Short Fiction

Κάθε προσπάθεια να γίνει ευτυχισμένη η ανθρωπότητα απέτυχε. Ένας σκύλος όχι.

Man’s nature is such, that happiness appears to be a thing unattainable; unconsciously and unintentionally friend offends friend, and even lovers inevitably fall out and quarrel at times. And since all legislators, from Lycurgus down to those of today, in their attempts to bestow happiness on mankind have failed miserably, I can at least comfort myself greatly with the thought of having made even one dog happy.

Ένας κήπος φτιαγμένος για να κρατά δύο ανθρώπους χωριστά.

When my sister was attacked by the contagious disease to which all the members of our family have been victims, and she came to share my retreat, we had never seen one another. The shock was great when she saw me for the first time; and the fear of distressing her, and the still greater fear of increasing her malady through my presence, compelled me to adopt this sad arrangement. The leprosy had attacked her chest only; and I had some hope of her recovery. You see what is left of the trellis which I have allowed to fall into neglect. It was a hedge of hops that I trained with care, and which divided the garden into two parts. I had shaped on each side a narrow path, along which we could walk and talk together, without seeing one another, or approaching one another too nearly.

Η μοναξιά που μαθαίνεις μόνο μέσα στο πλήθος.

In setting out on her pilgrimage, she was prepared to meet, with resignation, all the sufferings and dangers, which, in her ignorance of the world, she could represent to herself; the inclemency of winter, oppressive heat, hunger, nakedness, diseases, death: but since she had become a little more acquainted with larger collections of men, than in her village of Ischim, she feared her courage would be insufficient. In the wilderness, she had no conception of the mournful and chilling solitude, that awaits the poor in populous cities: she did not imagine, that thousands of fellow-beings would walk by her, without seeing her, and without listening to her prayers, as if they had no eyes for misery, nor ears for sighs and lamentations.