I woke up this morning in a great mood. Fortunately, the fear that I wouldn’t get enough sleep in the new place was not confirmed. Lying down, I looked around the room; it was quite cozy and spacious. The room turned out to be a double room, but my neighbor was not there yet.
I had never been to a sanatorium before, and then the management of our company decided to reward me with a voucher for many years of conscientious work. I didn’t want to go right away, but my husband and children insisted on a vacation.
I opened the balcony and inhaled the fresh aroma of the forest. It was quiet and warm, and opposite me, on a thick pine branch, sat a squirrel. She didn’t seem to notice me, she was gnawing on something with her paws, and then suddenly ran away. I smiled and thought that I would probably like it here. In addition, my digestive system has been in need of attention for a long time. And there is always no time for treatment. This is where it will be: diet, treatment, rehabilitation after corporate events at work.
After breakfast, I returned to the room, and even outside the door I realized that there was someone there.
Oh, hello! – exclaimed a pretty woman about forty years old. – I’m your new neighbor, my name is Natalya Petrovna. Do not you mind?
How can I object, please settle down!
I was glad that I wouldn’t be here alone, and my neighbor looked nice. The downside came later; she turned out to be very talkative. Even too much. But there was nowhere to go, I had to listen to everything about my husband, adult children, annoying mother-in-law and the black cat Stepan, a sloth and a mischief-maker.
Are there many men here? – she suddenly asked.
- I don’t know, I didn’t pay attention.
- But I always pay attention, this is not the first time I’ve been to a sanatorium, and I always find myself interesting company, - she winked playfully and smiled.
I remembered this phrase in the evening, when a gray-haired man shyly entered our room. He brought a box of chocolates and flowers, in my opinion, similar ones I saw in the flowerbed behind our building.
No, no, don’t even think about refusing,” Natalya Petrovna chirped, looking at me, “look what I brought with me!” We need to mark the beginning and get to know each other better.
I looked at the table set: a steamy bottle of vodka, sausage, caviar and a jar of small, pickled, home-made tomatoes. The smell of chopped sausage and brine filled my nose. “Oh, come on, this diet!” - I thought. The guest's face broke into a smile, and he began to look like a March cat. But I quickly made it clear to him that I was participating in the feast only as an interlocutor. That's why he showered compliments on Natalya Petrovna all evening.
And I rethought the conclusion that I was lucky with the company over the next week. Receiving guests every evening and going to bed late was quite exhausting. I was already planning to talk about this with Natalya Petrovna, but I kept putting off the conversation. On Sunday after breakfast, unnoticed, as I thought then, I ran away from my annoying neighbor, wanting to take a walk in silence. And after walking around enough and finding the words for a serious conversation, she returned back. Our building seemed to me like rows of identical balconies and colored curtains. Suddenly a man came out to one of them, he was fussing, holding something in his hands, and was completely naked. I stopped behind a tree, not wanting to embarrass him with my gaze. What was in his hands turned out to be a towel. The man tried to cover his lower body with it, but the towel clearly did not reach the girth. I caught myself thinking that I was interested in this spectacle, and looked around to see if anyone was watching me. Luckily, there was no one around.
Suddenly the door to the room opened, loud screams and obscene language were heard. Things flew through the wide-open door, floating in the wind and clinging to the bushes. It didn’t take long to fly from the height of the second floor, and through the branches I saw men’s trousers and underpants sadly hanging on a bird cherry branch.
Only now did the thought dawn on me that I was watching my own balcony. Interest in what was happening doubled.
Sensing danger, the naked man climbed over the partition onto the adjacent balcony, fortunately they were all connected to each other. Yanking the door, he apparently realized that there was no one there, and moved on. Soon a high-pitched female squeal was heard, and I watched with a smile as two women whipped towels at a naked guest. He, in turn, headed to the next balcony, no longer even covering his shame. And then he disappeared, apparently someone let him in after all.
I stood under the tree for a little longer, but since the scream was no longer heard, I decided to get up. Natalya Petrovna hecticly collected her things and stuffed them into her travel bag. I noticed swelling under her left eye, and her cheeks were glistening with tears.
