Arabesque—The Mouse (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: A. E. Coppard
- First Published: 1921
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The early twentieth century
- Setting: England
- Principal Characters: Filip, His mother, Cassia, The mouse
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Justice, Mothers, Parents and children, Books, England or English people, Surgery or surgeons, Death or dying, Lower classes, Reading, Amputation, amputees, or prosthetics, Loneliness, Rats or mice, Heart
- Locales: England
The Story
Filip, a middle-aged man, sits in his room on the fourth floor of an old house in the commercial area of a city. He is reading a Russian novel, as is his late-evening habit. After becoming aware of a small mouse scurrying about the room, he baits a trap to catch it. There are many mice in the building; he knows he must try to eradicate them but feels pity for the bright-eyed rodent. He says, “Mean—so mean, to appeal to the hunger of any living thing just in order to destroy it.” This sentence becomes a key to the flashbacks that follow.
Filip remembers...
[The entire page is 1345 words long]
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