home Body Read the book Summer Morning, Summer Night (collection) online. Ray Bradbury "Summer morning, summer night Summer morning, summer night Ray Bradbury

Read the book Summer Morning, Summer Night (collection) online. Ray Bradbury "Summer morning, summer night Summer morning, summer night Ray Bradbury

Summer is over

One. Two. Hattie froze in bed, silently counting the slow, slow strokes of the courthouse chimes. Sleepy streets lay under the tower, and this city clock, round and white, became like full moon, which at the end of summer invariably filled the town with an icy glow. Hattie's heart sank.

She jumped up to look around at the empty alleys that lined the dark, motionless grass. Below, the porch, disturbed by the wind, creaked barely audibly.

Looking in the mirror, she loosened her tight teacher pussy, and long hair cascaded over the shoulders. The students would be surprised, she thought, if they happened to see these shiny black waves. Not bad at all if you are already thirty-five. Trembling hands pulled out several small packages hidden away from the chest of drawers. Lipstick, blush, eyebrow pencil, nail polish. An airy pale blue dress, like a cloud of fog. Pulling off the tatty nightgown, she threw it on the floor, stepped barefoot on the rough material and put on the dress over her head.

She moistened her earlobes with drops of perfume, ran lipstick over her nervous lips, shaded her eyebrows, and hastily painted her nails.

She walked out onto the landing of the sleeping house. I looked at the three white doors with caution: what if they suddenly opened? Leaning against the wall, she paused.

No one looked out into the corridor. Hattie stuck her tongue out first at one door, then at the other two.

While she was going down, not a single step on the stairs creaked; now the path lay on the moonlit porch, and from there onto a quiet street.

The air was already filled with the night aromas of September. The asphalt, which still retained heat, warmed her thin, untanned legs.

I've wanted to do this for so long. “She picked a blood-red rose to stick it in her black hair, paused a little and turned to the curtained eye sockets of the windows of her house: “No one will guess what I will do now.” “She spun around, proud of her flowing dress.

Bare feet walked silently along the line of trees and dim lamps. Every bush, every fence seemed to appear before her anew, and this gave rise to bewilderment: “Why didn’t I dare to do this before?” Stepping off the asphalt onto the dewy lawn, she deliberately paused to feel the prickly coolness of the grass.

The patrolman, Mr. Walzer, walked along Glen Bay Street, humming something sad in his tenor voice. Hattie slid behind a tree and, listening to his singing, followed his broad back with her eyes.

It was very quiet outside the courthouse, except for the fact that she herself stubbed her toes a couple of times on the steps of the rusty fire escape. On the upper platform, near the cornice, above which the silver dial of the city clock gleamed, she extended her arms forward.

Here it is, below - a sleeping town!

Thousands of roofs glistened with moonlight snow.

She shook her fist and made faces at the city at night. Turning towards the suburbs, she mockingly pulled up her hem. She spun around in a dance and laughed silently, and then snapped her fingers four times in different directions.

Not even a minute had passed before she was already running across the silky city lawns with sparkling eyes.

Now a house of whispers appeared in front of her.

Hiding under a very specific window, she heard two voices coming from the secret room, one male and one female.

Hattie leaned against the wall; Only whispers and whispers reached her ears. They, like two moths, fluttered inside and beat against the window glass. Then there was a muffled, distant laugh.

Hattie raised her hand to the glass, her face taking on an awestruck expression. Above upper lip beads of sweat appeared.

What was it? - the man behind the glass screamed.

She ran for a long time before stopping again at the window, but in a completely different place.

In the light-filled bathroom - it was, after all, the only illuminated room in the entire town - there stood a young man who, yawning, carefully shaved in front of the mirror. Black-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-seven years old, he worked at the railway station and took ham sandwiches to work every day in a metal box. After wiping his face with a towel, he turned off the light.

