story-to-pack: add the corpora and the catalogue v2/v3

Fourteen corpora split and classified: aesop, bierce, chekhov, holmes,
keefe, lawson, lorimer, maupassant, nobody, plaintales, poe, torchy,
wallingford and winesburg, each with its splitter and the hand-written
groups and pages; catalogue v2 and v3; and the shared splitters
gutenberg_chunks.py, se_split.py and se_build.py.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019rwKTmug58sEsJ72AuWsEi
This commit is contained in:
JesseMarkowitz
2026-10-07 06:05:51 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5.5
parent e5617b86ba
commit 3a4758172d
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[
{"chunk": 0, "story": 0, "summary": "A village schoolmistress of thirteen years rides back from town with her monthly pay; the spring morning means nothing to her, and she can imagine no future but the same school and the same road.", "predicament": "A woman who has done the same dull duty for years can no longer imagine any other life for herself."},
{"chunk": 1, "story": 0, "summary": "She has nearly forgotten her childhood family, and her brother has stopped writing; on the road a wealthy neighbour who once examined her pupils overtakes her cart and greets her.", "predicament": "A woman cut off from the family she came from has almost forgotten she ever had another life."},
{"chunk": 2, "story": 0, "summary": "The neighbour is a handsome, idle, hard-drinking bachelor who gave her pupils only top marks; she found him attractive and was embarrassed sitting beside him.", "predicament": "A woman of small means is drawn to a charming man above her, and is flustered in his company."},
{"chunk": 3, "story": 0, "summary": "Jolting along a ruined road, she broods on the officials who ignore her complaints about a violent, rude caretaker, and on how nobody will hear her.", "predicament": "A woman who has complained for years about an abuse at her work finds nobody above her will listen."},
{"chunk": 4, "story": 0, "summary": "She cannot understand why a rich man would choose to live in this mud; he laughs at the road, says he is bored at home, and thinks his small gifts make him useful.", "predicament": "A struggling woman watches a comfortable man shrug off the hardships she lives with, and wonders why he stays."},
{"chunk": 5, "story": 0, "summary": "Smelling drink on him, she pities his slow ruin and imagines saving him as his wife, then feels how absurd it is that they could ever be equals; he drives off.", "predicament": "A lonely woman imagines devoting herself to a man above her, then sees how impossible it is that they could ever be equals."},
{"chunk": 6, "story": 0, "summary": "She reviews her comfortless life: no firewood without begging a coarse overseer, headaches, fear of every official, no affection and no friends.", "predicament": "A woman worn down by a thankless routine feels herself growing old and coarse, with no affection anywhere in her life."},
{"chunk": 7, "story": 0, "summary": "She took the post from necessity, never felt a vocation, and endures it like a patient cart-horse while livelier people give up; the cart keeps being turned back by fences and ditches.", "predicament": "A woman who took up a hard duty only to live keeps enduring it long after more spirited people have quit."},
{"chunk": 8, "story": 0, "summary": "At a noisy tavern a drunk swears in front of her, is rebuked, apologises, and the others call her a good young lady; she drinks her tea content.", "predicament": "A woman who feels unvalued among rough company is briefly treated with a little respect, and is glad of it."},
{"chunk": 9, "story": 0, "summary": "Her driver repeats gossip that officials pocketed money for a school; she denies it, but sees that he, the villagers and the overseer all believe she steals the firewood money too.", "predicament": "A woman who handles other people's small sums finds they all quietly believe she is cheating them."},
{"chunk": 10, "story": 0, "summary": "Her driver insists on fording the swollen river rather than taking the bridge the rich neighbour uses, and the horse wades in up to its belly.", "predicament": "A woman at the mercy of a stubborn companion is dragged through a needless hardship to save a little time."},
{"chunk": 11, "story": 0, "summary": "Soaked and with her supplies ruined, she waits at the railway crossing; a lady on the passing train looks like her mother, and for a moment her whole lost childhood returns.", "predicament": "A worn-out woman glimpses a stranger who recalls the life she lost, and is flooded with longing for it."},
{"chunk": 12, "story": 0, "summary": "Weeping, she imagines happiness and greets the passing neighbour as an equal, as if the years had been a dream, until her driver calls her and it all vanishes.", "predicament": "A woman caught up in a sudden dream of happiness is called back to her ordinary life, and the feeling vanishes."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 13, "story": 1, "summary": "Two friends persuade a scrupulous law student to come with them to a street of brothels; he knows fallen women only from books and pious stories, and goes reluctantly.", "predicament": "A scrupulous young man lets his friends talk him into an outing he knows only from books and privately disapproves of."},
{"chunk": 14, "story": 1, "summary": "Walking out in the first snow, the three stop for vodka; he peers at a bit of cork in his glass and his friend tells him to stop philosophising and live like a human being for one evening.", "predicament": "A cautious young man is teased by livelier companions for brooding when he is meant to be enjoying himself."},
{"chunk": 15, "story": 1, "summary": "Warmed by drink, he envies his friends' easy, balanced cheerfulness and resolves to let himself go for one evening, whatever it costs him.", "predicament": "A man who weighs every step envies his carefree friends and decides, just once, to stop holding himself back."},
{"chunk": 16, "story": 1, "summary": "Humming a song with his friends, he enjoys the snowy night and imagines a dark, secret, dreadful encounter with a guilty, frightened woman.", "predicament": "A young man about to try something forbidden pictures it as dark and thrilling, and cannot wait to see it."},
{"chunk": 17, "story": 1, "summary": "The street turns out brightly lit and noisy, with everyone indifferent to it; his friends clown their way into the first house.", "predicament": "A newcomer finds that a place he imagined as shameful and secret is treated as utterly ordinary by everyone around him."},
{"chunk": 18, "story": 1, "summary": "His friends bow and joke their way into the parlour; he hangs back smiling awkwardly as young women arrive one by one.", "predicament": "A self-conscious man trails his confident friends into a strange place, wishing he could play the fool as easily."},
{"chunk": 19, "story": 1, "summary": "He finds everything tawdry and ordinary, politely buys a girl a drink he will not share, and is scolded by a friend for being fleeced.", "predicament": "A man too polite to refuse is taken advantage of, then scolded by his friend for being so easily fleeced."},
{"chunk": 20, "story": 1, "summary": "In house after house he fixates on the doormen, wondering what lives brought them there; one friend gets drunk and demands they go on to 'the best one'.", "predicament": "A man dragged along by a drunken friend distracts himself by wondering what brought the people around him so low."},
{"chunk": 21, "story": 1, "summary": "His friends dance; he decides the ugliness is a deliberate style, sneers inwardly at how clumsily the women sell themselves, and tells one he is dull because it is dull.", "predicament": "A bored and disgusted guest sits apart from the fun, silently judging everyone in the room while his friends enjoy themselves."},
{"chunk": 22, "story": 1, "summary": "He wants to ask a woman about her life and family but cannot find words; she jokes, says something coarse aloud, and keeps asking him to buy wine.", "predicament": "A well-meaning man longs to ask a stranger about her real life, but cannot find a way that is not insulting."},
{"chunk": 23, "story": 1, "summary": "Repelled, he moves away and stares at the musicians, unable to understand how respectable-looking men can sit there unashamed; the place seems another world.", "predicament": "A man who expected to feel pity feels only disgust, and cannot understand how decent-looking people can stand to be there."},
{"chunk": 24, "story": 1, "summary": "Disgusted, he leaves and announces he is going home, but his tearful, affectionate friend hugs him and drags him into one more house.", "predicament": "A man who wants to go home is guilted by an affectionate friend into staying for one more round."},
{"chunk": 25, "story": 1, "summary": "Ignored in a grander house, he is ashamed to be there and tormented that he feels only hatred for the women, and resolves to try to understand them.", "predicament": "A man who thought himself kind is ashamed to find he feels nothing but contempt for people he meant to pity."},
{"chunk": 26, "story": 1, "summary": "Finding only boredom on every face, he sits beside a tired, thoughtful-looking woman and tries to draw her out; she says she is bored but has nowhere else to go.", "predicament": "A man who wants to rescue someone draws her out, and learns she sees no better place to go."},
{"chunk": 27, "story": 1, "summary": "He tells her begging would be freer; she only asks for porter. Then a man slaps a girl, he rushes to the weeping girl in pity, and recoils when he sees she is drunk.", "predicament": "A man who rushes to comfort someone being mistreated recoils when she turns out not to be the victim he pictured."},
{"chunk": 28, "story": 1, "summary": "Frightened, he flees the house and waits in the falling snow, exhausted and wanting to go home but wanting still more to vent his feelings on his friends.", "predicament": "A shaken man flees an ugly scene and waits outside, torn between going home and having it out with his companions."},
{"chunk": 29, "story": 1, "summary": "He concludes the women are not falling but already ruined and that everyone shares the blame; a drunk passer-by claps him on the shoulder as one of the crowd, and he hears his friend fighting inside.", "predicament": "A man who has seen something he cannot unsee realises his own friends are part of the wrong he is horrified by."},
{"chunk": 30, "story": 1, "summary": "One friend is thrown downstairs after defending a woman from being hit; they calm him and walk home singing, while the student walks behind, judging them.", "predicament": "A man walks home behind friends who have already shrugged off the evening, unable to shake it off himself."},
{"chunk": 31, "story": 1, "summary": "He decides his friends are as bad as slave-owners and murderers who keep a religious fast, their art and science a hypocrite's pretence.", "predicament": "A man decides the friends he admired are hypocrites whose fine talk covers the harm they cheerfully do."},
{"chunk": 32, "story": 1, "summary": "He accuses his friends of murdering the women; one calls him a fool whose look of hatred is worse than the whole street, and both leave him.", "predicament": "A man who denounces his friends for their conduct is called a self-righteous fool and left standing alone."},
{"chunk": 33, "story": 1, "summary": "Walking home alone he is seized by terror, knows a breakdown is coming, and lies imagining himself the brother or father of such a woman.", "predicament": "A sensitive man alone at night feels a familiar collapse coming on, and cannot stop imagining others' misery as his own."},
{"chunk": 34, "story": 1, "summary": "Treating it as his own problem, he sits up methodically recalling every method his acquaintances have tried to save such women.", "predicament": "A man who cannot bear an injustice tries to solve it single-handed overnight by sheer effort of thought."},
{"chunk": 35, "story": 1, "summary": "He sorts past rescue attempts into three kinds, finds the first two always failed, and concludes only marriage has ever worked.", "predicament": "A man looking for a way to help someone concludes that the only remedy that works would cost him his whole life."},
{"chunk": 36, "story": 1, "summary": "He admits he could never marry one, sees the problem is endless, decides the buyers must be saved, and dreams of preaching on the street corner.", "predicament": "A man who realises he cannot make the sacrifice his principles demand looks for a grander, less personal cause instead."},
