"...This story that you will read, my friend, is a true story. I found it written, just as you will read it, inside sealed envelopes - which had no address, no stamp, and no sender - buried inside an old trunk in the small village that is nestled in the heart of mountainous Arcadia, called Zygovisti, as I went to spend a summer in the coolness and purity of the air filtered by the needle-like leaves of the olive trees.

And their leaves were not yellowed, the papers almost still white, and the letters had not faded. And I sat down and read them; and I liked them; and now I give them to you to read them too..."