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A society hostess dazzled by artistic celebrity overlooks the quiet distinction of the doctor she has married.
A dignified old gardener answers a debate about justice with a legend about a town’s extraordinary faith in human goodness.
A sick doctor finds a telegram that confirms his wife’s affair and tries to release them both from a ruined marriage.
A stranded hospital assistant seeks shelter at a rural inn and finds himself drawn to the dangerous freedom of its notorious guests.
A laboring woman meets the husband who rarely comes home and asks him to stay, if only for a day.
A vain provincial actor’s boast about a conquest turns dangerous when one listener knows the woman and demands satisfaction.
One accidental kiss awakens a shy officer’s hope that his ordinary life might contain love after all.
A practiced seducer meets a married woman at a seaside resort and discovers that their affair has become more serious than either expected.
On Easter Eve, a worried deacon asks a learned priest to condemn his wayward son in a letter neither man can truly own.
A small-town mayor sees a visiting Persian dignitary as his best chance to acquire the decoration he covets.
On New Year’s Eve, a young woman peers into a mirror for a glimpse of marriage and sees far more of its demands than she expected.
A possible lottery win gives a comfortable couple a sudden view of riches—and of each other.
A teacher terrified of disorder hides behind rules and routines, until a lively woman and her defiant brother disturb his sealed existence.
A widow’s annual temperance luncheon drives her respectable guests to increasingly elaborate errands.
At an isolated railway tavern, two devout cousins clash over faith, money, and family rights as resentment turns dangerous.
A wealthy engineer and a poor village try to become good neighbors, but suspicion and small grievances steadily undo their goodwill.
While showing an architect a condemned tenement, a landlord recalls how one family’s ordinary poverty became a rapid descent.
A gifted speechmaker is hired to honor a dead civil servant, but his polished tribute proves more reusable than anyone expected.
A pregnant hostess endures a long name-day party while resentment, jealousy, and fatigue expose the strain in her marriage.
A gentle lawyer accepts a retired Cossack’s hospitality and spends a sleepless night inside the old man’s brutal, self-satisfied world.
A bailiff meets an old shepherd in a rain-soaked wood, where a dwindling natural world gives voice to their own despair.
A cheerful student rides the night mail and discovers that another man’s adventure can be a lifetime of cold, danger, and resentment.
A wealthy princess seeks spiritual peace at a monastery, where a former employee challenges her cherished image of her own goodness.
A provincial household prepares for a high-ranking uncle whose summer visit unsettles its routines, loyalties, and ideas about cultivated life.
