Little stories of Russian classics. The shortest and most interesting stories in the world (1 photo)

Only true experts on the human soul can create short stories about love. It is not so easy to depict deep-seated experiences in a work of short prose. The Russian classic Ivan Bunin did an excellent job with this. Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Kuprin, Leonid Andreev and other writers also created interesting short stories about love. In this article we will look at authors of foreign and domestic literature, whose works contain small lyrical works.

Ivan Bunin

Short stories about love... What should they be? In order to understand this, you need to read Bunin's works. This writer is an unsurpassed master of sentimental prose. His works are examples of this genre. The famous collection “Dark Alleys” includes thirty-eight romantic stories. In each of them, the author not only revealed the deep experiences of his characters, but was also able to convey how powerful love is. After all, this feeling can change a person’s destiny.

Such short stories about love as “Caucasus”, “Dark Alleys”, “Late Hour” can tell more about a great feeling than hundreds of sentimental novels.

Leonid Andreev

Love for all ages. Talented writers dedicated short stories about love not only to the pure feelings of young people. For an essay on this topic, which is sometimes asked at school, the material can be the work of Leonid Andreev “Herman and Martha”, the main characters of which are extremely far from the age of Romeo and Juliet. The action of this story takes place in one of the cities of the Leningrad region at the beginning of the century. Then the place where the tragic event described by the Russian writer took place belonged to Finland. According to the laws of this country, people who have reached the age of fifty can marry only with the permission of their children.

The love story of Herman and Martha was sad. The closest people in their lives did not want to understand the feelings of two middle-aged people. The heroes of Andreev’s story could not be together, and therefore the story ended tragically.

Vasily Shukshin

Short stories about, if they are created by a real artist, are especially heartfelt. After all, there is nothing stronger in the world than the feeling that a woman experiences for her child. Screenwriter and director Vasily Shukshin told about this with sad irony in the story “A Mother’s Heart.”

The main character of this work is in trouble through his own fault. But the mother’s heart, although wise, does not recognize any logic. A woman overcomes unimaginable obstacles to free her son from prison. “A Mother’s Heart” is one of the most heartfelt works of Russian prose dedicated to love.

Lyudmila Kulikova

Another work about the most powerful feeling is the story “We Met.” Lyudmila Kulikova dedicated it to the love of her mother, whose life ends after the betrayal of her only beloved son. This woman breathes, talks, smiles. But she no longer lives. After all, the son, who was the meaning of her life, did not make himself known for more than twenty years. Kulikova's story is heartfelt, sad and very instructive. Mother's love is the brightest thing a person can have. To betray her would be to commit the greatest sin.

Anatoly Aleksin

A short story called “Homemade Essay” is dedicated to both maternal and youthful love. One day, Aleksin’s hero, the boy Dima, discovers a letter in an old thick encyclopedia. The message was written many years ago, and its author is no longer alive. He was a tenth grade student, and the addressee was a classmate with whom he was in love. But the letter remained unanswered, because the war came. The author of the letter died without sending it. The girl for whom the romantic lines were intended graduated from school, college, and got married. Her life went on. The mother of the author of this letter stopped smiling forever. After all, it is impossible to survive your child.

Stefan Zweig

The famous Austrian prose writer also created long and short stories about love. One of these works is called “Letter from a Stranger.” When you read the confession of the heroine of this short story, who all her life loved a man who did not remember her face or name, you become very sad. But at the same time, there is hope that a real sublime and selfless feeling still exists, and is not just an artistic invention of a talented writer.

(estimates: 42 , average: 4,21 out of 5)

In Russia, literature has its own direction, different from any other. The Russian soul is mysterious and incomprehensible. The genre reflects both Europe and Asia, which is why the best classical Russian works are extraordinary, striking in their soulfulness and vitality.

The main character is the soul. For a person, his position in society, the amount of money is not important, it is important for him to find himself and his place in this life, to find the truth and peace of mind.

The books of Russian literature are united by the features of a writer who has the gift of the great Word, who has completely devoted himself to this art of literature. The best classics saw life not flatly, but multifacetedly. They wrote about life not of random destinies, but of those expressing existence in its most unique manifestations.

