In the classic ``Babettes Feast,`` a mysterious Frenchwoman prepares sumptuous feast for a gathering of religious ascetics and, in doing so, introduces them to the true essence of grace. In ``The Immortal Story,`` a miserly old tea-trader living in Canton wishes for power and finds redemption as he turns an oft-told sailors tale into reality for a young man and woman. And in the magnificent novella Ehrengard, Dinesen tells of the powerful yet restrained rapport between a noble Wagnerian beauty and rakish artist. Hauntingly evoked and sensuously realized, the five stories read and novella collected here and have the hold of ``fairy stories read in childhood . . . of dreams . . . and of our life as dreams.`` (The New York Times)