A subtle metaphysical detective story, one of the most mysterious works by Vladimir Nabokov. In addition to the novella 'The Spy', the book includes the stories 'Resentment', 'Swan', 'Terra Incognita', 'The Meeting', 'The Grasp', 'The Busy Man', 'Music', 'Pilgram', 'Perfection', 'An Incident in Life', 'Beauty' and 'The Notification'. The protagonist, unable to bear the humiliation, commits suicide and becomes a ghost, capable only of observing what is happening around him. Above all, his attention is drawn to the mysterious figure of Smurov, whose true identity readers learn almost at the very end of the story. This work, filled with metaphors and references to Russian literature, was written in Berlin and first published in the magazine Sovremennye Zapiski in 1930. The book's publication, however, did not take place until 1938. Nabokov planned to include twenty-one stories in this edition, thematically and stylistically related to the novella. However, the publisher assured the writer that the format of such a book (350 pages) would be impossible to recoup. Ultimately, thirteen stories were retained, present in this book in exactly the order in which the author arranged them.