Russian classics are so different, with different destinies, but what unites them is that literature is recognized as a school of life, a way of studying and developing Russia.

Russian classical literature was created by the best writers from different parts of Russia. It is very important where the author was born, because this determines his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects his writing skills. Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky were born in Moscow, Chernyshevsky in Saratov, Shchedrin in Tver. Poltava region in Ukraine is the birthplace of Gogol, Podolsk province - Nekrasov, Taganrog - Chekhov.

The three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were completely different people from each other, had different destinies, complex characters and great talents. They made a huge contribution to the development of literature, writing their best works, which still excite the hearts and souls of readers. Everyone should read these books.

Another important difference between the books of Russian classics is that they ridicule the shortcomings of a person and his way of life. Satire and humor are the main features of the works. However, many critics said that this was all slander. And only true connoisseurs saw how the characters are both comical and tragic at the same time. Such books always touch the soul.

Here you can find the best works of classical literature. You can download books of Russian classics for free or read them online, which is very convenient.

We present to your attention the 100 best books of Russian classics. The full list of books includes the best and most memorable works of Russian writers. This literature is known to everyone and is recognized by critics from all over the world.

Of course, our list of top 100 books is just a small part that brings together the best works of the great classics. It can be continued for a very long time.

A hundred books that everyone should read in order to understand not only how they used to live, what were the values, traditions, priorities in life, what they were striving for, but to find out in general how our world works, how bright and pure the soul can be and how valuable it is for a person, for the development of his personality.

The top 100 list includes the best and most famous works of Russian classics. The plot of many of them is known from school. However, some books are difficult to understand at a young age and require wisdom that is acquired over the years.

Of course, the list is far from complete; it can be continued endlessly. Reading such literature is a pleasure. She doesn’t just teach something, she radically changes lives, helps us understand simple things that we sometimes don’t even notice.

We hope you liked our list of classic books of Russian literature. You may have already read some of it, and some not. A great reason to make your own personal list of books, your top ones that you would like to read.

for the average reader

One of those cases when we do not determine either the first or last place. Not within our control. Different genres, different countries and centuries do not allow us to introduce any, even conditional, criterion for evaluation. And what kind of assessments can there be... This is best stories!

P.S. Do you want to have an adventure worthy of Jack London and Jules Verne? The mysterious island of Crete is waiting for you!

American writer Edgar Poe is the creator of the detective fiction genre. He wrote poetry and worked as a literary critic and editor.

The writer's parents, traveling circus performers, died when he was only two years old. Perhaps this was the reason for his craving for the dark, scary, and sometimes terrible.

The story "Berenice", an example of Gothic prose describes the events that happen to the main character named Aegeus. The plot revolves around the sudden illness of his bride and the related experiences of Egeus.

Critics recognize this story as one of the best of the series of notes about Sherlock Holmes and in detective literature in general. But his contemporaries saw the writer as “a frivolous writer for immature readers.”

Well, his style is simple but elegant, and his stories are not burdened with lengthy philosophizing. However, the storylines are always dynamic and the characters are interesting, and Doyle's talented works certainly have their own charm.

He is considered one of the best masters of “short stories”. Active creative activity lasted 26 years, which resulted in more than 900 works (stories, plays, novellas).

"House with mezzanine"- one of the most widely read stories by Chekhov in the world, which has been translated into many languages. Anton Pavlovich is the first in the number of Western film adaptations among Russian writers.

The main character of the story, an artist, recalls the events of six years ago - an idle pastime in the T-th province, where he accidentally meets and falls in love with a girl, Evgenia. Then the situation develops dramatically.

Story "Gifts of the Magi" included in the collection “Four Million” and most readers know O. Henry from it.

On Christmas Eve, a married couple decides to give each other gifts. However, being

5708

Most readers probably know Jack London from the “northern story”, or from the novel "Martin Eden". However, the story "Hold on" is no less valuable. The plot is autobiographical.

The writer began an independent life early, at the age of 14 he got a job at a canning factory. At the same age, he made a living by illegally catching oysters, became a vagabond, for which he spent a month in prison.

4310

Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

The story describes the events taking place on a huge and luxurious steamer "Atlantis", which is a metaphor for capitalist society.

