moist black velvet."

"It will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "We should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdey's. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting."

"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.

"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."

"Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?"

"Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney.

"Bah! They've no understanding."

"Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death."

"Nonsense," laughed Rainsford. "This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters. Do you think we've passed that island yet?"

"I can't tell in the dark. I hope so."

"Why? " asked Rainsford.

"The place has a reputation--a bad one."

"Cannibals?" suggested Rainsford.

"Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn't live in such a God-forsaken place. But it's gotten into sailor lore, somehow. Didn't you notice that the crew's nerves seemed a bit jumpy today?"

"They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen--"

"Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who'd go up to the devil himself and ask him for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. All I could get out of him was `This place has an evil name among seafaring men, sir.' Then he said to me, very gravely, `Don't you feel anything?'--as if the air about us was actually poisonous. Now, you mustn't laugh when I tell you this--I did feel something like a sudden chill.

"There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We were drawing near the island then. What I felt was a--a mental chill; a sort of sudden dread."

"Pure imagination," said Rainsford.

"One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship's company with his fear."

"Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they are in danger. Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing--with wave lengths, just as sound and light have. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I'm glad we're getting out of this zone. Well, I think I'll turn in now, Rainsford."

"I'm not sleepy," said Rainsford. "I'm going to smoke another pipe up on the afterdeck."

"Good night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast."

"Right. Good night, Whitney."

There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the muffled throb of the engine that drove the yacht swiftly through the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the propeller.

Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on him." It's so dark," he thought, "that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night would be my eyelids--"

An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun three times.

Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head.

He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet. A certain coolheadedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The lights of the yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they were blotted out entirely by the night.

Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred more and then--

Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high screaming sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror.

He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.

"Pistol shot," muttered Rainsford, swimming on.

Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears--the most welcome he had ever heard--the muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he reached a flat place at the top. Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did not concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of his life.

When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon. Sleep had given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost cheerfully.

"Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there is food," he thought. But what kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the shore.

He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and trees; it was easier to go along the shore, and Rainsford floundered along by the water. Not far from where he landed, he stopped.

Some wounded thing--by the evidence, a large animal--had thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainsford's eye and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge.

"A twenty-two," he remarked. "That's odd. It must have been a fairly large animal too. The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. It's clear that the brute put up a fight. I suppose the first three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was when he trailed it here and finished it."

He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find--the print of hunting boots. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island.

Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainsford sighted the lights. He came upon them as he turned a crook in the coast line; and his first thought was that be had come upon a village, for there were many lights. But as he forged along he saw to his great astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building--a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows.

"Mirage," thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found, when he opened the tall spiked iron gate. The stone steps were real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real enough; yet above it all hung an air of unreality.

He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. He let it fall, and it startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door remained closed. Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door opened then--opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring--and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainsford's eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen--a gigantic creature, solidly made and black bearded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long-barreled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainsford's heart.

Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.

"Don't be alarmed," said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was disarming. "I'm no robber. I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford of New York City."

The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that he understood Rainsford's words, or that he had even heard them. He was dressed in uniform--a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.

"I'm Sanger Rainsford of New York," Rainsford began again. "I fell off a yacht. I am hungry."

The man's only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford saw the man's free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand.

In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, he said, "It is a very great pleasure and honor to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home."

Automatically Rainsford shook the man's hand.

"I've read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see," explained the man. "I am General Zaroff."

Rainsford's first impression was that the man was singularly handsome; his second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about the general's face. He was a tall man past middle age, for his hair was a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military mustache were as black as the night from which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very bright. He had high cheekbones, a sharpcut nose, a spare, dark face--the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.

"Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow," remarked the general, "but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I'm afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage."

"Is he Russian?"

"He is a Cossack," said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. "So am I."

"Come," he said, "we shouldn't be chatting here. We can talk later. Now you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them. This is a most-restful spot."

Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound.

"Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford," said the general. "I was about to have my dinner when you came. I'll wait for you. You'll find that my clothes will fit you, I think."

It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough for six men that Rainsford followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duke.

The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. About the hall were mounted heads of many animals--lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen. At the great table the general was sitting, alone.

"You'll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford," he suggested. The cocktail was surpassingly good; and, Rainsford noted, the table apointments were of the finest--the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china.

They were eating borsch, the rich, red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates. Half apologetically General Zaroff said, "We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip?"

"Not in the least," declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite. But there was one small trait of .the general's that made Rainsford uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him, appraising him narrowly.

"Perhaps," said General Zaroff, "you were surprised that I recognized your name. You see, I read all books on hunting published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my life, Mr. Rainsford, and it is the hunt."

