This is a reprint of Updike's article by the same name in The New Yorker in 1998. Bech first appeared in Updike's works in 1964 in a short story called "The Bulgarian Poetess" His life was famously continued in three Updike novels in 1970, 1982 and 1998. This subsequent short story finds Bech as an old man, remembering the women of his life.
