This book opens L. A. Charskaya’s autobiographical trilogy—the writer who was especially popular in the early 20th century. Renewed interest in her works is largely explained by the fact that Charskaya is able to combine a fast-paced, sometimes almost adventurous development of events with a subtle attention to the inner world of her characters. By telling the story of the feelings and trials of a girl sent to study at the Pavlovsky Institute in St. Petersburg, the author transports the reader into a closed community of a women’s educational institution, showing not only its external strictness, but also its hidden sides—sometimes dark and tragic—of this life.