【英文短篇小说】The Birds（1）

On December the third, the wind changed overnight, and it was winter. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft. The leaves had lingered on the trees, golden-red, and the hedgerows were still green. The earth was rich where the plow had turned it.

【英文短篇小说】The Adjustment Team（2）

They crossed the street together, Ruth holding on tight to Ed's arm. Ahead of them was the building, the towering structure of concrete and metal and glass. There it is, Ruth said. See? There it was, all right. The big building rose up, firm and soli

【英文短篇小说】The Adjustment Team

It was bright morning. The sun shone down on the damp lawns and sidewalks, reflecting off the sparkling parked cars. The Clerk came walking hurriedly, leafing through his instructions, flipping pages and frowning. He stopped in front of the small gre

【英文短篇小说】Goose Fair

Chapter 1 Through the gloom of evening, and the flare of torches of the night before the fair, through the still fogs of the succeeding dawn came paddling the weary geese, lifting their poor feet that had been dipped in tar for shoes, and trailing th

【英文短篇小说】The Witnes for the Prosecution（1）

Mr Mayherne adjusted his pince-nez and cleared his throat with a little dry-as-dust cough that was wholly typical of him. Then he looked again at the man opposite him, the man charged with wilful murder. Mr Mayherne was a small man precise in manner,

【英文短篇小说】So Much Water So Close to Home

ITS October, a damp day. From my hotel window I can see too much of this Midwestern city. I can see lights coming on in some of the buildings, smoke from the tall stacks rising in a thick climb. I wish I didnt have to look. I want to pass along to yo

【英文短篇小说】The Chorus Girl

ONE day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk

【英文短篇小说】Hush!

IVAN YEGORITCH KRASNYHIN, a fourth-rate journalist, returns home late at night, grave and careworn, with a peculiar air of concentration. He looks like a man expecting a police-raid or contemplating suicide. Pacing about his rooms he halts abruptly,

【英文短篇小说】The Snowstorm（3）

VII Were ready, your honour! shouted Alyoshka from the front sledge. The storm was so violent that, though I bent almost in two and clutched the skirts of my cloak with both hands, I was hardly able to walk over the drifting snow which the wind swept

【英文短篇小说】The Snowstorm（1）

I Towards seven oclock in the evening, after having drunk my tea, I left a station, the name of which I do not remember, though I do remember it was somewhere in the district of the Don Cossack Army near Novocherkassk.* It was already dark when, havi

【英文短篇小说】What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

MY friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right. The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were

【英文短篇小说】Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit

IVE seen some things. I was going over to my mothers to stay a few nights. But just as I got to the top of the stairs, I looked and she was on the sofa kissing a man. It was summer. The door was open. The TV was going. Thats one of the things Ive see

【英文短篇小说】I Could See The Smallest Things

I WAS in bed when I heard the gate. I listened carefully. I didnt hear anything else. But I heard that. I tried to wake Cliff. He was passed out. So I got up and went to the window. A big moon was laid over the mountains that went around the city. It

【英文短篇小说】How To Talk To Girls At Parties

Come on, said Vic. It'll be great. No, it won't, I said, although I'd lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it. It'll be brilliant, said Vic, for the hundredth time. Girls! Girls! Girls! He grinned with white teeth. We both attended an all-boys' scho

【英文短篇小说】The Night Flier（2）

6 Now, two bad hours after leaving Washington National, things had suddenly gotten a lot worse, and with shocking suddenness. The runway lights had gone out, but Dees now saw that wasn't all that had gone out half of Wilmington and all of Wrightsvill

【英文短篇小说】The Snowstorm（2）

V It was I think already near midnight when the little old man and Vasily, who had gone after the runaway horses, rode up to us. They had managed to catch the horses and to find and overtake us; but how they had managed to do this in the thick blindi

【英文短篇小说】The Beggar

KIND sir, be so good as to notice a poor, hungry man. I have not tasted food for three days. I have not a five-kopeck piece for a nights lodging. I swear by God! For five years I was a village schoolmaster and lost my post through the intrigues of th

【英文短篇小说】The Trousseau

I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than a house a tiny cottage of one story, with three wi

【英文短篇小说】The Shades of Spring

Chapter 1 It was a mile nearer through the wood. Mechanically, Syson turned up by the forge and lifted the field-gate. The blacksmith and his mate stood still, watching the trespasser. But Syson looked too much a gentleman to be accosted. They let hi

【英文短篇小说】Rawdon's Roof

Rawdon was the sort of man who said, privately, to his men friends, over a glass of wine after dinner: No woman shall sleep again under my roof! He said it with pride, rather vaunting, pursing his lips. Even my housekeeper goes home to sleep. But the