Sorry, I thought you wouldn't be back soon. My husband unexpectedly came for me,” she muttered, hiding her face. And then I watched her from the balcony, running in unstable heels and hung with bags.
A few days later, a new neighbor moved in with me, young and pretty. And when she asked how many men were in the sanatorium, I couldn’t help but laugh. And she answered that there are enough of them to make our life not boring.
In the spring of 1999, I came to the editorial office of the SCH-Stolitsa newspaper and brought the story “The Death of the White King.” After the newspaper was published, the public liked the story so much that I began to write further, trying to make each story look like a real report from the life of the city. And people believed that everything that was written actually happened, and alarmed citizens called the editorial office all day long. People passed newspaper sheets to each other, and they passed from hand to hand, and their fame spread far beyond the borders of Cheboksary. “He’s not Stephen King yet, but reading his stories...
Stories by William Faulkner
These Thirteen (1930) Victory Ad Astra They're All Dead Those Old Pilots The Cleft Red Leaves A Rose for Emily Justice Hair When Night Falls Dry September Mistral Divorce in Naples Carcassonne Dr. Martineau (1934) Smoke Full Turn Around Wash Come Down, Moses (1942) Was Fire and Hearth Black Harlequinade Old Men Autumn in the Delta Horse's Move (1949) Hand Stretched to the Waters Error in the Chemical Formula Seven Stories (1950) Firestarter Tall people Bear hunt Mule in the yard...
Requiems (Stories) Lyudmila Petrushevskaya
The cycle of stories “Requiems” initiates the reader into the problem of death as a separate, independent subject of artistic depiction. At the same time, the concept of death is considered by L. Petrushevskaya in the most different manifestations . This is both the death of marital love (“I love you”) and the collapse bright hopes
youth, loss of optimism in life (“Jewish Verochka”), and dying of the soul, spiritual degradation (“Lady with Dogs”), and loss of compassion for someone else’s misfortune (“Who Will Answer”).
The Sorcerer in October (collection of stories) Mikhail Babkin The collection “The Sorcerer in October” includes 12 Mikhail Babkin. They are all about how magic bursts into our everyday lives without asking and what comes out of it. Accordingly, among the characters – the most ordinary people- suddenly fairies, demons, sorcerers, Santa Claus, the serpent Ermungand and even V.I. Lenin himself appear.
Scary tales about Shgar. Story five: “about... Rustam Niyazov
Despite the fact that in this story about the glorious city of Shgar, we will talk about a completely different city, no less glorious, scary tale it won’t become any more gratifying, but the thought of how strong our habit of judging loved ones is, not giving them the opportunity to protect themselves from our judgment - this thought is depressing, without any doubt...
Stories of the Hedgehog Victor Dan
This book is about the adventures of the Hedgehog. In his stories, Hedgehog will share life observations and conclusions from meetings with the inhabitants of the garden and its surroundings: the Mistress, the Worm, the Snake, the Magpie and many others. For preschool and younger children school age
, as well as for adults who will read the book to their children and grandchildren.
Stories, feuilletons, pamphlets Jaroslav Hasek The first volume of the Works of the Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923) includes stories, feuilletons, and pamphlets written in 1901-1908. Translation from Czech Compilation and notes by S. V. Nikolsky The text is printed according to the edition: Hasek Jaroslav. Collected works in six volumes. T1.– M.:, 1983.
Fiction
« The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales » English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1340? – 1400) – one of the first literary monuments
in a single common English language. The book clearly demonstrated the remarkable qualities of Chaucerian humanism: optimistic life-affirmation, interest in a specific person, a sense of social justice, nationality and democracy. The Canterbury Tales is a framed collection of short stories. Taking as a basis the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury, Chaucer painted a broad canvas of English reality...
White and Black (Stories) Leonid Sergeev
The writer's new book contains stories about animals. Some of them are cheerful, they contain the joy of communicating with living beings. Others are sad because we are talking about people who treat animals cruelly. But all the stories are united by the author’s concern for the fate of “our little brothers.”
