The events of the novella take place in a frontline strip on the German side. The emotional experiences that a Russian émigré translator attached to the Wehrmacht goes through are the emotional backbone of the novella. After returning to Russia after a long interruption, the hero rediscovers his native country, and what he sees horrifies him. The new Russia is radically different from the old one.
The image of the native land, the fate of Russia and the Russian people, reflections on tragic changes in the life of the Motherland are the semantic foundation of all works by Evgeny Gagarin.