Notice

Recently I received by post a weighty package without a return address. Affixed to the manuscript inside was a note advising me that, upon reading the text, I might do with it what I wished, according to my own discretion: discard it or publish it, either under my name or under that of the real author, whom without doubt I would recognise after reading not two of the lines that follow these preliminaries.

I did, of course, recognize the author immediately, without even looking at the first page. N. – an initial will suffice. I haven't yet decided whether to reveal his real name, although in all likelihood I will – I cannot seriously consider publishing his work as my own – but later, not now; now it would be of little consequence. He did, after all, send me his opus anonymously and even proposed (the scoundrel!) the surrogacy of his creation – well, let the question of authorship remain open for the time being. I do not wish, however, to lead anyone into confusion by giving all this the air of a whodunit: the name plays no role whatsoever in the story, or, to be more precise, in the account, set down below. For certain reasons of a personal nature I do not wish to reveal the identity of the creator. Those with more than a surface knowledge of his books will recognize, as I did, the hand of the writer, but, in any case, I cannot withhold the true author from other readers either. And that's that – so don't expect any dead ends or garden paths.

But a few words about N. He was the first professional littérateur I became acquainted with as a young man; in fact, he wasn't so much the first littérateur – by the time I made his acquaintance I was already friends with several unpublished young poets and ceaselessly versified myself – N. wasn't so much the first littérateur as the first member of the Union of Soviet Writers with whom I unashamedly maintained relations, paying no mind to those among my friends and compeers who condemned any association with engaged literature. N. had a marvellous knack for getting love stories printed in Soviet journals and the biggest state publishing houses of the country despite entirely emancipating their narratives from questions of ideology or industrial production. My poet-friends smiled derisively, but their secret respect was clear to see. Yet I was never a particular admirer of his art: rather, I liked him for what he was – for his utterly undemanding independence, or, put another way, for that particular kind of firmness which, fully self-aware, affords infinite patience and –softness. An unfortunate choice of words, perhaps, but that's the best I can do.

At any rate, the story of our interactions has nothing to do with the matter at hand. It only remains for me to tell you about A. Really, there's little point in keeping her hidden behind an initial – in the manuscript she is referred to by her full name: Adele. This is also the name of the heroine in many of N.'s stories – his polymorphous, capricious, irrepressible, underhanded, tender-hearted, angelic, diabolical heroine. It was through me, a long while ago, that they became acquainted, and for a long while N. (God be his judge!) suspected that she and I had been having an affair that we did not discontinue even when she, a married woman, briefly became his mistress. The episode with N. seemed to be of little significance in her rich and vigorous existence; for him, however, who could hardly be called inexperienced, who had been both popular and successful with women, Adele became nothing less than an obsession, an unceasing passion, an idée fixe, a source of joy and unrelenting pain – in short, she became everything that a woman can possibly become for a man in the prime of his life.

The ebb and flow of their relationship, or rather, the brief history of their involvement, invited a variety of interpretations and gave rise to numerous novellas, stories and plays whose heroine, though invariably named Adele, came to be endowed with such divergent character traits that you'd never suppose she could be one and the same woman – or, indeed, that she could be a real person at all. N. was simply getting even, avenging himself, marvelling at her, falling in love all over again, killing her, playing might-have-been scenarios over in his mind, harbouring suspicions, throwing fits of jealousy, asking for forgiveness, condemning her to death, begging for mercy – and thereby prolonging their long discontinued affair.

My role in this story also encompasses the fact that I was the first to learn of Adele's sudden death and emailed N. to inform him – I hadn't the courage to let him know over the telephone. She died in the Eternal City, just by the Trevi Fountain, at the moment when, facing away from it, as per tourist custom, she was throwing a coin over her shoulder into the water. This action proved to be the very last of her life, though it wasn't realized fully – the coin never left her hand, while Adele herself just slid, lightly and freely, to the ground; her husband, who related these details to me, read this conduct as yet more of her tomfoolery and didn't even rush to help her up. It was of Rome, of Rome alone, that she had always dreamed, and this visit was her first: she spent two carefree weeks there ...

And that's more or less all I have to say by way of preface to the publication of the manuscript in question – it follows below:

Koretsky

The guests were many, their liveliness ever increasing. Almost all of those present were long-time friends, and if someone did happen to be new to the fold, the stresses and strains of striking up a new acquaintance would quickly be overcome.

The conversation was general. A few jokes, a little gossip; then, not unusually, the men proceeded to poke fun at the fair sex, while the women, cheerfully defending themselves, evocatively portrayed male shortcomings. But the evening's tone grew ever more serious; some imperceptible turn in the discussion brought literary examples, mythology and archetypes into play, raising the question of male and female principles.

This subject was taken up with great enthusiasm by the previously laconic Koretsky, and everyone's attention was soon focused solely on him. With his monologue in full swing, the lady of the house introduced...