{"chunk": 37, "story": 1, "summary": "He imagines rebuking passers-by, and in an ecstasy of feeling for others' pain writes letters and makes vows through the night.", "predicament": "A man who feels others' suffering as his own is swept up in a burst of fervour to set the world right."},
{"chunk": 38, "story": 1, "summary": "The inspiration fades; the scale of the problem crushes him, and he remembers he is timid, unpersuasive and insignificant.", "predicament": "A man's burst of zeal collapses as he remembers how small, timid and unheeded he really is."},
{"chunk": 39, "story": 1, "summary": "By daylight he lies motionless in a nameless anguish that makes everything, good or evil, equally loathsome; only the thought that he could kill himself, or that it will pass in three days, soothes him.", "predicament": "A man sunk in a despair that makes everything he cared about seem loathsome clings to the knowledge it will pass."},
{"chunk": 40, "story": 1, "summary": "He paces, sees his haggard face, hides when a friend knocks, weeps, and at dusk runs out into the street dreading the night.", "predicament": "A man in private anguish hides from a friend at his door, then flees into the night rather than face it alone."},
{"chunk": 41, "story": 1, "summary": "He wanders the city, drinks vodka, bares his chest to the wet snow and nearly throws himself off a bridge to trade one pain for another, then goes home and paces till morning.", "predicament": "A man in unbearable distress looks for any other pain to drown it out, and finds nothing works."},
{"chunk": 42, "story": 1, "summary": "His friends find him in torment, begging to be saved; they take him to a polite, cold specialist who begins questioning him.", "predicament": "A man who has reached the end of his strength begs his friends to take him anywhere that can help."},
{"chunk": 43, "story": 1, "summary": "The doctor asks endless questions about heredity and vices while stroking his knees; the patient grows annoyed at being treated as a case.", "predicament": "A man in real anguish is questioned like a specimen by an expert who does not care what upset him."},
{"chunk": 44, "story": 1, "summary": "Hearing them discuss the street coolly, he protests that he is praised for trivial work but called mad for caring about the women, then weeps in pity for everyone.", "predicament": "A man is treated as ill for feeling what everyone around him calmly agrees is a real wrong."},
{"chunk": 45, "story": 1, "summary": "The doctor sedates and examines him; calmer and ashamed, he leaves with prescriptions he has had before and drags himself back to his studies.", "predicament": "A man whose outburst has been soothed away feels ashamed and goes back to his ordinary routine as if nothing happened."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 46, "story": 2, "summary": "An old sledge-driver sits motionless in the falling snow, bent double, having had no fare all day, until an officer hails him.", "predicament": "An old man carrying a fresh grief sits out in the cold at his work, waiting for anyone at all to need him."},
{"chunk": 47, "story": 2, "summary": "Flustered by the traffic and cursed at from all sides, the driver tries to tell his passenger that his son died this week; the man asks what of, then everyone shouts at him to watch the road.", "predicament": "A grieving man tries to tell a customer that his child has just died, and is cut short before he can go on."},
{"chunk": 48, "story": 2, "summary": "The officer shuts his eyes and won't listen; later three rowdy young men haggle him down, squabble over the seats and mock his cap.", "predicament": "A bereaved man takes whatever work comes, however insulting, just to have people near him."},
{"chunk": 49, "story": 2, "summary": "The young men curse and hit him and he laughs along, their abuse easing his loneliness; when he says his son has died, one replies that we shall all die and tells him to hurry.", "predicament": "A man in mourning puts up with abuse from strangers because it is company, and they brush off his loss in a phrase."},
{"chunk": 50, "story": 2, "summary": "He begins to tell them how his son died but they arrive and leave; alone again, his misery returns worse, and a doorman he speaks to only tells him to move on.", "predicament": "A man who needs to speak of his grief searches the passing crowd for one person who will stop and listen."},
{"chunk": 51, "story": 2, "summary": "Giving up, he goes back to the crowded lodging early without enough earned for oats; he tells a young man drinking water that his son is dead.", "predicament": "A man who has given up on strangers goes home and tries one last time to tell someone he knows."},
{"chunk": 52, "story": 2, "summary": "The young man is already asleep; aching to tell the whole story properly, the old man goes out to the stable and tells it all to his horse.", "predicament": "A man with no one who will hear his grief pours it out to the only creature that will stay and listen."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 53, "story": 3, "summary": "The narrator recalls his youth as the official at a remote steppe station, with no woman or company for miles, drinking bad vodka and staring at women's faces in passing train windows.", "predicament": "A restless young man stuck in a remote post with nothing to do stares after passing strangers and drinks away the days."},
{"chunk": 54, "story": 3, "summary": "He and his adoring wife, whom he torments when drunk, wait to see the New Year in with two bottles of real champagne he won in a bet.", "predicament": "A bored man who treats a devoted spouse cruelly waits for one small treat to break the monotony of his life."},
{"chunk": 55, "story": 3, "summary": "He drops the first bottle at midnight; his wife, pale, says it is a bad omen, and after scoffing at her he walks out into the moonlit frost.", "predicament": "A man scoffs at his spouse's fear that a small accident foretells misfortune, then walks off irritated by her."},
{"chunk": 56, "story": 3, "summary": "Walking along the line he tells himself nothing worse can happen: orphaned, expelled, friendless and fit for nothing, his youth has been thrown away.", "predicament": "A man who feels his youth wasted in a dead-end place decides nothing worse can possibly happen to him."},
{"chunk": 57, "story": 3, "summary": "He admits he does not love his wife, whom he married as a boy, and wallows in his misery with a vain, defiant pleasure.", "predicament": "A man tells himself he no longer loves the spouse who adores him, and takes a vain pleasure in his own misery."},
{"chunk": 58, "story": 3, "summary": "Back at the door, his wife joyfully tells him an aunt by marriage has arrived by train, fleeing a tyrannical husband, and begs him to be kind to her.", "predicament": "A man is asked by his spouse to welcome a runaway relative he has never met, and not to be hard on her."},
{"chunk": 59, "story": 3, "summary": "The 'aunt' is young, beautiful, perfumed and plainly dissolute; the dreary room brightens, and he flirts with her at once.", "predicament": "A bored married man is dazzled by a lively, reckless visitor under his own roof and begins flirting with her at once."},
{"chunk": 60, "story": 3, "summary": "They drink the second bottle; he falls headlong into a passion that sweeps away his wife, the visitor and himself, and has left him ruined on a dark street.", "predicament": "A man who thought nothing worse could happen throws away his marriage and everything else for a sudden passion."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 61, "story": 4, "summary": "Back from the opera, a sixteen-year-old girl who loves no one yet writes a romantic letter to one of her two admirers, pretending not to believe his love and pitying herself to tears.", "predicament": "A young girl with two admirers plays at being unloved and unhappy because it seems more romantic than being loved."},
{"chunk": 62, "story": 4, "summary": "She imagines renouncing the world, then dwells fondly on her shy suitor's hidden passion for music and on how he declared his love in a draughty hallway.", "predicament": "A girl dramatising her own feelings drifts from imagined sorrow into fond memories of a shy admirer's devotion."},
{"chunk": 63, "story": 4, "summary": "She mentions her other admirer in the letter, wonders whether he deserves it more, and is overcome by causeless laughter at a funny story he told about a poodle.", "predicament": "A girl choosing between two admirers is swept by a joy she cannot explain and laughs at nothing."},
{"chunk": 64, "story": 4, "summary": "She tears up the letter, decides to love the other admirer, and imagines a summer of both men courting her, full of joy she does not know what to do with.", "predicament": "A girl on the edge of grown-up life is so full of happy expectation that she hardly knows what to do with herself."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 65, "story": 5, "summary": "A woman recalls riding home with a young official years ago as a thunderstorm broke; his high spirits infected her and they raced the storm laughing.", "predicament": "A young woman of good family is swept up in a poorer companion's high spirits during an exhilarating afternoon together."},
{"chunk": 66, "story": 5, "summary": "Sheltering in the stable doorway, he tells her he loves her though he knows she can never be his wife, and asks only that she let him look at her; she is spellbound and happy.", "predicament": "A man declares his love to a woman far above him, asking nothing because he knows she can never be his."},
{"chunk": 67, "story": 5, "summary": "They run in laughing; he is boisterous all evening, and that night she feels free, beloved and glad above all of her rank and wealth, unsure whether she loves him.", "predicament": "A young woman who has just been declared to is happier about her own advantages than sure of her feelings for him."},
{"chunk": 68, "story": 5, "summary": "Nothing came of it: in town, the gulf of rank between them felt like a thick wall, and he only criticised society with a forced smile instead of trying to break through.", "predicament": "Two people who care for each other let a difference in rank stand between them, and neither tries to cross it."},
{"chunk": 69, "story": 5, "summary": "Years slipped by unvalued; her father is dead, she has aged, and he, now a tired, ailing, disillusioned man, sits silently by her fire with nothing to tell her.", "predicament": "A woman who let her chance at happiness drift past sits with the man she might have had, both grown old and flat."},
{"chunk": 70, "story": 5, "summary": "She breaks down weeping that her life is wasted; he understands, says nothing, kisses her hand at the door, and leaves without the words he longs to say.", "predicament": "Two people who let their chance pass mourn it together in silence, neither able to say what they both feel."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 71, "story": 6, "summary": "By a campfire on a bleak river-bank, a drunk old exile hides his bottle from his mates while a sick young newcomer mourns the home and wife he was sent away from.", "predicament": "A young man sent far from home against his will sits in a bleak place longing for the family he left behind."},
{"chunk": 72, "story": 6, "summary": "The old exile tells him he will get used to it: he has worked the same crossing for twenty-two years and wants nothing, and urges the youth to stop wanting his wife and freedom.", "predicament": "A homesick newcomer is told by an old hand that the only way to endure is to stop wanting anything at all."},
{"chunk": 73, "story": 6, "summary": "The old man boasts that he was once a gentleman's son who wore a frock-coat, and has made himself free by wanting nothing; whoever listens to longing even once is lost.", "predicament": "A man who has lost everything insists he is free because he has trained himself to want nothing."},
{"chunk": 74, "story": 6, "summary": "He tells of a gentleman exiled for forgery who meant to live by his own labour but kept riding for money from home, while the old man warned him that wanting leads to ruin.", "predicament": "A man starting over in hard exile cannot stop hoping for help from the life he lost."},
{"chunk": 75, "story": 6, "summary": "The gentleman's wife joined him with their baby, he spent lavishly to keep her happy among the local officials, and she, spoilt and bored, pined in the hardship.", "predicament": "A man who drags a loved one into his hard lot spends everything trying to make it bearable for her."},
