The titular adviser Aksenty Ivanovich Poprishchin, forty-two years old, keeps his diary entries for more than four months.
On a rainy day, Tuesday, October 3, 1833, Poprishchin in his old-fashioned greatcoat leaves, being late, for an unloved service in one of the departments of the St. Petersburg department in the hope of perhaps getting a little money from the treasurer in advance. On the way, she sees a carriage approaching the store, from which the lovely daughter of the director of the department, where he serves, eats out. The hero inadvertently eavesdrops on a conversation between daughter Medzhi and dog Fidelka, which belongs to two ladies passing by. Surprised by this fact, Poprishchin, instead of serving, goes for the ladies and finds out that they live in the fifth floor of Zverkov’s house, at Kokushkin’s bridge.
The next day, Poprishchin, fixing feathers in the director’s office, accidentally meets his daughter, whom she is more and more fascinated with. He even hands her a handkerchief that has fallen to the floor. Within a month, his indiscreet behavior and dreams regarding this young person become noticeable to others. The head of the department even reprimands him. Nevertheless, Poprishchin secretly penetrates the house of His Excellency and, wanting to find out something about the young lady, enters into a conversation with the doggy of Medzhi. The latter evades the conversation. Then Poprishchin goes to Zverkov’s house, rises to the sixth floor (Gogol’s mistake!), Where Fidelka’s dog lives with his mistresses, and steals a pile of small pieces of paper from her corner. This turns out, as Poprishchin suggested, the correspondence of two girlfriends, a dog, from which he learns a lot of important things: about rewarding the director of the department with the next order, about courting his daughter, who, it turns out, is Sophie, a certain camera junk Teplov and even about himself, a perfect freak like a “tortoise in a sack,” at the sight of which Sophie could not help laughing. These notes of the little dog, like all of Gogol’s prose, are full of references to many random characters, like a certain Bobov, who looks like a stork in his frill, or Lidina, who is sure that she has blue eyes, while she has green eyes, or Trezor’s dogs from a neighboring courtyard, kindly writing these letters to Medji. Finally, Poprishchin learns from them that Sophie’s case with the camera-junker Teplov is clearly going to the wedding.
Unhappy love, coupled with disturbing newspaper reports, permanently damage the mind of Poprism. He is worried about the attempt to abolish the Spanish throne in connection with the death of the king. But how is he, Poprishchin, a secret heir, that is, a noble person, one of those that others love and revere? The Moor Chukhov, who serves the Poprishchina, is the first to know this terrific news. After more than three weeks, the “Spanish king” absent-minded Poprishchin enters his service, does not stand in front of the director, signs Ferdinand VIII on paper, then sneaks into the director’s apartment, tries to speak with Sophie, making the discovery that women fall in love with one hell. The tense expectation by Poprishchin of the Spanish deputies is finally resolved by their arrival. But the "Spain" into which it is taken is a very strange land. There are many grandees with shaved heads, they are beaten with sticks, cold water is dripped onto the crown. Obviously, the great Inquisition rules here, which prevents the Poprism region from making great discoveries worthy of its post. He writes a tearful letter to mother with a plea for help, but the lump under the very nose of the Algerian Bey again distracts his poor attention.
