“A real intellectual novel. I would say “Western” if it weren’t for the wealth and freedom of the Russian language” (Andrey Nemzer). At the beginning of the last century, Madame Lyra von Rettau invited three writers to the villa, offering to write a short story about Belle-Lêtre. Having barely met the guests, Lyra disappears from the villa forever, but the writers, following the agreement, create a short story, from which it is clear that the last night the mistress of the villa spent... with each of them? The new heroes of the villa, like their predecessors, are three writers from Russia, France and England. The Society of Friends of Lyra von Rettau invites them to temporarily settle in the place of a centuries-old drama, so that in artistic texts created on the basis of personal research they can at least get a little closer to the truth about the disappearance of the mistress of Belle-Letra.. A book about how and why it is impossible to be a writer... And that writing will not dry up.