The narrator, Anton Lavrentievich, begins by describing his friend, “the talented and highly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky” (3). Stepan Trofimovich enjoys his reputation as a dissident intellectual, though rumors of him being “under police surveillance” (4) are greatly exaggerated. He is a public intellectual though his work has accomplished “nothing at all” (5), possibly because he is lazy or paranoid. The narrator describes a poem by Stepan that was eventually published abroad in a “revolutionary anthology” (7), much to Stepan’s chagrin.

The narrator believes that the real reason for Stepan’s downfall was Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, “the wife of a lieutenant-general and a woman of wealth and importance” (8) who offered him a job as a friend and tutor to her son. Stepan accepted after the unexpected death of his second wife and moved to Varvara Petrovna’s “magnificent estate” (9), where he worked for 20 years. Stepan became good friends with Varvara, though experiencing occasional emotional or depressive episodes. After 20 years, he finally becomes “like a son to her” (12), though she is very demanding of him and they argue occasionally.

When Stepan’s literary ambitions falter, Varvara takes him to Saint Petersburg to inspire him. They become aware of a sudden prevalence of “ideas” (19), so Varvara Petrovna invites a group of “unbelievably vain” (20) writers to visit her home to teach her more.