The story of all-consuming passion, the story of a married woman who fell in love with a handsome officer and threw her husband against everything: the opinion of the world, generally accepted morality, her conscience. This is a much deeper work than just a story of love and suicide. This is a book about the torment of conscience, about egoism, about hypocrisy, meanness and selfishness, about the search for oneself and one's place in this world. This is a book about life, about the life of officials and peasants, about faith, about religion, about respect.