Sun. Clouds of dust behind carriage wheels. People walking in and out of an echoing building. A room on the fourth floor. Two cupboards with broken doors, some rickety tables. Three young ladies with violet lips bang away loudly at typewriters, stopping…

 Henry encounters Jack on the street and asks how his weekend with Laura was. Jack says he hasn’t spoken to Laura in at least a month. Henry is angry. He thinks Ellen has been lying to him about Laura. Ellen says she has been telling the truth: Laura told…

MASHENKA PAVLETSKY, a young girl who had only just finished her studies at a boarding school, returning from a walk to the house of the Kushkins, with whom she was living as a governess, found the household in a terrible turmoil. Mihailo, the porter who opened…

In any man who dies, there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. It goes with him. There are left books and bridges and painted canvases and machinery. Whose fate is to survive. But what has gone is also not nothing: by the rule of the game, something…

I. We sate down and wept by the waters ⁠Of Babel, and thought of the day When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, ⁠Made Salem's high places his prey; And Ye, oh her desolate daughters! ⁠Were scattered all weeping away. II. While sadly we gazed on the river…

I have dreamt of an unknown land-a land remote in ulterior time, and alien space not ascertainable; the desert of a long-completed past, upon which has settled the bleak irrevocable silence of infinitude; where all is ruined save the stone of tombs and cenotaphs:…

The argument that I had with my brother in his great lonely house will scarcely interest my readers. Not those, at least, whom I hope may be attracted by the experiment that I undertook, and by the strange things that befell me in that hazardous region into…

To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard…

It was travelling northward Hanrahan was one time, giving a hand to a farmer now and again in the hurried time of the year, and telling his stories and making his share of songs at wakes and at weddings. He chanced one day to overtake on the road to Collooney…

 Everything was fine. Everything was dandy.  And then I got the push all because of Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich, God rest his soul!  It was like this.  A workshop of local poets nested in the office, under the spiral staircase. A young man in blue student…

Christmas House, North Pole 22nd December 1920 Dear John I heard you ask daddy what I was like and where I lived. I have drawn me and my house for you. Take care of the picture. I am just off now for Oxford with my bundle of toys - some for you. Hope I shall…

North Pole Christmas Eve: 1923 My dear John, It is very cold today and my hand is very shaky—I am nineteen hundred and twenty four, no! seven! years old on Christmas Day,—lots older than your great-grandfather, so I can’t stop the pen wobbling, but I hear…

Dear Michael Hilary I am very busy this year: No time for letter. Lots of love. Hope the engine goes well. Take care of it. A big kiss. with love from Father Christmas

December 23rd 1924 Dear John Hope you have a happy Christmas. only time for a short letter, my sleigh is waiting. Lots of new stockings to fill this year. Hope you will like station and things. A big kiss. with love from Father Christmas

Cliff House, Top of the World, Near the North Pole Christmas 1925 My dear boys, I am dreadfully busy this year—it makes my hand more shaky than ever when I think of it—and not very rich; in fact awful things have been happening, and some of the presents have…

Cliff House, Top of the World, Near the North Pole Monday December 20th 1926 My dear boys, I am more shaky than usual this year. The North Polar Bear’s fault! It was the biggest bang in the world, and the most monstrous firework there ever has been. It turned…

WE’VE GOT A NEW LAWYER, a Dr Bucephalus. There’s not much in his appearance to remind you that he used to be Alexander of Macedon’s war horse. But if you know his background, there are a few things you notice. That said, I did recently see even a pretty simple…

Cliff House, Top o’the World, near the North Pole Wednesday December 21st 1927 My dear people: there seem to get more and more of you every year. I get poorer and poorer: still I hope that I have managed to bring you all something you wanted, though not everything…

Top o’ the World, North Pole Thursday December 20th 1928 My dear boys, Another Christmas and I am another year older—and so are you. I feel quite well all the same—very nice of Michael to ask—and not quite so shaky. But that is because we have got all the…

 Sat down to read Foucault with pencil in hand. Knocked over glass of water onto waiting-room floor. Put down Foucault and pencil, mopped up water, refilled glass. Sat down to read Foucault with pencil in hand. Stopped to write note in notebook. Took up Foucault…