The peaceful life of an exemplary collective farm is being rent asunder by shortages and dissent, and a commissar is sent to uncover the source of the problems, unaware that their is actual sabotage involved.

Nadya Shumin is engaged to be married to Andrey Andreitch, the son of a local priest. Nadya lives on her grandmother's estate with her mother, "a fair-haired woman tightly laced in, with a pince-nez, and diamonds on every finger." While Nadya is a woman with a great desire for education and independence, Andrey is a friendly but rather vacuous and totally unmotivated man. Sasha, an ill and impoverished young man who is spending the summer on the estate has long been considered part of the family. Sasha implores Nadya to follow her heart - to go to Petersburg and attend the University.

July-December 1917, the country is undergoing a revolution. "The pillars of society" are alarmed by the looming on them menacing events. Some of them are ready to fight with the revolution, others — among them industrialist Vasily Dostigaev trying to "adapt»