It is the story of Lev Glebovich Ganin, a Russian émigré, displaced by the Russian Revolution. Ganin is now living in a boarding house in Berlin where he discovers that his long-lost first love, Mary is now the wife of the rather unappealing boarder next door and that she will be joining her husband soon. Ganin contrives a complex scheme in order to reunite with Mary who he believes still loves him. The eponymous Mary never appears in the present of the novel but only in Ganin's reminiscences.