The book consists of two autobiographical novels by Vladimir Nabokov, written in Berlin under the pseudonym B.. Sirin: "Mashenka" (1926) and "The feat" (1931). Young emigrant Lev Ganin in a German boarding house relives the story of his first love, interrupted by the revolution. The power of creative memory allows him to overcome his physical separation from Masha (the prototype of which was Nabokov’s beloved Valentin Shulgin), the paintings of pre-revolutionary Russia recreated by his imagination turn out to be more significant and brighter than the scenery of the present surrounding him. In "The feat" the topic of returning home, to Russia, is picked up in a different way . Rethinking in the book the model of the classic “novel of education”, Nabokov endows his touching hero with some of his own traits and circumstances. A graduate of Cambridge with a floral name Martyn Edelweiss, another Russian refugee abroad, dreams of doing something exceptional. He travels around Europe and seeks in vain the use of his abilities. Never leaving his vague desire gradually takes shape, and he decides on a feat similar to the mythical descent into Hades - to cross the border of the possible and return to his own Russian childhood.