On July 11, 1856, a note left by a strange guest was found in the room of one of the large Petersburg hotels. The note says that about its author they will soon hear on Liteiny Bridge and that it should not have any suspicions. Circumstances become clear very soon: at night, a man shoots at Liteiny Bridge. His shot-cap is caught from the water.

On the same morning, a young lady sits and sews at a cottage on Kamenny Island, singing a lively and bold French song about working people whom knowledge will set free. Her name is Vera Pavlovna. The maid brings her a letter, after reading which Vera Pavlovna weeps, covering her face with her hands. The young man who came in tries to calm her down, but Vera Pavlovna is inconsolable. She repels a young man with the words: “You are in the blood! His blood is on you! It’s not your fault - I’m alone ... ”The letter received by Vera Pavlovna says that the writer is leaving the stage because he loves“ both of you ”too much ...

The tragic denouement is preceded by the life story of Vera Pavlovna. Her childhood passed in St. Petersburg, in a multi-storey building on Gorokhovaya, between Sadovaya and Semenovsky bridge. Her father, Pavel Konstantinovich Rozalsky - the manager of the house, his mother gives money on bail. The only concern of her mother, Marya Alekseevna, in relation to Verochka: to quickly marry her to the rich. A short-sighted and angry woman does everything possible for this: she invites a music teacher to her daughter, dresses her up and even leads to the theater. Soon a beautiful swarthy girl is noticed by the landlord's son, officer Storeshnikov, and then decides to seduce her. Hoping to make Storeshnikov marry, Marya Alekseevna demands that her daughter be supportive of him, but Verochka refuses this in every possible way, understanding the true intentions of the womanizer. She manages to somehow deceive her mother, pretending that she is luring the boyfriend, but this can not continue for long. Verochka’s position in the house becomes completely unbearable. It is resolved in an unexpected way.

A teacher and graduate medical student Dmitry Sergeyevich Lopukhov was invited to Verochkin’s brother Feda. At first, young people are wary of each other, but then they begin to talk about books, about music, about a fair way of thinking and soon they feel like each other. Learning about the distress of the girl, Lopukhov is trying to help her. He is looking for her place as a governess, which would give Verochka the opportunity to live separately from her parents. But the search is unsuccessful: no one wants to take responsibility for the fate of the girl if she runs away from home. Then the student in love finds another way: shortly before the end of the course, in order to have enough money, he leaves his studies and, after taking private lessons and translating a geography textbook, makes Verochka an offer. At this time, Verochka had her first dream: she sees herself released from a damp and dark basement and chatting with an amazing beauty who calls herself love for people. Verochka promises the beauty that she will always let other girls out of the cellars, locked in the same way she was locked.

Young people rent an apartment, and their life is going well. True, their relations seem to be strange to the landlady: “darling” and “darling” sleep in different rooms, enter each other only after knocking, do not appear to each other naked, etc. Verochka hardly succeeds in explaining to the mistress that they should be a relationship between spouses if they do not want to bother each other.

Vera Pavlovna reads books, gives private lessons, runs a household. Soon she started a business of her own - a sewing workshop. Girls work in a workshop not for hire, but are its co-owners and receive their share of the income, like Vera Pavlovna. They not only work together, but spend their free time together: they go on picnics and talk. In her second dream, Vera Pavlovna sees a field on which ears of corn grow. She sees in this field and dirt - or rather, two dirt: fantastic and real. Real dirt is the care of the most necessary (such that Vera Pavlovna’s mother has always been burdened with), and ears of corn can grow out of it. Fantastic dirt - caring for the superfluous and the unnecessary; nothing good grows out of it.

The spouses of the Lopukhovs often have the best friend of Dmitry Sergeyevich, his former classmate and spiritually close person to him - Alexander Matveevich Kirsanov. Both of them "paved their way with their breasts, without connections, without acquaintances." Kirsanov is a strong-willed, courageous man, capable of both decisive action and subtle feeling. He brightens up conversations with Vera Pavlovna’s loneliness, when Lopukhov is busy, takes her to the Opera, which both love. However, soon, without explaining the reasons, Kirsanov ceases to be with his friend, which offends him and Vera Pavlovna very much. They do not know the true reason for his “cooling”: Kirsanov is in love with his friend’s wife. He reappears in the house only when Lopukhov falls ill: Kirsanov is a doctor, he treats Lopukhov and helps Vera Pavlovna take care of him. Vera Pavlovna is in complete dismay: she feels that she is in love with her husband’s friend. She has a third dream. In this dream, Vera Pavlovna, with the help of some unknown woman, reads the pages of her own diary, which says that she feels gratitude to her husband, and not that quiet, gentle feeling, the need of which is so great in her.