{"chunk": 76, "story": 6, "summary": "Three years later the wife fled across the river with a young official; the husband chased them for five days and then beat his head on the ferry boards, while the old man laughed at him.", "predicament": "A man whose spouse has run off with another chases them in vain, and returns to be laughed at."},
{"chunk": 77, "story": 6, "summary": "The gentleman spent eight years petitioning to go home, then found new joy in his grown daughter; but the girl, young and with no life there, pined and is now dying of consumption.", "predicament": "A father who pins all his remaining happiness on his child watches her waste away in a place with nothing for her."},
{"chunk": 78, "story": 6, "summary": "The old man predicts the father will ruin himself chasing doctors and end in prison; the young exile answers that even three years with a wife were a gift, better than nothing.", "predicament": "A young man insists one brief happiness is worth any grief that follows, against an old man who wants nothing."},
{"chunk": 79, "story": 6, "summary": "The young exile weeps that he is innocent, punished in place of a rich uncle by an unfair verdict; the old man only repeats that he will get used to it and goes to sleep.", "predicament": "A young man punished for what his relatives did protests his innocence, and is told only that he will get used to it."},
{"chunk": 80, "story": 6, "summary": "Alone by the fire, he longs for his wife to come even for a day, then realises he could not feed her; his mates cheat him of his share of tips, and soon he will be begging.", "predicament": "A poor man longing for a loved one to join him realises he could not even feed her if she came."},
{"chunk": 81, "story": 6, "summary": "Towards dawn he dreams he is home and the exile was a nightmare, then wakes to shouts and gunshots from the far bank calling the ferrymen out into the cold.", "predicament": "A homesick man dreams for a moment that his hardship was only a nightmare, then wakes to it again."},
{"chunk": 82, "story": 6, "summary": "They row the clumsy barge unhurriedly across; on the far bank the exiled gentleman waits, grim and distracted, hurrying to a new doctor for his sick daughter.", "predicament": "A desperate father makes yet another hopeless journey in bad weather for anyone who might save his child."},
{"chunk": 83, "story": 6, "summary": "The old man taunts the silent gentleman with his own words that people can live even here and tells him his search is useless; he pays and drives off without a word.", "predicament": "A man in distress is mocked by someone who takes satisfaction in having predicted his misfortune."},
{"chunk": 84, "story": 6, "summary": "The young exile tells the old man he is a dead stone and the gentleman is truly alive; everyone laughs, the others lie down in the cold hut, and the youth weeps outside.", "predicament": "A young man who still feels his grief tells a hardened elder he is dead inside, and is laughed at."}
]
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[
{"chunk": 85, "story": 7, "summary": "A goods train carrying cattle has stood for hours at a small station at night; an old dealer and his big, dreamy son sit in the crowded van among eight unfed bullocks.", "predicament": "A man whose goods are spoiling sits stalled for hours, waiting on people who feel no hurry at all."},
{"chunk": 86, "story": 7, "summary": "The old man goes to stir up the crew, finds the driver asleep at the engine, and walks into the steaming station where two officials are arguing over a fur cap.", "predicament": "A man pressed for time goes looking for whoever is holding him up, and finds them idle."},
{"chunk": 87, "story": 7, "summary": "He joins their squabble over whether the cap is real beaver, then remembers his errand; the guard says there is no hurry, as they are too late to avoid delays anyway.", "predicament": "A man who needs something done is met with a shrug and a vague reason why it cannot happen soon."},
{"chunk": 88, "story": 7, "summary": "He complains that thirty-four hours have been lost and his stock may die; reading the officials' silent hint, he hands the guard a ten-rouble note without a word.", "predicament": "A man whose livelihood depends on an ordinary service reads the silent hint and quietly pays a bribe to get it."},
{"chunk": 89, "story": 7, "summary": "His son strums an accordion contentedly; the train starts with such a violent jolt that the cattle fall on each other and the old man curses the driver.", "predicament": "A man who has paid to be treated fairly finds himself still being treated roughly by those he paid."},
{"chunk": 90, "story": 7, "summary": "The train keeps jolting without moving; the old man guesses the guard did not share with the driver and sends his son with three roubles, after which they set off.", "predicament": "A man learns that paying one hand is not enough, and must pay the next one too before anything moves."},
{"chunk": 91, "story": 7, "summary": "In the dark, freezing van the father grumbles that his son brought this on himself by refusing to study like his brothers, who are asleep in warm beds.", "predicament": "A son who disappointed his family's hopes is reminded, in the middle of a hardship, that it is all his own fault."},
{"chunk": 92, "story": 7, "summary": "At dawn the old man wakes cold and cross, scolds his son for a tangled rope, then the two say their morning prayers side by side.", "predicament": "A tired, irritable parent takes a bad night out on a grown child who works beside him without complaint."},
{"chunk": 93, "story": 7, "summary": "The son fetches boiling water by force from a bar-keeper who wants more money, and the father records every bribe from the day before in his notebook.", "predicament": "A man keeps careful accounts of every petty payment it costs him to get through an ordinary day."},
{"chunk": 94, "story": 7, "summary": "At the big station the guard sighs that their slot is gone; a fresh, eager young official asks cheerfully what is to be done now.", "predicament": "A man who has already paid for help learns that the arrangement fell through anyway, and must start again."},
{"chunk": 95, "story": 7, "summary": "Charmed by the young official's courtesy, the old dealer slips him twelve roubles, and the official finds a way to send the cattle on the faster troop train.", "predicament": "A man charmed by a courteous gatekeeper pays him handsomely, and suddenly a way is found to help him."},
{"chunk": 96, "story": 7, "summary": "He treats the guard to drinks to secure a smooth journey, telling his son that one gets nothing without bestirring oneself; a filthy oiler appears at the door.", "predicament": "A man who has learned how things work treats the right people well and teaches his child to do the same."},
{"chunk": 97, "story": 7, "summary": "The oiler claims two vans are unsafe; the dealer, seeing a demand for money, pays him and his mate without protest, then drinks cheerfully at every stop.", "predicament": "A man threatened with a delay he suspects is invented pays up calmly rather than argue."},
{"chunk": 98, "story": 7, "summary": "Drink makes him fussy and busy, counting money and lamenting his thirsty cattle; his son rebukes him for drinking and is told not to teach his father.", "predicament": "A grown child who disapproves of a parent's drinking speaks up, and is told to mind his place."},
{"chunk": 99, "story": 7, "summary": "The son wanders about the station and engine staring at things, neither bored nor eager, indifferent to where he is.", "predicament": "A young man dragged along on a parent's business drifts through it without caring about anything he sees."},
{"chunk": 100, "story": 7, "summary": "At a big station at evening the son fetches water, imagines the unseen town is dull, and the train is shunted back and forth.", "predicament": "A young man passing through a strange place assumes it is dull without bothering to look."},
{"chunk": 101, "story": 7, "summary": "The old man finds his vans uncoupled from the troop train; the strange guards ignore him and a surly official turns indignant at his complaint.", "predicament": "A man who paid for a favour finds it quietly undone, and the person in charge is offended that he asks why."},
{"chunk": 102, "story": 7, "summary": "The official storms out before he can be paid; the dealer wires a complaint to the head of traffic and finds two gentlemen talking in the office.", "predicament": "A man brushed off by the person in front of him goes over his head with a complaint to someone higher up."},
{"chunk": 103, "story": 7, "summary": "An inspector tells a tale of one railway stealing another's trucks; the dealer, flattered to talk with educated men, joins in with his own grievance about overcharging.", "predicament": "A plain man flattered to be talking with educated people joins in to air his own grievance with dignity."},
{"chunk": 104, "story": 7, "summary": "He boasts of his studying sons and blames the railways; the inspector says graft is so universal nobody is indignant any more, and the official charges him fourteen roubles in fees.", "predicament": "A man complains about being cheated, and is told the cheating is so universal that nobody even notices it."},
{"chunk": 105, "story": 7, "summary": "His complaint wins precedence, and pleased with himself he has a policeman write a long, vindictive protocol of his whole journey, including the official who disliked his face.", "predicament": "A man who has been pushed around at last gets a small win, and wants every slight he suffered written down."},
{"chunk": 106, "story": 7, "summary": "Next morning he rages at his thirsty, exhausted cattle, who will not drink the icy water given them; after two more days they reach the city and stagger off the train.", "predicament": "A worn-out man takes his frustration out on the helpless creatures in his care, who have suffered most of all."},
{"chunk": 107, "story": 7, "summary": "In a filthy lodging the father hunts buyers while the son idles, uninterested in the city; the cattle are sold and driven off by bored drovers who beat them.", "predicament": "A young man stuck in a strange city while a parent does business finds nothing in it that interests him."},
{"chunk": 108, "story": 7, "summary": "Before leaving, the dealer insists on treating the indifferent hotel-keeper, recounting how late arrival and bribes cost him heavily, yet plainly not minding as long as someone listens.", "predicament": "A man who has lost money on a venture cares less about the loss than about having someone to tell it to."},
{"chunk": 109, "story": 7, "summary": "Seen off by the staff, he tips everyone, blesses them and crosses himself; his son sits beside him, neither glad to go home nor sorry to leave.", "predicament": "A man leaves after a costly journey pleased with himself, beside a child who feels nothing either way."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
[
{"chunk": 110, "story": 8, "summary": "A skilled but drunken craftsman drives his sick old wife twenty miles through a blizzard to the hospital, lashing his feeble horse.", "predicament": "A man who has neglected his spouse for years rushes her through a storm for help, afraid it is already too late."},
{"chunk": 111, "story": 8, "summary": "He mutters to his wife that the doctor will scold him for coming late but will do his best, rehearsing the telling-off he expects.", "predicament": "A man desperate for help from someone above him rehearses the scolding he expects to get for asking too late."},
{"chunk": 112, "story": 8, "summary": "He rehearses grovelling and protesting to the doctor, promising to make him fine things for free, and boasts he knows how to handle the gentry.", "predicament": "A humble man plans to flatter and grovel before someone powerful, promising favours to win help for a loved one."},
{"chunk": 113, "story": 8, "summary": "The chatter hides his shock: after a lifetime of drunken indifference, his wife looked at him sternly as she never had before, and sorrow has woken him.", "predicament": "A man who drifted through years of marriage without feeling is jolted awake when his spouse looks at him as never before."},
{"chunk": 114, "story": 8, "summary": "He begs her to deny to the doctor that he beat her and promises never to again; her face turns waxen, and he feels her cold hand and realises she is dead.", "predicament": "A man who mistreated his spouse promises to change, and realises too late that she can no longer hear him."},
