In the early winter morning, Dmitry Andreevich Olenin drives off the porch of the Moscow Chevalier Hotel after saying goodbye to friends in the Caucasian infantry regiment, where he was enlisted as a junker.
From a young age, without parents, Olenin, by the age of twenty-four, squandered half of his fortune, never finished a course, and never served. He constantly succumbs to the hobbies of young life, but just enough to not be connected; instinctively flees all feelings and deeds that require serious effort. Not knowing with certainty what to direct the power of youth that he clearly feels within himself, Olenin hopes to change his life with his departure to the Caucasus so that there will be no more mistakes and remorse in her.
For a long time, the roads of Olenin either indulge in memories of Moscow life or sometimes draw imaginative pictures of the future. The mountains that open in front of him at the end of the path surprise and delight Olenin with an infinity of majestic beauty. All Moscow memories disappear, and a solemn voice seemed to say to him: "Now it has begun."
The village of Novomlinskaya stands three miles from the Terek, which separates the Cossacks and the Highlanders. Cossacks serve on campaigns and in cordons, “sit” on patrols on the banks of the Terek, hunt and fish. Women housekeeping. This established life is violated by the arrival of two companies of the Caucasian infantry regiment, where Olenin has been serving for three months. He was allocated an apartment in the house of a coronet and school teacher who comes home on holidays. The household is kept by his wife - grandmother Ulita and daughter Marianka, who are going to give out for Lukashka, the most remote of the young Cossacks. Just before the arrival of Russian soldiers in the village in a night watch on the banks of the Terek, Lukashka differs - he kills a Chechen from a gun floating to the Russian coast. When the Cossacks examine the dead abrek, an invisible quiet angel flies over them and leaves this place, and old Eroshka says, as if with regret: "Dzhigita killed." Olenin was received by the owners coldly, as was customary for the Cossacks to take army. But gradually the owners become more tolerant of Olenin. This is facilitated by his openness, generosity, immediately established friendship with the old Cossack Eroshka, whom everyone in the village respects. Olenin observes the life of the Cossacks, she admires his natural simplicity and unity with nature. In a fit of good feelings, he gives Lukashka one of his horses, and he accepts the gift, unable to understand such disinterestedness, although Olenin is sincere in his act. He always treats Uncle Eroshka with wine, immediately agrees with the demand of the cornet to increase the rent for the apartment, although a lesser was agreed upon, gives Lukashka a horse - all these external manifestations of Olenin’s sincere feelings are called Cossacks and are called simplicity.
Eroshka talks a lot about Cossack life, and the simple philosophy concluded in these stories delights Olenin. They hunt together, Olenin admires wildlife, listens to Eroshka’s instructions and thoughts, and feels that he gradually wants to merge more and more with his life. He walks through the forest all day, returns hungry and tired, has dinner, drinks with Eroshka, sees from the porch of the mountain at sunset, listens to stories about hunting, about abreks, about carefree, distant life. Olenin is overwhelmed with a sense of causeless love and finally finds a feeling of happiness. “Everything God has done for the joy of man. There is nothing sin, ”says Uncle Eroshka. And as if Olenin answered him in his thoughts: “Everyone needs to live, you need to be happy ... The need for happiness is embedded in a person.” Once on a hunt, Olenin imagines that he is "the same mosquito, or the same pheasant or deer, like those who now live around him." But no matter how thinly Olenin felt. nature, no matter how it understands the life around it, it does not accept it, and he is bitterly aware of this.
Olenin takes part in one expedition and is presented as an officer. He eschews the beaten track of army life, which consists mostly of a card game and binges in fortresses, and in the villages - courting the Cossacks. Every morning, having admired the mountains, Marianka, Olenin goes hunting. In the evening he returns tired, hungry, but completely happy. Eroshka certainly comes to him, they talk for a long time and disperse to sleep.
Olenin sees Maryanka every day and admires it in the same way as the beauty of the mountains, the sky, without even thinking about other relationships. But the more he observes it, the stronger, imperceptibly for himself, falls in love.
Olenin is imposed on his friendship by Prince Beletsky, who was still familiar in the Moscow world. Unlike Olenin, Beletsky leads the usual life of a rich Caucasian officer in the village. He persuades Olenin to come to the party where Maryanka should be. Obeying the peculiar playful rules of such parties, Olenin and Maryanka are left alone, and he kisses her. After that, "the wall that separated them before was destroyed." Olenin spends more and more time in the master’s room, looking for any reason to see Maryanka. Thinking more about his life and succumbing to the overwhelming feeling, Olenin is ready to marry Marianka.
At the same time, preparations for the wedding of Lukashka and Maryanka continue. In such a strange state, when outwardly everything goes to this wedding, and Olenin’s feeling grows stronger and his resolve becomes clear, he proposes to the girl. Marianka agrees, subject to parental consent. The next morning, Olenin is going to go to the owners to ask for the hands of their daughter. He sees Cossacks on the street, among them Lukashka, who are going to catch abreks who have crossed over to this side of the Terek. Obeying duty, Olenin rides with them.
The Chechens surrounded by Cossacks know that they cannot escape, and are preparing for the last battle. During the fight, the brother of the Chechen, whom Lukashka had previously killed, shoots Lukashka with a pistol in the stomach. Lukash is brought to the village, Olenin learns that he is dying.
When Olenin tries to speak with Maryanka, she rejects him with contempt and anger, and he suddenly clearly understands that he can never be loved by her. Olenin decides to go to the fortress, to the regiment. Unlike the thoughts that he had in Moscow, now he no longer repents and does not promise himself better changes. Before leaving Novomlinskaya, he was silent, and in this silence one could feel a hidden, previously unknown understanding of the abyss between him and the surrounding life. Intuitively feels the inner essence of Olenin escorting him Eroshka. “After all, I love you, I feel sorry for you! You are so bitter, all alone, all alone. You are unloved! ” He says goodbye. Having left, Olenin looks around and sees how the old man and Maryana are talking about their affairs and are no longer looking at him.