Hattie hid under the crown of a century-old oak tree - she clung to the trunk, where there was a continuous web and some other coating. The outside lock clicked, the gravel creaked underfoot, and the metal lid clinked. When the smell of tobacco and fresh soap filled the air, she didn’t even have to turn around to realize that he was passing by.

Whistling through his teeth, he moved down the street towards the ravine. She followed him, running from tree to tree: either she flew like a white veil behind an elm trunk, or she hid behind an oak tree as a moon shadow. At some point the man turned around. She barely had time to hide. She waited with a beating heart. Silence. Then his steps again.

He whistled "June Night."

A rainbow of lights perched over the edge of the cliff threw his own shadow right at his feet. Hattie was at arm's length, behind the ancient chestnut tree.

Stopping a second time, he no longer looked back. I just sucked in air through my nose.

The night wind carried the scent of her perfume to the other side of the ravine, as she had intended.

She didn't move. Now was not her move. Exhausted from a frantic heartbeat, she pressed herself against a tree.

It seemed that for an hour he did not dare to take a single step. She could hear the dew obediently disintegrating under his boots. The warm smells of tobacco and fresh soap wafted very close.

He touched her wrist. She didn't open her eyes. And he didn't make a sound.

Somewhere in the distance, the city clock struck three times.

His lips carefully and lightly covered her mouth. Then they touched my ear.

He pressed her against the trunk. And he whispered. It turns out that who was peeping through his windows three nights in a row! He touched her neck with his lips. That means who was stealthily following on his heels last night! He peered into her face. The shadows of the thick branches lay softly on her lips, cheeks, forehead, and only her eyes, burning with a living sparkle, could not be hidden. She's amazingly good - does she know it herself? Until recently, he considered it an obsession. His laughter was no louder than a secret whisper. Without taking his eyes off her, he put his hand in his pocket. He lit a match and raised it to the height of her face to get a better look, but she pulled his fingers towards her and held him in her palm along with the extinguished match. A moment later the match fell into the dewy grass.

Let it go, he said.

She didn't look up at him. He silently took her by the elbow and pulled her along with him.

Looking at her untanned legs, she walked with him to the edge of a cool ravine, at the bottom of which, between mossy, willow-covered banks, a silent river flowed.

He paused. A little more and she would have looked up to make sure of his presence. Now they stood in a lighted place, and she carefully turned her head away so that he could see only the flowing darkness of her hair and the whiteness of her forearms.

He said:

The darkness of the summer night breathed in her calm warmth.

The answer was her hand reaching out to his face.

The next morning, when Hattie came down the stairs, she found her grandmother, Aunt Maude and Cousin Jacob, who were eating their cold breakfast on both cheeks and were not very happy when she, too, pulled up a chair. Hattie came out to them dejectedly. long dress with a blind collar. Her hair was gathered into a small tight bun, and on her thoroughly washed face, her bloodless lips and cheeks seemed completely white. Not a trace remained of the penciled eyebrows and painted eyelashes. Nails, one might think, have never known shiny varnish.

“You’re late, Hattie,” they all said in unison, as if by agreement, as soon as she sat down at the table.

“Don’t go too heavy on the porridge,” Aunt Maud warned. - It's already half past eight. It's time to go to school. The director will give you the first number. Nothing to say, good example The teacher serves it to the students.

All three of them glared at her. Hattie smiled.

“This is the first time in twenty years that you’re late, Hattie,” Aunt Maud continued.

Still smiling, Hattie did not move from her place.

It’s high time to go out, they said.

In the hallway, Hattie pinned a straw hat to her hair and took her green umbrella from its hook. The household did not take their eyes off her. On the threshold, she flushed, turned around and looked at them for a long time, as if she was preparing to say something. They even leaned forward. But she just smiled and jumped out onto the porch, slamming the door.

The collection of short stories “Summer Morning, Summer Night” was published by American writer Ray Bradbury in 2007. The collection, which includes 27 stories, was a continuation of the story “Summer, Farewell!” and the novel “Dandelion Wine.” The stories take place in the small town of Greentown. In reality, this settlement does not exist. It was invented by the author himself. In 2011, the collection was published in Russian.