"You have some wonderful heads here," said Rainsford as he ate a particularly well-cooked filet mignon. " That Cape buffalo is the largest I ever saw."

"Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster."

"Did he charge you?"

"Hurled me against a tree," said the general. "Fractured my skull. But I got the brute."

"I've always thought," said Rainsford, "that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game."

For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, "No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He sipped his wine. "Here in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow tone, "I hunt more dangerous game."

Rainsford expressed his surprise. "Is there big game on this island?"

The general nodded. "The biggest."

"Really?"

"Oh, it isn't here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island."

"What have you imported, general?" Rainsford asked. "Tigers?"

The general smiled. "No," he said. "Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford."

The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his guest a long black cigarette with a silver tip; it was perfumed and gave off a smell like incense.

"We will have some capital hunting, you and I," said the general. "I shall be most glad to have your society."

"But what game--" began Rainsford.

"I'll tell you," said the general. "You will be amused, I know. I think I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing. I have invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of port?"

"Thank you, general."

The general filled both glasses, and said, "God makes some men poets. Some He makes kings, some beggars. Me He made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman. When I was only five years old he gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of his prize turkeys with it, he did not punish me; he complimented me on my marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was ten. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army--it was expected of noblemen's sons--and for a time commanded a division of Cossack cavalry, but my real interest was always the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every land. It would be impossible for me to tell you how many animals I have killed."

The general puffed at his cigarette.

"After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was imprudent for an officer of the Czar to stay there. Many noble Russians lost everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in American securities, so I shall never have to open a tearoom in Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in Paris. Naturally, I continued to hunt--grizzliest in your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses in East Africa. It was in Africa that the Cape buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I recovered I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually cunning. They weren't." The Cossack sighed. "They were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and a high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into my mind. Hunting was beginning to bore me! And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in America businessmen often go to pieces when they give up the business that has been their life."

"Yes, that's so," said Rainsford.

The general smiled. "I had no wish to go to pieces," he said. "I must do something. Now, mine is an analytical mind, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase."

"No doubt, General Zaroff."

"So," continued the general, "I asked myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. You are much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can guess the answer."

"What was it?"

"Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call `a sporting proposition.' It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always. There is no greater bore than perfection."

The general lit a fresh cigarette.

"No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you."

Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying.

"It came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on.

"And that was?"

The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success. "I had to invent a new animal to hunt," he said.

"A new animal? You're joking." "Not at all," said the general. "I never joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island built this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes--there are jungles with a maze of traits in them, hills, swamps--"

"But the animal, General Zaroff?"

"Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits."

Rainsford's bewilderment showed in his face.

"I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, `What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, `It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason."'

"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."

"But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford.

"And why not?"

"I can't believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke."

"Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting."

"Hunting? Great Guns, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder."

The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford quizzically. "I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life. Surely your experiences in the war--"

"Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder," finished Rainsford stiffly.

Laughter shook the general. "How extraordinarily droll you are!" he said. "One does not expect nowadays to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naive, and, if I may say so, mid-Victorian point of view. It's like finding a snuffbox in a limousine. Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I'll wager you'll forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You've a genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford."

"Thank you, I'm a hunter, not a murderer."

"Dear me," said the general, quite unruffled, "again that unpleasant word. But I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill founded."

"Yes?"

"Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth: sailors from tramp ships--lassars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels--a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them."

"But they are men," said Rainsford hotly.

"Precisely," said the general. "That is why I use them. It gives me pleasure. They can reason, after a fashion. So they are dangerous."

"But where do you get them?"

The general's left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. "This island is called Ship Trap," he answered. "Sometimes an angry god of the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is not so kind, I help Providence a bit. Come to the window with me."

Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea.

"Watch! Out there!" exclaimed the general, pointing into the night. Rainsford's eyes saw only blackness, and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of lights.

The general chuckled. "They indicate a channel," he said, "where there's none; giant rocks with razor edges crouch like a sea monster with wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut." He dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down on it. "Oh, yes," he said, casually, as if in answer to a question, "I have electricity. We try to be civilized here."

"Civilized? And you shoot down men?"

A trace of anger was in the general's black eyes, but it was there for but a second; and he said, in his most pleasant manner, "Dear me, what a righteous young man you are! I assure you I do not do the thing you suggest. That would be barbarous. I treat these visitors with every consideration. They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition. You shall see for yourself tomorrow."

"What do you mean?"

"We'll visit my training school," smiled the general. "It's in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there now. They're from the Spanish bark San Lucar that had the bad luck to go on the rocks out there. A very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens and more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle." He raised his hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick Turkish coffee. Rainsford, with an effort, held his tongue in check.

