: A man comes to the doctor whose son has died and asks to examine his sick wife. At home, the man finds out that his wife ran away with her lover. Doctor and man quarrel and become enemies.

At the tenth doctor, Kirilov, at the tenth hour of a dark September evening, six-year-old son Andrei dies.

At this time, the pale, excited man Abogin arrives at the doctor. He asks Kirilov to immediately go with him to his sick wife. The doctor refuses, citing the fact that he is good for nothing after the tragedy. But Abogin continues to persuade, and in the end the doctor agrees to go to the patient.

He and Abogin come to the house where he lives with his wife. The owner notices that the house is quiet and can not hear the clutter. He leaves the doctor in the large front hall, and he goes to his wife’s room.

The man finds a note from his wife, and finds out that she is not sick at all and staged the whole performance in order to escape with her lover Papchinsky, which she did.

Abogin is offended by such an act of his wife, he begins to pour out his soul before Kirilov. But the doctor, greatly outraged that he was taken away from his family at such a moment, interrupts Abogin. Two men insult each other for a long time and become enemies.

Kirilov goes home, thinking along the way about snickering people who are unable to understand the grief of others.