Introduction

H ... hello?! Is that You? ... And are we really back in the City of B?! Gods, I had begun to think it would never happen! How long has it been since we last met here? One eternity? Two? How You’ve changed ... And me? Have I changed too?

But that doesn’t matter! Since we’re here again, before the connection breaks, let us return to our Story, in which even the Tragedian is not the most frightening thing. The most frightening thing is what may happen to You, inside You, as You read ... But don’t be afraid: no book is dangerous if it is well written! Armed with this dubious fact, we press on!

Hurrah, hurrah! My love, Annette, You are with me again! And your wonderful husband, Yuri! Incidentally, I refuse to consider him a nonentity merely because he wears a cuckold’s horns! So many people get hung up on them, for God’s sake! What’s so terrible about them? Is being a cuckold really worse than being a fool, a miser, a rapist, or a bureaucrat? ... Horns, indeed! Here are a few facts to help You understand me: Zeus wore them, Caesar wore them, Attila wore them, the sage Socrates wore them. Hephaestus, the divine blacksmith and Aphrodite’s husband, wore them all the time! If You consider yourself better and wiser than such an august assembly, then You may judge Yuri. Otherwise ... listen to the Story.