'Nabokov can move you to laughter in the way that masters can - to laughter that is near to tears' GuardianLev Ganin is a young officer sharing a boarding house in Berlin with a host of Russian émigrés.Alone in his room, he dreams of his first love, Mary.Awash with memories of youth and idyllic scenes of pre-Revolution Russia, Ganin becomes convinced that Mary is in fact the wife of a fellow-boarder, due to arrive at this very house soon.He longs for her arrival, when he can whisk her away and leave everything behind ...