Short Story Wednesday: Feuille D'Album by Katherine Mansfield

I discovered this story accidentally when I ran across some short story collections by Katherine Mansfield on Amazon. I had not read anything else by Katherine Mansfield and I looked for one of her stories to try out online. This was the first one I found."Feuille D'Album" The setting is Paris. The story was published first in The New Age in 1917, under the title of "An Album Leaf." A revised version later appeared in Bliss and Other Stories, a collection published in 1920.A young man is noticed by several women. He looks sad and forlorn and seems very shy. Various women approach him, try to befriend him. He is civil but not really interested in them so they finally give up on him. The story continues on to describe the young man and his life in a small studio at the top of a tall building. Eventually he notices a young woman about his age who lives in a small shabby house across the way from his small studio. From this distance he falls in love with her and imagines what her life is…