Dramatic story about two young men, two intellectuals of the 1890th. It is a story about a complex human character. Being tortured by ignorance and boredom of life, clerk Laevsky is longing to break the depraved circle of his existence. His moral antipode, naturalist Von Coren is sure that people like Laevsky are worth being destroyed. But regardless characters' will and desires, providence deals with their lives in its own way...