In the work Bunin clearly expresses his attitude towards its representatives. The author sharply and harshly ridicules a person who believes that the world revolves around him and for

6406

American writer, Pulitzer winner And Nobel Prize. He participated in the First World War, worked for a long time as a reporter for various publications, traveled a lot, and during the Civil War in

In Spain, as a journalist, he was in the ranks of the International Brigade, which fought on the side of the Republicans. The Second World War finds the writer in Cuba, and he, having organized counterintelligence there, leaves for the front and participates in combat operations without

Can short stories about love reflect all the faces of this versatile feeling? After all, if you look closely at trembling experiences, you can notice tender love, serious mature relationships, destructive passion, selfless and unrequited attraction. Many classics and modern writers turn to the eternal, but still not fully understood theme of love. It’s not even worth listing the huge works that describe this exciting feeling. Both domestic and foreign authors intended to show the quivering beginning not only in novels or stories, but also in small stories about love.

Variety of love stories

Can love be measured? After all, it can be different - to a girl, mother, child, native land. Many little stories about love teach not only young lovers, but also children and their parents to express their feelings. Anyone who loves, has loved, or wants to love, would do well to read Sam McBratney's very touching story "Do You Know How Much I Love You?" Just one page of text, but so much sense! This little love story of a bunny teaches about the importance of admitting your feelings.

And how much value there is in a few pages of Henri Barbusse’s story “Tenderness”! The author shows great love, causing boundless tenderness in the heroine. He and She loved each other, but fate cruelly separated them, since She was much older. Her love is so strong that the woman promises to write letters to him after breaking up so that her loved one will not suffer so much. These letters became the only connecting thread between them for 20 years. They were the embodiment of love and tenderness, giving strength to life.

In total, the heroine wrote four letters, which her beloved received periodically. The ending of the story is very tragic: in the last letter, Louis learns that She committed suicide on the second day after breaking up, and wrote these letters to him with a view to 20 years in advance. The reader does not need to take the heroine’s action as a model; Barbusse simply wanted to show that it is important for a selflessly loving person to know that his feelings continue to live.

Different sides of love are shown in R. Kipling's story "Arrows of Cupid" and in Leonid Andreev's work "Herman and Martha." The story of Anatoly Aleksin’s first love, “Home Essay,” is dedicated to his youthful experiences. A 10th grade student is in love with his classmate. This is the story of how the hero’s tender feelings were cut short by the war.

The moral beauty of lovers in O. Henry's story "The Gift of the Magi"

This story by a famous author is about pure love, which is characterized by self-sacrifice. The plot revolves around a poor married couple, Jim and Della. Although they are poor, they try to give each other nice gifts at Christmas. To give a worthy gift to her husband, Della sells her gorgeous hair, and Jim traded his favorite valuable watch for a gift.

What did O. Henry want to show with such actions of the heroes? Both spouses wanted to do everything to make their loved one happy. The true gift for them is devoted love. Having sold things dear to their hearts, the heroes did not lose anything, because they still had the most important thing - priceless love for each other.

A woman's confession in Stefan Zweig's story "Letter from a Stranger"

The famous Austrian writer Stefan Zweig also wrote long and short stories about love. One of them is the essay “Letter from a Stranger.” This creation is imbued with sadness, because the heroine loved a man all her life, but he didn’t even remember her face or name. The stranger expressed all her tender feelings in her letters. Zweig wanted to show readers that real selfless and sublime feelings exist, and you need to believe in them so that they do not become a tragedy for someone.

O. Wilde about the beauty of the inner world in the fairy tale “The Nightingale and the Rose”

A short story about O. Wilde’s love “The Nightingale and the Rose” has a very complex idea. This fairy tale teaches people to value love, because without it there is no point in living in the world. The Nightingale became the spokesman for tender feelings. For their sake, he sacrificed his life and his singing. It is important to find out love correctly, so as not to lose a lot later.

Wilde also argues that you don’t need to love a person just for their beauty, it is important to look into his soul: perhaps he only loves himself. Appearance and money are not the most important thing, the main thing is spiritual wealth, inner peace. If you only think about appearance, it can end badly.

