Gorky's play raises themes of the Russian intelligentsia's struggles and search for the meaning of life. The characters argue a lot, quarrel, tease each other, trying to change, if not their lives, then at least their outlook on it.
The hero of the play, physicist Anosov, after a failed scientific experiment, goes to the “country” of his childhood - Blagush, once a suburban district of Moscow. Memories help the hero find the strength to continue working.
The accountant of the commodity base discovers a small mistake in the documents, as told by the manager of the base. That night, someone hacked and robbed a safe with accounting documents, and committed the killing of an accountant. The case for the search for criminals was entrusted to police...