Professor Anfilogov, a wealthy and emotionless man, sets out an expedition to unearth priceless rubies that no one else has been able to locate. Young Krylov, a talented gem cutter whom Anfilogov had taken under his wing, is seeing off his mentor at the train station when he is drawn to a mysterious stranger who calls herself Tanya.

Set at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when idleness was still looked upon by Russia's serf-owning rural gentry as a plausible and worthy goal, Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov follows the travails of an unlikely hero, a young aristocrat incapable of making a decision. This title presents the translation the novel.

Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin, adult siblings who have just lost their mother, find themselves plunged into the chaotic civil war that erupted in the wake of World War I and the Russian Revolution. In the context of this family's saga, the author recreates the experience of battles, and also the long pauses that come before and after.