Two short stories, by two Austrian writers, about travels. Gute Reise, bon voyage!

Two short stories tonight: one classic, one modern; one Russian, one German; one by Chekhov, one by Kusenberg.

A surprisingly light and playful story by Bret Harte: The Indiscretion of Elsbeth.

Everyone knows about this story. How many have read it? Here is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.”

Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party,” first published in 1922, and as fresh, engaging, and enigmatic now as when it first appeared in the Westminster Gazette.

A brace of stories by Anton Chekhov: “The Bet” and “A Work of Art.”

Werner Bergengruen takes an amused and skeptical look at misleading national identities in his story “The Sand Doctor.”

A brace of stories by the ever-engaging O. Henry: “One Thousand Dollars” and “While the Auto Waits.”

Susan Glaspell’s compassionate story of a professor as he reflects on a forty-year career and what it may have meant.

Alphonse Daudet’s "The Pope's Mule" is the amusing story of an animal that waited patiently for seven years to repay a man who mistreated her.