Mary (Nabokov novel)

 Mary is the story of Lev Glebovich Ganin, a Russian emigre and former White Guard Officer displaced by the Russian Revolution. Ganin now lives in Berlin with Klara the young Russian girl, and the Podtyagin. He also has a neighbour, Aleksey Alfyorovich Alfyorov. Ganin meets him in a dark, degraded elevator in the beginning. Through a series of conversations with Alfyorov as well as a photo, Ganin discovers that his long-lost love of his life, Mary, is now the wife of his rather unappealing neighbour, and that she will be joining him in the near future. Once Ganin is aware of this, he ends his relationship with his girlfriend, Lyudmila, and begins to lose himself in his memories of his time in Russia with Mary that Ganin declares as "perhaps the most joyful days in his entire life". Enticed by the dream of Mary and unable to let Alfyorov take her away, Ganin contrives to reunite with Mary whom he believes still loves him. Ganin later claims that he will be leaving Berlin in the evening before Mary arrives. His fellow residents organize a celebration for Ganin. Ganin continues to drink to Alfyorov by giving him alcohol. When Alfyorov is able to fall into a drunken sleep, he requests Ganin to set his alarm clock to half-past seven as Alfyorov intends to pick up Mary at the train station the next morning. Ganin is enthralled by Mary, sets the alarm to eleven and plans on meeting her at the station. He is in a state of clarity as he departs the home. "The world of memories in which Ganin had dwelt became what it was in reality that was the distant past... Apart from the image, no Mary existed or could exist." Ganin chooses to travel to France to meet Mary instead. A secondary plot involves an old Russian poet Anton Sergeyevich Podtyagin who seems to be a different version of Ganin. His poetry writing is often criticized. Podtyagin is longing to get out of Berlin and reach Paris however, he is unable to do so due to a number of undesirable events (e.g. loses passport).