The situation in which three smart and decent "new people" have fallen seems insoluble. Finally Lopukhov finds a way out - a shot on Liteiny Bridge. On the day when this news was received, an old acquaintance of Kirsanov and Lopukhov - Rakhmetov, “a special person”, came to Vera Pavlovna. “Higher nature” was awakened in him by Kirsanov in his time, who had introduced student Rakhmetov to books “which should be read”. Coming from a wealthy family, Rakhmetov sold the estate, distributed the money to his scholars and now leads a harsh lifestyle: partly because he considers it impossible for himself to have something that a simple person does not have, partly out of a desire to cultivate his character. So, one day he decides to sleep on nails in order to test his physical abilities. He does not drink wine, does not touch women. Rakhmetov is often called Nikitushka Lomov because he walked along the Volga with the huts in order to get closer to the people and gain the love and respect of ordinary people. Rakhmetov’s life is shrouded in a mystery of a clearly revolutionary nature. He has a lot to do, but all this is not his personal affairs. He travels to Europe, intending to return to Russia in three years, when he “needs” to be there. This “instance of a very rare breed” differs from just “honest and kind people” in that it is “the engine of engines, the salt of the salt of the earth.”

Rakhmetov brings Vera Pavlovna a note from Lopukhov, after reading which she becomes calm and even cheerful. In addition, Rakhmetov explains to Vera Pavlovna that the dissimilarity of her character with that of Lopukhov was too great, which is why she reached for Kirsanov. Having calmed down after a conversation with Rakhmetov, Vera Pavlovna leaves for Novgorod, where in a few weeks she marries Kirsanov.

The dissimilarity of the characters of Lopukhov and Vera Pavlovna is also mentioned in a letter that she soon receives from Berlin. A certain medical student, supposedly a good acquaintance of Lopukhov, conveys to Vera Pavlovna his exact words that he began to feel better when he parted with her, for he had a penchant for solitude, which was in no way possible during his life with the sociable Vera Pavlovna. Thus, love affairs are arranged to the common pleasure. The Kirsanov family has about the same lifestyle as the Lopukhov family before. Alexander Matveevich works a lot, Vera Pavlovna eats cream, takes baths and is engaged in sewing workshops: now she has two of them. In the same way, there are neutral and non-neutral rooms in the house, and spouses can enter non-neutral rooms only after knocking. But Vera Pavlovna notes that Kirsanov not only provides her with the lifestyle that she likes, and is not only ready to turn her shoulder in difficult times, but is also keenly interested in her life. He understands her desire to do something, "which cannot be postponed." With the help of Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna begins to study medicine.

Soon she has a fourth dream. Nature in this dream "pours fragrance and song, love and bliss in the chest." The poet, whose forehead and thought is illuminated by inspiration, sings a song about the meaning of history. Before Vera Pavlovna are pictures of the lives of women in different millennia. First, the female slave obeys her master among the tents of the nomads, then the Athenians worship the woman, still not recognizing her as their equal. Then comes the image of a beautiful lady, for the sake of whom a knight fights in a tournament. But he loves her only until she becomes his wife, that is, a slave. Then Vera Pavlovna sees instead of the face of the goddess her own face. His features are far from perfect, but it is illuminated by the radiance of love. The great woman, whom she knew from her first dream, explains to Vera Pavlovna what the meaning of female equality and freedom is. This woman reveals to Vera Pavlovna the pictures of the future: the citizens of New Russia live in a beautiful house made of cast iron, crystal and aluminum. They work in the morning, have fun in the evening, and "whoever hasn’t worked enough, hasn’t prepared the nerve to feel the fullness of fun." The guidebook explains to Vera Pavlovna that this future should be loved, that everything that can be transferred should be worked for and transferred from it to the present.

The Kirsanovs have many young people, like-minded people: "This type has recently appeared and is quickly decomposing." All these people are decent, hardworking, having unshakable life principles and possessing "cold-blooded practicality." Among them, the Beaumont family soon appears. Ekaterina Vasilyevna Beaumont, nee Polozova, was one of the richest brides of St. Petersburg. Kirsanov once helped her with clever advice: with his help, Polozova understood that the person with whom she was in love was not worthy of her. Then Ekaterina Vasilievna marries a man who calls himself an agent of the English company Charles Beaumont. He perfectly speaks Russian - because he supposedly lived in Russia for up to twenty years. His romance with Polozova develops quietly: both of them are people who "do not rage for no reason." At a meeting between Beaumont and Kirsanov, it becomes clear that this person is Lopukhov. The Kirsanovs and Beaumont families feel such spiritual intimacy that they soon settle in the same house and receive guests together. Ekaterina Vasilyevna also arranges a sewing workshop, and the circle of “new people” thus becomes wider.