A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How the prose reads.
When a fisherman’s arm is trapped in a trawling cable, his captain brother must choose between saving him and saving an expensive net.
A celebrated cavalry officer returns from war expecting to reclaim his glamorous lover, only to confront a form of sacrifice he cannot understand.
A doctor’s attempt to awaken an intellectually disabled girl’s mind leads her family into a marriage that makes affection another form of confinement.
A dying disciple of Schopenhauer recalls the night his teacher’s corpse seemed to retain its terrifying power.
A dazzling Mediterranean boat ride turns from news of disaster to a friend’s indecorous tale about snow.
A young Norman soldier asks his parents to judge the Black woman he hopes to marry on her character rather than her skin.
A charming idler marries a wealthy Englishwoman and devises a careful scheme to preserve both his allowance and his affairs.
Ten travelers flee occupied Rouen, but their escape stalls when a Prussian officer makes one passenger’s body the price of everyone’s freedom.
A self-assured traveler plots a conquest on the road to Corsica, certain he has read his companion correctly.
A naval officer recalls an Indian expedition where a prince’s troubling gift binds him to a child trapped by courtly power.
A childhood memory of an old seamstress opens onto the secret act of courage that shaped her entire life.
A resentful farm boy assigned to care for an old horse turns an ordinary chore into a test of mercy.
Lonely and aging, a Parisian baron travels south to meet the grown son he secretly supported but has never seen.
Hussars holding a ruined village turn Twelfth Night into an improvised feast before war abruptly reclaims the evening.
A man who believes himself untouched by age meets the woman he once adored and sees twelve lost years all at once.
At a desolate tarn, a boatman shows a traveler the blood-red cross marking where the Wandering Jew supposedly died.
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 letter from a former lover forces an aging bachelor to compare his remembered youth with the man he has become.
A solitary walker falls in love with a seaside house—and with the unknown woman whose photograph hangs inside.
An old school friend visits a conservative country household and treats their hospitality as permission to remake it.
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 devoted hunter arrives late for the annual guillemot shoot carrying an obligation that tests the limits of his sporting priorities.
