Short Story Test #2 - Set 2

"Gogol's Wife" by Tommaso Landolfi

Caracas was swelling up. Nikolai Vassilevitch sweated, wept and pumped. I wished to stop him but, I know not why, I had not the courage.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest.

"The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck

She was silent for a while; then she said, 'Henry, at those prize fights do the men hurt each other very much?' 'Sometimes a little, not often. Why?' 'Well, I've read how they break noses, and blood runs down their chests. I've read how the fighting gloves get heavy and soggy with blood.' He looked around at her. 'What's the matter, Elisa? I didn't know you read things like that.'

"The Wives of the Dead" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

So saying, the honest man departed; and his lantern gleamed along the street, bringing to view indistinct shapes of things, and the fragments of a world, like order glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over the past.

"The Dead" by James Joyce

So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife.

"The Wives of the Dead" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The mourners, though not insensible to the kindness of their friends, had yearned to be left alone. United, as they had been, by the relationship of the living, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each felt as if whatever consolation her grief admitted were to be found in the bosom of the other.

"A Story for Children" by Svava Jakobsdóttir

There was no change to be seen in the mother. She had washed her hair and combed it over the cut before she sat down. Her mild expression displayed the patience and self-denial usual at mealtimes.

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.

"Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

Were it not that she was a widow who had struggled fiercely to feed and clothe and put him through school and who was supporting him still, "until he got on his feet," she might have been a little girl that he had to take to town.

"The Lady with the Little Dog" by Anton Chekhov

"Dmitri Dmitrich!" "What?" "You were right earlier: the sturgeon was a bit off!" Those words, so very ordinary, for some reason suddenly made Gurov indignant, struck him as humiliating, impure. Such savage manners, such faces! These senseless nights, and such uninteresting, unremarkable days! Frenzied card-playing, gluttony, drunkenness, constant talk about the same thing. Useless matters and conversations about the same thing ...

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can--by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." "Some fun!" Bobby Lee said. "Shut up, Bobby Lee" The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life."

"The Jewbird" by Bernard Malamud

"Who did it to you, Mr. Schwartz?" Maurie wept. "Anti-Semeets," Edie said later.

"Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

"You needn't act as if the world had come to an end," he aid, "because it hasn't. From now on you've got to live in a new world and face a few realities for a change. Buck up," he said, "it won't kill you." She was breathing fast.

"The Dead" by James Joyce

'And haven't you your own land to visit,' continued Miss Ivors, 'that you know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?' '0, to tell you the truth,' retorted Gabriel suddenly, 'I'm sick of my own country, sick of it!'

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway

'Do you feel better?' he asked. 'I feel fine,' she said. 'There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.'

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway

'That's all we do, isn't it—look at things and try new drinks?' 'I guess so.' The girl looked across at the hills. 'They're lovely hills,' she said. "they don't really look anything like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.'

"The Lady with the Little Dog" by Anton Chekhov

...he repeatedly told Anna Sergeevna how beautiful she was, and how seductive was impatiently passionate, never left her side, while she often brooded and' kept asking him to admit that he did not respect her, did not love her at all, and saw in her only a trite woman...

"The Dead" by James Joyce

He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree.

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.

"The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck

The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and make of the great valley a closed pot.

"Saboteur" by Ha Jin

A sentence that Chairman Mao had written to a hospitalized friend rose in his mind: "Since you are already in here, you may as well stay and make the best of it.

"Gogol's Wife" by Tommaso Landolfi

All Gogol said was: "She only does it for a joke, or to annoy me, because as a matter of fact she does not have such needs.' In the presence of other people, that is to say me, he generally made a point of treating her with a certain sustain. We went on drinking and talking, but Nikolai Vassilevitch seemed very much disturbed and absent in spirit.

"A Story for Children" by Svava Jakobsdóttir

And now they each stood on the shelf in their own jars, her brain and her heart. But no one came to view them. And the children never came to visit. Their excuse was that they were too busy. But the truth was that they didn't like the sterile smell that clung to everything in the house.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

At one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse.

