Born in Transylvania in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Miklós Bánffy lived to witness both the zenith of that Empire and its fall. The short stories in this collection, from the tale of the idle young man dawdling pleasantly in Venice to the Romanian villager meditating revenge on his tormentor, draw on the author’s experiences of life, love, sacrifice, betrayal and courage, and reveal, as a recurring leitmotif, an indomitable will to survive. Now published in English for the first time.