Fool’s Paradise by Isaac Bashevis Singer

    What is paradise like? Would people live happily in paradise? Atzel dreams to live in paradise and becomes ill. To the grief of his parents, he is willing to die. Why does Alzel want to go to paradise so much? Will his illness be cured? Please read the following cautionary tale magicallv told by the 1978 Nobel Prize winner in literature.

    Somewhere, sometime, there lived a rich man whose name was Kadish. He had an only son who was called Atzel. On the household of Kadish there lived a distant relative, an orphan girl, called Aksah. Atzel was a tall boy with black hair and black eyes. Aksah had blue eyes and golden hair. Both were about the same age. As children, they ate together, studied together, played together. It was taken for granted that when they grew up they would marry.
    But when they had grown up, Atzel suddenly became ill. It was a sickness one had ever heard of before: Atzel imagined that he was dead.
    How did such an idea come to him? It seems he had had an old nurse who constantly told stories about paradise. She had told him that in paradise it was not necessary to work or to study. In paradise one ate the meat of wild oxen and the flesh of whales; one drank the wine that the Lord reserved for the just; one slept late into the day; and one had no duties.
    Atzel was lazy by nature. He hated to get up early and to study. He knew that one day he would have to take over his father's business and he did not want to.
    Since the only way to get to paradise was to die, he had made up his mind to do just that as quickly as possible. He thought about it so much that soon he began to imagine that he was dead.
    Of course his parents became terribly worried. Aksah cried in secret. The family did everything possible to try to convince Atzel that he was alive, but he refused to believe them. He would say, "Why don't you bury me? You see that I am dead. Because of you I cannot get to paradise."
    Many doctors were called in to examine Atzel, and all tried to convince the boy that he was alive. They pointed out that he was talking and eating. But before long Atzel began to eat less, and he rarely spoke. His family feared that he would die.
    In despair, Kadish went to consult a great specialist, celebrated for his knowledge and wisdom. His name was Dr. Yoetz. After listening to a description of Atzers illness, he said to Kadish, "I promise to cure your son in eight days, on one condition. You must do whatever I tell you to, no matter how strange it may seem."
    Kadish agreed, and Dr. Yoetz said he would visit Atzel that same day. Kadish went home and told his wife, Aksah and the servants that all were to follow the doctor's orders without question.
    When Dr. Yoetz arrived, he was taken to Atzel’s room. The boy lay on his bed, pale and thin from fasting.
The doctor took one look at Atzel and called out, "Why do you keep a dead body in the house? Why don't you make a funeral?"
    On hearing these words the parents became terribly frightened, but Atzel’s face lit up with a smile and he said, "You see, I was right."
    Although Kadish and his wife were bewildered by the doctor's words, they remembered Kadish's promise, and went immediately to make arrangements for the funeral.
    The doctor requested that a room be prepared to look like paradise. The walls were hung with white satin. The windows were shuttered, and draperies tightly drawn. Candles burned day and night. The servants were dressed in white with wings on their backs and were to play angels.
    Atzel was placed in an open coffin, and a funeral ceremony was held. Atzel was so exhausted with happiness that he slept right through it. When he awoke, he found himself in a room he didn't recognize. ''Where am I?" he asked.
    "In paradise, my lord," a winged servant replied.
    "I’m terribly hungry," Atzel said. "I’d like some whale flesh and sacred wine."
    The chief servant clapped his hands and in came men servants and maids, all with wings on their backs, bearing golden trays laden with meat, fish, pomegranates and persimmons, pineapples and peaches. A tall servant with a long white beard carried a golden goblet full of wine. Atzel ate ravenously. When he had finished, he declared he wanted to rest. Two angels undressed and bathed him, and carried him to a bed with silken sheets and a purple velvet canopy. Atzel immediately fell into a deep and happy sleep.
    When he awoke, it was morning but it could just as well have been night. The shutters were closed, and the candles were burning. As soon as the servants saw that Atzel was awake, they brought in exactly the same meal as the day before.
    Atzel asked, "Don't you have any milk, coffee, fresh rolls and butter?"
    "No, my lord. In paradise one always eats the same food," the servant replied.
    "Is it already day, or is it still night?" Atzel asked.
    "In paradise there is neither day nor night."
    Atzel again ate the fish, meat, fruit, and drank the wine, but his appetite was not as good as it had been. When he had finished, he asked, "What time is it?"
    "In paradise time does not exist," the servant answered.
    “What shall I do now?" Atzel questioned.
    "In paradise, my lord, one doesn't do anything."
    "Where are the other saints?” Atzel inquired.
    "In paradise each family has a place of its own."
    "Can't one go visiting?"
    "In paradise the dwellings are too far from each other for visiting. It would take thousands of years to go from one to the other."
    "When will my family come?" Atzel asked.
    "Your father still has 20 years to live, your mother 30. And as long as they live they can't come here."
    "What about Aksah?"
    "She has 50 years to live."
    "Do I have to be alone all that time?"
    "Yes, my lord."
    For a while Atzel shook his head, pondering. Then he asked, "What is Aksah going to do?"
    "Right now, she's mourning for you. But sooner or later she will forget you, meet another young man, and marry. That's how it is with the living.”
    Atzel got up and began to walk to and fro. For the first time in years he had a desire to do something, but there was nothing to do in his paradise. He missed his father, he longed for his mother, he yearned for Aksah. He wished he had something to study; he dreamed of traveling; he wanted to ride his horse, to talk to friends.
    The time came when he could no longer hide his sadness. He remarked to one of the servants, "1 see now that it is not as bad to live as I had thought."
    “To live, my lord, is difficult. One has to study, work, do business. Here everything is easy."
    "I would rather chop wood and carry stones than sit here. And how long will this last?"
    "Forever."
    "Stay here forever?." Atzel began to tear his hair in grief. "I’d rather kill myself."
    "A dead man cannot kill himself."
    On the eighth day, when Atzel had reached the deepest despair, one of the servants, as had been arranged, came to him and said, "My lord, there has been a mistake. You are not dead. You must leave paradise."
    “I’m alive?"
   "Yes, you are alive, and I will bring you back to earth."
    Atzel was beside himself with joy. The servant blindfolded him, and after leading him back and forth through the long corridors of the house, brought him to the room where his family was waiting and uncovered his eyes.
    It was a bright day, and the sun shone through the open windows. In the garden outside, the birds were singing and the bees buzzing. Joyfully, he embraced and kissed his parents and Aksah.
    And to Aksah he said, "Do you still love me?"
    "Yes, I do, Atzel. I could not forget you."
    "If that is so, it is time we got married."
    It was not long before the wedding took place. Dr. Yoetz was the guest of honor. Musicians played; guests came from faraway cities. All brought fine gifts for the bride and groom. The celebration lasted seven days and seven nights.
    Atzel and Aksah were extremely happy, and both lived to an old age. Atzel stopped being lazy and became the most diligent merchant in the whole place.
    It was not until after the wedding that Atzel learned how Dr. Yoetz had cured him, and that he had lived in a fool's paradise. In the years to come, he and Aksah often told the tale of Dr. Yoetz's wonderful cure to their children and grandchildren, always finishing with the words, "But, of course, what paradise is really like, no one can tell."

