The post was very late. When we came back from our walk after lunch it still had not arrived. “Pas encore, Madame,” sang Annette, scurrying back to her cooking. We carried our parcels into the dining-room. The table was laid. As always, the sight of the table laid for two — for two people only … Read more
IT was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals. Sitting in Verney’s pavilion, he saw, walking on the … Read more
They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus, his arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank, grinning. “What’s the matter?” he said. “You’re getting paid for all this.” The Optus said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The captain put his boot on the … Read more
The following story, the simple and domestic incidents of which may be deemed scarcely worth relating, after such a lapse of time, awakened some degree of interest, a hundred years ago, in a principal seaport of the Bay Province. The rainy twilight of an autumn day, — a parlor on the second floor of a … Read more
As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of wakeful lucidity. The sleeping-car had sunk into its night-silence. Through the wet window-pane she watched the sudden lights, the long stretches of hurrying blackness. Now and then … Read more
“There Will Come Soft Rains,” a short story by Ray Bradbury published in Collier’s magazine in 1950, immerses us in a futuristic, melancholic, and desolate vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Set in 2026, the narrative presents us with a completely automated home where the inhabitants have disappeared. Although there are no longer people to care … Read more