A collection of short tales drawing on legends and traditions from the Balkans, Greece, Japan, China and India. Yourcenar retells and reimagines stories of painters, lovers, saints and ordinary people, often with a touch of the marvellous. The pieces are brief and polished, and they share a concern with devotion, beauty, sacrifice and the strange ways people shape their own fates. The book shows her gift for borrowing from many cultures while keeping a calm, classical style.