In the family of steppe landowners, daughter Sasha grows like a wild flower. Her parents are glorious old men, honest in their cordiality, "flattery disgusts them, and arrogance is unknown." Parents tried in childhood to give their daughter everything that their small means allowed; however, science and books seemed redundant to them. In the backwoods, Sasha retains the freshness of the swarthy blush, the gleam of black laughing eyes and “the original clarity of the soul”.
Until the age of sixteen, Sasha knows neither passions nor worries, she breathes freely in the expanse of fields, among the steppe freedom and freedom. Alarms and doubts are also unfamiliar to Sasha: the jubilation of life, diffused in nature itself, is for her a guarantee of God's grace. The only slave she has to see is a river boiling near the mill without hope of breaking free. And, watching the barren anger of the river, Sasha thinks that murmuring against fate is insane ...
The girl admires the friendly work of the villagers, in which she sees the guardians of a simple life. She likes to run among the fields, pick flowers and sing simple songs. Admiring how her daughter’s head flickers in ripe rye, her parents are looking for a good groom for her. In winter, Sasha listens to the nanny of a fairy tale or, full of happiness, flies from the mountain in a sled. It happens to her to know sorrows: "Sasha cried, as they cut down the forest." She cannot recall without tears how dead the corpses of trees lay, how the yellow mouths that fell out of the nest of a galchat were open. But in the upper branches of the pines that remained after cutting down Sasha, there are nests of firebirds in which new chicks are about to emerge. Morning Sasha’s dream is quiet and strong. And although the "first dawns of the passions of the young" already blush her cheeks, there are still no torment in her unclear heart anxieties.
Soon, the owner of the house, Lev Alekseevich Agarin, comes to the neighboring large estate, which has been standing for forty years now. He is thin and pale, looks at the lorgnette, speaks affectionately to the servant and calls himself a migratory bird. Hagarin traveled all over the world, and upon returning home, as he says, an eagle circled above him, as if prophesying a great share.
Agarin often visits neighbors, makes fun of the steppe nature and talks a lot with Sasha: reads books to her, teaches French, talks about distant lands and discusses why a person is poor, unhappy and angry. Over a glass of homemade brandy, he announces to Sasha and her simple-minded old parents that the sun of truth is about to rise above them.
At the beginning of winter, Hagarin says goodbye to his neighbors and, asking to bless him for work, leaves. With the departure of a neighbor, Sasha’s previous activities become boring - songs, tales, fortune telling. Now the girl reads books, feeds and treats the poor. But at the same time, she cries furtively and thinks of some strange thought, which plunges her parents into despondency. However, they rejoice at the sudden development of their daughter's mind and her constant kindness.
Sasha is barely nineteen years old, Hagarin returns to his estate. He, who has become paler and balder than before, is shocked by the beauty of Sasha. They are still talking, but now Agarin seems to spitefully reread the girl. He no longer speaks of the coming sun of truth - on the contrary, he assures us that the human race is low and evil. Sasha's occupation with the poor, Agarin considers it an empty toy. On the seventeenth day after the arrival of a neighbor, Sasha looks like a shadow. She rejects the books sent by Agarin, does not want to see him. Soon he sends Sasha a letter proposing marriage. Sasha refuses Agarin, explaining this by the fact that she is unworthy of him, or by the fact that he is not worthy of her, because he became angry and lost heart.
Uncomplicated parents cannot understand what kind of person they met on the way of their daughter, and they suspect him of a warlock-destroyer. They do not know that Hagarin belongs to a strange, sophisticated tribe of people who created a new time. A modern hero reads books and roams the world in search of a gigantic affair:
The benefit of the rich fathers' legacy
Freed from small labors,
It’s good to go along the beaten road
Laziness prevented and developed intelligence.
He wants to make the world happy, but at the same time, and without intent, destroys what lies under his hands. Love excites him, not his heart and blood, but only his head. The hero of time does not have his own faith, but because "what the last book will say to him / That will lie on his soul from above." If such a person gets down to business, then at any moment he is ready to announce the futility of efforts, and the whole world is to blame for his failures.
The benefit of Sasha is that she guessed in time that she should not be given to Agarin; "And the rest will be done by time." Moreover, his conversations nevertheless awakened in her untouched forces that would only grow stronger under a thunderstorm and storm; the grain that has fallen into good soil, spawns a lush fruit.
