A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

Two men putting on a production for their New York theater company seek out a legendary, elderly actor, but upon finding him, they meet a man as dilapidated as the theater he once worked for.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

An elderly shopkeeper tells a customer about his experiences as a prominent actor's understudy for various decades. The customer witnesses how the old man's obsessions with his unfulfilling acting career still occupy his everyday thoughts and behaviors.

A Canadian graduate student and his wife are living in France and often socialize with their peers at concerts and dinner parties. They soon make friends with an established novelist, but as the student continues to meet people he begins to question who he can trust and who his real friends are.

When a professor of French literature attends a tribute event in New York City for her old playwriting teacher, she remembers how young she was when their unconventional relationship transpired.

An American writer travels to Sophia where he meets a famous poetess. He falls in love with her and her attitude.

A writer and his student are implicated in a rumor.