Elizaveta Andreyevna Protasova decides to part with her husband, Fedor Vasilyevich, whose lifestyle becomes unbearable for her: Fedya Protasov drinks, rolls his and his wife's fortune. Lisa’s mother approves her decision, sister Sasha is categorically against breaking up with such an amazing, albeit with weaknesses, man like Fedya. Mother believes that, having received a divorce, Lisa will combine her fate with childhood friend Viktor Mikhailovich Karenin. Lisa makes the last attempt to return her husband and for this sends Karenina to him. He finds Protasov among the gypsies, in the company of several officers. Listening to her favorite songs “Canavela,” “Fatal Hour,” “Not Evening,” Fedya remarks: “And why can a person reach this rapture, but you can’t continue it?” He rejects the request of his wife to return to the family.
Everything speaks for the fact that Liza Protasova must unite her destiny with Viktor Karenin: he loves her from childhood, she deeply reciprocates his feelings; Victor loves her little son Misha too. Victor’s mother, Anna Dmitrievna, would also be glad to see Lisa as the wife of her son, if not for the difficult circumstances associated with this.
Gypsy Masha, whose singing he loves so much, falls in love with Fedya. This causes indignation of her parents, who believe that the master killed their daughter. Masha is also trying to convince Fedya to regret his wife and return home. He rejects this request - confident that he now lives in harmony with his conscience. Leaving the family, alone, Protasov begins to write. He reads to Masha the beginning of his prose: “Late in the fall, we conspired with a friend to come together at the Muryga site. This site was a strong island with strong broods. It was a dark, warm, quiet day. Fog..."
Victor Karenin, through Prince Abrezkov, is trying to find out about Protasov’s future intentions. He confirms that he is ready to divorce, but not capable of the related lies. Fedya is trying to explain to Abrezkov why he cannot lead a respectable life: “And whatever I do, I always feel that it’s not what I need and I am ashamed. And to be a leader, to sit in a bank is so embarrassing, so embarrassing ... And, only when you drink, will it cease to be embarrassing. ” He promises in two weeks to remove the obstacles to the marriage of Lisa and Karenin, whom he considers a decent and boring person.
To free his wife, Fedya tries to shoot himself, even writes a farewell letter, but does not find the strength for this action. Gypsy Masha invites him to stage suicide by leaving clothes and a letter on the river bank. Fedya agrees.
Lisa and Karenin are waiting for news from Protasov: he must sign a petition for divorce. Lisa tells Victor about her love without repentance and without return, that everything has disappeared from her heart, except love for him. Instead of a signed petition, Karenin's secretary, Voznesensky, brings a letter from Protasov. He writes that he feels an outsider, interfering with the happiness of Lisa and Victor, but cannot lie, give bribes in the consistory to get a divorce, and therefore wants to be physically destroyed, thus freeing everyone. In the last lines of the farewell letter, he asks for help to some weak but good watchmaker Evgeniev. Shocked by this letter, Lisa in despair repeats that she loves only Fedya.
A year later, Fedya Protasov sits down in a dirty room of the tavern and talks to the artist Petushkov. Fedya explains to Petushkov that he could not choose for himself one of those that are possible for a person of his circle: he was disgusted to serve, to make money and thus “increase the dirty trick in which you live,” but he was not a hero, able to destroy this dirty trick. Therefore, he could only forget - drink, walk, sing; which he did. In his wife, an ideal woman, he did not find what is called a highlight; in their life there was no game, without which it is impossible to forget. Fedya recalls the gypsy Masha, whom he loved - most of all for leaving her, and thus did her good and not evil. “But you know,” says Fedya, “we love people for the good that we did to them, and we don’t love for the evil that we did to them.”
Protasov tells Petushkov the story of his transformation into a "living corpse", after which his wife was able to marry a respectable, loving person. This story is overheard by Artemyev, who happened to be nearby. He begins to blackmail Fedya, offering him to demand money from his wife in exchange for silence. Protasov refuses; Artemyev gives it into the hands of the city.
In the village, on the ivy-covered terrace, pregnant Lisa awaits the arrival of her husband, Victor Karenin. He brings letters from the city, among which is paper from a judicial investigator with a message that Protasov is alive. All in despair.
A forensic investigator is taking evidence from Lisa and Karenin. They are accused of bigamy and that they knew about Protasov's staging of suicide. The matter is complicated by the fact that before Lisa recognized the dead body found in the water as the corpse of her husband, and in addition, Karenin regularly sent money to Saratov, and now refuses to explain to whom they were intended. Although the money was sent to a front man, it was in Saratov that Protasov lived all this time.
Given for confrontation, Protasov apologizes to Lisa and Victor and assures the investigator that they did not know that he was alive. He sees that the investigator tortures them all just to show his power over them, not understanding what was happening in them spiritual struggle.
During the trial, Fedya is in some kind of special excitement. During the break, his former friend Ivan Petrovich Alexandrov gives him a gun. Upon learning that his wife’s second marriage will be terminated, and that he and Lisa will face deportation to Siberia, Protasov shoots himself in the heart. Liza, Masha, Karenin, judges and defendants run out to the sound of the shot. Fedya apologizes to Lisa for the fact that he could not otherwise “untangle” her. “How good ... How good ...” he repeats before dying.