Pirx is flying again. Towing scrap iron from Mercury orbit is not the best interesting activity. Especially if the crew is assembled from a pine forest. But even in such an ordinary flight, a completely unexpected meeting is possible. And you will have to decide what to do with her, with this meeting... © Jolly Roger “Stories about the Pilot Pirxa” - 7 - Pirxa’s Story / Opowiadanie Pirxa [= Guest from the Abyss: Pirxa’s Story] (1965)
Life is a dog and a cat. Tales and stories Vladimir Svintsov
For four-legged friends: shaggy and smooth-haired, tailed and tailless, lop-eared and not, and most of all for their loving owners - this book. Contents: To my friends - shaggy and eared... STORIES A DOG'S LIFE The owner went to war On a duck flight A childhood dream A link in the chain Greetings from home A test of malice One day in the life of a dog Diana the huntress The Ermuth Triangle John Erhard Kopani The unsmiling Maria Vasilievna A wise decision A faithful heart Tommy Baba Manya and Sharik Tigger striped How to raise a mistress LIFE OF A CAT Baron Our...
I take the liberty of posting in one file several stories by Hasek about his time as commandant of the city of Bugulma, in Udmurtia in the Urals. Otherwise, individually, the stories from this cycle, such as “The Procession of the Cross,” found here, without the preceding ones, are practically meaningless... let them be, of course, but not understandable. Moderators please come down - maybe some rules have been violated, but I don’t see any other way to post here full cycle about Bugulma... Borrowed from the “Collected Works” of J. Hasek (I don’t remember the year, I don’t remember the 5 - or 6 - volume, ...
I was able to tell everything Cassie Harty
Little Cassie always knew that her mother did not love her. “I didn’t want to give birth to you. You ruined my whole life. You, you ruined everything” - these words of the mother haunted the girl from a very early age. Day after day, the mother did not get tired of repeating to her daughter that in this family she was superfluous, that no one needed her. An unwanted child, an unloved daughter, causing only disgust... Cassie had no one to complain to, no one to rely on. Only Godfather The girl seemed very kind and caring. She called him Uncle Bill, even though he was not her uncle. An adult friend is always...
All stories about the Iroquois Vladimir Peremolotov
I have always loved History, but I was irritated by the fact that in our country it fluctuated in accordance with the needs of a given historical moment. THEN she fluctuated along with the party lines, NOW - in accordance with the President's guidelines. Because of this instability, I felt sorry for myself and historians (how can you study something that, instead of lying quietly, crawls under your microscope?) However, then I realized that our History is living History. If something happened to THEM, then it already happened, but to US what has already happened may well be rethought.…
White and Black (Stories) Leonid Sergeev
White and Black (Stories) Leonid Sergeev
Stories from the collection "Strange Candy" Laurel Hamilton
Laurel Hamilton Stories from the collection "Strange Candy" Translation of the magazine Translation Laurell`s works http://harlequin-book.livejournal.com/ Welcome to that part of my world that is most often poured out on paper. Some people see in my stories the prerequisites for a more serious work. Latest story, “The Girl Who Loved Death” was my editor’s choice for a collection of short stories by mystery authors. So any of my readers could familiarize themselves with it along with the stories of other authors in the anthology. As for the rest of the stories in the collection, they were written...
Roman stories Alberto Moravia
Most of the heroes of the short stories dream about the same thing: how to get some money. One wants to beg for a hundred thousand lire, another wants to dine for nothing at least once, the third decides to take a ring from the hand of a rich dead man, the fourth tries to sell counterfeit banknotes, the fifth enters a church in order to rob it, the sixth goes around friends and asks to lend him ten thousand , the seventh is trying to sell an “ancient” coin to passers-by. Women demand money. Sometimes losers want to throw something away, kill a rich man, get rid of an offensive existence; But…
Stories Raphael Lafferty
Storybook Raphael Lafferty
Lafferty's "indescribable" creativity defies rational analysis. But today everyone agrees that without this author, modern science fiction would noticeably fade. Lafferty's stories only disguise themselves as "simple and easy to read stories" - they are always full of second plans and hidden meanings. In Lafferty's bizarre universe, everything is different from our world. Because Lafferty is a dreamer at heart, and not a cold craftsman who writes science fiction. He is also an infectious humorist, although not to say that he is bright and easy. And a sophisticated myth-maker. And deep...
