A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How quickly the story moves.
An accomplished engineer complains that the public knows performers and criminals better than builders and scholars—until his seatmate tests the claim.
One enormous eelpout under a riverbank root draws workers, a shepherd, and their master into the water.
A society hostess dazzled by artistic celebrity overlooks the quiet distinction of the doctor she has married.
A dignified old gardener answers a debate about justice with a legend about a town’s extraordinary faith in human goodness.
A sick doctor finds a telegram that confirms his wife’s affair and tries to release them both from a ruined marriage.
A stranded hospital assistant seeks shelter at a rural inn and finds himself drawn to the dangerous freedom of its notorious guests.
A laboring woman meets the husband who rarely comes home and asks him to stay, if only for a day.
A practiced seducer meets a married woman at a seaside resort and discovers that their affair has become more serious than either expected.
On New Year’s Eve, a young woman peers into a mirror for a glimpse of marriage and sees far more of its demands than she expected.
A possible lottery win gives a comfortable couple a sudden view of riches—and of each other.
A teacher terrified of disorder hides behind rules and routines, until a lively woman and her defiant brother disturb his sealed existence.
A widow’s annual temperance luncheon drives her respectable guests to increasingly elaborate errands.
At an isolated railway tavern, two devout cousins clash over faith, money, and family rights as resentment turns dangerous.
A wealthy engineer and a poor village try to become good neighbors, but suspicion and small grievances steadily undo their goodwill.
While showing an architect a condemned tenement, a landlord recalls how one family’s ordinary poverty became a rapid descent.
A gentle lawyer accepts a retired Cossack’s hospitality and spends a sleepless night inside the old man’s brutal, self-satisfied world.
A cheerful student rides the night mail and discovers that another man’s adventure can be a lifetime of cold, danger, and resentment.
A wealthy princess seeks spiritual peace at a monastery, where a former employee challenges her cherished image of her own goodness.
At his daughter’s requiem, a proud village shopkeeper tries to reconcile religious judgment with the child he barely knew.
Seven-year-old Pashka is left overnight at a rural hospital, where promised treats give way to a world he cannot understand.
A gravely ill schoolmaster insists on attending the annual dinner that celebrates his pupils, determined to reject every hint of weakness.
On the long road back to her village school, an exhausted teacher confronts the life that work and isolation have reduced to routine.
On a cold Good Friday evening, a theology student tells two widows a Gospel story and is startled by their response.
Newly married to a wealthy older colonel, a young woman remains fixated on the indifferent friend she once hoped to marry.
