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

Category: short story

  • Sidebar Reading image of tag icon

    Apologies for neglecting the right sidebar updating what I’m reading. I’ve been reading a spate of novels (some of them very very small, you know, like 2666), and so have not been adding to my short story collection reading. But don’t worry — I’ve jumped back in the fray with some small press/university titles, four […]

    November 4, 2008

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  • Literary Journal Rankings image of tag icon

    On this lovely Monday morning, I’d like to direct your attention to the left column, under “Pages.” I’ve added a new one: Ranking of Literary Journals. Although I realize the dangers of such an attempt and the impossibility of creating a list that will not be debated, I wrote this because when I was first […]

    August 18, 2008

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  • Short Story Quiz image of tag icon

    For all of you out there who think you know short story collections, here's your chance to test your mettle. This twelve-question quiz covers the gamut from classics to newly released, asking questions on nationality, biography, dates, content and more. So buckle down and start answering. Powered By ProProfs – Create A Quiz or Flash […]

    August 10, 2008

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  • Roundup: James Wood image of tag icon

    Poets and Writers has a searchable archive of contests, including a function where you can find fee-free ones. (like Greensboro Review) Book Reviewers, not to be outdone by the hundreds of fiction contests, now have their own contest. Virginia Quarterly Review wants the best review of a book published in 2008 by writers under thirty. […]

    August 5, 2008

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  • The Ambiguous Ending image of tag icon

    Since John Fox asked me to write a guest entry on his blog, the thing that came to mind, was an argument we had the last time I saw him. Maybe it wasn’t so much an argument as me talking out of my ass about what I perceive to be the hallmark of most great […]

    July 16, 2008

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  • Anything Special About Short Stories? image of tag icon

    Since this is a short story blog, I thought I’d write a bit about literary theories of the short story. I should confess that I am not the BookFox, and probably not even worthy of the title BookWeasel. Right there I was going for an animal slightly less smart (and slightly more smarmy) than a […]

    July 2, 2008

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  • Short Story Collections on EW’s Radar image of tag icon

    Entertainment Weekly lists the top 100 books published between 1983 and 2008. It’s idiosyncratic (as any list of this type must be), waffling between pop culture and high-brow, but at least it manages a couple of short story collections: Selected Stories, Alice Munro Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat Pastoralia, George Saunders […]

    June 23, 2008

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  • Million Writers Award: Top Online Stories image of tag icon

    storySouth has announced its shortlist of online short stories for the Million Writers Award. It’s a very egalitarian selection, with no journal represented twice, and you can read all the stories to vote for your favorite.

    June 17, 2008

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  • Fiction Issue Cagematch: The New Yorker VS Atlantic Monthly image of tag icon

    So I’ve been reading The New Yorker summer fiction edition and also checking out the authors slated for publication in the Atlantic fiction issue, and am struck by the differences. The New Yorker has an all-star line-up of writers, of which I recognized every one: Vladimir Nabokov, Annie Proulx, Mary Gaitskill. Then also some nonfiction […]

    June 9, 2008

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  • Interview with Jeanne Leiby, Editor of the Southern Review image of tag icon

    Interview with Jeanne Leiby from Sam Armstrong on Vimeo. I talked with Jeanne Leiby, editor of the Southern Review, about a weak-kneed and shaky-voiced solicitation of Philip Levine, Bret Lott’s aesthetic changes to the journal, a special issue about the circus, and cultivating the emerging writers of this generation. Interviewer: John Matthew Fox Videographer: Joel […]

    June 4, 2008

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