In 1991, Nicolas Bokov’s return to Marburg (Germany) – the city of his happiness and drama – where, in 1982, the decisive event of his lifetime took place, revives this intensely painful experience for him. From Grande-Chartreuse via Switzerland, the Rhine plateau and Alsace, he wanders on foot, empty-handed, completely destitute.

This destitution, in which we sense the author’s obscure and secret accordance with his trial, pushes him towards other people out of necessity. Imbued with a tremendous culture that occasions digressions, he describes the places he sees, but also, and above all, the encounters, the human contacts. His return to Marburg is an emotional one. The house where Pasternak once lived brings back his past as a dissident and the spirit of liberation nourished by his clandestine readings. It conjures up his years at the University of Moscow in the 60s.

In 1982, his life fell apart: his marriage having come undone, he suffers the pain of watching the woman he loves leave him for another man, who entices her into the mortally fascinating world of drugs. In this state of despair he is granted the experience of a surprising new phenomenon: the ecstasy of the love of God for each and every parcel of his creation. My entire past is reduced to ashes. This is the conversion. He finally grasps the role of human suffering in the organization of the world. Writing allows him to elaborate on remembering this experience.