Two young girls, “poplar and birch,” Lizaveta Grigorievna Bakhareva and Evgenia Petrovna Glovatskaya return from Moscow after graduation. Along the way, they call at the monastery to Aunt Bakhareva, Abbess Agniya, where Lisa demonstrates new views on the role of women in the family and life. There, girls meet the simple-minded young nun Theoktista, who lost her husband and child and fled to the monastery from a harsh mother-in-law. In the village of Merevo, the girls are met by the leader Yegor Nikolayevich Bakharev with “childishly simple blue eyes”, restrained Pyotr Lukich Glovatsky, Lisa’s mother Olga Sergeevna and her sisters: Zinaida, who married the landowner Shatokhin, but periodically escaping from her husband to her parents, and Sonya, “ young lady, of which there are many. " Here is Justin Lipstick, Ph.D. in Law, “very pretty, but not very presentable,” whom the district doctor Dmitry Petrovich Rozanov, who is unhappy in marriage with a “foolish” wife, really loves.

Soon, Glovatsky and his daughter left for the county town, where his father again performed the duties of school superintendent, and Zhenny eagerly took up a simple farm. Frequent guests of their house are two “decent young men” Nikolai Stepanovich Vyazmitinov and Alexei Pavlovich Zarnitsyn, Dr. Rozanov and several other people who make up “a circle of very short and very discerning people - a completely new phenomenon in county life.” Zarnitsyn urges Glovatskaya to a high calling as a citizen, Vyazmitinov is mostly silent, and the doctor becomes an ardent admirer of “the modest virtues of Zhenny.” Glovatskaya never gets bored or burdened by the quiet monotony of her life. Lisa remains in Mereva, but one day she comes to Glovatskaya and asks to pick her up from a family where everything is “fussy and dead”, otherwise she will turn into a “demon” and a “monster”. Jenny refuses to take Lisa to her, Vyazmitinov supplies her with books, and Jenny escorts and convinces herself that her friend is right. After a conversation with her sister, who threatens to take Lisa to her home if she is not allowed to live “according to her nature”, Bakharev sends the eldest daughter to her husband by force, and Lisa gives the best room. At a farewell evening before leaving for the winter in the provincial city, Jenny and Lisa pay attention to the young foreigner Rainer. On Epiphany evening, after an unpleasant episode at the ball, when Lisa stood up for the honor of Zhenny, she, almost freezing along the road, returns to Merevo, where she decides to live alone. Old man Bakharev sees that her daughter is wrong, but she pities her and believes Agniya’s words about Bakharev’s disposition, ideas about anxiety that must pass. Lisa comes to Glovatskaya very rarely, only for Vyazmitinov’s books. She randomly reads, and all close people seem to her “monuments of past attachments”, living not in the world, but in the “world”. At one of the evenings, the Glavatskys had a remarkable debate in which Rozanov, in contrast to Zarnitsyn, claims that “each nation has its own dramatic struggle,” which does not differ in class. Brother Jenny, Hippolytus, is imprisoned for student work, his fate is decided by the intercession and connections of Mother Superior Agnia. Zarnitsyn hides and, posing as a politician, puts proclamations into the pocket of the auditor of the school of the Greek Safyanos. Vyazmitinov is more serious and has common business with Rainer. Vyazmitinov soon confessed to Jenny in love. And in Holy Week, Lisa, clearly sympathetic to Rozanova, urges him to give up the life that the doctor leads and to leave. The doctor makes a promise and soon leaves for Moscow. The Bakharev family goes there too.