{"chunk": 115, "story": 8, "summary": "He cries, more annoyed than sorry that she died just as he began to pity her; forty years passed in a fog of drink and quarrels, and he turns the sledge back toward home.", "predicament": "A man grieving a spouse is tormented that she died just as he finally felt sorry for how he treated her."},
{"chunk": 116, "story": 8, "summary": "He remembers her young and merry, sees he has been drunk since the wedding, longs to live it over again, and loses hold of the reins as his hands freeze.", "predicament": "A man who wasted a whole marriage in drink longs for one more chance to live it over properly."},
{"chunk": 117, "story": 8, "summary": "He dozes in the snow and wakes in hospital; the doctor tells him his frozen limbs are gone and he has lived long enough, and he begs for five more years to bury his wife and return the horse.", "predicament": "A man who has run out of time begs for a few more years to put right the duties he left undone."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
[
{"chunk": 118, "story": 9, "summary": "A young examining magistrate and a doctor, delayed by a blizzard, arrive at night at a village hut to hold an inquest on an insurance agent who shot himself there; the old constable says the witnesses have gone to tea.", "predicament": "Two men sent on a tiresome errand arrive late and cold, and find nobody ready for them."},
{"chunk": 119, "story": 9, "summary": "In the room with the covered body, the doctor complains that the dead man was tactless and egotistical to shoot himself where he would cause everyone the most trouble.", "predicament": "A man put out by someone else's tragedy complains that the dead person was selfish to inconvenience him."},
{"chunk": 120, "story": 9, "summary": "The magistrate yawns that people now kill themselves from weariness rather than theft; the constable says the whole village is frightened and cannot sleep.", "predicament": "Two comfortable outsiders talk idly about a death that has left the ordinary people around them frightened and sleepless."},
{"chunk": 121, "story": 9, "summary": "Stuck for the night, both men brood on how far this is from the city life they once dreamed of; the doctor leaves to spend the evening with a nearby landowner, and the magistrate stays.", "predicament": "Two people stuck at a dreary duty far from where they hoped to be think longingly of the lives others are living."},
{"chunk": 122, "story": 9, "summary": "The kindly old constable settles the magistrate in the kitchen with tea and hay, fretting about walking miles through the storm to fetch the village elder.", "predicament": "An old man who must obey every order frets over a pointless errand through a storm because someone might be angry."},
{"chunk": 123, "story": 9, "summary": "The constable says he has walked his rounds every day for thirty years, even on holy days, carrying forms nobody needs, and has been beaten, robbed and taken to court.", "predicament": "An old man has spent thirty years carrying out a duty he knows is mostly pointless, through every hardship, without a day off."},
{"chunk": 124, "story": 9, "summary": "He was once tried for fraud alongside a clerk who cheated a buyer, merely because a poor man looked untrustworthy; at home he must also wait on the clerk like a servant.", "predicament": "A poor man was dragged into someone else's dishonest dealing simply because his poverty made him look untrustworthy."},
{"chunk": 125, "story": 9, "summary": "He earns a pittance; the gentry insult him, one calling him 'Administration' for years, while peasants are kinder, and the frightened witnesses paid him kopecks to watch the body.", "predicament": "A humble man who serves everyone is mocked and insulted by those above him, and takes kindness only from the poor."},
{"chunk": 126, "story": 9, "summary": "He tells how the dead man's father burnt his sister's will to seize land meant for the peasants, died disgraced, and left his son ruined, reduced to a lowly job he felt was beneath him.", "predicament": "A proud young man who inherited nothing but debts is forced into humble work he feels is far beneath him."},
{"chunk": 127, "story": 9, "summary": "The constable's own drunkard sons ruined him; the magistrate, bored, reflects that he will go back to the city while the old man walks forever, and lies down restless at half past seven.", "predicament": "A young man who will one day leave a dreary place tires of hearing how an old man there will never escape."},
{"chunk": 128, "story": 9, "summary": "Lying in the storm-battered hut, he thinks none of this is real life, only 'according to regulation', and dreams of making his name in the capital while he is still young.", "predicament": "A young man stuck in an obscure post tells himself real life is elsewhere, and dreams of escaping before it is too late."},
{"chunk": 129, "story": 9, "summary": "Remembering meeting the dead man once, he feels a moment of fright; the constable disturbs him to ask again about fetching the elder, and is sent away irritably.", "predicament": "A tired man in charge snaps at a humble helper who only wants to be sure he is not doing wrong."},
{"chunk": 130, "story": 9, "summary": "The doctor returns with a landowner's horses to fetch him for supper and a proper bed; they drive through a village where no one has gone to sleep for fear of the dead man.", "predicament": "A man offered an easy escape from a grim duty takes it, leaving frightened people behind to wait."},
{"chunk": 131, "story": 9, "summary": "Leaving the village they pass the constable standing in the snow, apparently smiling; the coachman loses the road in the blizzard and circles to find it.", "predicament": "A man riding off to comfort passes the humble person he left behind, still standing out in the cold."},
{"chunk": 132, "story": 9, "summary": "They reach a warm, bright manor where children dance to the piano; the fat, widowed host welcomes the magistrate as a former colleague.", "predicament": "A man coming in from a bleak night is welcomed into a warm, happy household that is not his own."},
{"chunk": 133, "story": 9, "summary": "The host's four daughters and a cousin sing, the children skip, and the doctor prances about while everyone laughs.", "predicament": "A guest watches a lively, affectionate family enjoying itself in a warmth he has no share in."},
{"chunk": 134, "story": 9, "summary": "He dances and flirts but feels it is all a fragment of life, pities the girls for living in the wilds, and hears the doctor say that nervous people should be forbidden to marry.", "predicament": "A guest enjoying another family's happiness cannot stop feeling it is not real life, and pities them for it."},
{"chunk": 135, "story": 9, "summary": "The host grieves for the young man and for his own dead wife; the magistrate can only say suicide is undesirable, and lies awake wondering if he too will end up like this.", "predicament": "A young man who cannot find words for someone else's grief wonders whether he will end up just as lonely."},
{"chunk": 136, "story": 9, "summary": "He dreams of the dead man and the constable walking together through the storm, singing that they bear all life's burden while others sit in warmth.", "predicament": "A comfortable man is haunted by the thought that others carry the hardship that makes his own ease possible."},
{"chunk": 137, "story": 9, "summary": "Waking, he realises the suicide, the constable and his host are all bound together, and that nothing in life is accidental for one who sees himself as part of the whole.", "predicament": "A man who dismissed people he met as unimportant realises his life and theirs are bound together after all."},
{"chunk": 138, "story": 9, "summary": "He feels the suicide and the old man's suffering on his own conscience, since wanting a bright, easy life means accepting that others will carry the worst of it; next morning the storm keeps them in.", "predicament": "A man realises that simply wanting an easy life for himself means accepting that others will suffer for it."},
{"chunk": 139, "story": 9, "summary": "Their host refuses to let them go out in the storm; the doctor lectures on the climate, and they spend the day eating, playing cards and dancing while the body and witnesses wait.", "predicament": "A man kept in comfort by circumstances knows the people depending on him are waiting and does nothing about it."},
{"chunk": 140, "story": 9, "summary": "At dawn, when the storm has passed, they find the constable waiting at the door, bareheaded and soaked, pleading that the villagers are anxious; a footman curses him and they drive off without a word.", "predicament": "A humble man who waited all night for those in charge is cursed at by their servant and ignored by them."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
[
{"chunk": 141, "story": 10, "summary": "A well-fed, slightly drunk first-class traveller asks his companion to chat, and raises the question of what fame really is and how anyone gets it.", "predicament": "A comfortable older man, idle after dinner, draws a stranger into talk about something that plainly still rankles him."},
{"chunk": 142, "story": 10, "summary": "He recounts a lifetime of distinguished work, bridges, treatises and discoveries, then tests his fame by asking if his companion knows his name; he does not.", "predicament": "A man who has worked hard all his life finds that nobody has ever heard of him or what he did."},
{"chunk": 143, "story": 10, "summary": "He complains that worthless, idle people win renown while he did not, and begins a story about taking up, out of boredom, with a talentless singer in a dull town.", "predicament": "A capable man watches lesser people win the recognition he worked for, and cannot work out what they did right."},
{"chunk": 144, "story": 10, "summary": "At the opening of his magnificent bridge nobody notices him; the crowd whispers only about his mistress, and he is pointed out merely as her lover.", "predicament": "A man whose finest work goes unnoticed is known in public only as the companion of someone more popular."},
{"chunk": 145, "story": 10, "summary": "A bystander knows who the singer lives with but not who built the bridge; next day the paper mentions her beauty and not him, and he cries with vexation.", "predicament": "A man eager for credit reads the public account of his achievement and finds it given entirely to someone else."},
{"chunk": 146, "story": 10, "summary": "He consoles himself that the provinces are stupid and real recognition waits in the capital, where a competition entry of his is about to be judged.", "predicament": "A man overlooked at home tells himself that people who matter elsewhere will surely recognise him."},
{"chunk": 147, "story": 10, "summary": "His work wins first prize in the capital, but the papers fuss over his mistress's arrival and give his prize one tiny line with his name misspelt.", "predicament": "A man who wins the honour he hoped for sees it buried in small print while trivial gossip takes the headlines."},
{"chunk": 148, "story": 10, "summary": "Years later, called to do an important work in another city and giving public lectures, he is ignored by every paper; he tries to start talk about himself on a crowded tram, and nobody knows.", "predicament": "A man starved of recognition fishes for it among strangers, and finds nobody has heard of him."},
{"chunk": 149, "story": 10, "summary": "The whole tram rushes to see a famous runner; he rants that talented men die unknown while entertainers are household names, and a notorious cardsharp walks past.", "predicament": "A man who has spent his life on real work rages that the public only celebrates showmen and scoundrels."},
{"chunk": 150, "story": 10, "summary": "Someone recognises the cardsharp at once; then his companion shyly asks if he knows his name, a professor and academician of thirty-five years, and he doesn't; they both laugh.", "predicament": "A man complaining that nobody knows his name is caught not knowing the name of the person in front of him."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
[
{"chunk": 151, "story": 11, "summary": "At a touring company's benefit night, a sheltered official's daughter, at the theatre for the first time, is overwhelmed by the bombastic leading man and begs her father to invite the actors to dinner.", "predicament": "A sheltered young woman seeing a glamorous world for the first time is swept away and wants to be part of it."},
