Viktorija Tokarjewa tells stories of life at the country dacha and the struggle to survive in the city, about bohemians and rural poverty, about blows of fate and fortuitous turns, about the serenity of old age and the impetuosity of youth. And about how strange love can be. Is he a scoundrel, the screenwriter Stasik, who fathers a son with young Lara but can not do without his wife Lida? Is he a fool, 70-year-old Viktor Petrovich, who falls head over heels in love again? And is she a bitch, the doctor who tells a concerned mother that her little daughter has a brain tumour, knowing full well it is not true? Human beings are a mystery, and love no less of one – that has always been the subject of the great Russian storyteller Viktorija Tokarjewa. She brings poetic justice even to scoundrels, fools and bitches – just as to the other unhappy lovers, lenient keepers of secrets and dauntless women in these new short stories.