Readers in different countries they note with surprise that the province is the same everywhere: both in the United States and somewhere in the center of Europe. The heroes of the stories were ordinary provincial citizens. As in all countries of the world, children in Greentown are curious. They are constantly looking for encounters with something new and unknown. Local youth are in search of love. The middle generation is too busy to pay attention to the younger ones, and the old people strive to preserve the patriarchal way of life.

The reader may have a question: if the inhabitants of Greentown are no different from the inhabitants of some provincial town on the other side of the world, what is the point of writing about them? Ray Bradbury's mastery in this case is to write unusually and excitingly about the simple and familiar.

You will not find in the collection a single mention of flights to other planets and all kinds of robots that do all the work for a person. The author tries to find the unusual in the prose of life.

Every day given to a person by fate is already a real miracle. Neither material wealth, nor position in society, nor even mutual love can be placed above this miracle. But many heroes of the stories do not understand and do not know how to appreciate the precious gift of life. So, Miss Bidwell closes herself off from the whole world when the guy who sang for her and played the guitar for her leaves for China. The woman spent her life remembering a happiness that no longer exists.

Some stories in the collection deserve special attention.

Big fire

A girl named Marianna is visiting her aunt, uncle and grandmother. One day, relatives notice that Marianne has fallen in love. Aunt and uncles begin to follow her. The girl in love has completely lost her head. She doesn't sleep well at night, is distracted, and inattentive. An uncle and an aunt are waiting for their niece to finally propose. At the end of the story, it turns out that Marianne is accompanied home every evening by different young people. Only the grandmother paid attention to this.

Analysis of the work

The first thing that strikes the reader of the story is the metaphor used in the title. Obviously, we will talk about some kind of fire in the city. However, the assumptions are not justified. The story also begins with a metaphor. The author says that Marianne was engulfed in flames. This is indeed a very strong image, which the reader perceives literally up to a certain point. As it turns out, the girl simply fell passionately in love.

It is not interesting to read about a girl falling in love, because this is a completely natural, everyday phenomenon. Imagine the reader’s surprise when he learns that Marianne returns home every evening with different gentlemen. The fact that a girl loves several young men equally passionately seems strange and illogical. The state of euphoria in which Marianne finds herself is only possible if she is attracted to one man.

The uncle and aunt can’t even imagine that their niece has several admirers and feels so in love. For them, there is only a traditional model of relationships. Grandmother manages to open the eyes of the middle generation. The old lady even explains what exactly is happening to Marianne. Every woman, the grandmother is convinced, goes through a period in her life when she just wants to be desired and loved, to feel the attention of the opposite sex. At this age, it is absolutely not necessary to meet your soulmate. Adolescence is intended to prepare for the more serious stage of a relationship. This is not the time to start a family.

Screams from underground

A jealous husband committed a terrible reprisal against his wife: he buried his wife alive. The unfortunate woman has no chance of salvation. Only a little girl heard the groans underground and saved the buried alive woman.

Analysis of the work

When a person is born, he looks at the world with wide open eyes. He notices every little thing around him, explores, studies. With age, interest in the world around us gradually disappears. A person becomes immersed in his problems and becomes less attentive. It is the child who saves the woman, and not the adult who has cooled down to life.

Someone died

The Hetts, who rarely visit the city, came to visit the Spaldings. Death becomes the main topic of conversation. Hosts and guests enjoy discussing everyone who has died in the city over the past few years. Despite the fact that the topic chosen for the conversation is quite gloomy, both married couples clearly enjoy the communication.

The conversation then turns to his own health problems. Speculation begins to be made about who will live how long. The story ends with the departure of the Hittites. The Spaldings go to bed. As Mrs. Spaulding falls asleep, she imagines her conversation with Mrs. Hett when both of their husbands die. Women will tell each other about the magnificent funeral of their spouses.