{"chunk": 152, "story": 11, "summary": "The father invites the actors, excluding the actresses; the dinners are dull and the guests shabby and fawning, but his daughter is enchanted and goes to the theatre every night.", "predicament": "A parent puts up with dull, shabby guests because they delight his child, not seeing where it is leading."},
{"chunk": 153, "story": 11, "summary": "She elopes with the tragedian, who married her for her father's money; the father disowns her, and the husband beats her and writes begging letters.", "predicament": "A young woman who ran off with someone who only wanted her family's money is disowned by her family and mistreated."},
{"chunk": 154, "story": 11, "summary": "She begs on her knees not to be abandoned, is taken on in small parts, freezes onstage whispering that she is miserable, and again writes to her father for money.", "predicament": "A young woman trapped with a cruel partner begs to be kept and writes home again for forgiveness and money."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
[
{"chunk": 155, "story": 12, "summary": "A respectable married official, threatened by a former maid he seduced who swore to leave their baby at his door, finds a bundled infant on his doorstep one night.", "predicament": "A respectable married man, threatened with exposure over an old affair, finds the proof of it left on his doorstep."},
{"chunk": 156, "story": 12, "summary": "Terrified of his wife, his colleagues and scandal, he hurries off with the baby to leave it at a rich merchant's house before anyone sees.", "predicament": "A man desperate to hide a past wrong from his spouse tries to get rid of the evidence before anyone notices."},
{"chunk": 157, "story": 12, "summary": "Carrying the child through dark lanes, he realises how cruel it is to pass an innocent baby from door to door and imagines its bleak future among strangers.", "predicament": "A man hurrying to cover up his wrong begins to see the innocent person who will pay for it."},
{"chunk": 158, "story": 12, "summary": "He looks at the baby, sees his own nose, imagines confessing and adopting it, then fears his colleagues' mockery and leaves it on the step, begging its forgiveness.", "predicament": "A man torn between confessing to his spouse and keeping his reputation chooses the easy way, and is ashamed."},
{"chunk": 159, "story": 12, "summary": "He turns back, carries the baby home and confesses to his wife on his knees, then learns from the doorman that the baby was a washerwoman's, not his.", "predicament": "A man who finally confesses a hidden wrong to his spouse learns the evidence he feared was never his at all."},
{"chunk": 160, "story": 12, "summary": "The doorman apologises for having women visitors; the man curses him and tells his furious, tearful wife it was all a joke.", "predicament": "A man who confessed for nothing tries to take it back, and his spouse now knows the truth anyway."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
[
{"chunk": 161, "story": 13, "summary": "On Easter night a poor clerk, on duty in a dingy office, drafts a flattering holiday letter to a patron he hates, pities even the cockroach on his desk, and hears the bells begin.", "predicament": "A poor man stuck working through a holiday writes flattering greetings to a superior he secretly despises."},
{"chunk": 162, "story": 13, "summary": "Hearing the crowds go to church, he complains that he sits here every year; the doorman says he hired himself out for greed, and he answers that it is poverty, dreaming of a festive supper.", "predicament": "A man who takes others' holiday shifts for a pittance hears everyone celebrating outside while he sits alone."},
{"chunk": 163, "story": 13, "summary": "He says he will never be promoted, lacking education, manners and a decent name, and that even fleeing the office would only take him back to a greyer lodging.", "predicament": "A man with no education or connections knows he will never rise, and even a night off would change nothing."},
{"chunk": 164, "story": 13, "summary": "He aches for a better life, a family table, a smart coat, a medal; he considers stealing or writing a secret denunciation to get promoted.", "predicament": "A man aching for a better life wonders whether a small dishonesty is the only way to get ahead."},
{"chunk": 165, "story": 13, "summary": "He knows he is too timid to invent slanders, remembers he has begged his hated patron for a two-rouble raise for ten years, and kills the cockroach, feeling better.", "predicament": "A man too timid to cheat his way up takes out his frustration on something smaller and more helpless than himself."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
[
{"chunk": 166, "story": 14, "summary": "After mass, a self-important village shopkeeper stands waiting, disdainful of the peasants filing out, until he realises the angry priest is beckoning him.", "predicament": "A self-important man waiting for a service he asked for is startled to be summoned sharply by the one in charge."},
{"chunk": 167, "story": 14, "summary": "The priest confronts him over his written request for prayers for 'the harlot Mariya', his own dead daughter, and demands how he dared write such a word.", "predicament": "A bereaved parent is rebuked in public for the harsh word he used to name his own dead child."},
{"chunk": 168, "story": 14, "summary": "He argues that God forgave harlots; the priest tells him he is slandering his own daughter and should not be over-subtle, and the deacon sneers that she was a famous actress.", "predicament": "A father who tries to justify his harsh judgement of his dead child is scolded for being too clever."},
{"chunk": 169, "story": 14, "summary": "He explains he only meant to name her calling, accepts a penance of ten bows, then with recovered dignity asks for a requiem for her, which the priest approves.", "predicament": "A father rebuked over how he mourns his child accepts the penance and still insists on marking her death properly."},
{"chunk": 170, "story": 14, "summary": "At the near-empty requiem, the mournful singing softens him; he remembers his daughter growing up unnoticed among the gentry, listening wide-eyed to his scripture stories.", "predicament": "A stern parent at a child's memorial remembers how little attention he paid while she was growing up."},
{"chunk": 171, "story": 14, "summary": "He recalls her last visit: he was scandalised that she was an actress and they barely spoke for two weeks; on a walk by the river she wept over her home, which he could not understand.", "predicament": "A parent who froze out his grown child over the life she chose remembers the visit when she tried to reach him."},
{"chunk": 172, "story": 14, "summary": "He prays for her again, the forbidden word slipping out unnoticed, while incense rises into the sunlight like her soul.", "predicament": "A grieving father cannot shake off his harsh judgement of his child even while praying for her."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
[
{"chunk": 173, "story": 15, "summary": "In a coach-house at night, a coachman, his small grandson visiting from the village, a doorman and an old pedlar play cards by a lantern, facing the lit windows of a rented lodge.", "predicament": "A few humble people pass an evening together in a yard, watching the lit windows of a household above them."},
{"chunk": 174, "story": 15, "summary": "The doorman reports that a lodger shot himself in the head that morning and the doctors have given up; the man's parents have arrived wailing, and the doorman must go to the police.", "predicament": "A humble man caught up in a stranger's tragedy worries about being questioned over what little he saw."},
{"chunk": 175, "story": 15, "summary": "They gossip that he loved another man's wife; the boy remembers the man stroking his head yesterday; the lodger dies, and the pedlar says such a soul cannot be prayed for.", "predicament": "Onlookers gossip idly about a neighbour's sudden death, and quarrel over whether he deserves anyone's prayers at all."},
{"chunk": 176, "story": 15, "summary": "The pedlar tells how a rich lady bribed officials to give her son a proper church burial after he shot himself, until watchmen said they heard him howling under the church.", "predicament": "A grieving parent pays to have a disgraceful death covered up so the family can mourn with honour."},
{"chunk": 177, "story": 15, "summary": "She secretly paid to have her son dug up and reburied outside the cemetery, then fed birds for his soul until a black dog appeared and drove her half-mad.", "predicament": "A parent who hid a disgraceful death is haunted by it until she secretly undoes what she paid for."},
{"chunk": 178, "story": 15, "summary": "The coachman and his grandson look in at the window where the dead man's parents are laying out the body; back in the coach-house the terrified boy runs weeping to his grandfather.", "predicament": "A child who has glimpsed a stranger's family in mourning is too frightened to sleep in a strange place."},
{"chunk": 179, "story": 15, "summary": "The boy begs to be taken home to his mother; his grandfather threatens then comforts him, admitting he is frightened too, and the doorman reports the mother's grief.", "predicament": "A frightened child far from home begs to be taken back to his mother, and his guardian has no comfort to give."},
{"chunk": 180, "story": 15, "summary": "The men start another card game; comforted by their voices, the boy sleeps, and by morning the coach-house no longer seems terrible.", "predicament": "A frightened child is steadied by the ordinary company of adults carrying on as usual."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
[
{"chunk": 181, "story": 16, "summary": "A landowner recalls the first of three times he was truly terrified: idly driving to the station one sultry July evening with a small boy asleep behind him.", "predicament": "A man with nothing to do sets off alone on an ordinary errand at dusk, unaware anything will unsettle him."},
{"chunk": 182, "story": 16, "summary": "Descending into a valley above a sleeping village, he sees a flickering light in the top of a belfry turret where he knows there is nothing that could burn.", "predicament": "A man on a familiar road notices something that should not be there and has no explanation for it."},
{"chunk": 183, "story": 16, "summary": "Unable to explain the light, he is gradually overcome by lonely horror; the boy yawns at first, then says he is frightened too.", "predicament": "A man who cannot explain something strange is overtaken by dread, and his fear spreads to the child beside him."},
{"chunk": 184, "story": 16, "summary": "He whips the horse on, lingers an hour at the station reading papers, never learns the cause; the second fright begins as he walks home happy from a tryst along a railway at night.", "predicament": "A man shaken by something he cannot explain delays going home, and never does learn what it was."},
{"chunk": 185, "story": 16, "summary": "Feeling young and happy, he hears a roar behind him and a lone goods truck with no engine flies past in the dark; he cannot account for it.", "predicament": "A man walking home content is startled by something inexplicable rushing past him in the night."},
{"chunk": 186, "story": 16, "summary": "Suddenly alone and afraid, he runs until he meets a signalman who explains a truck broke loose from a train; the third fright comes as he walks home exhausted from a spring shoot.", "predicament": "A man who has run in panic is told the plain explanation, and is ashamed of how frightened he was."},
{"chunk": 187, "story": 16, "summary": "A strange black spaniel he cannot place follows him deep in the forest and stares at him; exhausted, he thinks of the devil-dog in Faust and grows uneasy.", "predicament": "A tired man alone in the woods is unnerved by a harmless stranger he cannot account for."},
{"chunk": 188, "story": 16, "summary": "The friendly dog frolics around him as he shouts at it, and in panic he runs home, where a visiting friend complains he lost his valuable dog in the forest.", "predicament": "A man flees in terror from something harmless, and learns at home it was only a friend's lost pet."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
[
{"chunk": 189, "story": 17, "summary": "An old banker paces at night recalling a party fifteen years ago where guests argued about the death penalty and a young lawyer said life in prison was better than death.", "predicament": "A man looking back on an old argument remembers the careless boast that set his present trouble in motion."},
