After a quarrel with his father, the provincial prosecutor, Klim Rogov ran away from home, deciding he would never return. At seventeen, with no money and no passport, he ended up in Tehran, where he got a job as a telegraph operator at the British mission. Then came China and Argentina, where Klim turned into one of the most popular journalists.
In the summer of 1917 he returned to Russia, not knowing that within a few months civil war would begin in the country. He survived as best he could and did everything to save himself and Nina Kupina—a tender girl, a clever little fox, in whom such strange combinations of delicate femininity, willpower, and a talent for business were so unexpectedly fused.