Eugene Luvers was born and raised in Perm. In the summer they lived on the banks of the Kama in the country. Once, waking up in the middle of the night, Zhenya was frightened by the lights and sounds on the other side of the river and burst into tears. Father, entering the nursery, shamed her and briefly explained: this is Motovilikha. The next morning, the girl found out that Motovilikha was a state-owned plant and they made cast iron there ... She deliberately did not ask the most significant questions that bothered her. This morning she came out of infancy, in which she was still at night, for the first time suspecting a phenomenon in something such that the phenomenon leaves to itself or opens only to adults.

Years passed. For Zhenya, these were years of solitude. My father was constantly away, rarely dined and never dined. When he became annoyed and lost his temper, he became a completely stranger. The mother, appearing, showered the children with affection, spent whole hours with them when they least wanted it, but more often they saw the mother alienated, without a reason for her temper.

In Yekaterinburg, life has gone a new way. Serezha and Zhenya entered the gymnasium. A friend appeared - Lisa Defendova, the daughter of a psalm-reader. Serezha made friends with the brothers Akhmedyanovs.

Among the co-workers of his father was a handsome Belgian Negarat, soon forced to return to his homeland. Before leaving, he said that part of his books was left with Tsvetkov. If desired, the cringles can use them.

One day in August, Eugene climbed a woodpile and saw someone else's garden. Three strangers in the garden stared at something. After a while, they proceeded to the gate, and a short lame man carried a large album or atlas behind them. The lame young man continued to occupy her in the following days. She saw him with her tutor Wild leaving the bookstore, where a minute later they had gone with Sergei to Turgenev. It turns out that he was lame and was the same Tsvetkov that Negarat spoke of.

Once parents gathered in the theater, and Zhenya sat down for the adult edition of “Tales of the Cat Murlyki”. At twelve o'clock suddenly voices were heard, the clatter and the loud, loud cry of my mother. The children were locked in their rooms, and the next morning they sent Zhenya to the Defendovs, and Seryozha to the Akhmedyanovs.

Living with strangers, Zhenya for the first time measured the depth of her affection for her mother. She suddenly felt terribly like her. It was a sensation of a woman feeling her appearance and charm. She came out of the room allotted to her not by her own, changed, new gait.

At night, at the Defendovs, she again saw Tsvetkov, Lame walked away from the window with the lamp in his hand. Long shadows followed him, warping, and behind them sleighs that quickly flared up and: darted into the darkness.

Upon returning home, they explained the cause of her mother’s illness. At the end of the performance, at the moment the parents appeared, their stallion began to beat, heaved, and crushed a passerby to death, and her mother became ill with a nervous breakdown. "Then the dead brother was born?" Asked Eugene, who had heard about this from the Defendovs.

In the evening a tutor came down with something. Killed his friend - Tsvetkov. Eugene cried out and rushed out of the room. “How to explain this surge of sensitivity? - thought Wild. “Obviously, the deceased made a particularly deep impression on this little woman, who has her own name.”

Then he was mistaken. The impression was indeed vital and significant, but its meaning was that another person entered her life, a third person, that which the gospel commandments mean when they speak of love for one's neighbor.