The truth is good, but happiness is better.
A former Petersburger, a twenty-eight-year-old young man who two years ago fled with a stranger to the Caucasus.
But even in the seaside town of Ivan Laevsky, it was a long time ago.
Once the turbulent feelings that connect him with his beloved woman have disappeared. Nadezhda Feodorovna began to irritate him. Where does love go? Ivan tired of lying to Hope.
And she, having made debts, also was carried away by the police bailiff. Moreover, one of the merchants, an oriental man, looks at her with lust.
Hope receives news of her husband's death in Petersburg. But Ivan is not in a hurry to marry her, knowing about her treason.
In a small town everyone is at one another's sight. And the laborer, the zoologist von Koren despises Laevsky, considering him a chatterbox, a debauchee and a loafer.
In a fit of irritation and taking advantage of an insignificant occasion, he calls Ivan to a duel.
Can they kill each other? Even the rules of the duel none of them really do not know.
But, most importantly, this duel becomes for them a kind of shake-up, a milestone.
It's just right to think about whether you are living right.
The truth of life ... So hard to find it.