"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury written as a chronicle about a lone house that stands intact in a California city that has otherwise been obliterated by a nuclear bomb, and then is destroyed in a fire caused by a windstorm.

The title is from a 1918 poem of the same name by Sara Teasdale that was published during World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. It was first published in 1950 in two different versions in two separate publications, a one-page short story in Collier's magazine and a chapter of the fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles.

The author regarded it as "the one story that represents the essence of Ray Bradbury". Bradbury's foresight in recognizing the potential for the complete self-destruction of humans by nuclear war in the work was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Board in conjunction with awarding a Special Citation in 2007 that noted, "While time has (mostly) quelled the likelihood of total annihilation, Bradbury was a lone voice among his contemporaries in contemplating the potentialities of such horrors." The author considered the short story as the only one in The Martian Chronicles to be a work of science fiction.

Plot
A nuclear catastrophe leaves the city of Allendale, California, entirely desolate. However, within one miraculously preserved house, the daily routine continues – automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state as burnt silhouettes on one of the walls, similar to Human Shadow Etched in Stone. One afternoon, a dog is allowed into the house when it is recognized as the family pet, but it dies soon after and is incinerated.

That evening, the house recites to the absent hostess her favorite poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale. A windstorm blows a tree branch through a window in the kitchen, starting a fire. The house's systems desperately attempt to put out the fire, but the doomed home burns to the ground in a night. The following dawn all that remains is a single wall, from which a voice endlessly repeats the time and date.

свернуть