Cliff House, near (stump of) North Pole December 22nd, 1941 My Dearest Priscilla, I am so glad you did not forget to write to me again this year. The number of children who keep up with me seems to be getting smaller: I expect it is because of this horrible…

ON THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Efim Fomich Perekladin, a collegiate secretary,1 went to bed offended and even insulted. “Stop bothering me, you she-devil!” he barked angrily at his wife when she asked why he was so gloomy. The trouble was that he had just…

Cliff House, North Pole Christmas Eve 1942 My dear Priscilla, Polar Bear tells me that he cannot find my letter from you among this year’s piles. I hope he has not lost any: he is so untidy. Still I expect you have been very busy this autumn at your new school.…

Cliff House, North Pole, Christmas 1943 My dear Priscilla A very happy Christmas! I suppose you will be hanging up your stocking just once more: I hope so for I have still a few little things for you. After this I shall have to say “goodbye”, more or less:…

Jeremy Baker was the only survivor when the Raven's Warton-Purg drive delivered the vessel to the vicinity of a black hole. Its tidal forces immediately did their stuff. The hull groaned and cracked as indicators screamed the ship's situation and listed its…

1. The chain I gave was fair to view, ⁠The lute I added sweet in sound; The heart that offered both was true, ⁠And ill deserved the fate it found. 2. These gifts were charmed by secret spell, ⁠Thy truth in absence to divine; And they have done their duty…

Storm has set the heavens scowling, Whirling gusty blizzards wild, Now they are like beasts a-growling, Now a-wailing like a child; Now along the brittle thatches They will scud with rustling sound, Now against the window latches Like belated wanderers pound.…

Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are…

 The Sub-Section's decorator painted Anton Pavlovich Chekhov with a crooked nose and such a monstrous pince-nez that from a distance he seemed to be wearing racing goggles.  We put him on a big easel. A gingery-coloured pavilion, a small table with a carafe…

Mice live in our walls but do not trouble our kitchen. We are pleased but cannot understand why they do not come into our kitchen, where we have traps set, as they come into the kitchens of our neighbors. Although we are pleased, we are also upset, because…

My dreams are like a caravan that departed long ago, with tumult of intrepid banners and spears, and the clamour of bugles and brave, adventurous songs, to seek the horizons of perilous, unknown, barbaric lands and kingdoms immense and vaguely rumoured, with…

I – How to Survive with the Aid of Literature. Astride a Play to Tiflis.   If someone asked me what I deserve, I would say in all honesty before God that I deserve hard labor. Not because of Tiflis, however; I did not do anything wrong in Tiflis. Because…

SIR GUILLAUME DE ROUSSILLON GIVETH HIS WIFE TO EAT THE HEART OF SIR GUILLAUME DE GUARDESTAING BY HIM SLAIN AND LOVED OF HER, WHICH SHE AFTER COMING TO KNOW, CASTETH HERSELF FROM A HIGH CASEMENT TO THE GROUND AND DYING, IS BURIED WITH HER LOVER   Neifile having…

Past altars and stages, past temples and taverns, past classy graveyards, past street market’s jabber, past peace, and past woe, past Mecca and Rome, burned by the sun’s blue glow, the earth the pilgrims roam. They’re heavily injured and hunchbacked, they’re…

Alexey Alexeevich got Andrey Karlovich in a tight headlock, and after several punches in the face, lets him go. Andrey Karlovich, pale with madness, rushes at Alexey Alexeevich and hits him in the teeth. Alexey Alekseevich, not expecting such a fast comeback…

Longing, and mystery, and delight… as if from the swaying blackness of some slow-motion masquerade onto the dim bridge you came. And night flowed, and silent there floated into its satin streams that black mask’s wolf-like profile and those tender lips of…

Falling snow leaves the world outnumbered. At such times, the Pinkertons lose their mind, and you catch yourself wherever you’ve wandered by the prints that you've left behind. Don’t expect a reward, this will not get you far; the precinct’s din is reduced…

 THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal -- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the…