Lunch-time mystery

I am currently reading a book with no context. A strange thing- I picked it up in the basement of a friend's house, he himself was unaware of how it got there. A simple green leather-bound book, with a title in gold letters. I've never heard of the book or the author, no biographical flap, no picture on the cover. The pages are a little yellowed, and its a second-hand book, but whether it was written in the 1980s or the turning of the previous century, I would not be able to tell.

The insides are equally strange- A story that tells of two borders to a country, and a war, and an excessively beautiful woman and a wounded soldier. An anonymous country, and I can find no obvious parallels to any of the historical wars that the story might be an allegory for. It's just some country, with some war. Unfamiliar terms in an old french are the only thing that have given the story any placement in time, and even those are uncertain holds on history.

The lack of context, geographic and temporal, is both in the story itself and in the way it ended up in my hands.

I could probably google the author and the book, and have all the answers in a few minutes. When faced with unfamiliar facts, thats usually where I begin (and several people would agree that I'm good at fishing out the obscure ;) ). But somehow, this book feels a little different. I carry it with me to the lab and read it at lunchtime,and every time I pick it up it is a little contact with the unknown.

A reminder in the middle of research and writing and constant analysis and the finding out of things, that we all need breaks to venture into the unknown, and not all questions need firm answers.