The memoirs of the American Slavist, head of the Ardis publishing house Karl Proffer describe his meetings with Nadezhda Mandelstam, conversations with Elena Bulgakova, and visits to Lilya Brik. Proffer did not have time to finish much of what he had planned, and a book about the literary widows of Russia was prepared and published by his wife Ellendea Proffer in 1987, after his death, but only now translated into Russian. And notes about Joseph Brodsky, with whom Karl and Ellenday had a long-term friendship, are being published in full for the first time. The book contains obscene language.