A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How the prose reads.
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 rural court must decide whether an older woman can reclaim land from the young man she raised, supported, and expected never to leave.
A retired notary asks for a divorce after discovering the ingenious history behind his wife’s advertised fortune.
Five bored men ask a doctor for a new pleasure, and his account of ether offers more temptation than warning.
Hussars holding a ruined village turn Twelfth Night into an improvised feast before war abruptly reclaims the evening.
A seasoned traveller argues that real fear comes not from known danger, but from what the mind cannot explain.
A midnight train encounter leads two travelers through unsettling accounts of the dread inspired by things not yet understood.
A caustic observer attacks Parisian politicians, journalists, and friends whose charm masks fickle loyalties and flexible principles.
A lonely traveler reunites with a boastful school friend whose lavish home hides an unexpected family business.
A boulevardier’s sympathy for a young widow in Montmartre Cemetery leads to an affair—and a question about who is hunting whom.
A confirmed bachelor plans to marry a near stranger because one empty armchair has made solitude unbearable.
An uninformed bride mistakes her wedding night for an attack, then becomes convinced a playful dog bite has doomed her honeymoon.
Three protected schoolboys share a railway carriage with a woman whose sudden crisis defeats every adult precaution.
Spring fever draws a young man toward a stranger on the Seine, until another passenger offers an urgent warning about love.
An aging Parisian couple's return to the woods of their courtship ends with an embarrassed appearance before the village mayor.
A married couple stages an illicit evening together, only for honest questions to become more stimulating than the disguise.
Two tipsy noblewomen trade secrets, and one boasts of turning a servant’s devotion into summer entertainment.
A confirmed skeptic of love recalls the moonlit boat ride that briefly unsettled all his carefully reasoned certainty.
A man who fears his own hands demonstrates a power over minds and objects that leaves his friend unsure whether either of them is sane.
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.
At a Twelfth Night dinner, a guest asks how the household’s quiet companion came to live there and what her place has cost her.
A dinner-table skeptic challenges tales of telepathy and prophecy, then offers two unsettling examples from his own experience.
