Victorian Short Stories

In a Venetian canal, two upside-down reflections meet—and a flower tossed into the water becomes a greeting. For a man confined to his room, this strange courtship is the brightest thing in his day.

The collection opens in late-Victorian Venice, where a poor, paralyzed Englishman watches life across a narrow canal from his window. Angela, first glimpsed as a child in the reflection below her balcony, grows up before his eyes; their shy exchange of flowers gives him a reason to hope, even as he can know her only at a distance. Then a gondolier appears, and the meanings of the flowers—and of the bond they seem to share—may not be what the watcher imagines. What can two people say to each other across the water?

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