King, Queen, Knave is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov , while living in Berlin and sojourning at resorts in the Baltic in 1928. It was published as Король, дама, валет in Russian in October of that year; the novel was translated into English by the author's son Dmitri Nabokov in 1968, forty years after its Russian debut. Franz , a young man from a small town, is sent away from home to work in the Berlin department store of his well-to-do uncle , Dreyer. On the train ride to Berlin Franz is seated... in the same compartment with Dreyer and Dreyer's wife, Martha, neither of whom Franz has met. Franz is immediately enchanted by Martha's beauty, and, shortly after Franz begins work at the store, the two strike up a secret love affair. As the novel continues Martha's distaste for her husband grows more pronounced, and with it her adoration for Franz. Franz, meanwhile, begins to lose any will of his own, and becomes a numb extension of his lover.
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