Be judge and jury in this short story

A married couple live in a house on one side of a river. The wife has a lover who lives on the other side. The only way to get across the river is to walk across the bridge or to pay the boatman.

The husband has to go on an overnight business trip to a faraway town. The wife pleads with him to take her with him. She knows if that he doesn't she will be unfaithful to him. The husband absolutely refuses to take her because she will only be in the way of his important business. So the husband goes alone.

That night, the wife goes over the bridge and stays with her lover. Dawn is almost up when the wife leaves because she must be back home before her husband returns. She starts walking across the bridge but sees an assassin waiting for her on the other side. She knows if she tries to cross, he will murder her. In terror, she runs up the side of the river and asks the boatman to take her across the river, but he wants too much money. She doesn't have enough, so he refuses to take her.

The wife runs back to the lover's house and explains her predicament and asks him to pay the boatman. The lover refuses, telling her it's her own fault for getting into this situation. As dawn comes up the wife decides to dash across the bridge. She comes face to face with the assassin and he kills her.

The Open Window - By Saki

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

     Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

     "I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."

     Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.

     "Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

     "Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."

     He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

     "Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

     "Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

     "Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."

     "Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.


     "You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

     "It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"

     "Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - "

     She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

     "I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

     "She has been very interesting," said Framton.

     "I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"


     She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

     "The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.

     "No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.

     "Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

     Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

     In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

     Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.


     "Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

     "A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

     "I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

     Romance at short notice was her speciality.