Summary

The story takes place in an unspecified region of the Russian countryside. The protagonist, Marya Vassilyevna, works as a schoolmistress. At regular intervals, she must travel to the nearby village to collect her salary. She travels by cart; the cart driver is a man named Semyon. One morning in April, she sets out on this journey. The weather is quite beautiful, but Marya is in a bad mood. She always dislikes this tedious—sometimes even arduous—journey, and she wishes only for it to be over soon. She grew up not in the countryside, but in a large apartment in Moscow, Russia’s biggest metropolis. Marya’s parents both died when Marya was young.

Marya has a brother who is an officer in the Russian military. They used to correspond by mail, but he eventually got out of the habit of responding to...