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A lonely Parisian’s plan for a generous Christmas supper with a stranger develops an alarming complication before bedtime.
A fashionable niece condemns modern manners, and her older aunt answers with a sharper lesson in observation.
A caustic observer attacks Parisian politicians, journalists, and friends whose charm masks fickle loyalties and flexible principles.
An old school friend visits a conservative country household and treats their hospitality as permission to remake it.
A boulevardier’s sympathy for a young widow in Montmartre Cemetery leads to an affair—and a question about who is hunting whom.
Three protected schoolboys share a railway carriage with a woman whose sudden crisis defeats every adult precaution.
A traveler joins a sparsely attended funeral and learns how a town punished a woman for the violence done to her as a child.
A provincial town crowns its shyest young man as a model of virtue, then watches its solemn civic experiment take an unruly turn.
A pregnant widow is sued in open court by the married man she promised to pay for helping secure an inheritance.
A Norman brothel closes for a country confirmation, carrying its lively household from familiar commerce into an unexpected sacred occasion.
A society observer explains why a fashionable countess is said to have killed her daughter without committing a crime.
A rebellious law student smuggles a shopgirl into his strict Breton landlady’s house and learns her rules have unexpected limits.
A forgotten spa diary records twenty-five days of treatments, flirtation, boredom, and selective moral philosophy.
A poor family builds its hopes around an absent uncle’s promised fortune during a long-awaited holiday to Jersey.
A French traveler among English hotel guests turns hymns, dancing, and Scripture into a private war.
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 shopkeeper’s unwanted kiss becomes a scandal, and the charming friend sent to repair it proves no model of restraint.
A lavish wedding breakfast paid for by an estranged daughter turns awkward when the groom chooses the wrong song.
A husband’s teasing questions about his wife’s first marriage turn posthumous jealousy into a dangerous demand for honesty.
An art dealer lends a cash-strapped baroness a Renaissance Christ and trusts her to invent a profitable story around it.
A doctor’s defense of a desperate mother leads him to recount a widow’s struggle with pregnancy and public shame.
An austere officer returns from maneuvers burdened by one lapse and insists on confessing it to his far more worldly wife.
A wealthy friend’s will leaves a married couple arguing over whether reputation matters more than one million francs.
