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A practical railway guard hires a matchmaker and explains, in exact detail, the wife required for his future happiness.
A wealthy lover tries to settle an adulterous triangle with cash, only to discover that affection cannot be bought.
A conscientious husband hires a midwife by night, but his rigid sense of fairness turns every ordinary exchange into an ordeal.
A self-dramatizing widow offers a young writer the tragic story of her life aboard a train.
A barber learns midway through a free haircut that poverty has cost him the woman he loves.
Five children turn a forbidden late-night game of loto into a small world of greed, vanity, kindness, quarrels, and sudden sleep.
After a ball, a wealthy manufacturer drinks through the night and confesses that money has made every relationship feel bought.
A visit to his brother’s long-dreamed-of estate forces a traveler to ask what private happiness costs those left outside it.
Beneath the stars of the steppe, shepherds and an overseer trade legends of treasure and wonder what happiness might be.
An opera star’s quiet night is interrupted by a husband whose grand business plans always require her money.
A banker’s reckless wager condemns a young lawyer to fifteen years of voluntary solitude for a fortune.
A cattle merchant crosses Russia by freight train, paying at every stop while schedules, regulations, and neglect consume his profit.
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.
A possible lottery win gives a comfortable couple a sudden view of riches—and of each other.
A mock scientific essay defines the perfect swindler and catalogs the small cons that make fraud look respectable.
A proud entrepreneur explains the strict method behind a career built on nuisance, provocation, fraud, and other unusual trades.
An heir uses an immense fortune to create a private landscape meant to surpass nature without losing its beauty.
A reclusive naturalist follows a cryptogram from a found parchment into the South Carolina woods in search of pirate treasure.
A wealthy young man rejects status and politics to treat landscape gardening as an art and a plan for a happy life.
A journalist reports that an obscure chemist has found a way to turn lead into pure gold.
A childless couple’s expected inheritance comes with one condition, turning marital respectability into a desperate financial problem.
A charming idler marries a wealthy Englishwoman and devises a careful scheme to preserve both his allowance and his affairs.
A farm girl’s pregnancy forces her hard-nosed mother to weigh family honor against the price of a weekly coach ride.
A rural court must decide whether an older woman can reclaim land from the young man she raised, supported, and expected never to leave.