Analysis of the work

The closed life of a provincial town is so boring that even death here becomes not a tragedy, but, a kind of entertainment, a performance. The table scene indicates that neither the Hittites nor the Spauldings have the slightest sympathy or pity for those they are discussing. To prove this, the author describes in detail how Mrs. Hett enjoys food and coffee.

Aggie-Lou and Clarissa are two eternal rivals. Despite their young age, the girls compete like grown, mature women.

One day Aggie-Lou got sick. Seeing her competitor through the window, she tells Clarissa that she is seriously ill and will soon die. The disease becomes an object of speculation for Aggie-Lou. For unknown reasons, Clarissa becomes jealous.

A dangerous illness seems like a privilege she missed; she also wants to die. Clarissa prays, asking God to let her rival live. In turn, Aggie-Lou prays that Clarissa's prayers will not be answered.

To John Eller, with love.

SUMMERMORNING,SUMMERNIGHT

The text of the story "Summer is Over" is based on the version selected by the author for the collection "Driving Blind" (1997). The texts of the remaining previously published stories included in this collection are based on the earliest published versions. I am grateful to David Speech, my colleague at the Institute of American Philosophy at Indiana University, for editing this collection.

Summer is over

D va. One. Two. Hattie froze in bed, silently counting the slow, slow strokes of the courthouse chimes. Sleepy streets lay under the tower, and this city clock, round and white, became like the full moon, which at the end of summer invariably filled the town with an icy glow. Hattie's heart sank.

She jumped up to look around at the empty alleys that lined the dark, motionless grass. On the porch, a rocking chair, disturbed by the wind, creaked barely audibly.

Looking in the mirror, she let go of her tight teacher's bun, and her long hair cascaded over her shoulders. The students would be surprised, she thought, if they happened to see these shiny black waves. Not bad at all if you are already thirty-five. Trembling hands pulled out several small packages hidden away from the chest of drawers. Lipstick, blush, eyebrow pencil, nail polish. An airy pale blue dress, like a cloud of fog. She pulled off the tatty nightgown, threw it on the floor, stepped barefoot on the rough material and pulled the dress on over her head.

She moistened her earlobes with drops of perfume, ran lipstick over her nervous lips, shaded her eyebrows, and hastily painted her nails.

She walked out onto the landing of the sleeping house. I looked at the three white doors with caution: what if they suddenly opened? Leaning against the wall, she paused.

No one looked out into the corridor. Hattie stuck her tongue out first at one door, then at the other two.

While she was going down, not a single step on the stairs creaked; Now the path lay on the moonlit porch, and from there onto the silent street.

The air was already filled with the night aromas of September. The asphalt, which still retained heat, warmed her thin, untanned legs.

– I’ve wanted to do this for so long.

She picked a blood-red rose to stick in her black hair, paused a little and turned to the curtained eye sockets of the windows of her house:

- Nobody will guess what I will do now.

She spun around, admiring her flowing dress.

The patrolman, Mr. Waltzer, walked along Glen Bay Street, singing something sad in his tenor voice. Hattie slid behind a tree and, listening to his singing, followed his broad back with her eyes.

Here it is, below - a sleeping town!

Thousands of roofs glistened with moonlight snow.

Not even a minute had passed before she was running across the silky city lawns with sparkling eyes.

Now a house of whispers appeared in front of her.

Hiding under a very specific window, she heard two voices coming from the secret room: a man’s and a woman’s.

Hattie leaned against the wall; Only whispers and whispers reached her ears. They, like two moths, fluttered from within and beat against the window glass. Then there was a muffled, distant laugh.

Hattie raised her hand to the shutters; the face took on a reverent expression. Beads of sweat appeared above my upper lip.

- What was it? – the man behind the glass screamed.

Then Hattie, like a cloud of fog, darted to the side and disappeared into the night.

She ran for a long time before stopping again at the window, but in a completely different place.

