Mary Nabokova

 Mary (Russian Mashen'ka"Masen'ka") (Russian: Mashen'ka,) is the first novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first published under the pen name V. Sirin in 1926 by Russian-language publisher "Slovo".Mary is the story of Lev Glebovich Ganin, a Russian emigre and former White Guard Officer displaced by the Russian Revolution. Ganin is currently living in a boardinghouse in Berlin, along with the young Russian girl, Klara, an older Russian poet, Podtyagin, his landlady, Lydia Nikolaevna Dorn and his neighbour, Aleksey Ivanovich Alfyorov, who he meets in a dark and disused elevator at the beginning of the book. Ganin learns from Alfyorov that Mary, his first love was his first love, is now his wife. He also takes an image. As Ganin is aware of this, he ends his relationship with his current girlfriend, Lyudmila, and begins to lose himself in his memories of his time in Russia with Mary and her family, which Ganin notes were "perhaps the most enjoyable times of his life".