Trilogy of Chekhov's stories "About Love"

Three small stories formed the basis of A.P. Chekhov's "Little History". They are told by friends to each other while hunting. One of them, Alyohin, spoke about his love for a married lady. The hero was very attracted to her, but was afraid to admit it. The characters' feelings were mutual, but not revealed. One day, Alyohin finally decided to confess his affection, but it was too late - the heroine left.

Chekhov makes it clear that you don’t need to close yourself off from your real feelings, it’s better to have courage and give free rein to your emotions. He who encloses himself in a case loses his happiness. The heroes of this short story about love themselves killed love, sank to base feelings and doomed themselves to misfortune.

The heroes of the trilogy realized their mistakes and are trying to move on; they do not give up, but move forward. Perhaps they will still have a chance to save their souls.

Kuprin's love stories

Sacrificial love, giving all of oneself without reserve to a loved one, is inherent in Kuprin’s stories. So Alexander Ivanovich wrote a very sensual story “The Lilac Bush”. The main character of the story, Verochka, always helps her husband, a design student, with his studies so that he receives a diploma. She does all this in order to see him happy.

One day Almazov was making a drawing of the area for a test and accidentally made an ink. In place of this blot he drew a bush. Verochka found a way out of this situation: she found money, bought a lilac bush and planted it overnight in the place where the blot appeared on the drawing. The professor checking the work was very surprised by this incident, because before there was no bush there. The test was submitted.

Verochka is very rich spiritually and mentally, and her husband is a weak, narrow-minded and pathetic person compared to her. Kuprin shows the problem of unequal marriage in terms of spiritual and mental development.

Bunin's "Dark Alleys"

What should short love stories be like? The small works of Ivan Bunin answer this question. The author wrote a whole series of short stories under the same name with one of the stories - “Dark Alleys”. All these little creations are connected by one theme - love. The author presents the reader with the tragic and even catastrophic nature of love.

The collection "Dark Alleys" is also called the encyclopedia of love. Bunin in it shows the contact of two from different sides. In the book you can see a gallery of female portraits. Among them you can see young women, matured girls, respectable ladies, peasant women, prostitutes, and models. Each story from this collection has its own shade of love.

Dear friend! On this page you will find a selection of small or rather even very small stories with deep spiritual meaning. Some stories are only 4-5 lines, some a little more. Every story, no matter how short, reveals a larger story. Some stories are light and humorous, others are instructive and suggest deep philosophical thoughts, but all of them are very, very sincere.

The short story genre is notable for the fact that in a few words a big story is created, which invites you to stretch your brains and smile, or pushes the imagination into a flight of thoughts and understandings. After reading just this one page, you may get the impression that you have mastered several books.

This collection contains many stories about love and the theme of death, so close to it, the meaning of life and the spiritual experience of every moment. People often try to avoid the topic of death, but in several short stories on this page it is shown from such an original side that it makes it possible to understand it in a completely new way, and therefore begin to live differently.

Happy reading and interesting emotional experiences!

“Recipe for female happiness” – Stanislav Sevastyanov

Masha Skvortsova dressed up, put on makeup, sighed, made up her mind - and came to visit Petya Siluyanov. And he treated her to tea and amazing cakes. But Vika Telepenina didn’t dress up, didn’t put on makeup, didn’t sigh - and simply came to Dima Seleznev. And he treated her to vodka with amazing sausage. So there are countless recipes for women’s happiness.

"In Search of Truth" - Robert Tompkins

Finally, in this remote, secluded village, his search ended. Truth sat in a dilapidated hut by the fire.
He had never seen an older, uglier woman.
- Are you - Really?
The old, wizened hag nodded solemnly.
- Tell me, what should I tell the world? What message to convey?
The old woman spat into the fire and answered:
- Tell them that I am young and beautiful!

"Silver Bullet" - Brad D. Hopkins

Sales have fallen for six straight quarters. The ammunition factory suffered catastrophic losses and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Chief Executive Scott Phillips had no idea what was going on, but shareholders were sure to blame him.
He opened the desk drawer, took out a revolver, put the muzzle to his temple and pulled the trigger.
Misfire.
“Okay, let’s take care of the product quality control department.”

