A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How quickly the story moves.
A caustic observer attacks Parisian politicians, journalists, and friends whose charm masks fickle loyalties and flexible principles.
A solitary walker falls in love with a seaside house—and with the unknown woman whose photograph hangs inside.
When distant Corsica appears across the evening sea, an old traveler recalls a noblewoman who gave up society for lasting love.
A severe priest sets out to confront his niece’s secret lover, but the moonlit countryside challenges his certainty.
An aging actress welcomes a traveler into the flower-covered villa where she lives with portraits of the men who loved her.
A hunter in a frozen marsh witnesses a wild bird's devotion and finds his sport transformed by the sight.
A provincial town crowns its shyest young man as a model of virtue, then watches its solemn civic experiment take an unruly turn.
A Norman brothel closes for a country confirmation, carrying its lively household from familiar commerce into an unexpected sacred occasion.
In a quiet Paris garden, a young law student befriends two forgotten dancers who still inhabit the manners of another century.
A wandering painter befriends an eccentric Englishwoman on the Normandy coast and discovers the feeling beneath her reserve.
Five penniless boating friends find their carefree life on the Seine transformed by the quick-witted young woman who takes the helm.
A forgotten spa diary records twenty-five days of treatments, flirtation, boredom, and selective moral philosophy.
A writer reflects on the attraction and menace of cats before recalling a night when one seemed to rule an old castle.
A night of torch fishing on the Algerian coast leads an old school friend to disclose the jealousy that drove him from France.
Unable to sleep in an old family bedroom, a guest discovers secret love letters hidden beneath its severe former occupant’s portrait.
At a crowded riverside resort, a young man’s absolute devotion collides with a lover whose desires he cannot control or understand.
Alone in the house of her whole life, an elderly woman writes to a friend about memory, aging, and the objects that preserve vanished lives.
On a nighttime walk through Paris, a convivial dinner guest argues that no friendship or love can breach the solitude of the mind.
A farm servant’s brief romance leaves her facing motherhood, secrecy, and a marriage shaped by work, fear, and rural necessity.
Letters hidden inside an old chasuble reveal a bedridden woman’s intimate meditation on the object that holds birth, love, illness, and death.
Two poachers on the Seine buy a dying donkey, turn its suffering into sport, and look for one more way to profit.
A dying woman on the sunny Riviera remembers the cold Norman marriage that made illness feel like her only path to escape.
An Indian prince’s cremation beneath the cliffs of Étretat confronts a French resort town with an unfamiliar rite.
An experienced aunt advises her unhappy niece on the fine art of giving a kiss without wearing out its power.
