A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Where does the story take place?
Returning to her family estate, a young heiress finds the freedom of the steppe at odds with the narrow life waiting for her at home.
At a remote railway station on New Year’s Eve, a bored official dares fate to prove that his life can still become worse.
A student asks his volatile father for money to return to Moscow, turning an ordinary family dinner into a reckoning none can resolve.
Escorted through autumn mud, a nameless tramp describes the free Siberian life he hopes awaits him beyond prison.
On Easter night, a ferry monk mourns the gentle hymn writer whose words the celebrating monastery never learned to value.
A self-declared man of violent temper tries to study dog licences while a determined young woman assigns him a romance.
Two tipsy lawyers take a wrong turn after a long walk from the station and break into the wrong country cottage.
A visit to his brother’s long-dreamed-of estate forces a traveler to ask what private happiness costs those left outside it.
Beneath the stars of the steppe, shepherds and an overseer trade legends of treasure and wonder what happiness might be.
On a remote railway line, an engineer’s late-night argument leads him to confess the human cost of his youthful nihilism.
When his sister leaves home for a married neighbor, a self-described liberal rides out to settle the scandal and tests his own beliefs.
Stranded by a blizzard beside a suicide, a young magistrate begins to see the hidden ties between official duty and human suffering.
Snowbound at a roadside tavern on Christmas Eve, a young landowner hears how a ruined idealist’s convictions consumed his life.
A rational man recalls three ordinary sights that, in solitude and darkness, became sources of overpowering terror.
A sick Moscow waiter returns with his wife and daughter to the village he remembers, only to find a family trapped by poverty, drink, and fear.
Driving his gravely ill wife through a blizzard, a drunken turner discovers remorse only when time is almost gone.
A landowner confides his fear that ordinary life is incomprehensible, unaware that his closest friend desires his wife.
Two chance encounters with remarkable young women leave a traveler pondering why beauty can bring as much sadness as delight.
On Easter morning, a newly married farmer passes a sick soldier on the road and cannot quiet his conscience afterward.
An impoverished old man can no longer feed the horse and dog that depend on him, yet neither anger nor dismissal can break their attachment.
On the road to an inquest, a magistrate challenges a doctor to explain a healthy woman’s precisely foretold death.
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.
