In Maria Voronova’s novel, a story is told about two Leningrad doctors—an amateur psychiatrist and a therapist—working in a psychiatric department. They come across a difficult case: a young air force general, Lev Kornienko, who has lost everything and was demoted, came to them for treatment. The doctors can find no signs of illness in the general, but if they fail to postpone compulsory treatment, he may be assigned to it and lose his sanity. The general expresses an opinion that contradicts the official line, and as a result he ends up in a psychiatric hospital, refusing to consider himself sick. The doctors face a dilemma: whether to follow the system and treat a healthy person, or go against it because of their own conscience.