"We think of Honore Balzac as the author of long and fully upholstered novels, stitched together into the magnificent visionary document called The Human Comedy. Yet along with the full-length fiction within The Human Comedy stand many shorter works, and it's here that we get some of his most daring explorations of crime, sexuality, and artistic creation. As Marcel Proust noted, it is in these tales that we detect, under the surface, the mysterious circulation of blood and desire. All are newly translated by three outstanding translators who restore the freshness of Balzac's vivid and highly colored prose"--Provided by publisher.