"The Long Rain" is a short story by science fiction author Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in 1950 as "Death-by-Rain" in the magazine “Planet Stories”, and then in the collection ”The Illustrated Man”. The story tells of four men who have crashed on a planet where it is always raining. As they try to reach the safety of the Sun Domes, they end up being driven insane by the endless rains.
The story was republished in several collections and was incorporated into the film adaptation of “The Illustrated Man”.
Plot summary
The story is set on Venus in a jungle, where a group of four men whose rocket has crashed are attempting to reach the safety of the Sun Dome. Bradbury portrays Venus as having nearly eternal rains. The men are led by a character who is only identified as "the Lieutenant". One of the men is killed by a lightning strike when he tries to run when "he shouldn't have jumped up". The three remaining men make their way to a Sun Dome, but find that it has been destroyed and offers no shelter from the rain. One of the men becomes despondent and stops responding, instead staring up into the rain. He is shot by Simmons who defends his actions as a mercy killing, preventing the man from slowly drowning as his lungs fill up with rain. As Simmons and the Lieutenant continue on to where they think the next Sun Dome should be, Simmons believes that he is also going to go insane before they reach safety, and so commits suicide. The Lieutenant continues on, and finally reaches the Sun Dome where he is warm and safe, with dry clothing and hot chocolate; although Bradbury hints that the refuge may just be a hallucination.” (wikipédia)
“A GRANDE CHUVA
(“Uma sombra passou por aqui”, de Ray Bradbury)
Continua a chuva. Chuva forte, perpétua, suada, fumegante, garoa, aguaceiro, fonte, enxugar de olhos, sucção nos tornozelos, chuva para afogar todas as chuvas e a recordação das chuvas.
...”
(tradução: Ruy Jungmann)
“The Long Rain
THE rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains. It came by the pound and the ton, it hacked at the jungle and cut the trees like scissors and shaved the grass and tunneled the soil and molted the bushes. It shrank men’s hands into the hands of wrinkled apes; it rained a solid glassy rain, and it never stopped.
-“How much farther, Lieutenant?”
-“I don’t know. A mile, ten miles, a thousand.”
-“Aren’t you sure?”
-“How can I be sure?”
-“I don’t like this rain. If we only knew how far it is to the Sun Dome, I’d feel better.”
-“Another hour or two from here.”
-“You really think so, Lieutenant?”
-“Of course.”
-“Or are you lying to keep us happy?”
-“I’m lying to keep you happy. Shut up!”
-The two men sat together in the rain. Behind them sat two other men who were wet and tired and slumped like clay that was melting.
…”
http://greenhumanities.edublogs.org/files/2012/09/Bradbury-Illustrated-Man-1wytglb.pdf
