1In this collection of short stories, Stanislas M. Yassukovich has indulged his taste for nostalgic reverie. The tales are inspired by the people and places the author has encountered during a lifetime spent in cosmopolitan circles. The quirks of fate that move people from an apparently predestined course of life have provoked his imagination. Stanislas has drawn on a variety of conditions and personalities to colour his stories with the shades and lights of human existence. Pursuing a distinguished career as an international investment banker, Stanislas found relief from the pressures of business by writing fiction. He makes no apology for the fact that his characters and their settings invoke past times; the joys and disappointments described are common to all humankind. The personages portrayed are mostly from privileged backgrounds - but then so is the author. Stanislas has sought to convey his own view of life's vagaries through a stylistic prose which is itself reminiscent of writers of former times. The reader will find that the author's evocations linger on.