{"chunk": 190, "story": 17, "summary": "He had impulsively bet two millions that the young man could not stand solitary confinement; the lawyer offered fifteen years; now the banker sees the bet was his caprice and the other's greed.", "predicament": "A rich man realises a reckless wager he made in a fit of pride has cost both parties years for nothing."},
{"chunk": 191, "story": 17, "summary": "The terms: fifteen years alone in a garden lodge, no visitors, voices or news, only books, music and wine through a small window, and any breach forfeits the money.", "predicament": "A young man agrees to give up years of freedom and company for a fortune, on terms that allow no slip."},
{"chunk": 192, "story": 17, "summary": "The prisoner suffers loneliness, refuses wine, reads novels, then classics, sinks into idle despair in the fifth year, then studies languages and history with fervour.", "predicament": "A man in long isolation swings between despair and fierce effort, looking for anything that makes the time bearable."},
{"chunk": 193, "story": 17, "summary": "He writes in six languages asking for a shot to confirm his success, later reads only the Gospel, then everything at random; the banker realises paying tomorrow will ruin him.", "predicament": "A man who once staked a fortune lightly now faces having to pay it when it will ruin him."},
{"chunk": 194, "story": 17, "summary": "Wild speculation has reduced the banker to middling rank; dreading envy and pity, he decides the prisoner must die and creeps out in the rain to the lodge.", "predicament": "A man facing ruin over a promise he made decides the only way out is to do something terrible."},
{"chunk": 195, "story": 17, "summary": "Planning to let the absent watchman take the blame, he breaks the seals and enters; the prisoner, seated at the table, does not stir.", "predicament": "A man about to commit a crime plans for suspicion to fall on an innocent servant."},
{"chunk": 196, "story": 17, "summary": "He finds a skeletal, prematurely aged man asleep beside a letter, and considers smothering him before reading what he has written.", "predicament": "A desperate man stands over someone helpless whom he could harm, and hesitates long enough to read what they wrote."},
{"chunk": 197, "story": 17, "summary": "The letter says that through books he has lived every life and learned every wisdom, and now despises it all as a mirage that death will wipe out.", "predicament": "A man who has given up years of his life for a prize discovers he no longer wants anything the world offers."},
{"chunk": 198, "story": 17, "summary": "He renounces the millions by leaving five hours early; the banker kisses him and weeps in self-contempt, then next morning locks the renunciation away in his safe to avoid talk.", "predicament": "A man spared ruin by another's renunciation is ashamed of himself, yet still quietly secures his own advantage."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
[
{"chunk": 199, "story": 18, "summary": "At a plant sale on a spring morning, the narrator and two other buyers chat while a dignified, well-read old gardener, who dislikes contradiction, listens in hoping to hear something new.", "predicament": "A proud, well-read old man listens to his betters' idle talk, hoping to be asked for his view."},
{"chunk": 200, "story": 18, "summary": "A landowner complains that acquittals of obvious criminals corrupt the public; the gardener says he rejoices at every acquittal, because faith in a person is higher than evidence.", "predicament": "A man of lower rank contradicts his betters' confident opinion with a stubborn conviction of his own."},
{"chunk": 201, "story": 18, "summary": "Gratified to be asked, he tells a legend from his grandmother about a solitary, silent, learned doctor who settled in a small town and was revered for his skill.", "predicament": "A stranger who keeps entirely to himself in a small town is respected from a distance for his usefulness."},
{"chunk": 202, "story": 18, "summary": "The doctor loved the townsfolk like children, treated them for nothing despite his own illness, and was so beloved that he never locked his door.", "predicament": "A man who gives himself selflessly to people not his own comes to be trusted and loved by everyone."},
{"chunk": 203, "story": 18, "summary": "Even robbers honoured him, yet one morning he was found murdered with an amazed look on his face; the judges ruled it an accident because nobody could have killed him.", "predicament": "A community refuses to believe that anyone among them could have wronged the person they all revered."},
{"chunk": 204, "story": 18, "summary": "A notorious vagrant was caught with the doctor's belongings and a bloodstained shirt; the townsfolk still doubted, and the judges agonised over overwhelming evidence.", "predicament": "People faced with plain proof of a terrible wrong still cannot bring themselves to believe it of anyone."},
{"chunk": 205, "story": 18, "summary": "The chief judge could not pronounce sentence and the court freed the man; the gardener says God forgave the town for its faith in humanity, then walks off before anyone can object.", "predicament": "Someone who must condemn another chooses faith in human decency over the plain evidence in front of him."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
[
{"chunk": 206, "story": 19, "summary": "The narrator recalls a stifling August journey as a schoolboy with his grandfather, stopping to rest the horses at a rich villager's house whose owner is a comic, haughty figure.", "predicament": "A bored youngster dragged on a long, hot journey with an elder has nothing to do but endure it."},
{"chunk": 207, "story": 19, "summary": "In the fly-filled room he faces hours of waiting while the men talk of manure and oats, hating everything; then the host calls his daughter to pour tea.", "predicament": "A youngster stuck waiting on the adults' dull business feels the idle hours stretch out into forever."},
{"chunk": 208, "story": 19, "summary": "He sees the daughter's face and is struck by the most beautiful girl he has ever seen; even his gruff grandfather gazes at her tenderly.", "predicament": "A weary traveller is suddenly struck by a beauty so complete that everything dreary about the day vanishes."},
{"chunk": 209, "story": 19, "summary": "He dwells on her flawless features, feels hurt that she ignores him because he is dusty and young, then forgets himself entirely in the consciousness of her beauty.", "predicament": "A young man hurt to be ignored by someone lovely forgets himself entirely in simply looking at her."},
{"chunk": 210, "story": 19, "summary": "Her beauty fills him not with desire but a vague sadness, as if they had all lost something; outside, a labourer drives horses round a threshing floor, jeering at them.", "predicament": "A young man moved by something beautiful feels only an unexplained sadness, as if something had been lost for good."},
{"chunk": 211, "story": 19, "summary": "Horses circle unwillingly, raising clouds of golden chaff, while women rake and carts move among the stacks.", "predicament": "A bystander idly watches others' hard, repetitive labour on a hot afternoon, with nothing to do himself."},
{"chunk": 212, "story": 19, "summary": "On the hot steps he listens for her footsteps; she runs to the kitchen and out to the threshing floor with bread, and the labourer stops to watch her, then curses his horses in disappointment.", "predicament": "Two men of different stations watch the same young woman pass, both knowing she will never notice them."},
{"chunk": 213, "story": 19, "summary": "Each time she passes his sadness deepens, for her, himself and the labourer; the hours vanish, and they drive off in silence until the driver remarks on the fine girl.", "predicament": "A young man leaving a place where he glimpsed something beautiful feels an ache he cannot explain to anyone."},
{"chunk": 214, "story": 19, "summary": "Years later on a train journey, he sees passengers crowding to look at a girl on a station platform, and feels the same overwhelming sense of beauty.", "predicament": "A traveller stepping out at a stop is caught unawares by a glimpse of beauty among strangers."},
{"chunk": 215, "story": 19, "summary": "Her features are ordinary, yet her restless movements, laughter and freshness make her lovelier than any perfect face.", "predicament": "A man watching a stranger realises her charm lies in her liveliness, not in any feature he could name."},
{"chunk": 216, "story": 19, "summary": "Her fragile beauty seems as though a gust of wind could scatter it; back aboard, a fellow traveller imagines the lonely station clerk hopelessly in love with her, or married to someone as plain as himself.", "predicament": "A man pities someone stuck in a dull, lonely place, hopelessly in love with a beauty who will never notice him."},
{"chunk": 217, "story": 19, "summary": "The worn-out guard watches her with tender sadness, as though she stood for all the happiness he will never have; the train pulls away into the melancholy spring dusk.", "predicament": "A worn-out man glimpses youth and happiness in a stranger and knows it is forever out of his reach."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
[
{"chunk": 218, "story": 20, "summary": "On Christmas Eve a poor shoemaker works late, drinking to stay awake, finishing boots a customer abused him over, and grumbles that others enjoy themselves because they have money.", "predicament": "A poor man forced to work through a holiday for a rude customer resents that others celebrate while he labours."},
{"chunk": 219, "story": 20, "summary": "He hates the strange customer, whose room once filled with sulphurous pink smoke, and dreams of the rich being ruined while he lords it over some other poor shoemaker.", "predicament": "A poor man who envies those above him dreams of trading places and lording it over someone else."},
{"chunk": 220, "story": 20, "summary": "Delivering the boots through the snow, he is jeered at by rich passers-by and taunted by a prosperous rival who married money; he finds the customer pounding in his mortar again.", "predicament": "A poor man on an errand is mocked by his betters and taunted by a rival who has done better than him."},
{"chunk": 221, "story": 20, "summary": "Fitting the boots, he discovers the customer has a hoof; instead of fleeing he flatters the devil, who asks what he wants.", "predicament": "A poor man meets someone with the power to grant any wish, and flatters him instead of running."},
{"chunk": 222, "story": 20, "summary": "He pours out his lifelong envy of the rich and complaints about his good but coarse wife, and asks to be made rich; the devil wants his soul, and he insists on payment after delivery.", "predicament": "A man who has envied the rich all his life is offered wealth in exchange for his soul, and bargains over the terms."},
{"chunk": 223, "story": 20, "summary": "He is transformed into a gentleman served an enormous dinner, eats until he is uncomfortably stuffed, and orders his old rival sent for.", "predicament": "A poor man suddenly made rich gorges on luxury, and finds even that becomes oppressive."},
{"chunk": 224, "story": 20, "summary": "He abuses his rival as he was once abused, feels uneasy at the memory, counts his money but only wants more, and lies awake fearing thieves beside a new, grand wife.", "predicament": "A man newly raised above others treats them as he was once treated, and finds wealth only makes him anxious."},
{"chunk": 225, "story": 20, "summary": "At church he sees rich and poor are equal before God and in the grave; when he sings or plays in the street, policemen and cabmen tell him it is not proper for a gentleman.", "predicament": "A man who has risen above his station finds all his old pleasures are now forbidden as improper for his rank."},
{"chunk": 226, "story": 20, "summary": "Beggars mob him, and his new wife calls him a lout for trying to slap her back; the devil drags him to hell, and he wakes at his bench with the customer shouting that the boots are late.", "predicament": "A man who got what he envied finds it hollow and joyless, then wakes to find his old life waiting."},
{"chunk": 227, "story": 20, "summary": "The customer turns out to make fireworks; the shoemaker hands over the boots, goes to church, and no longer envies the rich, since the same grave awaits all.", "predicament": "A poor man reconciles himself to his lot, deciding nothing the rich have is worth what it would cost him."}
]
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Assemble records.json and groups.json from batches/ and groups_src.py, and check them."""
