Read A Wild Swan for Free Online

this warren of dim, low-ceilinged dankness could be theirs.
    A more sensible wish is difficult to imagine.
    Nothing happens. No wad of bank notes manifests itself in the sugar bowl, no coins rattle down the flue.
    They take themselves off to bed.
    Once Mr. and Mrs. White are settled under the quilts together, she does not wonder, even as sleep descends, why she married a man who’d convey her, after their modest village wedding, to a place like this. (Should she have guessed, when he appeared at their marriage ceremony in his father’s mothballed suit, when he insisted that a carriage was a needless expense?) Mr. White, a troubled sleeper, does not inquire inwardly, as he turns this way and that, trying to find a sleep-friendly position, about his choice of a wife so lacking in ambition or faith. He does not ask himself, Why would full ownership of this hovel so much as cross her mind, even in jest?
    *   *   *
    The next morning, the son leaves for work. By late afternoon, a representative of the factory arrives to inform Mr. and Mrs. White that there’s been an accident. Their son has been snatched up by his machine, as if he were the raw material for some product made of manglement, of bone shards and snapped sinews, of blood-spray that turned quickly, before the eyes of the other workers, from red to black.
    The man from the factory is appropriately, professionally sympathetic. He knows there’s no compensation for a loss like this. The factory owners do, however, maintain a practice of paying the families of the men who are, on occasion, taken by the machines. It’s not much, God knows, but the company is prepared to offer the following sum of money to the boy’s parents …
    You do not, of course, need me to tell you the actual figure.
    Nor do you need me to tell you—certainly not in detail—about the boy’s grief-deranged mother, who made the wish in the first place; about how she, late one night—several days after what remains of her son has been sealed into its box (there was no viewing of the body), after the box has been interred in the weedy churchyard—takes up the monkey’s paw and calls, into the empty parlor, into the rain beyond the parlor, “Bring him back.”
    Nothing happens.
    Nothing happens immediately.
    It takes several hours for the Whites, after they’ve gone to bed, to hear the sound of approaching footsteps, coming from outside. It takes only moments, however, for them to realize that the footsteps possess a measured slowness, an aspect of drag, as if each step did not involve boot-sole leaving the surface of the ground and so has to be painfully gained, a slide through the sludge, before the next step can be negotiated.
    Both of them understand it at the same moment. It’s a long walk from the cemetery.
    Mrs. White rushes down the narrow stairs, with Mr. White behind her.
    â€œHe’s back!” she declares.
    He can barely bring himself to respond. “ It’s back.”
    The mauled corpse, the creature made now of shattered bone and crushed mask of a face (the creature who had once toddled giggling after a rubber ball, who had skated cheerfully on ponds with its friends) is back. It is, even now, creaking through the garden gate.
    It has been summoned. It still recognizes the light in the window.
    As Mrs. White struggles to unbolt the door, Mr. White takes up the monkey’s paw. He’s prepared to shout, “Make it go away.”
    And yet, he remains silent. He knows what he should do. But he can’t bear the idea of his wife throwing open the door and finding nothing but wind outside. He’s not sure he could survive the sorrow and fury she’d aim at him when she turned back from the empty threshold.
    So Mr. White stands in the middle of the room, holding the monkey’s paw tightly in his hand, as his wife throws the door open, as he and his wife behold what stands before them,