He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled
The Blog
Chess Puzzles, Nabakov, and the “Splendid Insincerity” of Fiction 
“Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity.” – Vladimir Nabokov I’ve been playing chess seriously for more than a decade, since my graduate school days in New York City, when I first lost money to the hustlers in Washington Square […]
Read More Attention Spans for Short Stories Every time writers begin moaning about publisher's repudiation of the short story form, someone trots out a seemingly common sense argument: that our shortened attention span, created by electronic devices of all ilks, should make reader seek short stories more, not less. The argument goes that short stories can be read in one sitting, in […]
Read More Short Stories as Moles; or, the Literary Journal Scene in Germany Thanks to Absinthe Minded (great name, by the way), for referring me to this article in the Goethe Institut about the literary journal/short story scene in Germany. Love the opening: “Like moles, literary magazines burrow through the subsoil and often bring literary treasures to light. They live on self-exploitation, are sometimes short-lived and bizarre, and […]
Read More 10 Greatest Short Story Writers? Over at Listverse, they do a great job of amassing a huge number of Top 10 Lists, but the ten greatest short story writers is wack. Okay, they have some shoo-ins (oh, and they limit it to American short story writers). O’Henry? I’ll grant that. Poe? Sure. Then debatables. Asimov? Well, he’s a talented writer, […]
Read More Guardian Summer Short Stories The Guardian has released their summer short story bonanza, which includes some as short as a thousand words. Dave Eggers offers “A Fork Brought Along,” which has the amazing distinction of being the funniest story I’ve ever read about a fork. AM Holmes contributes “All Is Good Except The Rain” which has so much dialogue […]
Read More Thomas Pynchon Inherent Vice Reviews Here’s a roundup of some of the reviews of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel, “Inherent Vice,” which starts selling on August 4th. Of course, if you’re truly a devoted fan, you can find the midnight parties on the 3rd (hello, Skylight! I’d be there if I wasn’t flying out of state the night before!) Salon Review: […]
Read More Jim Shepard’s Short Story Trailer “Your Fate Hurdles Down At You” Electric Literature presents Jim Shepard’s “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” (trailer) from Editors Electric Literature on Vimeo. Now even short stories are getting their own trailers. The folks at Electric Literature have created this animated video trailer from Jim Shepard’s “Your Fate Hurdles Down At You,” which was published in the first issue of […]
Read More Public/Private I’m on the road, typing this from an internet cafe that charges me 20 Colones per minute, so forgive me if this is short. I’ve been considering — since I’ve been away from my routine, about the public/private divide. I used to value them equally I thought — writing in my (private) journal had equal […]
Read More Traveling with Bluebeard Hey Loyal Readers, Posts will be slow in the next week because I'm backpacking through Costa Rica and working on an organic farm. I'll try to twitter some updates. Book in my backpack: Vonnegut's Bluebeard.
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