Readers often need to re-visit this Vladimir Nabokov story several times to grasp the nuances of the plot. This may explain why, despite its critical acclaim, the story was famously rejected by New Yorker magazine. The major characters are a misogynistic first-person narrator and two sisters, one of whom strongly believes in the occult. Like other Nabokov stories, secret codes (this time in the form of an acrostic) are involved. The message hidden in the final paragraph leaves readers wondering how much of the story came to the narrator from the spirits of the now dead sisters.
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