The fate of the Russian intellectual is sad - especially if his last name is Koifman and he is a professor of philology, who spent his sixth decade at the time of the first financial pyramids, vouchers and Lenya Golubkov. His young wife, his former student, no longer wants to be around him either in joy or, especially, in grief. And in illness, the professor turns out to be needed only by old trusted friends and no one else. How to live after all this? Where can we find joy and consolation? Andrei Gelasimov’s novel “Rachel” is a touching story, full of self-irony and tenderness, about a charming loser with a big and loyal heart, a song of songs in praise of human kindness, selfless and defenseless.