import collections, glob, json, pathlib
from groups_src import G, STANDING
here = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent
chunks = json.loads((here.parent / 'chunks.json').read_text())
stories = json.loads((here.parent / 'stories.json').read_text())
recs = [r for f in sorted(glob.glob(str(here / 'batches/s*.json'))) for r in json.loads(open(f).read())]
assert [r['chunk'] for r in recs] == list(range(len(chunks))), 'every scene, once, in order'
assert all(chunks[r['chunk']]['story'] == r['story'] for r in recs)
seen = collections.Counter(m for g in G for m in g['members'])
dup = [m for m, n in seen.items() if n > 1]
assert not dup, f'scenes in two groups: {dup}'
by = {r['chunk']: r for r in recs}
out = []
for g in G:
assert 3 <= len(g['options']) <= 5, g['id']
st = sorted({by[m]['story'] for m in g['members']})
stand = collections.Counter(STANDING[by[m]['story']] for m in g['members'])
out.append({
'id': g['id'], 'name': g['name'], 'predicament': g['predicament'],
'sentence': f"A {g['actor']} wants {g['wants']} from {g['counterpart']}.",
'actor': g['actor'], 'wants': g['wants'], 'counterpart': g['counterpart'],
'stories': st, 'story_titles': [stories[s]['title'] for s in st],
'standing': dict(stand), 'stage': stand.most_common(1)[0][0],
'members': [{'chunk': m, 'story': by[m]['story'], 'predicament': by[m]['predicament']} for m in g['members']],
'options': [{'text': t, 'source': s, 'moves': mv,
'in_group': (int(s.split(':')[1]) in g['members']) if s.startswith('scene:') else None}
for t, s, mv in g['options']],
})
unassigned = [r['chunk'] for r in recs if r['chunk'] not in seen]
(here / 'records.json').write_text(json.dumps(recs, indent=1, ensure_ascii=False))
(here / 'groups.json').write_text(json.dumps({'groups': out, 'unassigned': unassigned}, indent=1, ensure_ascii=False))
multi = sum(len(g['stories']) >= 2 for g in out)
print(f'{len(recs)} scenes, {len(out)} groups ({multi} span 2+ stories), '
f'{sum(seen.values())} assigned, {len(unassigned)} unassigned: {unassigned}')
for g in out:
print(f"{g['id']} {len(g['members']):2} scenes {len(g['stories'])} stories stage {g['stage']:6} {g['name']}")
src = collections.Counter(o['source'].split(':')[0] for g in out for o in g['options'])
print('option sources:', dict(src), '| scene options citing a scene outside their group:',
sum(o['in_group'] is False for g in out for o in g['options']))
File diff suppressed because it is too large Load Diff
@@ -0,0 +1,178 @@
"""Hand-built reference grouping of the Chekhov predicaments (Claude-written, no local inference).
Each scene is in at most one group; scenes that fit no recurring situation stay unassigned.
Options follow DESIGN.md: 3-5 per group, each marked by where it came from --
'archetype' a fixed, setting-free option
'scene:N' what someone in scene N actually did (or refused to do)
'filled' written to fill a gap the scenes leave
`moves` names spine paths and a direction only (+ / - / risk / set). No magnitudes: the model never
chooses a number. Skill labels proposed for this corpus: patience, tact.
"""
G = [
dict(id='G01', name='Stuck in a life that has stopped meaning anything',
predicament='You have done the same thankless duty for years, you no longer believe it matters, and you cannot see any way out.',
actor='person worn down by routine', wants='a reason to keep going', counterpart='the life they are stuck in',
members=[0, 6, 7, 53, 56, 121, 122, 123, 163],
options=[
('Keep at it without complaint.', 'scene:7', {'patience':'+', 'flags.resigned':'set'}),
('Drink to make the days pass.', 'scene:53', {'money':'-', 'standing':'-'}),
('Take your complaint to those above you, again.', 'scene:3', {'relationships.authority':'-', 'standing':'risk'}),
('Tell yourself real life is elsewhere, and wait for your chance.', 'scene:128', {'flags.dreaming_of_escape':'set'}),
('Give it up and leave for something else.', 'filled', {'money':'risk', 'standing':'risk', 'flags.left':'set'})]),
dict(id='G02', name='A grief nobody will hear',
predicament='You have lost someone, and the people around you will not listen, or tell you that you are mourning wrongly.',
actor='bereaved person', wants='someone to hear their grief', counterpart='people who will not listen',
members=[47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 84, 135, 167, 169],
options=[
('Keep trying to tell whoever is nearest.', 'scene:50', {'patience':'+', 'relationships.stranger':'risk'}),
('Laugh along and keep it to yourself.', 'scene:49', {'patience':'+', 'flags.grief_unspoken':'set'}),
('Pour it out to something that cannot answer back.', 'scene:52', {'flags.grief_unspoken':'set'}),
('Mourn your own way, whatever they say.', 'scene:169', {'standing':'-', 'relationships.family':'+'}),
('Tell them to their face that they are heartless.', 'scene:84', {'standing':'-', 'relationships.stranger':'-'})]),
dict(id='G03', name='A glimpse of the life you are missing',
predicament='In the middle of an ordinary dull day, something brings back or shows you a fuller life than yours.',
actor='person in a narrow life', wants='the life they glimpsed', counterpart='a passing vision of something better',
members=[11, 12, 128, 208, 210, 213, 214, 217],
options=[
('Let yourself feel it, then go back to your work.', 'scene:12', {'patience':'+'}),
('Keep looking for as long as it lasts.', 'scene:213', {'flags.longing':'set'}),
('Start planning seriously how to get there.', 'scene:128', {'money':'-', 'flags.dreaming_of_escape':'set'}),
('Speak to the person who stirred it.', 'filled', {'tact':'+', 'relationships.stranger':'risk'})]),
dict(id='G04', name='On the outside of other people\'s warmth',
predicament='Other people are celebrating together, or a whole household is gathered in warmth, and you are outside it.',
actor='person left out', wants='a share of the warmth', counterpart='a household or crowd enjoying itself',
members=[132, 133, 134, 162, 173, 218],
options=[
('Accept the welcome and join in.', 'scene:134', {'tact':'+', 'relationships.host':'+'}),
('Take the extra work for the extra money.', 'scene:162', {'money':'+', 'relationships.peers':'-'}),
('Watch from outside and keep your thoughts to yourself.', 'scene:173', {'patience':'+'}),
('Grumble aloud at the unfairness of it.', 'scene:218', {'standing':'-', 'flags.resentment':'set'})]),
dict(id='G05', name='Talked down to by those above you',
predicament='Someone above you brushes you off, scolds you, or treats you as beneath their notice, and you need them.',
actor='humble person', wants='to be heard and treated decently', counterpart='someone above them',
members=[3, 43, 101, 102, 125, 140, 161, 166, 168, 220],
options=[
('Bow, flatter them and ask again.', 'scene:112', {'tact':'+', 'standing':'-', 'relationships.superior':'+'}),
('Take the insult and carry on.', 'scene:125', {'patience':'+', 'standing':'-'}),
('Go over their head to someone higher.', 'scene:102', {'standing':'risk', 'relationships.superior':'-'}),
('Argue your case back to them.', 'scene:168', {'standing':'risk', 'relationships.superior':'-'}),
('Send the polite greetings you do not mean.', 'scene:161', {'tact':'+', 'relationships.superior':'+', 'flags.resentment':'set'})]),
dict(id='G06', name='Nothing moves without a little something',
predicament='An ordinary thing you are owed will only happen if you slip someone something, and everyone around you already does.',
actor='person who needs an ordinary thing done', wants='it done in time', counterpart='people who expect a little something',
members=[9, 88, 90, 93, 95, 97, 104, 124, 164],
options=[
('Pay what is hinted, without a word.', 'scene:88', {'money':'-', 'tact':'+', 'relationships.gatekeeper':'+'}),
('Refuse, and put a complaint in writing.', 'scene:105', {'standing':'risk', 'relationships.gatekeeper':'-', 'flags.complaint_lodged':'set'}),
('Treat them generously and make a friend of them.', 'scene:96', {'money':'-', 'relationships.gatekeeper':'+'}),
('Keep your hands clean and wait it out.', 'archetype', {'patience':'+', 'money':'risk'}),
('Take a cut of your own while you are at it.', 'scene:164', {'money':'+', 'standing':'risk', 'flags.dishonest':'set'})]),
dict(id='G07', name='Your work goes unrecognised',
predicament='You have worked hard and well, and nobody has heard of you, while showier people get all the notice.',
actor='hard worker', wants='credit for their work', counterpart='an indifferent public',
members=[38, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 199],
options=[
('Keep working and let the work speak for itself.', 'archetype', {'patience':'+'}),
('Fish for notice among strangers.', 'scene:148', {'standing':'-'}),
('Go where people who matter might see it.', 'scene:146', {'money':'-', 'standing':'risk'}),
('Laugh about it with someone in the same boat.', 'scene:150', {'relationships.peer':'+'})]),
dict(id='G08', name='A marriage gone numb',
predicament='Your spouse adores or depends on you, and you have long since stopped seeing them at all.',
actor='married person', wants='something to break the monotony', counterpart='a devoted spouse',
members=[54, 55, 57, 113],
options=[
('Take your boredom out on them.', 'scene:54', {'relationships.spouse':'-'}),
('Walk out to be alone with your thoughts.', 'scene:55', {'relationships.spouse':'-'}),
('Humour their worries and stay home.', 'filled', {'patience':'+', 'relationships.spouse':'+'}),
('Look at them properly, for once.', 'scene:113', {'relationships.spouse':'+', 'flags.woke_up':'set'})]),
dict(id='G09', name='Too late to make it right',
predicament='You see at last what you owed someone, or what you let slip with them, and it is already too late.',
actor='person who let it slip', wants='another chance', counterpart='someone they failed',
members=[69, 70, 114, 115, 116, 117, 170],
options=[
('Say it now, late as it is.', 'filled', {'tact':'-', 'relationships.lost':'+'}),
('Sit with it together in silence.', 'scene:70', {'patience':'+', 'relationships.lost':'+'}),
('Promise to change.', 'scene:114', {'flags.vowed':'set'}),
('Put right the duties you left undone.', 'scene:117', {'money':'-', 'standing':'+'})]),
