A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
The narrator’s attitude toward the story.
A curious narrator searches for the secret behind a celebrated war hero whose perfect appearance seems too complete to be natural.
A curious traveler visits a private asylum and joins an elegant dinner where every guest seems slightly out of place.
A town's most trusted man leads the hunt for a missing neighbor while every clue points to the victim's disgraced nephew.
Two hunters leave a lonely Norman château for midnight Mass and a condolence call that turns Christmas custom into grim comedy.
When a timid civil servant’s elderly mother is declared dead, grief soon competes with inheritance, office protocol, and his wife’s practical schemes.
A rural assize tries two drunken men whose attempt to price a wife by volume turns marriage, commerce, and justice into grotesque comedy.
A landowner recalls forcing his pregnant servant into a marriage arranged to protect his own name.
A doctor explains how a married woman, a dead lover, and an imminent homecoming demanded instant deception.
A married woman’s secret meetings are repeatedly interrupted by the toddler who sleeps in the next room.
A dying disciple of Schopenhauer recalls the night his teacher’s corpse seemed to retain its terrifying power.
A lonely Parisian’s plan for a generous Christmas supper with a stranger develops an alarming complication before bedtime.
A farm girl’s pregnancy forces her hard-nosed mother to weigh family honor against the price of a weekly coach ride.
A rural court must decide whether an older woman can reclaim land from the young man she raised, supported, and expected never to leave.
A trusted servant attacks his master for money, then becomes the most devoted nurse the wounded man could ask for.
Hussars holding a ruined village turn Twelfth Night into an improvised feast before war abruptly reclaims the evening.
A devoted hunter arrives late for the annual guillemot shoot carrying an obligation that tests the limits of his sporting priorities.
A forester’s fearless daughter faces six lost Prussian soldiers alone in a snowbound forest house.
An old colonial officer recalls a seven-man punitive expedition whose celebrated success depended on ruthless deception and force.
Five penniless boating friends find their carefree life on the Seine transformed by the quick-witted young woman who takes the helm.
A thrifty Norman widow takes in a small dog, then discovers that protecting her property carries an unwelcome cost.
A respected provincial hostess maintains a secret hotel room for discreet affairs until one extra rendezvous collides with an innkeeper’s concealment.
A boastful Norman farmer turns the Prussian soldier billeted with him into a local joke, until humiliation becomes dangerous.
A husband’s teasing questions about his wife’s first marriage turn posthumous jealousy into a dangerous demand for honesty.
A farmer bargains with a deathbed nurse, turning his mother's final hours into a contest of rural thrift.
