Inspiration Relay
The last forty chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber are lost. Qing-dynasty readers wrote dozens of sequels, each unconvinced by the others. Now it's your turn — take the baton and write your version. Every continuation stays here, growing into one tree.
This week's relay
Russian · Fyodor Dostoevsky · Russia
The epilogue gives us Raskolnikov in Siberia, seven years of labor, and the first hint that love might remake him. Dostoevsky stops at the threshold of the...
Russian · Fyodor Dostoevsky · Russia (unfinished plan) · novels
Continue The Brothers Karamazov: Alyosha's unwritten novel
Dostoevsky died before writing the planned sequel — Alyosha's story was meant to be the real novel. The greatest...
Russian · Alexander Pushkin · Russia · stories
Continue The Queen of Spades: the fourth card
Hermann knows the three cards — three, seven, ace — and plays them all. The queen appears instead, winking....
Russian · Alexander Pushkin · Russia · novels
Continue Eugene Onegin: after the rejection
Tatyana rejects Onegin — 'I love you, but I belong to another; I will be faithful to him forever.' Pushkin's duel of...
Russian · Ivan Turgenev · Russia · novels
Continue Fathers and Sons: Odintsova after
Bazarov — the nihilist who dissected frogs and mocked everything — dies of typhus, asking for Odintsova, suddenly...
Russian · Anton Chekhov · Russia · plays
Continue The Cherry Orchard: Firs alone
The cherry orchard is cut down; the sound of the axe echoes as the family leaves. Firs, the old servant, is...