A boy who feels persecuted by the banality of everyday life yearns to ascend to the cold and majestic plane of the stars. A seamstress finds liberation of a sort in "becoming" a dog and howling at the moon. A club of young girls masquerade as the grieving fianc es of strange men. This book brings together these and other remarkable short stories by the Russian Symbolist Fyodor Sologub that explore the lengths to which people will go to transcend...