A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Where does the story take place?
At a country christening, a priest discovers an unexpected tenderness as he holds his newborn nephew among the reveling family.
A lonely Parisian seeking company for the night hears a noise behind a hidden door in a sex worker’s rented room.
After burying a man celebrated for his honesty, his children open a private confession that forces them to choose between truth and family honor.
An austere officer returns from maneuvers burdened by one lapse and insists on confessing it to his far more worldly wife.
At her deathbed, a devoted younger sister asks forgiveness for the secret that has shaped both women’s lives.
A farmer bargains with a deathbed nurse, turning his mother's final hours into a contest of rural thrift.
A would-be lover accepts a suspiciously welcoming husband's invitation and discovers a precise defense against adultery.
Years after an abusive fisherman vanishes at sea, his widow hears his commanding voice return inside her quiet home.
On a storm-lashed Norman night, a fisherman’s friend keeps filling his glass while someone waits at the drunkard’s home.
A bickering couple hears a midnight intruder in the garden, and the husband’s investigation changes their marriage.
A skeptical magistrate recounts an unsolved Corsican murder involving a secretive Englishman and a chained human hand.
A country gentleman records the invisible presence that seems to drain his strength, command his will, and turn his home into a prison.
A contented clerk dismisses his beloved wife’s glittering jewels as paste until widowhood forces him to have one valued.
An experienced aunt advises her unhappy niece on the fine art of giving a kiss without wearing out its power.
A wealthy friend’s will leaves a married couple arguing over whether reputation matters more than one million francs.
A devoted widower pours all his love into the son his wife left behind, until an angry servant voices what the whole town knows.
A boastful old bachelor recalls his first society affair and the practical lesson he learned about privacy.
A fallen log prompts an old bachelor to explain how one dangerous evening ended a close friendship and settled his view of marriage.
A pious aristocratic family races to secure a freethinking marquis's last rites before scandal can reach the newspapers.
A masked dancer collapses at a Paris ball, and the face beneath his disguise leads a doctor into a marriage shaped by vanity and endurance.
A clerk’s dissatisfied wife borrows a glittering necklace for one night among the wealthy, then pays dearly when it vanishes.
A farming couple schedule a funeral around the colza crop, but the dying old man refuses to cooperate with their practical plans.
After burying his young wife, a colonel returns home to a letter in which she explains the hidden coercion behind her death.
An opium dreamer explains why the imagined East offers him the peace and pleasure he cannot find in modern life.