"It's a game, you see," pursued the general blandly. "I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours' start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest caliber and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him "--the general smiled--" he loses."

"Suppose he refuses to be hunted?"

"Oh," said the general, "I give him his option, of course. He need not play that game if he doesn't wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt."

"And if they win?"

The smile on the general's face widened. "To date I have not lost," he said. Then he added, hastily: "I don't wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I eventually had to use the dogs."

"The dogs?"

"This way, please. I'll show you."

The general steered Rainsford to a window. The lights from the windows sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or so huge black shapes; as they turned toward him, their eyes glittered greenly.

"A rather good lot, I think," observed the general. "They are let out at seven every night. If anyone should try to get into my house--or out of it--something extremely regrettable would occur to him." He hummed a snatch of song from the Folies Bergere.

"And now," said the general, "I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you come with me to the library?"

"I hope," said Rainsford, "that you will excuse me tonight, General Zaroff. I'm really not feeling well."

"Ah, indeed?" the general inquired solicitously. "Well, I suppose that's only natural, after your long swim. You need a good, restful night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll feel like a new man, I'll wager. Then we'll hunt, eh? I've one rather promising prospect--" Rainsford was hurrying from the room.

"Sorry you can't go with me tonight," called the general. "I expect rather fair sport--a big, strong, black. He looks resourceful--Well, good night, Mr. Rainsford; I hope you have a good night's rest."

The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fiber of his being, but nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay, eyes wide open. Once he thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He sought to throw open the door; it would not open. He went to the window and looked out. His room was high up in one of the towers. The lights of the chateau were out now, and it was dark and silent; but there was a fragment of sallow moon, and by its wan light he could see, dimly, the courtyard. There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol.

General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire. He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health.

"As for me," sighed the general, "I do not feel so well. I am worried, Mr. Rainsford. Last night I detected traces of my old complaint."

To Rainsford's questioning glance the general said, "Ennui. Boredom."

Then, taking a second helping of crêpes Suzette, the general explained: "The hunting was not good last night. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. That's the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods. They do excessively stupid and obvious things. It's most annoying. Will you have another glass of Chablis, Mr. Rainsford?"

"General," said Rainsford firmly, "I wish to leave this island at once."

The general raised his thickets of eyebrows; he seemed hurt. "But, my dear fellow," the general protested, "you've only just come. You've had no hunting--"

"I wish to go today," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened.

He filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle.

"Tonight," said the general, "we will hunt--you and I."

Rainsford shook his head. "No, general," he said. "I will not hunt."

The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape. "As you wish, my friend," he said. "The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan's?"

He nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, his thick arms crossed on his hogshead of chest.

"You don't mean--" cried Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel--at last." The general raised his glass, but Rainsford sat staring at him.

"You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically." Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is not without value, eh?"

"And if I win--" began Rainsford huskily.

"I'll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeat if I do not find you by midnight of the third day," said General Zaroff. "My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town." The general read what Rainsford was thinking.

"Oh, you can trust me," said the Cossack. "I will give you my word as a gentleman and a sportsman. Of course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here."

"I'll agree to nothing of the kind," said Rainsford.

"Oh," said the general, "in that case--But why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless--"

The general sipped his wine.

Then a businesslike air animated him. "Ivan," he said to Rainsford, "will supply you with hunting clothes, food, a knife. I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. There's quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can imagine my feelings, Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always' take a siesta after lunch. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think? Au revoir, Mr. Rainsford, au revoir." General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room.

From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist.

Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. "I must keep my nerve. I must keep my nerve," he said through tight teeth.

He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut behind him. His whole idea at first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff; and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got a grip on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the situation. He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it would bring him face to face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame of water, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame.

"I'll give him a trail to follow," muttered Rainsford, and he struck off from the rude path he had been following into the trackless wilderness. He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for rest was imperative and he thought, "I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable." A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and, stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil--

An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come. He flattened himself down on the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. . . . That which was approaching was a man.

It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground. Rainsford's impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the general's right hand held something metallic--a small automatic pistol.

The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils.

Rainsford held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.

The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry.

Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible. It sent a shudder of cold horror through his whole being. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back?

Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through the morning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror.

"I will not lose my nerve. I will not."

He slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods. His face was set and he forced the machinery of his mind to function. Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of food, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy.

The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away. He did not have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse.

Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss. So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle.

"Rainsford," called the general, "if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay mancatcher. Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have my wound dressed; it's only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back."

When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took up his flight again. It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely.

Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck sucked viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort, he tore his feet loose. He knew where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand.

His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness was trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig.

Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second's delay meant death. That had been a placid pastime compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree.

He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze brought him the perfume of the general's cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand.

"You've done well, Rainsford," the voice of the general called. "Your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs. Again you score. I think, Mr. Rainsford, Ill see what you can do against my whole pack. I'm going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening."

At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying of a pack of hounds.

Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there, thinking. An idea that held a wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp.

The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge Rainsford climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him Rainsford made out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leash.

They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he had learned in Uganda. He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels.

He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife.

He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was in Rainsford's brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed.

Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again.

"Nerve, nerve, nerve!" he panted, as he dashed along. A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead. Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it. It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the chateau. Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea. . . .

When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped. For some minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then be sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from Madame Butterfly.

General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great paneled dining hall that evening. With it he had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other was that his quarry had escaped him; of course, the American hadn't played the game--so thought the general as he tasted his after-dinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little moonlight, so, before turning on his light, he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He could see the great hounds, and he called, "Better luck another time," to them. Then he switched on the light.

A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there.

"Rainsford!" screamed the general. "How in God's name did you get here?"

"Swam," said Rainsford. "I found it quicker than walking through the jungle."

The general sucked in his breath and smiled. "I congratulate you," he said. "You have won the game."

Rainsford did not smile. "I am still a beast at bay," he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "Get ready, General Zaroff."

The general made one of his deepest bows. "I see," he said. "Splendid! One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford." . . .

He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.
That was pretty good.
Bored666 wrote:Outside of the usual Poe, Lovecraft, Borges, Ballard, blah blah my favorite short story of all time is "Dogfight" by William Gibson.

http://lib.ru/GIBSON/r_dogfight.txt
I haven't read any of Gibson's short stories before now. Pretty awesome.
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cxwx
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Re: Your favorite short stories

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cxwx
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Re: Your favorite short stories

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“In The Drawer”

This morning, while searching for my glasses, I pulled out the centre drawer of my desk and noticed the little people who lived there. Between the case for my spectacles and an envelope of photographs stood a pleasant-looking young couple of tiny human figures. He, about the size of my thumb, had light-coloured eyes and was smiling. She, as big as my little finger, looked dainty yet agile; her golden hair tied at the back was just touching her shoulders. They had been looking at each other when I opened the drawer and they both turned to me with one movement. To them I must have been as large as God, powerful and heavy. I smiled at them. The smile was equivalent to a change in the weather. However, they showed no fear. Holding hands they advanced a few steps towards the edge of the drawer which was touching the sweater I was wearing. The newspaper with which the drawer was lined rustled under their feet. Carefully I bent my head, conscious that my movements might be like earthquakes to them. I could not see the expression in their eyes; they were the size of pinheads. They explained quite openly that they were in difficulties; her mother would not agree to their marriage. It sounded like an appeal for help.

Having just had my breakfast I was in a very good mood. In my drawer was a whole world. Emotions. Problems. It was pure chance that I saw those two first. I discovered they many many relatives who also inhabited the drawer, living in the little house. There was a whole street of those houses, perhaps even a whole town. I was surprised to find my drawer full of longing, love and hatred. ...With a strange, not unpleasant sensation, I realized my hands and my voice suddenly became involved in the lives of those miniature people. Unexpected I had become a great power which, having accidentally touched in their affairs, could no influence them in a decisive manner. They were so small that they meant nothing to me but I could be everything to them.

I repeat that I was in a very good mood and took immediate interest in their problems. I promised to intercede with the girls mother. It gave me pleasure and satisfaction to anticipate the scene; what a great authority I would be in the women’s eyes! Having had a close look in the drawers, I discovered in it a horizon, the existence of which I never expected. I felt friendly and magnanimous. The August day promised to be fine. I joked with them, I laughed, I even went to the glass to look at my own eyes, grey-green and incidentally large compare with their minute grains. At last, having politely indicated that I had to leave, I went out.

In the coffee house I met a man who had funny ideas about me. The sky clouded over and it began to rain.

The rain had stopped by the time I was on my way home, but the uneven surface of the road was covered with puddles. A passing lorry sent a spray of muddy water sideways. I tried to jump out of the way but my evasive action was in vain; my precious, brand new, light trousers were spattered with mud.

Back home I opened a drawer in search of a brush. When the minute young man saw me, he made a sign that he wanted to speak to me. With a shy smile he explained that it was the right time for my intervention, that if I wanted to help them ...

I swept them all away with one impatient movement of my hand.

- Sławomir Mrożek
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Re: Your favorite short stories

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