短篇小说就像是一张张照片，抓住人们生活中的某一瞬间并将这一记忆永久封存。它们就在那儿，或微笑，或蹙眉，或忧伤，或快乐，或严肃，或惊奇……在这微笑和蹙眉的背后，是生活中的所有经历，有恐惧和喜悦，也有希望和梦想。

这些敏锐而又优雅的故事给我们展示的是平凡人的生活，以及构成平凡人生活的琐碎而又微不足道的小事情。其中包括一次园会和一起死亡事件;一次拼命找工作的经历;一次孤独的跨越欧洲的火车旅行;与一位身藏危险秘密的女人的相遇。还有不近人情的孩子们;年轻姑娘第一次参加舞会时的感受;女主人的贴身女仆的想法;以及新西兰偏僻农场中一个女人的故事。

我们从巴黎一位艺术家的画室开始我们的故事，这个年轻人对于周围的女人们来说是个谜……

Short stories can be like photographs, catching people at some moment in their lives and trapping the memory for ever. There they are, smiling or frowning, looking sad, happy, serious, surprised... And behind those smiles and those frowns lie all the experiences of life, the fears and delights, the hopes and the dreams.

These sensitive and delicate stories give us pictures of ordinary people, and of the small, unimportant events that shape their lives. There is a garden party and a death, a desperate search for work, a journey alone across Europe by train, a meeting with a woman who has a dangerous secret. There are children being cruel, the feelings of a young girl at her first dance, the thoughts of a lady's maid, and of a woman on a lonely farm in New Zealand.

We begin in an artist's studio in Paris, with a young man who is a mystery to the women around him...