Short story classics (Foreign), Vol. 2, Italian and Scandinavian

In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_), small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS and words in bold are represented as...

Now the old letter found within the pages of the ancient atlas had brought it all back. Before the middle-aged man, grown old in study, hardened with egotism, rose an enchanting...

The Countess dressed and did her hair with the utmost speed, at moments clasping her hands in silent prayer, distributing commands, summoning servants from various parts of the...

He turned. It was the little drummer. He was stretched upon a wooden cot, covered up to the neck with a coarse old red and white check window curtain, his arms lying outside, pa...

Then Lulu looked about her. And about her strange things were happening. Roberto was no longer serene and hilarious as usual, but thoughtful, pale, and agitated. He spoke briefl...

An idle crowd had gathered in front of the café. They all had the spirit of mischief in their faces. While the woman drank, Filippo La Selvi turned and addressed his audience:

“What is there to laugh at?” cried Speranza, in earnest. “I am speaking seriously. Are we, or are we not, gentlemen? A hawk, gentlemen, threatens this dove; I will defend her. I...

“Because I can not,” promptly replied Carolinona. “Pardon me, but you must understand that it can not please me that you, to make an end to an annoying joke, are forced to make...

“For always!” He took the bottle of _marsala_, the biscuits, and invited Nannetta to sit down and drink. There was another ring at the door. It was Signor Martino Martinelli, re...

The Signore Direttore felt anew the strange fascination of envy and longing, as he read the delightful, tender letter of Paola. She had not a word of reproach for the lack of co...

“Listen. For ten years I have loved a maiden of my own country. She was rich, but an orphan living with her guardian. I was sent away to college and was absent many years. On my...

The mother turned again to the bedside, that he, meanwhile, should not see her face, for it would have seemed like intruding on his grief before he felt the need of revealing it...

Then one Saturday evening the priest brought tidings that the railroad was to run through the parish after all, and across the old churchyard! It struck like lightning into ever...

Björn did not answer. He muttered something about spring, and sheets and linen, etc., and then went for a sail in his new boat. She was a flyer and no mistake, he could prove th...

Christian entered his horse for the races. What glorious days, what a season of triumph and honor for Jalo and his master! There was not a newspaper in the whole country which d...

Then he preached long of the commandments and their rigor, of the need of obeying them to the very letter, and of the dire punishment that awaited him who sinned against them. “...

Gustaf lays the table himself. By the time the lunch arrives from the restaurant, the new plates and cutlery and glasses are set out on the fresh, white linen cloth. The bridal...

Letters came now and then from her sisters, letters about pawn-tickets and dire need. The days such letters came Miss Holm would forget her knitting and sit with her hands press...

“Oh, a witch always needs corpses. She makes salves of them, or perhaps she eats them. On moonlit nights she sits out in the wildest surf and looks for the eyes and fingers of d...

Tord looked down at his hands, as if he saw there the fetters that had drawn him on to kill the man he loved. Like the chains of the Fenrir wolf, they were woven out of empty ai...