Mary
is a gripping tale of youth, first love, and nostalgia--Nabokov's
first novel. In a Berlin rooming house filled with an assortment of
seriocomic Russian émigrés, Lev Ganin, a vigorous young officer poised
between his past and his future, relives his first love affair. His
memories of Mary are suffused with the freshness of youth and the
idyllic ambience of pre-revolutionary Russia. In stark contrast is the
decidedly unappealing boarder living in the room next to Ganin's, who,
he discovers, is Mary's husband, temporarily separated from her by the
Revolution but expecting her imminent arrival from Russia.