A short novel about a sixteen-year-old boy spending a summer at a country house near Moscow. He falls deeply in love with Zinaida, a spirited young woman who lives next door and enjoys a circle of admirers. She teases and encourages him by turns, and he cannot tell what she truly feels. As the summer goes on he discovers that the world of adults is more complicated and painful than he imagined. The story is a tender, clear-eyed account of youthful passion and the loss of innocence.