"Mary," Vladimir Nabokov's first novel, was written in Berlin in 1926. The story follows Ganin, a Russian émigré living in a Berlin boarding house, who discovers that his first love, Mashenka, is scheduled to arrive to meet her husband—who is also a resident there. The novel explores themes of memory, nostalgia, love, and emigration, revealing the subtle boundary between past and present, reality, and recollection.