Without a Road. In a Dead End

Young Zemstvo doctor Dmitry Chekanov, a truthful and pure-hearted idealist and supporter of "small deeds," sincerely tries to improve the lives of his peasant patients. However, even risking his life to help those suffering from cholera, he receives neither gratitude nor even simple trust—nothing but the dull hostility of the "mujiks" towards the "landowner"...

Old man Ivan Ilyich Sartano spent his whole life fighting against autocracy, and now, along with everyone else, he experiences a historical catastrophe where there is no "own side." People are slowly ground into dust by the revolution and the Civil War. Horrible things are committed out of high intentions. And only chance determines who will be tortured, who will perish, and who will be sent home...

This collection includes two novellas united by the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia—kind-hearted, passionately feeling its own and others' grief, and experiencing the collapse of its own world.