"Once Upon a Time There Was Love"

And one day the Great Flood came. And Noah said:
“Only every creature - in pairs! And for singles - ficus!!!"
Love began to look for a mate - Pride, Wealth,
Glory, Joy, but they already had companions.
And then Separation came to her and said:
"I love you".
Love quickly jumped into the Ark with her.
But Separation actually fell in love with Love and did not
I wanted to part with her even on earth.
And now Separation always follows Love...

“Sublime Sadness” – Stanislav Sevastyanov

Love sometimes brings sublime sadness. At dusk, when the thirst for love was completely unbearable, student Krylov came to the house of his beloved, student Katya Moshkina from a parallel group, and climbed up the drainpipe to her balcony to make a confession. On the way, he diligently repeated the words that he would say to her, and got so carried away that he forgot to stop in time. So I stood sad all night on the roof of the nine-story building until the firefighters removed it.

“Mother” – Vladislav Panfilov

The mother was unhappy. She buried her husband and son, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She remembered them small and thick-cheeked, and gray-haired, and hunched over. The mother felt like a lonely birch tree among a forest scorched by time. The mother begged to grant her death: any, the most painful one. Because she is tired of living! But I had to live on... And the only joy for the mother were the grandchildren of her grandchildren, just as big-eyed and chubby-cheeked. And she nursed them and told them all her life, and the lives of her children and her grandchildren... But one day giant blinding pillars grew around her mother, and she saw how her great-great-grandchildren were burned alive, and she herself screamed from the pain of melting skin and pulled to the sky withered yellow hands and cursed him for her fate. But the sky responded with a new whistle of cutting air and new flashes of fiery death. And in convulsions, the Earth began to stir, and millions of souls fluttered into space. And the planet tensed up in nuclear apoplexy and exploded into pieces...

The little pink fairy, swinging on an amber branch, chirped for the umpteenth time to her friends about how many years ago, flying to the other end of the universe, she noticed a bluish-green small planet sparkling in the rays of space. “Oh, she’s so wonderful! Oh! She is so beautiful! - the fairy cooed. “I've been flying over the emerald fields all day! Azure lakes! Silvery rivers! I felt so good that I decided to do some good deed!” And I saw a boy sitting alone on the shore of a tired pond, and I flew up to him and whispered: “I want to fulfill your deepest wish! Tell me it!” And the boy looked up at me with beautiful dark eyes: “It’s my mother’s birthday today. I want her, no matter what, to live forever!” “Oh, what a noble desire! Oh, how sincere it is! Oh, how sublime it is!” - the little fairies sang. “Oh, how happy is this woman who has such a noble son!”

“Lucky” – Stanislav Sevastyanov

He looked at her, admired her, trembled when he met: she sparkled against the background of his mundane everyday life, was sublimely beautiful, cold and inaccessible. Suddenly, having given her plenty of his attention, he felt that she too, as if melting under his scorching gaze, began to reach out to him. And so, without expecting it, he came into contact with her... He came to his senses when the nurse was changing the bandage on his head.
“You are lucky,” she said affectionately, “rarely anyone survives from such icicles.”

"Wings"

“I don’t love you,” these words pierced the heart, turning out the insides with sharp edges, turning them into minced meat.

“I don’t love you,” simple six syllables, only twelve letters that kill us, shooting merciless sounds from our lips.

“I don’t love you,” there is nothing worse when a loved one says them. The one for whom you live, for whom you do everything, for whom you can even die.

“I don’t love you,” my eyes darken. First, peripheral vision turns off: a dark veil envelops everything around, leaving a small space. Then flickering, iridescent gray dots cover the remaining area. It's completely dark. You only feel your tears, a terrible pain in your chest, squeezing your lungs like a press. You feel squeezed and try to take up as little space as possible in this world, to hide from these hurtful words.

“I don’t love you,” your wings, which covered you and your loved one in difficult times, begin to crumble with already yellowed feathers, like November trees under a gust of autumn wind. A piercing cold passes through the body, freezing the soul. Only two processes, covered with light fluff, already stick out from the back, but even this withers away from the words, crumbling into silver dust.