In the light-filled bathroom - it was, after all, the only illuminated room in the entire town - there stood a young man who, yawning, carefully shaved in front of the mirror. Black-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-seven years old, he worked at the railway station and every day he took to work a metal box containing ham sandwiches. After wiping his face with a towel, he turned off the light.

Whistling through his teeth, he moved down the street towards the ravine. She followed him, running from tree to tree: either flying like a white veil behind an elm trunk, or hiding behind an oak tree as a moon shadow. At some point the man turned around. She barely had time to hide. She waited with a beating heart. Silence. Then his steps again.

He whistled "June Night."

A rainbow of lights perched over the edge of the cliff threw his own shadow right at his feet. Hattie was at arm's length, behind the ancient chestnut tree.

Stopping a second time, he no longer looked back. I just sucked in air through my nose.

The night wind carried the scent of her perfume to the other edge of the ravine, as she had planned.

She didn't move. Now was not her move. Exhausted from a frantic heartbeat, she pressed herself against a tree.

It seemed that for an hour he did not dare to take a single step. She could hear the dew obediently disintegrating under his boots. The warm smells of tobacco and fresh soap wafted very close.

He touched her wrist. She didn't open her eyes. And he didn't make a sound.

Somewhere in the distance, the city clock struck three times.

His lips carefully and lightly covered her mouth.

Then they touched my ear. He pressed her against the trunk. And he whispered. It turns out that who was peeping through his windows three nights in a row! He touched her neck with his lips. That means who was stealthily following on his heels last night! He peered into her face. The shadows of the thick branches lay softly on her lips, cheeks, forehead, and only her eyes, burning with a living sparkle, could not be hidden. She's amazingly good - does she even know it? Until recently, he considered it an obsession. His laughter was no louder than a secret whisper. Without taking his eyes off her, he put his hand in his pocket. He lit a match and raised it to the height of her face to get a better look, but she pulled his fingers towards her and held him in her palm along with the extinguished match. A moment later the match fell into the dewy grass.

“Let it go,” he said.

She didn't look up at him. He silently took her by the elbow and pulled her along with him.

Looking at her untanned legs, she walked with him to the edge of a cool ravine, at the bottom of which, between mossy, willow-covered banks, a silent river flowed.

Ray Douglas Bradbury

Summer morning, summer night

Summer is over

One. Two. Hattie froze in bed, silently counting the slow, slow strokes of the courthouse chimes. Sleepy streets lay under the tower, and this city clock, round and white, became like the full moon, which at the end of summer invariably filled the town with an icy glow. Hattie's heart sank.

She jumped up to look around at the empty alleys that lined the dark, motionless grass. Below, the porch, disturbed by the wind, creaked barely audibly.

She moistened her earlobes with drops of perfume, ran lipstick over her nervous lips, shaded her eyebrows, and hastily painted her nails.

She walked out onto the landing of the sleeping house. I looked at the three white doors with caution: what if they suddenly opened? Leaning against the wall, she paused.

No one looked out into the corridor. Hattie stuck her tongue out first at one door, then at the other two.

While she was going down, not a single step on the stairs creaked; now the path lay on the moonlit porch, and from there onto a quiet street.

The air was already filled with the night aromas of September. The asphalt, which still retained heat, warmed her thin, untanned legs.

The patrolman, Mr. Walzer, walked along Glen Bay Street, humming something sad in his tenor voice. Hattie slid behind a tree and, listening to his singing, followed his broad back with her eyes.

Here it is, below - a sleeping town!

Thousands of roofs glistened with moonlight snow.

Not even a minute had passed before she was already running across the silky city lawns with sparkling eyes.

Now a house of whispers appeared in front of her.

Hiding under a very specific window, she heard two voices coming from the secret room, one male and one female.

Hattie leaned against the wall; Only whispers and whispers reached her ears. They, like two moths, fluttered inside and beat against the window glass. Then there was a muffled, distant laugh.

Hattie raised her hand to the glass, her face taking on an awestruck expression. Beads of sweat appeared above my upper lip.