dict(id='G10', name='Drawn to someone of another rank',
predicament='You are drawn to someone well above or below you, and the gap between you seems too wide to cross.',
actor='person drawn across a gap in rank', wants='the one they are drawn to', counterpart='someone above or below them',
members=[2, 5, 65, 66, 67, 68, 212, 216],
options=[
('Declare yourself and ask for nothing.', 'scene:66', {'standing':'risk', 'relationships.beloved':'+'}),
('Enjoy their admiration and decide nothing.', 'scene:67', {'standing':'+', 'relationships.beloved':'risk'}),
('Mock their world instead of trying to enter it.', 'scene:68', {'relationships.beloved':'-', 'flags.bitter':'set'}),
('Keep your place.', 'archetype', {'standing':'+', 'relationships.beloved':'-'})]),
dict(id='G11', name='Want nothing and nothing can hurt you',
predicament='After loss or hardship, you are tempted, or urged, to stop wanting anything at all so nothing can hurt you again.',
actor='person worn down by loss', wants='to stop hurting', counterpart='their own longing',
members=[72, 73, 78, 197, 226, 227],
options=[
('Train yourself to want nothing.', 'scene:73', {'patience':'+', 'relationships.family':'-', 'flags.hardened':'set'}),
('Take one day of happiness at any price.', 'scene:78', {'money':'risk', 'relationships.family':'+'}),
('Give up the prize you were chasing.', 'scene:197', {'money':'-', 'standing':'+'}),
('Make your peace with your lot.', 'scene:227', {'patience':'+'})]),
dict(id='G12', name='Racing to save someone who is slipping away',
predicament='Someone you love is failing, and you are spending everything you have to reach anyone who might save them.',
actor='person whose loved one is failing', wants='help in time', counterpart='whoever might save them',
members=[75, 77, 82, 110, 111, 112],
options=[
('Drive through anything to reach help.', 'scene:110', {'money':'-', 'relationships.family':'+'}),
('Spend whatever it takes on one more hope.', 'scene:82', {'money':'-', 'flags.desperate':'set'}),
('Grovel before whoever can help.', 'scene:112', {'standing':'-', 'relationships.helper':'+'}),
('Accept that it is beyond help.', 'archetype', {'patience':'+', 'relationships.family':'-'})]),
dict(id='G13', name='At odds with a parent over the life you chose',
predicament='You and a parent cannot accept how the other lives, and neither of you will give way.',
actor='grown child', wants='to live their own way', counterpart='a parent who disapproves',
members=[91, 98, 152, 153, 154, 171, 172],
options=[
('Speak up to them.', 'scene:98', {'relationships.parent':'-', 'flags.defied_parent':'set'}),
('Run off and do it anyway.', 'scene:153', {'standing':'-', 'relationships.parent':'-', 'flags.disowned':'set'}),
('Write home asking forgiveness, and help.', 'scene:154', {'money':'+', 'relationships.parent':'risk'}),
('Go home and try to reach them.', 'scene:171', {'tact':'+', 'relationships.parent':'risk'}),
('Do as you are told.', 'archetype', {'patience':'+', 'relationships.parent':'+'})]),
dict(id='G14', name='Frightened by something you cannot explain',
predicament='Something you cannot account for has frightened you, alone or far from help, and you must decide what to do.',
actor='frightened person', wants='to understand it, or get away', counterpart='something unexplained',
members=[33, 129, 178, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188],
options=[
('Get away as fast as you can.', 'scene:184', {'standing':'-'}),
('Find someone and ask what it was.', 'scene:186', {'relationships.stranger':'+'}),
('Tell yourself it is nothing and carry on.', 'archetype', {'patience':'+', 'flags.faced_fear':'set'}),
('Stay close to someone who is not afraid.', 'scene:180', {'relationships.companion':'+'})]),
dict(id='G15', name='Far from home and your own people',
predicament='You are stuck far from home and the people you love, in a hard place that does not want you.',
actor='person far from home', wants='to be with their own people', counterpart='a hard, strange place',
members=[1, 71, 74, 80, 81, 179],
options=[
('Beg to be taken home.', 'scene:179', {'relationships.guardian':'-', 'relationships.family':'+'}),
('Ask your people to come to you.', 'scene:80', {'money':'-', 'relationships.family':'+'}),
('Keep writing home for help.', 'scene:74', {'money':'risk', 'relationships.family':'+'}),
('Settle in and make the best of it.', 'filled', {'patience':'+', 'money':'+'})]),
dict(id='G16', name='A stranger\'s death lands on you',
predicament='Someone you barely knew has died near you, and the aftermath has become your chore or your fright.',
actor='person drawn into the aftermath', wants='to be done with it', counterpart='a stranger\'s tragedy',
members=[118, 119, 120, 174, 175],
options=[
('Do what duty asks, and no more.', 'scene:174', {'patience':'+'}),
('Complain about the inconvenience.', 'scene:119', {'standing':'-', 'relationships.bereaved':'-'}),
('Get away somewhere comfortable until it is over.', 'scene:130', {'relationships.neighbours':'-'}),
('Stay with the frightened people who cannot leave.', 'filled', {'standing':'+', 'relationships.neighbours':'+'})]),
dict(id='G17', name='Covering up a disgrace',
predicament='Something shameful has come to light, or is about to, and you could still hide it from those who would judge you.',
actor='person with a disgrace to hide', wants='to keep their good name', counterpart='those who would judge them',
members=[155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 176, 177, 198],
options=[
('Get rid of the evidence quietly.', 'scene:156', {'tact':'+', 'flags.secret_kept':'set'}),
('Pay to have it smoothed over.', 'scene:176', {'money':'-', 'standing':'+', 'flags.secret_kept':'set'}),
('Confess to those closest to you.', 'scene:159', {'standing':'-', 'relationships.spouse':'risk'}),
('Call it a joke and take it back.', 'scene:160', {'relationships.spouse':'-'})]),
]
# Protagonist standing by story, for stage assignment (DESIGN.md "Stages"). Per story, not per
# scene: a coarse first cut, and the one place this grouping uses a judgement not in the text.
STANDING = {0:'low', 1:'middle', 2:'low', 3:'middle', 4:'middle', 5:'high', 6:'low', 7:'middle',
8:'low', 9:'middle', 10:'high', 11:'middle', 12:'middle', 13:'low', 14:'middle',
15:'low', 16:'high', 17:'high', 18:'low', 19:'middle', 20:'low'}
# Story 3's narrator is a poor noble in a low post: ranked middle. Story 9 is told from the young
# official's side, not the old messenger's. Story 18's protagonist is the old gardener, not the buyers.
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Render groups.json + records.json as one self-contained page: REFERENCE.html."""
import html, json, pathlib
here = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent
d = json.loads((here / 'groups.json').read_text())
recs = {r['chunk']: r for r in json.loads((here / 'records.json').read_text())}
stories = json.loads((here.parent / 'stories.json').read_text())
e = html.escape
SRC = {'archetype': 'archetype', 'filled': 'filled gap'}
def src(o):
if o['source'].startswith('scene:'):
n = o['source'].split(':')[1]
return f'from scene {n}' + ('' if o['in_group'] else ' <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span>')
return SRC[o['source']]
def moves(m): return ' '.join(f'<code>{e(k)} {e(v)}</code>' for k, v in m.items())
def scene(c):
r = recs[c]
return (f'<details><summary><b>{c}</b> · <i>{e(stories[r["story"]]["title"])}</i> — {e(r["predicament"])}</summary>'
f'<p class="sum">{e(r["summary"])}</p></details>')
out = []
for g in d['groups']:
out.append(f'''<section><h2>{g["id"]} · {e(g["name"])}</h2>
<p class="pred">{e(g["predicament"])}</p>
<p class="meta">{e(g["sentence"])} · {len(g["members"])} scenes from {len(g["stories"])} stories
({e(", ".join(g["story_titles"]))}) · stage <b>{g["stage"]}</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol>{"".join(f"<li>{e(o['text'])} <span class='src'>{src(o)}</span><br>{moves(o['moves'])}</li>" for o in g["options"])}</ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3>{"".join(scene(m["chunk"]) for m in g["members"])}</section>''')
un = ''.join(scene(c) for c in d['unassigned'])
page = f'''<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"><title>Chekhov Reference Groups</title>
<style>
:root{{--bg:#fbfaf7;--fg:#1d1d1b;--mute:#6b6760;--line:#e2ded6;--acc:#2f5d8a;--warn:#a4481c}}
@media (prefers-color-scheme:dark){{:root{{--bg:#191917;--fg:#e8e6e1;--mute:#a09c94;--line:#34332f;--acc:#8ab4dc;--warn:#e6915f}}}}
body{{background:var(--bg);color:var(--fg);font:16px/1.5 Georgia,serif;max-width:52rem;margin:0 auto;padding:1rem 16px 4rem}}
h1{{font-size:1.5rem}} h2{{font-size:1.15rem;margin:0 0 .3rem}} h3{{font-size:.8rem;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:.06em;color:var(--mute);margin:.9rem 0 .3rem}}
section{{border-top:1px solid var(--line);padding:1.2rem 0}} .pred{{font-size:1.05rem;margin:.2rem 0}}
.meta,.src,.sum{{color:var(--mute);font-size:.88rem}} .warn{{color:var(--warn)}}
code{{font:12px ui-monospace,monospace;border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:3px;padding:0 .3em;margin-right:.2em}}
li{{margin:.35rem 0}} details{{margin:.2rem 0}} summary{{cursor:pointer}} .sum{{margin:.2rem 0 .5rem 1.2rem}}
</style></head><body>
<h1>The Schoolmistress, and Other Stories: reference groups</h1>
<p class="meta">Anton Chekhov, tr. Constance Garnett, 1918 (Project Gutenberg #1732). 21 stories, 228 scenes cut by the same rule as <code>chunk.py</code>.
Summaries, predicaments, groups and options written by Claude by reading every scene: no local inference.
A comparison baseline, not a pack. Option moves give a direction only, never a number.</p>
{"".join(out)}
<section><h2>Unassigned ({len(d["unassigned"])})</h2><p class="meta">Scenes that fit no situation recurring in two or more stories.</p>{un}</section>
</body></html>'''
(here / 'REFERENCE.html').write_text(page, encoding='utf-8')
print('wrote', here / 'REFERENCE.html', len(page), 'bytes')
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