Fifty-One Tales · Chapter
The City explained
The narrator's fancy takes him to a desert city at evening, where he observes poets and artists stealing away just before a doom falls upon the city.
What happens
The narrator's fancy takes him to a desert city at evening, where he observes poets and artists stealing away just before a doom falls upon the city. The remaining inhabitants, glad to be rid of them, continue their commerce. A thousand years later, nothing remains of the city.
Themes in this chapter
Art vs. Commerce
The poets and artists are driven out of the city, and the people are glad to be rid of them so they can focus on business.
The Futility of Human Ambition
The city, with its commerce and wrangling voices, is utterly destroyed within a thousand years, leaving nothing behind.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The narrator observes the city and its inhabitants, then departs before the doom falls.
Key passages
“It is well they are gone. We can do business now. It is well they are gone.”
The city's inhabitants are relieved that the poets and artists have left, believing they can now focus on commerce without distraction.
Highlights the tension between art and commerce, and the shortsightedness of the people.
“And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city.”
A millennium later, the city has completely vanished, with no trace remaining.
Emphasizes the theme of futility and the impermanence of human endeavors.