Mid-Summer Evening Summary

Foma Grigorievitch is a storyteller who never tells the same story twice. Therefore when he hears someone reading a copy of one of his stories that a writer has published, Foma insists it is not the true story and begins to tell the correct story himself. Foma tells a story that his own grandfather once told him of the village where they live. More than a hundred years ago there lived in the town a man called Basavriouk whom everyone came to believe was a devil.

A young man wanted to marry his beloved, but her father would not allow it because the young man, Peter, was not rich enough. One day the girl's young brother, Ivos, went to Peter and told him the girl was promised to marry another man who was much richer. That night Peter went to the...