Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Fox-13

For her own part, death was not her destiny. She would have to leave her destiny to the boy. But then, the boy. He wanted more than that. He wanted her to give herself without defences, to sink and become submerged in him. And she — she wanted to sit still, like a woman on the last milestone, and watch. She wanted to see, to know, to understand. She wanted to be alone: with him at her side.

And he! He did not want her to watch any more, to see any more, to understand any more. He wanted to veil her woman’s spirit, as Orientals veil the woman’s face. He wanted her to commit herself to him, and to put her independent spirit to sleep. He wanted to take away from her all her effort, all that seemed her very raison d’etre. He wanted to make her submit, yield, blindly pass away out of all her strenuous consciousness. He wanted to take away her consciousness, and make her just his woman. Just his woman.

And she was so tired, so tired, like a child that wants to go to sleep, but which fights against sleep as if sleep were death. She seemed to stretch her eyes wider in the obstinate effort and tension of keeping awake. She WOULD keep awake. She WOULD know. She WOULD consider and judge and decide. She would have the reins of her own life between her own hands. She WOULD be an independent woman to the last. But she was so tired, so tired of everything. And sleep seemed near. And there was such rest in the boy.

Yet there, sitting in a niche of the high, wild, cliffs of West Cornwall, looking over the westward sea, she stretched her eyes wider and wider. Away to the West, Canada, America. She WOULD know and she WOULD see what was ahead. And the boy, sitting beside her, staring down at the gulls, had a cloud between his brows and the strain of discontent in his eyes. He wanted her asleep, at peace in him. He wanted her at peace asleep in him. And THERE she was, dying with the strain of her own wakefulness. Yet she would not sleep: no, never. Sometimes he thought bitterly that he ought to have left her. He ought never to have killed Banford. He should have left Banford and March to kill one another.

But that was only impatience: and he knew it. He was waiting, waiting to go West. He was aching almost in torment to leave England, to go West, to take March away. To leave this shore! He believed that as they crossed the seas, as they left this England which he so hated, because in some way it seemed to have stung him with poison, she would go to sleep. She would close her eyes at last and give in to him.

And then he would have her, and he would have his own life at last. He chafed, feeling he hadn’t got his own life. He would never have it till she yielded and slept in him. Then he would have all his own life as a young man and a male, and she would have all her own life as a woman and a female. There would be no more of this awful straining. She would not be a man any more, an independent woman with a man’s responsibility. Nay, even the responsibility for her own soul she would have to commit to him. He knew it was so, and obstinately held out against her, waiting for the surrender.

‘You’ll feel better when once we get over the seas to Canada over there,’ he said to her as they sat among the rocks on the cliff.

She looked away to the sea’s horizon, as if it were not real. Then she looked round at him, with the strained, strange look of a child that is struggling against sleep.

‘Shall I?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he answered quietly.

And her eyelids dropped with the slow motion, sleep weighing them unconscious. But she pulled them open again to say:

‘Yes, I may. I can’t tell. I can’t tell what it will be like over there.’

‘If only we could go soon!’ he said, with pain in his voice.’

Saki

Saki is the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro, a British writer known mostly for his short stories. Saki was born in Burma, where he lived until his mother died after a miscarriage during a visit to England, when Saki was around two years old. The loss of her child was attributed to the significant shock she suffered after being charged by a bull, even though she wasn't struck by the animal. As a result, Saki was sent to live with his grandmother and two of his aunts in a very strict, religious household, which is believed to have influenced his writing and some of his characters.

When his father retired, he returned to England from Burma and took Saki and his siblings with him as he travelled through Europe. Saki made an attempt to follow in his father's footsteps as a member of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, but returned to England within a year and a half because of frequent illness.

Saki moved to London to become a writer. He was a frequent contributor to many of Britain's newspapers and magazines, where he published short stories and political sketches. As a writer, he served as a foreign correspondent in Russia, the Balkans, and Paris.

His satirical political writing is where his pen name emerged. It is either a reference to a cupbearer in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a collection of Persian poetry translated by Edward Fitzgerald, or a South American monkey.

Saki is believed to have been a homosexual but managed to keep his s****l orientation a secret. Homosexuality was a crime in Britain at the time, and other famous British authors' careers were ruined because of it—most notably, Oscar Wilde, who was a big influence on Saki.

At 43 years old, and well after his writing career had taken off, Saki volunteered to enlist during World War I. He demanded to be a soldier, and he refused to allow injury or illness keep him from the battlefield. He was killed by a German sniper in November 1916. His famous last words were supposedly: ''Put that b****y cigarette out.''