“I don’t love you,” the letters dig into the remains of the wings like a screeching saw, tearing them out of the back, tearing the flesh to the shoulder blades. Blood flows down the back, washing away the feathers. Small fountains gush out from the arteries and it seems that new wings have grown - bloody wings, light, airy and spraying.

“I don’t love you,” there are no more wings. The blood stopped flowing, drying into a black crust on the back. What used to be called wings are now only barely noticeable tubercles, somewhere at the level of the shoulder blades. There is no more pain and the words remain just words. A set of sounds that no longer cause suffering, that don’t even leave traces.

The wounds have healed. Time cures…
Time heals even the worst wounds. Everything passes, even the long winter. Spring will come anyway, melting the ice in the soul. You hug your loved one, the dearest person, and clasp him with snow-white wings. Wings always grow back.

- I love you…

“Ordinary scrambled eggs” – Stanislav Sevastyanov

“Go, leave everyone. It’s better to be alone: ​​I’ll freeze, I’ll be unsociable, like a bump in a swamp, like a snowdrift. And when I lie down in the coffin, don’t you dare come to me to sob to your heart’s content for your own good, bending over the fallen body left by the muse, and the pen, and the shabby, oil-stained paper...” Having written this, the sentimentalist writer Sherstobitov re-read what he had written thirty times, he added “cramped” in front of the coffin and was so imbued with the resulting tragedy that he could not stand it and shed a tear for himself. And then his wife Varenka called him to dinner, and he was pleasantly satisfied with vinaigrette and scrambled eggs with sausage. Meanwhile, his tears had dried up, and he, returning to the text, first crossed out “cramped”, and then instead of “laying down in a coffin” he wrote “laying down on Parnassus”, because of which all subsequent harmony went to waste. “Well, to hell with harmony, I’d better go and stroke Varenka’s knee...” Thus, an ordinary scrambled egg was preserved for the grateful descendants of the sentimentalist writer Sherstobitov.

"Destiny" - Jay Rip

There was only one way out, for our lives were intertwined in too tangled a knot of anger and bliss to solve everything any other way. Let's trust the lot: heads - and we will get married, tails - and we will part forever.
The coin was tossed. She tinkled, spun and stopped. Eagle.
We stared at her in bewilderment.
Then, with one voice, we said, “Maybe one more time?”

“Chest” – Daniil Kharms

A man with a thin neck climbed into the chest, closed the lid behind him and began to choke.

“Here,” the man with a thin neck said, gasping, “I’m suffocating in the chest, because I have a thin neck.” The lid of the chest is closed and does not allow air to reach me. I will be suffocating, but I still won’t open the lid of the chest. Little by little I will die. I will see the struggle of life and death. The fight will take place unnaturally, with equal chances, because death naturally wins, and life, doomed to death, only fights in vain with the enemy, until the last minute, without losing vain hope. In this same struggle that will happen now, life will know the way to win: for this, life must force my hands to open the lid of the chest. Let's see: who wins? Only it smells awfully like mothballs. If life wins, I’ll cover the things in the chest with shag... Here it begins: I can’t breathe anymore. I'm dead, that's clear! There is no salvation for me anymore! And there is nothing sublime in my head. I'm suffocating!...

Oh! What is it? Now something has happened, but I can't figure out what it is. I saw something or heard something...
Oh! Did something happen again? My God! I can't breathe. I think I'm dying...

What else is this? Why am I singing? I think my neck hurts... But where is the chest? Why do I see everything that is in my room? There's no way I'm lying on the floor! Where's the chest?

The thin-necked man rose from the floor and looked around. The chest was nowhere to be found. On the chairs and bed were things taken from the chest, but the chest was nowhere to be found.

The man with the thin neck said:
“This means that life has defeated death in a way unknown to me.”

"Wretched" - Dan Andrews

They say evil has no face. Indeed, no feelings were reflected on his face. There was not a glimmer of sympathy on him, but the pain was simply unbearable. Can't he see the horror in my eyes and the panic on my face? He calmly, one might say, carried out his dirty work professionally, and at the end he politely said: “Rinse your mouth, please.”

