Ivan and Burkin are enjoying a long walk in the vast fields outside their village when it begins to rain. The two decide to take cover at their mutual friend Alekhin’s sprawling estate, Sofyino, where they find the humble and modestly dressed Alekhin processing grain in one of his barns. Alekhin ushers Ivan and Burkin to the main house, where Alekhin’s beautiful maid Pelageya greets them. Alekhin then invites his friends to clean up in his bathing house, but Ivan decides to swim in Alekhin’s pond in the rain instead. He repeatedly dives to the bottom and swings his arms delightedly, only emerging when Burkin beckons him back to the house.
The three friends, now clean and dry, settle into Alekhin’s drawing room, and Ivan begins to tell Burkin and Alekhin a story about his younger brother Nikolai. He and Nikolai were raised in the countryside, and Nikolai longed to return to this life throughout his adulthood. Ivan loves nature as well, but he never understood the desire to own a confined piece of land—to Ivan, leaving the city for a country estate is a sheltered, indulgent, and spiritually unfulfilling way to live. He believes that one should freely experience all the world has to offer, which means experiencing the whole of nature.
Nevertheless, for over 20 years, Nikolai worked as a civil servant while living a miserly lifestyle to save up for an estate. He even married a widow for her money and proceeded to deprive her of basic necessities (like enough food to eat) until she passed away—something that Ivan says Nikolai never felt guilty about. Nikolai remained obsessed with the goal of owning land, and the ability to grow gooseberries on his estate became a kind of symbol of this dream for him.
Finally, in his forties, Nikolai was able to buy an estate called Himalayskoe. When Ivan recently went to visit, he found it unimpressive: the land was covered in dense brush and ditches, and the river alongside it was polluted. What’s more, land ownership had seemingly made Nikolai lazy, entitled, and arrogant. When the two brothers ate some gooseberries that Nikolai had grown, Ivan found them bitter and inedible, while Nikolai found them sweet and delicious—a delusion on Nikolai’s part, in Ivan’s view.
Seeing Nikolai content with such an indulgent and meaningless lifestyle made Ivan miserable. He reflects to Alekhin and Burkin that happy people like Nikolai are only able to maintain their happiness because others suffer in silence. Indeed, Nikolai had become cruel and controlling toward local peasants, abusing his authority over them and demanding they address him as a nobleman. This disturbed Ivan, and when he arrived back home, he felt similarly miserable and alienated in the city.
Having concluded his story, Ivan begins to openly lament his old age. He pleads with Alekhin neither to waste his youth nor to pursue happiness, since doing so only means settling for complacency and comfort—Ivan believes that happiness is the enemy of a meaningful, fulfilling life. By this time, Burkin and Alekhin are bored.
Alekhin is growing tired—he doesn’t really understand what Ivan is talking about, but he doesn’t want to go to sleep in case his friends say something interesting. Burkin announces that it’s time for bed, however, and he and Ivan settle into Alekhin’s guestroom. Ivan sets down his pipe on the nightstand before falling asleep—and from the other bed, Burkin lies awake, wondering where the offensive smell of stale tobacco is coming from. Meanwhile, the rainstorm persists, beating on the windows all night.
