A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How the story is told.
A vain former minister recalls the ingenious deception that kept a clever bourgeois lover in his life for three years.
When a fisherman’s arm is trapped in a trawling cable, his captain brother must choose between saving him and saving an expensive net.
A doctor’s attempt to awaken an intellectually disabled girl’s mind leads her family into a marriage that makes affection another form of confinement.
A dying disciple of Schopenhauer recalls the night his teacher’s corpse seemed to retain its terrifying power.
A dazzling Mediterranean boat ride turns from news of disaster to a friend’s indecorous tale about snow.
A young Norman soldier asks his parents to judge the Black woman he hopes to marry on her character rather than her skin.
A lonely Parisian’s plan for a generous Christmas supper with a stranger develops an alarming complication before bedtime.
A naval officer recalls an Indian expedition where a prince’s troubling gift binds him to a child trapped by courtly power.
A childhood memory of an old seamstress opens onto the secret act of courage that shaped her entire life.
A retired notary asks for a divorce after discovering the ingenious history behind his wife’s advertised fortune.
Five bored men ask a doctor for a new pleasure, and his account of ether offers more temptation than warning.
Hussars holding a ruined village turn Twelfth Night into an improvised feast before war abruptly reclaims the evening.
A man who believes himself untouched by age meets the woman he once adored and sees twelve lost years all at once.
At a desolate tarn, a boatman shows a traveler the blood-red cross marking where the Wandering Jew supposedly died.
A seasoned traveller argues that real fear comes not from known danger, but from what the mind cannot explain.
A midnight train encounter leads two travelers through unsettling accounts of the dread inspired by things not yet understood.
A lonely traveler reunites with a boastful school friend whose lavish home hides an unexpected family business.
A boulevardier’s sympathy for a young widow in Montmartre Cemetery leads to an affair—and a question about who is hunting whom.
When distant Corsica appears across the evening sea, an old traveler recalls a noblewoman who gave up society for lasting love.
Spring fever draws a young man toward a stranger on the Seine, until another passenger offers an urgent warning about love.
Two tipsy noblewomen trade secrets, and one boasts of turning a servant’s devotion into summer entertainment.
A man who fears his own hands demonstrates a power over minds and objects that leaves his friend unsure whether either of them is sane.
A traveler joins a sparsely attended funeral and learns how a town punished a woman for the violence done to her as a child.
In an asylum, a beautiful woman hides imaginary scars while a doctor explains the guilt behind her delusion.