"Dirty laundry"

One married couple moved to live in a new apartment. In the morning, as soon as she woke up, the wife looked out the window and saw a neighbor who was hanging out washed clothes to dry.
“Look at her dirty laundry,” she told her husband. But he was reading the newspaper and did not pay any attention to it.

“She probably has bad soap, or she doesn’t know how to do laundry at all. We should teach her."
And so, every time the neighbor hung out the laundry, the wife was surprised at how dirty it was.
One fine morning, looking out the window, she cried out: “Oh! Today the laundry is clean! She must have learned how to do laundry!”
“No,” said the husband, “I just got up early today and washed the window.”

“I couldn’t wait” – Stanislav Sevastyanov

It was an unprecedented wonderful moment. Disdaining unearthly forces and his own path, he froze to look at her for the future. At first she took a very long time to take off her dress and fiddle with the zipper; then she let her hair down and combed it, filling it with air and silky color; then she pulled at the stockings, trying not to get them caught with her nails; then she hesitated with the pink lingerie, so ethereal that even her delicate fingers seemed rough. Finally she undressed all - but the month was already looking out the other window.

"Wealth"

One day a rich man gave a poor man a basket full of trash. The poor man smiled at him and left with the basket. I emptied it, cleaned it, and then filled it with beautiful flowers. He returned to the rich man and returned the basket to him.

The rich man was surprised and asked: “Why are you giving me this basket filled with beautiful flowers if I gave you garbage?”
And the poor man replied: “Everyone gives to the other what he has in his heart.”

“Don’t let good things go to waste” – Stanislav Sevastyanov

“How much do you charge?” - “Six hundred rubles per hour.” - “And in two hours?” - “A thousand.” He came to her, she smelled sweetly of perfume and skill, he was worried, she touched his fingers, his fingers were disobedient, crooked and absurd, but he clenched his will into a fist. Returning home, he immediately sat down at the piano and began to consolidate the scale he had just learned. The instrument, an old Becker, was given to him by his previous tenants. My fingers ached, my ears felt stuffy, my willpower grew stronger. The neighbors were banging on the wall.

“Postcards from the Other World” – Franco Arminio

Here the end of winter and the end of spring are approximately the same. The first roses serve as a signal. I saw one rose when they were taking me in an ambulance. I closed my eyes, thinking about this rose. In front, the driver and nurse were talking about a new restaurant. There you can eat your fill, and the prices are meager.

At some point I decided that I could become an important person. I felt that death was giving me a reprieve. Then I plunged headlong into life, like a child with his hand in a stocking with baptismal gifts. Then my day came. Wake up, my wife told me. Wake up, she kept repeating.

It was a fine sunny day. I didn't want to die on a day like this. I always thought that I would die at night, with dogs barking. But I died at noon when a cooking show started on TV.

They say people most often die at dawn. For years I woke up at four in the morning, stood up and waited for the fateful hour to pass. I opened a book or turned on the TV. Sometimes he went outside. I died at seven in the evening. Nothing special happened. The world has always caused me vague anxiety. And then this anxiety suddenly passed.

I was ninety-nine. My children came to the nursing home just to talk to me about my centenary celebrations. None of this bothered me at all. I didn't hear them, I only felt my fatigue. And he wanted to die so as not to feel her either. This happened in front of my eldest daughter. She gave me a piece of apple and talked about a cake with the number one hundred on it. The one should be as long as a stick, and the zeros should be like bicycle wheels, she said.

My wife is still complaining about the doctors who didn’t treat me. Although I always considered myself incurable. Even when Italy won the World Cup, even when I got married.

By the age of fifty, I had the face of a man who could die any minute. I died at ninety-six, after a long agony.

What I always enjoyed was the nativity scene. Every year he turned out more and more elegant. I displayed it in front of the door of our house. The door was constantly open. I divided the only room with red and white tape, like when repairing roads. I treated those who stopped to admire the nativity scene with beer. I talked in detail about papier-mâché, musk, sheep, wise men, rivers, castles, shepherds and shepherdesses, caves, the Baby, the guiding star, electrical wiring. Electrical wiring was my pride. I died alone on Christmas night, looking at the nativity scene sparkling with all the lights.