In 'Twilight', a fashionable lady is banished from Versailles by the King, and tries to make the best of life on her country estate. Versailles, for all its hollowness, was the only thing that gave her existence meaning; and although she entertains lovers and friends from Paris in her new home, she soon comes to find her new life intolerable — and moves inexorably towards suicide. In 'Moonbeam Alley', a traveller delayed in a French port explores the sailors' quarter. Enticed by a voice singing an aria, he enters a bar near the harbour, where he learns the story of those who run it and frequent it: a tale of violence, unrequited passion and untrue marriage.