"The Wives of the Dead" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Before retiring, she set down the lamp, and endeavored to arrange the bedclothes so that the chill air might not do harm to the feverish slumberer. But her hand trembled against Margaret's neck, a tear also fell upon her cheek, and she suddenly awoke.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix-- the villagers pronounced this name 'Dellacroy'--eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.

"Saboteur" by Ha Jin

Fenjin was baffled by his teacher, who looked ferocious and muttered to himself mysteriously, and whose jaundiced face was covered with dark puckers. For the first time Fenjin thought of Mr. Chiu as an ugly man.

"Gogol's Wife" by Tommaso Landolfi

Finally, I should speak of her voice, which it was only once given to me to hear. But I cannot do that without going more fully into the relationship between husband and wife, and this I shall no longer be able to answer to answer to the truth of everything with absolute certitude. On my conscience I could not—so confused, both in itself and in my memory, is that which I now have to tell.

"The Jewbird" by Bernard Malamud

He chased him with a broom on the balcony and Schwartz frantically flew back and forth, finally escaping into his birdhouse. Cohen triumphantly reached in, and grabbing both skinny legs, dragged the bird out, cawing loudly, his wings wildly beating. He whirled the bird around and around his head.

"The Way of the Wind" by Amos Oz

He kicked into space, flailed, managed to turn over, seized the strap, and pulled himself up. With outstretched arms he threw himself onto the able and saw the flash.

"Saboteur" by Ha Jin

He knew that the fire of anger had got into his liver and that he was probably having a relapse. No medicine was available, because his briefcase had been left with his bride.

"The Way of the Wind" by Amos Oz

He was a slow, bewildered child, mopping up blows and insults without retaliating, a strange child, always playing with candy wrappers, dried leaves, silkworms. And from the age of twelve he was constantly having his heart broken by girls of all ages. He was always lovesick, and he published sad poems and cruel parodies in children's newsletter.

"The Lady with the Little Dog" by Anton Chekhov

He would pace the room for a long time, and remember, and smile, and then his memories would turn to reveries, and in his imagination the past would mingle with what was still to be. Anna Sergeevna was not a dream, she followed him everywhere like a shadow and watched him. Closing his eyes, he saw her as if alive, and she seemed younger, more beautiful, more tender than she was; and he also seemed better to himself than he had been then, in Yalta.

"Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

Her face seemed almost gray and there was a look of dull recognition in her eyes, as if suddenly she had sickened at some awful confrontation. Julian saw that it was because she and the woman had, in a sense, swapped sons. Though his mother would not realize the symbolic significance of this, she would feel it. His amusement showed plainly on his face.

"The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck

Her shoulders were straight, her head thrown back, her eyes half-close, so that the scene came vaguely into them. Her lips moved silently, forming the words 'Good-bye - goodbye.' Then she whispered, 'That's a bright direction. There's a glowing there.'

"The Way of the Wind" by Amos Oz

How will they recognize me down there? How will they manage to identify their only son in this forest of white parachutes? How will they be able to fix me and me alone with their anxious, loving gaze?

"The Country Where No One Ever Dies" by Ornela Vorpsi

I looked into her face, stared into her big green eyes, watching her expression, trying to see whether she was finally going to tell me the truth: that the bloodstain was hers. But she only replied, "It's probably a production error, a little drop of red pain that's all.

"The Country Where No One Ever Dies" by Ornela Vorpsi

I shut my mouth and could hardly wait to get sick again.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

Old Man Warner snorted. 'Pack of crazy fools,' he said. 'Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery.'

"The Country Where No One Ever Dies" by Ornela Vorpsi

Our spines are made of iron. You can do whatever you want with them. Even if one gets broken, it can be repaired. As for our hearts: they can be saturated with fat, suffer necrosis, an infarct, thrombosis, or whatever, but they'll beat on heroically.

"The Jewbird" by Bernard Malamud

The bird began dovening. He prayed without Book or tallith, but with passion. Edie bowed her head but not Cohen. And Maurie rocked back and forth with the prayer, looking up with one open eye.

"A Story for Children" by Svava Jakobsdóttir

The first letter in the column was short: Dear Fru Ensom, I have never lived for anything other than my children and have done everything for them. Now I am left alone and they never visit me. What should I do? Fru Ensom answered: Do more for them.

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway

The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad. At least they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.