Storybook R. Lafferty
Lafferty's "indescribable" creativity defies rational analysis. But today everyone agrees that without this author, modern science fiction would noticeably fade. Lafferty's stories only disguise themselves as "simple and easy-to-read stories" - they are always full of second plans and hidden meanings. In Lafferty's bizarre universe, everything is different from our world. Because Lafferty is a dreamer at heart, and not a cold craftsman who writes science fiction. He is also an infectious humorist, although not to say that he is bright and easy. And a sophisticated myth-maker. And deep...
Undefined Undefined
Volume 11. In Rus'. Stories 1912-1917 Maksim Gorky
The eleventh volume includes twenty-nine works written by M. Gorky in 1912–1917 and united by him in 1923 into an artistic cycle called “Across Rus'”. Cycle in in full force was included in all collected works of M. Gorky that came out after October revolution. All stories were edited by the author when preparing the collected works in the “Book” edition of 1923–1927.
Stories http://ruslit.traumlibrary.net
Amy Hempel Amy Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was one of the first students of Gordon Lish, under whose supervision she graduated several of her early stories
. Lish was so impressed with her talent that he helped her publish her first collection of short stories, Grounds for Living (1985), which included "The Cemetery Where Al Jolson Was Buried," her very first story. First published in TriQuarterly in 1983, "The Cemetery Where Al Jolson Was Buried" is one of the most widely known short stories of the last quarter of the twentieth century. Hempel released three more collections: “U... Little stories about a big destiny
Yuri Nagibin
This book brings together all the stories by Yu. Nagibin about the darling of the century, the world's first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, written at different times. The writer uses personal impressions from meetings with Yu. Gagarin, memories of people close to the cosmonaut, his star brothers, giving the true facts of the hero’s life a free fictional form.
Mother Nadezhda and other true stories Mikhail Ardov old Russian emigration; this is Bishop Gregory (Count Yuri Pavlovich Grabbe) and Princess Vera, daughter of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.
Same author Barshchevsky Mikhail
Mikhail Barshchevsky today is one of the most famous and successful Russian lawyers. The founder of the first law office in Russia, a representative of the Government of the Russian Federation in the highest federal courts, a professor, a frequent guest of central television channels and popular radio stations, and also a star of the “What? Where? When?". Mikhail Barshchevsky's literary debut - a collection of short stories "Author" - was published at the end of 2005. Among the short stories that made it up, readers also remembered a series of stories about the young lawyer Vadim Osipov. The reader meets a very young...
"Your name is quarter past two?" - the second collection of works of science fiction literature, published in the Ural Library of Travel, Adventure and science fiction". The first - the stories of young Sverdlovsk writers Mikhail and Larisa Nemchenko "Flying to the Brothers" - was published in 1964 and was warmly received by readers and critics. This collection includes authors with different residence registrations: M. and L. Nemchenko, V. Krapivin , I. Davydov, V. Slukin and E. Kartashev are from Sverdlovsk, A. Sheikin is from Leningrad, I. Rosohovatsky is from Kiev, S. Gansovsky...
The Adventures of Inspector Bel Amor Boris Stern
In this book, for the first time, all the stories and tales of adventure are collected under one roof. known to fans the fiction of Inspector Bel Amor (Boris Stern’s signature character), always getting into various probable and incredible, funny and sad cosmic troubles. In 1994, at the European Congress of Science Fiction Fans, Bel Amor (represented by Boris Stern) was awarded the title "BEST FANTASTIC ART OF EUROPE-94". Before him from of Eastern Europe Only Stanislav Lem and the Strugatsky brothers were awarded this title. The works known to the reader are significantly...
Sugar Kremlin Vladimir Sorokin
The heroes and realities of the novel "The Day of the Oprichnik" migrated to "Sugar Kremlin" - a dystopia in stories from the virtuoso and provocateur Vladimir Sorokin. Here is the same surrealism and caustic satire, phantasmagoria, through which recognizable signs of modern Russian reality shine through. Continuing the theme, the author detailed the way of life in Russia of the future, where stoves are heated in high-rise buildings, brick walls are built, fencing off internal enemies, guardsmen fight external enemies; Fools and dwarfs walk the streets, and in brothels...
