Nicoloro speculated that the bench may have been assembled from three parts--the two legs and the top--and cemented together.

The water director said he is planning to secure the bench to the ground and possibly to shift its orientation slightly. "Kids are fairly creative when it comes to moving large objects," he said.

City officials and residents have agreed almost unanimously to allow the bench to remain in its present location.

"I'm delighted the water board has agreed to keep it here. It will attract people's attention to things they might not have noticed in their travels to the pond," said Jean M. Rogers, the department's chief ranger.

The City Council will have to formally adopt the bench as "a permanent part of the park," Pasquarello said.

The polished granite bench, which is four feet long, one-and-a-half feet wide and nearly two feet tall, has a white-lettered chiseled inscription.

"'She whispered, giving herself in rapture to the cold embrace of the grass as she lay folded in her cloak in the hollow by the pool.' Here I will lie," part of the inscription reads.

Woolf, considered one of the greatest 20th-century English novelists, used the stream-of-consciousness technique to depict daily life.

"Orlando," originally published in 1928, chronicles the life of an Elizabethan courtier from the 16th century to modern times. It was made last year into a movie starring Tilda Swanson.

Passers-by quietly contemplated the bench yesterday afternoon.

Noah R. Feldman '92, a Yale Law School student, lives two blocks away from the site but said he didn't notice its presence until he read yesterday's Boston Globe.

"It blended so naturally that I didn't think it was a surprise," he said. "This would be an ideal spot for a romantic tryst late at night."

"There was this lyrical magic in Cambridge," said Doris J. Engelman, a 35-year Cambridge resident. "It was hard to believe."

The enigmatic nature of the bench still haunts many Cantabrigians.

"It's a mystery. I think this was intended to be a mystery and maybe never to be solved," Nicoloro said.