In Moscow, Rozanov settles with his university comrade investigating bailiff Evgraf Fedorovich Nechai and his wife Dasha, meets regular visitors to their apartment - the owner of the house of staff captain Davydovskaya and proofreader Ardalion Arapov, who introduces Rozanov to the Moscow circle of “his” people and to the house of Casimir Ratsiborsky, who later turned out to be a Polish conspirator, decided to use the "new people" for his own purposes. Arapov introduces to the doctor a "stranger" person - the Frenchman Rainer, already familiar to Rozanov, as well as Beloyartsev, Zavulonov and other "socialists". The evening ends with drunkenness and obscene songs, equally unpleasant for Rozanov and Rainer. Both enter the house of the Marquise de Baral and her neighbors - “carbonic fairies of clean ponds” - the Yaroslavtsev sisters. The imaginary Ratsiborsky arranges Rozanov to the hospital, where he agrees with the working resident Lobachevsky, confident that “all suffering is from idleness”, and begins to write a dissertation. Arapov introduces Rozanov to the bardic Jew Nafrtula Soloveichik, posing as an embittered representative of the nation. The Bakharevs in Moscow live in the family of Olga Sergeyevna’s brother, whose son Sergei “is liberal”, and so that the “gatherings” do not end with the police, his mother specifically plays the arrest of his son, but actually sends him to the estate. The Marquise's circle believes in arrest, panics and accuses the “new people” - Rozanov and Rainer - of espionage and betrayal. Meanwhile, Soloveichik composes a denunciation of all the “liberals," but on the occasion kills two beggars, steals their money and runs away. Rozanova is invited by General Strepetov to her, speaks to him as a "revolutionary", calls to understand that everything they do is insanity, and indirectly warns about the possible interest of the police. Rozanov comes to Arapov and, while everyone is asleep, burns printed leaflets, takes away a lithographic stone, and thereby dooms himself to contempt. But the police who actually showed up showed that Rozanov, on the contrary, saved everyone, and the opinion of him changes for everyone except Lisa, who considers him to be an annoying “mediocrity”.

The Marquise de Baral is interested in Lisa as a “material” and introduces her into a circle, which soon falls apart. Lisa alone "does not weaken" even for a minute, although she also has "nowhere" to go and no one knows what to do. Lobachevsky was denied a school for women, and he was leaving for St. Petersburg. Rozanov once again wants to establish a family life, but Olga Alexandrovna, who returned, immediately undermines his reputation in the circle of "carbon fairies" and moves to live with the marquise. Lisa goes blind, can no longer read much and gets acquainted with the “shorn girl” Bertoldi, the “materialist” working on Proudhon. Rozanov, who is "empty" and unbearably bored, comes to Lisa, meets with the "ill-fated Bertoldinka" who lives at the expense of Bakharev, and Lizina's institute friend Polinka Kalistratova, whose husband wasted his fortune and ended up in prison. While Bertoldi considers her a face to be developed, for Kalistratova Bertoldi is only “ridiculous”, the Company leaves for Sokolniki, where Beloyartsev, who ended the “Moscow revolutionary period”, and all those who survived from the crumbling “Caudle”, will soon visit. Their company tires Rozanov, who has the most tender feelings for Polinka. Lipstick brings gifts from Jenny, Lisa sincerely rejoices at the meeting, and he remains in her complete servility.

The socialist Krasin, who arrived from St. Petersburg, proves the priority of physiology over moral obligations and preaches the criterion of "rationality." Rozanov stands for an “insoluble” marriage and receives from Bertoldi the names of “gradualist” and “idealist”. Lisa accuses the doctor of selfishness and indifference to human grief, Rozanov points to her inhuman attitude to the accustomed and ruined Lipstick and calls for the immense breadth of aspirations and love for humanity to pity the people who surround her. In his opinion, all Lizins' acquaintances - with the exception of Rainer, "empty bells" - arrange so that a decent person is ashamed of the name of the Russian liberal. After breaking up with Lisa, Rozanov speaks only with Polinka Kalistratova, but “martial law” is again established in his life: Olga Alexandrovna insists on a divorce. Rozanov begins to drink, but Polinka nurses him, and they leave for St. Petersburg. After Olga Sergeevna threatens Lisa with a “straitjacket”, she finally disagrees with her family, and, cursed by Bakharev, leaves with Bertoldi to Petersburg, where, reading Moleshott’s Doctrine of Food, cries about her father. An old man, from whom his daughter “left”, suffers a blow, and soon he and Olga Sergeyevna die. Zhenny, married to Vyazmitinov, moves to Petersburg.

