"Twenty-Six Men and a Girl." Maxim Gorki.

“We were twenty-six men, twenty-six living machines cooped up in a dark hole of a basement where from morn till night we kneaded dough, making pretzels….” We had no sun. But there was Tanya. The twenty-six laborers made her their idol. She was beautiful and they worshipped her. Then came the bragging soldier and a bet that he could not seduce her. He did.

The twenty-six men berate her. She walks proudly through their ranks. “Then we too shuffled back to our damp stony dungeon. As of old, the sun never peered through our window, and Tanya came never more!....”

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.

"The Carriage." Nikolai Gogol.

A comedic vignette. A gentleman invites officers with whom he has been socializing to stop at his home the next day to see his carriage of which he is exceedingly proud. When you’re in the carriage, he tells the officers, it’s like being gently rocked in a baby carriage. But he drinks too much, comes home at 4 a.m., falls asleep and is not awake when the officers come calling on him. He tells the servants to tell the officers that he is not at home, runs to the carriage house in his night clothes and jumps into the carriage to hide himself from the officers. Disappointed that the gentleman is not at home, the officers decide at least to see this carriage of which the owner is so proud. They decide it’s a very ordinary carriage, disparage its appearance, check the inside and find the missing owner in his night clothes. That’s the story.

The story begins with a description of a shoddy, depressing town. And it is shoddy and depressing.

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.

"The Corn Dies." Jean Giono.

This was the time when tractor power did not exist and the only power was manpower, wielding a scythe on farm after farm in the broiling heat. Harvesting the corn, exhaustion made palpable. The back-breaking work of the harvest in the merciless heat of the sun, day after day, farm after farm. A good story to explain the way it was before tractor power. Excruciating details.

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.

"Our Lady's Juggler." Anatole France.

A medieval romance. The juggler has only one gift to offer to Our Lady, Mary, the Mother of God to whom he is devoted. One day, he juggles before her likeness on the altar and is about to be taken away by a priest and some others for blasphemy when the likeness of Mary, the Mother of God, comes to life and steps down from the altar to wipe the juggler’s sweat off his brow with the folds of her gown.

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.

"The Thief." Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The narrator rents a bed and a window seat to Astafi an retired former soldier who turns out to be a good story teller. When the narrator’s coat is stolen in broad daylight by a stranger, Astafi tells the story of an “honest thief,” Emelian, a man whose only occupation was drinking. Emelian drank because he could not do anything else that was more productive. And so he drank. One day Astafi’s breeches were stolen, but it was not until Emelian was on his death bed that Emelian admitted to having stolen them.

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.

"The Sardinian Fox." Grazia Deledda.

Beautiful, but unapproachable Zana alternately leads on and repulses the doctor who can’t help himself from being attracted to her. Always she wants from the doctor a bottle of poison—the ironic poison—because the person who takes it laughs while he dies. She says that she wants the poison for the “fox.” The “Fox” is her lover’s (Jacu’s) wife.

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.

"The Death of the Dauphin." Alphonse Daudet.

Review: The little Dauphin is dying. He expects that he will be a Dauphin in the hereafter, living a life of privilege, as on earth. The Chaplain tries to explain that he will not still be a Dauphin in the afterlife. The little Dauphin begins to understand. What good is it to be a Dauphin if you have to die like everyone else? And if you won’t retain your rank in after life? He turns toward the wall and weeps bitterly.

Fifty Great European Short Stories. Ed. Edward and Elizabeth Huberman. New York: Bantam Books. 1971.