: One after another, illnesses and misfortunes fall on the family. The father of the family is already thinking about suicide, but he meets a doctor who helps to cope with difficulties and becomes their guardian angel.

Kiev. The Mertsalov family has been huddled in the damp basement of an old house for more than a year. The youngest child is hungry and screams in his cradle. The older girl has a high fever, but there is no money for the medicine. On New Year's Eve, Mertsalova sends two older sons to a man whose husband worked as a manager. The woman hopes that he will help them, but they expel the children, not giving a penny.

In this terrible fateful year, misfortune after misfortune persistently and ruthlessly rained down on Mertsalov and his family.

Mertsalov fell ill with typhus. While he was recovering, another manager took his place as manager. All the family’s savings went to medicine, and the Mertsalovs had to move to a damp basement. The children started to hurt. One girl died three months ago, and now Mashutka is ill. In search of money for medicine, Mertsalov ran around the whole city, humiliated himself, begged for, but did not get a penny.

Upon learning that the children also failed, Mertsalov leaves.

He was possessed by an irresistible desire to run anywhere, to run without looking back, just not to see the silent despair of a hungry family.

Mertsalov wanders aimlessly around the city and turns into a public garden. There is a deep silence.Mertsalov wants peace, the thought of suicide comes to mind. He almost makes up his mind, but here next to him sits a short old man in a fur coat. He speaks with Mertsalov about New Year's gifts, and he is seized by a "rush of desperate anger." The old man, however, is not offended, but asks Mertsalov to tell everything in order.

Ten minutes later, the old man, who turned out to be a doctor, is already entering the Mertsalovs basement. Money for firewood and food immediately appears. The old man writes out a free recipe and leaves, leaving several large bills on the table. The name of the wonderful doctor - Professor Pirogov - The Mertsalovs are found on a label attached to a vial of medicine.

Since then, “as if a beneficial angel descended” into the Mertsalov family. The head of the family finds work, and the children recover. With Pirogov, fate brings them only once - at his funeral.

The storyteller learns this story from one of the Mertsalov brothers, who became a major bank employee.