Rozanov continues to live with his little daughter, serves as a police doctor and does not part with Polinka, who has become a midwife. Having met the nanny Abramovna, he learns about the whereabouts of Lisa and finds her aged and numb. Liza lives a civic family with Bertoldi, Beloyartsev and other “people of business”, full of contempt for ordinary work, indifferent to careers and family beginnings and discussing the unnatural distribution of labor and capital, but still not knowing what to do. Rainer is often here, who has his own commune, living at his expense. Beloyartsev creates for himself a more influential "role", lives in the house as a "general" and, according to Lisa, violates "social equality". Liza and Rozanov and Polinka come to the Vyazmitinovs, but when Rainer appears, who, according to Liza, is “better than anyone” she knew, Vyazmitinov is very unhappy: he, as his unchanged wife believes, is disturbed by people whom he previously loved and praised . Six months later, Vyazmitinov received the order and completely renounced his former friends and ideals, entering the circle of official aristocracy with a liberal-conservative direction. Kalistratova and Rozanov have a daughter. Lisa leaves the House of Concord, where Beloyartsev establishes dictatorial orders. Rainer leaves for Poland to fight for the freedom of slaves. Lipstick disappears.

Liza more and more often happens at Jenny, where they do not pay attention to the "beech" of Nikolai Stepanovich. Rainer admits to Lisa that she dreams of destroying the "profanity of doctrine" and closing the house of Concord. Lisa accuses him of cowardice. Meanwhile, Rainer is being monitored, and Jenny gives him her husband's road. Rainer calls Lisa, but, without waiting and hiding from Vyazmitinov, runs away. Lisa suffers that she “dispersed everyone” and “lost”, and the residents of the house destroy all incriminating papers, but only the shopkeeper comes in with the demand of money.

At this time, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, a detachment of rebels, led by Pan Kuley (Rainer), wanders into the house where two seriously wounded people die. One of them turns out to be Lipstick, which is "tired of living" and whose mother was Polish. But then the detachment is attacked, and Rainer with dying Lipstick in his hands is taken prisoner. When Lisa finds out about the possible arrest of Rainer, she asks Rozanov to borrow money for her from the husband of Sophia Baron Alterson. But he refuses to give money "for debauchery" and announces that, according to the will of her mother, Lisa is deprived of an inheritance. Rozanov recognizes in him Naftula Soloveychika. After another unsuccessful attempt to get a job, Lisa receives news of the imminent execution of Rainer and disappears. Bertoldi drags Olga Rozanova into the House of Concord. Nine days later, Lisa returns in a fierce fever and admits that she went to execution. Following the pleas of Zhenny and Abramovna, the patient agrees to confess and receive communion and asks Lobachevsky in an emergency to give her poison. Lisa dies with the words: "I have in common with them even hatred and inability to put up with society, but nothing with you." A feast gathers on Vyazmitinov’s name day, where Zarnitsyn, with a cross, stands for the introduction of a world position on peasants, brother Jenny Ippolit, who serves as an official under the governor, talks about old friends, career and women's rights. Jenny claims that, unlike those who "made a joke" in her youth, she had "nowhere to" bobber. Olga Alexandrovna escapes from the House of Concord and settles in Rozanov’s apartment, divided by him into two separate halves.

A month later, the merchant son Luka Nikolaevich Maslyannikov returns home. He was told that Olga Alexandrovna had gone to the monastery “whitewash”. And he promises to set up schools and hospitals, but claims that he cannot “knock him down” with new works. And he angrily talks about people who have only one nonsense on their mind. They “mutilate” the people, but they don’t know the way, and without “our brother” they won’t find it.