73 min Alyosha the Pot
ALYOSHA was the younger brother. He was called the Pot, because his mother had once sent him with a pot of milk to the deacon’s wife, and he had stumbled a…
Theme
Classics
Stories from authors who crossed centuries — Machado de Assis, Chekhov, Poe and others.
73 min 17 min After the Dance
“--AND you say that a man cannot, of himself, understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment, that the environment swamps the man. But I beli…
94 min The Lady with the Dog
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, a…
216 min The Black Monk
ANDREY VASSILITCH KOVRIN, who held a master's degree at the University, had exhausted himself, and had upset his nerves. He did not send for a doctor, but…
8 min The Husband
IN the course of the manoeuvres the N---- cavalry regiment halted for a night at the district town of K----. Such an event as the visit of officers always…
210 min Vanka
VANKA ZHUKOV, a boy of nine, who had been for three months apprenticed to Alyahin the shoemaker, was sitting up on Christmas Eve. Waiting till his master a…
28 min How Much Land Does a Man Need?
An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country. The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a peasant in the village. As…
7 min The Head of the Family
IT is, as a rule, after losing heavily at cards or after a drinking-bout when an attack of dyspepsia is setting in that Stepan Stepanitch Zhilin wakes up i…
20 min Three Questions
It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom…
13 min The Diamond Necklace
The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, n…
20 min A Vendetta
The widow of Paolo Saverini lived alone with her son in a poor little house on the outskirts of Bonifacio. The town, built on an outjutting part of the mou…
11 min Madame Parisse
I was sitting on the pier of the small port of Obernon, near the village of Salis, looking at Antibes, bathed in the setting sun. I had never before seen a…
34 min Miss Harriet
There were seven of us on a drag, four women and three men; one of the latter sat on the box seat beside the coachman. We were ascending, at a snail's pace…
11 min The Piece of String
It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked slowly, throwing the…
36 min What Men Live By
A shoemaker named Simon, who had neither house nor land of his own, lived with his wife and children in a peasant's hut, and earned his living by his work.…
71 min A Curious Dream
CONTAINING A MORAL Night before last I had a singular dream. I seemed to be sitting on a doorstep (in no particular city perhaps) ruminating, and the tim…
113 min The Petrified Man
Now, to show how really hard it is to foist a moral or a truth upon an unsuspecting public through a burlesque without entirely and absurdly missing one's…
40 min The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after m…
6 min The Story of the Bad Little Boy
--[Written about 1865] Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim--though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly alway…
193 min The Story of the Good Little Boy
--[Written about 1865] Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable…
10 min The Cask of Amontillado
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the na…
17 min The Black Cat
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it,…
9 min The Tell-Tale Heart
True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not dest…
11 min The Masque of the Red Death
The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the red…
5 min The Awakening
"Have I then been really asleep?" Levko asked himself as he stood up. "Everything seemed so real, as though I were awake. Wonderful! Wonderful!" he repeate…
50 min The Mantle
In a certain Russian ministerial department---- But it is perhaps better that I do not mention which department it was. There are in the whole of Russia n…
38 min The Fall of the House of Usher
Son cœur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne.. —_De Béranger_. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn…
5 min The Drowned Girl
Without troubling himself in the least about those who had been sent to pursue him, the originator of all this confusion slowly walked towards the old hous…
112 min The Nose
On the 25th March, 18--, a very strange occurrence took place in St Petersburg. On the Ascension Avenue there lived a barber of the name of Ivan Jakovlevit…
67 min The Viy
(The "Viy" is a monstrous creation of popular fancy. It is the name which the inhabitants of Little Russia give to the king of the gnomes, whose ey…