SYMBOLS AND SIGNS by Vladimir Nabokov

I was amazed at the excellent foreshadowing. An old couple visit a sanitarium where their son is hospitalized. The nurse says, “He has again attempted to take his life.” Not being able to meet their son, they return home disappointed. The writer reveals then how their son became mentally deranged.

At the end of the story, a telephone rings at night, “at an unusual hour for it to ring.” The wife replies, “You have a wrong number.” The telephone rings the second time. It is again a wrong number. But, just when the husband was about to eat fruit jellies, a birthday present for their son, the telephone rings. And the story ends.

The reader has to guess whether the nurse called them to inform them of their son’s suicide. The story abruptly ends by giving an impact to the reader.