The bells : a novel
(Book)

"A Note to the Reader: I grew up as the son of a man who could not possibly have been my father. Though there was never any doubt that my seed had come from another man, Moses Froben, Lo Svizzero, called me 'son.' And I called him 'father.' On the rare occasions when someone dared to ask for clarification, he simply laughed as though the questioner were being obtuse. 'Of course he's not my son!' he would say. 'Don't be ridiculous.' But whenever I myself gained the courage to ask him further of our past, he just looked sadly at me. "Please, Nicolai," he would say after a moment, as though we had made a pact I had forgotten. With time, I came to understand I would never know the secrets of my birth, for my father was the only one who knew these secrets, and he would take them to his grave"--Cover, p. 2.