Pelageya is a typical representative of the ordinary Russian woman of the 20th century. Her husband is an alcoholic who beachcombs. He completely has run down his wife, and she doesn’t even hope to change something in her life. But a sudden husband’s death brings the relief: a son Pavel decided not to repeat father’s mistakes. He gets serious and becomes a bearer of communistic ideas at his plant. Pelageya is very proud of her Pavel and tries to support him in any way in his struggle for the proletariat’s rights, but under the incessant look of czarist secret police it needs an unusual courage.