The writer Konstantin Paustovsky tells fascinating stories about the life and fate of different people. In one story, astronomers, alone in a remote observatory, face the nightmare of a civil war. In another novella, the fates of three generations of men and women are traced— their love and adventures. And another tale takes us through the Caucasus and the Black Sea, where the heroes search for a vanished diary. Each novella has its own style, but all of them are filled with an astonishing sense of language and vivid imagery, making them unforgettable.