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A police superintendent’s idea of justice changes each time a biting dog seems to belong to someone more powerful.
A Russian landowner insults his silent English governess while fishing, certain that language protects him from judgment.
A bored husband reads his wife’s rambling letter and lectures her ignorance, exposing a contradiction in what he expects from women.
A polite writer grants an aspiring dramatist half an hour to read her work and discovers that she has brought five acts.
An eloquent abbot leaves his desert monastery to condemn the city’s sins, then discovers how seductive a warning can become.
Fresh from Crimea, a young wife condemns her companion’s holiday flirtation while describing her own trip in increasingly revealing detail.
Sheltering from a storm, a fearful forester says wicked men frighten him more than wild beasts—then a cry comes from outside.
A retired lieutenant spends a sweltering day condemning the town’s idle natives while his own hours slip away.
A self-dramatizing widow offers a young writer the tragic story of her life aboard a train.
A sober, pious man steals a midnight drink, swallows paraffin instead, and spends the night preparing for death.
An impoverished young woman supports a medical student who treats her body, labor, and loyalty as conveniences.
An impoverished landowner lectures a promising guest on aristocratic superiority while his daughters wait for a chance to speak.
An anonymous love letter sends a respectable married man to a garden rendezvous, where an unexpected rival refuses to leave.
Two childhood friends reunite warmly at a railway station until one learns the other’s official rank.
A Russian landowner’s casual nationalism turns a meal with his dependent French companion into an ordeal of insult and control.
A colonel’s widow demands protection from a scandalous hotel guest, then learns one detail that changes her view.
A school director promises a disabled teacher a lifeline, then discovers how quickly principle yields to well-connected pressure.
A young officer visits an unconventional distillery owner to collect a debt and finds his principles tested by her unsettling charm.
A merchant’s self-righteous tale about an orphan’s mother forces two unhappy village women to consider the limits of obedience.
A pompous official receives a tribute from his subordinates whose solemn meaning may not survive the trip home.
A chorus girl opens her door to her lover’s desperate wife and is made to answer for money she never received and choices she did not make.
On Easter Eve, a worried deacon asks a learned priest to condemn his wayward son in a letter neither man can truly own.
A widow’s annual temperance luncheon drives her respectable guests to increasingly elaborate errands.
A gifted speechmaker is hired to honor a dead civil servant, but his polished tribute proves more reusable than anyone expected.
